American Broadband Policy: Information over Manipulation
While it’s true that Americans aren’t dancing in the streets over ISP customer service, it’s unrealistic to claim that replacing them with municipal utility providers will change this dynamic at all.
Voluntary Net Neutrality: Holy Grail or Total Hoax?
If net neutrality is what its supporters say it is – the best overall way of setting expectations and managing Internet service agreements, it should be expected to become self-executing at some point. I think we passed that point about ten years ago, but we will see what we will see.
Wireless First: A Winning Strategy for Rural Broadband
The nice thing about focusing on wireless for the final leg of the extended broadband system is that it doesn’t duplicate effort or waste money. Despite the glory of fiber optic networks, people want mobility. So wireless is going to be part of the solution regardless. Why don’t we just accept that and concentrate on building the best wireless networks first and fill in with fiber only when and where it’s truly needed?
San Francisco’s Cultural Divide
The failure of Google Fiber to connect America’s cities to ultra-fast gigabit networks took a bizarre turn this week: San Francisco, the incubator of the apps economy, is seriously considering…
Senate Internet Hearings
As a technical matter, it is the case that the Internet is more like cable TV than the telephone network. While the Internet does support interpersonal communication, its primary role is publishing audio, video, pictures, and text. And like cable TV, it’s a platform in which advertising is a very important source of revenue.
5G vs. FTTH: The End of Wire
You can count on rural networks being built out of a variety of wireless technologies in present and near future. As needs for capacity increase, signal processing systems that enable more efficient sharing will keep the rural folks ahead of the tsunami.
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…
The State of (Rural) Wireline Communication
The Senate Commerce Committee’s Thursday hearing is titled “State of Wireline Communications” but it’s going to have a heavy rural bias. This is par for the course in the Senate,…
Rural Broadband: Tail Wagging the Dog?
The New York Times ran an op-ed of mine in the Sunday Review last weekend that summarizes the overall state of the broadband networks in the U. S. and Europe….