The Internet Model
The FCC’s first instinct when it encounters a legitimate issue with Internet management should be to involve the multi-stakeholder community through such means as reaching out to the Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group (BITAG), the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Internet Society, and professional organizations such as ACM and IEEE.
Progress in the Debate over TV White Space
Tuesday (July 11, 2017), Microsoft unveiled their current vision for unlicensed radio services in the TV White Space (see “Microsoft calls for U.S. strategy to eliminate rural broadband gap within…
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…
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…
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.
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.
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…
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.
FCC Wants to Know if Ernestine Rules the Internet
Broadband ISPs are in the same game as dial-up ISPs: providing customers the ability to access and share information. This is not a complicated issue. Hence, Lily Tomlin’s telephone operator Ernestine is not really part of the picture any more. She was a great lady, but like Manu Ginóbili of the San Antonio Spurs, she’s retired.
Making the Internet of the Future Happen Today
With all the policy controversy around the Internet today it’s useful to take a step back and look at the overall trajectory. While the battles over privacy, security, and the…