...more recent posts
Yikes: Time Warner moves forward with tiered bandwidth pricing. I actually don't mind paying by the bit if they would charge anywhere close to market bandwidth prices. But $1 per GB when you go over your (very limited) cap? Are they serious? And the cap on the biggest tier is 40 GB per month?
Of course, if there is no price collusion, this means that the telecos should be able to wipe them out of the game with DSL. But we'll see how that works. Depending on AT&T to save us seems like a risky bet.
Julius Genachowski to head the FCC. Apparently this is a good thing, although I don't know much about him. From the article:
Genachowski was a Harvard classmate of Obama's and previously worked for Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer. He's currently a co-founder of LaunchBox Digital and Rock Creek Ventures, and held executive posts including general counsel at IAC/InterActiveCorp, which owns a list of Web properties including Ask.com, Match.com, Gifts.com, Reference.com, Evite, Citysearch, and Excite. IAC is a member of a coalition that supports more Net neutrality regulations and which also includes Amazon, eBay, and Google.That last part sounds good.
Yochai Benkler (short version: good guy) on broadband funding in the stimulus package. I'm not hopeful about anything financial these days, but it's nice to see some optimism.
"Democrats sneak Net neutrality rules into 'stimulus' bill". Haven't had time to read through this so I don't know if it's true or what the bill looks like. But could be interesting.
Any thoughts on whether Google's practice of edge caching (storing content such as YouTube videos on servers close to people's homes for faster loads, etc, as I understand it) violates an open, neutral Net?
"Dark web space' hides net nasties
--a great headline if nothing else
Flash on iPhone? -- a computer that doesn't support Flash is a flawed computer.
From Slashdot:
"The Obama-Biden transition team on Friday named two long-time net neutrality advocates to head up its Federal Communications Commission Review team. Susan Crawford, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, member of the board of directors of ICANN, and OneWebDay founder, as well as Kevin Werbach, former FCC staffer, organizer of the annual Supernova technology conference, and a Wharton professor, will lead the Obama-Biden transition team's review of the FCC. 'Both are highly-regarded outside-the-Beltway experts in telecom policy, and they've both been pretty harsh critics of the Bush administration's telecom policies in the past year.' The choice of the duo strongly signals an entirely different approach to the incumbent-friendly telecom policy-making that's characterized most of the past eight-years at the FCC."I'm happy with these picks of course, even though I've always been cautious about net neutrality legislation. Not because I don't want a neutral network, but because of the oversized role big business plays in crafting such legislation. I've had this long Cato Institute study queued up for the past week but haven't been able to get through more than the introduction: "The Durable Internet: Preserving Network Neutrality without Regulation." It seems to get at the major point behind my nervousness:
New regulations inevitably come with unintended consequences. Indeed, today's network neutrality debate is strikingly similar to the debate that produced the first modern regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission. Unfortunately, rather than protecting consumers from the railroads, the ICC protected the railroads from competition by erecting new barriers to entry in the surface transportation marketplace. Other 20th-century regulatory agencies also limited competition in the industries they regulated. Like these older regulatory regimes, network neutrality regulations are likely not to achieve their intended aims. Given the need for more competition in the broadband marketplace, policymakers should be especially wary of enacting regulations that could become a barrier to entry for new broadband firms.Still, I'm less nervous about legislation in an Obama admin then I would have been under Bush! And beyond that specific legal question it's just nice to see some people being picked who actually know what they are talking about.
shazam. interesting iphone ap. will figure out the name of the song your listening to on the fm radio say and visa vi a sample check it tells you the name and then kicks you to the itune store to buy it. its a free download ap and you dont have to buy the mp3 at the apple store.
a house guest has it. so adman just downloaded it free. it knew a bootsy song but the next one it didnt know from radio princetons wprb. you can play stump the chump!
The re-incarnation of The WB as a network on the interwebular tubes.
“Since passage of the Patriot Act, many companies based outside of the United States have been reluctant to store client information in the U.S.,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. “There is an ongoing concern that U.S. intelligence agencies will gather this information without legal process. There is particular sensitivity about access to financial information as well as communications and Internet traffic that goes through U.S. switches.”
Comcast Corp., the nation's second-largest Internet service provider, Thursday said it would set an official limit on the amount of data subscribers can download and upload each month.
On Oct. 1, the cable company will update its user agreement to say that users will be allowed 250 gigabytes of traffic per month, the company announced on its Web site.
ok, how tacky is this opening cerimony?
Comcast tried to stop it. Telecom-funded politicians tried to discourage it. Big Media tried to de-legitimize it. But nothing could stop the people-powered movement to hold Comcast accountable for illegally blocking Internet content. Today, the FCC issued a punishment that has Network Neutrality opponents cringing and the rest of us popping champagne. In a landmark decision, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein approved a bipartisan “enforcement order” that would require Comcast to stop blocking and publicly disclose its methods for manipulating Internet traffic.more from todays nyt
Randy Pausch -- RIP.
torrential rein
Verizon and AT&T Score in 700Mhz Auction:
Amidst frenzied media coverage and hopes for changes to the nation’s wireless infrastructure, the 700MHz auction came to a close this week after raising $19.59 billion. Much like a political election, the incumbents won, and talk of change will likely remain just that — talk. Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between Verizon Communications and Vodafone, won the majority of the C block with a bid of $4.74 billion and AT&T picked up 227 licenses in the B block of regional licenses, the FCC said this afternoon.
http://www.google.com/m/search?mrestrict=xhtml&q=3d+dlp#query
this has potential.