For me, that's where it gets interesting: as I understand, it is perfectly legal for Google to provide services to children, but they must obtain parental consent, first [1]. The problem is that isn't something they're interested in doing.
When this happened to my son, rather than deleting everything and losing all his contacts and emails with his auntie etc etc, google just demanded I pay a bribe of 50 cents on a credit card, on the hilarious assumption that the only people in a family with access to CC are parents. At least this is how they did it back in the good old days.
>on the hilarious assumption that the only people in a family with access to CC are parents //
Hilarious? How do under-13s get banks to issue them credit cards? Presumably they only allow the payment from a CC connected to an account rather than a payment card (I assume payment gateways do that sort of differentiation).
Even if some under-13s can access and use a credit-card it seems likely to me that the vast majority would be blocked by such a system. I can see kids stealing cash from their parents, perhaps, but stealing when you know it's going to appear on their bank-statement?? Just to use YouTube? Then you need to be able to actually perform the payment; no-one else [that I know of] knows my CC password and it's certainly not written down anywhere.
I got a debit card when I got my first bank account at 10 years old in ~2001. I didn't pay for anything online with it until my mid teens (when I had a job), but I do remember having to use it to verify my account for the SecondLife teen grid.
Virtually all bank accounts come with debit cards nowadays, if your parents are forward thinking enough to set you up with a bank account then you could have a card very young.
I got a debit card somewhere around becoming a teenager. But it was probably a decade later that I got my first _credit_ card. They're quite different things.
In the UK under 18 you can't usually be held to a contract and so you don't have to pay back a credit card debt - this makes companies more than a little reluctant to lend to under 18s. You can't get a credit card until you're 18.
Citizens Advice (an established UK charity) say:
>"If you are under 18, it is a criminal offence for anyone to send you material inviting you to borrow money or obtain goods or services on credit or hire purchase. However, if you are over 14 but under 18, you can enter into a credit or hire purchase agreement if an adult acts as your guarantor."
Of course it might vary enormously in other countries but I'd be surprised if it was wildly different in USA?
For general interest, note that a transaction on a credit card is one of the explicit ways COPPA allows for verifying that someone is not a child. See §312.5(b)(2) in https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/312.5
>That assumes that aiming the laser is instantaneous, too.
I was simplifying quite a bit & making assumptions yes. Another slightly sketchy assumption is that the laser fires instantly...chances are there is some kind of power up delay.
That's only telling part of the story, as far as I understand. Lightspeed wants the FCC to change their license for (lower powered) satellite communication to allow them to use the spectrum for (higher powered) terrestrial use.
Users of adjacent spectrum designed their products properly for being adjacent to lower powered satellite signals. They weren't designed to filter out the much higher power terrestrial signals that Lightspeed is vying for.
The FCC is not denying Lightspeed the use of their licensed spectrum; they are not letting Lightspeed redefine their license to be something different than it is.
I believe their license includes the right to use terrestrial stations to fill in. They are under a conditional waiver not use a satellite at all. They are certainly using spectrum in a way not foreseen, but that is different from forbidden.
The bottom line is that the US has suspiciously high wireless data costs and a duopoly controlling the market. It's either make more players, effectively regulate the existing players, or allow the overpriced drag on consumers to persist.
There are only a quarter million airplanes in the US. Retrofit all of their navigation aids systems and free up a couple hundred MHz of bandwidth and you'd still pay for it with one year's savings from the mobile internet consumers. (And probably have better navigation in the planes.)
I believe their license includes the right to use terrestrial stations to fill in. They are under a conditional waiver not use a satellite at all. They are certainly using spectrum in a way not foreseen, but that is different from forbidden.
That's wrong. Only specific bands of wireless are unregulated; the bands at issue here are heavily regulated and are restricted to low-power satellite transmissions. Lightsquared had a conditional use permit to use the spectrum it purchased for alternative purpose but only if it could show that it would not interfere with the use of other low powered satellite transmission spectrums. Light-squared failed to do so.
An example that has been brought up before: its as if Lightsquared bought a house in a residential neighborhood, zoned for residential, and then tried to demand the right to use it as a venue for holding large-scale commercial concerts.
Exactly, they licensed the spectrum for satellite comms, and LightSquared wants to exploit a loophole to use it as (much more valuable) cellular LTE.
It's kind of like buying land zoned for industrial use next to the airport because you can get it rezoned for residential and make a ton of money. And the airport is saying WTF, now we're going to have to deal with local voters who will want us to change the way we do things.
If you're going to do this sort of thing, you need to make sure you have your engineering down pat, and your local politicians and regulators in your pocket.
"Loophole" is not a word that means anything in law. Their licenses describe a set of legal uses. If the FCC doesn't want to allow these then let them offer a comparable solution.
Personally, I think it makes sense to declare a quiet zone around the GPS frequencies if it enables smaller, cheaper, and lower power consuming GPS receivers. But that should involve relocating the existing license holders.
Exactly. But Lightsquared is NOT an "existing license holder". Lightsquared purchased the neighboring spectrum within the past few years. At the time it purchased the spectrum, it knew that the spectrum was limited to low-power transmissions.
The FCC set no limit on the number or power of terrestrial towers. In hindsight, that was shortsighted of them, but the licenses are there. It is only the GPS interference
I would also love to see SIP connectivity for Google Voice. That said, the discussion seems to center around the if, and not the why. I suspect that the reason that Google hasn't offered SIP support already is regulatory:
Some time ago, AT&T accused Google of violating telecom regulations by blocking access to certain high cost numbers[1]. Google was able to defend against the accusation by pointing out that they did not actually provide a telecom service, as usage of Google Voice required a normal phone line[2].
I suspect that if (once?) Google provides SIP support, this distinction can no longer be made. What would be the difference between Google Voice and any other SIP provider?
