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Communications Mergers Full Committee Hearing POSTPONED

For what it's worth. Hopefully the consumer will win as a result of this hearing -- when it happens.

POSTPONED -- Communications Mergers
Full Committee Hearing
Wednesday, June 22 2005 - 10:00 AM - SR-253

http://commerce.senate.gov/hearings/witnesslist.cfm?id=1550
Description: The Commerce Committee hearing to examine proposed communications mergers has been postponed due to the unavailability of certain CEOs to testify on Wednesday, June 22. The Committee hopes to reschedule the hearing as soon as possible and a new hearing date will be announced when available.

Source: http://www.cybertelecom.org/

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Telecom Competition

I received this e-mail this week from Consumer's Union and agree that we are seeing too many mega-mergers in telecom. The telecom industry is turning into a battle between those who want to innovate against those that want to regulate. VoIP has revolutionized telecom and we need to allow this revolution to continue. Allowing a few companies to own all the pipes to all the homes is the worst thing we can to foster innovation and competition. Please forward this entry to others and let them know a telecom market free from competition is likely free of innovation as well.

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VoIP and Outdated Telecom Laws

Here is a great article on VoIP regulation and outdated telecom laws by TMCnet’s newest reporter, Ted Glanzer. Here is an excerpt:

The Brand X case: On the judicial side, the U.S. Supreme Court is supposed to issue a decision any day now regarding the infamous Brand X case. The issue before the court is whether the FCC should regulate cable broadband service as a telecommunication service under the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Some so-called news analysts have dismissed the overall impact that the decision will have. I disagree. The Supreme Court never handles insignificant matters. Let me restate that for maximum effect. The Supreme Court never handles insignificant matters.

That Wild & Wacky FCC: Of course the Federal Communications Commission will be a major player in the realm of burgeoning technology issues. The commission has experienced some major turnover, what with Chairman Michael Powell resigning and Kevin Martin ascending to the top spot. Nevertheless, in May the FCC issued a ruling that requires VoIP providers to include in their services enhanced 911 capabilities. In addition, the commission on Tuesday announced that it launched an investigation into the management and administration of the Universal Service Fund, a federal law that is aimed at providing telecommunications and Internet service to rural and low-income areas as well as schools and libraries. The investigation comes on the heels of allegations of mismanagement, waste and even outright fraud regarding how the fund has been handled. The fund has about $6.5 billion at its disposal, so this is no small undertaking by the FCC.

Re-write of the Telecommunications Act of 1996: TMCnet.com recently reported that U.S. Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) is handling the initial re-write of the watershed law. Among the major issues that are expected to be addressed is whether telecoms, to ease their struggles in launching their IPTV solutions, will be able to obtain national or statewide franchising agreements rather than having to obtain local licenses in the same vein that cable companies must negotiate. In addition to the protestations of cable companies concerning such legislation, groups representing cities and towns are vigorously lobbying to have the requirement of local franchise agreements remain in tact.

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More Google TV

As I just wrote about Google TV, I figured I would do a search on Google TV using Google to see what came up. I may be late to the party by there is a pretty neat service called Google Video Search that the company offers allowing you to search for TV shows, episodes and even for local showings of the next episode of your favorite program. I vaguely remember hearing about this when I heard Yahoo! had something similar in the works. Of course it is in Beta like 90% of Google's services. I queried Seinfeld and clicked on the first link which got me to the famous bottle deposit episode-debacle with Kramer and Newman. What is really interesting is that the results are time indexed and you can see a still photo at few minute intervals throughout an episode.

at 30 seconds

You've got to go downtown, George. It's all downtown. Just like the song says. The songdowntown? You mean the Petula Clark song? There's your answer. 13,000! 14,000. 15,000! I left the clubs in the car. Where's your car? He's bringing it. Squealing] I've just got a couple of questions for you. Anyone know the student Per teacher ratio in your classroom?

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Google TV

In case you missed the story on Google TV -- or is it a rumor. We'll have to wait and see.

Here is an excerpt from Tom's blog:

However, my source said that the amount of bandwidth purchased could only mean one thing - video. Of course video could be just about anything. Is Google going to offer videoconferencing, video streaming, video-on-demand? Imagine if it is video-on-demand. Google can offer movies for paid download ala the iTunes model.

Of course, the pay-per-download model so far has only really taken off with music and not movies.For example, Movelink offers movie downloads for $1.99 - $4.99, and I've tried it myself, but it hasn't taken off like iTunes has. One problem is the damn selection - it's way too limited. I expect Movielink to have at least the same number of movies as NetFlix, if not more, since Netflix has to pay for the DVD costs, mailing costs, inventory, etc. Movielink simply stories movies as a digital file on hard disks and merely has to pay for bandwidth and hard disk storage. Maybe Hollywood still is uncomfortable even with DRM protections put into the movie digital files?

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MasterCard Theft

In what seems like an epidemic of confidential data being compromised, MasterCard recently announced that 40 million -- yes a number with seen zeros as in 40,000,000 credit card files were put at risk when a computer at credit card processor Card Systems International was breached.

MasterCard said other personal data that might contribute to identity theft, like Social Security numbers and dates of birth, was not stored on its cards and therefore not at risk. And it said credit card holders would not be liable for any fraudulent charges to their accounts.

I believe that the government will come out with some very strict laws soon which will aim to reduce problems such as this from happening. It is unclear what can be done but I get the feeling the situation is coming to a boil. Recently a similar problem happened at CitiGroup, LexisNexis and ChoicePoint.

More on this story from the NY TIMES.

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53 VoIP URLs

The number of recent VoIP URLs has decreased for a few weeks now. It was common to have 80-90 a day for a while. I wonder if this is a sign of the market maturing or the fact that all the good ones are gone. Some of my favorite from the list are "lenovoiptv.com" -- is Jay Leno going to be moonlighting soon? and "voipvideoconference.com."

all-about-voip.com
all-voip-center.com
ausvoip.net
bestvoip.net
callfusionvoip.com
champion-voip.biz
free-voip.biz
hermesvoip.com
iconvoip.com
italiavoip.com
lenovoiptv.com
lenovoiptv.net
myglobalvoip.com
myvoipcarrier.com
roamvoip.com
rutledgevoip.com
soluzionivoip.com
televoipafrica.com
televoipcard.com
televoipcards.com
televoipglobal.com
televoipusa.com
theritevoip.com
unlimited-free-voip.com
unlimitedfreevoip.com
voip-place.com
voip-system.net
voip2yap.com
voip4free.org
voipbusinessdirectory.com
voipconsortium.org
voipconsumer.com
voipfranchise.net
voipimpact.com
voipinflorida.com
voipjunction.com
voipjunction.net
voiplimited.com
voipnet1.com
voipnetconnect.net
voipnk.com
voiptop.net
voipturbo.com
voipvideoconference.com
imvoip.com
ivmvoip.com
ivvoip.com
ocivoip.net
voip-voice-over-ip.info
voip-ware.net
voiplynx.com
winvoip.info
zyvoip.com

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