mediageek

Category: telecomm

  • radioshow news headline: SENATE TELECOMM BILL STILL GOING NOWHERE

    From the Aug. 4, 2006 edition of the mediageek radioshow: The Senate Telecomm bill which would create a national cable franchise is no closer to a vote than it has been all Summer. One factor holding up the bill are Democrat threats of a hold or filibuster. Majority leader Bill Frist won’t let the bill…

  • Ted Stevens Goes Postal

    On today’s radioshow I reported on a half-baked pamphlet that Senate Commerce Committee Ted Stevens is distributing to fellow Senators to promote his telecom bill and oppose network neutrality. Click here to take a look at the pamphlet yourself [PDF]. Public Knowledge’s Alex Curis asks some good questions about the pamphlet: Has a congressional committee…

  • Mediageek Joins the 21st Century Phone Era

    I just finished an interview with video and camcorder writer Richard Baguley and for the first time I conducted the interview using the free Skype voice over IP (VOIP) service. And I must say that I am very impressed with the quality and ease of doing it this way. Mostly, I am blown away by…

  • From Today’s Radioshow: Net Neutrality Debate and Daily Show Segments

    On today’s radioshow we listened to excerpts from a debate on Net Neutrality between two founders of the internet, Vint Cerf, in defense of net neutrality, and Dave Farber, speaking against it. The debate was sponsored by the Center for American Progress, and you can find an mp3 of the whole debate at the Public…

  • One Step Closer to the Demise of the Record Button?

    In addition to the votes for LPFM and against net neutrality, the Senate Commerce Committee voted in favor of an amendment creating the broadcast flag for both radio/audio and TV/video. If you haven’t heard already, the broadcast flag would allow all content producers to effectively disable the record button on any digital device you own.…

  • Progressives’ Paradox — Senate Commerce Committee Votes Up on LPFM, Down on Net Neutrality

    Oh, those party lines. Senate Commerce Committee Republicans showed themselves to be 92% against ensuring internet freedom, with 11 out of 12 voting against a net neutrality amendment to the big telecom bill (S.2686) today. That was a much narrower loss than a similar amendment suffered in the House, due to the fact that all…

  • Path for LPFM through the Telecom Bill Forest?

    Thursday at 2 PM EDT the Senate Commerce Comittee will begin marking up and possibly voting on the ironically titled Communications, Consumer’s Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006. It’s the Senate version of the COPE Act, whose primary purpose is to speed the entry of the big telcos, like AT&T and Verizon, into the…

  • Self-Aggrandizement and the Axis of Justice

    I will indulge, momentarily: Jake Sexton is the webmaster for Axis of Justice, the social justice organization formed by Tom Morello of Audioslave and Serj Tankian of System of a Down. Jake did an interview with me on net neutrality which is now featured at the AoJ site. Jake also is the sole proprietor of…

  • Did Your Rep Sell Out the Internet?

    You might be surprised, though it might not be pleasant. My own Congressional Rep, Tim Johnson voted in favor of the COPE Act (even just hours after having skin cancer surgery). His vote isn’t a surprise, he’s a real milquetoast Republican that tends to sway with the party most of the time. But some Chicagoans…

  • House Sells Out the Internet

    I’ll have my own comments later (have to go back and watch the PVRed proceedings from CSPAN to pick choicer comments for the radioshow), so I leave it to Free Press to tell the story: June 8, 2006 Contact: Jeannine Kenney (202) 238-9249 Ben Scott (202) 265-1490 House Ignores Public, Sells Out the Internet through…