Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
After three years of politicking, it now looks like Congress may actually give the FCC authority to conduct incentive auctions for mobile spectrum, and soon. That, at least, is what the FCC seems to think. At CES last week, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski largely repeated the speech he has now given three years in a [...]
Today, AT&T announced they had abandoned their planned acquisition of T-Mobile after the DOJ sued to block the deal and the FCC published a report sharply critical of the deal. The following statement can be attributed to TechFreedom Fellows Larry Downes, Geoffrey Manne and Berin Szoka: Nearly two years ago, the Obama FCC declared a [...]
The National Transportation Safety Board recommended yesterday that states ban all non-emergency use of portable electronic devices while driving, except for devices that assist the driver in driving (such as GPS). The recommendation followed the NTSB’s investigation of a tragic accident in Missouri triggered by a driver who was texting. Personally I don’t see how [...]
I’ve written several articles in the last few weeks critical of the dangerously unprincipled turn at the Federal Communications Commission toward a quixotic, political agenda. But as I reflect more broadly on the agency’s behavior over the last few years, I find something deeper and even more disturbing is at work. The agency’s unreconstructed view [...]
Regardless of what you think of the AT&T/T-Mobile merger or the recently announced purchase of SpectrumCo licenses by Verizon, these deals tell us one thing: wireless carriers need access to more spectrum for mobile broadband. If they can’t have access to TV broadcast spectrum, they will get it where they can, and that’s by acquiring [...]
Over at TIME.com, I write about the recent compromise on the D Block, which would give more spectrum to public safety, and I ponder if there may not be a better way.. Patrol cars are as indispensable to police as radio communications. Yet when we provision cars to police, we don’t give them steel, glass [...]
[Cross posted at Truth on the Market] As everyone knows by now, AT&T’s proposed merger with T-Mobile has hit a bureaucratic snag at the FCC. The remarkable decision to refer the merger to the Commission’s Administrative Law Judge (in an effort to derail the deal) and the public release of the FCC staff’s internal, draft [...]
On NPR’s Marketplace this morning, I talk about net neutrality litigation with host John Moe. Nearly a year after the FCC passed controversial new “Open Internet” rules by a 3-2 vote, the White House finally gave approval for the rules to be published last week, unleashing lawsuits from both supporters and detractors. The supporters don’t [...]
[Cross posted at Truthonthemarket] As I have posted before, I was disappointed that the DOJ filed against AT&T in its bid to acquire T-Mobile. The efficacious provision of mobile broadband service is a complicated business, but it has become even more so by government’s meddling. Responses like this merger are both inevitable and essential. And Sprint and Cellular [...]
For Forbes this morning, I reflect on the publication late last week of the FCC’s “Open Internet” or net neutrality rules and their impact on spectrum auctions past and future. Hint: not good. An important study last year by Prof. Faulhaber and Prof. Farber, former chief economist and chief technologist, respectively, for the FCC, found [...]
February 14, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
