August 2009

Apparently FreePress is concerned that they may have over-reached and may have contributed to a less-than-helpful lose-lose dynamic in pushing so hard for counter-productive net neutrality regulations to be part of the guidelines for the $7.2b broadband economic stimulus grants.

FreePress is pushing their friends in media, to characterize the competitive broadband providers as bad guys for not volunteering to be subject to the new regulations/restrictions pushed by FreePress et al.

Broadband carriers have been very supportive and responsible participants in the congressional and executive processes to try and promote universal broadband access to all Americans soonest.

• Unlike the FreePress line, broadband providers did not proactively say they would not participate in this round of the broadband stimulus grants, they simply answered questions from some in the media that were pushed by FreePress to ask.

It seems the leading goal of promoting universal access for all Americans would benefit from FreePress expending more effort to promote universal broadband access and less on pushing their unnecessary and counter-productive net neutrality agenda that naturally undermines the financial and operational efforts to bring broadband to all Americans soonest.  

Google's latest defense of its Book Settlement in Europe has provided an illuminating window into Google's own cultural-self-awareness of Google's dominant market power over books/content.

In August 23 New York Times:

• “We believe that we are helping the industry tremendously by creating a way for authors and publishers to be found,” said Santiago de la Mora, Google’s head of printing partnerships in London.

• “Search is critical. If you are not found, the rest cannot follow."

The strong implication from Google here is that authors were in proverbial "nowheres-ville" before Google "discovered," copied and indexed them -- proving that Google is the real value creator here... not the author of the content/book.

• Google is candidly acknowledging its unique and dominant market power over books because Google is the only entity in the world with the resources, the business model, the low opinion of the value of content on the Internet (it should be "free"), and the legal strategy to illegally copy literally millions of copyrighted books without permission.

What is more valuable the content or the search?

I love to learn and I learned a lot of new information and insights from George Ou's great new post on understanding how usage caps really affect broadband throughput.

• It is a must read for anyone that considers themselves knowledgeable about broadband.
• Some of it is counter-intuitive, but all of it is illuminating if you are interested in how broadband speeds and their relative usage limits affect international broadband comparisons. 

I certainly hope fellow broadband experts at the FCC, NTIA, RUS, OSTP and on the Hill are reading George, and this post in particular, because George's insightful and illuminating analysis can help take the National Broadband Plan analysis to another more substantive level of understanding.