About Scott Cleland
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You are hereRegulationFact-Checking NetFlix' Net Neutrality WSJ Op-edSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2011-07-08 18:29Netflix's General Counsel, David Hyman, hypocritically and deceptively blasted the broadband industry for its natural migration to usage-based bandwidth pricing in his fact-challenged WSJ op-ed: "Why Bandwidth Pricing is Anti-competitive." First, it is both ironic and hypocritical that the largest subscription video provider in the United States by subscribers, Netflix, criticizes the normal economic practice of usage-based pricing as anti-competitive when other companies do it, when Netflix has long priced and capped its business offering based on consumer usage. Mr. Hyman must have known Netflix would look self-serving and hypocritical if people knew: Why an Exception for the FCC's "Unjustified" and "Pointless Red Tape?"Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2011-07-06 18:32In a Washington Post op-ed entitled "A smarter approach to cutting red tape," Cass Sunstein, the White House's Regulatory czar, laid out a laudatory plan for Federal executive agencies "to eliminate burdensome requirements that hinder economic growth and job creation," with a big loophole problem -- the plan does not apply to "independent" agencies like the FCC and its burdensome net neutrality regulations in the Open Internet order. It makes no sense that the FCC's net neutrality regulations, the veritable poster child of "unjustified burdens and pointless red tape," have escaped:
More problematic is that independent agencies, like the FCC, supposedly are "creatures of Congress," but this FCC ignored a majority of Congress last year that asked the FCC to defer to Congress on net neutrality. Net Neutrality Proponents are Hearing FootstepsSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2011-06-30 14:08Four recent developments signal that net neutrality proponents of the FCC's December Open Internet Order are hearing footsteps and looking over their shoulder, increasingly concerned about the ultimate legal and political survivability of the net neutrality regulations/order. First, professor Susan Crawford, one of the most ardent proponents of net neutrality rules and Title II reclassification, penned a telling and surprisingly candid analysis of how the Supreme Court's recent decision to overturn a California ban on the sale/rental of violent video games to minors, on First Amendment free speech grounds, very likely helps broadband providers' free speech argument to overturn the FCC's net neutrality rules.
The irony here is that a net neutrality proponent thought leader is implicitly acknowledging that the main slogan of FreePress/Save The Internet and others -- that "net neutrality is the First Amendment of the Internet" -- is a totally bogus.
FCC Denies the Effective Wireless Competition Staring it in the Face -- Internet Competition Series Part IIISubmitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2011-06-27 23:47In another blow to its competition policy credibility and objectivity, the FCC's 308 page, 15th Wireless Competition Report, amazingly reached no conclusion about whether the wireless market was effectively competitive, despite overwhelming evidence of effective competition throughout the report and a dearth of evidence in the report of any discernible anti-competitive issues that would suggest the wireless market was somehow not effectively competitive.
If only the FCC absorbed the significance of the data compiled in their own report, the FCC would conclude that the wireless market was effectively competitive.
FreePress McChesney's Latest Collectivist Manifesto -- Radical Fringe Series Part ISubmitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2011-06-23 18:51FreePress co-founder and collectivist ideologue, Robert McChesney, wrote his latest Internet manifesto: "The Internet's Unholy Marriage to Capitalism," in the Monthly Review - An Independent Socialist Magazine." McChesney's collectivist and elitist manifesto warrants attention because it is widely disseminated to: A Critical FCC Reform Needed To Keep the FCC CurrentSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2011-06-21 10:36One of the simplest and most important FCC reforms Congress could make would be to modernize and streamline the FCC competition report process to stay current with the Internet competition era.
Problems with FCC Silo Competition Reports Debunking FreePress' Claim Verizon Violated Net NeutralitySubmitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2011-06-16 14:52FreePress' latest trumped up net neutrality charge alleges in a complaint to the FCC that Verizon violated net neutrality in limiting access to third-party tethering applications on Google's Android platform, (like other carriers have) -- applications that effectively would enable Android users to bypass standard Verizon data usage plans and improperly consolidate usage of multiple devices onto one device data usage plan.
This analysis will:
FCC Wireless Competition Deniers Need an Open Mind to the FactsSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2011-06-14 19:10If reports are true that the FCC is planning on claiming in its upcoming wireless competition report that the FCC cannot conclude that the U.S. wireless market is effectively competitive, then the FCC is neither "data-driven" as it claims, nor in touch with market reality.
If the FCC is a wireless competition denier in the upcoming wireless competition report, despite the overwhelming factual evidence to the contrary, the FCC seriously risks its going-forward credibility with Congress, the Courts, industry and the public. The FCC's public wireless network blocks lawful Internet trafficSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2011-06-13 19:16According to the FCC's own hard-to-find disclosure, the FCC does not operate its own broadband "public use wireless 'Hotspot' network" according to the FCC's Open Internet regulations that it mandated for most everyone else.
Ironically, the FCC's public wireless network terms-of-use policy #3 says: the FCC's broadband network "will block all inbound Internet traffic to minimize any negative impact" on the network user.
The FCC's own public network policy is also not transparent like it expects most every other broadband provider of Internet access service to be.
Rural Cellular’s Dilemma: Can’t Win the Future, Anchored to the PastSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2011-06-07 17:51
The Rural Cellular Association’s opposition to the AT&T/T-Mobile acquisition puts a spotlight on the un-sustainability of the analog rural cellular model that is on the wrong side of broadband change.
Importantly, most of the RCA’s problems exist completely separate from this transaction.
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