Articles by Steven Titch

Steven Titch (@stevetitch) is an independent telecom and IT policy analyst. His policy analysis has been published by the Reason Foundation and the Heartland Institute and covers topics such as municipal broadband, network neutrality, universal service, telecom taxes and online gambling. Titch holds a dual Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism and English from Syracuse University. He lives in Sugar Land, Texas. He burns off energy running 5K races, is an avid poker player, and likes to mellow out in cellar jazz bars.


Is Tron: Legacy a Comment on the Futility of Techno-Progressivism?

by on January 10, 2011 · 6 comments

CLU seeks systemic perfection in Tron: Legacy

Note: The following post contains spoilers pertaining to the plot and theme of the film Tron: Legacy.

Near the end of Tron: Legacy, the character CLU (short for Codified Likeness Utility), on the verge of releasing his army of re-purposed computer programs into the brick-and-mortar world to destroy humanity, confronts Kevin Flynn, his creator-turned-nemesis, with a plaintiff, “I did everything you asked.”  Flynn, older and wiser than the character we met in 1982’s Tron, and his techno-idealism tempered by the realization that to save humanity he must destroy both his physical and virtual self, wistfully answers, “I know.”

It’s a rather poignant scene that punctuates the film’s unique take on technology and humanity. Traditionally in the movies, when technology turns evil, it does so with a will of its own. The Matrix and Terminator films are just two examples. Tron: Legacy, however, upends the idea. CLU, sure enough, turns on his human creator, but not out of rebellion, but to carry out his human-engineered programming.

You see, Flynn programmed CLU to create the “perfect system.” In the film, Flynn explains that, as a younger man he thought he could design a technology-based solution that would end war, illness, poverty and hunger and, in a nutshell, make humanity better. But when the Grid—the computer environment Flynn nurtured—actually does something spontaneously, spawning a new life form, so-called isomorphic programs (called isos for short), CLU destroys them. While this act of cybernetic genocide horrifies Flynn, from CLU’s perspective, it was nothing but a logical response. The isos, as free and independent entities that did not respond to his command and control, introduced an element of randomness and uncertainty into the Grid that CLU could not abide. They were an obstacle to the systemic perfection he was programmed to create and therefore had to be eliminated.

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Explain That Intel Monopoly Again?

by on January 6, 2011 · 9 comments

After a steady relationship that lasted several generations of the Windows operating system, Microsoft has told Intel that it wants to see other chip makers.

In a world where antitrust law was pursued logically, news like this would throw a monkey wrench into the proceedings with which the European Commission has been burdening Intel, starting with 2009’s $1.45 billion fine for providing discounts and rebates to its largest customers—a common business practice in any industry—up to the current obstacles the EC is putting in the way of Intel’s purchase of McAfee, the maker of security software.

On this side of the Atlantic, the Federal Trade Commission piled on with its own inquiry, although its investigation into Intel’s alleged abuse of its sizable market share in PC microprocessors yielded far less: a handful of concessions from Intel, but no fine and no admission of wrongdoing.

It’s unknown whether Intel offered Microsoft discounts, rebates or loyalty incentives to use its chips with its latest version of Windows Mobile, the OS Microsoft developed to run on smartphones and tablet PCs. It doesn’t seem to matter because, in an announcement that flies in the face of trans-Atlantic claims that Intel has an ironclad grip on OS chip market, Microsoft said it will be buying chips from three (count ’em) other manufacturers: Nvidia, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments.

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The Era of Internet Regulation Begins

by on December 21, 2010 · 10 comments

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski can now strike “Get Net Neutrality Done” from his 2010 to-do list.

The rules enacted today represent something of a compromise with the industry and are better than the sweeping regulation the FCC proposed last year—if you consider a club to the knee better than a sharp stick in the eye.

The FCC gave the most ground on the so-called “fifth principle,” which, in original form, would have placed strict rules on the way service providers could manage their networks, even if the aim was to make certain applications, particularly video, work for users the way they were intended. The new rules appear to allow wireline ISPs to takes steps that are not “unreasonable.” Wireless networks are pretty much exempt from this rule – good thing, too – as the engineering wireless carriers did to support smartphones such as the iPhone and those using the Droid operating system would likely be immediate neutrality violations under such rules.

And, as the owner of any of these devices can tell you, it’s pretty easy to see that wireless is where broadband access is going. This will present a quandary for the commission a few years down the line as they try to do backflips to rationalize separate sets of rules for data that travels by wires and data that travels by radio. For myself, I was following Cecilia Kang’s tweets from the FCC all morning, and have her Washington Post story open on my phone as I write this. So much for the paucity of access that the FCC seems to think requires neutrality regulations.

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Netflix Blows It All Up

by on November 23, 2010 · 4 comments

So now you can pay Netflix $7.99 a month and stream all the video you want? Damn cool if you ask me!

What does the Netflix decision mean for consumers—two words: More choice! This is what functional markets deliver. There was a time when if you missed an episode of your favorite show, that was it. You might have gotten lucky and caught it on its single rerun, but that was hit or miss. These days, I can watch The Office at 8 p.m. on Thursday nights. Or I can record on my DVR and watch it later that night. Or I can watch it the next day on my PC by visiting nbc.com. Or I can watch it on-demand from my cable box. Or I can wait a few months and watch it on DVD. Or, soon, via Netflix stream.

I can’t help but wonder if this makes moot all the handwringing about the FCC’s desire to place conditions on the online services a merged Comcast-NBC Universal can offer. Come on, Netflix has blown up the whole cable TV model. Continue reading →

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Facebook Was the ‘Next Google’

by on October 5, 2010 · 6 comments

Since I contributed $10 to the $23 million The Social Network grossed nationally this weekend, I see no reason not to blog some thoughts on the film.

First of all, the movie, which purports to be a history of the founding of Facebook, succeeds wildly as entertainment. As you may have heard by now, the film basically posits that if its founder, Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, had not been dumped by his girlfriend for questioning the academic credibility of her school, Boston University, Facebook may never have existed at all.

Whether or not the film’s facts are straight on this is another matter. Nonetheless, it is not my purpose to comment extensively on either the film or its veracity, other than to recommend it highly as long as you ingest the story and characters with the copious grains of salt.

But some facts the film depicts are undeniable. The most significant for my purposes here is that the idea that became Facebook was germinated in the fall of 2003, just six years ago, and, as a website, was launched on the Harvard campus in February 2004.

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Net Neutrality, Verizon and Google: A Separate Peace?

by on August 5, 2010 · 4 comments

The buzz in telecom policy circles this morning is the word that Verizon and Google are close to an agreement that will allow the search giant to purchase from Verizon a faster tier for delivery of its bandwidth heavy services, notably YouTube, its video-sharing site.

If the two companies reach an agreement, it could be a death blow to the entire “non-discriminatory” idea behind network neutrality: that no service provider should be give favored treatment to any service or application. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has made it a mission to get the “non-discrimination” principle encoded into law, to the point of calling for reclassification of broadband ISPs as regulated telecommunications carriers.

If Verizon sets up tiered pricing for Google applications, the non-discrimination genie is out of the bottle for good. It would be a direct “I dare you” challenge to the FCC to block it.  Armageddon indeed. Adding to the significance is that Google itself is party to the deal. Until today at least, Google has been the loudest company behind the call for a non-discrimination rule, even as one-time allies have fallen away (the latest being Amazon.com).

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Amazom.com Switches Sides on Net Neutrality

by on July 23, 2010 · 9 comments

In a startling guest column on CNET yesterday, Paul Misener, vice president for global public policy at Amazon.com, for all practical purposes reversed his company’s stand on network neutrality, particularly the controversial non-discrimination rule, which would prohibit ISPs from creating and charging providers of large-scale content, applications and commerce for faster broadband connections and tiered quality of service.

In his column, Misener concedes what many TLF bloggers and friends have argued for years: that the net neutrality rules are a solution in search of a problem, and that large providers like Amazon already invest in techniques that ensure quality delivery of content and apps, albeit at the edge, not within the network cloud. Misener writes:

First, there have been almost no Net neutrality violations. Opponents of Net neutrality rules say this record demonstrates that regulation is unnecessary–that Net neutrality is “a solution in search of a problem.” But actually, the threats of legislation (since 2007) and FCC regulation (since 2009) have kept the network operators on their best behavior.

Moreover, Net neutrality has become a populist consumer issue in a way that few FCC issues ever have (try Web-searching the terms “Net neutrality” or, more humorously, “series of tubes”). So, it’s hard to imagine policymakers adopting laws or rules that would condone popular notions of Net neutrality violations.

Second, the legal/regulatory uncertainties have, understandably, dissuaded network operators from making investments in new technologies and services that might subsequently be found to violate Net neutrality. Unfortunately, some observers seem to think that this uncertainty hurts only the network operators and their suppliers, but consumers and content providers also are suffering, albeit unwittingly, from the lack of new services that might otherwise be available.

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States Plunder 911 Funding

by on June 7, 2010 · 7 comments

State governments are getting bolder about diverting funds intended to maintain and modernize 911 emergency calling systems for other uses.

As states face greater budget gaps spurred by reckless spending and unsustainable obligations to the public sector employees, legislatures have been turning everywhere for extra cash. The 911 surcharge that appears on most consumer phone bills is no exception.

Originally, 911 fees were supposed to be used exclusively to fund 911 calling centers and the training of operators, the primary rationale behind the decision to assess the fees on phone bills. Instead, 911 money is being funneled elsewhere, sometimes for other law enforcement needs like weapons, vehicles and uniforms; sometimes for cost and services that arguably should be funded from general revenues. In New York State, for instance, of the $600 million collected from 911 fees in the past 15 years, just $84 million—14 percent—was used for municipal 911 center operation, according to a Buffalo News report cited by Emergency Management magazine.

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The Underlying Desperation at the FCC

by on May 21, 2010 · 8 comments

In what might just be the most audacious bureaucratic punt in recent memory, the Federal Communications Commission said yesterday that the U.S. wireless market was so complicated that it was impossible to conclude whether there was effective competition.

Even after 308 pages of examining the multiple service providers, the extensive wireless coverage areas, the scores of handsets, the diversity of services and the decline of prices, the best Chairman Julius Genachowski could say in the FCC’s 14th annual report of competitive market conditions in the wireless sector was:

This Report does not seek to reach an overly-simplistic yes-or-no conclusion about the overall level of competition in this complex and dynamic ecosystem, comprised of multiple markets. Instead, the Report complies with Congress’s mandate to assess market conditions by providing data on trends in competition and choice over time – an approach that fits best with the role of the FCC as a fact-based, data-driven agency responsible for promoting competition and protecting consumers, and fostering investment and innovation.

Translated from bureau-babble, Genachowski’s statement means, “I’m not going to let the facts get in the way of my aggressive agenda to regulate the entire Internet.”
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The FCC Goes Backwards

by on May 7, 2010 · 5 comments

I have an op-ed on the FCC’s broadband re-classification plan on AOL today, paired with a counterpoint commentary from Megan Tady of Free Press. My piece focuses on how the plan will lead to FCC intrusiveness in almost every area of broadband.  But “third way” labels notwithstanding, it is sheer folly to try to wrap a monopoly era regime around competitive broadband services. The FCC is about to embark on a lengthy legal battle that will cost tons of political capital while offering it very little chance of winning.

Bottom line: No matter what the information, the faster it is allowed to move and the easier it is for people, businesses and government agencies to link it together to produce value, the better it is for everyone. Until this week, even the FCC expressly understood and endorsed this approach.

Telephone service is about one-to-one connection. Broadband is about many-to-many interconnections. That’s why the FCC separated the two to begin with. Constraining broadband with rules that applied to another service in another era can’t help but end up as a policy disaster.

Find the piece here.

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