Tech at Night: Verizon innovates in Spectrum, Sprint accused of tax fraud, Chuck Grassley pressured to give up on transparency

Tech at Night

CISPA is still a harmless bill devoid of new mandates of power grabs, but I’m actually short of new things to say about it this week. Lieberman-Collins is the real threat. Watch the other hand.

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Let’s start with some spectrum instead. Verizon is under fire for trying to buy spectrum from Comcast and other cable companies, even as it tries to sell other spectrum. Note though that observers are saying T-Mobile, recently held up as a competitor who must be propped up by government action, stands to benefit in the marketplace by Verizon’s actions. Sprint, however, is put under pressure to to continued mismanagement and lack of funds to invest in its network.

Why would Verizon buy and sell its spectrum is all over the place, and consolidation allows for less demanding hardware requirements for its phones, which benefits Verizon’s customers. That’s good thinking, and that kind of market innovation should be rewarded, not regulated out of existence.

Look: it’s well and good to try to find a treasure trove of unused spectrum as Mark Warner wants, but hope is not a substitute for making more efficient use of what we already know about.

Though while Warner is optimistic, the NAB is insane. I mean, seriously? Did they miss where Verizon is also buying spectrum, so that it’ll have a net gain? Or that Verizon needs to look to the future, unlike various American broadcasters, who are doing the same old thing, and gradually losing out to new technologies? Jealous much of the Internet, NAB?

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Speaking of Sprint, New York is accusing the firm of seven years of tax fraud. If true, it just makes the firm’s failure to compete even more baffling, and FCC’s desperate measures to prop them up even dumber.

Don’t copy that floppy! BSA to focus on “anti-piracy”. I imagine lots of lobbying will be involved, though. Perhaps even of Obama’s copyright chief.

Anontards butthurt that their cheating did not go unpunished by Time. Let’s not pretend they didn’t try to rig it first, before Time un-rigged it. That’s what they do. The have a history of this at Anonymous.

As FCC gradually gives in to Chuck Grassley on transparency and LightSquared, it turns out that some people want him to give up. Just what are they worried he’s going to find if he keeps up the pressure?

PATENT WARS: HTC denies Apple’s accusations, even as Samsung continues to fight back, hard.

I guess part of being on top is being in court: Apple under fire for a ‘no poaching’ antitrust accusation, along with Google and more.

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