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Archive for the 'Commentary' Category

Wheeler Confirmation Hearing Tomorrow

Posted by Sam Churchill on June 17th, 2013

Tom Wheeler, the former head lobbyist for the cable and wireless phone industry, and nominated to lead the FCC by President Obama, will face his Senate confirmation hearing tomorrow. The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation will webcast the hearing live on their website tomorrow. He is likely to be questioned on the [...]

Snowden: Hero or Traitor?

Posted by Sam Churchill on June 17th, 2013

In a roundtable discussion, three NSA officials Thomas Drake, William Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe — previous NSA whistle-blowers — tell USA TODAY that Edward Snowden’s claims vindicate them. When Edward Snowden, a Booz Allen contractor, revealed top-secret details this month on the government’s collection of Americans’ phone and Internet records, he went straight to [...]

Amazon’s $835 million Ad Machine

Posted by Sam Churchill on June 4th, 2013

According to new data released on Tuesday, by research firm eMarketer, Amazon generated $610 million in ad revenue last year, up 45.5 percent compared to 2011, and is expected to generate $835 million this year, a 37 percent gain. eMarketer bases its estimates of Amazon’s ad revenues on information in company reports and an earnings [...]

Un-Clearwire?

Posted by Sam Churchill on June 4th, 2013

Sprint Nextel this week sent a letter to Clearwire’s board of directors noting that Dish Network’s recent bid to acquire Clearwire was “not actionable,” citing “certain provisions violate Delaware law.” According to Sprint, “Clearwire’s granting the governance rights required by DISH would effectively require Sprint to give up certain bargained-for rights in clear violation of [...]

FirstNet’s Conundrum

Posted by Sam Churchill on May 31st, 2013

FirstNet wants to build a dedicated nationwide LTE network for first responders. First Net is a stand alone LTE network that largely uses commercial cellular components. It supplements the push-to-talk voice network for cops and firefighters and is expected to cost taxpayers upwards of $25 Billion. AT&T and Verizon invested about $30 billion each in [...]

Kickstarter for Fiber Nets?

Posted by Sam Churchill on May 30th, 2013

Craig Settles, Co-Director of Communities United for Broadband, says in a GigOm article today, that communities may want better broadband, but Google isn’t planning a nationwide roll out anytime soon. So cities are taking a page from Kickstarter to get their gigabit networks (or even community Wi-Fi). The idea for using a crowdfunding platform as [...]