Telecom and tech regulation reading

BusinessWeek: The Phone Companies Still Don’t Get It: ” Welcome to Telco Land, a strange country where the biggest players talk more and more about innovation yet approach new ideas with baby steps, build little themselves, and when they think about technology are apt to believe it’s a threat they have to fight.”
Timothy B. Lee in the New York Times: Entangling the Web: “It’s tempting to believe that government regulation of the Internet would be more consumer-friendly; history and economics suggest otherwise. The reason is simple: a regulated industry has a far larger stake in regulatory decisions than any other group in society. As a result, regulated companies spend lavishly on lobbyists and lawyers and, over time, turn the regulatory process to their advantage.”
LA Times: Weighing High-Tech Bills in Analog – Los Angeles Times: “Almost daily when Congress is in session, lawmakers are struggling to comprehend new technology and the government’s role in shaping its future. In the biggest spurt of legislative activity since the dot-com boom, advocacy groups and businesses are seeking new laws to shape the fast-evolving digital landscape.… The task is all the more difficult because few in Congress understand what those engineers in Silicon Valley actually do.”