Lots to cover tonight, thanks in part to skipping Monday for Memorial Day. But of course I’ll start with my own post on the AT&T/T-Mobile deal, explaining from the ground up why the George Soros/Sprint arguments contradict themselves. Government should get out of the way, especially state governments like California’s getting too big for their britches. It’ll be better for all of us who buy wireless services.
Speaking of states running amok, here’s the bill that tax-and-spend Texans have put the Amazon tax into. Unless I’m mistaken, which is possible since I’m not particularly familiar with Texas inside baseball, SB 1 is being considered in the special session of the legislature. Let’s hope Texas can strip that tax out, after Governor Perry already vetoed it once. Texas needs to be America’s example of small government. Texans: get loud and back up the Governor! Give the Governor a harrumph!
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Have you ever noticed that the Soros-funded left never refers to Sprint Nextel by the firm’s full name? They only talk about Sprint. You know why? If they say Sprint Nextel, it’ll remind everyone that when #3 Sprint and #4 Nextel merged, wireless competition, prices, and service all improved. If you remember that fact, they think you might make the “wrong” predictions about #2 AT&T and #4 T-Mobile merging, creating a better threat to Verizon, improving competition, service, and prices.
But the whole Sprint/George Soros Unholy Alliance is all about deception. Soros-funded groups like Public Knowledge know nothing else. So says Mike Wendy: “they do great damage to the integrity of the review process, which ultimately harms the American consumer.” And so says Seton Motley: “The “public interest” is best served by what the public is interested in. And the public – the consumers, the people – aren’t at all interested in what Free Press, Public Knowledge and Media Access Project have to offer.”
They’re both right on the money. Their interests are not those of the public. they want to socialize the mass media in America. They call it media reform. Remember “health care reform?” Yeah.
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This week I already called upon Rick Perry to veto the Texas Amazon Tax, and now I’m left to hope that California Democrats will be less stupid than Joe Straus. Sigh.
Meanwhile the posturing around the AT&T/T-Mobile deal continues. We find from a press conference with COMPTEL CEO Jerry James that the Rural Cellular Alliance is joining with radical left, George Soros/OSI-funded group Public Knowledge to favor government intervention. If only they realized Soros will turn on them as soon as they’re no longer needed to pursue their socialist agenda.
The Wall Street Journal has also looked into the unholy alliance against AT&T. The leading members are of course direct competitors: Leap Wireless, MetroPCS, Sprint. Verizon is also mentioned, but the WSJ lists good reasons Verizon really wouldn’t mind either way. I also see one good reason for Verizon to want to see AT&T and T-Mobile win this: Anything that happens to AT&T now can also happen to Verizon, and Verizon becomes public enemy number one if it’s the undisputed leader of the industry. Sprint, meanwhile, doesn’t have to worry about being #1 because Sprint these days literally has to mooch off its competitors with things like the FCC Data Roaming order just to service its customers, so relatively little does it invest in its network anymore.
John Conyers and Edward Markey are also pressing for big government here. Look, even if you’re the biggest T-Mobile fan, the writing is on the wall regarding the fans of government intervention here. Everyone who is opposing this deal is self-interested, socialist, or both.
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Top story: the great Steven Crowder has a new video on Net Neutrality. With all the hype on Twitter leading up to this release, I was looking forward to Crowder’s video release. It’s funny, accurate, and devastating to the left. As usual for Crowder.
Sometimes a patent troll runs into fire. Lodsys, as you may recall, decided to abandon the strategy of targeting deep pockets and went after small-time and single developers. Well, Apple struck back, demanding that Lodsys withdraw threats to iOS developers, and warning that Apple would defend its own rights as a license holder.
There’s some rough language, but Twitter user oceankidbilly sums it up perfectly. Heh.
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Ah, Claire McCaskill. Her not particularly active Twitter account said this week that she wants to be careful about regulation of privacy online, lest those regulations cause us all to have “less access to amazing stuff.” True statement I think. Too bad she refused to stick to her guns on the radical left’s key policy, Net Neutrality. On that issue, McCaskill told MyDD government regulation could cause “an open and free exchange of information” and that she would be “happy to wage” the fight to regulate.
Not sure how to reconcile these two positions except that when the radical left tugs on Claire McCaskill’s leash, she jumps, regardless of what’s good for America or for Missouri.
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I’ve been meaning to write about Sprint and the alliance it’s making with the shady, fringe left. Well, since that alliance is against AT&T, and trying to bring government down on AT&T, they’ve started to do the work for me with their myth busting posts. Part 1 takes down fringe left group Public Knowledge and its testimony to the Senate. AT&T illustrates how absurd it is to criticize the firm for planning to run three networks in parallel: “2G” GSM, “3G” UTMS/HSPA, and “4G” LTE. Guys, this is why we need more spectrum: innovation and growth. But, the radical left would rather we all suffer just to lash out for socialism.
Tech transitions take time. AT&T points out that when the FCC-mandated end of life came for “1G” analog cellular service, there were a million of their customers still using it. Just imagine how many people would be disrupted if the radical left imposed an arbitrary end of life for GSM!
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Good evening. Care for your latest dose of regulation crushes innovation and competition? If you’re unhappy about the lack of innovation in America for mobile payments like they have in Japan, blame the Dodd-Frank bill. It prevented the wireless industry from getting together and making it happen. But we sure stuck it to the bankers, eh? Our faces are sure spited from cutting off our noses like that.
Of course, that doesn’t stop the Democrats from continuing to try to take power. If it’s not the PROTECT IP bill to institute national censorship of the Internet, it’s the continuing push to insert government with “cybersecurity” as the wedge. Never let a crisis go to waste. This time it’s the Playstation Network, but anything will do. This is the party that brought you the Clipper Chip designed to let the government spy on any encrypted data in America. When they say cybersecurity they mean their security, not yours or mine.
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House pressure on the FCC continues, with Friday’s hearings on FCC process reform, including testimony from all four active FCC Commissioners (Republican Commissioner Meredith Baker has quit the FCC). I associate myself with the remarks of Seton Motley on the preferred outcome of FCC Process Reform: “FCC ‘Process Reform’ Should Be About Reducing FCC Power. Oh, and making them obey the law.”
Meanwhile, as much as we talk about what’s wrong with the FCC and other issues, it’s good when I get to report on people getting ready to fight back. Jim DeMint is questioning the plans for the new National Emergency Alert System, while Verizon’s fighting back on the ridiculous FCC price controls on data roaming designed to help Sprint compete without actually investing in a better network.
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For a while there, we seemed to have a bit of a break from the big news. We knew big fights like the AT&T/T-Mobile deal loomed, but it was all talk.
But that’s changing. As the coalition of self-seekers and socialists forms, the final scope of the debate is beginning to take shape. Listen to this: Some Democrats are criticizing AT&T for planning to use money from the FCC’s Universal Service Fund to provide high speed, wireless Internet to 97% of Americans. That is, as close to truly universal access as possible. Apparently universal access isn’t actually the goal of the USF? Remember that when they talk about applying USF taxes to Internet connections, folks.
Another criticism of AT&T is that it’s using acquisitions to expand instead of building, which is absurd. Check the numbers. They spend billions, however you can’t just build spectrum. You have to buy it, and AT&T needs spectrum or else Verizon will be alone at the top in the 4G market.
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Hello. Yes, I’m late again. But I’m genuinely starting to have fun with OpenGL ES 2. So Tech at Night got to wait a bit. Sorry!
Anyway, as I usually do when I have a link to a RedState article, I’ll start tonight with it. RedState Insider suggests cutting the budget while implementing better policy by eliminating the Agriculture Department’s venture into tech subsidy, the Rural Utilities Service. We don’t need to spend billions to have government compete against the private sector. Even if we wanted it, and we don’t, we simply can’t afford it.
What’s the USDA doing in tech policy anyway?
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