What’s the difference between Wi-Fi and unlicensed spectrum?
Ask the Engineer: What’s the difference between Wi-Fi and unlicensed spectrum? Answer: Wi-Fi is a particular service that uses unlicensed spectrum, but there are others as well. As the FCC…
Interesting Technologies Raise Interesting Questions — and Opportunities
Silicon Valley and its imitators around the world are always active on dozens of fronts that don’t break into the news cycle until they’ve gone through several cycles of innovation,…
Who’s making money on the Internet?
One of the background questions in Internet policy debates concerns what and who contributes value to the overall system and who extracts profits. In a perfectly functioning market, profits will…
Happy Net Neutrality Day
Once again, we’ve come to another deadline for the filing of comments to the FCC on net neutrality, possibly the most mystifying subject in the history of technology policy. This…
Does Netflix Have Amnesia?
I’m paying for Netflix and I’m paying for Internet connectivity, why do I care if they pay each other for faster service? Actually why aren’t they? In our instant gratification…
Like Sisyphus the FCC Pushes On
[I filed some comments with the FCC today in the Open Internet Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. It’s hard to believe, but the FCC has been at this for ten years…
What the FCC’s Broadband Tests Really Measure
The data in the “Measuring Broadband America” report released by the FCC on June 18th shows that Americans get the broadband speeds they pay for. The report plainly says (page…
Net Neutrality Advocates Score an Own Goal
In soccer, an “own goal” is scoring a goal for the other team. In this connection, I recommend Jon Healey’s column in the LA Times on net neutrality objections to…