Members of the FCC are again rattling their sabers on an open network access issue. In his article, Grant Goss looks at how FCC members are "warning" the wireless service providers about potential oversight intervention and/or regulation.

Personally, I think it is a little early to start "warning" people about something that hasn't happened. Yet, I liked the observation from Robert Frieden about handset subsidies. Wireless service providers talk about how two year contracts are designed to subsidize handset costs. However they don't give any type of discount if you have your own phone. That would be an alternative model to answer my question about locked vs unlocked handsets.

As against regulation as I am, I would have no problem with the FCC asking the following question if subsidized plans were more expense than unsubsidized plans:

"Are you bundling product and service? Or are you gouging because you can?"

Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, Grant Goss, Robert Frieden, Wireless Billing, Product Bundling, Subsidized Handsets, FCC

Back in July, I took a look at how some are considering moving telecom billing practices to a utilities model. In this model, you pay as you go just like with water, electricity, etc. I took a cynical eye toward moving in this direction because the US telecom consumer has been "trained" to "eat all they can" at the telecom "buffet" ( ...wireless roaming, pay per view, and international long distance being exceptions... ).

Susana Schwartz looks at how Time Warner Cable might just have the motivation to move from an "all you can eat" to a "pay as you go" model for their ISP services.

Since it appears that a relatively small percentage accounts for 50% of the traffic on their ISP network; I have some questions:

1. I'm impressed that Time Warner Cable has those statistics.
2. Since I view the Internet as "free speech" and not "free beer"; what are those 5% of users doing? Running the mother of all World of Warcraft parties?
3. How much backlash will come from a switch to a more costly approach?

I believe that Time Warner might be a good test case for utility billing. However, if they want to delay that action and keep their "all you can eat pricing", here are my suggestions...

As a first step, they could put some language in their user agreements similar to Verizon's "limited" unlimited wireless data plans in an attempt to curb this usage. If that didn't work, they have a small enough user base that they can make segmented adjustments to their product plans to put those "high usage" subscribers on a significantly higher plan and thus a diet. Finally, Time Warner could implement the utility billing for those plans above a particular usage level.

While this might seem like a lot to delay a relatively innovative billing decision ( ... and trust me there would be lots of telecoms who would jump at the chance of getting on that bandwagon only AFTER time warner does... ); however any one who has run afoul of the NYC media... perhaps discretion is the better part of valor in this case.

Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, Susana Schwartz, Time Warner Cable, Billing, Utility Billing

As much as the folks at OLN... err... Versus would like us to believe, the Tour de France isn't a race as much as it chess match. The old USPS team and Lance Armstrong proved that it is more about strategy, team and positioning than it is about one person ( ... note - i love armstrong and postal team. however, it was strategy and the great 'blue booster rocket' that won lance some of those titles... not just himself... ).

A similar experience kicked off Thursday with the start of the 700 MHz spectrum auction. Andy Vuong's article shows exactly how many different companies just in Colorado are looking to expand with the FCC auction. In fact, the only thing that might be greater than the number of participants is the number of business plans that might find a foothold with this new wireless spectrum.

Rather than this being one of those "fun" Sotheby's auctions, the FCC auction will take its own time and pace. In this it's much like the Tour de France. The process will take weeks to complete and even longer to see the fallout... It won't be about who has the most $$ ( ie Google ), but who has the best long-term vision plan ( ie who owns the current spectrum... ) and action plan associated with that vision.

NOTE - Armstrong did an amazing job in his early Tours until USPS became the "Postal Team". So, there is something to be said about having the most $$ in the FCC auctions.

Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, FCC Auction, 700MHz, Andy Vuong, Wireless Spectrum, Lance Armstrong, Business Strategy

Ferris Bueller's Day Off is one of my all-time favorite movies. One of my favorite quotes is from Ferris' dad:

"You gotta spend money to make money.... ya bone head..."

I basically implied ... err ... said... yelled this at Motorola in September. Today, Motorola released information about their 4th quarter performance. Or should I say lack of performance...

I agree with Colin Barr's opinion about how Carl Icahn might be ready to add Motorola to his collection of investments/targets:

• BEA Systems... now part of Oracle...
• Blockbuster
• Time Warner
• Medimmune... now part of AstraZeneca

With Google set to enter a handset market that already features Nokia and Apple, perhaps Greg Brown should reconsider spending that research and development dollars before Icahn decides that there's at least a $1 billion in savings to boost the stock price...

Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, Colin Barr, Motorola, Business Strategy, Carl Icahn

I was wondering when the next study would come out that says that wireless phones are evil.... Here it is.

I appreciate the concept that the human brain probably wasn't built to tolerate as much electromagnetic energy as most of us receive on a daily basis. However, I am not sure that trying to prove that kids who use cell phone late at night are suffering from a lack of sleep....

Perhaps it is staying up late at night that is causing the issues with sleep, concentration and learning... :)

Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Telecom, Geoffrey Lean, Mobile Phone Radiation