Tales of the Sausage Factory

An insider’s view of the media hegemony

Farewell to Commissioner Deborah Tate

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As I observed back awhile ago when describing possible scenarios for the FCC, Commissioner Deborah Tate would need to depart when the 110th Congress expired and the 111th Congress convened at Noon on January 3, 2009. So, at the FCC’s pro forma meeting on December 30, Commissioner Tate stepped down and made her farewell address. Despite the rather tense atmosphere that often prevails on the 8th Floor of the FCC these day, her fellow Commissioners used most of the meeting time to say many nice things in appreciation of her tenure.

Allow me to add my own appreciation for Commissioner Tate’s service. This may come as a surprise to some, given that I disagreed with Tate a fair amount on most matters of substance. As others have noted, Tate voted along fairly standard Republican lines — generally shying away from regulation of “the market” despite a sincere concern about consumer welfare. (I should add that despite her much publicized comments about the dangers of Worlds of Warcraft, her support for strong digital right management and urging ISPs do more to block content potentially harmful to minors, Tate still generally followed a deregulatory line in simply urging industry to voluntarily do more and raising this in the context of voting against the Comcast/Bittorrent Order).

But let me tell a little story below which illustrates why Commissioner Tate deserves a respectful farewell even from staunch progressives such as myself.

More below . . . .

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Fairpoint Flare Up, Next Net Neutrality Flare Up Or Another Misunderstanding?

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I am seeing in a few places such as App Rising and Slashdot that Fairpoint is planing to force subscribers to use its webmail portal even if they get Yahoo, MSN, or AOL email. This would, of course, be a major violation of the FCC’s “Four Freedoms” by preventing users from accessing the legal content or services they want to access. Which makes me somewhat skeptical that this is actually what Fairpoint intends.

For those just tuning in, Fairpoint acquired most of Verizon’s high-cost rural systems in Maine, NH and VT. Leaving aside the underlying logic and value of the deal to the various parties and local subscribers, the critical point is that Fairpoint will complete its take over of these systems and cease operating them as part of the VZ network on January 31, 2009.

What started the current rumor about Fairpoint’s plans is this article in the Rutlan, VT Herald detailing changes for local subscribers. In particular, the article notes that as a result of the change, users will get Fairpoint.net addresses rather than Verizon.net addresses, and will need to reconfigure their mail clients to pull mail from Fairpoint rather than VZ. Then comes this quote:

Web-based e-mail users can continue to access their e-mail at the Verizon Web site until Feb. 6. After that date, Fastiggi said users will need to log on to www.MyFairPoint.net. Customers then click on Web mail and type in their existing user name@myfairpoint.net and existing password.

AOL, Yahoo! and MSN subscribers will continue to have access to content but will no longer be able to access their e-mail through the third party Web site. Instead, Yahoo! and other third party e-mail will be accessed directly at the MyFairPoint.net portal.

Most folks are reading this as saying that Fairpoint plans to require all users of these services to use the Fairpoint mail portal. But I notice that these are all companies that have various sorts of co-branding agreements with Verizon. This suggests a different interpretation.

Right now, as I understand it, if you are a Verizon-Yahoo customer (or other third party customer) than you have certain access privileges that integrate email to either Verizon or the third-party email service seemlessly. Our VZ-Yahoo customer logs into mail at either VZ or Yahoo’s portal and sees all mail addressed either to xxxx@verizon.net or xxxx@yahoo.com. I should stress that as I am not a VZ subscriber, I am not entirely clear on the details. But it boils down to the fact that VZ has negotiated certain application deals to make itself more attractive and that these deals are seemless to the subscriber. Fairpoint, obviously, does not have these thrid party deals.

What I think the article is trying to say is that whetver special value-add services you got from being a VZ-AOL or VZ-MSN or VZ-Yahoo subscriber, these disappear when Fairpoint takes over on January 31. Rather than have an integrated mail platform for both email addresses, you will need to go to AOL.com and go to their mail portal, which will provide only the mail addressed to xxx@aol.com, and go to the Fairpoint web portal separately to get your email addressed to xxxx@fairpoint.net. But Fairpoint is not planing on interfering with you going to AOL.com and using their website to read your email.

This explanation would make much more sense than the idea that Fairpoint will force you to read any third party email through the Fairpoint web portal. For one thing, it really doesn’t make sense to force all email users to give up their web-based third party emails to use Fairpoint. Nor does it make sense that they would give you access to the entire third party website except their email portal. They could, but why do it? Finally, given what happened to Comcast when they interfered with applications in a much more subtle way that was arguably linked to network management, I can’t imagine what would prompt Fairpoint to court an FCC complaint — especially when state regulators had previously voiced concern about Fairpoint’s ability to provide broadband service for local subcribers.

In any event, I await clarification before going ballistic or engaging in another round of breathless “network neutrality violation” stories. If I’m right and this is just a notice that Fairpoint cannot honor deals made between Verizon and third-party service providers, all well and good. If it is Fairpoint for some reason trying to force customers to abandon third-party email providers and use only Fairpoint, then we have another NN complaint and, most likely, a user revolt and angry letters from various members of Congress and state officials.

Stay tuned . . . .

My Simple Net Neutrality Fix.

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In what Rob Friedan accurately describes as an obtuseness so thorough it looks suspiciously like deliberate misinformation, the Wall St. J. has yet another piece on what it imagines the network neutrality fight is about and why the best thing in the whole wide world is to do nothing.

Rather than rehash old ground (Rob does a fairly good job of it in his post), I will move on to my handy and simple network neutrality solution. “Simple,” in the sense of being a fairly straightforward piece of legislation. It would pass the buck back to the FCC for implementation — with all the attendant hassle and complications that brings. But from a Congressional standpoint, it is really quite straightforward. In fact, Congress already resolved this problem once a long time ago, back when the FCC was struggling with them new-fangled mobile wireless networks.

How did they do it? And what would I do for broadband? See below . . . .

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Why Lary Lessig's FCC Reboot Will Crash.

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On of my favorite die-hard Libertarian writers these days is David Friedman. Part of that is because we have known each other 20 years or so (albeit in a somewhat different context), and it is in part because if he can teach law and economics without either a law degree or economics degree, I can do law and economic policy without a degree in economics (I do have a law degree). But the real reason is because Friedman actually makes the argument for Libertarianism in his new book Future Imperfect that I think is the strongest argument and that no one in policy land ever has the guts to make. Friedman argues that while you may get utterly wretched results from a deregulated market and no regulatory authority, you have a better chance of getting a good result than if you centralize the decisionmaking in a government agency.

I happen to think David is wrong about which process will make worse decisions, but I think his approach is basically correct. As regular readers know, most free market enthusiasts I encounter in policy land insist that deregulation is the pathway to salvation and that while regulation will always prove disastrous in the end, the true path of deregulation will only bring joy and happiness. Simply let the market be, and the Competition Fairy will bring wonderful low prices and innovative new services to market. Try to regulate, and the Blessed Competition Fairy will turn her face against you and smite you with higher prices, worse service and a plague of villainous bureaucrats. So finding a Libertarian willing to admit that we may actually end up with crappy outcomes in a deregulated world — even if he thinks deregulation improves the odds for a better outcome — is rather refreshing.

I agree with David that we live in a messy world where we will have a lot of problems and crappy outcomes no matter what we try. But for a lot of reasons I have gone on at length about elsewhere, I think we will end up with at least a chance for better outcomes if we have regulatory structures in place that provide needed oversight and protection against the inevitable exercise of disproprtionate power and information asymtery that promotes real bad outcomes (like, say, a total meltdown of the financial markets). Sure, things can go very badly wrong with a regulatory regime. The problems of agency capture by incumbents and the cost of regulation are real. But using real economics to look at how markets behave tells me I’m screwed for sure if I embrace the Libertarian approach, whereas trying to come up with a well constructed regulatory scheme gives me a fighting chance of actually getting good results from time to time.

I indulge in this lengthy preamble to set up my primary argument for Larry Lessig’s piece in Newsweek to abolish the existing FCC an replace it with an innovation environmental protection agency (iEPA). Larry believes the iEPA, free of the 1930s ideology of regulated monopoly that shaped the FCC’s underlying statutes and designed to encourage innovation, would end up producing superior policies that would do things like encourage new uses of spectrum against the wishes of exclusive licensees, protect us from abuse of market power by enforcing network neutrality rules in a fashion similar to the Comcast/BitTorrent complaint, without stifling everything in tariffs and restrictions that incumbents can manipulate as they have throughout the FCC’s 70 year history.

Maybe. But I think it more likely things would turn out like they did with ICANN. Despite moving management of the DNS out of government into a non-profit supposedly managed by engineers and limited to “voluntary coordination” and “bottom up processes,” ICANN has proven as prone to abuse and capture by incumbents as any federal agency — possibly more so because it lacks judicial oversight or mandatory procedural safeguards (it has adopted some, but they are ultimately voluntary). As I observed in my last post, ICANN didn’t end up like it did because it was designed by bad people. It happened because we live in a messy world and expecting that good intentions and trustworthy actors with the best interest of the “Internet community” at heart could magically overcome the realities of stakeholder incentives and econonmic and political realities is as much a fantasy as the Gods of the Marketplace and the Competition Fairy.

I’m also frankly not so convinced that the FCC we have is such an awful thing. Sure, I can think of a lot I would change if I ran the zoo — both in terms of underlying statutes and how the FCC operates. And I get Larry’s point about how the “DNA” of an agency effects what it can and can’t do. But I also think the FCC has become the thing everyone loves to hate in telecom land, with that delightful air of sophistication when everyone important agrees that it is so obvious that things are wrong that no one could seriously defend the FCC and the only real question is how to fix it and whether it is politically possible to fix. But we in policy wonk land tend to focus on a handful of hard issues where anyone of us, given the power of philosopher king, could naturally make a better job of it. We ignore that most of the business of the FCC is pretty prosaic — such as certifying devices under Part 15, processing requests for license modifications, investigating slamming complaints — and that the rank and file employees at the FCC do their jobs with the same reasonable assortment of hard workers, slackers, geniuses, morons and just plain folks as found in any other corporate headquarters. And while few folks these days think much about such archaic things as tariffs and ensuring that rates for basic voice service are just and reasonable, a lot of us would notice if even the minimal levels of regulation left suddenly vanished. Transforming the FCC’s policy functions to be about “promoting innovation” rather than regulating government monopolies might seem real attractive to us in wonkland, but the actual functions of the FCC need to happen somewhere — and I am fairly certain that outsourcing them or eliminating them are not magic tickets to the Land Flowing With Milk and Competition promised by the Holy Prophets from the University of Chicago.

Finally, I grant Lessig’s point that underlying statutes — the regulatory DNA — matter. It made all the world of difference when we changed the Atomic Energy Commission with its role of promoting nuclear power to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with the job of making sure nuclear power plants were safe. But even in its fundamental statutes, I think the FCC does better than most people credit. For one thing, I think the fact that the FCC is an independent agency with members of both parties making decisions is a criticaly important safety mechanism for the agency that controls how we receive news and communicate with one another. Given how the Bush Administration has used the IRS and the DoJ to intimidate political opponents, the Office of Management and Budget to veto regulations it doesn’t like, and the Government Services Administration to award patronage and further political ends with a blatancy not seen since we abolished the “spoils” system, the fact that the Commissioners are immune to direct political influence by the President is not nearly so trivial a matter as cynics like to presume. I also think the FCC has alot of good, progressive stuff in its DNA that — all too often — gets lost in implementation. Look at Section 1 of the Act, which talks about developing a state of the art communications system by wire and wireless accessible to all people of the United States regardless of race or gender, or Section 257 reaffirming the purpose of the policy of the United States “favoring diversity of media voices, vigorous economic competition, technological advancement, and promotion of the public interest, convenience, and necessity.” Or Section 201 and 202, declaring all unreasonable discrimination or unreasonable practices in deployment of communications services illegal.

Yes, the FCC was born in an era when it seemed communications was about regulating government monopolies. But it was also born in a a progressive era when Congress understood that government had a role in protecting everyday citizens from the abuse possible in an unregulated market, and that government had a role in ensuring that everyone benefited from advances in communications technology and had access to vital services. Those aren’t bad building blocks for creating a telecommunications regulator that will encourage innovation and prevent a few huge companies from exercising market power.

So, contrarian that I am, I think that for our messy complicated world, the FCC muddles through pretty well, all things considered. It gets more right than wrong in its underlying DNA, and many of its problems come from nature, not nurture. We cannot hope to cure the underlying problem that people often make bad decisions when confronted with complex problems, because it derives from the overall messiness of the world. Rather than try to create an iEPA that will have its own problems, why not make the FCC we have work right. Yes, the old philosophy that Congress should delegate to an expert agency that would somehow resist human weakness and make decisions based only on merit — or even that all reasonable people could agree on the “right” expert answer — now seems hopelessly naive. But the notion that we should junk the whole flawed apparatus because “the market always knows better than some elitists in Washington” has proven equally naive.

Rather than try again to create some perfect system that will always produce the right answer, I say stick to the more realistic goal of making the current FCC work better. With the political winds shifting back in line with the FCC’s more progressive DNA, let’s seize the day and make what we have work for us. It’s fun to blame the FCC for all that’s wrong in the world, and imagine that we can set up some kind of philosopher king who will make only good regulations that neither “favor incumbents” nor “impose undue regulatory costs.” But I think that is about as likely as the Competition Fairy.

Stay tuned . . . . .

Note to Obama Administration: Please Reform the NTIA-ICANN Relationship.

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One of the sad legacies of the Clinton Administration is the never ending circus of internet governance known as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN. The idea, in those optimistic “anything not government is good” days, was to insulate management of the domain name system (DNS) from politics by setting up a structure outside government to handle the name and number system of the internet. The notion was that you could take a critical foundation of the internet’s architecture, on which a company called “Network Solutions” had built a huge business on maintaining a friggin’ database, and prevent people from trying to control it by moving it out of big bad government and into a noble non-profit corporation. As a double protection, they expressly limited ICANN’s mission to “technical coordination” via “private contracts” and absolutely not, not, NOT governance. Oh, and fixing trademark and cyberquatting issues. And having governments involved via the “Government Accountability Committee” (GAC). And creating competition in the domain name registration biz. And DNS security. But other than that, no governance.

Some of us at the time warned (a) that there was nothing magic about government v. non-government, control over a critical resource just about ensured that government-like stuff would happen, (b) you can’t be “no governance, just technical coordination, except whatever” anymore than you can be “absolutely all abstinence except for the no sex part,” and (c) Anyone who thought governments — including the U.S. government — would just let DNS go its merry way and limit input to an “advisory committee” for a “technical coordination body.”

Guess what? Turns out we were right. So now the Obama Administration gets to inherit the perennial problem of how to deal with all the conflicting interests around ICANN and management of the DNS system — a most unrewarding job given the number of conflicting interests and the fact that while the issue is potentially of significant importance to the smooth management of the internet, the actual pay off for any specific decision is pathetically puny compared to the massive headache caused by making a final decision. Which is why this has festered for ten years.

A bit more, and an outrageously simple suggestion, below . . .

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Did 3.65 GHz Really Cause TV Interference In Philly? Why I'm Skeptical.

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Harry Jessell over at TVNEWSDAY has this story about a possible interference problem between operation of 3.65 GHz band equipment and the neighboring C-Band satellite receiver operated by CBS-owned KYW in Philadelphia.

According to the article, KYW experienced interference on its C-Band downlink near the 3.70 GHz frequency in February 2008, and resolved the problem by shifting to a higher frequency. The interference stopped a short time later, then flared up again in September, prompting KYW to call the FCC. That seems to have taken care of the problem, indicating it was a byproduct of some human operation addressed by the FCC enforcement — although possibly not. According to the article, the FCC won’t talk about it — which is standard procedure in an enforcement complaint.

According to the article, KYW Chief Engineer Rich Paleski thinks the problem was a “WiMax operator” using the 3.65 GHz. Paleski worries that 3.65 GHz will not be compatible with C-Band satellite downlink operation and warns “that should concern every station that imports programming via C-band satellite, which is to say just about every station in the United States.” He wants all television broadcast engineers to be alert for interference in the lower part of the C-Band near 3.70 GHz.

Given the rule limitations on use of the 3.65 GHz band, I am extremely skeptical of Paleski’s conclusion. Why? Because given the rules for operation in the band, no one should have been operating on the band in Philadelphia. And even they were operating illegally, they would have needed to hack the equipment to get within 25 MHz of 3.70 GHz, or have anything like the power needed to cause the kind of interference Paleski reports.

Given the growing popularity of the 3.65 GHz band for WiMax (as evidenced by projects like these), I think it’s important to look at this very carefully and not go leaping to conclusions. The 3.65 GHz band holds out a lot of hope for rural broadband by wireless ISPs (WISPS) running small businesses and priced out of licensed spectrum. Before anyone starts speculating from this single incident that use of 3.65 GHz poses a danger lets take a careful look at some of the facts around the use of 3.65 GHz and why I don’t think this is an industry-wide issue. It’s always easy to blame the new neighbor — especially when you think “their kind” is trouble. But how likely is it really?

More below . . .

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The Google Non-Story On Network Neutrality — And Once Again Why Citizen Movements Are Citizen Driven.

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Both Dave Isenberg and Tim Karr have already cast a rather skeptical eye over the Wall St. Journal story claiming that Google is in secret negotiations to get “fast lane” treatment for its content in violation of Network Neutrality principles. I’ll therefore limit myself to a few additional points. I’ll not along the way that one of the nice things about having a blog is that I can point to stuff I said a long time ago for the inevitable accusation that I am simply an apologist for the Great Google Overlords.

More below . . . .

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How is Senator Corker like Laban the Aramite? Perhaps Mr. Corker and His Fellow Republicans Should Spend More Time With the Bible.

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It’s Sunday School time! And our reading today is going to be from Genesis. Specifically, I want to tell you the story of Laban the Aramite. You can find the details in Gen 29:1-32:3. Today’s reading is dedicated to Senator Bob Corker, who may find some bits of the story familiar.

Now when our father Jacob, the memory of the righteous is as a blessing, fled from the anger of his brother Esau, he came to the land of Charan where dwelt his Uncle Laban the Aramite. Laban had two daughters, Leah and Rachel. He also had an abundance of flocks of various kinds.

Now when Jacob had been there a month, Laban asked: “Would you work for me for free? Say what shall be your wage.” And Jacob loved Rachel, and he said: “I shall work for you seven years for your daughter Rachel’s hand in marriage.” And Laban agreed. And so great was Jacob’s love for Rachel that the seven years had seemed but a few days. But at the end of the seven years, Laban tricked Jacob and gave his daughter Leah instead.

And Jacob discovered this and said to Laban: “You tricked me!” And Laban said: “But here we have a law that we will not give the younger in marriage before the elder. Sure, I might have mentioned that before, but hey — it wasn’t my responsibility. You agreed to the terms of the contract without worrying about the underlying legal background which — curiously enough — is controlled by me and my fellow similarly situated Arameans. And while it may seem like we are just picking on you because you are a worker and helpless stranger in our land, that really isn’t it at all. Now, becuase I am such a nice guy, I will let you marry Rachel in addition to Leah in exchange for another seven years of labor.”

And even though Laban had cheeted him, Jacob was without recourse, so he maried Rachel and he worked another seven years for Laban on account of Rachel.

And at the end of the seven years, Laban said: “Now let us negotiate and tell me what you wish your wages to be.” And Jacob said: “I will take all the striped sheep and all the spotted sheep, and you will take all the solid sheep.” And to this Laban agreed. And Jacob guarded the sheep, and did all that he could to maximize the number of striped and spotted sheep because, after 14 years of working for Laban the Aramite, Jacob was no fool and knew exactly what he was getting into. And time and again, Laban the Aramite changed Jacob’s wages without notice. And time and again, God protected Jacob and caused Jacob’s flocks to increase. And throughout all this, although Laban always sought to cheat Jacob, Jacob did his job as best he could. He stood guard at night in the freezing cold. He watched the flocks in the summer heat. And Laban’s flocks grew vast from the labor of Jacob.

But there came a time when Laban and his sons grew Jealous of Jacob. Yes, Jacob did everything he was asked to do. And everytime Laban tried to cheat him and changed his wages, Jacob would still work hard for Laban. And because of Jacob’s labors, Laban and his sons grew very prosperous. But still, the fact that Jacob also grew wealthy stirred their hearts against them. And the sons of Laban said: “Behold how Jacob has taken all that belonged to our father, and from what was our father’s he has gotten his glory.” And Jacob saw that Laban did not look at him as he had before. Because of course, the fact that Laban wasn’t doing nearly as well as he wished he were was totally Jacob’s fault for doing everything Laban had told him, and because every time Laban had tried to cheat Jacob by changing his wage, God had protected Jacob. So Laban and his sons knew that it must somehow be Jacob’s fault. So God told Jacob to gather up all the cattle and wealth he had earned and take early retirement, while Laban and his sons went off to the big sheep convention in Paddan Aram. (Rachel took the opportunity to grab the household idols as a parting gift, but Jacob did not know this.)

When Laban heard Jacob was taking early retirement, Laban and his sons rose to persue him and steal from him all the wealth that he had earned from Laban. But God did not think very highly of Laban and his conduct. So he warned Laban that attempts to improve the balance of trade between Charan and Canaan by confiscating all the wealth that Jacob had earned was a very, very BAD IDEA. And the Lord would not look kindly on the efforts of Laban and his sons to resolve Laban’s economic problems at the expense of Jacob and his family.

So when Laban overtook Jacob, he made a big deal about all of this as if it were Jacob’s fault, even though Laban had been the one to ask Jacob to name his wage, and Jacob had labored faithfully at all Laban had asked. And Jacob got really pissed off, and reminded Laban that Laban had tried to cheat him like 100 times, and that everytime it looked Like Jacob would get ahead, Laban tried to cheat him, even though Jacob’s labors enriched Laban and his sons. And Laban was all like “well, I’ll still do you a big favor and let you leave with everything you earned, but I reserve the right to cross the border and take stuff away from you if I think you are mistreating my daughters.” And Jacob did roll his eyes, because everyone knew Laban did give a rat’s patootie for his daughters, but said “fine, whatever. Just bugger off and let me keep what I earned you miserable whanker.”

And Laban and Jacob made their piece, and Laban departed.

Here endeth the lesson. Next week, we’ll take up Exodus, and why crapping all over immigrants because you fear them doesn’t work out very well either. In the meantime, I would recommend Mr. Corker and his Republican buddies spend a bit more time with their Bibles. In particular, I refer them to Deut. 24: 10-16. You should find it instructive on how to reform the personal bankruptcy code.

Stay tuned . . . .

Changes for Media Access Project, And For Me Personally.

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As everyone not living under a rock has heard, the spirit of change is now sweeping through Washington like a broom enchanted by a lazy animated mouse. Who are we at Media Access Project to resist change? Heck, we bloody well lead change, we make change. We are change agents. We — well, you get the idea.

So what changes will happen at MAP?

1) After 10 years, I will leave Media Access Project, effective January 31, 2009.

2) After more than 30 years as President and CEO, Andrew Jay Schwartzman will become Legal and Policy Director. Andy will handle policy, and MAP will hire a new CEO to handle administrative and fundraising duties.

3) Associate Director Parul Desai will have an enhanced role in the organization going forward.

Why? Because, bluntly, we need to prepare for a very different world. Make no mistake, the telecom policy world still needs MAP — perhaps now more than ever. As I repeatedly stress, anyone who thinks that we can just elect the right people and go home needs to think again. The new Administration, despite what I believe is a very real and strong ideological affinity for our issues and a reasonable skepticism for the blandishments of incumbents, will need a powerful progressive movement to keep it moving in the right direction. MAP will continue to sit at the tip of the spear on media and telecom reform, pushing against media gatekeepers and fighting for an electronic media that lives up to its potential for Free Speech and innovation.

But we can’t do that by staying the way we’ve always stayed. We need to take a deep look at ourselves and ask some hard questions about how we avoid the trap of fighting battles that no longer matter, in ways that no longer work. We have spent the last 8 years in opposition, fighting to hold back some really wretched policies and swimming uphill to create new opportunities for independent voices. Whatever the Obama Administration brings, I gaurantee it will not be anything like the Bush or Clinton years.

Which is why I have decided to move on, or at least give up my job at MAP. I still love this field, and strongly believe in the Progressive movement (including my belief that it is a movement and not a mob). But the time has come for me to move on to something else, although I have no idea what that something else will be (anyone with any thoughts on the subject, don’t hesitate to write). I have a book contract with Ig Publishing for a book on building the modern progressive movement and developing an alternative to the Gods of the Marketplace (I like to think of it as what Naiomi Klein forgot to write about in The Shock Doctrine, the part where people figure out how to get a better system in place). that, of course, will not pay the bills (especially as it will not actually get published until the fall of 2010), so I expect to do some consulting for awhile until I figure out what else to do. I’ll add that if anyone can figure out a way to make this bloging stuff pay, I would love to know it.

In answer to the inevitable question — yes, I’d love to work for the Obama Administration or do something worthwhile on the Hill. And like every other Democratic policy wonk, I’ve filled out the form at change.gov, so they will know where to find me if they decide they can use me.

But even without a job waiting for me, and despite my general satisfaction with my job at MAP, I feel the time has come for me to move on. Cliche as it sounds, I need a change and I cannot think of a better time for one (other than this pesky recession), given how the policy wonk world is undergoing one of its rare ferment moments when the possibility of sweeping away the established order of things seems breathtakingly real if we have the courage to sieze it and dare to do something utterly different.

I may regret it. But I think not. I like to think I’ve done a lot of good doing what I’ve been doing for the last ten years. I also like to think I’ll find other ways to do good and interesting things as well. This feels right, and I would be false to myself if I refused to take the risk.

Stay tuned . . .

Shure Makes Clever Defensive Gambit Against CTIA/Public Safety in 700 MHz Tussle — $1000 Rebate.

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In an interesting new development in the wireless microphone saga, Shure is now offering a $1000 rebate on a replacement wireless microphone for anyone who trades in a wireless microphone that operates on the 700 MHz frequencies, provided the purchaser bought the microphone before February 2007. I’m not sure why the magic cut off date, and Shure does not explain.

Shure does, OTOH, offer an explanation for why it will make this generous offer — albeit an incomplete one:

“Our number one priority is to provide our customers with the highest quality products, service, and support,” said Al Hershner, Vice President and General Manager of the Shure U.S Business Unit. “We’ve known for some time that the ‘700 MHz band’ would be reallocated for new services following the DTV transition on February 18, 2009. Although a final decision from the FCC is still pending, we felt the need to assure our customers now that we will take care of them regardless of the outcome.”

Shure does not mention, of course, that the most likely outcome involves outlawing all use of wireless microphones in the 700 MHz, and a reasonable probability that Shure (and other manufacturers) will be required to replace the equipment for free. But that doesn’t mean Shure will miss an opportunity to spin its customers and recruit their support at the FCC explain to interested customers the ongoing FCC legal proceeding:

“There has been a great deal of confusion for wireless microphone users regarding the political and technological developments surrounding the DTV transition and the 700 MHz auction over the past few years,” added Hershner. “As always, Shure has a team of sales, customer service, and technical support staff available to answer any questions people might have about this rebate program or their products.”

Hmmm….could this have something to do with the recent push by the incoming public safety and commercial 700 MHz licensees to take this seriously so it won’t mess up deployment? Could Shure be trying to fob off the FCC with a fake remedial action while boosting its own sales and recruiting its customers for a massive push against the wireless guys and public safety? Or is that just my nasty and suspicious nature rejecting the idea that Shure is deeply — deeply I say — concerned about its customers (which it assures the FCC are only retailers and not members of the public ineligible for licenses to operate such systems) and I should be ashamed of myself for questioning this noble voluntary remediation by an upstanding corporate citizen that just happened to build its business on wholesale violation of federal law?

I explore the possibilities below . . . .

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