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FCC Proposal Would Cover the US With Public Wi-Fi
pigrabbitbear writes "Internet access is an essential need on par with education access, but at what point do regulators recognize that? When will government officials acknowledge that widespread, guaranteed access is essential to fostering growth in the country? Somewhat surprisingly, that time is now, as the FCC is now calling for nationwide free wi-fi networks to be opened up to the public. The FCC proposes buying back spectrum from TV stations that would allow for what the Washington Post is dubbing 'super wi-fi,' as the commission wants to cover the country with wide-ranging, highly-penetrative networks. Essentially, you can imagine the proposal as covering a majority of the country with open-access data networks, similar to cell networks now, that your car, tablet, or even phone could connect to. That means no one is ever disconnected, and some folks – especially light users and the poor – could likely ditch regular Internet and cell plans altogether."
Lobby "contributions" from Sprint, AT&T Tmobile, Comcast, Time Warner... The war chests of our representatives and senators will overflow with joy
if they defeat this.
How long before this free wifi resembles the great firewall of china?
You get what you pay for
Internet Access should be like Library Access.
It is a little different because it is for knowledge, commerce, and entertainmnet.
Why does that make it different? The library is also for knowledge, commerce (though less so), and entertainment.
How many municipalities have been sued into oblivion by incumbents who cried "unfair competition"?
I thought the only essential needs were food, water and shelter.
My takehome pay just decreased again.
It's all well and good to talk about internet access being a "right" or a "public service," but please realize that simply because some government passes a law saying so, doesn't mean that wide-spread free internet access will come to pass. Take the example of my library: they are closed at times that someone might actually want to go, like in the evening after normal people from work, most of Sunday, and all major -- and most minor -- holidays. Their computer terminals seem to be something from the era of the IBM AT; and there are only 4 of them. The employees are surly and even aggressive, and don't care to be even the slightest bit helpful. And the entire building is decrepit and smells.
So I have the "right" to free information at a library (actually, I pay for it in taxes, but whatever), but the manifestation of that right is such that I don't actually want it. Yet we are expected to believe that, although our government can't run a library, despite having had hundreds of years to figure out, they're going to do a great job with modern and rapidly changing technologies. Call me pessimistic, but I don't see it happening.
The solution is to promote competition in Internet access: end the (government-created and propped-up) cable, phone, and wireless monopolies, and once there is a healthy market, let the market take care of lowering prices.
Recall that the U.S.S.R. declared food to be a basic human right, to be provided by the government. And who could argue with that, right? Yet the result was bread lines and empty shelves. In the U.S., we don't declare food to be a government-provided right, and yet we have so much food that our poor people are obese.
To preempt the flamers: no, I'm not arguing that the government should never have a role in assisting the poor (sometimes it should), or that companies are always good, or that the market is always perfect (they aren't; it's not). But I am extremely cautious in endorsing this as a good idea, for the above-stated reasons that have nothing to do with my own (non-existant) profit margins or political donations. So when others oppose it, please don't automatically ascribe such motives to them, either.
Have you been to a library? They don't card you when you walk in the door, only if/when you want to leave with some of their property for free.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
I thought the only essential needs were food, water and shelter.
That's true, along with air and sleep*.
Also, needs are defined in different ways depending on circumstance, with no consensus. Certainly food is a need, but is sunshine? We get vitamin D from sunshine, and diet can't make up for lack. Sex is a biological imperative, but can at any time be put off until later.
Needs also form a sort of "hierarchy", where once you are satisfied at a certain level, adding more at that level will gain you nothing. A company can't raise morale by making the bathroom even cleaner than it is - once the bathroom is "clean enough", extra work makes no appreciable difference. Once you have enough to eat, having more doesn't make you happier.
"Safety" is also a need, and depending on the school of thought it comes before or after food and water.
Once you have several layers of needs met, you reach the layer of "self actualization", which is loosely "the need to accomplish something".
That's what this proposal addresses - the need for people to better themselves, and to do something useful with their time.
This proposal is a good idea in many ways - ethically, economically, technically, environmentally. There's no down-side that I can see.
To take one example (economics), new businesses arise from innovation built on infrastructure. This type of infrastructure will foster an enormous boon in productivity, business, employment, and general well-being of people in the country.
In the same manner that the Interstate Highway System fostered economic progress by giving companies easy access to cheap product delivery.
This is exactly the type of project that centralized government should be doing - it promotes growth, increased productivity, jobs, and general welfare. It's of benefit to the people, and not pork directed to specific selected companies.
*I hope this doesn't read as snarky - that's not my intent.
it's not sold, it's licensed, and the Federal government already manages the spectrum, in exactly the way you probably think they should. The term "buyback" would apply to existing licenses which have not yet expired. Its current use is contested because a large number of spectrum users never actually paid for the portion they've licensed out to begin with, so to have the government pay those licensees to abandon the license is a hotly debated topic.
But to pull the plug on licensees without giving them a viable alternative is highly disruptive to commerce. If hardware already exists which was designed for a certain band, and that band is suddenly pulled because of some bureaucrat's hardon for "free" wifi, then the infrastructure that is already in place would become useless without modification. The "buyback" funds are a way to encourage the infrastructure owners to go along with the relicensing; they would have the funds provided to convert or update the infrastructure to adapt to the spectrum change. Again, it might not be the best way to go about doing things, but it doesn't mean that pulling the rug out from under everyone is any better.