Why the US Lacks ISP Competition, Government Regulation, Incumbent ISP Litigation

Ways to limit competition -- regulation, litigation . . . got it?

One big reason we lack Internet competition: Starting an ISP is really hard | Ars Technica: ".... Most regions in the US are dominated by one or two major ISPs that are "notorious" for filing frivolous lawsuits against startup Internet providers, according to Don Patten, who has three decades of experience in the business and is now general manager of MINET Fiber in Oregon. Legal budgets the size of Godzilla "I have never seen an independent… start up without having to fight the incumbent legally," Patten told Ars. "The incumbents are notorious for frivolous delay lawsuits. They know perfectly well they're frivolous, but it's a delay tactic. They have an army of lawyers and a budget to support lawsuits the size of Godzilla. That's one of their tactics, it always has been. It probably will continue to be so for many years yet to come."That's what happened to fiber ISP Falcon Broadband in Colorado Springs. The company started in 2003, competing against Adelphia, Falcon's former engineering chief Michael Wagner said."They did not want anybody else to come into their territory because they wanted to have that monopoly with their franchise agreements," Wagner told Ars. "What they started to do was file frivolous lawsuit after lawsuit to try to basically bankrupt us so we couldn't compete."..." (read more at link above)

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BlackBerry Burns Bridges, T-Mobile Puts Customers First

Read the full letter of T-Mobile CEO at the link below (excerpt follows):

T-Mobile CEO Fires Back After Losing BlackBerry Sales Arrangement | TechCrunch: "In fact, to show our appreciation for all current consumers so passionate and loyal to all things BlackBerry, we’re offering a $100 credit toward any new device, including the BlackBerry Q10 or the Z10. And this offer is good through the end of the year. So you can take your time."

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FireChat, Multipeer Connectivity, Mesh Networking App

FireChat Could Be the First in a Wave of Mesh Networking Apps | MIT Technology Review: "...FireChat makes use of a feature Apple introduced in the latest version of its iOS mobile software, iOS7, called multipeer connectivity. This feature allows phones to connect to one another directly using Bluetooth or Wi-Fi as an alternative to the Internet. If you’re using FireChat, its “nearby” chat room lets you exchange messages with other users within 100 feet without sending data via your cellular provider...."

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Faster Wi-Fi Standards Coming

Gartner Identifies Top 10 Mobile Technologies and Capabilities for 2015 and 2016: "New Wi-Fi Standards Emerging Wi-Fi standards such as 802.11ac (Waves 1 and 2), 11ad, 11aq and 11ah will increase Wi-Fi performance, make Wi-Fi more relevant to applications such as telemetry, and enable Wi-Fi to provide new services. Over the next three years, demands on Wi-Fi infrastructure will increase as more Wi-Fi-enabled devices appear in organizations, as cellular offloading becomes more popular, and as applications such as location sensing demand denser access-point placement. The opportunities enabled by new standards and the performance required by new applications will require many organizations to revise or replace their Wi-Fi infrastructure." (read more at the link above)

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