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Advocacy Group Files FCC Complaint Over Verizon Tethering Ban
Hugh Pickens writes "Cnet reports that the advocacy group Free Press has filed a complaint with the FCC that argues Verizon Wireless shouldn't be allowed to block tethering apps that let people connect their computers to the Internet through their phones' 4G wireless data network. 'This practice restricts consumer choice and hinders innovation regardless of which carrier adopts such policies, but when Verizon Wireless employs these restrictions in connection with its LTE network, it also violates the Federal Communications Commission's rules,' says the group. Those rules say Verizon 'shall not deny, limit, or restrict the ability of their customers to use the devices and applications of their choice.' Google has made tethering apps unavailable through the Android Market for some phones that use wireless services from Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, saying in May it did so at the behest of carriers."
Of course they have to charge extra for data over tethering. The screen on a laptop is bigger, morans.
They own the network, but they license the spectrum. The spectrum is managed by the government for the public good, and as a result, Verizon pays for the privilege, and they have an agreement with the FCC detailing allowed use.
They can do as they please.
People who tether are not harming the network that the carriers own. What is the carrier's complaint, and how does it square up with the Carterfone decision? At one time, AT&T charged extra for the "tethering" of the day, namely the privilege to use a modem on a phone line. It also limited modems to using acoustic coupler technology. Had this continued, had Carterfone not opened up the market to equipment in the customer's control, we very likely wouldn't have had home Internet access in the 1990s.
In an environment where the carriers tell the FCC what the rules should be, or where companies buy legislation ... the 'market' has already failed.
Why does everyone continue to believe that the 'market' is this self-regulating entity which comes up with optimal solutions and gets corrected by competition and other factors? It simply doesn't work that way, and it never has.
The 'market' isn't there to serve you or me, it's been set up so the major players hold all of the cards. It sure as hell isn't 'fair'.
*laugh* So, you think regulating the market into uniformity and proscribing what they can do will lead to competition and fairness?
Your beloved market doesn't work that way, and the carriers would balk and say they're not willing to spend the money or not be differentiated by being incompatible. Seriously, if someone on the FCC can rule there's no problem with a merger ... and then take employment with the beneficiary of that merger ... do you expect any regulation to not be stacked in favor of the big players?
It's an idealized economic model ... it doesn't operate the way people think of it, and it never has ... it doesn't have these wonderful self correcting measures, and regulation/legislation only distort things ... and, really, even if it *did* work that way, the big players would game the system to get an advantage.
Years of watching this kind of stuff have convinced me that this 'market' and 'competition' of which you speak is a myth. Start out with a fair one, and you'll get cartels and price fixing within a short period of time ... and competition won't naturally create better solutions, it will create better solutions at exploiting you.
People don't have perfect information, they don't make rational informed choices, and everybody is out to fuck everybody else over. All subsequent assumptions are distorted ... and, occasionally when we see the markets tank, we get to see how badly the underlying system has been manipulated so that someone gets rich at everyone else's expense. Selling off bad debt as if it was AAA rated investments, for instance ... one big shell game. A Ponzi scheme on a massive scale. And, yet, its proponents continue to claim that it will fix everything.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
FCC Commissioner Leaves To Become Lobbyist