Two Bills of Interest Advancing In Congress

pgn674 writes "While the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 failed to pass in the House of Representatives, two other bills of interest to this community are currently moving through the US lawmaking process. One is the Broadband Data Improvement Act, which Communications Workers of America claims will help us towards bringing high-speed Internet access to all Americans. It will have the FCC increase their granularity in reporting the Internet accessibility of an area in the US, and redefine broadband measurements. It has passed through the House and the Senate, and differences in the passed versions are currently being resolved. The other bill is the Webcaster Settlement Act of 2008. Pandora is excited for this one as it will give them time to negotiate with SoundExchange (i.e. the RIAA) for new, more affordable royalty rates. The bill is currently in the Senate, and is expected to pass with ease."

Comments

Legislation is not free

[Chairboy]

What's the deliverable for things like the 'Broadband data improvement act'? Nothing, as far as I can tell, except some congressional reports about which areas of the country have high speed internet access. This is data that should be collected by the companies looking to know where to invest. That's how commerce works.

The cost? $40 million a YEAR. http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/85xx/doc8587/s1492.pdf

This isn't $40 million out of the ether, it's YOUR money (if you're a US taxpayer, anyhow).

What in blue blazes are we doing? The economic crisis we're in is multi-faceted, and mad crazy spending is a big component, both privately AND governmentally.

Re:Legislation is not free

[explosivejared]

Well this is the whole problem. We have adjusted to having such easy access to credit and capital and money in all its forms that once the credit markets seized up, the resulting deflationary pressure would be multiplied and reek havoc. The thing about the market though is that it sort of gets itself into spirals, or apparent spirals, where the exact thing that caused a problem is what we expect to solve it. Inflation of the currency and ungodly overspending results in a deflationary bomb, well the only thing that can save us is... uh more inflation of the currency and more ungodly spending. Maybe pork is the cure? I don't know anymore.

Re:Legislation is not free

[lysergic.acid]

investing in infrastructure isn't "mad crazy spending."

communications networks are already heavily subsidized, at least this will ensure that such investment is providing adequate returns. if a particular provider is not providing return value on this public investment, then they should not continue to be subsidized. likewise, these reports will allow statewide grants to be used more efficiently/effectively by focusing attention and resources on areas that are lagging behind in broadband infrastructure.

the ideal solution for this type of infrastructure is to nationalize it, but create a decentralized structure similar to the Department of Education. funding and general development goals/initiatives are set by federal and state level government, but each area's ISP and local infrastructure (like municipal wi-fi) should be managed by municipal governments.

subsidizing commercial corporations doesn't give the public any control over the management of vital public infrastructure. this has been demonstrated with the telecoms, and again with ISPs. we pay for the infrastructure, but they still charge us extortionate prices made possible by their natural monopoly.

with public utilities, which are always natural monopolies, the only ways to protect public interest is through industry regulation or have the government provide the utility. but with a pro-business government that is constantly pushing for industry deregulation, subsidizing private industries is not a viable option. so the only real way to establish a communications infrastructure which serves public interest rather than corporate interests, is to nationalize our communications infrastructure and provide broadband access through locally-managed municipal wi-fi.

Re:Legislation is not free

[Firehed]

Very few people are going to be willing to pay more for faster access - the few who do already are, the vast majority of internet users are still just doing web browsing and email, which really doesn't improve all that much with faster broadband.

That may be true today, but once you start considering high-bandwidth content (480p+ video, etc) and it's rapid growth since the availability of broadband, the demand for even faster connections will absolutely go up. With companies like Apple, Amazon, and even NBC completely legitimizing the practice thanks to iTunes, Unbox, and Hulu respectively and indeed pushing their online services, the need and desire is there. Granted NBC and the other big TV companies are a lot slower to adopt, but they are catching on and they have a hell of an influence once they REALLY start pushing it.

Of course the ISPs would absolutely hate this. Not only would it increase their bandwidth and infrastructure costs, but many of them are also TV service providers (all of the cable ISPs, and probably some of the bigger DSL companies) and that would directly target not only their cable revenues but also other services like TiVo. This heads towards the whole net neutrality issue, since content-providing ISPs would without question have financial incentive to throttle (for example) Youtube and Revver in favor of either Hulu/etc or their own tv.comcast.com type of thing.

Re:Legislation is not free

[CrimsonAvenger]

A lot of people don't think faster broadband is worth paying for. So the ISPs don't provide broadband in those areas. But you're saying that everybody else should be forced to pay the cost of installing broadband in those areas? Why?

You should try reading with your prejudices turned off.

A lot of people don't think faster broadband is worth paying for. Absolutely true.

The ISP's don't provide broadband in those areas. Well, no. They don't provide FASTER broadband in those areas. Note the "faster", which allows the second statement to talk about the same thing as the first, unlike in your post.

That said, there are areas which have NO BROADBAND. My parents' house, as an example. It's about six miles outside town, and won't get broadband within the lifetime of the universe, if only market forces apply. Hence an equivalent to the Rural Electrification Act.

Which I support. Faster broadband for the people who already have broadband? I'm not interested in having the government provide that - if there's a demand, it'll happen. If there's not, it won't.

Re:Legislation is not free

[bill_mcgonigle]

Nothing, as far as I can tell, except some congressional reports about which areas of the country have high speed internet access.

If the Congress is going to do something about broadband deployment, they ought to at least be making decisions based on good data. Until very recently all the broadband availability reports were strictly by ZIP code, so that if somebody in a ZIP code had broadband, all residents in that ZIP were counted as having broadband available. This recently changed to ZIP+4, but the data doesn't yet exist, at least publicly. So, every statistic you've heard about broadband deployment rates is likely to be wrong, to some degree, unless it was a locally-collected local report.

If the government wasn't granting telecommunications lobbies, and the government couldn't save money by using the Internet for governance, and the government wasn't regulating any viable options away (yeah, FCC, I'm looking at you), then it would be best for them to be completely hands-off on this. That would be the best solution. But, coming out of my dream world (deferred to a future release of World), a few reports could actually be useful for deciding proper policy.

I'd much prefer this to Hank "We needed a really big number" Paulson-style legislative efforts.

Re:Legislation is not free

[Sancho]

Recessions are bad for morale, and bad morale means that the people are more likely to take an interest in those doing the governing. It makes sense for our absurd two-party system to play hot-potato with the recession. Put it off as long as possible, and hope that your party isn't in control when it hits.

Of course, informed people realize that recessions are a natural part of the economy. I guess it sucks to be born into one, but thems the breaks, right?

Broadband improvement?

[Chas]

Didn't we ALREADY give the telecom industry a whole assload of cash to improve broadband in this country?

And exactly WHERE did that money go?

What?

What?

I can't hear you over that gi-normous flushing sound!

Thank the Editor

[pgn674]

When I wrote this up, I somehow thought that the House, the Senate, and the President were the three branches of the US government, instead of Judicial, Legislative, and Executive. I'd written saying that the House and Senate were branches, when they're both part of the Legislative branch. I thank the editor for catching that and modifying my submission a bit to fix it, thus saving my face :)

Wow, back to square one, or worse.

[DontLickJesus]

While am very much delighted with the fact that Congress has loosened the reigns a little, the Webcaster Settlement Act of 2008 (WSA) does not seem to go the direction I expected.

For those who didn't RTFA regarding WSA or just don't understand, it, the important part is this:

"This subparagraph shall not apply to the extent that the receiving agent and a webcaster that is party to an agreement entered into pursuant to subparagraph (A) expressly authorize the submission of the agreement in a proceeding under this subsection"

In short: Webcasters may now attempt to negotiate pricing with the "recieving agent" (ie SoundExchange aka RIAA), but leaves Webcasters in the same boat if an agreement isn't reached. Companies will usually go for some money instead of none, but the RIAA plays by different rules. All this legislation will do is give the RIAA the ability to pick and choose which small webcasters get to survive.

Slashdot, we just don't talk like we used to.

[arrenlex]

We didn't have any stories on the bank collapses, we didn't have any stories on the bill itself, we didn't have any stories on Canada preparing for election... why isn't the politics section used for politics anymore? It seems we only have stories directly relating to tech these days, which is a shame as there are other categories on Slashdot and people have lots of insight about them and would like to discuss them.

Can we stop trying to artificially narrow Slashdot's audience and actually discuss things of more general interest than new developments in number crunching?

Why is this a legal matter?

[Reivec]

Can someone explain to me why being able to negotiate royalty rates is even a matter of legislation? Why wouldn't this just be agreed upon in contract with the parties involved? Bit confused here.

It's like Mutually Assured Destruction.

[hey!]

There's been a lot of exaggeration and misdirection on both sides of this. Credit has not completely dried up ... yet. However it is heading that way and the closer it gets the less root causes matter. You don't tell a lung cancer patient that he ought to have stopped smoking years ago. But you don't invite him to light up in his oxygen tent either.

The problem with the bailout bill is not the sheer dollar figure; the $700 billion, after all, doesn't have to be spent. The fund might accomplish what needs to by spending, say, $100 billion. The difference between what needs to be spent and what could be spent is the double edged sword of this proposal. The existence of a huge reserve creates confidence in the stabilization of credit -- very important.

This is how the Fed control the money supply: through manipulating expectations. People don't think the Fed is going to lower interest rates much, so the power of that lever on the economy is lessened. One of the bailout bill's provisions is to lower the floor on what the Fed can set the reserve rate (the cash on hand banks need to keep to cover possible withdrawals) to zero. Actually doing so would be, of course insane.

The Fed has models which say where the point of insanity comes; let's say that is 2%, and we're at 2.2%. If you know the floor is really 2%, then you know that the Fed can't lower the rate below 2%, then lowering the rate from 2.2% to 2.1% isn't going to change your behavior. If you don't know how low the Fed can go, then old Ben can simply be seen thoughtfully caressing the reserve rate lever. He doesn't actually have to push it to 2.1%, if you think he might, and go even lower, you are going to get your dollars into loans fast. If you don't their value could be seriously deflated sitting on your balance sheet.

The $700 billion figure is kind of like that. You'd be mad to set out to spend that kind of money on distressed investments. But the fact that you could is important. Suppose you really need $100 billion, and that's what you have available. You've spent $90 billion, and people are thinking "that about wraps it up for the fund." When you throw out the next five billion, people aren't even paying attention. It does very little to increase confidence in making a loan to some other institution, so you might as well not spend it at all. If you have $610 billion left, the impact of that five billion you're thinking about using is greater, even before you actually spend it, than the impact of spending five billion when it's half of what you've got left.

Unfortunately, that brings us to the other edge of the sword. Suppose we really only need to spend $100 billion, and the remaining $600 billion is there for psychology. Well, you've just created the biggest slush fund in history and handed it to an administration that is not renowned for its prudence, whatever else you may say about it. You could do a lot of favors with $600 billion.

The problem is Constitutional. The Executive isn't supposed to have a lot of leeway in how it spends money, but the size of that pot of money could buy a lot of indirect leeway.

Personally, I think the answer is to stage the funds. Wall Street does this all the time. When you buy a company, sometimes you snap it up, but frequently you stage the investment in order to make the company jump through a series of hoops.

So, let's say we created a $150 billion fund, and replenished it quarterly in each of the following quarters. If the $150 simply disappeared without a trace, then we could stop the infusion. This reduces the incentive for firms to make abusive claims because they might need the fund to be there next quarter. We can dream up new encumbrances on the funds every quarter as specific abuses arise. If in some quarter we only spent $10 billion in some quarter, we'd only put that much in, but if we spent $100 billion, there would be no questio

Re:On the Bailout plan

[cayenne8]

"In stead of bailing out wall street directly, why not help them indirectly? With a bail out of $700,000,000,000, they can pay toward mortgages, up to a limit, for people who are in standing; since say January. People with paid off mortgages suddenly have new disposable income which can go back to both main and wall streets. Paid off mortgages means no more for closures. Better yet, it creates cash flow back to the banks, making them solvent again without rewarding them for them criminal behaviour which created this whole situation in the first place."

But paying off people's mortgages isn't fair...especially to those who were fiscally responsible and didn't buy homes they could not afford!!

What of those people that have been out there, saving for a home they could afford...waiting for housing prices to adjust to more reasonable levels....you actually want their tax dollars to pay for people who jumped in over their heads and pay off their houses?

That is just not fair. No, the govt. isn't there to bail you out of personal stupidity, let those houses be sold, when the price is reasonable, people that are responsible fiscally, that are good credit risks, will be there to buy them back off the market.

Hell, if anyone had known the US gov. would be buying houses...then everyone would have jumped into the market, and gotten in to wait for the free payoff. That just isn't fair, and would be rewarding bad behavior.