Microsoft Closes Digital Divide! Heh, Just Kidding

Happy Prime Day! Here’s one special deal you don’t want to buy: Microsoft’s grand plan to bring high speed broadband to the less-populated fringe of rural America for peanuts. It…

July 12, 2017 0

Regulators Stoke Gatekeeping Fears

FTC Commissioner Terrell McSweeny and former FCC Chief Counsel Jon Sallet have written a frightening editorial for Wired: “Kill the Open Internet, and Wave Goodbye to Consumer Choice“. If the…

July 6, 2017 0

Congestion Pricing for Infrastructure: I Still Don’t Know Why Net Neutrality is Important

When usage, delay tolerance, and loss tolerance are all unknowns, we fall to an unknown level of quality. While this simplifies billing, it doesn’t do justice to the needs of applications, innovation, or investment.

A side effect of switching from the current billing model to a quality-based model is that the unproductive net neutrality debate summarily ends. When users have control over the end-to-end quality of each application transaction, the means used by the provider to deliver the desired quality are unimportant.

June 28, 2017 0

Tom Wheeler’s Tangled Web Recycles an Old Story

Instead of being required to guess what applications need, 5G networks will be told. And instead of applications having to guess what the networks can supply, they also will be told. This is all explained in our podcast with Peter Rysavy on 5G application support.

Rather than trafficking in ancient speculations about the future of networking, would-be visionaries would be better served by developing an understanding of networking technology. That’s the real driver of innovation.

June 22, 2017 0

Open Internet Orders Degrade Internet Improvement

Even when the figures for 2016 are taken into account, the numbers show very clearly that Open Internet Orders are a drag on the rate of broadband improvement in the US. The numbers also show that the Title II order did more damage than the 2010 Title I order.

We want our broadband speeds to improve. The data show that the best way to make that happen is to challenge open Internet orders, especially those that classify broadband Internet service under Title II.

June 19, 2017 0

Roslyn Layton Visits High Tech Forum

What are we losing by pretending that mobile broadband is a noncompetitive market that needs to be tightly managed by a Washington-based regulator? We can’t know that in the US because we only have the market we have. But data from other countries suggests that we’re not seeing the explosion in mobile apps development that we should expect.

June 15, 2017 0

Highly Illogical Broadband Claims

What the FCC can do is help to keep large swathes of the American population from falling behind. And it can do this by saying yes to network deployment and innovation. A good first step in that process is to let go of the vacuous virtuous cycle of networks + apps innovation. That argument is illogical.

June 13, 2017 0

A Technical View of the Title I/Title II Debate

The FCC’s review of the regulatory status of broadband Internet Services focuses the spotlight on the distinction between Title I and Title II services. Title II is meant to apply…

June 6, 2017 0
Many parts of the bundle of services offered by today’s ISPs are information services, and it’s disingenuous and reductive to claim that such services are simply means of isolating problems and deploying mitigations. The FCC’s mistaken use of the notion of network management suggests working backward from the goal of Title II classification to the best justification that could be found.

Toward a Better Open Internet Order

Administrative agencies don’t do their best work when consumed with settling scores and playing politics. We’re all going to benefit from FCC actions based on balanced assessment, rational analysis, and good old-fashioned American optimism.

June 1, 2017 0

Podcast: How Title II Net Neutrality Undermines 5G

Peter Rysavy identifies the friction points between 5G networks and Title II regulation.

May 31, 2017 0