For years, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) fought the White Spaces Coalition and others interested in making US "TV white spaces" available for broadband, Wi-Fi or indeed, any new purpose. When the FCC voted 5-0 to permit license exempt use of TV White Spaces, the industry brought suit in Federal court. And they did this, despite rules in the FCC's decision that are so restrictive that, for now, white spaces devices are doomed to commercial failure. more
The success of smart phone, in particular the iPhone, is both a blessing and a curse for the mobile operators. On the one hand it has broken into the monopolistic business models used by most operators and has most certainly loosened part of their stranglehold; on the other, these phones have increased usage on their networks. But these cracks are going to continue and will eventually lead to similar structural changes in the mobile industry to the ones we are currently experiencing in the fixed market. more
There is a difference between rhetorical leadership and actually instituting regulations. As the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) chair Konrad von Finckenstein said on October 21: "Canada is the first country to develop and implement a comprehensive approach to internet traffic management practices." In a regulatory policy decision, the CRTC affirmed that it already has sufficient legislative authority within Canada's Telecom Act to police discriminatory practices by ISPs. Similar clauses do not exist in US legislation. more
The global telecoms industry numbers remain impressive: By 2020 there will be 6 billion mobile subscribers -- of which, according to Nokia, 95% will have access to wireless broadband by 2015, and by 2020, there will also be 3 billion fixed broadband subscribers. However the relevance of these numbers will decline. By 2020 there will be 50 billion fixed and mobile connections. more
ARCchart is selling a new report entitled Mobile Broadband Performance of Carrier Networks. I can't personally justify the purchase, but I notice this wonderful graph in their sample. ARCchart gave mobile users free speed test applications... more
Jules (Julius Genakowski) may soon have a stark choice: should U.S. wireless prices go up or down? Jules talks a good game about wanting more competition and the evidence is overwhelming that going from 6 to 4 majors resulted in higher prices. Merrill Lynch a while back calculated margins went up $billions each year because of the consolidation. You can hire an economist to say almost anything, and two at the University of Chicago happily stretched the truth on this in the past. But the evidence both academic and common sense is clear. more
Hardly a week goes by without a press release touting how soon we'll be using a Long Term Evolution (LTE) wireless network. Verizon has promised a major commercial launch in 2010 and a two-city trial before the end of 2009. Let me show you a little chart I put together for my 3G Tutorial and have repeatedly updated... more
The FCC has posed a number of provocative questions to AT&T regarding the fact that iPhone subscribers cannot download and use the Google Voice application. AT&T should stifle every motivation to play cute or clever with the FCC. Apple adopted such a strategy when it suggested to the Library of Congress and others that it would be curtains for the free world if iPhone owners could hack, jailbreak, tether, and otherwise use their handsets without fear of violating the prohibition on circumventing copyright laws contained in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. more
Google has undertaken a beta-test of a telephony platform that includes the opportunity to route incoming calls to multiple devices and telephone numbers as well as free domestic long distance service. Google offers a service that fits somewhere between computer-to-computer, Internet telephony and Voice over the Internet Protocol telephony with access to and from the public switched telephone network. These service categories present polar opposites for U.S. regulatory purposes... more
On Friday, the decision to deregulate "special access" circuits was upheld. The case had been brought by the Ad Hoc Committee, a long standing body of large business users, one of the main categories of buyers of high capacity leased lines to interconnect business premises. more
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