Masood Mortazavi's Weblog

Monday August 16, 2004

[ Art (هنر) ] Wheelchair Robots in Love

Mari Velonaki--Embracement 2003 Light reactive installation [still image] in collaboration with Steve Scheding and David Rye image courtesy of the artist and Novamedia Reuters television has posted a video report of some Wheelchair Robots in Love. The wheelchairs are designed by artist Mari Velonaki and developed by scientists from the Australian Centre of Field Robotics. (By the time you read this, the video may not be on the top of Reuters' video stack but you may be able to search and find it. If the links here don't get you to the video clips, look under the Life video series at Reuters Television.)

2004-08-16 14:24:32.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.

[ Telecommunications ] Unbundled Network Elements

Transaction costs include legal costs of maintaining a regulatory regime. A good regulatory regime should optimally reduce such costs.

On Lessig Blog, Tim Wu writes that "the Telecom Act of 2006" should include among other things the abandonment of 1996 Act's "Unbundled Network Element" approach to telephony competition. "The litigation costs just aren't worth it," he adds.

With rather great detail on particular cases of unbundling, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 stipulates that operators would have to make available, for sale to their competitors, their unbundled network elements. This implies unbundling not only physical elements but the uses of that physical element. So, for example, operators owning voice and DSL service infrastructure, such as the last mile of connectivity, would have to make the infrastructure elements for these two services available to their competitors as an unbundled, separate and individual market items for each service type.

To be more precise, the 1996 FCC Act, defines and stipulates unbundled access up to the point such that the elements could be rebundled by the buyer.

UNBUNDLED ACCESS- The duty to provide, to any requesting telecommunications carrier for the provision of a telecommunications service, nondiscriminatory access to network elements on an unbundled basis at any technically feasible point on rates, terms, and conditions that are just, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory in accordance with the terms and conditions of the agreement and the requirements of this section and section 252. An incumbent local exchange carrier shall provide such unbundled network elements in a manner that allows requesting carriers to combine such elements in order to provide such telecommunications service.

2004-08-16 07:26:10.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.