FCC Considering Free Internet For USA

jbolden writes "According to the Wall Street Journal, the FCC is considering a plan to provide free wireless internet. The plan would involve some level of filtering, but might allow adults to opt out. CTIA has argued that this business model has traditionally failed (see Slate magazine's analysis as to why)."

Comments

Tax Dollars

[y86]

WOW! Something that my tax dollars pay for that MIGHT actually benefit me? Neat-o.

I mean welfare and social security is great, but besides the roads and military it would be nice to get some value back.

Re:Tax Dollars

[nurb432]

You ever eat food that didn't kill you ? (FDA), or drink water? How about housing the hard core criminals in prison?

Does it snow in your area? Plows are a nice thing to have.

Sure there is a lot of waste in government, but you get a lot more benefit then you are giving them credit for.

Re:Tax Dollars

[viking099]

Obligatory Monty Python quote:
Reg:
        All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?

Re:Tax Dollars

[omeomi]

Yeah, and then once the FCC has effectively made internet within the US a public resource, they can start censoring it with the same crazy arbitrary rules they use for broadcast TV. No thanks, I think I'd like to stick to the private model.

Re:Tax Dollars

[LandDolphin]

That is pretty much their goal. But, that's fine as long as you still have the option to purchase unfiltered internet from the current ISPs.

Filtered Internet is better then no internet for a lot of people.

Re:Tax Dollars

[Fallingcow]

SS? Social Security? Very low overhead, actually. Tiny. Nearly all of their spending is in the form of checks to citizens, which is the whole point. They even bring in more money than they spend--at least for now.

The problem is that they'll stop bringing in that surplus and start spending from savings in a couple of years, due to demographic shifts (the baby boomers). This means that they'll run out of money around 2040. SS can't spend money that isn't from the special tax that's set aside just for it (FICA) so it's unclear what would happen in such an event.

It's a bit misleading to compare SS spending to other government spending, in fact, since its funding is from that sole source and it does not and cannot take money from the general budget. In fact, the very large surplus from SS is used to as a source to borrow for spending in the general budget, so its presence makes our deficit look artificially lower than it is.

To summarize: SS is among the most efficiently-run government programs, and actually props up the general budget rather than dragging it down, at least for the next 30 years or so.

Re:Tax Dollars

[Hatta]

How about housing the hard core criminals in prison?

Yeah, I'm sure all 2 million of them are way too dangerous to be let out on the street. No, this money is wasted housing petty criminals and drug users, while Bush and his crew, and let's not forget the CEOs of every investment bank in the country are free.

More people are arrested for marijuana possession in this country than EVERY OTHER VIOLENT CRIME COMBINED! Is that what you call a good use of tax payer resources?

Re:Tax Dollars

[jank1887]

well have no fear, the same program guarantees that other people will help pay for your disability or retirement in the event you need it, instead of having you just starve to death. And if you don't need it? great, glad to hear it. be thankful that the program would have supported you if you did.

Re:Tax Dollars

[Pharmboy]

Don't forget that in America, the minimum sentence someone can get for a SINGLE pot plant is 5 years federal time, which is much longer than the average crack dealer gets for his first offense.

Nothing more dangerous than a pothead with a green thumb.

Re:Tax Dollars

[RalphBNumbers]

No, it really isn't.

Free filtered internet means that all the people paying for a broadband line to read email, and occasionally browse the web, can now do so for free. Without the ~95% of customers who underuse their connections subsiding the cost of the ~5% who actually need broadband, ISPs will have to increase prices dramatically.

The end result is that only the financially well off will have access to anything the government feels like censoring on their network. And that's making the optimistic assumption that the censorship stops with government networks, and isn't extended, voluntarily or not, to the big ISPs.

What will happen to political speech when that happens? Given what we've seen of these kinds of filters thus far, they tend to pick up on key words, block entire sites for single pages, and generate a lot of what a reasonable person viewing a site would consider false positives. Will any site the agitates for the rights of sex workers, or transsexuals, or gays risk being marked as sexual content, and blocked from the vast majority of american voters? Will any site that discusses a hate crime risk being labeled as hate-speech, and excluded as well? How much harder will it be to get a major party to take up such causes in that kind of environment?

I think that free ubiquitous basic internet access is a great idea, that could do a lot of good for a lot of people and the economy overall.
But I'd gladly forgo it, if the cost is freedom of speech on the internet.
Any government supported network needs to be an unfiltered. Even forcing people to register with the government as adults to receive an unfiltered connection is far too burdensome, in that it destroys users' privacy and any potential anonymity for whistleblowers and the like. Any parents who want to restrict their kids' browsing have plenty of options to do so on their own devices, without unconstitutionally and unduly compromising adults' freedom of speech.

Re:Tax Dollars

[Fujisawa Sensei]

Try using a real source, like The Constitution, not some propaganda farm.

Preamble:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Article 1, Section 8:

To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Its supported just like the US Military is. Now please take your fascist BS to someplace more appropriate; if you don't like China, try Iran, or Saudi Arabia. They're all more to suited to you.

Re:Tax Dollars

[squiggleslash]

Geez, it was two thousand years ago! Will you let it go already?

Free internet?

[neokushan]

Two entries down on the front page, there's an article speculating that the internet will meltdown due to some change an application is about to make, yet here's an article proposing FREE wireless internet to everyone?

If the infrastructure can't handle what people are paying for, how on earth do they plan to give it away for free?
Even with severe bandwidth restrictions, it's going to cause a hell of a lot more usage.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for this kind of thing and I'd love to see Free Wireless internet for everyone, I just wish people would make up their minds - is the internet ready to expand or collapse on top of itself?

Re:Free internet?

[bladesjester]

You can't use your home phone to talk 24/7

You have clearly never seen a house full of teenage girls. lol

Could be a great idea!

[rotide]

Obviously you can't be looking for 10mbps connections to watch streaming video and download isos. But think about a simple internet connection that allows for basic web browsing, email use, IM texting, etc.

Out on the road? Can't find an open WiFi hotspot to check google maps? Solved.

Out on the road? Want to download the newest HD episode of your show? Ya, you're going to want to get a connection from a paid-for ISP.

USA where Internet is a right and Heathcare isn't

[MosesJones]

Seriously folks, can't the greatest power in the world today do some form of prioritisation? Free internet access, brilliant a free utility, a basic fundamental right of every american guaranteed by the constitution and our founding fathers.

Free Healthcare of course is a communist plot to subvert the country and destroy everything America stands for.

Free Healthcare should be a right, the internet should be a utility just like power and water... something that you pay for.

Some level of filtering

[nurb432]

And a hell of a lot of monitoring...

Wireless Philadelphia

[snarfies]

I am a resident of the city of Philadelphia. Maybe you've heard of our cities wireless initiative over the years. It began, as the Slate article mentions with Earthlink putting up access points all over the city, and charging $20/month for access. The main problem was that the service rarely actually WORKED. I tried it for a week when I was unemployed and looking to save money. They gave me a box to connect to my computer with an antenna the length of my arm, and even so the signal would fluctuate wildly from minute to minute, from full strength to zero strength, no matter where I put the box or aimed the antenna.

The network is still there after Earthlink abandoned it. It shows up on my celphone (sometimes) as something I can connect to. Only I don't think I've ever once successfully loaded a web page using in on my celphone, and not for lack of trying in all different parts of the city. In other words, now that its free its more useless than ever.

Government-run communications

[Adrian Lopez]

I don't want the government to be my ISP, and I really don't like the implications of having a net connection that is so directly controlled by the government. The fact that filtering is even mentioned at all suggests what a potentially bad idea this really is. Filtering, surveillance and the displacement of unfiltered commercial alternatives? No thanks.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

panopticon

[globaljustin]

from TFA:

a plan to offer free, pornography-free wireless Internet service to all Americans

To address concerns about the filter, the FCC is proposing that adults could opt out and access all Internet sites.

Yeah, just type in your social security number and your password...

Age verification = no privacy...on a government network at least...

I really can't imagine a more effective way for the government to track and monitor the activities of its citizens. Which is bad. Normally I would love the idea, even if it had to be offered at slower speeds, but unless we make it open, with NO AGE VERIFICATION or anything of that sort we're just asking for 1984...

This isn't the Internet - it's filter data access

[yourpusher]

The free service could be slower and would be required to filter out pornography and other material not suitable for children.

Right, the same FCC that is fining stations hundreds of thousands of dollars because they didn't bleep out Bono's "fucking brilliant" in time will determine what is and isn't suitable content accessible through this service.

Fuck that.

Wishful thinking...

[Joce640k]

People will absorb ANY amount of bandwidth if it's free. This thing will ALWAYS be overloaded and unusable. Period.

A great opportunity to push IPv6

[Nicolas MONNET]

There wouldn't be enough IPv4 to provide such a large scale service.
Just make the all thing IPv6, possibly with proxies to access the IPv4; that would instantly provide a massive incentive for third parties to start supporting IPv6.

Grammar

[Anonymous Coward]

nothing of use was taught to me passed elementary school

It shows :)

Re:"Free" is relative

[LandDolphin]

But that invovled people actually doing something. It is much easier for them to sit back and complain about other people/Government.

Re:And while I highly doubt this...

[mrsteveman1]

The effectiveness or lack thereof, is not the problem. The bigger problem is as follows:

First, They intend this thing to be available to the majority of the population, that means it will be a significant market force and not just some kind of low income, rural internet access for those who don't have one now. That means even if i choose not to use it, i will be affected by it in some way.

Second, these people, M2Z (the company) and the ones pushing for this behind the scenes, jumped right to porn when the question of blocking came up. Why porn? That question must be asked. Why not violence? Why not hate speech? Why not unhealthy recipes for sweets? Are we protecting children, or imposing a social agenda on the population? If you are going to block something, other things should be higher on your priority list if your excuse is protecting the children. Something tells me protecting children isn't the goal, or rather the idiots involved think porn is the most harmful thing children (or anyone?) could see on the internet.

Next, it isn't free either, it's ad-supported. No matter what, i am funding your censorship of me by using this network. They are either going to be altering traffic transparently, or forcing users to use a proxy, or run a desktop client (substantially limiting its usefulness) to show you those ads. And they are going to be selectively blocking one type of content unless you pay more as the summary states (maybe).

Those 2 things, altering traffic to show ads, and selective content delivery or prioritization (network neutrality etc), are things the FCC has been railing against for a long time. It is a conflict of interest for the FCC to be encouraging these things in one situation while profiting from the thing, while blasting other ISPs for doing the same thing.

I can only hope this entire thing fails at this point, it's a somewhat good idea, being hampered and fucked with through government interference and mandate (which might even be unconstitutional), and behind the scenes influence.

Re:USA where Internet is a right and Heathcare isn

[gad_zuki!]

Obviously you've never received care in a wealthy European nation. After spending some time overseas coming back to the US's healthcare system is like going back in time to the middle ages. "Oh, you wont cover that? You say its pre-existing? You wont pay for that test by doctor wants? Oh only $800 deductible? Oh, another bill from another readjustment? Oh, I lost my job and wont have insurance for two months and COBRA is 800 a month?"

>Government screws up everything it touches.

Bullshit. Certain people in power want you to believe competent government cant exist, but it does all over the world. Republicans love to sell you on this line because it helps their corporate masters make more money and provides an excuse for their corruption in office. Perhaps you should be voting in the guy who is willing to do things right as opposed to resigning yourself to shitty government run by shitty people.

Re:And while I highly doubt this...

[level_headed_midwest]

...and how long do you think that the restrictions will be limited to just porn and you can opt out? We have things like the "fairness doctrine" being kicked around in Congress to censor political speech on radio and **AA legislation for physical media. Once you give the government control, the cat is out of the bag and not going back in. Why do you think this will be one iota different?