Slashdot Mirror
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."
Sprint Nextel makes a fairly compelling case that a greater good would be served if the FCC would stop enabling such tardiness.
Yes, because private "ownership" of spectrum is clearly a god-given right, and not a state-sponsored privilege. No, not at all.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
i think sprint means
"the public good would be better served by selling school spectrum to us so we can have better profits. you aren't a COMMUNIST are you!?"
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Sprint Nextel is one of the worst offenders when it comes to spectrum violations. The Nextel network has been illegally causing interference with public-safety radios for years now - and they have missed every deadline that has been set to clean it up. It started off because they were too cheap to filter their signals so that they wouldn't cause interference. Then they convinced the FCC to swap their scattered spectrum for much more valuable contiguous spectrum.
Sprint is the worst when it comes to spectrum violations and those schools should press the FCC to relieve Sprint of all Nextel's spectrum that's causing interference - without any compensation. Sprint would shut up pretty fast if that happened because one's a silly paperwork mix-up and the other's a wanton disregard for responsibility.
The line is indeed "let slip the dogs of war". From Julius Caesar.
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/105600.html
Sorry to nitpick, but:
~ William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (Act III, Scene 1)"Let slip" is an interesting phrase; while "slip" is usually unintentional, "let slip" suggests at least knowledge of what is to come.
Kind of like "accidental" takedown notices that impact legitimate content or lawsuit flurries certain to hit at least a few grandmothers without computers, no?
1. Buy calendar
2. Mark date that license has to be renewed
3. Renew license when that date arrives
3. ???
4. No loss of spectrum!!!
Seriously, anyone who pays monthly bills generally figures out a simple, cheap system like this. Nothing to remember except checking the calendar.
I do not believe that the school system's repeated failure to renew on time is the most important issue here. The disturbing thing is that these educational systems have been forced to generate revenue by leasing portions of the spectrum to corporations. When educational departments are driven to things like this, what message does it send - scream, even - to the people? Right now, I am thinking it is along the lines of:
"We do not give two shits about education for the masses. We would rather funnel all of the money that we receive from taxpaying people into bombs, missiles, tanks, warplanes, weapons of mass destruction, et cetera."
When you take thirty seconds and look up government expenditures, it is actually plain as day. Here are the figures for defense versus education in 2004:
Defense: totalled $456 billion.
Education: totalled $88 billion.
source (warning: there may be some flash nasties at this site, but the figures are likely elsewhere on the 'net as well.)
If that does not anger the average person, I honestly do not know what will. While I was perusing the figures, I thought these two were also rather telling:
Also from 2004, cumulative, the amount that our government took in from taxes:
Individual Income Taxes: totalled $809 billion.
Corporate Income Taxes: totalled $189.4 billion.
I would say that there is a bit of a disparity there. I will leave it up to everyone to draw their own conclusions as to why.
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
The article claims that some school districts are making money from on-leasing their unused spectrum. I would have thought that keeping your licenses up to date for something that provides you with income is just good sense.
Well I guess that finally answers the perennial question "Who let the dogs out?"
Saying your "phone ran out of batteries" is like saying your "car ran out of gas tanks".
You have made a mistake. The proper term for an evil nasty has been officially changed from 'Communist' to 'Terrorist'. I am really surprised that you missed the memo. Please correct the verbiage in any future correspondence.
Just as a baseline rule, I would be highly suspicous of a private corporation's arguments that strictly enforcing a regulation against non-profits and public entities somehow benefits the public good. Corporations are obligated to act in the interests of their shareholders, not for the public good. There is almost always some matter of consequence that will benefit the corporation that the corporation is not disclosing; in this particular situation, it is not difficult to speculate as to Sprint Nextel's less altruistic motives. I'm not saying that Nextel necessarily has the weaker argument, but I would certainly be more skeptical of their assertions than the article summary.
A corporation, doing what it's designed to do, never ever ever serves the greater good unless "the profitable thing" happens to line up with "the greater good".
And seriously, licensing of radio frequencies has come up a number of times on this site previously. I'm always inclined to say that frequency licensing is really stupid and can be solved in another manner these days.
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
Don't believe for a second that the tax code leans too heavilly on wealthy people, or that wealthy people are generous with their taxes. The truth is that the top 5% of "earners" are so fantastically wealthy that even with cooking books, taking every deduction, and accounting tricks, the tax% of a #hugenumber still fairly large.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
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.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows