About Scott Cleland
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You are hereRegulationDon't Miss Phil Kerpen's Net Neutrality Op-edSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2011-10-07 10:28Phil Kerpen, of Americans for Prosperity, has a new must-read op-ed in the Washington Examiner entitled: "Will Congress Stop FCC's Internet Takeover?"
You can find out more about Phil's very important book at DemocracyDenied.org and you can buy it on Amazon here. Implications of DC Circuit Hearing Net Neutrality AppealSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2011-10-06 18:16Since the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals was selected to hear appeals of the FCC's Open Internet Order -- it is now even more likely that the FCC's net neutrality regulations will be overturned in court as unlawful and/or unconstitutional.
The D.C. Circuit is the Appeals Court that traditionally hears cases involving independent regulatory agencies like the FCC, so the D.C. Circuit Judges are very familiar with both the limits of the FCC's statutory authority and the FCC's proven penchant for trying to overreach their statutory authority. In a nutshell, the FCC's legal case stands on two very slippery assumptions.
Why Europe is Falling Behind U.S. in BroadbandSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2011-10-04 15:28The EU's penchant for price regulation is a big reason why the EU is falling behind the US in broadband. See my Forbes Tech Capitalist post here: "Why the EU is Falling Behind the US in Broadband." Why FCC Net Neutrality Regs Are So VulnerableSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2011-09-28 19:00See my Forbes Tech Capitalist post on net neutrality here, entitled: Why FCC Net Neutrality Regs Are so Vulnerable. Opposing "The Verge" of Socialism -- My latest Forbes Tech Capitalist postSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2011-09-16 12:01Netflix' UneconomicsSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2011-09-06 11:58Netflix' continues to exhibit serious difficulties grasping basic economics, competition and value. First, Netflix is lowering its value to customers.
Second, Netflix is shifting its costs to its customers.
Third, Netflix is chasing away the premium content its subscribers demand. FCC Needs to Update Sect. 652 to Conform with Market Reality & Congress' IntentSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2011-08-22 15:54An easy way for the FCC to show respect for the President's Executive Order to eliminate "outmoded" and "excessively burdensome" regulations would be to grant the NCTA's petition for a declaratory ruling, that Section 652 of the 1996 Telecom Act, (intended to encourage incumbent local telcos and cable companies to compete in telephony and video) was not meant to prohibit pro-competitive mergers between cable companies and new entrant CLECs that didn't exist in 1996 and thus have no market power. The FCC Sect. 652 status quo is counterproductive in perversely thwarting a central competition policy goal of the 1996 Telecom Act: i.e. promotion of cable-telco competition.
Specifically, the NCTA's petition exposes a dysfunctional local franchising authority review process that has no standards or time limits, which makes the overall regulatory review process for cable-CLEC mergers uncertain, arbitrary, and "excessively burdensome." FreePress Cries Wolf -- Yet AgainSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2011-08-03 12:40FreePress with its "all complaints all the time" approach to advocacy has been caught once again "crying wolf" when there was no real problem or threat. A new FCC study that shows ISPs are effectively delivering on the broadband speeds they advertise, exposes FreePress for crying wolf -- yet again.
FreePress also continues to cry wolf about its spurious tethering" complaint against Verizon because users are prevented from unauthorized tethering of additional devices trying to bypass users' terms of service agreement. New America MacKinnon's Ridiculous Net Neutrality Revisionism -- Radical Fringe Series Part IISubmitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2011-07-19 14:00The latest strategic demonization of private enterprise by the radical information commons movement to promote net neutrality comes from Ms. Rebecca Mackinnon of the New America Foundation, who recently charged that private corporations have too much power over the Internet and effectively should be regulated as common carriers, when she previewed her upcoming book "The Consent of the Governed" at the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh, which was covered by the New York Times. Ms. MacKinnon in her talk, employed a ridiculously bad and outrageous analogy that Internet users should fight against Internet companies' Internet tyranny like the barons in England fought King John's tyranny in 1215 by writing the Magna Carta.
Consider how the 1215 Magna Carta baseline could not be less analogous with today's Internet baseline. FCC's Net Neutrality Rationale Crumbling in US & EU -- Dead Regs Walking?Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2011-07-12 15:05The fundamental rationale undergirding the FCC's net neutrality regulations in the December Open Internet Order appears to be crumbling before our eyes in both the U.S. and the EU -- enough so to raise the question -- could they be "dead regs walking?" In the U.S., a new White House Executive Order calls on independent agencies like the FCC to revisit "regulations already on the books to reduce outdated, unjustified regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive." Pages |