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FCC Report Supports Use of White Spaces For Wireless
After the FCC's tests mentioned early last month, andy1307 submits word of the FCC's report (released Friday), writing that "the major telcos disagree with the FCC's report that concluded that using white spaces to provide free wireless internet 'would not cause major interference with other services. ... The FCC concluded that sufficient technical protections would prevent major problems.' FCC chairman Kevin Martin's proposal is to auction off the spectrum, with some rules attached. 'Some of the spectrum would be used for free Internet service, which would have content filters to block material considered inappropriate for children.'"
There's already a whitespace programming language that would go perfect with this proposal!
They want to SELL spectrum that'd be used for "free" service? That doesn't make sense.
It's also questionable just what they consider "not a major source of interferrence".
Some people may go to considerable trouble to pick up weak DTV signals. Signals that are weak could not be easily detected by networking gear that didn't have a large antenna attached.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is well known for ignoring community input regarding such things as media consolidation. Just when you think think current administration can't get away with anything more, it happens... (look for things stuffed into the bailout bill for instance).
There's some behind the scenes activity to try and head off actions the next administration might take to respond to the public. Here's an example.
"Some of the spectrum would be used for free Internet service, which would have content filters to block material considered inappropriate for children"
If kids want to find the content, they will find it with or without filters. I find that these filters are more often abused for control rather than used appropriately. Even when used in the intended manner, they are usually more annoying than helpful.
The FCC's job has, is and always will be to censor content that is broadcast in the US. It is the central and primary purpose of the organization.
May the Maths Be with you!
The FCC is eager to sell the spectrum. If they had to give it away, they'd be less eager to discover that there isn't any problem.
The telcos don't want the competition of free services. If they were bidding for spectrum to use however they please, they'd be less eager to think the FCC's test is flawed.
Who's lyingest?
Who would manage these content filters? Could they be used to block subversive content as well?
This is example of how the FCC sometimes starts to follow a good idea, but then screws it up in an absurd way.
I see absolutely no good reason for certain frequencies to have content filters for children against the user's wishes
Internet access is an individual / personal use service, not a broadcast service, and other users of the wireless service are not exposed to content viewed or accessed by one user.
Whether or not content filters are applied should be entirely up to the user.
I predict this "filtering" will only encourage closing the media/protocols required to use this wireless service, or to prevent third party software development by users of the service.
Otherwise, end-users may find methods of bypassing filtering by carrying their traffic over IPsec ESP exchanges and use custom software to tunnel their traffic in a manner that evades filters.
The FCC is proposing that the winner of a spectrum auction in the 2155 to 2180 MHz band is obliged to use it partly to offer free broadband access.
White Spaces is in the Digital TV broadcast bands, below 700 MHz.
..they're referring to religious screed, spam, violence, war propaganda and fox "news," right?
Sex? Oh.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
If it was the government responsibility to provide internet and free internet was a right of yours, then I would agree. I see this form of internet not replacing my home connection but rather providing a tool while out and about. When I'm out shopping, it would be nice to access my PDA and see what the competition's prices are online. When I'm on the road and need an address or phone number, it would be great to not have to pay cellular companies huge amount of money for a simple web access. If the only thing they are blocking is porn, fine! Do porn on your access that you pay for. I could get my email without a cell phone or Blackberry. I could even Skype call from my PDA? When I get home and have huge files to download, use the cable or DSL.
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
What makes you think the internet access might be provided free of charge?
I'm sure there will be some compensation for the companies that offer the internet access; either they'll collect money before providing the connectivity, they'll require advertising rights, or they won't do it.
There's a difference between the wireless connection being free and the internet connectivity being free.
I.E. There are two connections involved your connection to the wireless provider, and the wireless provider's connection to the internet.
The FCC can work to make the wireless connection to the provider available for free.
The actual connectivity from ISP to internet has a price, the FCC can't make that free to the provider, so they will pass the cost on to the user somehow.
Unless the FCC is paying for it on the consumer's behalf (yeah right)
which would have content filters to block material considered inappropriate for children.
Considered by whom?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The confusion is simple, really - the telco carriers are using a different definition of the term than the FCC.
The FCC is using it like any technical person would, referring to multiple radio signals causing distortion between each other and making it difficult to correctly tune and receive a desired signal.
The carriers are using it to mean 'if they offer it free, it will interfere with our plans to monopoize the market and make piles of cash making customers pay for each bit they transfer'
If it was the government responsibility to provide internet and free internet was a right of yours
The government is not providing the internet. And ultimately this service might replace your typical home internet connection, for most people.
They are doing the equivalent of a city/state government allowing cable companies to run cables through public property.
And requiring the land owners (rightholders according to the deeds that the government has issued), to allow cable lines to cross their property.
In the same manner the FCC may be requiring wireless spectrum owners to allow third-party internet service to be served using frequencies they are not actually using.
This type of concession required by deeded rightsholders doesn't mean it's appropriate for the government to start saying what kind of traffic can and can't be carried across the wire.
This is like your city saying that if your cable wire crosses city property, and you get Cable internet service from your provider, then the provider must filter all porn.
Fundamentally, this is a service the government is not providing over the connection, but they're trying to limit free speech over the connection anyways.
This is what the FCC has done with Radio and TV for years. They provide access to the public to services and require the providers to give it for free. What do your have to pay? Time. You wil have to go through advertising pop-ups. But, if you need internet while out of the home or away from coffee, you can still get it. Free is not difficult to provide. You've seen computers over the years given away for free with a required internet connection and ads stuffed in your face constantly. We shouldn't be looking at this concept as a replacement to your internet connection. It simply is intended to expand the availability of the average person and perhaps give internet to those that may not need it all the time.
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
I don't have a problem with that. If it's free, limit the product to be safe and a moral common denomitor. If you pay for it, they have no right to stop you from whatever you want. The bandwagon that too many people jump on is demanding everything for free. We need to get over this entitlement mentality in the US. Get access for free but pay for porn. Nothing unfair about it.
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
So does this mean we are allowed to write "Wire Less" now?
No, because truth-in-advertising requires you to be honest about it. It's just "Less Wire", because while it doesn't send data over wires, you still have to plug the damn thing in.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
WowIcan'timaginehowdifficultwirelesswasbeforetheyallowedtheuseofwhitespaces
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
It seems to me that new interface provides an opportunity for both support and negate tags: mouseover on the tag shows "!" and "x!, but I cannot figure out how to use those "!" and "x!" - I cannot use my mouse on them, because they disappear when I move it.
Is anybody able to do use this feature? Old way works too, so it's not a big deal, but I just feel like a newbie monkey when I cannot use that new think.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I completely agree. In fact, tax dollars are used to fund public roads and streets, and all kinds of people use them. There's pornstars, bar employees, raunchy late-night comedians, atheists, bleeding heart liberal activists, you name it! People engaging in totally inappropriate behaviour, all using public infrastructure for free! Not cool. We need to get over this entitlement mentality.
In the EU Patrizia Toia recently got a similar report adopted by the European Parliament.
Quote: "... content filters to block material considered inappropriate for children."
Which content? Whose children? The government thinks it has the right, or the knowledge, to decide for ME what MY children should be able to access?
I have said this before, but I think it's all just a scam to get people used to censorship.
Government needs to keep its goddamned hands off of the censorship button. The 'censored net' is a concept proposed by fools. For fools.
Your local library likely does not have content filters installed, but they are paid for with public tax payer money.
I don't think the government, especially the FCC, should be acting as our moral enforcer. There is a solution out there to block access to 'inappropriate material' for kids while allowing it for adults, they just need to think it over better.
IIRC, libraries in the US are required to have content filters.
Crap. What did the new CSS do with the "Post anonymously" option??
I don't think we're reading the same thing here. I see the FCC saying that if they sell a range of frequency for broad, consistent, not carrier-specific signal braodcasting, it cannot be used as a paid for service...just like TV and Radio. You don't pay for those but get the benefit. They are attempting to do exactly the same thing as Radio and TV but for internet now. The cost to you and I will be advertising to help pay for the service. The benefit for families, is that the government will still require that the communication (free stuff) is brought to a common moral denominator...just like TV and Radio. Porn is not freely broadcast over the air to everyone. I'm glad than my young boy can't easily go anywhere and be led down that road.
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
Porn is an extreme example. Providers will filter things that are far less objectionable, like weblogs, slashdot.org, youtube.com, myspace.com, for instance, because it's simply impossible to effectively filter only bad things on sites like these. I suspect also, they will block pages containing words that they deem distasteful, words such as "fuck", "shit", "g***dam*", "ass", for example.
You do pay for access to TV and Radio. Listening to advertising is paying. You are even exposed to more advertising than otherwise because broadcasters pay massive amounts to the FCC for use of spectrum.
You also pay massive taxes that fund the FCC; the least they can do is favor regulations that benefit the public more so than the corporations and ensure the public's liberty.
Network access is not a broadcast activity like radio or TV, where if something is shown on one TV, it is shown on many TVs. It is a private communications medium like telephone, a call on your cell phone, and everything you see is an answer to a request. Consider that 802.11g wireless has no content filtering restrictions.
A young boy can go easily anywhere and be led down that road, bringing their laptop to their friends' Wi-Fi or other hangout spot that provides unfettered access.
I have no objection to filtering being available to parents who want to setup their devices to do that, and it would be fine if they just forced the ISPs to make "content filtering" an available option. I do have objections to filtering being imposed on the entire user base of spectrum.
If you have a problem with it, don't use it. Nobody will force you. That's your freedom. Providing unfettered access to porn to my child in my house is not cool. I'd have no way to stop the signals from coming in and going out. This is not private communication like a phone. This is public information that you will be given free access to. Want more. Pay for more...just like cable. Don't like the restriction, get the Playboy channel added to your subscription. There are not stopping anyones freedom of speech. Porn will still be on the internet and anyone can get to it whenever they want. They are simply stating that what will come over the airways to everyone without cost (other than advertising) will not be perfect and meet everyone's standard, but there will be an attempt to be more PG than XXX. Want more, pay for it.
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
That mobile porn surfing would be verboten.
It would be nice to be able to fire up my Touch and get my email though. There's fairly consistent Wi-Fi in my daily life that I can get away with that now.
But look at the cluster fuck Wi-Max became.
Score one for Larry Paige?
This one's mine!
Just because you can, does not mean you should.
You need to take some classes in law, ethics, and philosophy. You're not understanding what morals are. Morals are the foundation of what helps us decide what is inherently right and wrong. You are obvously on the side of argument that there are no moral absolutes. I'm on the side that believes there are. Moral absolutes will transcend government, society, and social norms. Like it or not, laws are not just to protect us from each other. You have to decide what is worth protecting and why. This is where morals are argued over until laws (common understanding of the morals) are agreed upon and enforced.
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
"You've obviously not lived outside the US to see the other side of the coin. I'm American and live in America. I've also lived in Asia and Africa. I can see what a cmplete lack of moral standards and no censorship leads to. Leave America for a while and tell me what you like better. You have no idea what you are wishing for. That's a fact."
You completely missed the point of what I was saying. Moral standards DO NOT come from national governments! Not only would that be inappropriate (and intolerable here in the U.S.), but the simple fact is that governments are not capable of administering moral values.
That is the point I was making, and the point that you completely failed to get. Censorship (and other forms of tyranny) come from the "top down", i.e., from "authority" to the people. Moral standards (the "community standards" I mentioned before) go from the bottom up: from the people to the government.
That is not just the way it works, that it the only way it CAN work! Especially here.
The people tell the government what THEY think is appropriate. NOT the other way around. I really don't much care where you have lived before, but you sure as hell don't know much about how the United States has worked, and how it is supposed to work!
I completely agree. In fact, tax dollars are used to fund public roads and streets, and all kinds of people use them. There's pornstars, bar employees, raunchy late-night comedians, atheists, bleeding heart liberal activists, you name it! People engaging in totally inappropriate behaviour, all using public infrastructure for free! Not cool. We need to get over this entitlement mentality.
This comment is the prime example of entitlement mentality issues. Ignoring the stab at atheism et al for a minute [1], comparing the use of roads to "the right to have free wireless internet" (let alone unrestricted) is just ridiculous. Next you will be asking for free internet at home. And then all music/movies for free. And then all software for free. And then all hardware for free. Even if there was some foundation for the comparison, these people aren't typically performing said inappropriate behaviour while using the streets. I initially thought "What do you expect though from someone self-proclaiming to be a fascist" until I noticed the +4, Insightful moderation. Come on moderators, show some dignity.
[1] What's so inherently bad about atheism? I'm assuming that the implied "correct alternative" is Christianity. There is no proof that the Christian teachings are any better or more accurate than other religions. What's wrong with saying "hey, none of these look particularly appealing, I'm not going to choose any"? And what the hell is inherently wrong with bar employees?
I think you missed the sarcasm there...
As for the meat of the argument - free internet would encourage economic activity (the same way roads encourage economic activity) that benefits society and so I would justify it as a collective expense (ie taxpayer funded). The internet is perhaps an exception in that its a common infrastructure not established by the government.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
I noticed the potential for sarcasm, but apparently the moderators didn't. They effectively supported the stance by moderating it insightful. "Funny" would have been a more appropriate moderation.
As for your counter-point, I agree that it can potentially promote economic growth. But "technically competent" end users who feel entitled to free internet are likely to be the main users of the infrastructure (potentially with ad blocking software with no intent to purchase anything). I'm not saying that it shouldn't go ahead, just that the whole entitlement mentality is unhealthy.
I agree that it would be the technically competent who would benefit most, but was this not the case with telephones and electricity too? It will take time for everyone to take full advantage, but in time it will happen - free internet could be a catalyst for this.
But on the more broader point - I think people need to have a real conversation about entitlement - what does each human being deserve, just for being born?
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
They never had any legitimate right to censor anything. FULL STOP. Censorship is an oppressive act and those that perpetrate it no matter how well intentioned are evil. I hope they get what they deserve.
Content filters? *Auctions*?
I thought the whole point of this white space thing was to have more *unregulated* spectrum?!?!
It's not a question of whether or not you have the right to free internet. I don't think you have the "right" to free use of public infrastructure in the sense you seem to interpret the word "right". That service is provided for "free", that is, paid for by tax money, either because it's just how it's always been done or because there are thought to be benefits to doing it that way. Probably a bit of both. Same thing with "free" wireless internet, should it be provided. It's not a right, it's simply a service the government provides. I don't see how tax dollars being spent on internet access for everyone means the government should control what kind of content can be transmitted through their wireless service any more than they should control who drives on their roads.
(And I hope no-one is thinking of pulling the "what about traffic police" argument on me. We're not talking about criminal use of the internet, and anyway, filtering is censorship before the fact, not comparable to regular police work where you first have a crime and then an investigation.)
As for the rest of your comments, well, you may wonder whether I was serious or not. I'll say I was surprised about the insightful moderation myself, but I hoped it was just the mods figuring you can be both sarcastic and insightful at the same time. The alternative is frightening.
First, you were wrong about my "obvious anger", since I am not angry at all. I have strong opinions, but do not confuse those with anger. That would be a big mistake.
Second, you are still missing my point. Our government CAN'T even make the laws you would wish on us, because they are unconstitutional! Further, if the lawmakers "sense" that more people agree with you, then we are in for serious trouble, because that means the downfall of our constitution. (However, I am not really concerned about that, because in fact the majority of people do NOT agree with you about government-imposed censorship. Poll after poll after poll have demonstrated that repeatedly and consistently. Go ahead. Check for yourself. But, from what I have seen, you will probably just confuse that with cultural values again.)
Then you refer to "places that function the way [I] want." Sorry, guy, but you are STILL confused! That place is the United States! Government censorship is ILLEGAL in this country! Granted, some concessions have been made (poorly, in the past) by the FCC in re: public television. Arguably, even those are unconstitutional. They only get away with it because the Supreme Court has said that they can enforce "community standards"! NOT the government's view of what should be said.
See, it keeps coming back to community standards and cultural standards, not government. Which is what I said in the beginning, and which you have still refused to understand.
Further, as history has clearly shown (again, I don't care where you have lived before because you don't seem to know the difference between a law and a cultural value): censorship is the first and foremost tool of oppressive governments. Not many Americans are fond of oppressive government.
If this is the only kind of thing you have to say, then I am done wasting my time here.
and a moral common denomitor
There's no such thing. You can approach such things for certain segments of the citizenry, but it's asymptotically impossible to achieve uniformly.
Only one thing is certain: for any thing that exists on Earth, you can find somebody whom it offends, and somebody else who is really turned on.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
We are not asking for free internet. We are asking for free etherspace to carry that internet, which is public property. And seen as it is only a communication medium, any censorship is suppressing free speech. Setting up the network is somone else's job. And yes, I support FLOSS, as most of us here at /., right guys?
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.