Note: Some quite useful readings and insights to be found here. Pour some coffee, settle in and peruse this site. Yet another reminder that bad communications policy transcends political parties and that media democracy is nothing more than common sense (which is why current partisan political wisdom falls so short). The underlying issues of course, concern the political economy of the corporations involved, but that remains beyond the scope of polite political discourse in the U.S. Salude to MetroNetIQ for daring to think aloud and honestly.

from: MetroNetIQ [1]

Where There's Smoke . . .

Part I Open Eyes & Ears Tell a Story [2], If We Listen and Watch for a rundown on 35 years of telecommunication deregulation that have failed to bring about competition.

Part II One State Example [3] goes into detail on how the large amount of lobbying dollars spent by telecommunication giants AT&T, headquartered in San Antonio, and Verizon give the big telco lobby an overwhelming presence at the State house and in local politics.

Part III FCC Regulatory Relief [4] provides background on the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) and its singular ineffectiveness in building a national broadband infrastructure through its strategy of giving regulatory relief to large cable and telecom interests.

Part IV How Close is Too Close? [5] a long discussion on the current national debate concerning the effort in the US Senate to revise the FISA law, including the potential to grant AT&T and Verizon retroactive immunity from prosecution for violating the law when they opened up their private customer records to the federal government without a warrant.

Part V Summing it Up [6]. See the dots here and connect them yourself...this is no exhaustive bit of reporting here, just a reflection on a pattern of activity that should be disturbing to anyone who is watching. A preliminary conclusion is that nobody is really in charge; our government is ineffective at best, hopelessly compromised at worst; and we have an industry on autopilot, increasingly consolidating its gains and growing ever stronger.

Part VI Three New Issues [7]. My last post tried to fill in the gaps on how we got "here." As broadband Internet matures, as cellular voice and data service proliferates, as media services converge, and as new wired and wireless technologies offer new network options and new business models, at least three new issues are focusing the debate when it comes to the new Triple Play approach to networked media (Voice, Video, Internet Access). Here are the topics and some key links to learn more.