Tech Policy Tribalism
The tribal forces of the left appear to be forming a drum circle around the idea that rural broadband is entirely screwed up in the US so we need to create thousands of broadband co-ops to solve it the problem in a few decades. I think we can do a lot better, but only if we can forget about the tribal identities and apply some reasoning informed by facts.
My FCC Comments on Broadband Progress
Here’s the summary of the comments I filed with the FCC on its broadband deployment report to Congress. A lot of the ink in the mainstream media today echoes a…
Helping the FCC Get Broadband Right
The FCC’s annual inquiry on the state of US broadband is underway and we’re here to help. This process, mandated by federal law, seeks to discover whether advanced networks are…
Internet Pioneers Discuss Network Architecture and Regulation
Internet regulation is like the Game of Thrones, a battle between parochial interests that ignores the threat of an innovation-less winter.
Big Picture Issues with EFF Letter
As I pointed out in the last post, the Engineers Letter EFF filed with the FCC in the Internet Freedom docket is riddled with errors. It attacks the Commission’s understanding…
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…
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.
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.
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.