Spectrum of Greed

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…)

Fill seats, avoid complaint!

I love this picture.  As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.  I think some points should be awarded here for creativity.  If you want to cut down the opposition at a hearing that could threaten your revenue stream, there aren’t too many better ways to do it than enlisting the disinterested to replace the passionate.  Many of the ills that befall us in today’s society are a direct result of apathy.  When a company can find a way to make apathy work for them, you have to give them a little credit, don’t you? (continue reading…)

Craigs List for a cell phone - Coming to Kenya first!

According to FastCompany’s most recent article highlighting wireless innovation beginning on the Serengeti before it does in New York or Boston, trickle up is a new innovation phenomenon that will sweep the planet. Not so fast. The conclusions are incorrect for the wireless marketplace. There is a much more important reason why innovation MUST occur outside the US and then perhaps one day (if we are lucky) find it’s way here. It isn’t user choice as the article hints at with the quick references to two obscure wireless companies, insinuating they just couldn’t get customers interested.

In the US, we have a walled garden where the wireless gatekeepers don’t let innovators in because it would jeopardize a rich revenue stream for them. If they don’t get a significant cut of the pie, you can’t play ball, and they would rather just do it themselves. See a recent article from ARSTechnica on Canadian reaction to these restrictions. (continue reading…)