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Sprint Nextel Vs. 41 Schools and Non-Profits
netbuzz writes "A case of corporate bullying, or good network citizenship? Sprint Nextel has let slip the dogs of law on the FCC and 41 non-profits, most of them school systems, in an effort to get the FCC to stop granting these organizations special dispensation when they fail to renew their wireless spectrum licenses. These licenses were granted as part of the Educational Broadband Service. The school systems, many of them rural, argue that they don't have the staff or the resources to keep on top of the paperwork and shouldn't be punished for such bureaucratic lapses. (Some generate revenue by leasing unused portions of the spectrum to carriers such as Sprint Nextel.) The schools' argument may sound a bit like 'the dog ate my homework' to some, and Sprint Nextel makes a fairly compelling case that a greater good would be served if the FCC would stop enabling such tardiness."
The line is indeed "let slip the dogs of war". From Julius Caesar.
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/105600.html
If you want to quote numbers, you should be complete. Below is a summary for 2007
- 586.1 billion (+7.0%) - Social Security
- $466.0 billion (+4.0%) - Defense
- $394.5 billion (+12.4%) - Medicare
- $367.0 billion (+2.0%) - Unemployment and welfare
- $276.4 billion (+2.9%) - Medicaid and other health related
- $243.7 billion (+13.4%) - Interest on debt
- $89.9 billion (+1.3%) - Education and training
- $76.9 billion (+8.1%) - Transportation
- $72.6 billion (+5.8%) - Veterans' benefits
- $43.5 billion (+9.2%) - Administration of justice
- $33.1 billion (+5.7%) - Natural resources and environment
- $32.5 billion (-15.4%) - Foreign affairs
- $27.0 billion (+3.7%) - Agriculture
- $26.8 billion (+28.7%) - Community and regional development
- $25.0 billion (+4.0%) - Science and technology
- $20.1 billion (+11.4%) - General government
- $1.1 billion (-47.6%) - Energy
If you group it by "human services/community/education," "defense/veterans/foreign affairs" you get- $1740.7 billion - "Human Services"
- $571.1 billion - "Defense"
Thus, for every $1 spent on "defense" $3 is spent on "human services."I won't even bother getting into a discussion about tax policy--you might as well argue which religon is best. I will point out the following facts:
- The top 5% of earners paid 53% of the income tax
- The top 1% of earners paid 33% of the income tax
- The bottom 50% of earners paid less than 5% of the income tax
Also, do not forget that individual income tax includes unincorporated businesses.No, Sprint hasn't been "illegally causing interference." All of the Sprint/Nextel radios meet FCC specs.
Otherwise, they never could have been put into service. They would not have been FCC Type Accepted.
Were the FCC specs not as good as they should have been? Damn straight. That's the FCC's fault, all the way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nextel#Nextel_U.S._o
It's also important to note than education is not primarily funded at the federal level. These figures are a few years old, but they show that only 7% of elementary and secondary education expenditure is federally funded.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
If you leaf through the FCC's list of enforcements for failing to renew licenses, some of it reads like the NYSE 100 Telecoms Hall of Fame - with companies like Sprint et al. featuring with reasonable freqency (and others, such as DirecTV). The interesting thing is if an individual or a small firm forgets to renew their license, they get slapped with the same fine as a multibillion dollar multinational telecoms company that should know better. A $10,000 fine for an individual or small firm can be devastating, but for a big multinational, it's probably cheaper to only bother to renew when the enforcement notice comes than employ someone to keep track of the paperwork.
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