Spectrum of Greed

Wireless Achille's heel

Group urges FCC … Wow, deja vu, man!  If you do a google search of the first 3 words of this post, a truism is apparent: over 135,000 entries testify to the futility of asking the FCC to intervene on behalf of the citizens of this country.  The rest of the headline repeated today is …urges FCC to open AT&T 3G network to Skype on iPhone.

I am encouraged that many in the media have picked up on this particular effort when wireless battles traditionally go unsung by the press.  I think they have because a different tack is being taken by the Free Press advocates in addressing the FCC.  In the past, they have aimed at the large, overwhelming grievances enacted on consumers by carriers when they are limited in choice and restricted in use of both wired broadband and wireless services, of which only a sub-set is internet.

There is no specific remedy for large grievances that can be pursued under the current rules that the FCC has deployed, as so many of them are vague and being violated in one form or another.  This time however, the advocacy group is playing with more finesse, approaching their adversary with more respect and aiming their energy at the Achilles heel that has been exposed by the popular iPhone and the highly publicized Skype Voice over IP internet service.  Many are watching these events and quietly getting excited, because the chance for real change may actually be upon us. (continue reading…)

The Wireless Value Proposition

Ahhh, the smell of Napalm in the morning…. It smells like…..Victory!  But whose victory are we smelling?  And that scent in the air - it’s not Napalm - it’s…. MONEY!

Finally the rest of congress, not just those few that have been milking the FCC cow for all the spectrum licensing fees it could produce, have discovered what a very valuable resource wireless spectrum is.  Now they have decided to do what anyone would want to do if they discovered a valuable resource was theirs, but weren’t sure exactly how to value it - they want to inventory it, according to ARS Technica. (continue reading…)

The American people collectively own the most valuable resource of the emerging information economy: the airwaves, also known as the radio frequency spectrum. Yet our nation’s antiquated spectrum policies create an artificial scarcity that reduces innovation and competition, inhibits the rapid deployment of universal wireless broadband services, sacrifices billions of dollars of revenue, constrains citizen access to the airwaves and erodes the public interest obligations of broadcasters and other licensees.

The words above are not mine, they are found on the front of the New America website.  I could not say it any better, so I borrowed their prose.

Until such day as the FCC recognizes this and fixes the atrocity that we currently experience for a wireless marketplace, we have to celebrate the little victories.  Like the ability to take one more step toward use of narrow slivers of bandwidth that lie fallow between broadcast TV channels that are themselves on the decline as the world moves on to alternatives like satellite, cable, DVD, Netflix & online viewing at sites like Hulu. (continue reading…)

Ask blogger Mike Elgan or his son their opinion of AT&T & Apple’s iPhone, and you get the response, “Soup Nazi!”  Tasty, desirable, and served one way no matter what your circumstances.  He also has some clever correlations to the coffee shops and other eateries in the popular comic Seinfeld’s weekly world in a recent blog post he use to blast Apple in particular,  with the cell phone network sustaining only collateral damage. (continue reading…)