|
|
|
Users Online
|
 Visitors: 81
 Members: 0
 Total: 81
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Other News
|
 |
|
|
Tuesday Evening Links -
FCC Wants More Input On Measuring Fixed Residential, Small Business Broadband multichannel.com
Fox Studios calls for US to follow French anti-piracy law model theinquirer.net
Sprint completes Virgin Mobile acquisition fiercewireless.com
National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus asks Sprint to drop "Most Dependable" claim after Verizon objects orlandosentinel.com
Expanding broadband Internet access subject of FCC chairman's talk in Arkansas orlandosentinel.com
Mobile broadband may have problems identifying pirates thinkbroadband.com
Rogers loses 'most reliable' title in B.C. court, says rival Telus vancouversun.com
Hulu Telling Sites To Stop Embedding So Much techdirt.com
Spam King Alan Ralsky Gets Four Years In Jail techdirt.com
eBay offers compo for search failure theregister.co.uk
read comment(s)
]]>
Despite Billions In USF Fees, U.S. Libraries Lack Bandwidth - Welcome to dysfunction junction
Joost's Remaining Pieces Sold - Ad firm buys remnants for undisclosed sum
Apple Joins AT&T Verizon Snark Fest - With the same disregard for accuracy...
In-Flight Internet Headed For Bumpy Landing? - Users simply aren't interested in paying, say insiders...
Earlier this month, the FCC, who's in the middle of designing a national broadband plan, issued a report (pdf) identifying seven major factors that are considered "critical gaps" preventing broader broadband deployment. Among the gaps identified are some correct and rather obvious ones, including the fact the USF doesn't fund broadband expansion, broadband may be unavailable or too expensive, spectrum is limited, or broadband is expensive to deploy.
There's some additional nebulous "gaps" identified by the FCC and commenters, including a lack of control for consumers over their own information as it travels across the "cloud," and a lack of competition and innovation on the retail settop cable box front. While those are somewhat pertinent, it's odd that nobody involved identified a lack of competition or bad FCC policy as major obstacles. Mike Masnick over at Techdirt puts it this way:Such an absence makes you wonder if the FCC is really paying attention. Most of the other "gaps" would quickly disappear if there were meaningful competition in the market -- but we've never had a real policy of encouraging broadband competition in the US. Instead, policy has mostly been driven by incumbents who have lobbied hard for exactly the opposite. The FCC itself should probably be at the top of the FCC's own list, given you'd be hard pressed to find any FCC policy decision in recent history that, once stripped of a promising outer veneer, wasn't primarily aimed at improving incumbent ISP revenues and little else. While the FCC sometimes has put on a good show when it comes to competition (think of their misguided devotion to broadband over powerlines), they've done very little in the way of innovative policy that actually fostered any.
The vast majority of the time, FCC policy presented to the public as being centered around creating competition, is really just the technological equivalent of giving Ma Bell a backrub. "Franchise reform" is one such example; the FCC insisted the revamped state-level franchise rules lobbied for by AT&T and Verizon would lower TV prices -- but the real result was the erosion of local consumer protections, higher prices, and increased "cherry picking" of next-gen broadband deployment.
Usually, such policy is put into place under the pretense that eliminating regulatory barriers will result in some form of telecom competitive utopia. After several decades of such policy however, U.S. consumers pay more money, for less broadband, in fewer locations, than more than a dozen developed countries. Why? The largest ISPs don't really want eliminated regulation -- they want regulation that works in their favor, which often means regulation that gives them an unfair market advantage, but discourages smaller competitors. This wasn't what Milton Friedman had in mind when he thought of a "free market."
If the FCC's looking for gaps to broadband deployment, they might be well served looking at the FCC's fealty to the largest carriers, and how this has prevented real competition from taking root. Real competition fixes many of the problems identified by the FCC -- in addition to other issues such as network neutrality violations or predatory pricing (ultra-low caps and high overage fees).
read comment(s)
]]>">Windstream Quietly Keeps Growing - Acquires Iowa Telecom in latest move
FCC Broadband Problem List Omits 'No Competition,' FCC Itself - Surely decades of bad FCC policy carries some responsibility?
Senators Want ACTA Made Public - 'State secret' cloak is designed to prevent criticism
Tuesday Morning Links -
Time Warner Dallas Customers Get WiMax December 1 - Launch joins bevy of North Carolina launches
New Bill Takes Aim At Higher Verizon ETFs - Senator Amy Klobuchar tries again...
| |
|
|
Evening Reading: Traveling Games
Alienware Adds Steam to PC Gaming Systems
Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm, and Zune, Early Successes on Xbox LIVE
Tekken 6 Online Patch Detailed, Dated
Divinity 2 Gone Gold, Pre-Order Detailed
Subtitled 'Ego Draconis,' Divinity II tells of a dragon slayer cursed to transform into a dragon. What is a cruel irony for the slayer becomes a joy for players, adding airborne fireball combat to the questing-dungeon crawling mix as shown in the following trailer.
DC Universe Online Screens Star Teen Titans
Mercenaries Inc. Announced, Not Cancelled
Dawn of War 2 - Chaos Rising Screens and Art Chill Out
Shack PSA: Sales Aplenty at Amazon US & UK
Call of Duty: World at War PC v1.7 Patch Released
Just Cause 2 Release Date Announced
Splatterhouse Gets Exclusive Shoes, New Shots
Microsoft Accused of Xbox 360 Accessory Monopoly in Datel Lawsuit
Deus Ex 3 Is First 'Product of Joint Effort Between Square Enix and Eidos'
"The people in Tokyo are just so glad to work on it," said D'Astous. "This is the first project for them that's a non-Final Fantasy title--they even want to work on http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/58567">Thief 4</a> too."
Cancelled Pandemic Title 'Mercenaries Inc.' Revealed? [Update: Not Cancelled, Now Announced]
Morning Discussion
Evening Reading: Don't Overlook the Dead
Trailer for 'The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned' Borderlands DLC Infested with the Undead
Casual MMO Black Friday Discounts
| |
|
|
">CS Planet
Left 4 Dead: 2 Demo Released
Steam Update
Steam Client Update
Steam Update Released
Vote Gordon Freeman
Steam Client Updated
CS: Source and Steam Engine Update
Steam Update Released
Scheduled Steam Downtime
| |
|
|
|
BroadbandReports 