It’s official: The era of salad bar style mobile data plans is almost over. AT&T has joined Verizon and T-Mobile in slowing download speeds for its remaining customers with unlimited data plans, once they reach set (albeit generous) limits. Among the national mobile carriers, only Sprint, which is struggling to compete …
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By Robert Hahn, Peter Passell | Tags: AT&T, FCC, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon | Category: Telecommunications Regulation |
 Leave a commentWho says Congress never does anything? In what amounts to the legislative equivalent of a multi-carom trick shot in billiards, the House and Senate have cobbled together a complex deal in which a hefty chunk of airwaves now controlled by television stations will be auctioned off to wireless telecom carriers for … By Robert Hahn, Peter Passell | Tags: FCC, Spectrum, unemployment | Category: Telecommunications Regulation |
Leave a commentThe world is an amazing place. You can sit in a Starbucks in Malibu while I’m sipping tomato soup at a Pret a Manger in London, and we chat for free using Skype or Viber or Rebtel. Or how ‘bout this one: You can pull a smartphone out of your … By Robert Hahn, Peter Passell | Tags: AT&T, FCC, Ronald Coase, Spectrum, Verizon | Category: Telecommunications Regulation |
Leave a commentHeard about Viber yet? It’s an app for the iPhone and for Android smartphones, the neatest means yet for making virtually free phone calls and sending free text messages to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Oh, and did we mention that the voice quality is typically superior … By Robert Hahn, Peter Passell | Tags: Android, FCC, iPhone, Viber | Category: Telecommunications Regulation |
Leave a commentTrue, rural residents have less access to high-speed Internet services than their urban counterparts. But we’re sceptical that’s a bad thing: It costs considerably more to provide broadband to low-density localities, and it’s far from clear that the social value of extending access exceeds the costs of providing it. But … By Robert Hahn, Peter Passell | Tags: FCC, National Broadband Plan, Rural Internet service | Category: Internet regulation, Quick Takes |
Leave a commentFederal law tries to have it both ways, allowing the cable companies to own cable channels, but barring them from discriminating against rival channels. Trouble is, this puts the FCC in the position of calling balls and strikes on what constitutes discrimination. And the commission’s decision last year to reverse … By Robert Hahn, Peter Passell | Tags: anti-discrimination rules, FCC, Robert Litan, Time Warner | Category: Quick Takes, Telecommunications Regulation |
Leave a commentSoon smartphones, tablets and as-yet barely imagined gadgets will be as ubiquitous as MP3 players, opening the door to a wireless future in which everything from professional sports to MRI scans will be available on demand anytime, anywhere. Or maybe not: much turns on the outcome of a struggle between … By Robert Hahn, Peter Passell | Tags: Broadband, FCC, Genachowski, LTE, Spectrum, wireless | Category: Telecommunications Regulation |
Leave a commentRoger Entner, the blogger/communications specialist, makes an interesting point in a recent post. The price of wireless services has fallen sharply in recent years. Yet for reasons unclear, the industry hasn’t seen fit to toot its own horn. This graph below (or at least its implicit message) may be … The more things change, well, the more things change. Google’s Android – the newcomer in the Darwinian market for mobile operating systems just two years ago – has leapt past both RIM’s Blackberry OS and Apple’s iPhone OS to take the lead as the most-used platform for smartphones in … By Robert Hahn, Peter Passell | Tags: Android, Blackberry, FCC, Google, Hal Singer, iPhone, RIM | Category: Wireless Regulation |
Leave a commentIn the United States, it usually isn’t hard to find a phone: there are 286 million mobile handsets and 141 million landlines in service — 137 phones for every 100 Americans. Nonetheless, Congress sees fit to tax users close to $9 billion annually to provide access to those who might … By Robert Hahn, Peter Passell | Tags: Broadband, FCC, Universal Service Fund | Category: Telecommunications Regulation |
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