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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.
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.
But it seems like a gevernment service that should provide for a populace to thrive.
Wasn't the intention of getting that spectrum which was used for analog TV to use it for such things? If it isn't suitable for such, why the change? If the new digital TV spectrum was suited for this, why was it sold?
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
How many municipalities have been sued into oblivion by incumbents who cried "unfair competition"?
I sure can't see this being a means of catching political dissidents.
What's the source? Its a /. post of a journalist story about a journalist story about a journalist story then I gave up trying to track back.
I poked around fcc.gov and found almost nothing, so its either really old, really new, or really made up / out of context / unofficial daydream.
I'm an old time reader of FCC part 97 (and others!) so don't try to scare me off with "we need non-technical journalists to translate into prole-speak" I'm quite sure I could handle the primary source... if it actually exists.
Another thing is it won't be wifi although journalists confuse any wireless internet access with wifi. Lets say you get UHF tv channel 46 vacated and reassigned. That doesn't mean a magic firmware download, even to a SDR, will necessarily magically start working in that 662-668 MHz channel.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I thought the only essential needs were food, water and shelter.
My takehome pay just decreased again.
Without going into conspiracy theories and donning tinfoil hats, the idealistic situation where I can go "anywhere" and WiFi is available to me, seems nice. I wouldn't need a data plan from my ISP except for extremely rural areas where network penetration is nigh impossible.
Essentially, this is an initiative which attempts to bring everyone up-to-speed with current internet accessibility technology, and puts everyone on an equal playing ground. Folks who can't afford internet access, folks in rural areas who don't bother with internet access due to lifestyle/need or current access limitations. Elderly who often don't approach the internet world due to technology's general confusing nature.
It seems that earliest adoption should be implemented in such a fashion as to bear the most impact for the greatest number of people (e.g. low-income residences, schools, libraries, or some other demographic). But are there other, more important "everyday human" needs, which the FCC can and should address, rather than attempting to offer a public WiFi mega-network?
The government has no business spending on infrastructure. Roads, bridges, telephones, police, fire fighters, and democracy have all been bad enough for our great nation!
Use Tor, unless that's blocked somehow as well.
This may sound silly, but I think if everyone used Tor whenever they're on a public wifi hotspot, there would be fewer problems with privacy. All these horror stories of identity theft and bank info stolen etc... etc... have happened in many cases when people used unsecured wifi.
If computers were people, I'd be a misanthrope.
I don't want the Federal Government running some general public access internet. Very Bad Idea.
I do want the FCC to open up existing infrastructure to alternative carriers. The current plan which allows carriers to exclude competitors is very bad.
I do want the FCC to make available bandwidth to more carriers, and to open up more bandwidth to WiFi.
I do want Congress to pass a law banning cable franchises by local and state governments.
I do want laws specifically enabling municipal internet utilities, especially on this new bandwidth.
The US government is selling off Upper L-Band TM, lower L-Band TM, and S-Band TM allocations within the next 5-10 years. Those are THE beachfront, prime spectrum bands that the US government owns that can be used for cell networks. The plan has been rolling for at least 5 years already now. It does take a while to upgrade every single test asset that the government uses to the new C-Band spectrum. It's going to take probably 75% of the money that the government will get from sale of this spectrum to pay for the upgrades (aka, tens of billions of dollars).
So, yea, they're working it. In fact, the push has become very, very sustained these last 3-4 years.
Tor won't protect you from identity theft, that's what encryption is for. Tor without encryption just tells MORE people what you are doing.
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.
... what you think it means. "
How can these jackasses continue to use words like "free" to make it sound like they are giving a gift to the nation when we are the ones they will damn well expect to pay for it with taxes? And why arent each and every one of you calling them out for it?
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
Ya. Like the government doesn't already illegally copy and store all our data they can get their hands on. And then tries to imprison the whistleblowers that let us know they were conducting these illegal acts. I can think of no one better to host my wifi sessions *rolls eyes*.
A strategy like that can only help to cut out the middleman and increase data availability. (your private data, availability to the fascist nutters.)
I'm more interested in how long it takes someone to figure out the gold standards for privacy online in today's environment and make a debian distro that enables fine grained control of these standards with ease.
When are we going to build an encrypted network on top of the internet and just cut out the government clowns?
Liberty.
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.
Why arent each and every one of you calling them out for it?
Because I already pay an Internet tax, to AT&T. I've been paying it to them for 10 years, and despite a whirlwind of technical advancement they haven't improved my service or lowered my price in a decade. In fact, my home service is more constrained and monitored than it was ten years ago.
I'm ready to try plan B.
I think what really needs to happen is reform of how ISPs do business and what they charge, bringing a basic level of internet service to something resembling the way basic wired telephone service used to be, so that all but the most poverty-striken can get access to it for a very low price. Let's face it: if all you need is a "subsistence" level of internet access (enough for email, slow but usable web access, no streaming of movies, large downloads, or online gaming) then you only need 1Mb/sec (or less) on the downstream side, right? With the way web pages are bloated with Flash and Javascript these days they would load as slow as pages loaded when dialup was the norm, but it'd be better than nothing, right? That's what I think needs to happen.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
So yes, for once you will get what you pay for. No longer can a service say they give you 10mb/s, and then only deliver 1. In an environment where there are free choices, even monitors censored choices, lying about speed will result in significant loss of customers
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
No, that's not going to work. This is American politics we're dealing with.
Every special interest with lobbyists will step in with demands. The RIAA and MPAA will obviously want all pirate sites blocked, that hardly needs stating. But then the anti-gambling pressure groups will follow. The 'for the children' people will start demanding sites providing suicide advice or promoting anorexia be blocked. And as for the porn, it won't be the .xxx domain that's blocked: Before the network is even running, the very powerful social conservative faction will have put all their considerable might into making sure that all porn is blocked within the limits of technological capability. These are all things that one faction or another has been trying to have banned with mixed success for years or decades - dating back at least to the old Comstock laws that made it a criminal offense to send obscene material through the US postal service. Politically, it's very hard to ban these on privately run networks, but very easy to do so on a government-run network. The advantage politically shifts. That's before you even get into the heavy bandwidth-reduction methods that would be needed to keep costs down.