Barry Collins of PCPro UK claimed that “ISPs are threatening to cripple websites that don’t pay them first” and set off some predictable outrage against the ISPs. But Collins’ article is a perfect example of scaremongering because its thesis wasn’t even supported by his own evidence gathered for the article, and some of the quotations seem to have been misinterpreted to throw gas on the fire against ISPs.

Verizon’s action last Wednesday (Jan. 19) in filing an appeal of the FCC’s Net Neutrality rule caught the tech world by surprise. My post last Friday discussed some aspects of the situation, but a question remains, why did Verizon appeal and no one else? Surely others are aggrieved, so are they slow or is Verizon over-eager?

The FCC’s Net Neutrality ruling might have similarities with the Verizon-Google joint proposal, but it also has problematic differences. The biggest problem is that the Verizon-Google proposal called for congressional action and not an FCC acting against the will of congressional.

We’ve been testing a mail client for a few weeks now, and everything looks to be in working order so we are announcing it publicly. We know that some of you prefer to get a daily wrap up style email instead of using RSS feeds or coming to the site directly. So we are giving you one more way to receive DS content!

Netflix stands to save hundreds of millions of dollars per year on postage as they migrate to digital video streaming. The postage savings allow them to acquire more content licenses for online streaming and grow their subscriber base. The increase in video streaming will grow CDN and broadband infrastructure.

By removing native HTML5 H.264 video delivery, Google effectively derailed the imminent universal migration to HTML5. The biggest loser under such a scenario is Apple because they’ve foreclosed on the possibility of supporting Adobe Flash or Microsoft Silverlight which leaves HTML5 the only option on Apple iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad, and that helps Google Android.

Can we simply get rid of the wireless carriers and just rely on ad-hoc radios? The spectrum commons people seem to think so and they argue why Wi-Fi innovation could be a model for the future of mobile networks, but the engineering and economic realities argue otherwise.

It has been a busy 2010 in the world of technology policy, and now we head full tilt into the wild blue yonder of 2011 hoping for free market successes and less rain slicked precipices. And I provide you with my Top 5 Tech Policy Issues of 2011.

Akamai and other content delivery networks (CDNs) “route around” “the Internet,” which “can’t ever figure . . . out” the fastest path needed for robust packet delivery. And they do so for a price. In other words: paid priority.

Taking a look at “bots” in popular MMO’s like World of Warcraft and the legal fall out from their creation and use.