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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November 20. That’s the day the Obama administration has chosen to regulate the Internet after what even The Hill calls “a partisan vote” at the FCC to pass the Net Neutrality regulations. I’m hoping Verizon and/or MetroPCS will sue and win a stay before that date, though I don’t know how likely that is for a court to act that strongly.
I’ve said much about the House and its strong opposition to Barack Obama’s regulatory overreach, but Senators are unhappy as well. Kay Bailey Hutchison is ready to fight. It looks like she will push to get the Senate to go forward with using the Congressional Review Act, as the House already did, to repeal Net Neutrality.
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I’ve basically got three topics for tonight’s edition. It’s sad that two of them are government antitrust actions. I suppose elections do have consequences, and one key consequence of Barack Obama’s election is corporatist selection of winners and losers in the marketplace.
The third main topic: Alleged corruption. I’m still playing the role of skeptic on accusations that the Obama administration is playing favorites in favor of LightSquared, the firm that has been caught in a regulatory quagmire over GPS issues it may have found a workaround for.
I want more 4G competition, but I also welcome Darrell Issa giving the LightSquared/Obama matter some oversight. I’d love to have a clear answer to this question. I can’t support fake competition brought about by corruption. I reject Obama propping up Sprint Nextel and if it turns out that Obama is propping up LightSquared then I reject that as well.
Which brings us to the next topic: AT&T and T-Mobile against the Department of Justice.
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I’d like to start off tonight’s edition by saying that I enjoy some of the pushback I’ve been getting in this Tech at Night series. It’s fun when someone comes here, telling me I’m all wet, then ending up admitting they’re enamored of the whole Obama regulatory apparatus. It feels good to have my pro-liberty, pro-growth, small-government positions validated like that. So to the multifaceted George Soros astroturf machine I say this: keep it coming.
And of course, one of their key talking points is that wireless competition is in danger. Consider that Radio Shack says you have nine options, and Cellular South, a carrier you might never have heard of, is suing AT&T now, while budding 4G national competitor LightSquared answers accusations it’s buying favors from Obama. It’s hard to see how the DoJ lawsuit is anything but an attempt to prop up Sprint Nextel, and hard to disagree with T-Mobile thinking its deal with AT&T will proceed on the merits.
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We’ve lost some battles lately. That’s what happens when we let a radical Democrat become President. We let Patrick Leahy’s America Invents Act pass, imposing on America a Euro-style patent system that rewards lawyering, not being the first to invent something. We let the FCC pass an illegal Net Neutrality power grab, and that will have to go to court soon.
We’re even seeing some nominally Republican-run states get on big government bandwagon against AT&T, sadly joining in the effort by the Obama administration and Sprint Nextel to hinder competition and pad Sprint’s bottom line. What are Ohio and Pennsylvania doing there? Come on.
But at least we’re on track to get meaningful 4G competition. Some question the firm’s ties with the Obama administration, but I welcome progress toward LightSquared launching its network. Unlike Obama and Holder, trying to prop up Sprint, I actually want competition and lower prices.
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Competition, growth, and innovation are all important for the American wireless Internet market. We need more, better, and cheaper service if we’re going to move in large numbers to wireless Internet, as some are predicting. This means competition and growth in the 4G sector is vital to our future economic health.
And that, in a nutshell, is why I think it’s essential that the government stay out of the way and allow the AT&T/T-Mobile deal to proceed. Obviously now it’s too late to prevent a lawsuit, since it’s already happened, but dropping the suit would be better than proceeding on the current anti-competitive path.
That’s the one fact that more and more evidence is bringing to light: stopping the merger is the anti-competitive act, not the merger itself. Both Sprint Nextel and the Department of Justice are threatening competition, hindering us from moving beyond the 4G duopoly of Verizon and Sprint Nextel.
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Friday has come and gone at last, and in fact we’re well into Saturday now unfortunately, due to my needing to have covered so much this time.
Additionally, at long last it looks like the ongoing saga of California vs Amazon is coming to an end. Amazon had already floated the idea of compromise with the Democrats on their unconstitutional plan to try to bully Amazon with respect to California’s high sales tax rates.
But now it looks like the firm got cold feet. Having already put itself on the line with a plan to lobby for a national law on the matter, with a promise to pay the tax if now law is passed in two years, they caved and cut the “safe harbor” down to one year. As you might guess from how I said that, I disagree that Amazon was wrong to play hardball. I think Amazon was wrong to give in after playing hardball, because if things go wrong they risk victor’s justice.
Joe Mathews says Amazon has given an example of “how not to do business in California.” At this point, I don’t see why anyone should do business in California, with all the corruption and corporatist socialism going on in this one great state.
This matters if you don’t live in California, by the way, because of the next steps.
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I’m in danger of repeating myself as the AT&T/T-Mobile saga goes on, so let me open up tonight’s post with to my latest analysis of the situation. Summary: the behavior of Sprint Nextel’s and Clearwire’s share prices, combined with Sprint Nextel’s decision to sue AT&T, should lead any observer to believe that the AT&T/T-Mobile deal benefits the 4G Internet-using public at the expense of Sprint Nextel and current market leader Verizon.
Same as it ever was, as the Talking Heads said. When Sprint gobbled up Nextel, the public gained. So, too, will the public gain if the government keeps its hands off this time.
Is Sprint in trouble? Some say yes, but the point of antitrust laws isn’t reduce competition to prop up ineffective businesses.
Help the economy, President Barack Obama. Drop the suit. Encourage your subordinates to get out of the way of job creation, innovation, and technical progress. Event the San Francisco Chronicle has run a piece explaining that.
Hearings begin September 21. Ah, government. Slow, slow, slow. Imagine life or death medical decisions in the hands of this government! Maybe they’re still trolling for some evidence that just isn’t there.
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