The 2009 “Stimulus” bill contained $7.2 billion for local government broadband — the federal government giving city, county and municipal governments money to get into the Internet Service Provider (ISP) business. Shocker: government broadband is a[…]
Residents of 11 Utah cities would be billed as much as $20 a month, as part of a plan to salvage the state’s once-heralded UTOPIA fiber optic network. UTOPIA, short[…]
The Media Marxist Left pushing the terrible Internet policy known as Network Neutrality oft are absurdly called “consumer groups.”
Dear Executives of Internet Association Companies, Have you thought through the global implications of your businesses’ public lobbying for regulating broadband like a public telephone utility? Possibly you are unaware[…]
Net neutrality activists succeeded last week in getting the FCC to officially consider ruling that private broadband companies should be price and profit regulated like public utilities in order to[…]
Watching the FCC attempt to construct net neutrality regulations to lord over the Internet is a bit like watching a child build a sand castle and declare himself king of the beach. Neither has really created a kingdom, but at least the latter is cute.
Allow me to (re)introduce you to the hardcore Leftists rabble rousing for a full-on government takeover of the World Wide Web.
I confess that I am more than a bit mystified at the way FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and his Democrat colleagues, seemingly, are moving ever closer in the direction of embracing a Title II reclassification of Internet access services. No matter how loud the banging of pots and pans outside the FCC’s headquarters, it would be terribly unsound as a matter of policy to subject Internet services to the same Title II public utility regulatory regime that applied to last century’s POTS (“plain old telephone”) service.
The FCC seems bent on overreaching their legal authority – yet again.
At the NCTA convention, Chairman Wheeler said: “I believe the FCC has the power – and I intend to exercise that power – to preempt state laws that ban competition from community broadband.” And in an FCC blog post, Chairman Wheeler also said this preemption of states on muni-broadband “is an issue that remains high on my agenda, and we will be announcing more on this topic shortly.”
The net neutrality movement is positioning to influence the FCC, Congress, and candidates in the mid-term election cycle, to support their version of net neutrality — i.e. FCC reclassification of broadband Internet service as a telephone common carrier service.
Featured · Internet/Telecom · Regulation
Aside from whether you think the proposed Comcast – Time Warner Cable merger ultimately should be approved or not, it’s hard to suggest that Comcast’s announcement that it will divest 3.9 million subscribers does not advance the company’s pro-merger case by alleviating claimed competitive concerns. Without getting into the complexities of the proposed three-party subscriber divestiture transactions involving Comcast, TWC, and Charter Communications, the end result is that, as Comcast promised when the merger was announced in February, Comcast’s total number of subscribers, post-merger, will be less than 30% of the total number of U. S. cable subscribers.
They’re all actively preparing to enter the over-the-top online video business with their own streaming service or proprietary online programming to compete with Netflix, Hulu, and facilities-based pay-TV providers like Comcast, Time Warner Cable, DirecTV, Dish, AT&T, Verizon, and others.
Featured · Government · Internet/Telecom
Network Neutrality is socialism for the Internet – it guarantees everyone equal amounts of nothing.
Featured · Internet/Telecom · Regulation
Consumers know the old adage — you get what you pay for. Somehow Netflix imagines it is owed whatever they want — and it does not have to pay anything for it.
Economics · Featured · Health Care · Internet/Telecom · Regulation
The solution to government interference restricting innovation in the tech sector isn’t more government. But that’s exactly what governments proffer all the time.
The Federal Communications Commission has been much in the news recently — and deservedly so — owing to its ill-conceived “Critical Information Needs” study. Thankfully, after a public outcry, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler recently canceled this study.
As the dust has settled from the D.C. Circuit’s January 14th decision to vacate and remand the FCC Open Internet Order for another try, and from FCC Chairman Wheeler’s February 19th statement accepting the court’s invitation to propose open Internet rules that could pass court muster, what does it all this mean going forward?
Network Neutrality is sadly, yet again back from the dead. Because the Barack Obama Administration keeps insisting on resurrecting it.
Governments do not “compete” with companies. Governments tax, limit, police and judge companies. So when governments try and offer a similar service that private companies have long provided consumers, these governments[…]
Featured · Internet/Telecom · Regulation
As has been widely reported today, Comcast has proposed a $45.2 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable Inc., a merger of the number one and number four video service providers[…]
NEWS: The Heartlander
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