Archive | October, 2005

FCC Dems Get a Few Concessions in Verizon-MCI/SBC-AT&T ClusterMerger

As I reported in this week’s radioshow, the FCC’s Democrats have had the opportunity to flex a little muscle in favor of the public interest. Mostly, it’s caused Chairman Martin to delay some issues–like media ownership rules–until the Bush Administration can get around to appointing a fifth commissioner and third Republican.

But Martin couldn’t significantly delay a vote on the big Verizon-MCI and SBC-AT&T mergers. The Commission was already supposed to vote on the deal last Friday, but had to put it off until today because Martin was still dealing with the Democrats. Martin didn’t want to impose any conditions on the deals, but ended up having to compromise in order to get it passed.

Of course, the Dems couldn’t get everything they wanted. Commissioner Michael Copps told the AP, “Am I entirely satisfied? No.”

Among the conditions the the Dems got are:

  • A 30-month freeze on wholesale prices on high-capacity lines charged to competitors.
  • To provide, within 1 year of the merger completions, DSL service to customers without requiring the purchase of basic POTS telephone service.
  • For 30 months to essentially guarantee network neutrality — to not discriminate in providing access to other companies and competitors.

Of course, these conditions are penny ante compared to the billions that the SBC/Verizon duopoly will reap as a result of these deals. Yet, even these paltry conditions would probably never have been imposed if the Republicans had their 3 to 2 majority on the FCC, like the party in power typically enjoys.

You don’t hear much about it in the newspapers or TV pundit shows, but there is some value to the Democrats slowing and mucking up the approval of presidential appointees. If the Bushies hadn’t had to work so hard to get federal judges nominated, there probably would already be two new Republican commissioners at the FCC, and the Dems wouldn’t be much of a threat.

As it is, these deals pretty much send us back to the days of solid regional Bell monopolies. Don’t be surprised when your rates creep up over the next couple of years, as competition wanes, and the imperative for SBC and Verizon to improve service and speed slowly evaporates.

Despite the exhortations of the greedy bastards raking in your telecomm dollars, this has nothing to do with competition and everything to do with establishing market control.

I’m surprised the Verizon and SBC execs can keep a straight face when they say things like:

“it is clear that this combination is undeniably in the public interest,” said Tom Tauke, Verizon executive vice president of public affairs, policy and communications.

Or, to paraphrase Charlie Wilson, “What’s good for the SBC/Verizon duopoly is good for America.”

Continue Reading
lpam_filing-sm.jpg

How To File Comments on Low-Power AM

lpam_filing-sm.jpg
The FCC is taking public comments on whether or not it should formally explore creating a low-power AM radio service. Don Schellhardt is one of the persons submitting the petition for rulemaking to the FCC, and I spoke to him on this week’s edition of the radioshow. He told me more about the proposal and some of the motivations for proposing LPAM.

If you think having a low-power AM radio service, similar to low-power FM, is a good idea, then now is the time to submit comments to the FCC.

It’s easy — just go to the ECFS Comment Upload page, and fill in the form. Make sure you put RM-11287 in the proceeding box. You can type your comments directly into the form or upload a longer document.

For additional information on the LPAM proposal, read the proposal for rulemaking (PDF).

This proposal is just one in a line, just like the proposal the FCC eventually took action on for LPFM was one of several. Radio World took a look at an earlier LPAM proposal submitted by Fred Baumbartner, which only proposed putting stations in the “extended band” from 1600 – 1710 KHz.

Continue Reading

The Future Home of Mediageek

Mediageek will soon be making the transition to WordPress. The mediageek.net domain is the staging area for the change, which is expected to happen seamlessly within the next two weeks. If you’re here looking for the mediageek blog, go to mediageek.org

Continue Reading
Old B&W Studio Monitors

Where Old Technology Goes to Die

Old B&W Studio Monitors
At the University of Illinois the old equipment graveyard is called Surplus. It’s not exactly a graveyard, because a lot of the stuff still works — it’s just old. Of course, “old” is a relative concept. If you’re an English grad student looking to score a working PC for free for your office, you have a good chance of finding a working Pentium 4 machine that a scientist or computer science prof thought was underpowered.

At work I just gathered together a pile of old video and audio equipment that isn’t being used. I hate to send a lot of it off, since it’s cool vintage stuff, but it’s also not useful and it’s all taking up valuable space in our growing production area.

I hope that somebody at the U of I or some other university in Illinois happens upon a working piece of gear and decides to put it to good use. The working stuff, at least, isn’t getting scrapped or dumpstered.

I took some pics of it piled up in a corner of our TV studio in order to memorialize it. Take a peek if that’s yer thing.

Continue Reading

Powered by WordPress. Designed by Woo Themes