Stimulus Bill Contains Net Neutrality Provision

visible.frylock writes "Cnet is reporting that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (PDF), currently in the House Appropriations Committee, contains Net Neutrality provisions: 'The so-called stimulus package hands out billions of dollars in grants for broadband and wireless development, primarily in what are called "unserved" and "underserved" areas. ... The catch is that the federal largesse comes with Net neutrality strings attached. ... recipients must operate broadband and high-speed wireless networks on an "open access basis." The FCC, soon to be under Democratic control, is charged with deciding what that means. Congress didn't see fit to include a definition.' The broadband grants appear to begin in SEC. 3101 (pg. 49) of the PDF."

Comments

Sounds Great

[drinkypoo]

I live in Lake county, California and this would be a fantastic environment for WiMax. We have a volcano (dormant... heh heh) in the middle of the county upon which we already have a radio shack, and I don't mean the store. I helped my pop insulate it when I was a kid. We have a capture-and-rebroadcast system here called LCTV, and I believe Edge (now part of the evil empire) has a tower up there as well (maybe AT&T has some of their own stuff up there too.) There is good road access, so it would be relatively trivial to truck a small shipping container and some building materials up there, and there is far more than sufficient exposure for combo solar/wind power to run the system. If this bill goes through before I move out of here, I may have to start tapping some connections and see if I can finally get a working last mile solution up in here.