By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  October 28th at 11:00 PM  | 

Not much to say tonight, which is good because I think I’m getting sick again, and if I had a lot to say I’d probably just skip tonight’s Tech. It’s official: the race for FCC handouts is on, as the FCC voted to repurpose the old rural telephone subsidy, the Universal Service Fund (a fund that comes from your special tax dollars) into a grab | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  October 27th at 01:00 AM  | 

Top story is easy to pick tonight. The legislation that’s been known in the Senate as PROTECT IP, the Internet censorship blacklist bill that promises to make a huge power grab online, Communist China-style, has come to the House. They’re calling it by two different names: E-PARASITES and Stopping Online Privacy Act, but by either name it’s just as bad. Even as the current laws | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  October 22nd at 04:00 AM  | 

It’s a lazy end of the week, it seems. Not much to cover, which is why I’m dipping down to chuckling at Sprint ending much-hyped unlimited data plans as its 3G network melts under the strain of iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. I’ll say this: it should be all the harder for Sprint to claim they’re in dire competitive trouble now. Especially as, again, T-Mobile | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  October 20th at 03:55 AM  | 

Late start tonight for Tech at Night. Sorry, but I’ve started a plan to get myself out of California, and to be honest I’m more than a bit nervous about the whole thing. Looking for new work in the Obama economy? Yeah. But at least Marsha Blackburn wants to help the tech job situation by taking on Barack Obama’s twin regulatory nightmares of the FCC | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  October 18th at 12:30 AM  | 

Sorry if you missed Tech at Night on Friday. I was under the weather. But I’m back, and with so much to review. How about legislation, good and bad? Well, mostly bad. Senate Democrats continue to push for senseless regulation of 4G Internet speeds, hindering vital new technology to increase high-speed Internet competition in America. Worse, Democrat Anna Eshoo is piling on in the House. | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  October 13th at 03:00 AM  | 

Oh for crying out loud. For all that Washington talks tough about getting Americans access to high speed Internet, the “supercommittee” wants to tax new spectrum licensees. That’s just what we need: make it more expensive to build out America’s wireless infrastructure in order to pay for the President and his Cabinet to hand out money to their friends and political supporters. Isn’t that special? | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  October 8th at 03:00 AM  | 

Net Neutrality goes to court. Great news, too: Verizon’s preferred venue won the lottery, and the Net Neutrality fight will happen in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. This is, of course, the same circuit that slapped down Net Neutrality last time in Comcast v FCC. Oh, but here’s a big surprise. Despite the FCC claiming previously that “We look forward to defending our open | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  October 4th at 12:00 AM  | 

So, LightSquared. Some say that in some nebulous way, the firm is getting unreasonable and possibly illicit support from the Obama administration. I still don’t see it though, especially after listening in on a briefing of LightSquared’s today. The briefing discussed in depth the issues LightSquared has had with GPS manufacturers. LightSquared that they’re trying hard to be a “good neighbor” and have worked with | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 24th at 03:30 AM  | 

November 20. That’s the day the Obama administration has chosen to regulate the Internet after what even The Hill calls “a partisan vote” at the FCC to pass the Net Neutrality regulations. I’m hoping Verizon and/or MetroPCS will sue and win a stay before that date, though I don’t know how likely that is for a court to act that strongly. I’ve said much about | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 22nd at 03:30 AM  | 

I’ve basically got three topics for tonight’s edition. It’s sad that two of them are government antitrust actions. I suppose elections do have consequences, and one key consequence of Barack Obama’s election is corporatist selection of winners and losers in the marketplace. The third main topic: Alleged corruption. I’m still playing the role of skeptic on accusations that the Obama administration is playing favorites in | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 20th at 01:30 AM  | 

I’d like to start off tonight’s edition by saying that I enjoy some of the pushback I’ve been getting in this Tech at Night series. It’s fun when someone comes here, telling me I’m all wet, then ending up admitting they’re enamored of the whole Obama regulatory apparatus. It feels good to have my pro-liberty, pro-growth, small-government positions validated like that. So to the multifaceted | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 17th at 02:30 AM  | 

We’ve lost some battles lately. That’s what happens when we let a radical Democrat become President. We let Patrick Leahy’s America Invents Act pass, imposing on America a Euro-style patent system that rewards lawyering, not being the first to invent something. We let the FCC pass an illegal Net Neutrality power grab, and that will have to go to court soon. We’re even seeing some | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 13th at 03:30 AM  | 

Competition, growth, and innovation are all important for the American wireless Internet market. We need more, better, and cheaper service if we’re going to move in large numbers to wireless Internet, as some are predicting. This means competition and growth in the 4G sector is vital to our future economic health. And that, in a nutshell, is why I think it’s essential that the government | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 10th at 03:00 AM  | 

Friday has come and gone at last, and in fact we’re well into Saturday now unfortunately, due to my needing to have covered so much this time. Additionally, at long last it looks like the ongoing saga of California vs Amazon is coming to an end. Amazon had already floated the idea of compromise with the Democrats on their unconstitutional plan to try to bully | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 8th at 02:30 AM  | 

I’m in danger of repeating myself as the AT&T/T-Mobile saga goes on, so let me open up tonight’s post with to my latest analysis of the situation. Summary: the behavior of Sprint Nextel’s and Clearwire’s share prices, combined with Sprint Nextel’s decision to sue AT&T, should lead any observer to believe that the AT&T/T-Mobile deal benefits the 4G Internet-using public at the expense of Sprint | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 7th at 06:00 AM  | 

As I’ve previously covered, the Department of Justice is suing AT&T, claiming its planned merger with T-Mobile USA harms competition in America. My retort has been market reactions to the lawsuit suggest it is the lawsuit that is anti-competitive, benefiting the existing national 4G duopoly: Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless. That Sprint Nextel is jumping in with its own lawsuit now ends all doubt: the | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 3rd at 01:30 AM  | 

This is one of those weeks when all the important stuff happens at once, and there’s much to cover. I’ll start with the big national story. As I previously covered, The Eric Holder/Barack Obama Justice Department is coming after AT&T, using its own odd brand of economics to claim that the merger with T-Mobile would make the wireless market less competitive. When in fact, as | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 1st at 01:00 AM  | 

So much going on suddenly this week. Barack Obama and Eric Holder’s DoJ has decided to come after AT&T for its plans to merge with T-Mobile, possibly doing the bidding of donors while hindering jobs growth in America as well as nationwide 4G wireless Internet competition. Sprint’s not doing much to keep Verizon in check; we need AT&T to have the spectrum needed to do | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 31st at 02:30 PM  | 

Updated below… Today it was announced that the Department of Justice will attempt to block AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile. The deal is needed for technical and regulatory reasons to allow AT&T to compete in the 4G wireless market with Verizon, Sprint/Clearwire, and with the upcoming competitor LightSquared. So why is the Department of Justice calling it bad for competition? Enter R. Gerard Salemme. It’s not | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 19th at 09:30 PM  | 

Happy Friday. We’ll start off this edition with Marsha Blackburn’s own post at RedState. There’s a reason I would like to see her rise higher on Energy and Commerce: she knows her stuff and is a fierce proponent of conservative values. I agree with her: government is not the solution to the privacy problem. I don’t agree with Joe Barton, whose plans for heavy-handed regulation | Read More »