Networks

Auctioning the Airwaves, Google Style, Ii

Michael Giberson The tech trade press seems abuzz with speculation over Google’s interest in the FCC’s spectrum auction rules. Google phone? Google wireless? Google the spectrum monopolist? Google turning your cell phone into a mobile AdWords delivery device? All of this wild-eyed speculation seems a bit over the top to me, perhaps because the essential …

Auctioning the Airwaves, Google Style, Ii Read More »

Auctioning the Airwaves, Google Style

Michael Giberson Google filed a proposal on Monday with the Federal Communications Commission calling on the agency to let companies allocate radio spectrum using the same kind of real-time auction that the search engine company now uses to sell advertisements. The NYTimes article is a little short on the technical details of the proposal (I …

Auctioning the Airwaves, Google Style Read More »

Google’s New Home Wireless Offering

Lynne Kiesling OK, this is one the better April Fool’s Day techie pranks I’ve seen in a while: MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 1, 2007 – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced the launch of Google TiSP (BETA)™, a free in-home wireless broadband service that delivers online connectivity via users’ plumbing systems. The Toilet Internet Service …

Google’s New Home Wireless Offering Read More »

Market Monitors in Electric Power Markets, Ii

Michael Giberson Not much analytical work has be published looking at the role of market monitors in regional power markets. One of the few pieces to be published in the trade press was an article by Prof. Robert Michaels in Public Utilities Fortnightly, “Watching the Watchers: Can RTO market monitors really be independent?” Writing in …

Market Monitors in Electric Power Markets, Ii Read More »

The Role of Market Monitors in Electric Power Networks

Michael Giberson Economists have devoted a great deal of attention to market power in electric power markets in the somewhat general, structural sense, but very little of that work focuses much attention on networked-nature of the industry. The network matters a lot – that’s one of the views well articulated in the Thomas, et al., …

The Role of Market Monitors in Electric Power Networks Read More »

Utility Competition Breaks out in Virginia

Michael Giberson There were several bits of competition-related news items in Friday’s Washington Post. Catching my interest were Steven Pearlstein’s column advocating against the XM-Sirius merger (See also Howard Kurtz article from Wednesday and Rob Pegoraro’s tech column on Thursday) and a story on the passage of a bill by the Virginia state legislature that …

Utility Competition Breaks out in Virginia Read More »

Satellite Radio Merger: Antitrust Law in All Its Splendor to Be Revealed

Michael Giberson XM and Sirius, two satellite radio networks, announced plans to merge yesterday. Amusingly, in the New York Times the story begins with “The nation’s two satellite radio services, Sirius and XM, announced …”, while in the Washington Post leads with ”XM and Sirius, the two satellite radio companies ….” In each case the …

Satellite Radio Merger: Antitrust Law in All Its Splendor to Be Revealed Read More »

Road Congestion Pricing in Stockholm

Lynne Kiesling Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article on Stockholm’s road congestion pricing pilot experiment (subscription required). Stockholm is a city of islands, so the road network is subtantially a set of bridges. Not surprisingly, congestion often ensues. From January through July, Stockholm tested one of the world’s most sophisticated traffic-management systems as part …

Road Congestion Pricing in Stockholm Read More »

Distributed Network Innovation at Mit Medialab

Lynne Kiesling Today is a dynamism day here at KP, whether it’s marketing or technology or business models. Business Week has an interview with Frank Moss, the new head of MIT’s MediaLab. He points out the importance of several things that I think are crucial for dynamic innovation: entrepreneurship, new models of collaboration and invention, …

Distributed Network Innovation at Mit Medialab Read More »