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The 700MHz Question

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the just-give-it-to-me-for-pirate-radio-stations dept.

mstrchf07 writes "The FCC will soon be auctioning off the rights to use the 700MHz spectrum for wireless communications, with the winner being able to choose the direction of wireless services development in the US. With stakes this high, is the playing field fair, and are business needs trumping consumer and technological interests?"

16 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. Well... by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...are business needs trumping consumer and technological interests?


    Don't they always?
    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    1. Re:Well... by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They didn't always. I'm old enough to remember times when it was different.

      There actually were politicians who remembered that one of the big sources of the depression of the 30s was that people didn't have money to actually buy crap, so what was produced could not be sold, products piling up and businesses going under because of it. So they tried to keep at least enough in our pockets so we could go 'n spend.

      Unfortunately, few politicians still remember those days. Most that are on the helm today only remember the 60s, where the aforementioned politicians (those who did remember) were in control, and all our current politicians learned that people always had enough money to spend, so shifting more money towards those that already have can't hurt too much, we'll keep buying.

      I just wonder: What should we buy crap with when we barely earn enough to get by? Let's imagine I make DVD players. Now, you want one, I want one, a lot of people want one. When each of us has 2000 bucks to spend, we'll both buy one. When I got 4000 and you got zip, I'll buy one. You can't afford it, so you won't. I only need one player, though (what would I do with two?). So instead of two DVD players sold, it's only one.

      Extrapolate for the economy on a larger scale.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  2. Dat Wuz Rhetorical Qvestion, Yah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Nothing is ever done for the good of the consumer. Consumers don't buy off politicians. Consumers are simply a source of money.

  3. This is a rhetorical question, right? by Tony · · Score: 4, Insightful

    With stakes this high, is the playing field fair, and are business needs trumping consumer and technological interests?

    No. Yes. In that order.

    They playing field is rarely fair when business is concerned. If corporate interest is involved, there is always a corporation able to affect the environment much more than any governmental regulation; and they will always affect the environment in their own favor, whether it is in the best interest of citizens or technology or progress or any other damned thing that doesn't have anything at all to do with "maximizing profits."

    This is all stupid talk. Some corporation will end up in control of a public resource. The public will get fucked. That's how it works. That's how it always works.

    --
    Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
    1. Re:This is a rhetorical question, right? by nine-times · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is all stupid talk. Some corporation will end up in control of a public resource. The public will get fucked. That's how it works. That's how it always works.

      I think you've hit on an interesting issue in all of this, and I wonder why you didn't put more emphasis on it. The wireless spectrum is a *public* resource. Somehow this whole debate about the 700Mhz spectrum always gets framed in such a way as to imply that some huge company necessarily must own it. However, it's technically public and only gets licensed to some company for commercial use.

      It really must not be forgotten. AT&T has no legal right to own the 700Mhz spectrum. It would be much more true to say that the people of the United States own that spectrum and always will. The question in front of us (and in front of *our* lawmakers (those lawmakers work for us!)) is how we wish to use that spectrum. Even if we license it to some particular business or group for the development of commerce or infrastructure, we have every right to put limits on how it can be developed and used.

      For some reason, we've been tricked into not thinking of things that way. Radio waves travel through the air over everyone's property and through our bodies all the time. It's inherently public, like light or air. A responsible government cannot auction off those sorts of resources without any restriction on how they can be controlled or used. Moreover, what we're talking about here is the development of a national telecommunications infrastructure. We wouldn't let a single company own all plumbing so that all pipes, faucets, sinks, and toilets had to be purchased from that company. We wouldn't allow a single company to own all of our roads and highways such that they could deny passage to any driver or any car brand. We shouldn't allow a single company to control our communications over the entire country.

      We are talking about making use of public resources in order to create national infrastructure. I have no objection to involving private companies in the development of that infrastructure, but the end result needs to be regulated in favor of the public good.

      And no, I'm not a communist or socialist. I don't believe the federal government should be involved in very much. If there's one thing the federal government should do, it's maintain a standing army. If there are two things it should do, it's maintain an army and regulate the maintenance of national infrastructure.

  4. Re:We need google to buy it by p0tat03 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Google is open and free now? Wow! Where can I get a copy of their search engine source?!

    I have my doubts that Google can remain "not evil" (on the overall karmic scale) for much longer. I would think a non-profit, transparent entity would be far more appropriate.

  5. Re:2 words... by jimstapleton · · Score: 3, Insightful

    s/needs/wants/

    I don't think business needs are trumping individual interests - they actually parallel in a captialistic society - without the businesses, the individuals would not get what they need/want.

    No, it's the businesses wants (excesses of money, power, etc) that are trumping individual interests.

    --
    34486853790
    Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
  6. The money by OrangeTide · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So what is the FCC going to do with the money they make off this?

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  7. What is good for GM is good for America by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Our congress is the best legislature in the world that money can buy. They will only take care of corporate interests. Occasionally that line might benefit consumers, citizens and America in general. But that is mostly side effect.

    Just yesterday Newt Gingrich came on the George Stephenopolos(sp?) show and claimed that 70% of Americans support reduction in corporate taxes, 60% support abolition of capital gains tax etc etc. That would be alright if he is genuinely a fiscal conservative sincerely trying to reduce the size of the government. But he opened with "New Orleans is still a mess, ..." What? It is somehow the Govt's job to allow people sandwiched between Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi and the lake to build homes below sea level and keep pumping out water and spend couple of billion dollars in the levy system?

    If Republicans would not take on people's unrealistic expectations from Govt what right they have to complain about Tax and Spend Democrats?

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:What is good for GM is good for America by cowscows · · Score: 2, Insightful

      New Orleans is an excellent place to build a city, which is why a city was built there in the first place. It is an intensely busy port, with a huge portion of the country's energy supply and seafood supply moving through it. Not to mention all the cultural stuff which is much harder to quantify.

      You can argue whether the city should've been built there all day if you want, but at the end of the day, the city's there, it's been there for hundreds of years. There are hundreds of thousands of people in the city, and hundreds of thousands more living around the city. There are hundreds of billions of dollars worth of buildings, homes, infrastructure, etc. that already exist, much of which is functional and in use.

      And don't forget that the majority of the damage that the city suffered was due to failures in the protection system that the federal government built, controlled, and told the citizens was safe. In exchange for the protection, the citizens of New Orleans and Louisiana allowed the federal government to have their way with our coastline, primarily for the benefit of the country as a whole in terms of providing energy (oil).

      Helping New Orleans rebuild and improving the storm protection and coastal restoration is the least the rest of the country could do. The amount of resources it would take to start making some significant progress is a small fraction of what our government has available to it, and it's really a shame that our priorities won't let that happen.

      --

      One time I threw a brick at a duck.

  8. Re:We need google to buy it by unity100 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    its the best we got at our hands pal.

    --
    Read radical news here
  9. Business vs. Consumer by VeteranNoob · · Score: 3, Insightful

    are business needs trumping consumer and technological interests?

    YES. Where have you been?

    At least in the US, it has become so painfully obvious that our government's number one priority is Big Business. Watch the bills that are drawn and enacted in this country and you will quickly see that almost all of them are catering to business interests and, most likely, trampling on individuals' rights.

    --
    Adapt, adopt, or get out of the way!
  10. Re:We need google to buy it by timeOday · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The question isn't really whether whoever gets the spectrum is evil, but rather how well their interests align with those of the user base (you and me). Google is in a rather special situation because 1) they are not a network provider (like Verizon and Comcast, whose goal is maximize revenue from - yet minimize investment in - infrastructure), yet 2) google is not a normal content provider, either - mainly they provide links to other content, since their main product is advertising. What this means is that google has a unique business interest in encouraging new services - especially data services - that (i.e.) Verizon does not.

    Here's the best paragraph from the article:

    Will Google buy the spectrum? They certainly have enough spare cash to do so. If they do, it seems unlikely that they would operate the network themselves since it's a long way away from their core business. Instead, they would be likely to sublicense it to other players with the four conditions they originally hoped the FCC would impose [ensuring open services and open networks].
    If this were to happen, I think it would be a good example of the free market working as intended. US cellphone companies are destroying much of the value of the spectrum they control in order to serve their own narrow interests (e.g. charging hundreds of dollars per megabyte for SMS messages). Since google's business model provides more value to more people, google has more cash on hand to win the bandwidth auction. With any luck this could all work out just right.
  11. Re:Total bandwidth? by rcw-work · · Score: 3, Insightful

    it would seem that 700 Mhz spectrum would only give you 15 MB/s of available bandwidth

    You're trying to compare two separate units. 15MB/sec is not an amount of bandwidth, it is a bitrate. Bitrates much, much higher than the bandwidth can easily be achieved if you have a high enough signal-to-noise ratio. For example, a "56k" modem can achieve 53000bps in 3000hz of bandwidth. Similarly, low bitrates can still be achieved even with signal-to-noise ratios much less than one (GPS does 50bps with signals less than one thousandth the strength of the noise floor).

    To determine error-free bitrate, you need to know how much bandwidth you have, how much signal you have, how much noise you have, and also what the spectral efficiency of the modulation technique you are using is. The formula is called Shannon's Theorem.

    In other words, once the FCC announces what the maximum allowable power is for this band, then you can start speculating on how much data you can pump through it.

  12. Where's the 'Duh' Meta-tag when you need it? by PPH · · Score: 1, Insightful

    are business needs trumping consumer and technological interests?

    Did Congress and/or the FCC commissioners flunk Econ 101? If they auction the spectrum off, the eventual winners will need a business plan that produces some return on this investment. The greater the auction price, the more they have to earn. The more they have to earn, the more they are going to have to squeeze out of the eventual consumers.


    Sure, its not absolute. They still have to provide service that consumers will 'want' (even if they employ cunning marketing skills to generate that want) or nobody will buy. The primary error in this auction scheme is that consumer benefit will best be served by the fees they are willing to pay. This might be true of commodities, but if the gov't wants to encourage innovation, they are going to have to provide a cost structure that allows risky investments without high financial losses sholud they fail. Bidding the resource costs up ensures that only 'safe' technologies will be developed.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  13. Re:I think someone has a sig relevant to this news by nine-times · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, it is an interesting use of the joke. First, Yakov Smirnoff's version of the joke was usually to have the reverse of America, but have the American version make sense, but the Russian version paint a bad picture of Russia. The GGP post reverses this, having the Russian thing make sense and the American be corrupt. Since the joke is about reversal in the first place, reversing the reversal is in itself a bit funny.

    Also, the jokes were originally meant to be a bit dark and ironic, and then used as a Slashdot cliche they were usually ironically ironic, resulting in a sort of nonsensical whimsey. Now, another layer of irony is added, almost returning the joke to its original sense, but I would say not quite to its original sense. So much irony has basically made it a non-joke, and simply a piercing critique of current US policy. It's pointing out that as ridiculously backwards as Soviet Russia was, it still may have been less backwards than we are now.

    Now, did I really have to explain myself like that?