Citizens may soon have a friend at the FCC table

Reuters looks at Obama's pick for the new head of the FCC, Julius Genachowski.

"We suspect Mr. Genachowski would seek to spur and protect competition from wireless carriers (including Sprint Nextel Corp and Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile) and others as a counterweight to telco/cable wired broadband dominance," Stifel Nicolaus analyst Rebecca Arbogast said.

Hallelujah.

[#1 posted by dculberson , January 13, 2009 11:50 AM]

Goble, gooble!

[#2 posted by noen , January 13, 2009 12:03 PM]

La Pequeña Obama!

[#3 posted by sophiap , January 13, 2009 12:15 PM]

@#1 one of us!

[#4 posted by zuzu , January 13, 2009 12:22 PM]

So, not Larry Lessig, then?

What about the open spectrum movement?

[#5 posted by Anonymous , January 13, 2009 4:23 PM]

I don't think continued competition of the free market IS necessarily the solution. That has in part gotten us where we are today.

Radio has chased its tail until one overly conservative company has made cookie cutter stations of the entire broadcast spectrum.

Competitive measures have had cable and telcos bending over backwards to cripple their own products, and keep them at a barely good enough level, and kept them from expanding into markets they do not consider wealthy enough to invest in.

The New FCC should make it a priority to get the US on the top as far as broadband access is concerned.

[#6 posted by zuzu , January 13, 2009 6:27 PM]

I don't think continued competition of the free market IS necessarily the solution. That has in part gotten us where we are today.

That's a misunderstanding at best.

Radio has chased its tail until one overly conservative company has made cookie cutter stations of the entire broadcast spectrum.

Because the FCC is politically captured due to its granting of monopoly licenses.

Open spectrum and cognitive radio eliminate the need for monopoly-based use of the radio spectrum.

Competitive measures have had cable and telcos bending over backwards to cripple their own products, and keep them at a barely good enough level, and kept them from expanding into markets they do not consider wealthy enough to invest in.

Competition?! What competition? I don't think the duopoly of "cable company or telephone company" (i.e. Comcast or Verizon) qualifies.

Those telecom monopolies were the direct result of the well-intentioned universal service mandates.

The New FCC should make it a priority to get the US on the top as far as broadband access is concerned.

In terms of realpolitik, I'm not opposed to municipalities underwriting local loop fibre to the curb and then letting companies compete to provide Internet access over it, while keeping the WAN open for local peer-to-peer access.

$15/month 100Mbps symmetric (up and down) is achievable this way, but again the political capture by the telecoms (and their monopoly use of the rights of way) has been an obstacle to its realization. (Even when local property tax payers were willing to float a bond to pay for the fibre to the curb because Verizon was unwilling to invest in FiOS there.)

p.s. Verizon FiOS doesn't (yet) do any of that shady throttling or QoS tiering that Comcast does. Their infrastructure can handle the growing use of bandwidth. IIRC, their PON can handle something like 2.5Gbps per physical link.

[#7 posted by gwizah , January 15, 2009 7:54 AM]

Whoa, I just realized that's none other than Angelo Rossitto in that picture, AKA "Master" Blaster. I take it that shot is from "freaks"?