Hello!
And welcome to our Thursday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCR Wireless News to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
Intrepid RCR reporters Heather Forsgren Weaver and Jeffrey Silva broke the story yesterday about Verizon Wireless pitching a plan to build a nationwide broadband public-safety network in the 700 MHz band. The Verizon Wireless plan would use 12 of the 24 megahertz set aside for public safety to build a nationwide public-safety broadband network.
Verizon Wireless would augment its existing infrastructure as necessary to give public safety the coverage it needs and then would extract rent from public-safety agencies across the country to use that infrastructure. The spectrum, however, would not be shared with Verizon Wireless’ commercial customers.
Does this all sound familiar? It should. Verizon’s proposal is, like, exactly what Cyren Call proposed earlier this year. Except Cyren Call (pronounced like “siren,” as in: “That fire truck siren is loud and stinky!”) wants to use part of the spectrum that Congress plans to auction off, not the 24 megahertz that Congress has already allocated to public safety.
I’m sure I’m not alone when I say: Go Verizon! You take that other company’s idea, and you make it your own! I routinely use this same strategy when someone else has a good idea: “I was just thinking that! In fact, I thought of that first. Why are you stealing my idea?”
The catch to Verizon’s proposal is that it won’t give public safety MORE spectrum, like Cyren Call wants to, it’ll just charge public safety rent for spectrum it has already been allocated. But really, who can fault Verizon? It’s only doing what it thinks is right… and will make money. I for one think that police and firefighters have WAY too much spectrum. Those spectrum-hoarders are interfering with my God-given right to watch MTV on my cell phone.
Part of the reason public safety wants more spectrum is so that it can have interoperable communications. But I submit to you: Interoperability is way over-rated. After all, interoperable communications means that you can call me to complain about how lame this column is, and we simply can’t have that.
My favorite part is that Verizon plans to “extract rent” from public-safety agencies to use its infrastructure. It’s like Denny Strigl is sick of paying into the universal service fund, and has finally figured out a way to stick it back to the man.
And what if public-safety can’t come up with the rent one month? What kind of landlord will Verizon be? I’m sure that public safety will use the standard renter trick and mail an envelope but conveniently forget to include the check. (Come on, who hasn’t pulled this one?)
Much like Verizon, I too have a proposal that is strikingly similar to that of Cyren Call’s. It’s called the “Fat Tony” proposal, whereby public-safety agencies be allowed to use my cell phone and in exchange I will viciously “extract rent” for the use of said cell phone… with a crowbar and/or tire iron.
And if more than one police officer or firefighter wants to use my cell phone, then they can get on my family plan. Viciously.
OK! Enough of that. Thanks for checking out this Worst of the Week column. Wanna check out other Worst of the Week entries? Click here for past columns. And now, some extras:
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A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the “failures” of Amp’d and Helio. I had based this statement on worrisome numbers from Verizon Wireless and EarthLink. However, I’m now going to officially retract that statement, mainly due to recent comments from Peter Adderton, the head of Amp’d. So let me be clear: It’s too early to tell if these much-hyped MVNOs will ultimately be successful. And P.S.: I’m an idiot, and you should never take what I say seriously. Seriously.
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Sprint Nextel is going to offer movies like “Scarface” on its new Sprint Movies pay-per-view service for cell phones. This brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, “Say hello to my little friend!”
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California has passed a law making it illegal to drive and use a cell phone at the same time. It’s unclear if this will force CTIA to cancel its I.T. show in Los Angeles next week. Why don’t they pass a law in California to make people stop driving like rhesus monkeys that have just been injected with half a pound of industrial-grade methamphetamine? Driving in California is the scariest thing ever, cell phones or not.
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In a new deal with Space Data, the Air Force is going to use balloons for a new communications network. I just Googled the English lyrics to the song “99 red balloons” and look what I found: “The war machine springs to life/Opens up one eager eye/Focusing it on the sky/As ninety-nine red balloons go by.” Creepy, huh?
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Nokia is going to start giving cutesy names to their phones, following in the footsteps of enormously successful cell phones like Kyocera’s “Oystr” and HTC’s “TyTN.” Sigh. I guess the folks over at Nokia decided to ignore my tirade on this subject… which is probably for the best, because my tirades deserve nothing more than to be ignored.
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That dude who hacked into T-Mobile USA’s site got a year of home detention. That’s right—a year of sitting around and watching TV ought to teach that guy not to break the law.
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And finally, the most important story of the week: Gangsters hiding cell phones in their rectums. … For once, a story that needs no adolescent banter to make it funnier.
I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at mdano@crain.com.
