The comment weighed on my mind, so I've decided to drop by the Telecom Humane Society to check up on some of its pound puppies:

- Right near the door is a large litter of pedigreed poodles, wearing tags that say "3G Licenses," that no one seems to want. I personally think the Supreme Court made a big mistake when it said that the Federal Communications Commission could not take away the licenses of bankrupt license holders and that the FCC should restore NextWave's goodies. But regardless of what one thinks of that decision, surely governments in the Americas and Europe were foolish to raise revenues based on sky-high prices for frequency bands that could be made obsolete by 802.11/802.16 combinations. Poor little 3G poodles, so pretty but so unloved.

- Here's a golden retriever that looks strong, but the mange and ticks suggest neglect. The label on the cage reads "Gigabit/10-Gbit Ethernet." Everyone loves this breed, but price bombing has dried up breeders' margins. And this poor pooch is often expected to bear the burden for Asynchronous Transfer Mode, Time-Division Multiplexing and every other dog.

- Now, here's a sad sight: a litter of scrawny mutts identified only as Circuit-Switched Voice. Probably won't live long.

- Look at this Great Dane stud: Multiprotocol Label Switching. MPLS was the mightiest sire in town, but he's slept around so much with Metro Ethernet and Frame Relay that he needs a break if he hopes to conquer ATM and Digital Subscriber Line.

- And here in the back are a German shepherd, AdvancedTCA, and a Chihuahua, CompactTCA. Both have beautiful bodies, are house-trained and are gentle with children. Their high availability means they can be the most resilient watchdogs on the block. But overdevelopment and the changeable tastes of a fickle public have driven these breeds out of favor, and they may not come back in vogue for a few years.

Won't you take one of these dogs home and show it some love?