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Posts Tagged ‘Broadband’
July 1st, 2013 at 5:15 pm
Now for Some Good News: Rhode Island Enacts Wireless Telephone Regulatory Modernization Act
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Despite the federal government’s incessant attempts at expansionism, individual states continue to serve as invaluable laboratories of democracy.  That applies even in deep-blue Rhode Island, where new legislation helps ensure that emerging telecommunications technologies not already regulated will remain that way.  That assurance will encourage continued investment in wireless and broadband, which will in turn spur innovation and improve consumer service.

Entitled the Wireless Telephone Regulatory Modernization Act, the bill opens by noting that experience over “many years” has “established robust competition in the wireless communications market without unreasonable, industry-specific regulation as the best means of promoting universal service, economic efficiency, technological innovation, expanded consumer choice and empowerment, and investment in and development of advanced communications services.”  From that starting point, the bill:

–   Ensures that next-generation wireless services aren’t suffocated by bureaucratic regulations imposed with 20th century technology in mind, thereby encouraging experimentation and growth;

–   Encourages introduction of new products and services to enter the market and satisfy consumer demand for faster and more efficient performance by reducing the specter of uncertainty in regulation;  and

–   Preserves consumer trust that state and federal consumer protection authorities remain available to address actual concerns that may arise.

The bill summarizes, “Stating such policies in statute will provide additional certainty and continuity of this policy, and is necessary to attract new investment in wireless, broadband and other advanced networks, encourage technology deployment and promote the creation of new jobs in Rhode Island, while at the same time ensuring that consumers of wireless service continue to benefit from the consumer protection laws that apply to consumers generally.”

The telecommunications and broadband sectors remain a rare bright spot in our national and world economies, and legislation like this ensuring a “light touch” regulatory regime provides a welcome source of reassurance via our functioning laboratories of democracy.

September 17th, 2012 at 3:33 pm
FCC’s Genachowski Glorifies “Psychology of Abundance,” Adds Uncertainty to Internet Sector and Economy
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Is this what our Internet sector and economy need?  More uncertainty from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Obama Administration?  The tech sector remains a positive outlier in terms of job creation, innovation, new networks and private investment, but regulatory misdirection threatens all of that.

The latest affront involves usage-based pricing for Internet service.  In order to facilitate Internet growth and accommodate ever-increasing consumer demand, service providers must be granted flexibility to at least explore alternative pricing models.  The outdated, flat-rate, all-you-can-eat model increasingly threatens service quality, as a small number of Internet users sap capacity through data-heavy applications like videogames and online video.  To illustrate, viewing a single streamed high-definition film consumes approximately four gigabytes of data.  Utilities aren’t forced to charge a flat rate regardless of electricity use, so why should Internet service providers be straightjacketed in that way?  It’s not fair, and it’s not effective.

Enter FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, who just four months ago explicitly praised pricing flexibility and experimentation in the name of fairness and efficiency:

Business model innovation is very important particularly in new areas like broadband.  There was a point of view that said a couple of years ago that really there was only one permissible pricing model for broadband, and I didn’t agree with that and the Commission didn’t agree with that.  And we said that business model experimentation and usage-based pricing could be a healthy and beneficial part of the ecosystem that could help drive efficiency in networks, increase consumer choice and competition and increase fairness, because it can we said result in lower prices for people who consume less broadband.  So experimentation in this area with those goals in mind is something that’s completely appropriate.”

Other voices on the political left actually concurred, including Tim Wu, the man who coined the deceptive term “Net Neutrality.”

Speaking to a different audience last week, however, Genachowski appeared to reverse himself.  “Anything that depresses broadband usage,” Genachowski claimed, “is something that we need to be really concerned about.”  He added, “We should all be concerned with anything that is incompatible with the psychology of abundance.”

A “psychology of abundance?”  Easy to say when you’re not the once providing that so-called “abundance.”  Perhaps Genachowski is unfamiliar with the timeless economic adage, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”  Or perhaps he simply says whatever he thinks his present audience wants to hear.

Regardless, Genachowski’s latest comments only add regulatory uncertainty to an atmosphere that already faces too much of it.

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March 19th, 2012 at 4:37 pm
Spectrum Stall: FCC and Big Labor Impeding Innovation and Economic Opportunity
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With the unemployment rate holding steady above 8% for over three long years now, it’s obvious that the United States must pursue policies that spur rather than retard job creation and economic growth.  One continuing economic bright spot already exists in the telecommunications sector, where several prospects for generating new jobs exist.  Unfortunately, federal bureaucrats continue to obstruct those prospects.  The leading current example is spectrum and, specifically, Big Labor special interests pressuring the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to block telecom companies from buying unused wireless broadband.  That pressure only serves to obstruct economic recovery, because more access to spectrum for service providers would mean greater incentive to invest, and in turn more business opportunities that would raise revenue and create jobs.

For example, a recent study by NDN found that from April 2007 to June 2011, broadband companies created some 1,585,000 new jobs in their transition from 2G to 3G wireless technologies and Internet infrastructure.  NDN also noted that “the investments being undertaken today to upgrade wireless network and Internet technologies from 3G to 4G hold comparable promise for job creation.”  Similarly, a Deloitte study from last year agreed with NDN’s assertion, estimating that U.S. investment in 4G networks could generate anywhere from $25 to $53 billion in economic revenue between 2012 and 2016.  Furthermore, according to their study, these investments could produce between 371,000 and 771,000 new jobs and account for $73 billion to $151 billion in GDP growth.

Unfortunately, union bosses oppose spectrum transactions in favor of their own self-interest.  For instance, in comments filed with the FCC, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) falsely claimed that the transaction “agreements would appear to limit the availability of competitive services, dividing up geographic service areas for particular companies, leading to reduced investment in infrastructure, job losses, and ultimately, higher prices for consumers.”  As noted above, however, independent studies refute their allegation and attest to the economic and job benefits of allowing spectrum to be sold to companies that will apply it toward better customer service.  The spectrum sale will not only boost the economy and create jobs, but also benefit consumers by alleviating the oncoming spectrum crunch.   Greater access to spectrum will also create additional incentive to invest more toward innovation, which in turn means new devices, applications and services.  Providers will be able to upgrade their networks to a 4G LTE that has further geographic reach, faster downloads and greater capacity.

If the FCC continues to obstruct the sale , however, the quality of Internet service and our economy more generally will suffer due to the gradual exhaustion of existing spectrum.  In order to ensure that the domestic telecom sector continues to flourish, spectrum must therefore be made available to those who need it and who have the ability to use it in the most constructive way.   Union leaders should stop playing games that harm actual workers, and the FCC must put an end this obstruction.

December 12th, 2011 at 8:08 pm
Another Stimulus Boondoggle: $4.7 Billion in Broadband Spending Yields … Absolutely Nothing
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If you want to understand how comprehensively the Obama Administration has failed the nation, you need only begin with this point: as the president approaches the end of his first term, we’re still unearthing lurid details about his first major policy initiative, undertaken in his earliest days in office.

That plan, of course, was the $787 billion stimulus package that was supposed to kickstart economic growth (it didn’t) and keep unemployment under 8 percent (it’s never been that low in the nearly three years since the package was enacted).

Last week, I wrote about the case of a Maryland PR firm that got paid nearly a million dollars in stimulus money by the National Institutes of Health to promote how well the National Institutes of Health was spending stimulus money.

This week’s second verse of the same song is orders of magnitude worse; the dollar amount is in the billions and the outcome wasn’t just wasteful — it was non-existent. According to the Daily Caller:

As of the third quarter of 2011, no projects from the federal government’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) — a technology stimulus program funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) — have been completed…

The funds awarded for BTOP totaled over $4 billion, and the average award was $6,217,509, according to Recovery.gov.

Three years. Over $4 Billion. Zero results. This project may not have stimulated any growth in the broadband sector, but it’s certainly going to keep some Republican opposition researchers employed.

March 25th, 2011 at 11:15 am
This Week’s Liberty Update
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Center For Individual Freedom - Liberty Update

This week’s edition of the Liberty Update, CFIF’s weekly e-newsletter, is out. Below is a summary of its contents:

Senik:  Libya: Confusion, by Committee
Ellis:  Air Claire Laid Bare: The Corruption of Claire McCaskill
CFIF Testimony Before NC House Finance Committee:  The Case Against Government Ownership of Broadband Networks
Release:  Leading National Organizations Urge Speaker Boehner to Preserve Amendment Defunding DOE’s “Gainful Employment” Regulation

Freedom Minute Video:  The Alternate Reality of Liberal Budgets
Podcast:  National Security Expert Discusses Libya
Jester’s Courtroom:  Underage Drinker Sues Bar for Her Injury

Editorial Cartoons:  Latest Cartoons of Michael Ramirez
Quiz:  Question of the Week
Notable Quotes:  Quotes of the Week

If you are not already signed up to receive CFIF’s Liberty Update by e-mail, sign up here.

June 10th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
91% of Americans Satisfied With Broadband Speed, Yet FCC Continues to Push “Net Neutrality”
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When was the last time that a scientific survey reported 91% agreement on anything, other than that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D – Nevada) is a really creepy guy?

Yet that’s precisely the consensus contained in a survey released by the very Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that continues to push so-called “Net Neutrality” despite overwhelming public, judicial and bipartisan Congressional opposition.  According to the FCC itself, nine out of ten respondents are happy with their broadband speed:

Fully 91% of broadband users say they are ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ satisfied with the speed they get at home.”

Yet the FCC continues to concoct an imaginary broadband crisis just around the corner as an alibi for proposed “Net Neutrality” regulation.

With this reality staring it straight in the face, why does the FCC persist in pushing “Net Neutrality” upon the American public?  Also consider that the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled that the FCC does not possess authority to impose “Net Neutrality,” which merely triggered the FCC shenanigan of announcing that it would reclassify Internet service under Depression-era rules created to govern 1930s landline telephones.  Also consider that the public opposes “Net Neutrality” by a two-to-one margin (a dramatic turnaround since 2008), and both Democrats and Republicans in Congress sent separate letters to the FCC opposing this atrocious proposal.

None of this seems to interrupt Chairman Julius Genachowski and his slim FCC majority.  “Net Neutrality” will be defeated, whether via judicial, Congressional or administrative avenues.  But how long will it take for Genachowski to wake up and smell that coffee?