Posts tagged Policy
Digital Feudalism published
Digital Feudalism: Enclosures and Erasures from Digital Rights Management to the Digital Divide was recently published in the latest issue of CommLaw Conspectus: Journal of Communications Law and Policy. As Sascha Meinrath, Victor Pickard and I write in Digital Feudalism:
A Growing Digital Divide
A Growing Digital Divide: Internet Freedom and the Negative Impact of Command-and-Control Networking.
I joined some of my colleagues on Al Jazeera this week to discuss a project that was highlighted in last Sunday’s New York Times. A new type of tool for democratic organizing, the project will develop software to create device-as-infrastructure networks that uses off the shelf computers, routers, and cell phones.
This week we hosted Vint Cerf for an event demoing visual tools for data collected by Measurement Lab. Over the last two years, M-Lab has collected over 300 terabytes of data and the tools are pretty fun to explore. This chart ranks worldwide broadband speeds. Because speed is affected by the number of tests and distance to test servers, this data is available as well.
Wireless versus Wireline Broadband and the Digital Divide
With all the talk of wireless broadband and the digital divide I became curious what the price difference was between wireless and wireline broadband access. After all my Computer may have cost $1000 when I bought it three years ago, but my phone, with the mandatory service I barely use like Voice, ran nearly $3000 over two years. Granted a phone with a data plan is cheaper, but my next computer will likely run $400.
The Wireless Generation Gap
If you’ve followed broadband discussions in Washington, DC, then you’ve heard that wireless is the future of communications. The National Broadband Plan offers wireless as the competitive solution to the broadband duopoly dilemma, and in the recently released White House Wireless Innovation and Infrastructure Initiative, President Obama reiterated his State of the Union commitment to helping “extend next-generation wireless services to at least 98% of Americans.”
If you watch TV, you might think this is a good thing. The whole country is moving to 4G—next generation wireless—and according to some carriers, this is our chance to beat the world in broadband. For Obama, it’s a chance to Win the Future.
It will certainly help us win a future—but if this, as Obama said, is our “Sputnik moment,” we are not reaching for the moon.
Keep reading at Ars Technica.
Speaking in NYC on the CMJ2010 Panel: Controlling the Pipeline; Net Neutrality and Access.
Digital Textbooks and Open Educational Resources
Lisa Guernsey of the New America Foundation’s Early Education Initiative and I recently wrote a piece titled: Making ‘E-Textbooks’ Real — and Really Accessible — in Public School.
From iPads to the Espresso print-on-demand, the publishing world is changing, and textbooks are no different. For example, not only do publishing giants like Pearson and McGraw-Hill have digital offerings, and the new formats allow for the purchase of individual chapters, and more “choose-your-own-adventure” education.
Mobile Devices are Increasingly Locked Down and Controlled by the Carriers
How Cell Phone “Customization” Undermines End-Users by Redefining Ownership
1968 was a landmark year for communication in the United States. The same year when HAL 9000, the psychotic computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey, famously said “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that,” consumers were suddenly freed to connect any phone or devices to their telephone lines. In the seminal “Carterfone” Supreme Court case, the nation’s highest court ruled that a carrier did not have the right to restrict an end user’s ability to add devices to the network. This decision is what made everything from answering machines to the dial-up modem legal, the foundation for the modern Internet.
Why Europe Needs Community Level Network Neutrality
Last week, I led a submission to the European Commission on why Network Neutrality rules are needed at the Community level, a common regulatory framework for the European Union. The full submission and listed authors is available here.
The debates surrounding network neutrality and the open Internet begin with debates on network architecture and network management, but their implications are far-reaching. The Internet is not a direct private link between two end-points but a common pool resource created from the interconnection of tens of thousands of autonomous networks. The value of the Internet, to those who build it, use it, and build on top of it, is not created by any one network or operator, but depends on access to all endpoints being available on a neutral basis to all. If not carefully restrained, the traffic management practices of each inpidual network can influence, fragment, or foreclose the opportunities the Internet provides for innovation, democracy, and free expression.
