A view from the front -- DC [from a good source -- an IPer]

[David Farber <farber@central.cis.upenn.edu>]

WITHOUT ATTRIBUTION, PLEASE. Say you heard it in a garage in Rosslyn.


On the other front, there is a real bloodbath going on in
DC. We are falling behind in REAL
broadband infrasctructure and many Republicans on
the Senate side are actually quite sympathetic to more funding. The key
person to take over as chair of the House Science Committee
knows nothing about science, but he likes high-tech stuff
that helps farmers in his Ohio district. That kind of thing
may save us yet.


It is now clear what the BOC strategy will be: They will
line up with the offshore, mostly Japanese consumer
electronics mfrs, to push a bill giving them a defacto
monopoly on settop boxes and video server gateways -- one
per town "natural monopoly" nonsense. The cable firms are
dead. They don't have a chance against that kind of power
and they are too stupid to compete head on by
cream-skimming the BOCs primary customers right now
by lining up with real players like AT&T.