Regulatory Commentary Archive
:; Regulatory Commentary Archive ::
Going green: From fringe to mainstream
By Stefan Bewley, Altman Vilandrie & Co.
Although the mobile industry has adopted a variety of environmental initiatives, significant opportunity exists to more tightly integrate environmentally sound practices with standard business operations to strengthen brand and increase competitive advantage...
Public/private potholes
By Ed Gubbins
This has been a tough week for public/private partnerships in the telecom sector. Last night the city of Corpus Christi, Texas, voted to take its Wi-Fi network back from EarthLink, which bought the 147-square-mile network a year ago for roughly the same amount it cost the city to build ($7 million)...
Staying one fix ahead of regulation
By Carol Wilson
LAS VEGAS--FCC Chairman Kevin Martin got it right when he said that the wireless industry is a victim of its own success. In his CTIA keynote speech today, Martin noted that consumer expectations for the wireless industry continue to grow...
Trade show raids
By Ed Gubbins
Patent infringement is really getting out of control in this business. Last week in Hannover, Germany, the CeBIT trade show ended with a police raid on the exhibit hall prompted by rampant claims of intellectual property theft...
What the ITU means to you
By Kevin Fitchard
The International Telecommunication Union last week put the seal of approval on WiMAX, accepting the technology into the IMT-2000 family of 3G standards. The deal has little impact on North America since U.S. and Canadian regulators don't follow the ITU's cues. But there are bigger machinations at work here...
Who owns the network?
By Carol Wilson
The FCC is once again wrestling with some basic issues that affect competition, primarily for business services, in the U.S. market...
Keeping an open mind
By David Waite
In the upcoming 700 MHz auction, the FCC is mandating that 22 MHz of spectrum be allocated to allow, with certain constraints, open access to applications and devices...
Wrestling with open access
By Kevin Fitchard
FCC chairman Kevin Martin has created quite a controversy with his comments over open access rules applying to the upcoming 700 MHz auction...
Competition reality is in the details
By Carol Wilson
I wasn't terribly surprised to learn the United States is trailing Europe when it comes to promoting competition...
Both sides now
By Carol Wilson
As a journalist, I’m always supposed to be objective, but everyone knows that can sometimes be impossible. In the recent dispute between a group of Iowa telephone companies and industry giants such as AT&T and Qwest, however, it’s easy to stay objective because I can easily understand both points of view...
No winners in this patent fight
By Kevin Fitchard
After flexing their muscles in the preceding days, Qualcomm and Nokia have been quiet this week as the cross-licensing agreements that both of their wireless businesses depend on expired yesterday...
Who decides?
By Carol Wilson
Some days, it seems like the services of tomorrow can't break free of the rules of the past...
The patent problem
By Carol Wilson
The voice-over-IP industry appears to have a fairly serious legal problem on its hands regarding intellectual property...
FCC program gets it right for rural
Thomas D. Rowley
Kudos to the FCC for its new Pilot Program for Enhanced Access to Advanced Telecommunications and Information Services: A Rural Health Care Support Program aimed at creating a nationwide broadband network dedicated to health care. Why? ...
About time
By Carol Wilson
Last week's Louisiana State Supreme Court decision that ended the legal challenge to the planned Lafayette fiber-to-the-home network put a punctuation mark on a struggle that became emblematic of the challenges municipal networks face...
Alien alliance
By Tim McElligott
Even the most vehement adversaries can put down their pitchforks and laser guns to join forces against a common enemy. And that's what the National Telecommunications...
Delivering the digital lifestyle
By Heather Kirksey
As more providers introduce triple-play services, interoperability is becoming the true differentiator. Read the latest installment of our quarterly series on standards, by Heather Kirksey, member of the DSL Forum’s Board of Directors...
Network Neutrality
By Carol Wilson
The contrast couldn't have been more stark at one end of the U.S., the high-tech industry was showing off everything that can come to the American home...
2007, we hardly knew ya
By Tim McElligott
Winter is finally grabbing hold in Chicago this week. I'm not complaining, not with so much of the country buried in snow, whipped by high winds; or bailing floodwater. But I do have a suggestion for independent telephone operators...
Wishing for certainty
By Dan O'Shea
You know things are getting pretty tough out there when you see more than 20 vendors band together to urge the Federal Communications Communication to speed up its approval ...
No chance for real change
By Carol Wilson
With Democrats assuming control of the U.S Congress, Washington is bracing for change. It doesn't look like that change will extend to telecom policy, however, at least to the extent that some long overlooked issues are addressed. ...
Shifting to neutral
By Dan O'Shea
For a little while last night and this morning, I thought that the Net neutrality issue was going to to be the big post-Election Day news...
Palm’s conundrum
By Kevin Fitchard
Just when the dust had started to settle, the e-mail wars have started up again. With more than $600 million from RIM under its belt, NTP is turning its attention to Palm...
Bringing Standards to Life
By Heather Kirksey
The promise of a technology standard, unlike a closed or proprietary vendor solution, is that when all the players in a given ecosystem...
Rural Staying Power
By Tim McElligott
For those predisposed to its allure, small-town USA is not going to lose its appeal anytime soon despite the worst humanity has to offer having been on display there recently in the form of school shootings....
