It’s official, or at least it’s officially proposed. As expected, FCC Chair Julius Genachowski announced network neutrality rules in a speech today. The new rules will cover not only wireline networks where the early debate was but there has been little recent activity, but also wireless networks where there are battles currently being fought. Well, whether it turns out to be the right call or not at least the FCC isn’t 10 years late this time. Genachowski would like to vote on the rules at the FCC’s October meeting, and the feeling seems to be that he has the votes. So we could actually have a new ballgame this year.
The responses from the industry should be interesting to watch. Not the public comments, those won’t mean much. I mean what they actually do. What will Apple and AT&T do for instance. I suspect that Apple may just throw in the towel on Google Voice, they’ve been getting hammered lately in the media about misrepresenting the app rejection. This FCC move will provide a good smokescreen for a retreat. Does AT&T’s limitation of the iPhone’s VoIP apps to WiFi hotspots become moot immediately? Or will they plead innocent by reason of network congestion?
Probably someone will challenge the whole thing in court, trying if nothing else to slow it down. Nevertheless, it’s clear that there’s a new sheriff in town, and his name is Julius. Now if we can just get him to fix all that other stuff on the back burner, like intercarrier compensation…
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Law and Caesar? Another”Dictator in Perpetuity,” or the potential for speedy, meaningful change that overwrites archaic rules on behalf of end users to benefit from? The former vs. the latter is what the USA has transformed into, one might opine. Too many facts point to established “Rules of Law” being broken and abandoned to benefit the powerful, rich, sometimes famous, who employ the most influential lawyers. In response, those attorneys argue in perpetuity against the “Rule of Law”, so that often, wealthy, bad guys don’t have to follow any rules at all. In telecom, on the other hand, previously established bad laws have a shelf life for the ages, since certain resource flush corporate chieftains frequently use expensive lobbyists to create obstacles for necessary changes to ever take place. The length of time in between all this legal wrangling, positive or negative, continues to weaken The Republic at its core, handicapping and debilitating it from implementing valuable solutions to increase its longevity as a nation at the same time disenfranchising the people whose interests are supposed to be being served. Rome is burning again! Our leaders have scarred the minds of their paying public with harrowing pictures and too many bad examples containing conflicting messages. Pay attention, legislators and federally appointed agency personnel. The people are mad as hell, and they require “meaningful change” to ensure that, “RULES of LAW,” are followed when they work while being swiftly changed when they don’t. Otherwise, the people will dismiss them too, like Ari Onassis, when he declared, “The Rule of Law is, there are NO RULES!” Please rapidly implement beneficial standards, rules and codes of conduct in the corporate telecom domain which stimulate competition and consistently drive innovation! Less TALK; far more ACTION at legislative levels.