Lessig On McCain's Technology Platform

Agthorr writes "Lawrence Lessig has created a video analyzing John McCain's recently released technology platform (available here). Lessig's video touches on broadband penetration, competition, and network neutrality." Note that while Lessig has come out as a supporter of Barack Obama, this video is not from the Obama campaign.

Comments

To sum it up...

[Jack9]

McCain's has the foresight and intents (and motivations like "faith") of GWB. Not that Obama is a saviour, but let's try to minimize the severe damage the internet will suffer under either candidate (in America).

Re:To sum it up...

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who expects an openly non-religious person to be 1) nominated by either major political party, and then 2) elected president, is at least as crazy as as any church-goer. It's an empirical fact that belief in the supernatural is necessary to be elected to the office.

To save you 16 minutes,

[Mumei no koshinuke]

Lessig says the only two issues at stake are broadband penetration and net neutrality. McCain will try to solve the broadband penetration "problem" by providing subsidies to the cable and telecom monopolies, and he will oppose net neutrality.

Obviously Lessig would prefer to see more competition and open networks.

Personally, I think the broadband penetration number ("our rank has fallen to #22") is a bit of a red herring because the US is far less densely populated than most other countries and thus perfect broadband penetration is not feasible. And while I'm all for net neutrality, that issue alone is not going to determine who I vote for.

Despite the current lack of regulation I think I get a fairly fast, unrestricted Internet connection at a fairly low price. I think that as long as there are at least two providers available in any locality the market will force reasonable prices and net neutrality.

Re:To save you 16 minutes,

[DragonWriter]

Personally, I think the broadband penetration number ("our rank has fallen to #22") is a bit of a red herring because the US is far less densely populated than most other countries and thus perfect broadband penetration is not feasible.

Lower population density may mean that universal broadband access isn't as profitable for commercial vendors as it might be otherwise (ditto with access to electricity, running water, telephone service, mail, etc.), but it certainly does not mean it is not feasible.

Re:To save you 16 minutes,

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The trouble with the "less densely populated" argument is that even in wealthy and thickly settled areas our broadband is expensive and crap. It would, I agree, be wholly unrealistic to whine about how rural Idaho has internet access that would make Tokyo cry. Obviously so. The fact that even in major metropolitan areas, we face an effective duopoly; both options fairly lousy, is not at all unrealistic to be upset about.

Re:To save you 16 minutes,

[mariushm]

I have cable 20/2 Internet connection, and I'm in Romania (a small country in Europe with neighbors Hungary and Bulgaria for people with less knowledge of geography).

Inside the country, I can max the connection anytime, full 20mbps. Outside the country, the speeds are on average 13-14mbps.

This is the result of heavy competition between two ISP that bought almost all the small ISP companies in the country.

Also, no bandwidth caps and it costs about 20 dollars. Bundled with cable TV (576p, about 55 channels) the total cost is 40$.

For an additional 10$ a month, the company can give me a set top box that takes digital tv out of the same cable (still 576p but digital up to the set top box so crystal clear. HD is still in testing in the country).

About two years ago, for the same price I would have received 2mbps download, 256kbps upload.

So what I'm trying to say is that it's quite possible to saturate your connection, if I can for example by downloading two linux iso's from two different servers in my country.

It's your provider that doesn't invest enough to have the backbone capable of handling the speeds.

Population density

[overshoot]

Personally, I think the broadband penetration number ("our rank has fallen to #22") is a bit of a red herring because the US is far less densely populated than most other countries and thus perfect broadband penetration is not feasible. And while I'm all for net neutrality, that issue alone is not going to determine who I vote for.

Was the USA more densely populated eight years ago?

I'll point out that Arizona is more urban than the Netherlands. Almost all of Arizona's population lives in major urban areas; the Netherlands has a higher net population density but a much higher percentage of their population lives in nonurban villages.

This is by way of saying that population density is a red herring, because broadband penetration is measured by people, not square miles. The USA's ranking isn't being driven down by the lack of broadband on the Yuma Proving Grounds or the Plains of St. Augustin.