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US Considers Some Free Wireless Broadband Service

Posted by kdawson on from the get-what-you-don't-pay-for dept.

gollum123 writes "US regulators may dedicate spectrum to free wireless Internet service for some Americans to increase affordable broadband service nationwide, the Federal Communications Commission said on Tuesday. The FCC provided few details about how it would carry out such a plan and who would qualify, but will make a recommendation under the National Broadband Plan set for release next week. The agency will determine details later. One way of making broadband more affordable is to 'consider use of spectrum for a free or a very low-cost wireless broadband service,' the FCC said in a statement." Nobody has more than a couple of paragraphs on this story. None of the press coverage mentions the obvious likelihood that any such free network would be heavily filtered, censored, and monitored.

8 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. heh by Pojut · · Score: 4, Insightful

    First comes government cheese. Then comes government health care. Now comes government internet connections. Next comes government monitoring and censorship of said inter- *NO CARRIER*

    --
    Living With a Nerd
    1. Re:heh by sopssa · · Score: 4, Funny

      Well it's obvious the whole purpose of this is to ga*NO CARRIER*

    2. Re:heh by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's not necessarily a bad thing if the scope is narrowed to emergency services or official business(state and local government agencies, in short) like filing tax paperwork, renewing vehicle registration or paying off tickets, and applying for and managing benefits(which would be facilitated by ubiquitous debit cards). It would eliminate a lot of paperwork and expensive face-time for the agencies involved as well as lower-class and/or rural citizens.

      But for regular browsing news and Facebook-type stuff? Yeah, bet on monitoring...though the data collected won't be representitive of all demographics because the middle-class and wealthy will still have the "full-featured" broadband from cable providers...which are kinda monitored anyway, but that's beside the point.

      Since the service must be allocated among a list of open frequencies, it's also possible that people subscribing to the service would need new gadgets to access the pipes. There's a lot of possibility for abuse if, say, the extra communication logic is subseqently required for "emergency" purposes in all gadgets.

    3. Re:heh by skids · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I see nothing in the liked article that says the "free or low cost service" would be run by the government, just that they'd consider allowing companies, localities, and nonprofits to use these frequencies if that's what they do with it.

      As always, you put a lot of your trust in your ISP, so choose carefully.

      --
      Someone had to do it.
    4. Re:heh by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Though you know this is government we're talking about. That NO CARRIER will not be due to filtering and regulations, but simply to shoddy, half-baked and simply not working connections.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  2. This isn't new by mrsteveman1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't remember the name of the company but suffice it to say, there is a company who has been riding the back of the FCC for years, trying to get them to approve some kind of free wireless broadband plan just like is being described here.

    The old plan was to have the government collect some revenue from the company in exchange for offering exclusive use of the spectrum. The company was planning to filter the connection, specifically to block porn, because they had some significant ties to the moral morons in the "family" groups.

    I don't recall how they were planning to pay for the whole thing, but i seem to remember they had for-pay plans that might have subsidized the free (censored) plans.

    1. Re:This isn't new by mrsteveman1 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Here is the company http://www.m2znetworks.com/

      They originally wanted a 15 year exclusive spectrum license, and as you can see from their website, even now after their original plan was totally rejected, they're entirely committed to filtering things to make it "family friendly" if they get approval as a licensee.

  3. Community fiber by slashqwerty · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have heard it would cost $1,500 per home to run fiber to every home in the nation. That's $225 billion. If you want better and more affordable communications install fiber co-ops throughout the nation that do nothing but the physical installation from the home to a neighborhood hub. From the hub, any ISP that chooses can compete for your business.