Tales of the Sausage Factory:
Big Win For Community Wireless At FCC

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The FCC released its long awaited decision resolving Continental Airline’s complaint that Massport cannot order it to shut down its free wifi access for Continental customers.

While supremely important for its ultimate holding, the case contains many positive and useful determinations for unlicensed generally. It also contains two outstanding concurring statementsfrom the Democratic Commissioners. You can see Copps’ concurence here, and Adelstein’s here.

That’s also very good news. Almost a year ago, I worried that, with the departure of Michael Powell and Ed Thomas from the FCC, and the departure of Michael Gallagher from NTIA no one would champion the cause of unlicensed spectrum. But as Copps and Adelstein have shown, both in this decision and in their actions in last month’s item on the broadcast white spaces, Copps and Adelstein ‘get it’ on unlicensed spectrum and why it is so important.

Further analysis below . . .

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Tales of the Sausage Factory:
FCC Meeting for November 3 . . . . It Just Keeps Getting Stranger

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The FCC has issued the agenda for it’s November 3 meeting. Gone is the proposed Notice of Inquiry on Network Neutrality. And a number of non-merger related items have popped up instead. Meanwhile, the trade press report a hot and heavy debate around forcing AT&T to divest wireless spectrum to create a real competitor (you can read the comments I wrote for Media Access Project here).

My thoughts on all these doings below . . .

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Inventing the Future:
You've Got Mail!

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I’m sure getting a lot of junk mail lately. In the war between spammers and spam filters, the spammers are winning. I remember Paul Graham speaking five or six years ago at the AI lab about his ideas for Bayesian spam filters. I don’t think there was a single person in the room who didn’t think, “But why don’t the spammers just send their message in an image?” Well, pretty much all mail clients and many institutional filter’s have implemented Paul’s ideas anyway. It worked for a good while, but now of course the bad guys are sending pictures. I feel that I’m missing something important in not understanding why it has taken them so long.

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My Thoughts Exactly:
How to Steal an Election

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There’s been a lot of talk recently about electronic voting machines and the potential for fraud. To bring home just how serious this issue is, the always excellent Ars Technica has a chilling how-to guide on how to steal an election using electronic ballot machines. So simple, even a neocon could do it!

It amazes me how we’ve suddenly gone from a system that, while it may have its faults and has been abused in the past, at least is somewhat open. People would be able to stand at the polls and watch what was going on, and perhaps catch any fraud red-handed. In going to these electronic voting machines that do not leave any sort of audit trail, we have in effect, handed over the security of our democratic institutions to a private company. If we went to the average voter and said “hey, we’d like to hire this company that will collect and tabulate the all of the ballots in our election. You won’t be able to see what goes on within their company… you won’t be able to look at the ballots yourself… you’ll just have to accept whatever they say is the result of the election” I think most people would think it’s a lousy idea.

My ranting about the entire situation after the jump.

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Tales of the Sausage Factory:
Keep Azeroth Tax Free!

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With massive budget deficits, an ever-increasing trade deficit, and fear that our aging population will be unable to support spiraling Social Security and Medicare costs, the Republicans have finally begun to consider softening their hardline stance against imposing new taxes.

Bad news, rather than try to raise revenue from companies locating off shore or megacorps enjoying windfall taxes from manipulating oil prices, the Republicans prefer to tax “virtual places” like Azeroth and Second Life’s user constructed “the World”.

I know the current crop of Republicans tend to live in a happy fantasy world where we we are treated like liberators in Iraq, all Americans are enjoying the benefits of our booming economy, and deregulation cures cancer and whitens your teeth, but GOOD GRIEF!

I swear to God, it’s like Terry Prachet working with Neal Stephenson instead of Neil Gaiman.

What’s next, real estate taxes on Boardwalk and Park Place? Capital gains taxes on Yahoo’s “virtual portfolio” tracker? Income tax every time I fantasize about winning the lottery?

Why Congress needs to stop playing with itself and get a life below . . .

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My Thoughts Exactly:
Quasi-muni wireless for Colorado Springs?

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This front page article in today’s Colorado Springs Gazette discusses a proposal for a private company to provide wireless throughout the city. There would be a user fee; it would not be a free service.

This would not be a “Muni wireless” of the kind favored by many of us Wetmechanics, but still, given my recent experiences with Adelphia, (see Wetmachine article below this one (including comments)), I might tend to favor it, on the theory that anything is better than having to rely on the local cable monopoly. Colorado Springs is generally a very conservative town, despite having liberal pockets here and there, and I don’t think a muni wireless would have much chance of passage.

Yesterday’s Gazette carried another front page article about (outrageous?) bonuses paid by the municipal utility company, and the tenor of comments on the Gazette’s website indicates a quasi-religious belief in the virtues of private companies relative to municipalities. And religion is very strong in Colorado Springs.

I would be interested in Harold Feld’s analysis of the proposal for Colorado Springs, and in your comments too-also, even if you are not Harold.

My Thoughts Exactly:
When access to the Internet is a matter of life and death, Adelphia fails it

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I write this hasty note from a friend’s office in Colorado Springs. I’ve been in “the Springs” for going on two weeks, and I hope to get back to my home in Massachusetts some day. I’m staying with my brother and sister-in-law and their young children, trying to help them through a rough patch. Without going into particulars, both parents are fighting for their lives. Think, transfusions and blood counts. Think, paralysis, wheel chairs, emergency rooms. You get the picture.

Last Wednesday, the day after a storm which had knocked out the electricity for ten hours, a technician from Adelphia knocked on the door. “Tech #6” was his name. He informed me that he was going to check things out outside the house. His visit was a little mysterious, since we were having no problems with any service provided by Adelphia, but I said, “fine.” Shortly later he left, after first informing me that he had detected no problem. Ten minutes after the departure of Tech #6 I noticed that the Internet connection no longer worked. I had been working on the internet when he arrived. Everything had been working just fine until then.

Well guess what, friends, the Internet still no longer works at my brother’s house (although cable TV still does). I’ve spent about fifteen hours trying to solve the problem with Adelphia, most of that time spent on hold, and when not on hold, getting conflicting information from Adelphia customer-service people about whether or not there was an outage in the neigborhood, and when we might expect to have our service restored. I’ve been promised “call back within 24 hours” and “call back within the hour” five times. I’ve talked to supervisors and their supervisors. This has been as effective as talking to the wind and its supervisors. We have received no calls back from Adelphia. I’ve explained that there are disabled people in the house who cannot use the telephone and who rely on the Internet for daily consultation with their doctors. I’ve explained that loss of Internet connectivity was coincident with the uninvited arrival of Adelphia Tech #6. Evidently these considerations mean nothing to Adelphia. To borrow a line from Ernestine the Operator, “They don’t care. They don’t have to.” Or as Harold Feld might say, “being a monopoly means never having to say you’re sorry.” Every promise they have made has been broken.

Meanwhile, the loss of Internet connectivity has not only made caring for my brother and sister-in-law downright frightening, it’s made it virtually impossible to keep up with my day job. But, no time to lament that now. The kids will be coming home from school soon, and I better scoot to make sure everything is OK back at the house. But once things get a little bit back to normal, I’m going to investigate what this “filing a complaint with the FCC” business is all about. I hope that it provides a little catharsis, anyway.

Tales of the Sausage Factory:
The AT&T Merger Saga Continues . . .

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No one could mistake last week’s twists and turns in the proposed AT&T/BellSouth merger for the excitement, titilation and hijinks of the Foley Follies. But by the staid standards of telecom policy, last week’s swirl of activity constituted a veritable Telanovella of intrigue and power politics. Duelling Congressional Committees! Kevin Martin pushes for a showdown, but Dems Michael Copps and Jonathon Adelstein hang tough! Martin stages a “strategic withdrawal,” but schedules a new vote for November 3 after he returns from his long-planned trip to Asia. AT&T offers new concessions, kicking off a fresh round of public comment and criticism of the merger. And what will happen to the Notice of Inquiry on network neutrality that Martin offered the Dems as an incentive to approve the merger? Is it still on the table?

I’m all aflutter, I tells ya. For my continued speculation, as well as my thoughts on the proposed AT&T conditions and how you can still make a difference, see below….

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