After all the shouting has died down, after the House elects its Republican leaders and after the Senate sorts itself out, the reality is that policy in the telecom sector will likely remain where it has been for the past two years – in state of suspended animation.  That’s a shame, because the people who can most benefit by some reasonable and commonsense changes may not have the opportunity to do so.

It’s not at all difficult to look at all that went on over the last couple of weeks and wonder if the Open Internet was only a grand dream that never existed, or was a phenomenon that appeared all too briefly and then was gone.  Either way, there are more losers than winners.

Every once in a while, an obscure bureaucratic notice can crack open some wide vistas of unintended understanding.  So it was on October 5, when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a “hearing designation order” on a complaint filed by the Tennis Channel against Comcast.

In this case, we have a case of alleged discrimination against a growing and thriving cable channel that also provides a window into how the Internet would look if Comcast and the telephone companies had their way.  As you might expect, the picture isn’t pretty.

Tom Tauke, Verizon’s erudite executive vice president for public affairs, made a valiant attempt the other day to try to salvage the policy deal his company made with Google.  In a speech at the Technology Policy Institute’s telecom forum in Aspen, he brought out arguments old and new to argue why it was that an agreement forged between two big companies to their benefit should be accepted.

Rep. John Culberson is on a mission.  The Texas Republican wants to prevent the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from “regulating the Internet.”  Except in the instances in which he wants to regulate it, of course.

The problem is that in pursuing AT&T’s talking points while badgering FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski at a hearing, the former trial lawyer (yes, Republicans can be trial lawyers, despite their party’s dislike of them) has presented a weak case that no judge or jury would ever buy for the simple reason that both he and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski agree on the fundamental point of contention.  Neither wants to regulate “the Internet.” 

Former White House staffer and now (again) law professor Susan Crawford set the Personal Democracy Conference 2010 afire on Friday with a great speech telling the tech community it needs to take a seat at the policy table while important issues are being discussed.

Watch it here.

Also at the conference, I was on a panel with actor/producer Tim Reid and entrepreneur Lauren Coleman talking about what happens when broadband isn’t available. Tim was very passionate about the lack of connections in his community in Petersburg, VA, while Lauren talked about the need for mobile connectivity among younger users.  I talked about broadband safety nets and what happens when those are taken away.

Listen to the session here.

This is a familiar time of year for TV fans.  It’s the end of the season for original programs and the start of summer reruns for many. Some shows are better the second time around, but some lose their punch, or should, if you see them again and again.


For the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), this summer’s big rerun is being brought to you by AT&T, which first broadcast its blockbuster “shock and awe” show last fall.  Now AT&T is doing it again.  While the FCC may have been spooked by this exercise in intimidation the first time around, there’s no excuse for the Commission panicking, screaming, or getting weak in the knees again.

Today, on behalf of the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition, Public Knowledge filed comments with the FCC about the plans to build wireless chipsets for the 700 MHz band, the band that is going to be important to the deployment of 4G service.  While that might sound as boring and technical as boring and technical can be, it actually has some very important and straightforward real world ramifications.

The New York Times ran an op-ed today by 5 academics urging the FCC to adopt European Union (EU)-style transparency regulation rather than so-called “heavy-handed” net neutrality regulation that would ensure that US telephone and cable companies providing Internet access don’t pick winners and losers.  In an argument we hear often from those companies, the academics suggest that so long as a consumer knows what its Internet access provider is doing, the customer can simply change providers if he or she doesn’t like it.

As reported by Hank Hulquist over on the AT&T Public Policy Blog it turns out that, when we blow away the rhetoric (and we in the blogosphere love our rhetoric), we actually agree on a fair amount and that our disagreement is in the more rational place where one would expect disagreement. (You can see post and links here, along with our discussion in the comments.)