Hiatus
I'm going on vacation to Italy by way of Washington, DC and will not be posting until I get back on the 17th. I'll have limited access to e-mail (read: none) and zero cell phone coverage, so I'll get back to you when I return.
Ciao, everyone.
It's Official: No More Net Taxes for Seven Years
It passed the House. It passed the Senate. And on October 31, President Bush channeled his dad's words and said "no new taxes." After getting right down to the deadline, Internet access will remain tax-free for another seven years. Not all is good, however. VoIP services no longer have those tax-free statuses thanks to some finagling by Rep. John Conyers of Michigan. Nine states previously grandfathered in will still be allowed to charge taxes on Internet access.
November 7 Subcommitte Meeting Postscript
I was rather surprised to see the UTOPIA legislation get tabled at today's meeting. Given that this issue has consumed a significant amount of time at each meeting I've attended and has received a significant amount of public comment, I would think any proposals on the table would have been ready to go. Based on some observations outside of the official committee proceedings, I think Qwest is up to something.
For starters, I noticed that the Qwest rep would re-enter the room shortly after a member of the committee would. I also observed him having a one-on-one conversation with Sen. Stephenson during the lunch break. It's worrisome enough when legislation starts being discussed outside of a public hearing, but that Qwest may have been a major force behind that concerns me even more. Just what are they up to? Will there be sufficient chance for public review, or will this be rushed through via a "boxcar" bill? We stand at a serious risk of seeing some stealth anti-UTOPIA legislation pushed through in the 11th hour.
It's critically important that EVERYONE write, call and e-mail their elected representatives to express their opinion on UTOPIA and get to legislators before Qwest has a chance to. They want a fight? By golly we'll give them one.
Liveblogging the Government Competition and Privatization Subcommittee: November 7, 2007
It's time for another liveblogging! It's looking like the meeting is likely to start late… again. Maybe we could all chip in to buy the committee members some new watches. 
1:04PM It sounds like the tabled items are going to have minimal effect on UTOPIA or other muni broadband projects. Given that, I think I'll skip on out of here. I'll be following up with members of the subcommittee to make sure that the public will have additional chances to review and provide input on whatever new law they will be proposing.
12:55PM Whoa. The UTOPIA legislation is not going to be discussed today. The reason? They're going to "seek consensus" from UTOPIA, Qwest and Comcast before making further amendments on the bill. My main concern there is that this will not be done in public hearings so we might not be able to weigh in again before the general session starts. I'll make sure to keep track of this one and keep everyone updated.
12:53PM The meeting is back in session. Aside from the tabled items, the UTOPIA legislation is all that remains.
Letter to the Government Competition and Privatization Subcommittee: November 6, 2007
I wrote the following letter to all members of the Government Competition and Privatization Subcommittee to express my disapproval at the proposals brought forth at their last meeting. More »
Reminder: Subcommittee Meeting Tomorrow Morning
Just a reminder that the Government Competition and Privatization Subcommittee will be meeting tomorrow, Wednesday November 7th at 9AM in Room W125 of the House Building at the Capitol Complex. This meeting will be to specifically discuss UTOPIA-related legislation as discussed in the prior meeting. (Read more here.) Prior to the meeting, it will be very important that you e-mail members of the committee to express how you feel about the proposals on the table. Killing bills in committee is much easier than trying to kill them during the general session.
Hope to see a bunch of you there tomorrow morning!
(h/t to forum member aef123 for reminding me to post something.)
No Rest For the Weary: Vonage Coughs Up $80M to Verizon, Gets Hit With Major Security Holes
The bad news for Vonage just keeps on rolling in. The face of VoIP providers everywhere has reportedly coughed up $80M to make Verizon leave them alone. That's almost a third of their cash on hand, not a pretty picture for a company with high churn rates due to some lacking customer service.
It's only downhill from there. According to a security firm, Vonage could be wide open to line hijacking. Among the key elements cited is a lack of encryption used between their telephone adapter hardware and their VoIP gateways. Combined with weak authentication, it could take as little as a phone number and a name to make Bob Jones of Virgina have his calls ring in Moscow with little indication that anything is wrong.
I've been using Vonage for over three years myself and I can attest to their kind of crappy service. It took me over 4 months to get a simple e-mail problem fixed and about 2 months to get them to swap my primary and secondary numbers (after which they forgot to activate my voice mail box). Despite that, I've been pleased with the service. I am, however, worried that I'll wake up one morning and find I no longer have a dial tone.
Comcast Facing Wrath of Consumers, Congressmen, Wall Street Over BitTorrent Throttling
In the wake of Comcast's throttling, er, "delaying" of BitTorrent connections, it seems like all hell has broken loose for the mammoth cable operator. Not only are they facing lawsuits, consumer complaints to the FCC and some seriously peeved members of Congress, but they'll also have to contend with a re-energized network neutrality debate.
Throughout the whole process, Comcast has made itself look worse and worse. First they denied. Then when the AP caught them, they tried to spin it and claim that they were "delaying" instead of outright blocking. Then when an internal memo got leaked detailing their official policy, they started on a witch-hunt to find and terminate the responsible employee. So to recap, Comcast thinks that good PR consists of deny, spin, fire whomever talked. It's a Reality Distortion Field™ that would make Steve Jobs proud.
Since the story broke, Wall Street has been pounding the company, sending their stock price to a 52-week low. Even prior to their dismal earnings report on the 25th, the stock had already dropped about 25% from it's 52-week high. What's to blame? Probably their poor customer service driving customers away to services like Verizon's FIOS and a lack of dial-up customers to continue their growth. Industry observers have said it's time for them to start dropping prices, but that doesn't jive with their plans to jack up television rates even higher.
Do you hear that, Comcast? That is the sound of inevitability. That is the sound of your irrelevance.
Announcing the New Free UTOPIA! Forums
Taking a cue from a commenter's suggestion, I've setup a discussion forum for the site built on phpBB. It's still a work in progress, but you're welcome to start posting and registering accounts. Since I'm still working on it, it might go up and down periodically as I implement changes. To cut down on forum spam, I've already added support for Akismet and plan on adding httpBL support Real Soon Now™.
Why don't you go check it out? Leave any questions or suggestions there or in the comments.