Spectrum of Greed

Kevin Martin announced his retirement yesterday, well timed considering the Obama administration’s announcement of his successor a couple of days earlier.  Better to not let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.  No one can blame him for sticking around in case his job really wasn’t in jeopardy after all, but that has been resolved.  In his speech recognizing Mr. Martin’s many accomplishments while serving as the FCC Chair, Mike Copps made a remark I found astonishing;

“We should also remember that those High Noon moments at the Commission, when the cameras pack this room, the media is hanging on every uttered word and perceived nuance, and everyone is waiting to see who is going to draw their Colt 45 first, are not the daily norm here.  Probably 90 per cent or more of what the Commission decides is decided through consensus.  Our discussions are not duels in the sun, but more often searches for understanding the facts of a case, the meaning of a statute, or the arcania of legislative history.”  (continue reading…)

End to traffic Jams on the Internet?

Beginning with his campaign for office, Barack Obama has demonstrated that he understands the potential of the internet to be a game changer.  His campaign team’s ability to harness the social aspects of the web were a major factor in his rise to the oval office.  Now, several new sites are being used by his transition team to answer public questions, vet ideas, and gather information to use in the formation of new policy (Yourseatatthetable and openforquestions:response are two of these new information conduits) .  This is causing giddy outbursts of euphoria to occur on blog sites all over the web.  (continue reading…)

Qwest, Sprint, AT&T & Verizon made the cut - Not!

Face it, you don’t have any choice when it comes to wired or wireless connectivity.  There are only a few providers, and they march in lockstep.  Well, maybe a bunch of thugs doing a synchronized high kick would be more accurate.  CIO Insight’s November 2008 survey reports that telecom vendors got the worst reviews of any service provider group this year.  The highest of the lot, Sprint Nextel, scored 65%, with Verizon Communications scraping the bottom of the barrel at a 49% overall satisfaction rating.  Compare this to the top vendor, RSA security, who scored 82%.  Now consider this dichotomy:  If you look at the highest ranked vendors (click on link above), two smart phone providers achieved the highest ratings, while the network companies they run on ranked the lowest.  This doesn’t bode well for a country that wants to advance their connectivity compared to the rest of the world. (continue reading…)

The Block layout for 700 hz

In a document released last week, the FCC lists at the very bottom of page six of the license list two line items for Block C licenses - the only two in the document, and they are assigned to Triad 700, LLC.  Both are listed under file #3382992.  While Verizon won the bid for the class C block in March, it appears that the FCC is allowing Verizon to sub-lease their licenses back to another vendor.  That would be very handy to a company that doesn’t really need to use the bandwidth themselves, but just want to make sure that they can control how it will be used. (continue reading…)