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FCC Cancels Free Internet Vote
Earlier this year we discussed a proposal from the FCC which would have required winning bidders for a portion of the wireless spectrum to use some of that bandwidth for free internet access. A vote for the plan was scheduled for next Thursday, but now the FCC has canceled those plans, facing "opposition from several top officials, wireless providers, and even civil rights groups." The internet access would have had some level of filtering, to which privacy groups took exception, and the Bush administration objected to forcing requirements on the winners of the spectrum auction. Others simply asked the FCC not to take on such a major project as the transition between analog and digital television transmissions looms.
that the FCC is corrupt. Colin Powell's son was the head of it for a while, only because of his Dad's connections.
Free nationwide internet access would be just like what happens with free nationwide health service.
At first it works fine and takes only a tiny bit of our taxes, then it grows in size (and squares in budget) as more and more people leave their paid service for the free one: after all, they're paying for it as well.
Then comes the time when almost the whole service is in the hands of the state. It takes up a huge budget and a proportionate bite of our taxes. It works so that nobody is left unconnected, but not much more. The state mandates what can it be used for and what not. It sets up any filter it likes (of course, filters will only grow). Privacy is nixed.
But, hey, almost everybody is hooked up to STATENET because nobody can compete with it. Only those that can afford paying double get a quality (and expensive) internet service.
Is when lots of people are telling you that you can't or that you shouldn't, you decide to say "fuck y'all" and do what you and your people think is best.
>>>Others simply asked the FCC not to take on such a major project as the transition between analog and digital television transmissions looms.
The DTV transition is almost complete. It will be a done deal on February 18 with a few minor issues to work-out during March, and then the FCC will be free to regulate the free internet service in channels 52-69 (the sold off spectrum).
>>>The internet access would have had some level of filtering, to which privacy groups took exception
So what? Free broadcast television has filtering as well, to bring it down to "PG" level, so I don't see what the issue is here. If you want raunchy stuff, you upgrade to pay TV or pay internet that is not censored.
>>>Bush administration objected to forcing requirements on the winners of the spectrum auction
I don't know why. We already force requirements onto other lessees of the PUBLIC spectrum, such as forcing tv stations to air educational programs, or cellphone operators to provide 911 tracing. The Corporations don't own the airwaves; they are merely leasing them from the People of the United States. If the collective "landlords" want to impose certain requirements for use of their property, so be it.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
...not! I'm not in the least bit surprised, considering that every time someone tries to spearhead any type of free broadband internet access for the American public, it gets shouted down by corporate types from all four corners of the country. After all, we can't have Big Telecom's strangle-hold monopoly on broadband broken by even our puny government, now can we? Wasn't there a U.S. city that recently was sued by a telecom because they had the unmitigated gall to actually make plans to build their own fiber network for use by their residents, because that telecom didn't want to be bothered to build the infrastructure themselves? If you think things are strange now, just wait: I see very stormy times ahead; the War for the Internet is just beginning.
It's good to hear this plan is dead. Kevin Martin backed this network so he'd look like a "family-values man" and score some points with cultural conservatives in North Carolina, where Martin has long been planning a bid for Congress.
This 25mhz of spectrum in the AWS3 band could go toward a lot of very cool services--LTE, for instance. Martin's plan--to earmark the 25mhz for 768kbps of censored wireless broadband that wouldn't even be widely deployed for a decade--is clearly not the smartest way to put these frequencies to use.
The FCC should do one of two things with this spectrum--a)auction it off with no strings attached and allow the winning firm to sell or rent the spectrum as if it were property, or b)set the band free as unlicensed flexible use spectrum subject only to basic EIRP and non-interference requirements and nothing more.
'Others simply asked the FCC not to take on such a major project as the transition between analog and digital television transmissions looms.'
Why is this a 'major project'? And just what the heck has digital TV got to do with free wifi?
Also, from one of the links.
'Cell phone companies, in particular Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile, oppose the proposal, saying it will create interference, among other concerns. T-Mobile paid about $4.2 billion for an adjacent piece of spectrum.
The FCC has said its engineers examined the issue and found no technical interference issues.'
I suggest that the 'interference' that T-Mobile and others are worried about is the interference that this would create in them charging shitloads of money for internet access via their existing mobile networks.
Shame - apart from perhaps boosting the USA's dismal record in internet access, just image what widely available free Internet access could do. Think what GPS did...
I'm sure that ways could be found to ensure that network builders and operators could still get a decent ROI. Business users, for example, would still be prepared to pay extra for guaranteed voice/data coverage and added-value services.
The real fix for the filtering problem is not to filter, but to license access to the internet. To be completely honest, just about everything done on any public utility has rules and regulations and forces people to obtain licenses to use them. Want to drive on the road? Get a license. Want to be an electrician? Get a license. Want to check out library books? Get a license. If you abuse the public's trust, you get your license revoked. Unlike, say, blocking IPs of the RBN, content filtering will never work, socially or technically, so waste our time trying.
What would have been better for civil rights: Free evernet with filtering that has a snowballs chance in hell of actually censoring anything, or an oligopoly of commercial networks?
Having a government mandated filter would set a dangerous precedent. Free is fine, but caveats aren't free. Or do they mean free as in repressed?
'Others simply asked the FCC not to take on such a major project as the transition between analog and digital television transmissions looms.'
Future FCC employees will be tested to see if they can pat the top of their head whilst rubbing their tummy. If they fail the test, they get the job.
Don't read too much into this. The whole auction was set up to benefit ONE COMPANY.
The FCCs requirements for the use of the spectrum matched this company's business plan and nobody elses. So the cancellation of the auction isn't the bad thing you're making it out to be. It's a good thing, because all it would have done would have been to create another monopoly. Free web access? Nothing paid for with taxes is free. Get over it. I'd rather everyone pay for their own internet and keep my taxes low. I pay way too much as it is.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122895503515596485.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Privacy is nixed.
The telecoms were more than happy to nix your privacy. If the evil government really wanted to filter and wiretap the internet then they could just cajole the ISPs into doing it for them. No "free internet" conspiracy theory required. Your beloved corporations are poor defenders of our freedoms.
The domestic spying scandal is a *real* example of a government bait-and-switch. People were attracted by "small government" ideals, but what they got were government abuses outsourced to unaccountable companies. As a result, I will never support a "small government" candidate.
But you still have people taking over other people's computers (license or no) and being without an internet license would be even less manageable than being without a driver's license as time goes on.
In other words, I don't think it would actually work and it would give the government too much control over us all.
Of course you can substitute anything for anything (try "our alien overlords" or "Sauron"), but you lost the logic. In doing so, it is you, Sir, who are a troll.
The original idea was that government HS would be a MONOPOLY, with NO COMPETITION and no incentive to IMPROVE or INNOVATE.
Sure enough "conglomerates" can try to establish an oligopoly, which is only marginally better than a monopoly. In that case it should be the government task to BREAK UP the oligopoly (that's what the anti-trust law is about), not establish its own monopoly.
Where I grew up (there was this country called USSR), government had a "UHS". Everyone was "entitled" to the best health care, but when you needed it it turned out the hospitals were all filled up and could not take you just now (well, maybe in a year), medicines were not available, etc. You had to "know people" to get in.
It's hard for me to forget my first comprehensive blood test there. I was in a "good" hospital (which took some "tokens of gratitude"). The nurse could not hit my vein and kept berating me for being difficult. The needle was maybe twice the diameter they use here in the States. It took her about 15 minutes of poking my arm and yelling at me to collect all samples.
Need I explain how happy I am to use the "overpriced" US systems with all of its evil "conglomerates"?
I don't understand the civil rights group's position. I can understand being against censorship, but this seems rather moronic. Being totally against free internet access because of censorship seems like a "biting off your nose" moment.
I'd rather have free wifi with censorship, than no free wifi at all. It isn't like this is going to replace home connection, or completely censor the full internet. It just sounds like another case of blind idealism leading to absurd consequences, once again. If anyone is a member of these groups, please stop funding them, they are harmful to the common good.
It has to be my way, or no one can play.
Oh well, I thought it was an awesome idea. It would have been nice to check my email on the run, without having to pay a wifi company huge amounts of money, using an uber expensive wireless internet service, or worrying about the legality of the signals I grab. That is special interests for you.
Can the government really change the contract after the fact? Wouldn't there be some legal issue involved in this?
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
... lets define exactly what "Internet service" is. Most people seem to think its the capability to access remote services of your choosing at your convenience. It turns out that, absent some sort of 'Net neutrality' regulations (or even a definition), this is only a temporary condition, thanks to the benevolence of the monopoly telecoms. At any time, they reserve the right to filter or impose pricing structures so as to direct customers to their preferred partners.
I fear that the 'free service' will suffer from the same lack of understanding. Only PG content, services that have been blessed as 'approved' by the RIAA and MPAA and content deemed not to be politically incorrect will make it through the filters. The approval process to be placed on some white list (or get removed from a black list) will be every bit as onerous as having to pay kickbacks to be carried on the for-profit telecoms systems.
IMO, the Internet is a series of networks, routing nodes and name services needed to create connections between two points or broadcast packets from one to many. Anything more restrictive than this should not legally be advertised as 'Internet Service'.
Have gnu, will travel.
>facing "opposition from several top officials, wireless providers, and even civil rights groups."
In Soviet Russia, corporations regulate the government. Oh, wait...
We have been waiting and waiting on the cable and phone company lies. No price reductions for cable tv or broadband. EVER. There are only 2 cable companies in my area. I have no doubt that they conspire on prices. The 2nd new company,everest, has higher prices than Time Warner. Does that make sense? Not a free market.
We need government run utilities and broadband is one of those necessities.
For the Adam Smith Capitalists here, there should be rules in place to allow ISP's to charge whatever they want for a certain income bracket.
excuse me, but the time of church of holistic economy ended around 1.5 months ago. i think you missed what happened by then, and what is happening now, and what really unregulated 'free' market in which everything is miraculously run by 'private' enterprise runs 'more efficient' ... just 6 of those 'private enterprises' have dragged ENTIRE WORLD into a mega crisis, because there were idiots who subscribed heavily to the church of holistic economy, which is little different than believing that there is an almighty paternalistic god which will 'save' his believers. 'market delivers' 'market will handle all' 'market this, market that'. in the end we are all biting dirt. unfortunately not only you americans, but each and every individual on the face of this planet is getting blasted.
im also appalled at how you americans somehow think that you're paying less for stuff, because they are not DIRECTLY taken out of your pocket in the form of taxes. its really stupefying, a total case of sociology study.
you people dont pay for nationalized, CONTROLLABLE healthcare. but pay for 'efficient' companies that are private. but then again, those companies do everything in their power to NOT pay for your healthcare, or increase your premiums, and when any politican tries to reform it, they spend hundreds of million dollars for lobbying and get any kind of reform scuttled. what's more, they also buy out laws that will benefit them, even at the cost of your own life, risking it, just to make more easy cash out of you.
and what's worse, you CANT control them, because they are private. you CANT sue them, because they have more money, and they can find ways to scuttle any of your chances of getting your right through an army of lawyers, which you cant afford. you would be probably dead by the time that lawsuit comes to a close anyway, or your relative.
it is absolutely stupid to be able to believe in such a system. DESPITE getting continually and incessantly screwed, sometimes openly, mercilessly. the only reason i can think of, that someone can defend such a system, would be that s/he is a mazoschist. really, to be exploited and risked your life in the same time, willingly, cant be explained by anything else.
and what is more appalling is that, despite there ARE many countries in the world which are pulling nationalized, nationwide healthcare VERY well, VERY efficiently, there are still people who are WANKING the stupidity that is 'nationwide nationalized healthcare system is inefficient and expensive'. well. if you country is/was not able to pull it off, seek the fault in YOUR country, not the system. after all, democracy is the best invented governance method in this civilization, but there are still countries that are not able to pull it off correctly. therefore its YOUR fault, not the system's, if you are unable to make it work right.
now let me break something to you : nationalized healthcare is something that is under YOUR control. there is only one government, and you are one of its OWNERS, and you, as people, can hold any kind of sway over it, and get your rights much more easier than you can take from a private company. hell, government even has to supply any kind of information to you, unless they are military secrets, if you just request them. you cant even ask those for a private company - because that information even, is private property. if they screw you, any information regarding that is private. if they cook the books, any information regarding that is private, until shit hits the fan and there is no chance of fixing it. if they intentionally drive some segment of the society to death, just because they are more risky for profits, you wont know that, because those statistics are private information. any attempt you or your politicians try to change those will be met with shitface "private rights ! property rights ! HANDS OFF" wanking.
there are some functions of the society that CANT be risked in private hands. those include defense, po
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Sure, some corporate practices suck. But putting the government in charge of disseminating speech is not something I want to see in any society. The answer isn't putting government in charge but rather in allowing more people to provide more services. That's a free market.
Do you really want politicians in charge of what people say over the internet? Give me a capitalist: or more realistically, a dozen companies forced to provide the service that the customer want.
Well, thanks to the Internet, I'm now bored with sex.
The filtering isn't what most people are fighting against, it's the very idea of an option of government-run internet access. I think that's what the post you replied to was addressing...
I think it's a great idea except for the filtering, which is so impossible to implement that it'd have to be dropped anyway. It doesn't take an IQ over 60 to realize that.
Why have this and a related comment a few doors up been modded "flamebait?" It's especially ironic in a discussion that involves freedom of speech.
Revive the Constitution.
This is all about the First Amendment. Let's not follow the gov't down the path of censorship. After all, censorship is becoming America's favorite past-time. The US gov't (and their corporate friends), already place protesters in fenced-in cages, ban books like "America Deceived" from Wikipedia, Amazon and Facebook, and shut down Ron Paul. Free Speech forever.
Last link (before Google Books caves to pressure and drops the title):
America Deceived (book)
The topic is: FCC Cancels Free Internet Vote.
Not: "first posts" on /., and not "Moderation on /."
Instead of calling unfunny things jokes, and complaining about mods...
How about complaining about the fact the FCC cancelled the Free Internet Vote
Which essentially means they did exactly what the big wireless lobby (ATT, Verizon, T-Mobile, etc), would have wanted them to do.
Big greedy corporations couldn't be happier now.
It's a brilliant idea though, as it would clearly bring down the cost of commercial wireless internet services.
And things like text messages... short text-base messages (like text-only e-mail) are a nice use case for a free service.
The filtering should simply be ignored until the service is actually deployed: I can understand why they would want it, but that battle need to be fought later.
I expect the service would be so slow and limited as to not be a heavily desired service for most users.
i.e. So many people attempting to use the free service would make performance unbearable.
It would be no good for streaming video, and other such things, you would still have to buy commercial Internet/wireless services for.
But it could great as a service of last resort, people could use when all other ways of communicating or accessing the internet failed.
For example, during an internet failure, or during an infrastructure failure event (natural disaster that cuts off power to PCs).
You're a funny man.
Will you pay me face value for old currency and bonds?
The size of a swindle is limited by trust. Nobody trusts corporations. Fools trust government. Ergo government grift is potentially larger then corporate grift. Only time will tell the truth of the matter.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Free nationwide internet access would be just like what happens with free nationwide health service.
These services and the markets in which they operate are so unlike each other that any prediction that depends on the similarities between the two is going to fail.
It works so that nobody is left unconnected, but not much more.
The idea that the service would be "not much more" than basic connectivity is at odds with the idea that other services would wither. If the service is mediocre, blocks any substantial portion of the web, or is ad supported then it seems quite likely there's a market for competing services.
Privacy is nixed.
Given the recent and well-publicized level of cooperation between large private telecoms and the state, I'm not sure this is a change from the status quo.
almost everybody is hooked up to STATENET
Bit of a misnomer for privately operated networks with some common state rules, administered by as many parties as choose to participate.
Tweet, tweet.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Verizon has mod points?
Free Internet Vote Cancels FCC