Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
For CNET this morning, I have a long article reviewing the sad recent history of how local governments determine the quality of mobile services. As it turns out, the correlation is deeply negative. In places with the highest level of user complaints (San Francisco, Washington, D.C.), it turns out that endless delays or outright denials [...]
On Forbes this morning, I argue that the Department of Justice’s effort to block the AT&T/T-Mobile merger signals a dangerous turn in antitrust enforcement. While President Obama promised during his campaign to “reinvigorate” antitrust, few expected the agency would turn its attention with such laser-like precision on the technology sector, one of the few bright [...]
For CNET this morning, I offer five crucial corrections to the Protect IP Act, which was passed out of committee in the Senate back in May. Yesterday, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, co-chair of the Congressional Internet Caucus, told a Silicon Valley audience that the House was working on its own version and would introduce it in [...]
On CNET this morning, I argue that delay in approving FCC authority for voluntary incentive auctions is largely the fault of last year’s embarrassing net neutrality rulemaking. While most of the public advocates and many of the industry participants have moved on to other proxy battles (which for most was all net neutrality ever was), [...]
By Larry Downes & Geoffrey A. Manne Published in BNA’s Daily Report for Executives The FCC published in June its annual report on the state of competition in the mobile services marketplace. Under ordinary circumstances, this 300-plus page tome would sit quietly on the shelf, since, like last year’s report, it ‘‘makes no formal finding [...]
John Perry Barlow famously said that in cyberspace, the First Amendment is just a local ordinance. That’s still true, of course, and worth remembering. But at least today there is good news in the shire. The local ordinance still applies with full force, if only locally. As I write in CNET this evening (see “Video [...]
Last week the Senate Commerce Committee passed–with deep bi-partisan support–the Public Safety Spectrum and Wireless Innovation Act. The bill, co-sponsored by Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller and Ranking Member Kay Bailey Hutchison, is a comprehensive effort to resolve several long-standing stalemates and impending crises having to do with one of the most critical 21st century resources: [...]
For CNET this morning, I write about the latest tempest in the AT&T/T-Mobile USA merger teapot: cellular backhaul or “special access” as its known in the industry. Like a child sitting on Santa’s lap at the mall, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse included backhaul in his wish list of conditions he’d like to see attached to [...]
I’ve written two articles on the Protect IP Act of 2011, introduced last week by Sen. Leahy (D-Vt.). For CNET, I look at some of the key differences, better and worse, between Protect IP and its predecessor last year, known as COICA. On Forbes this morning, I have a long meditation on what Protect IP [...]
For Forbes.com this morning, I take a close look at last month’s controversial FCC order requiring facilities-based wireless carriers to negotiate data roaming agreements with other carriers. There are business, technical, and legal reasons why the order stands on unsteady ground, which the article looks at in detail. The order, by encouraging artificial competition in [...]
May 22, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
