Internet Policy, Part 4: Obama and the Return of Net Neutrality, Temporarily
This post examines the Obama administration’s approach to Internet regulation and the issue of net neutrality. This involved reviving “Title II” regulation that works to guarantee the equal treatment of content throughout the Internet. Previously, I examined the legal and regulatory components of common carriage and the emergence of net neutrality as an enabling framework for Internet innovation and growth.
Five Generations of Wireless Technology
The term “generations” has been applied to wireless technology classifications as a way to refer to the major disruptions and innovations in the state of mobile technology and associated services. These innovations include the move to data and the Internet protocols associated with convergence of multiple forms of communications media (cable, mobile, wireline) and the wide array of services that are becoming increasingly available on portable devices like laptops and smartphones. We are now on the cusp of the 5th generation rollout of wireless services with intriguing implications for enterprise mobility, “m-commerce,” public safety and a wide array of new entertainment and personal productivity services.
US Internet Policy, Part 3: The FCC and Consolidation of Broadband
Despite the design and the efforts of the Clinton-Gore administration to create a competitive environment, the Internet came to be increasingly controlled by a small number of ISPs. It is important to understand the policy environment and administrative actions that changed the Internet into the oligopolistic market structure that dominates broadband today. Policy changes allowed telcos to transition from the neutral transmitters of communication to the communicators themselves.
The International Politics of Domain Name Governance, Part Two: ICANN and the Clinton-Gore Administration
The Clinton-Gore administration saw the Internet as a major opportunity but also a historically tricky infrastructure to manage, including complications with other countries.
The International Politics of Domain Name Governance, Part One: The Czar
An ongoing global concern deals with the control and management of the World Wide Web’s Domain Name System (DNS). The basic issue is whether the address you put into your browser connects to the right computer and retrieves the right information.
US INTERNET POLICY, PART 2: THE SHIFT TO BROADBAND
This post is second in a series that I am producing during the COVID-19 pandemic about the importance of telecommunications policy in ensuring the widespread availability of affordable high-speed Internet access. Teaching online and working from home have gone from fringe activities to be central components of life. As we move to a Smart New […]
US Internet Policy, Part 1: The Rise of ISPs
Much of the early success of the Internet in the USA can be attributed to the emergence of a unique organizational form, the Internet Service Provider or “ISP,” which became the dominant provider of Internet and broadband services in the 1990s. These organizations resulted from a unique set of regulatory directives that pushed the Internet’s […]
The CDA’s Section 230: How Facebook and other ISPs became Exempt from Third Party Content Liabilities
The Telecommunications Act of 1996’s Section 230 effectively immunized both ISPs and Internet users from torts committed by others using their online services.
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About Me
Professor at State University of New York (SUNY) Korea since 2016. Moved to Austin, Texas in August 2012 to join the Digital Media Management program at St. Edwards University. Spent the previous decade on the faculty at New York University teaching and researching information systems, digital economics, and strategic communications.
You can reach me at:
apennings70@gmail.com
anthony.pennings@sunykorea.ac.kr
About me
Writings by Category
- artificial intelligence
- automatrix
- books and films
- characteristics of digital media
- creative cities
- creative industries
- crisis communications
- cultural Industries
- data analytics and meaning
- democratic political economies
- digital coordination
- digital destruction
- digital geography
- digital media economics
- digital media management
- digital monetarism
- digital spreadsheets
- disruption
- dystopian economies
- educational innovations
- electric money
- enabling frameworks
- enterprise systems
- financial news
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- food policy and security
- futurists
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- health IT
- how IT came to rule the world
- intellectual property
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- meaning makers
- meaningful play
- media strategies
- mobile technologies
- multimedia
- political economies in sf
- political economy of media
- science and technology studies
- sensing technologies
- smart new deal
- social media
- space systems
- strategic communications
- sustainable development
- technologies of meaning
- technology management
- telecom policy and net neutrality
- telegraphic political economy
- telelearn/telework
- the cold war
- the smith effect
- uncategorized
- visual literacy and rhetoric