About Scott Cleland
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You are hereRegulationNet 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.
The Dangers of Over-Regulating CompetitionSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2011-06-06 16:00As a regular reader of Steve Pearlstein's Washington Post's business column, I was dismayed at the consistent pro-regulation frame of Sunday's piece on the AT&T-T-Mobile acquisition: "The Revenge of the Baby Bells." The hallmark of longstanding bipartisan competition policy has been that if market players have the freedom to succeed or fail at differentiating, innovating and investing to meet consumers' rapidly evolving needs, market forces can maximize consumer welfare much better than FCC regulators can.
Thus it is dismaying that Mr. Pearlstein crafted a false choice in his column: "...stick with the competitive, lightly-regulated model and... block a merger... or it could acknowledge... the "telephone" market is a natural oligopoly... and... requires much stronger government regulation."
Denying Competitive Substitution is Weakest Link of FCC's De-Competition PolicySubmitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2011-05-31 18:32In order to justify broadband price regulation in the Open Internet and Data Roaming orders, the FCC and FreePress must continue to undermine Congress' competition policy by denying the increasingly obvious and incontrovertible facts that users competitively substitute broadband services between various broadband technologies like copper networks/DSL, cable modems, fiber, WiFi/WiMax, wireless broadband, and satellite.
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