HD DVD vs. BluRay

I have blogged about this earlier, so I thought an update might be interesting. This article provided some evidence that seems favorable to the BluRay camp, though you can find contrary evidence as well.

Any bets on who will win?

Emerging trend in wireless?

There has been some buzz in the industry around something that some have referred to as "wireless Carterfone", reflecting the 1968 FCC decision that began the deregulation of CPE in the wireline industry. This buzz has now risen to the level of BusinessWeek, in this article. As I blogged earlier, Google has sought the creation of a wireless wholesale market in the upcoming 700MHz auctions, where users have the freedom to attach handsets of their choice. This item points to some of the "pro" and "con" articles (emphasizing the latter, in this case).

Why do carriers build "walled gardens"? Should this be a matter of public policy or private choice? How is this different from people purchasing unlocked GSM devices?

Broadband in France

I found this article in BusinessWeek interesting. While I will leave it to you to read the article in detail, the article attributes the increase in broadband access to local loop unbundling. The prices set by the French regulator encouraged entry, which was praised in the article; in comparison, the article points out that the unbundled prices in the US were set too high to encourage widespread entry. The article does not discuss whether the prices in France are compensatory, though it does imply that the prices in the US were predatory. Interestingly, the article criticizes the facilities-based competition bias of the US, while concluding the article with the desire on the part of a French CLEC to build its own facilities. Also, to some extent, the French experience is driven by EU policy.

Is facilities-based competition the desired outcome, in the end? Are the criticisms of the US approach to unbundled local loop warranted?

Mobile television

This item on Om Malik's blog is interesting, especially in light of the recent EU decision. We appear to be heading into a fragmented technology marketplace, with two competing technologies in South Korea, one in Europe, and another which appears to be a winner in the US (see this).

Update (2007-7-26): You might also enjoy this article in BusinessWeek, which discusses this topic in a bit more detail.

Does it matter that there may be several global standards? If so, why do you think so?

Universal service funding

While the objectives of "universal service" are often hard to argue with, implementation is often problematic. The approach taken by the US is to create a Universal Service Fund (USF) from taxes paid on certain telecommunications services, and then to distribute these funds to "eligible" carriers. This story illustrates how problematic this approach is:

Over the past four years, there has been nearly a tenfold increase in government-ordered subsidies paid to a few "competitive" providers - cellular phone companies paid by the fund to offer service in rural areas where an existing carrier already receives a subsidy.

-- snip --

Critics say the cellular companies are enjoying a windfall because their networks are much cheaper to build and maintain than miles of wires and telephone poles. They say logic dictates the subsidy should be based on actual cost.

Making the system more expensive, companies are compensated on a per-subscriber basis. Each time a cell phone company signs up a new customer, it collects a subsidy.

If the customer keeps his land line, the fund pays a subsidy to both carriers. If the customer opts to drop his land line and keep his cellular phone (the goal of competition), the per-subscriber subsidy for the land line carrier actually goes up, keeping the overall subsidy unchanged. In some high-cost areas, the subsidy can amount to several hundred dollars per customer per month.

Since the cellular competitor's rates are based on the incumbent's per-customer subsidy, the cell company gets more money, too. And so does every other cellular competitor that does business in the area. In some places there are two, three or more.

Do you think that this approach is viable, with corrections? If so, what should the corrections be? What alternatives to a USF do you think are better?