Cuba Calling? Not So Fast

In late December when President Obama announced that he would seek to “normalize” relations with Cuba, he laid out a plan to begin the thawing of a long-frosty relationship.  While cigar aficionados and others have had stars in their eyes ever since the announcement, the fact remains that one of the areas where Cuba is most deficient is in its communications—both in terms of enterprise communications and the infrastructure necessary to support large and small scale communications. 

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Net Neutrality

Net Neutrality has been back in the news over the past few days.  The truth is that not much has changed since we last considered the issue in this space other than a decision from the Federal Communications Commission about whether or not broadband services should be classified as a regulated telecommunications service or a largely unregulated service may happen before year end. Over the summer, the FCC solicited comments from the public on the issue. 

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Municipal Broadband: A Different Perspective

Suppose we’ve been framing the questions associated with municipal--or municipally sponsored--broadband in the wrong way?  Suppose the question isn’t whether or not this is a good idea (and there are volumes that have already been written on this topic), but, in fact, who will serve rural and remote areas when the private firms, for any number of good reasons (and some not-so-good reasons) won’t?

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Net Neutrality: The Next Round

On Monday, September 9th, long-time litigants Verizon (among others) and the Federal Communications Commission met for another round in the dispute over the long running battle known as “Net Neutrality.” The two key questions at the root of the ongoing saga are whether providers of internet services can discriminate between those customers that they serve, and whether the FCC—or any entity for that matter--has the legal authority to regulate the internet.

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Privacy is the New “It” Issue

Much of the intellectual energy in telecom policy circles has floated around the challenges posed by the concept of Net Neutrality as cases and challenges worked their way through academic, policy and judicial systems.  However, this summer, much of the thoughtful discourse has moved on to the very challenging issue of Privacy which affects almost every single American (or connected global resident) in a way that’s potentially more acute and certainly more real than any discussion of Net Neutrality has ever been.

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