Arnold Kling has a PhD in Economics from MIT, and took great umbrage at Jack Valenti's characterization of the Broadcast Flag decision at the FCC as a victory for consumers. He's written an open letter to Valenti in reply.
I will not buy any device for the purpose of receiving HDTV. Instead, I will gladly purchase devices that will route packets via the Internet Protocol over that spectrum. In the neighborhood of my house, IP packets will take precedence over HDTV signals.
I recommend that other consumers adopt the Jack Valenti Spectrum Re-allocation. I am talking about massive civil disobedience of the FCC. Remember, anyone who receives television over cable or satellite will give up nothing by assigning higher priority to IP packets. For anyone who misses broadcast television, it would be better to give them taxpayer dollars to subscribe to satellite TV than for consumers to pay the Broadcast Flag hardware tax.
By re-allocating spectrum from HDTV to wireless IP, we can kill two legacy birds with one stone. We can hasten the demise of the phone companies–because with a wireless "last mile" the wireless Internet can replace traditional land lines and cell phones; and we can show Jack Valenti, the movie industry, and the television industry what it really means to "score a big victory for consumers."
(Thanks, Donna!)
