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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Net Neutrality and Broadband as a Utility: What's Going On?

Regulatory oversight and enforcement power is essential to ensure that something beyond "market forces" shapes the broadband environment.

Mainstream publications from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal to Fortune have all published thoughtful pieces lately addressing the question of whether or not broadband should be regulated as a utility. There are those who argue that, regardless of whether such treatment is warranted or even desirable, it already exists.

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The Supreme Court and Mobile Devices - Privacy Wins

Yesterday (June 25, 2014), in a rare unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held that “the police generally may not, without a warrant, search digital information on a cell phone seized from an individual who has been arrested.”  The key phrase in this initial sentence from the opinion is “without a warrant.”  That is, in most cases, cell phones and other wireless devices may be searched for content from an arrested individual only once a warrant has been properly obtained.

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Wireless SLAs Are About Marketing, Not Service

While SLAs make sense in the landline and operational worlds, what purpose do they serve in the more unreliable wireless services world?

Recently, a consultant for whom I have a great deal of respect asked me what I thought about wireless SLAs. I said it seemed like a strange concept to me, although I'm certainly familiar with SLAs in the landline and operational worlds. But the consultant who asked knows his stuff, so I decided that it was worth a deeper dive.

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911? 9911?

On December 1, 2013, Kari Rene Hunt was murdered by her estranged husband. The murder took place in a hotel room in Marshall, Texas. One of the many tragic elements of this brutal crime was the fact that the attack on Ms. Hunt was witnessed by her young children. Seeing their mother in grave danger, the kids tried to call 9-1-1. But they had no luck reaching first responders, because the way that the hotel’s phone system was set up, an extra “9” needed to be dialed before a caller could reach an outside line.  This is something that Kari Hunt’s young kids would not have known.

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