The FCC continues to stall national 4G wireless competition in America, as LightSquared continues to be stalled even after having to give up half its spectrum! Meanwhile the Net Neutrality power grab creeps closer to being official , at which time MetroPCS and Verizon will sue . I expect them to win and get the regulations tossed out, too, because the last time the FCC tried this, Comcast sued and won. At least some good things are going on. Marsha Blackburn will show everyone how it’s done and seek ways to address privacy issues without threatening innovation and the free market. There are good reasons she’s Tech at Night’s favorite member of Congress, and why she ought to head up Energy and Commerce, or at least a subcommittee, someday. The FCC is at least doing something to deal with the spectrum crunch though, with a white space database plan . White spaces are the gaps in allocated spectrum that are currently unused, I believe primarily squeezed between allocated blocks. As technology has improved, we’ve found ways to use those gaps, but as always, government has lagged behind the innovative free market. White space use won’t fix our need to allocate more wireless Internet spectrum, but it has use. Investment is important to our continuing technological growth, which drives economic growth, so I welcome giving visas to investors who seek to invest in America, through the EB-5 program. Eric Schmidt, Google Chairman, contradicted CEO Larry Page and claimed Google isn’t after Motorola Mobility for the patents. Google has also long claimed its patents are “defensive” in nature. Well how defensive are the patents Motorola is already suing Apple over ? Apple is, of course, a major competitor of Google’s in the phone business. I’ll say this for Google though: It took them time, but they finally realized they can’t be a one party firm, so now Google is reaching out to Republicans . Rooting for injuries: communications union CWA is lashing out about the lawsuit against AT&T . I don’t blame them: they were reluctant team players on Net Neutrality, and expected payback from the left when it came time for the union to absorb T-Mobile’s employees. Now the Obama administration seeks to prevent that large unionization from happening. Pass the popcorn.
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Tech at Night: Net Neutrality nears, CWA angry at Obama, 4G competition delayed, Blackburn leads
Good evening. Or Good morning on the East Coast, as it’s unfortunately approaching 5am there as I start tonight’s edition. A big story is that the House Judiciary Committee will get into the game of watching the FCC, following in the footsteps of the Energy and Commerce, and Oversight committees. Commissioner Robert McDowell and Chairman Julius Genachowski are among those set to testify before Bob Goodlatte’s Competition subcommittee. I’m somewhat troubled by this, because Goodlatte seems to be looking for a government solution to a non-existent problem. Hopefully Commissioner McDowell will set Goodlatte straight that we need a hands-off approach to the Internet, not creative reasons to increase regulation of a critical center of growth for our economy. One reason we need to set Bob Goodlatte straight on the need for less, not more government: regulation costs jobs: . (O)ver a five-year window, even a small 5% reduction in the regulatory budget (about $2.8 billion) will result in $376 billion ($75 billion annually) in expanded GDP and expand employment by 6.2 million jobs (1.2 million annually) Here’s a fun story: Not only are the FCC’s Net Neutrality rules an overreach beyond the law, they appear to be ineffective. The worst-case scenario we’ve always been talked about is per-site or per-app blocking of Internet service, it appears that the Net Neutrality power grab would still allow it . One is left to conclude Net Neutrality was never about that in the first place, but rather was just a pretext to take power online. No, the patent issue isn’t going away. the fight between Google and Oracle over the Java technology incorporated in Android. One does wonder, if Google really is as arrogant about copyright and patent as Oracle says, just how much litigation is ahead surrounding the growing Android platform. I’m not so sure Google is in the right with respect to Java, as I’ve previously in this space called their tricks pretty sneaky and perhaps too clever, but I won’t mind if the process spurs software patent reform. Speaking of antitrust, here’s an interesting story: Some software engineers are essentially claiming they have a right to be headhunted , that is, recruited from one company to another. A number of companies have agreed, either in writing or otherwise, not to recruit employees from each other. And so some of the relevant employees are suing, claiming it violates antitrust law. I’m skeptical. The rhetoric sounds socialist and greedy, just looking to drain from deep pockets. Moving on, Even as Anonymous is exposed as having been behind the Sony PSN breakin , despite the group pleading with 4chan readers not to be held accountable, Mary Bono Mack is looking into the matter . I hope she won’t fall for the sloppy thinking in the press, which has been reporting misinformation, misleading explanations of acts (such as the scare tactic of claiming that the passwords were unencrypted, when every expert knows you hash passwords rather than encrypting them), and other blame the victim demagoguery. Is an IP address enough for a search warrant? Judge Harold Baker says no , citing the risks to everyone involved in wrong door breakins, and also the technical fact that “The infringer might be the subscriber, someone in the subscriber’s household, a visitor with her laptop, a neighbor, or someone parked on the street at any given moment.” Unless we’re going to make it a criminal offense to have an insecure network (a vague term in itself, despite Germany’s pushes in this direction), these issues will loom over the law for years to come.
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Tech at Night: Net Neutrality, FCC, Patents, Copyrights, Sony, Anonymous
It’s the calm before the storm. House Republicans have taken every ordinary measure to work with the President and get the regulatory excesses under control. The administration has refused though, and now the House is preparing to get tough. This buildup applies not just to the FCC, but also to the EPA and other runaway parts of the executive, but here I’m focused on the FCC. I’ve covered earlier efforts recently in this space, but now it continues as Fred Upton and Cliff Stearns are getting bipartisan support for continuing pressure on the FCC , increasing oversight into the area of public safety communications. As someone who has encouraged the assignment of spectrum for public safety, I think greater oversight into what equipment would be used on that spectrum can only help. If we’re not going to use market forces to assign the spectrum, we’d sure better ensure market forces are brought in where they are needed: buying that equipment. Unlike spectrum licensing, phones do have more than one source. There’s a preacher out there saying Net Neutrality is “wicked.” Apart from that loaded language though, even Hillicon Valley admits he’s using the kind of common sense arguments that drove the Net Neutrality repeal vote in the House. Of course, the other issue gradually building up strength is the AT&T/T-Mobile deal, and specifically the regulatory fight over it. AT&T is making the case that with the deal, many more Americans will have access to 4G wireless Internet than without. This makes sense because without the combined spectrum, AT&T won’t have enough to deploy LTE to compete effectively with Verizon. Without the combined capital investments, T-Mobile may not be able to deploy a true 4G technology at all. So yes, this acquisition would increase, not decrease, competition going forward. Government must stay out of the way.
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Tech at Night: FCC, AT&T
I’m back. CPAC week came and went. Then another week came and went after the horrible cold I got at CPAC. But now I’m healthy again and it’s time to start catching up. Though there’s no way I’m going to post on every tidbit I’ve run across in the last two weeks, I can try to hit the highlights. And let’s start with the fact that the Internet Kill Switch is back under a new name. Susan Collins and Joe Lieberman have reintroduced the bill under a new name. They think if they put freedom in the name that we’ll ignore the problems inherent in giving the President emergency powers to wage economic war on America. The Internet Kill Switch is a broken idea. We don’t let the President close supermarkets nationwide if one butcher in one city has an e. coli outbreak. We can’t apply the same overreaction online. Also while I’ve been out of it, House Republicans have been busy. As I understand it, we’ve not only grilled the administration on the “Stimulus” spending on communications, but we’ve also passed an amendment to the continuing resolution in order to defund Net Neutrality . I love it. Our Energy and Commerce leadership in the House has so much going on, including Obamacare, but they seem to relish the opportunity to strike back so much and so hard at the administration’s illegal overreaching. From the cheap seats, Greg Walden, Fred Upton, and others are doing a great job. Fun fact: when the House debated Net Neutrality defunding, the Democrats very strangely started making arguments that government should leave the Internet alone. Anna Eshoo said “I would not fool around with an open, accessible Internet.” Hey, for once we agree. By the way, fun fact: Net Neutrality is so terrible for innovation and customer service that ISPs turned down ARRA money to try to stay away from it. Yes, they turned down free money from the government because regulation is just that costly. Further, the Net Neutrality coalition continues to crumble. Collin Petersen, Democrat of Minnesota, flipped sides by voting for defunding NN after voting for NN last Congress. Perhaps he noticed the total wipeout in 2010 of PCCC candidates pledged to support Net Neutrality. Every single Democrat who signed the PCCC Net Neutrality pledge went on to lose in November. Meanwhile, Julius Genachowski and the FCC still don’t get the message. He thinks he’s entitled to debate the Congress instead of taking orders. Greg Walden announced plans to pressure him on transparency , which should help teach him who’s boss, you’d think. Though we have to give Genachowski credit on one thing: He admits the Netflix/Level 3/Comcast issue is not a violation of Net Neutrality. Michael Copps, pet commissioner of neo-Marxists everywhere, deserves no credit though. He’s now pushing for more speech controls in the name of “disclosure.” It’s about control and gathering power in Washington. The FCC still needs lots of oversight, though, as conflicts of interest continue to crop up , this time with an FCC official having PBS as an employer. I have more to write on in the coming days on Google and Copyright, especially the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) which threatens to continue the criminalization of copyright law in America and expands government online in the name of protecting a few big companies. Watch this space.
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The Return of Tech at Night: Net Neutrality, Internet Kill Switch
Net Neutrality is taking a real pounding this week. The Heritage Foundation has come out shooting , calling for a major rollback in the FCC’s authority, including repealing Net Neutrality legislatively. Also, The US Chamber of Commerce is calling upon the FCC to be held to the President’s standards for regulatory review, which would certainly put Net Neutrality at risk. But its supporters press on. Even as GoGo Inflight Internet offers non-neutral Free Facebook access (just wait until the radicals start telling us that free stuff is bad!), Andrew McLaughlin says the Egypt situation proves the need for state control of the Internet through Net Neutrality. Try to figure that one out. I sure hope Vint Cerf didn’t feed him that line. He has a reputation. Remember the arguments against Net Neutrality and the FCC power grab? Remember how I warned that if the FCC took power it did not have under the law, we’d be at risk of content and price controls, no matter how many times the Democrats claimed it was purely about network management? Oops . The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners is asking the FCC to impose “Content Neutrality” and price controls, justifying its request based on FCC statements on Net Neutrality and the Comcast/NBC Universal merger. Sure makes Heritage’s plan to neuter the FCC sound better, doesn’t it? Closing note: Google says Microsoft is lifting Google Search results for using its Bing Search , with alleged evidence to prove it. If what Google says is true, I think there’s no doubt that Microsoft is doing just that. However I don’t think we have any independent way to verify Google’s claims, so let’s grab the popcorn and watch them fight it out.
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Tech at Night: Net Neutrality, FCC, Bing vs Google
