Innovation

Net neutrality activists’ criticism of AT&T’s new freebie for consumers called Sponsored Data is nonsensical.

AT&T’s pricing innovation creates a new freebie for consumers and a new freedom for web providers of Internet content, apps and devices that is fully in keeping with any reasonable notion of a free and open Internet.

AT&T’s Sponsored Data offering is no different from other business freebies offered to consumers to market and competitively differentiate their businesses like: Amazon’s free shipping and free Kindle wireless service; Apple’s free messaging and video conferencing; Google’s free Search, Fiber, Maps, Mobile Operating System, and video conferencing offerings; or Yahoo’s free email. A full list of all free and open Internet consumer freebies would be endless.

AT&T’s Sponsored Data innovation is no different from sponsored ads, website sponsors, content sponsors or any other kind of Internet sponsor.

It is nonsensical for net neutrality activists to not be open to yet another free web service. On what reasonable basis is a consumer freebie from AT&T different than a consumer freebie offered by any other competitor in the Internet ecosystem?

FCC staff just muffed an easy opportunity to advance the IP transition on the FCC’s timetable in the National Broadband Plan.

Apparently FCC staff missed the big picture here.

1. On November 25^th, AT&T proposed a baby step forward in the IP Transition.

AT&T did not propose any change in special access rates. AT&T simply proposed that its special access contract term-lengths, synch up with the FCC’s own goals for when the IP transition should be complete.

Instead of promoting investment certainty -- by respecting its own IP transition timetable that the private sector has come to rely on for infrastructure investment planning -- FCC staff announced an unnecessary five-month investigative delay.  

Please don’t miss my latest Daily Caller op-ed “Why Chairmen Upton/Walden Plan a Communications Act Update” – here.

The op-ed provides a foundational answer to both:

• Chairman Upton/Walden’s organizing question: “…is this working for today’s communications marketplace?” and
• Representative Dingell’s core question: What is the need for change?

This is Part 21 of my Obsolete Communications Law Series.

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FYI: See additional background below: two key PowerPoint presentations & my Obsolete Communications Law Series.

Kudos are due to FCC Chairman Wheeler for quickly announcing that “it is time to act with dispatch” on the IP transition, and putting that into swift action.

As the FCC refocuses on the IP transition, some important perspective is warranted.

First, the consumer-driven transition to IP in the marketplace is already three quarters complete.

Please see my latest Daily Caller op-ed: “1G Government in a 4G World” – here.

• It is Part 21 of my Obsolete Communications Law  Research Series.

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Obsolete Communications Law Research Series:

Please see my latest Daily Caller op-ed: "The New U.S. Spectrum Policy Has Big Problems” -- here.

• It critiques the new Presidential Memorandum: “Expanding America’s Leadership in Wireless Innovation.”
• It is also Part 9 of my Government Spectrum Waste, Fraud & Abuse Research Series.

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Please see my latest Daily Caller op-ed: "America's private video market success" here.

• It debunks Free Press' diatribe against cable to try and promote net neutrality regulation and a ban on usage-based broadband pricing.
• It is Part 16 of my broadband Internet pricing freedom research series.  

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Broadband Internet Pricing Freedom Research Series

Part 1:    Netflix' Glass House Temper Tantrum Over Broadband Usage Fees

Please see my latest Daily Caller Op-ed "Wireless Plan Innovation Benefits Consumers & Competition -- here.

• It debunks net neutrality criticism of a reported potential ESPN-wireless pricing experiment.
• It is also Part 15 of my Broadband Internet Pricing Freedom research series.

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Broadband Internet Pricing Freedom Research Series

Part 1:    Netflix' Glass House Temper Tantrum Over Broadband Usage Fees

Competition is alive and well in the U.S. communications market.

Market forces have produced a barrage of big competitive developments in just a few weeks. Dish’s disruptive $25b bid for Sprint could offer consumers a new choice of a lower-price, faster-speed, all-wireless platform for the first time. Google’s disruptive ongoing expansion of Google Fiber from Kansas City to Austin Texas and Provo Utah signals more and new consumers could increasingly enjoy the choice of a new, much-faster, near-comprehensively-integrated broadband offering. And T-Mobile is disrupting in yet another major way with a new maverick wireless pricing model that offers no contract plans and relatively more a la carte pricing.  

These developments are proof positive why competition is so far superior to regulation. Survival is a powerful motivator to disrupt, differentiate and innovate, just as the opportunity for large profit and market leadership are powerful motivators as well.

While regulators slowly fret over how they can solve yesterday’s problems by fiat or opaque subsidy, competition is automatically devising alternative solutions to today’s problems, and inevitably is working on different solutions to tomorrow’s problems.  

I.    Dish-Sprint

Please see my new Daily Caller op-ed "FCC’s Obsolete Wireless Competition Mindset" -- here.

• It puts the FCC’s 16^th Mobile Competition Report into perspective and it is Part 6 of my ongoing Government Spectrum Waste, Fraud & Abuse research series.

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 Government Spectrum Waste Fraud and Abuse Research Series