Blog - Page 58

Today at Slate.com, Adam Penenberg examined the “net neutrality” debate in an article entitled “Internet Freeloaders: Should Google have to pay for the bandwidth it consumes?” Following is Penenberg’s column (indented) with my comments interspersed: Internet Freeloaders The Internet has always been about democracy–what the geeks who designed it call “network neutrality.” Data, whether e-mail, a Web page, or video, get sent as packets that are reassembled at the end of their journeys. All packets are created equal, and Internet service providers deliver them without prejudice, based on their network’s speed and capacity. This isn’t quite right. For years, providers of certain content, applications, and services have used specialized techniques to deliver higher value data in faster and more robust Read More ›

Terabyte-capacity disk drives will soon be available. A terabyte is 1,000 (actually, 1,024) gigabytes; the PC on your desk probably has 100 or so gigabytes in it; the biggest iPod nano has eight gigabytes. …. The last time the disk drive crossed such a threshold was in 1991, when the first gigabyte drives were introduced. Back then, all that people used computers for was actual work — spreadsheets and such — and it was hard to imagine why anyone would need so much storage. News accounts noted that a gigabyte would store 1,000 copies of “Gone With the Wind,” without ever explaining why you would want to. Those first gigabyte drives were priced in the neighborhood of $2,000, which on Read More ›

Last night in his State of the State address, Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana endorsed what I think is the nation’s most aggressive effort to reform state telecom laws. The relevant excerpt: “Perhaps the single most important step government can take for our economic future is to ensure the best possible infrastructure, the strongest possible framework, to support the businesses of tomorrow. “In a wired world, “infrastructure” no longer means just roads, rail lines, or waterways but also the invisible fibers and frequencies over which today’s most vital and valuable commerce is transacted. It is time to modernize a telecommunications regulatory system set up for the age of monopolies and copper wire to unleash this century’s most dynamic, diverse and Read More ›

Could changing technologies and evolving voice telephony service plans effectively doom the century-old telephone excise tax before politicians ever get around to it? Blogger Jim Glass has been following the story and notes a new class action law suit that we’d actually support. The suit targets the IRS for illegally collecting some $9 billion or more in taxes that don’t meet its own definition under the phone excise law, which was enacted in 1898 to support the Spanish-American War. IRS regulations say the tax applies to calls measured in “time and distance,” but from mobile phones to VoIP, many of today’s calls aren’t measured by time or distance, and often neither. The IRS has already lost all 10 relevant court Read More ›

China today announced a large $102 billion trade surplus for 2005, triple last year’s total. But wait. Excluding its $114.7 billion trade deficit with the United States alone, China actually ran a modest trade deficit of almost $13 billion with the rest of the world. We’ve been predicting this development all year. China’s consumption of consumer and capital goods is growing fast. According to a recent “economic census,” the nation’s first ever, its domestic services economy is one-third larger than previously thought and accounts for over 40 percent of GDP. These numbers are just one more factor showing that China has not been “manipulating” its currency, the yuan, to gain unfair advantage in international markets via a singular focus on Read More ›

The Wall Street Journal this morning updates the evolving story of how bandwidth pricing might change as more content and applications move from the traditional phone and cable TV networks onto the Net. The phone companies envision a system whereby Internet companies would agree to pay a fee for their content to receive priority treatment as it moves across increasingly crowded networks. Those that don’t pay the fee would find their transactions with Internet users — for games, movies and software downloads, for example — moving across networks at the normal but comparatively slower pace. Consumers could benefit through faster access to content from companies that agree to pay the fees. The size and structure of the fee systems remain Read More ›

Good news from here in my home state of Indiana: State Sen. Brandt Hershman has introduced bold and far-reaching telecom reform legislation that would, among other things, (1) remove telecommunications from its historically defined role as a “utility” and block the state utility commission from regulating all but the most basic telephone services; (2) block any regulation of broadband services or technologies and limit IURC authority over wholesale matters so as not to go beyond FCC rules; and (3) provide for a statewide video service franchise, enabling major new fiber-optic (or wireless or powerline) bandwidth providers to enter the market almost immediately instead of wrangling with several hundred local boards and councils over franchise fees and restrictions. As far as Read More ›

Of the many good books I read this year, here are a few of the standouts: The Silicon Eye – by George Gilder Our Discovery colleague tells the 40-year story of how four eclectic geniuses and two Silicon Valley legends combined to create a technology revolution in digital imaging and cameras. The Bottomless Well – by Peter Huber and Mark Mills A true genius of our time, Huber and his colleague Mills transcend the energy debate with lots of data, even more big thinking, and quick writing. A Different Universe – by Robert Laughlin A fun, contrarian, and courageous twist on conventional physics by the winner of the 1998 physics Nobel. Mao: The Unknown Story – by Jung Chang and Read More ›

China will completely eliminate agricultural taxes on its famers over the next 5 years, even though 28 of 31 provinces have already done so. Deng Xiaoping first cut taxes on peasants in 1979, instituting a small quota that went to the government but allowing peasants to keep all additional output. Under this “household responsibility system,” the marginal tax rate on farming was thus zero, and after decades of chronic “famine,” Chinese agriculture boomed. Over the last decade, however, many local officials across the country had begun charging fees and taxes on farmers, leading to widespread rural unrest or at least frustration. Now Beijing will continue Deng’s tradition of low tax rates that has been fundamental to the nation’s 27-year boom. Read More ›

China recently published data from its “first economic census,” and the findings, as rough as they must be in a nation so large and dynamic, are interesting and encouraging, though I can’t say I’m surprised: 1) China’s economy in 2004 was almost 17 percent larger than previously thought, larger, in fact, than Italy’s, putting China in fifth place globally. Growth over the last 10 years was more like 10.5 percent than the previous estimate of 9.5 percent; 2) the service sector is far larger than previously thought, accounting for almost 41 percent of the economy, up from the previous estimate of 32 percent; 3) manufacturing accounts for 46.2 percent of the economy and agriculture for 13.1 percent, both lower than Read More ›