Stanford scholar Gregory Rosston, an expert on competition in local telecommunications, auctions, and spectrum policy, released a paper earlier this year that examines the supply of wireless spectrum capacity. In addition, “Increasing Wireless Value: Technology, Spectrum, and Incentives” proposes ways for the government to promote spectrum efficiency.
During the May 9 State of the Mobile Net panel, “Mobile Location: The Policies of Where,” expert panelists discussed the potential advantages and pitfalls of mobile phone location services as related to privacy issues and how these issues are affecting consumers and Congressional decisions.
In his article for The New Yorker, Columbia University law professor Tim Wu discusses the current state of the net neutrality rules. In “The Coming War Over Net Neutrality,” Professor Wu states that the net neutrality rules are “a pricing truce for the Internet.”
“The Economics of Network Neutrality,” by Nicholas Economides and Benjamin Hermalin, discusses the private and social benefits of allowing Internet Service Providers (ISPs), such as the telephone or cable companies, to charge content and application providers (e.g. Disney, Google, Microsoft, Netflix) for access to the ISPs’ residential customers.
During last week’s 9th Annual State of the Net Conference, one of the panels tackled the question, should Congress rewrite the Telecom Act? TAP Scholar Christopher Yoo, University of Pennsylvania Law School, was among the panelists.
In September, Silicon Flatirons held a conference to look at The Changing Dynamics of Video Programming. This conference summary, provided by Laura Littman and Stephanie Minnock, details the participants’ exploration of the changing economics, programming, and technology related to this dynamic market.
The FCC is set to consider two apparently forthcoming Notices of Proposed Rulemaking that will shape the mobile broadband sector for years to come. It’s not hyperbole to say that the FCC’s approach to the two issues at hand — the design of spectrum auctions and the definition of the FCC’s spectrum screen — can make or break wireless broadband in this country.
Barbara van Schewick’s book, “Internet Architecture and Innovation,” recently released in paperback, has come to be recognized as an essential work on the policy of network neutrality. Given the net neutrality issues in the news lately, the information in this book is as relevant now as when it was originally published two years ago.
Jonathan Zittrain says our phones are basically two-way radios in his discussion with John Moe about mesh networks. In the America Public Media’s Marketplace story, Professor Zittrain of Harvard University suggests “we could use those radios to talk to one another.”
Recognizing that consumer information is the currency of the web, both sides of Congress have recently held hearings to work toward an understanding of how to balance the needs of businesses for user data and the needs of consumers to have some control over their personal online information. TAP scholars James Grimmelmann, New York Law School, and Professor Peter Swire, Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law, were witnesses.