Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
Two data points in the news over the past 24 hours to consider: A new report on “Smartphone Adoption & Usage” by the Pew Internet Project finds that “one third of American adults – 35% – own smartphones” and that of that group “some 87% of smartphone owners access the Internet or email on their [...]
The FCC proposed new rules today aimed at combating wireless “bill shock,” a term that describes mobile subscribers getting hit with overage charges they didn’t anticipate. The proposed rules would require wireless providers to create a system for alerting customers when they are about to incur extra usage charges for voice, text, data, or roaming. [...]
Today I appeared on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” to debate Net neutrality issues and the specific role of pricing in this debate. [video down below] Specifically, the producers wanted to know whether websites should be allowed to pay a higher fee to allow consumers faster access to their sites or should it be equal for every [...]
Interesting piece here from Slate’s Farhad Manjoo on why AT&T should dump unlimited data plans and end what he calls the “iPhone all-you-can-eat buffet.” He notes that: “The typical smartphone customer consumes about 40 to 80 megabytes of wireless capacity a month. The typical iPhone customer uses 400 MB a month. AT&T’s network is getting [...]
In a past life — that is, from roughly 1994-2004 — I spent an enormous amount of time countering the proponents of “open access” regulation for communications and high-tech networks. My work in that field culminated in the publication of a 2003 book with my old Cato colleague Wayne Crews entitled, What’s Yours is Mine: [...]
Web Pro News’ Jason Lee Miller seems to think he’s hoisted my colleague Bret Swanson, and The Progress & Freedom Foundation in general, on our own collective petard. Bret had responded to Tim Wu’s NYT op-ed by questioning Wu’s argument for developing “alternative supplies of bandwidth” to free us from the tyranny of the OPEC-like [...]
February 13, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
