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FCC Member Copps In Favor of Municipal WiFi
Cryofan writes "Michael Copps, one of the five members of the FCC, spoke on the recent controversy over legislation to outlaw municipal WiFi: "I think we do a grave injustice in trying to hobble municipalities. That's an entrepreneurial approach, that's an innovative approach. Why don't we encourage that instead of having bills introduced--'Oh, you can't do this because it's interfering with somebody's idea of the functioning of the marketplace...a municipality is a democratically run institution. They can make their own decisions. They don't need the Bells. They don't need the Administration, and they don't need me telling them what kind of decision they should be making.'"
either wifi is a public infrastructure like roads and rails or its not. if it is, the "state" in its more general sense has a power and an obligation to see that this data road of the radio frequencies reaches all the citizens and it has the power to collect our taxes to make sure the infrastructure is adequate in capacity and properly maintained.
if its NOT, then let the moneygrubbing telco's sharpen their knives and move in.
but as I road-warrior-drive about, I don't want to be disconnected at every jurisdictional and regulatory boundary such as state lines and city limits.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
I think his problem is with the left only championing federalism when it suits them. Which makes them as bad as the right in this area.
Congress created them based on interstate commerce clause. One of the few uses of the clause that actually makes sense. Can you imagine what the US would be like if you couldn't operate a radio you bought in Missouri in Kansas because they use different base frequencies? Or if you were in Kansas City and you'd have to have two radios in your car for the drive across the border from KCMO to KCKS because Kansas ruled that it was illegal to receive broadcasts from Missouri while in Kansas? (hey, just like Canada and US satellite TV!) Or if Kansas ruled that interference with their radio waves was illegal and started taking Missouri stations to court for broadcasting on channels that interfered with their uses of the frequency?
Even on the subject of regulating what appears on those frequencies is within this scope. If Kansas rules against any nudity, foul language, or unwed mothers are to appear on TV, and Missouri allows a broadcast Playboy channel, whose job is it to build the lead wall between the two in order to keep the smut out of Kansas?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Well, according to the BBC, today (4th March) is the day Charlie Chaplin got knighted. This is clearly Slashdot's way of commemorating it.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Bully pulpit mode on:
/.! It's the governments job to do everything for us! There are about a thousand REAL issues that could use any extra municipality money LONG before providing free porn.
It will be a cold day in hell when I allow my tax dollars go to pay for some cheapskate to DL porn for free.
The communist manifesto is alive and well on
Get your damn priorities straight you bunch of ivory tower hippies!
Bully Pulpit mode Off:
But you know, the bully does make some sense. We have come a long way from the government providing our comminications and our fuel, I'm not sure why we would start going backwards on this issue.
Especially an issue that is far down on the radar of most people. I mean, why does the government not provide free TV? Free Phone? Free Electricity or Gas? Well free in that our tax rate will of course go up to pay for it all. But shouldn;t everything be free and equally divided among everyone?!?!? Whoops, were back to communism again, I'm sorry...
Actually, the cost to consumer of a municipal broadband system is expected to be quite a bit lower than the cost of a private system - the private groups have been convicted, more than once, of price fixing, and they continue to do so.
As a fun little thought exercise, think about municipal wireless and liability. For that matter, think about any public wireless and liability. We can probably dispose with reasonable expectation of privacy, since it's an open network, but what about spoofing? What if someone hijacks the municipal net and does bad things to the users? What if someone (locally) takes down the municipal net and (locally) sets up a phony replacement?
Now, think about the differences between a network maintained by the government and one maintained by a private interest. Discuss.
"There are hundreds of game theorists at the gates, sir, and they want to hold an election!"
Hey. I run a Wisp in Texas. I'll tell you about the muni community. We're based in Greenville Texas. When I applied for my tower permit the muni goverment delayed going back and forth for over a year while they put in their own competing cable TV and internet company using my tax dollars. If that were the end of it I might still be able to forgive and forget... But the love from the city just keeps coming and coming.... I've got at least 50 letters complaining about everything from grass hieigh to signs over the last 3 years. It's bad enough they subsidise the people porn habits using their utility (Oh did I mention their the monopoly power utility an trash utility) monies, but they are basically business unfriendly in every possible manner. Must munis are the devil! Happy Trails! Marco Coelho President, Argon Technologies Inc. Greenville, TX www.argontech.net www.troophelper.com www.phantomwave.net
Whereas bandwidth and internet access should be utilitarian - that is: like potable water, access to the global information networks should be something that is a) trivially accessible in a civilized society, and b) raises the quality of life for everyone who has access to it.
The telco approach is to retain access to the internet - and wifi acccess in particular - as a commodity.
It's about time somebody at the FCC started doing their job. It'll be interesting to see how successful this particular David is at taking on the Goliath of the combined Bells, cable companies, ISPs, and (probably) the entertainment industry (guessing that e.g. Time-Warner et al is backing or will be backing the telcos in this particular power grab).
"The Internet is made of cats."
Roads: I've seen some pretty shitty roads, not to mention perpetual construction on many roads in southern California
Air traffic control: I'm sure if left alone, the airlines would get together and provide some sort of communication so their planes don't crash into each other...just maybe.
water: the water in my town makes me physically sick, I have to buy it from safeway
Police: yeah, damn potheads, they should all be locked up
Tax collection/war: no shit gov't does these better, they have an incentive to
Border patrol: that's why Arizona citizens are making militias to patrol those walking into their state...ah...
defense: um, how has the US gov't defended it's citizens in the past 50 years? Oh that's right, by intervening in other sovereign countries, and waging undeclared wars...now I understand.
So that leaves sewage and fire departments, but I've read some free market solutions to fire departments(kind of like insurance, where if you don't have it, they let your house burn to the gound if everyones safe). So Sewage. Good job, you gave one instance of gov't maybe doing things better than free markets.
> They can make their own decisions. They don't
> need the Bells. They don't need the
> Administration, and they don't need me telling
> them what kind of decision they should be making
As long as the munincipalities don't try to outlaw the Bells, etc. from providing, either.
Like they did with cable -- one cable company only, with kickbacks, poor service, no competition. Thanks, government!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
City turns on city-wide wireless. Everybody with cable modems and dsl say "great, I'll cancel my service now". Slowly, that 11Mb/s (ideal) connection you connected to as the first one to use it in your neighborhood gets shared with 100 other people. Result? Speeds similar to dialup IF everything works right. Now tie in bittorrent bandwidth, and everything goes to the shitter. The only way wireless networks to work well is for there to be few enough users so they don't get congested in a given area. Once free service comes online, there will be so much congestion, nobody will WANT to be on it, and it disrupted the ability for other companies to make money on reliable services (as much as they are).
Someone will come back and point out you can get more than 11 Mb/s out of this stuff, let's assume 54Mb/s, or even 100Mb/s. In the end it will still reach saturation, everybody will have to be throttled at some low amount of bandwidth to keep things fair, and service overall will be crap. I can't even keep a 802.11B connection stable from across a room (nothing in between) due to interference, much less across a city block. Leave this stuff to the pros to figure out a reliable way to deliver internet.
"Can you imagine what the US would be like if you couldn't operate a radio you bought in Missouri in Kansas because they use different base frequencies?"
Yeah kind of like how they had to step in on the private sector with that VHS vs betamax thing... Oh wait the private sectore did eventually work that out. Kind of funny how a standard did work out without regulation... Broadcasting is still a business and while I do agree that there is some regulation needed, the FCC goes over and above constantly.
As far as the lead wall is concerned, if the people in Kansas are so inept that they are not capable of changing the chanel or just plain not watching what they dont want to watch, then it would be up to them to put up the lead wall. At that point if I lived in Missouri I would probably sue them for the cost of putting up a protective barrier against the lead, blame them for poisoning the water ways with the lead etc. etc.
What the FCC seems to do primarily (at least what hits the media) now is regulate morality and if they enter this fight about municipal WiFi it is just another attempt to control local government.
I fail to see the benefit to the people if they regulate this. I do see a benefit to big business - such as SBC or the cable companies. Of course we also know that municipalities are going to contract this out, so somebody is in for a sweet government contract if they bid wisely on this...