Milestone for Deregulated Internet Service

Global Internet Use 2019

Net neutrality is an odd issues because it correctly identifies some problems that do take place on the Internet – blocking, throttling, and leveraging platform dominance – while attributing them to the wrong parties. I

December 10, 2019 0

The Music Man Comes to Lakewood

Fellman, a veritable Music Man, sold the Council on the ballot measure by conjuring various extremely vague partnerships with private companies to serve various unspecified projects.

October 30, 2019 0

DoH Creates More Problems than it Solves

We need to redesign DoH so that it works with DHCP and local policies, not against them. The layered architecture of the Internet and the distributed nature of DNS become nothing more than cruel jokes if this standard is rolled out in its current form.

September 15, 2019 0

Is it Time to Reboot Internet Policy?

None of the proposals for ISP regulation or platform regulation currently in the mix are very good. If the Internet is good for anything, it’s a great disruptor. Is is too much to ask it to disrupt its own policy frameworks toward the goal of producing more of the good and less of the bad?

August 18, 2019 0

Warren’s Divisive Plan for Rural America

So this is only marginally a broadband program and arguably not even one that is well-focused on rural issues; it’s the Green New Deal hiding its pink hair under a straw hat.

August 8, 2019 0

Behind the Curve: EFF’s Long Strange Trip

Perhaps the time has come to tell EFF what Barlow told lawmakers in 1996: “On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone.” The future of networking is intermodal competition between networks and services that control their destinies.

June 12, 2019 0

Putting Huawei in a (White) Box

There are issues that warrant special attention in the networking standards bodies (3GPP and IETF in particular) but this is nothing new. If the government can get off its Huawei kick and support OCP we’ll all be better off in the long run.

May 1, 2019 0

To Nationalize or Not; and What About the Trade Commission?

The 5G buildout is hampered on some areas by extortionate rents on small cell sites. These fees are driven the need of some municipalities – such as San Jose, California – to raise money for pension costs. While we’re sympathetic to retirees, there are ways to meet these needs without wrecking the technology sector. 

March 6, 2019 0

Confusion Reigns in DC Circuit Oral Arguments on Net Neutrality Regulations

Net neutrality was promoted by Silicon Valley to take policy makers’ eyes off the massive dossiers of personal data its major players assembled from their platforms. Now that the public is aware of this (very real) behavior, the claims of possible harms to consumers from the lack of net neutrality regulations are much less compelling.

February 1, 2019 0

Books, Books, and more Books!

If you’re a fan of books on tech and tech policy this is a particularly good time for you because so much new stuff is hot off the presses. Here’s a short list of the books in my reading queue at the moment, along with a couple of longish journal articles.

January 23, 2019 0