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FCC Commissioner: "Engineers solve engineering problems"
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:46:09 -0700
[One also needs to have at the FCC a staff of engineers who understand the internet and are independent to political pressures that exist in DC. Dave Former Chief Technologist -- FCC] ________________________________________ From: Dana Blankenhorn [dana () a-clue com] Sent: Monday, July 28, 2008 4:39 PM To: David Farber Subject: Re: [IP] FCC Commissioner: "Engineers solve engineering problems" When engineers are fully under the control of vendors they will do the vendors' bidding. The difference between the Internet of today and the Internet of 10 years ago is that most Internet engineers today are forced to work for telcos or cable operators whose agenda is not the Internet, but the maintenance of other revenue streams. Mr. McDonnell might like to wish this away, but that's like pretending that hiring at the Department of Justice was not politicized, or that torture didn't take place at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. It's just pretend. We need to all grow up and look the reality in the face. A monopolized market is not going to maintain the independence of engineers from the monopoly's quest for profit. What the Internet needs most is a free marketplace in which the Internet is the primary focus of most players, and the ultimate health of the Internet is the primary goal. We do not have that today. Pretending that we do, that Verizon or AT&T or Comcast engineers are independent agents, is, I'm sorry to say, a lie. So if engineers are to be in charge of the Internet, they need to be engineers who are not under the thrall of the monopolists, and the monopolists must promise to abide by the decisions of those engineers in their network designs. Otherwise the monopolists will have won. -- Dana Blankenhorn http://www.danablankenhorn.com Voic.Us http://www.voic.us ZDNet Open Source http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source ZDNet HealthCare http://healthcare.zdnet.com Phone Number 404-373-7634 ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Current thread:
- FCC Commissioner: "Engineers solve engineering problems" David Farber (Jul 28)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- FCC Commissioner: "Engineers solve engineering problems" David Farber (Jul 28)
- FCC Commissioner: "Engineers solve engineering problems" David Farber (Jul 28)
- FCC Commissioner: "Engineers solve engineering problems" David Farber (Jul 28)
- FCC Commissioner: "Engineers solve engineering problems" David Farber (Jul 28)
- FCC Commissioner: "Engineers solve engineering problems" David Farber (Jul 29)
- FCC Commissioner: "Engineers solve engineering problems" David Farber (Jul 29)