Paul Kapustka's Blog

Compared to the verbal fisticuffs being thrown in the twin House hearing last week, Thursday's Senate stage was like watching golf on TV -- still fun, but a bit more cereberal and not many outbursts, except for one heated exchange between our leader Sen. Ted Stevens and Mark Cooper, the director of research at the Consumer Federation of America, over unlicensed wireless spectrum, of all things.

Instead of our usual smackdown format, we're going to try a different format tonight and honor the NCAA tournament. Since the bracket actually contains nine speakers (the eight on the official lineup plus Sen. Jim DeMint), it's not going to be a straightforward winner vs. loser, but instead winners by elmination. Maybe this is more like "survivor," but since the only reality TV I watch is sports, I can't say for sure. Anyway, try to follow along. Fun is guaranteed, or your money back.

LOSERS, FIRST ROUND: Walter McCormick, USTA; Sen. Daniel Inyoue, D-Hawaii; Steve Largent, president, CTIA (and a HELL OF A PASS CATCHER!); Jerry Ellig, Senior researcher, George Mason Univ.

How many times can we kick MC Walt in one day? We're getting as tired of it as you are of reading it, no doubt. Finding something positive to say, we can only offer: Walt really carries the water for his overlords. But man, we need a better example of the pains of video franchising than some outfit in the middle of Tennessee that is flummoxed because its build-out crosses 25 local jurisdictions. What, like the Bellcos can't hire Paulie Walnuts to do some persuadin'? The killing blow -- Walt used the same example in both hearings. That means there must not be any more examples, right?

Sen. Inyoue may be well-meaning, but he needs to up the Kona blend intake. His contribution to the discussion, a softball that Earl Comstock and Cooper fed on like sportswriters at an NFL game-day buffet: A reference to the Wall Street Journal article (which we've all read) from last week talking about the wonders of 24 Mbps broadband in France. "What is France doing right?" asked Inyoue. Never mind that we should all be asking that of the Senate CC, right?

Largent and Ellig are eliminated simply because they did not say anything striking in their small moment of allotted time... somewhere, J.J. Redick knows how they feel. (And just once, wouldn't you like to hear somebody ask Largent at one of these things "how does it feel to never have won the big one?" heh. Or maybe the USTA could hire Mike Harden, who could just glare at Largent and maybe throw him a forearm shiver if Largent starts saying things like "we've made a tremendous investment in infrastructure" more than once a year.) (And just to be fair, we'd have to let Largent recover and smack Harden back. Or maybe Walter.)

Semifinals: Cooper vs. Stevens; Comstock vs. DeMint and Kyle McSlarrow

The Cooper vs. Stevens exchange was the highlight of the hearing -- watch that heart monitor, Sen. Stevens! If you're not familiar with Cooper's resume (it's about 1,000 pages long) suffice to say he's got a lot of info bottled up inside about why networks need to be open. I don't know Cooper at all, but I have seen him speak and it usually seems like he has a chip on his shoulder about something; add to that a slight whiff of crazy-uncle persona, and you have a fight waiting to happen. Last Thursday, Stevens was ready.

Their exchange started when Cooper ended his opening comments with a line about the need to "liberate the spectrum" and provide more unlicensed bands. Stevens jumped right after him, asking him how the hell (he might not have said "hell," but he meant it) we could open up more networks and allow more pornography, movie downloads, illegal music copying... you know, all the things we like the Internet for.

"Unlicensed doesn't mean anarchy," Cooper tried to say. Stevens, however, pressed him on what that meant -- how would it be regulated or watched? Cooper tried to make some comparison to traffic laws, but Stevens wouldn't hear it -- "there's cops in every town," he sputtered, meaning that there is no way in hell that the country could muster an equivalent force to police the wide-open nets of Cooper's dreams. "You lose me!" Stevens thundered, taking the halftime lead.

Comstock, meanwhile, was working over the "let it be" attitudes of DeMint and McSlarrow thanks to an audacious opening statement -- "The 1996 [Telecom] Act did work, in many areas" -- and some comprehensive followup thanks to the opening provided by Inyoue. In what should be a pretty good ongoing argument for proponents of network neutrality, Comstock made it easy by saying that France basically did what the U.S. tried to do with the 96 act -- open competition by forcing the incumbents to share their lines. "The consumer [in France] is getting the benefit of the infrastructure they've already paid for," Comstock said. Comstock got a late assist from Cooper, who took MC Walt's attempt to parry Comstock ("France has a government-owned [network] and they don't have to make money") and thrashed it by adding to it the example of British Telecom, which has established a similar line-sharing regime that has produced a number of high-speed competitors.

"The regulators set rates and didn't have a half-decade of litigation to death," Cooper said. "That model [and France's] beats the heck out of our approach."

DeMint scored a few points with his wry notice that "cable wants access to phone switches but doesn't want to allow [others] to connect to cable... and phone companies want video [reform] but they don't want to give up USF." (To us, a clear indication that both camps need to pony up a bit more to the DeMint war chest!)

But Sen. DeMint put up an air ball with his thought that "it just seems obvious to me that we should let it [regulations] go for a couple years, and protect the consumer... we couldn't do any more harm than we're doing now."

Great! How about we do the same for your paycheck?

Comstock and Cooper took turns piling on, Comstock first by noting that New Zealand (sure, it's a "country") tried such an approach and it failed. Then he surfaced a metaphor that kind of worked, something about it being a race where some of the competitors (telco, cable) have a big head start. "There's not enough money in the country for us all to build our own networks," Comstock said, returning to the point.

McSlarrow tried the "we're all bidnessmen here" approach, allowing that "we're all stuck in a system with quid pro quos." But then went on to only mention a new model that would -- surprise! -- benefit those with more quid pros than the competition.

Cooper took McSlarrow out with a view no doubt hardened over time of watching battles like this one -- "there's no reason to believe that the problems will be solved by those with market power," he noted, maybe the epitath of the ongoing lawmaking if there ever was one.

Then grampa Ted wrapped it all up by reminding everyone that when he first used phones, you could hear three people talking at once! Hello Central! Just when you think Ted's ready to make the big shot, just like Patrick Ewing he bricks it away.

Winners: Cooper, Comstock. Eliminated: McSlarrow, DeMint. Tourney champion: Stevens. Hey, he might have blown the ending but remember who sets the schedule! It ain't anyone from Comptel or a professor from some school, that's for sure.