don't let this happen to us
Tagged: art
"connecting carrier" classification successfully limits regulation
In 1934, the U.S. Communications Act established a class of common carriers subject to only a subset of common-carrier (Title II) regulation. This class of common carriers, called “connecting carriers”, included: any carrier engaged in interstate or foreign communication solely through physical connection with the facilities of another carrier not directly or indirectly controlling or [...]
Tagged: telcos
COB-48: bureaucratic character
In China in 958, Zhai Fengda’s wife, “the mother of our family,” died. To benefit her spirit, Zhai, then a seventy-five-year-old man, carefully and accurately followed the instructions of the Buddhist text, The Scripture on the Ten Kings. These instructions required Zhai to make copies of Buddhist scriptures at specific time intervals following his wife’s [...]
too good for government work
“Of all the millions of people, nine of ten hold no official position: how could all of them be High-minded Men?” So observed Meng Lou, a scholar-recluse, quoted in the mid-seventh-century Chinese text, “Accounts of Reclusion and Disengagement.” In Chinese history, refusing to take up an official position in the government bureaucracy was celebrated as [...]
Tagged: China
early U.S. telephone competition
The expiration of Bell telephone patents in 1894 and 1895 unleashed vigorous competition in the early U.S. telephone industry. On Jan. 1, 1894, telephones in the U.S. numbered 266 thousand, and the Bell System operated 89% of them. On Jan. 1, 1908, the number of telephones had increased to 6.1 million, and the Bell System [...]
Tagged: telcos
application-specific communication protocols
The Internet’s communication protocols separate diverse physical communication channels from a wide variety of communications applications. That separation encapsulates complexity and fosters incremental innovation. It has been a hugely productive communicative structure. A variety of communication content, however, remains closely bound to particular communication protocols. Consider, for example, physical-layer protocols for the transmission of the [...]
Tagged: China
a century of U.S. federal communications regulation
On this day, a century ago, the U.S. Congress established federal communication regulation under the Mann-Elkins Act. The Mann-Elkins Act, enacted on June 18, 1910, extended the authority of the Interstate Commerce Commission to interstate communications. Central principles of communications common carrier regulation thus have roots in the Interstate Commerce Commission’s regulation of railroads. The [...]