Articles by James Gattuso 
James Gattuso is a Senior Research Fellow in Regulatory Policy in the Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. Gattuso also leads the Enterprise and Free Markets Initiative at Heritage, with responsiblity for a range of regulatory and market issues. Prior to joining Heritage, he served as Vice President for Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and also as Vice President for Policy Development with Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE). From 1990 to 1993, he was Deputy Chief of the Office of Plans and Policy at the Federal Communications Commission. From May 1991 to June 1992, he was detailed from the FCC to the office of Vice President Dan Quayle, where he served as Associate Director of the President's Council on Competitiveness. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife Dana, 8 year-old son, Peter (whom he relies upon to operate his VCR), and his four year-old daughter Lindsey (who does the DVD player.) He has no known hobbies, but is not nearly as boring as he seems.
The Washington Post was ecstatic. Having won six Pulitzer Prizes for journalism, it featured the news on the front page of yesterday’s edition, accompanied by a photo of applauding Post staff. And they certainly deserved credit – the half-dozen prizes were the second-most won by a newspaper since the annual awards began in 1917.
But one thing was missing in the Post photo: a newspaper. There’s a computer screen in the foreground, being watched by the applauding staffers. And a TV in the background. But there wasn’t an actual newspaper to be seen.
The photo says a lot about the changing face of journalism, and the rise of electronic media. The traditional newspaper is quickly losing ground to newer forms of communication, notably the Internet. Only two weeks ago, the Newspaper Association of America reported that print advertising had plummeted in 2007 by almost 10 percent, the largest one-year drop ever.
But despite these changes, the Pulitzer remains largely a paper-and-ink affair, limited mostly to traditional newspapers. To its credit, the Pulitzer committee did change the rules a few years ago, allowing online journalism to be considered. Thus, a number of winning entries have had significant online components. But – except for the two“breaking news” categories – the rules still require that stories appear in print as well as online.
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Just when you think Google’s thought of everything, they come out with something new. The latest, announced today, is “Google Custom TIme.” The new g-mail feature, according to Google, will allow users to send pre-dated e-mails. Even better, the e-mails will show up in recipient”s inboxes as having been received — and even read — on the earlier date.
The service promises to be endlessly useful for the deadline-challenged among us. No more being late for deadlines, no more late birthday greetings. And the possibilities for reduced tension at tax time are intriguing.
According to one user who’s tried the system: “I used to be an honest person; but now I don’t have to be. It’s just so much easier this way. I’ve gained a lot of productivity by not having to think about doing the ‘right’ thing.”
The engineering challenges were daunting for even Google’s engineers, but using what they call an “e-flux capacitor,” they managed to resolve even grandfather paradox problems.
The announcement was crucially made on the first day of April, although it could have been dated virtually anytime.
The Newspaper Association of America reported on Friday that print ad revenue for the industry fell by 9.4 percent last year, the biggest decline since it started keeping records in 1950. Within this total, classified ad revenue was hit even harder, down by some 17 percent. The figures show an accelerating decline in newspapers fortunes.
The figures were widely reported newspapers across the country, from the Wall Street Journal to the New York Times to the Chicago Tribune. And I didn’t read it in any of them. Like an increasing number of Americans I read the stories only in electronic form, learning about the development initially through an e-mail.
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Was yesterday’s groundbreaking deal between BitTorrent and Comcast on network management a triumph for regulation? That’s the storyline being widely peddled in the wake of yesterday’s announcement that the two would work together to solve network management problems.
At first, it looked like the announcement might signal an end to FCC involvement in the dispute.. That, at least, was the view of the sensible – but all too lonely – Commissioner Robert McDowell of the FCC. “[I]t is”, he said, “precisely this kind of private sector solution that has been the bedrock of Internet governance since its inception.”
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Interesting piece today by equity analyst Scott Berry on a site called seekingalpha.com. Addressing the ongoing Comcast-Bittorrent imbroglio, he argues that ISPs are have promised an all-you-can-eat “broadband salad bar” at a fixed price. But that the model, he points out is breaking down due to increased demand. As he puts it:
…the growth of video is stealing the condiments, and file sharers are sneezing in the salad”.
ISPs have a choice, he says: “Limit how many trips each patron can make for salad. Or charge them for each trip. Comcast has tried the former. My bet is on the latter.”
Not very appetizing, but well put. Once again, it turns out there is no free lunch. Or at least one that hasn’t been sneezed into.
Communications Daily reports that USTelecom has now rebranded itself as “The Broadband Association” (although apparently keeping the formal name USTelecom) . The group’s president, Walter McCormack, explained that the branding shift is simply “calling it what it is.” “The future of communications is in broadband”, he added.
The move is but the latest in a long series of name — and mission — changes for the group, which until the mid-1980s was known as the “US Independent Telephone Association,” and represented non-Bell System telephone providers.
USTelecom’s move mirrors a similar rebranding by CTIA — which was at various times the “Cellular Telephone Industry Association,” the “Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association,” and the “Cellular Telecommunications and Information Association.” Finally, a few years ago they decided it was all spinach, and started just calling themselves CTIA – The Wireless Association.
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Prohibit competition? It seems hard to believe, but according to a report today in Communications Daily, that’s exactly what a New Hampshire Senate committee has voted to do. A bill — SB-386 — approved by the Energy, Environment and Economic Development Committee would largely ban incumbent telephone companies with more than 25,000 lines from competing in the territory of telephone companies with less than 25,000 lines.
The bill is almost commendable for its anti-competitive candor. For the past generation, there has been a consensus in the telecom policy world in favor of competition. It has uniformly, and justifiably, been considered a positive good. Debates have largely been over how to further competition, not whether it should be furthered. Even those trying to stifle competition have struggled to frame their positions in pro-competitive terms.
Not so the New Hampshire Senate. In the blunt Granite State tradition, there’s little fiddle-faddling in this bill. The message is clear: Competing with small phone companies is bad. Don’t do it.
Never mind whether competition might be good for those companies’ customers. Or whether Fairpoint Communications — which will be the biggest phone company in New Hampshire once its purchase of Verizon’s assets is completed — is itself a “little guy”. Or whether things like this led Verizon to sell to Fairpoint to start with.
New Hampshire’s straightforward talk is refreshing. But Granite State consumers may find the actual policy rather stale and stifling.
They teach you in law school to make all possible arguments in favor of your client’s position, no matter how far-fetched, since you never know which one will stick. The lawyers for Hawaiian Telcom evidently have taken that advice to heart in making the case that it should be eligible for subsidies from the FCC’s high-cost support mechanism under the Universal Service Fund. In January, the firm asked the FCC for a special waiver from the normal eligibility for payments from the fund, which subsidizes phone service costly areas. Under current rules, a telephone company’s eligibility for payments depends upon its statewide cost average. Hawaiian Telcom is asking that its eligibility be determined on a more specific, wire center by wire center, basis.
It may sound like a technical distinction, but – because many parts of Hawaii have costs far above the statewide average – it is significant, and could mean some $24 million per year in subsidies for the firm, which until a few years ago was owned by Verizon.
It’s not unusual for Hawaii to ask for special dispensation in such matters – in 2006, for instance, the Senate telecom reform bill had a provision creating special telecom subsidy rules for states “comprised entirely of islands.”
In this case, however, the lawyers for Hawaiian Telcom outdid themselves, arguing that the subsidies aren’t just a matter of getting cheaper phone service for Hawaiians, but that they are necessary to national defense. Hawaii, they say, is of “strategic importance” to the U.S., making a well-funded telecommunications system essential.
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Today is a birthday of sorts. One year ago today, February 19, 2007, Sirius and XM announced plans to merge. And after 12 months of debate, investigation, deliberation and prognostication, the deal is still awaiting approval by the FCC and the Department of Justice.
This, despite the FCC’s much-heralded “shot-clock” — under which it has pledged to review mergers in 180-days. That shot-clock frankly looked a little shaky from the start, as the FCC didn’t even start the dang thing until 78 days had passed. Even with that, the FCC remained silent when the deadline passed.
Of course, we’ve come to expect such delay from the FCC, whose official seal contains a figure of a snail. (Well, not really, but it would fit). But the long-delay from the Department of Justice is more eye-catching. What can the Antitrust Division possibly not know about the deal by now?
Of course, rumors of imminent action at DOJ have frequently made the rounds: the DOJ is going to approve the deal, the DOJ is going to reject the deal, the DOJ is going to attach conditions on the deal. I’m half-expecting to read that the DOJ’s dog ate the files on the deal.
Enough delay. I’ve said before that the deal should be approved. Others disagree. But everyone should be able to agree that a year is long enough for the government to make a decision.
I’ve missed Dan. Four years ago, as Techliberation was just getting started, Dan Rather provided us (and most of the rest of the blogosphere) with a rich source of content and amusement as he tried to pawn off forged documents regarding George Bush’s National Guard service on viewers. 
In the end, Rather ended up with omelette on his face, and soon thereafter was ushered out of his anchor seat at CBS News.
Well, he’s now back in the news, thanks to his $70 million lawsuit against CBS for dropping him. Denying that he did anything wrong, the unashamed Rather says that CBS took him off the air in an attempt to pacify the White House. Right.
CBS is arguing — among other things — that it was under no legal obligation to keep Rather on the air. CBS lawyer Jim Quinn yesterday compared the situation to the New York Jets benching their star quarterback: saying that while he might not like it, but there’s nothing he can do about it.
According to the New York Post, Rather responded by pointing out that there’s a difference between him and the Jet’s QB. “I’m in the Television Hall of Fame,” he said.
And so humble too.
Stay tuned for more — the trial judge yesterday ruled against motions to throw the case out, meaning there’s much more fun to come.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.