In his latest FT.com article, Tom Hazlett, professor of law and economics at George Mason University, points out that despite all the talk about the need for mandatory "openness" or wireless Net neutrality, Apple's "walled garden" i-Phone model has spawned some serious innovation. He argues:

"One million customers bought iPhones in the first 79 days; analysts project 4.5m units sold in the first year. Hosting this Apple party is a curious way for carriers to lock out innovation. It is even more remarkable that critics could configure Apple's entrepreneurship as an attack on creativity. They claim that only a device that is optimised for any application and capable of accessing any network is efficient.

They are wrong. What works best for consumers is a competitive process in which independent developers, content owners, hardware vendors and networks vie to discover preferred packages and pricing. When decision-makers compete for customers and answer to shareholders, a sophisticated balance obtains. The alternative proposition, business models voted on by regulators, is a recipe for stasis."

More bad press for the muni wi-fi movement. It seems like each week brings another story of how things haven't quite turned out as planned. This week, it's Business Week with a story about "Why Wi-Fi Networks Are Floundering." In the piece, author Olga Kharif argues that:

The static crackling around municipal wireless networks is getting worse. San Francisco Wi-Fi, perhaps the highest-profile project among the hundreds announced over the past few years, is in limbo. Milwaukee is delaying its plan to offer citywide wireless Internet access. The network build-out in Philadelphia, the trailblazer among major cities embracing wireless as a vital new form of municipal infrastructure, is progressing slower than expected.

These potholes in the nation's wireless rollout of civic ambition—criticized by many as an improper use of tax dollars—are hardly the exception. For the road is getting bumpier for cities and the companies they have partnered with in a bid to blanket their streets with high-speed Internet access at little or no cost to users.

Do you mean to tell me that muni wi-fi networks will actually cost money? I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you. Where's the free lunch we were promised?!

[see San Jose Mercury News story below]
______________________

Municipal WiFi: A not-so-free lunch
by Sarah Jane Tribble
Mercury News
08/06/2007

It's been more than a year since Silicon Valley's Joint Venture Wireless Project first announced plans to build a regional wireless network, giving millions of local residents free access to the Internet. But that network won't be so free after all, and the area's millions of local residents may not really use it.

While initially the project was lauded as a way to give the masses affordable Internet, key organizers have gently shifted the focus of the network from serving residents, for free, to giving businesses and city governments wireless access, for a price. ...

But the increasing focus on dollars and cents reflects a trend nationwide: As cities strive to provide wireless Internet service, they're realizing it can't truly be free.

[Read the rest here.]

Scott Cleland blogs alertly on the problems with the framework proposed for the 700 MHz auction. Ah, do we never learn?

Jerry Brito of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University has just released an important new study on spectrum policy that is must-reading for those of you who monitor ongoing wireless policy battles. His new Stanford Technology Law Review article is entitled "The Spectrum Commons in Theory and Practice." In it, he thoroughly deconstructs spectrum commons theory and debunks the myths propagated by Professors Lawrence Lessig, Yochai Benkler and others who believe that a spectrum commons offers us a "Third Way" approach to spectrum management that is both free of government control and highly efficient.

To the contrary, Brito argues, "A commons must be controlled either by private actors or by the government. There is no 'third way.'" And "there is nothing that will make this new government regulation free from the same protracted and inefficient processes that have thus far plagued decisions about spectrum," he finds. Brito pinpoints the fundamental flaw in the commons mindset in paragraph 28 of the paper:

It's always been good American sport to bash the media, yet we keep coming back to journalists to let us know what is happening. How could we pontificate about the woeful media if we haven't first been educated by those we are so quick to attack?

I seem to have emerged as a lonely defender of today's media, arguing the accomplishments of today's reporters and editors far outweighs the occasional case of plagiarism or bias; recently I've made that case, fruitlessly, to diplomats and high school students.

Lately I've seen still more evidence that "old" media is on its way out. I'll admit, the newspaper industry needs to do a better job of focusing on new delivery methods for its content; The Economist has some good thoughts on that subject. But it's one thing to criticize a business model, quite another to criticize long-standing methods of gathering and reporting news. That's why these two examples of "new" media got under my skin.

The Aspen Summit kicked off last night with an address by FCC Commissioner Adelstein, who got 3 out of 4 issues right in his quite engaging speech. I say that teasingly, because the Commissioner's speech once again reaffirmed that digital issues do not necessarily break down along neat Democratic/Republican political lines. Commissioner Adelstein addressed four topics, urging less regulation on three. On multicast must-carry, cable a la carte mandates and indecency regulation, the Commissioner urged caution, restraint and reliance on markets rather than regulation. Despite these laudable positions, the Commissioner remains steadfast in his defense of media ownership regulation. Nonetheless, not a bad opening batting average where he and PFF fellows agree on 3 of 4 major FCC issues.

The Utopian world painted by commons advocates -- one of open-source production driven not by commercial ambition but rather by desire for peer acclaim and satisfaction from making a contribution -- is infectious, in part because one can find slivers of evidence of it in society. Volunteerism, after all, is fairly common in the modern world, and we are all better off as a result. But is it reasonable to expect that volunteerism can supplant professional work? Should it?

I ask because a volunteer group I participate in is facing this conundrum.