Flibbertigibbet

Capitalism

Venomous Kate of the Damn-Near Perfect Ass blogged:

With television channels moving over to digital broadcast, the 700 MHz spectrum is up for grabs.

[...]

Handset manufacturers in the U.S. have, it turns out, have been stripping Wi-Fi capabilities from mobile phones at the request of the major cellular carriers. That’s not the case in Europe, where cell phone owners can hop on Wi-Fi “hot spots” to surf the web for free. Here, in the land where capitalism is king, such innovations have been resisted by the communications industry because they would ultimately affect their bottom line.

The FCC is hoping to change all that.

A couple of things about this.

First, free wi-fi sounds wicked cool.

Second, I am terrified by the FCC's involvement in anything, but it may shock you that I actually support the FCC's function of dividing up the airwaves to those who would claim them -- except I don't like their treatment of the airwaves with licenses. The better approach would be to treat them like property much like land in the western US prior to settlements. Therefore, I do not support the FCC's proposal to force the next owner to allow free wi-fi on it.

Third, I want to clear up the implication that it is some sort of flaw in Capitalism that drives mobile phone carriers strip the Wi-Fi capabilities out of phones. That isn't the case. That decision is actually a foolish decision on the part of mobile phone carriers who could attract more users by offering phones with that capability. That they haven't realized the opportunity here reflects poorly on them alone not on Capitalism. It is a free economic system that makes this an opening for potential competitors.

Of course, that bandwidth has to be open for free use first, which although cool should be the prerogative of whoever comes to own it.