Net Neutrality Included in Economic Stimulus Bill; Hawaii's DTV Transition; You Tube's TV Website; HDMI -- The Best Connection?

Democrats sneak Net neutrality rules into 'stimulus' bill [CNET News]

We live in a great nation, but it's not perfect.  We could greatly improve is our legislative process which is filled with loopholes.  And yesterday is a perfect example of that.  Seems like there's going to be billions of dollars for broadband! 

Now, I'm not going to opine on the necessity to pass an economic stimulus package nor whether it should be two hundred billion or a trillion dollars.  But I am going to react to delivering a TKO to those who urge caution before deciding ending all discussion about net neutrality policy.  It's as if people in Washington have decided that it's not even worth hearing from the folks who are experts in broadband networks and the technology that makes them work so well.

It first appeared that President-elect Obama's call for increased broadband availability would not be part of a proposed economic stimulus bill. But details of the proposed stimulus bill, released yesterday, revealed billions of dollars of grants for broadband development and deployment. The U.S. Department of Commerce would have the check writing authority for the grants under the bill.

Here's the catch.  All recipients of the grants - whether they're cable companies, telephone companies, or local or state governments - must agree to a set of network neutrality principles adopted by the FCC in 2005. Those principles have never been formally adopted as part of the FCC's rule-making process, and are the subject of a lawsuit currently being argued in front of a federal appeals court.  I have argued that those principles are flawed in that they are open to tremendous interpretation and might cause broadband operators to have to implement more intrusive network management policies than we currently use to keep our networks running smoothly.

Furthermore, the bill suggests that funds go to locales that are "unserved and underserved."   Come on folks.  What is under-served?

I get providing funds for unserved areas.  It's a bit like the rural electrification of America.  But why under-served?  Who are we relying on to interpret what is under-served?  Who will decide to write billions of dollars to add more broadband in areas that already have broadband?  And, by the way, who will receive those funds?

Aren't there enough legitimate places to spend the bailout money?  With the economy in perilous decline, now is the time for Washington to turn over a new leaf and stop spending money unnecessarily.

I hope the Senate considers this issue to be too important to be simply tacked on to the bailout legislation as the House apparently has done.

Hawaii Digital Switch Smooth…So Far [Broadcasting and Cable]

So far, so good for the state of Hawaii, which made the switch from analog television broadcasts to digital yesterday. Though it's still a bit early to tell how smoothly the transition went, Broadcasting and Cable reported last night that call center volume was lighter than expected.  But remember that Hawaii is five hours behind Eastern Standard Time and later reports point to heavy call volume as Hawaiians returned home from work.  According to one Fox News Radio station in Kentucky,

By the time evening fell on the first day of digital broadcasting, calls were coming in at nearly 100 an hour.

Hawaii decided to make the DTV switch earlier than the rest of the nation due to an endangered species of bird that nests in the television broadcast towers on one island's mountain. The earlier transition date allowed engineers to replace the analog broadcast equipment without disturbing the birds.

In other DTV news, Senator Jay Rockefeller has filed his digital transition deadline extension bill. Rockefeller's bill will move the current deadline of February 17th up to June 12th.   Remember, that's not the final outcome as the Senate has to approve it (which, given their calendar and the need to move rapidly, is no slam-dunk) and the President has to sign it. 

I'll keep you posted.

YouTube Introduces “TV Website” For Nintendo Wii and Sony PS3 [NewTeeVee]

YouTube is coming to yet another Internet peripheral - wi-fi enabled Ninendo Wii and Sony PS3 game consoles. If you own either console, YouTube is just a click away on the device's web browser. YouTube is aiming for a "television experience" - meaning that the videos are optimized to view on a television at a ten-foot distance. While it's still a work in progress, gaming enthusiasts will have something else they can do with their broadband connected gaming console.

HDMI — Do You Need It? [NYT - Gadgetwise]

Are you confused by the multiplicity of ports on the back of your televison? S-Video, component video, HDMI? Gadgetwise has a great primer on why HDMI is the new "must" for connecting your high definition video source to your television. All new HDTVs have one or more HDMI ports, and if you've seen the difference between component video and HDMI on 1080p video, you'll agree that HDMI cables are worth the small extra cost. 

In fact, I just got a Blu-Ray player and hooked it up via HDMI to my three-year-old 1080i plasma TV.  THE ANSWER IS....the picture is simply dazzling and so is the sound! 

Comments

[bofkentucky]

Underserved markets would be the pure analog cable systems with no capability for voice or broadband. we're not just talking about little municipal systems, Comcast has a couple here in KY in the same situation, to say nothing about mediacom.

Another example would be non-att ilec's (I'm looking at you Windstream) with no (profitable) business plan for rolling out DSLAM's every 6k-18k line feet to offer DSL and TV in their areas.

Compound that fact with these underserved areas being outside of the DMA's that have local channel retransmission on direct tv and dish network (Top 150 DMA's) and there is now 5-10% of the US population that is essentially going to have to revert back to AM/FM radio for entertainment and local news after 2/17 due to being on the fringes of DTV reception.

[sineswiper]

True, but there's the matter of how the bill defines that. Simply calling it "underserved" without a legal definition is dangerous law-making.