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I'm gonna quit Frontier ASAP for backing this kind of nonsense...
http://www.telecompetitor.com/...
https://muninetworks.org/conte...
https://www.benton.org/headlin...
https://psmag.com/the-fight-ov...
" AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner, CenturyLink, Verizon, Frontier. To stay in power, they’ve fought against cities and municipalities in state legislatures across the country.
“It’s been kind of a war,” says Christopher Mitchell, the director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative. “It’s rare for states to do much [Internet] building. Cities want to invest in more competition. But states, acting on behalf of cable and telephone companies, prevent that from happening.” "

Instead of debating it in Senate (which exists solely for debates), why put it to Commerce Committee and why now?
The answer can b e got here. It says a former tech exec has joi ned the committee.
Which means he is trying to pre-empt any legislation by the Congress by putting it for consideration in the committee.
Which effectively kills any legislation and also protects the interests of telecoms.
Sneaky, disgusting and probably illegal.
But then the senate has a record of disgust. So nothing new here.

One of your three articles is about NYC nixing municipal wifi (a stupid idea anyway), and the other TWO are from five years ago.

So, I didn't limit the tyme. Try this, from 7 August 2008: "New York City and State Each Craft Broadband Policies". "Cheap New York High Speed Internet..." dated April 2009 says "Most New York high speed services are available in New York City." As for the muni wifi article, perhaps you didn't read where it says "August 7 - New York City should not create a comprehensive municipal wireless network, but should instead take targeted actions to increase the public availability of high-speed internet service and encourage broadband adoption, city officials said last week." If it's available everywhere they don't need to increase availability.

Falcon

But I wants me some video choice!~

I guess the exchange rate applies to intelligence too, eh? ;)

Here's Bobby Rush's bill: http://www.benton.org/benton_files/HR%205252%20COP E_0.pdf

There are many problems with your comments. For one, it is naive to think that the government simply has to revoke a company's charter to exercise control over them. I don't see this causing any problems and there are many options to avoiding the issues ranging from shell companies to Congressional lobbying.

You also aren't looking at the history of the development of these industries and companies. Take telephone service, the whole structure from 1934 to 1996 was to promote universal telephone service and the goal was to regulate the industry to contain costs so it could be affordable and available to everyone - giving essentially six decades to build a network that wouldn't have emerged in a purely competitive market. To focus on the 6th decade and say it didn't work is...a gross simplification.

In the case of telecommunications, the government acted as a hinderence in the sense that it created legislation that promoted a different goal (universal access) over profit. The current +94% penetration rate is a clear indication on how effective the policy was, yet you focus on the bad service of 1980's AT&T. You could argue that it matured to the point that it needed competition, but if you would have put 1996 style legislation on the table in the 1940's, you would not have universal access to the level that you do now.

With that said, I do agree that acceptance of government brings its own problems. For example, I'd rather we reduced our "Defense" budget 90% of its current size. So, I'm not arguing that more government is the answer to every question, but it does need to play a larger role in some areas - and of course less in others.

From here:

On Wednesday, President Bush announced his intention to nominate Deborah Taylor Tate and Michael Joseph Copps to serve as commissioners on the Federal Communications Commission.

So yes, we can actually thank Bush personally.

Is it about connecting phones with phones? Or people with people?

Yes. In fact, it was in the article.

Public Comments Filing for Media Ownership Policy Reexamination

Public "People's Forum" on Media Ownership, at Phoenix, Arizona (April 7)

Check out www.benton.org for all kinds of nifty broadcasting issues.