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The 700MHz Question
mstrchf07 writes "The FCC will soon be auctioning off the rights to use the 700MHz spectrum for wireless communications, with the winner being able to choose the direction of wireless services development in the US. With stakes this high, is the playing field fair, and are business needs trumping consumer and technological interests?"
just like early years of internet. some source that is open and free should take custody of it until it is no longer vulnerable.
Read radical news here
specifically:
In Soviet Russia, government controls the commerce.
If you don't get why that is amusing and appropriate - this about the nature of the Soviet Russia jokes, and what that says about the US.
Don't they always?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Nothing is ever done for the good of the consumer. Consumers don't buy off politicians. Consumers are simply a source of money.
If I understand the article correctly, it would seem that 700 Mhz spectrum would only give you 15 MB/s of available bandwidth if it used similar compression techniques to 802.11g. If, as the article suggests, this spectrum were to be used for some big WISP, maybe Google, it wouldn't seem to me to be very viable as the available bandwidth would be split amongst LOTS of users in order to keep it cheap. Now, UMPCs and mobile devices conceivably need less bandwidth, but then, isn't that what we have wireless phone service for?
It seems to be like this article is a bunch of meaningless speculation about Google's plans for being a ubiquitous WISP.
My blog
With stakes this high, is the playing field fair, and are business needs trumping consumer and technological interests?
No. Yes. In that order.
They playing field is rarely fair when business is concerned. If corporate interest is involved, there is always a corporation able to affect the environment much more than any governmental regulation; and they will always affect the environment in their own favor, whether it is in the best interest of citizens or technology or progress or any other damned thing that doesn't have anything at all to do with "maximizing profits."
This is all stupid talk. Some corporation will end up in control of a public resource. The public will get fucked. That's how it works. That's how it always works.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I would have loved to see a horse race with the entertainment conglomerates, google and the telcos. Sadly, the entertainment conglomerates can't see the forest through the trees and would abuse consumers just as much as the telcos.
Telcos win, consumers lose. Same story different day.
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s/needs/wants/
I don't think business needs are trumping individual interests - they actually parallel in a captialistic society - without the businesses, the individuals would not get what they need/want.
No, it's the businesses wants (excesses of money, power, etc) that are trumping individual interests.
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
So what is the FCC going to do with the money they make off this?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Glad someone got it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
mstrchf07 asks ...are business needs trumping consumer and technological interests?
Of *course*!
And it's not even a matter of business needs, it's business greeds.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
Just yesterday Newt Gingrich came on the George Stephenopolos(sp?) show and claimed that 70% of Americans support reduction in corporate taxes, 60% support abolition of capital gains tax etc etc. That would be alright if he is genuinely a fiscal conservative sincerely trying to reduce the size of the government. But he opened with "New Orleans is still a mess, ..." What? It is somehow the Govt's job to allow people sandwiched between Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi and the lake to build homes below sea level and keep pumping out water and spend couple of billion dollars in the levy system?
If Republicans would not take on people's unrealistic expectations from Govt what right they have to complain about Tax and Spend Democrats?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
That is clever. It turns the whole joke on its head.
A very good point. Maybe the FCC should not allow those big telcos who already are sitting on leased airwaves from bidding any further, leave it to some new companies instead. Let them run with what they have now, improve that, and let some others pull up a chair to the wireless table.
I also think they should drastically reduce the hoop jumping and expense for lower power broadcasting, open that up as well, commercial or not for profit, it doesn't matter, we have good tech now that would allow a lot more stations on a smaller community basis rather than just extending a few conglomerates power.
YES. Where have you been?
At least in the US, it has become so painfully obvious that our government's number one priority is Big Business. Watch the bills that are drawn and enacted in this country and you will quickly see that almost all of them are catering to business interests and, most likely, trampling on individuals' rights.
Adapt, adopt, or get out of the way!
Let the government divide the spectrum by the number of US citizens and give everyone their portion of the bandwidth. People could then band together to combine their khz or Mhz and do interesting things. But I reiterate- the spectrum belongs to us.
Insightful!? The ORIGINAL Soviet Russia jokes were like that. They were not only funny, and the reverse of America, but TRUE. This is probably the first SR joke in years to actually capture to spirit of the original, and you say it got turned on its head!
UGH!
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Well, it is an interesting use of the joke. First, Yakov Smirnoff's version of the joke was usually to have the reverse of America, but have the American version make sense, but the Russian version paint a bad picture of Russia. The GGP post reverses this, having the Russian thing make sense and the American be corrupt. Since the joke is about reversal in the first place, reversing the reversal is in itself a bit funny.
Also, the jokes were originally meant to be a bit dark and ironic, and then used as a Slashdot cliche they were usually ironically ironic, resulting in a sort of nonsensical whimsey. Now, another layer of irony is added, almost returning the joke to its original sense, but I would say not quite to its original sense. So much irony has basically made it a non-joke, and simply a piercing critique of current US policy. It's pointing out that as ridiculously backwards as Soviet Russia was, it still may have been less backwards than we are now.
Now, did I really have to explain myself like that?
Fixed that for ya.
Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
I understand the digital signal can possible narrow the bandwidth required 'some'. Yet Why don't they let the Stations use the remainder also? I suspect they might be afraid that they may try to compete with the other communication service providers for supplying other supplemental information and entertainment and perhaps even two way communications. I have noted that the cell phone frequency is not a healthy one [brain tumors are a possible concern]. It probably was an analog device I was using, none the less, it was making my head feel odd on the side I was holding it. I have no real love for them anymore. As for the Government and financial system we are in; I am of the notion that the only wise way to go is to get back the original Constitution's potential for diversity in the executive branch. [We used to have two votes. It wasn't long before the political parties ground that to a halt.] Yet, since in the end the full nature of reality rules over us all; we need a system that is applied just as rigorously upon those that can put the hand of power over many, as it is applied to common science endeavors and common law. No doubt only one can be the boss. Yet the potential to check the dominate entity in the courts, at the very least, is not an insignificant influence. Likewise, the ability to sequester the executive branch where security concerns arise is understandable. Yet the facts should always eventually come out. They are sworn to service the people, not the other way around. As far as the financial system goes, we are not well induced to consider the balance of things very well. I am of the view that there need to be two kinds of money. 1) Resource money, you cannot function without the resource base. 2) Cultivation money, one can work in the realm of IOUs with it, and not run into a wall. It might also help the people consider the balance of the various factors need to have a better standard of living. Also, given that there is a concern to reach the goal of more equitable availability of resources; business will be focused on cultivating the individuals to have their resources go through their system of cultivation. Ultimately everyone is poor where they cannot fully express the nature of the benefit they could provide to the whole. We just need a more balanced way to get there. I suspect, there would develop "instutions" of views and processes that would call out their benefits, and their competitor would point out the weaknesses. At least we might be better informed. And with MUCH computerized recording, it might even be possible to have the value of the cultivation moneys change as the processes fully played out their impacts and benefits. [Even failures have some value if they are recorded and used to prevent another.] At least it would keep everyone thinking more clearly, and precisely, in harmony with the reality that rules over us all; to which, perhaps, we owe the most. Sincerely, Gregory D. MELLOTT
Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. The maxim is so perfectly self evident that it would be absurd to attempt to prove it. But in the mercantile system the interest of the consumer is almost constantly sacrificed to that of the producer; and it seems to consider production, and not consumption, as the ultimate end and object of all industry and commerce.
It cannot be very difficult to determine who have been the contrivers of this whole mercantile system; not the consumers, we may believe, whose interest has been entirely neglected; but the producers, whose interest has been so carefully attended to; and among this latter class our merchants and manufacturers have been by far the principal architects.
(Book_Four*Chapter_VIII*Conclusion_of_the_Mercantile_System)