Why can’t the news come in even intervals, instead of batching up all at once?
So yes, the Senate Net Neutrality vote is coming up. Credit where it’s due: Kay Bailey Hutchison moved the ball forward on this, no doubt about it. Credit also to Marco Rubio making headlines with his strong support of the repeal.
And Rubio is right: the whole thing is ridiculous. This regulation closes; it does not open the Internet. Which is why Obama is threatening a veto: can’t have the Congress undoing a regulatory power grab, can we? The representatives of the people, what do they know?
Don’t forget to tell your Senators, especially if they’re Democrats or Scott Brown, to vote for the repeal!
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Oops. It’s midnight as I type this out. I just remembered I’d better do Tech tonight, so here goes. Fortunately I already did my reading!
Urgent in the Senate this week is the upcoming vote on Net Neutrality repeal, which was already passed by the House. We need 51 votes, not 60. Less Government has a list of Senators to contact with this urgent message: repeal Net Neutrality! Democrats are listed there, but Scott Brown needs to hear from us, too!
The bad Net Neutrality rules are a symptom of greater problems at the FCC and demonstrate a need for greater reform, but we have to start somewhere. Let’s start with repeal.
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There’s been a push lately to attack punitive, unfair taxes on wireless service, one that Erick Erickson signed onto, and was advertised at RedState. Ironically I only found out about it because I saw the ads while working on the code side of the site, but that’s how it goes sometimes. Anyway, that movement seems to have gotten a win, as the House passed the Wireless Tax Fairness Act, a 5 year freeze on new wireless taxes. Sounds good to me.
SOPA, the House answer to the Senate’s PROTECT IP, isn’t dead yet, unfortunately. This attempt to have the US government censor the Internet, and in fact forcibly steal domains from people, and cut off Americans from the rest of the world online, incredibly is being considered by House Republicans. Copyright apparently is sufficient justification for government of unlimited size. Kill the bill.
And what’s worse is that Republicans are being dragged along as dupes to help Democrats continue to justify huge Hollywood fundraisers by smacking the Internet around to favor the movie industry. Which is probably why the MPAA is trying to stifle criticism of the bill. Kill the bill.
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Not much to say tonight, which is good because I think I’m getting sick again, and if I had a lot to say I’d probably just skip tonight’s Tech.
It’s official: the race for FCC handouts is on, as the FCC voted to repurpose the old rural telephone subsidy, the Universal Service Fund (a fund that comes from your special tax dollars) into a grab bag of Internet subsidies.
In 2013 we should look at repealing the whole thing, just as Republicans continue to press for Net Neutrality repeal.
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Top story is easy to pick tonight. The legislation that’s been known in the Senate as PROTECT IP, the Internet censorship blacklist bill that promises to make a huge power grab online, Communist China-style, has come to the House. They’re calling it by two different names: E-PARASITES and Stopping Online Privacy Act, but by either name it’s just as bad.
Even as the current laws do work, this bill expands government, and puts the government’s thumb firmly on one side of the scales balanced by the DMCA. Current law attempts to provide a balance between the rights of all of us online, and the rights of copyright holders accusing others of infringement. PROTECT IP/E-PARASITES/SOPA would give copyright holders private nuclear options to knock sites offline, and government would enforce it.
No, really, how bad is it? It threatens, Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube, three critical tools used by conservatives and Republicans against this administration, and this House bill would arm this administration against them. It’s insane. It’s just so poorly thought out. PROTECT IP also removes safe harbor concepts critical to the DMCA that gave ISPs reason to be fair to the little guy when pounded on by the big guy. No more, should this pass.
PROTECT IP. SOFA. E-PARASITES. I don’t care what you call it, creating national censorship blacklists to be enforced by law by all ISPs is just a terrible idea. Censorship by its very nature hinders public oversight of that censorship. In fact, some of the first things they censored in Australia’s version were lists of things censored, which meant when the censorship expanded to other topics, any discussion of that was threatened with legal action.
Kill this bill.
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It’s a lazy end of the week, it seems. Not much to cover, which is why I’m dipping down to chuckling at Sprint ending much-hyped unlimited data plans as its 3G network melts under the strain of iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. I’ll say this: it should be all the harder for Sprint to claim they’re in dire competitive trouble now. Especially as, again, T-Mobile really is in trouble, unable to get the iPhone.
MetroPCS stands to benefit should the AT&T/T-Mobile deal go through, standing ready to buy assets from AT&T as part of the deal.
So let’s get government out of the way. Even rural areas see the benefit.
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Net Neutrality goes to court. Great news, too: Verizon’s preferred venue won the lottery, and the Net Neutrality fight will happen in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. This is, of course, the same circuit that slapped down Net Neutrality last time in Comcast v FCC.
Oh, but here’s a big surprise. Despite the FCC claiming previously that “We look forward to defending our open Internet framework in court,” they’re actually doing everything they can not to have to defend it in court by attempting to get Verizon’s appeal dismissed. So much for that day in court.
As for Sprint Nextel, even as they sue claiming competition will be impaired if T-Mobile and AT&T join up, their own strategy update presentation admitted the truth. See the 9:46AM slide, showing the growth rate of the year-on-year net postpaid subscribers across the top four providers. In 2010, Sprint was the only one to accelerate, while AT&T saw the biggest drop in its growth. In the first half of 2011, Verizon and Sprint are accelerating, while would-be deal makers AT&T and T-Mobile look on pace to notch their third and fifth (respectively) years of slower growth.
Yes, that’s right. Sprint’s gaining subscribers at a faster clip, and is trying to keep the laggards from combining to keep the pressure (and 4G prices) up. And they’ve gotten the Barack Obama/Eric Holder Department of Justice to help, using your taxpayer dollars.
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So, LightSquared. Some say that in some nebulous way, the firm is getting unreasonable and possibly illicit support from the Obama administration. I still don’t see it though, especially after listening in on a briefing of LightSquared’s today.
The briefing discussed in depth the issues LightSquared has had with GPS manufacturers. LightSquared that they’re trying hard to be a “good neighbor” and have worked with the FCC to address all issues, to the point of giving up half their spectrum voluntarily, and standing ready to invest $50 million to help GPS makers fix the issues. Because LightSquared does claim that the only issues left involve “precision” GPS which, by design, listen on LightSquared’s spectrum.
LightSquared points out that this is legal. You can listen to whatever you want. The problem is, legally you have no leg to stand on if you receive ‘interference’ by the legitimate holder of the spectrum you’re listening to. That said, they’re still working on a solution so everyone can benefit.
Now obviously this is their side of the story. If there’s a detailed rebuttal of these claims available, I’d love to hear it and link to it in Tech at Night. I’m interested in finding the truth of this matter. We need spectrum, desperately, but I want to go into this knowing the facts.
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So, Net Neutrality has been published. Now nothing can stop Verizon’s lawsuit over the illegal power grab. Remember: the FCC has tried this before, when they went after Comcast. They lost. It’s not unreasonable to expect them to lose again.
Meanwhile, federalism continues to be trashed as Puerto Rico jumps into the game. They don’t want to pay taxes but they want to block our free market. Lovely. If only AT&T could get territories dismissed even as it tries to dismiss the anti-competitive lawsuits of its competitors.
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Regulation, Regulation, Regulation. We’re faced with it, and now the regulators are going Presidential on us and claiming executive privilege at the FCC. You want to know how they’re coming up with their marching orders for America? Too bad. Just ask watchdog StimulatingBroadband.com.
You want a laugh? George Soros-funded front group Free Press is suing the FCC… because Net Neutrality isn’t enough of a power grab. Incredible.
Jay Rockefeller is defending Net Neutrality, meanwhile, against Kay Bailey Hutchison’s withering attacks, and push for a Congressional Review Act repeal of the regulations.
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