Ms. Marlene H. Dortch, Secretary
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street SW
Re: A National Broadband Plan for Our Future, GN Docket No. 09-51
Dear Ms. Dortch,
Compared to the rest of the world, America’s broadband efforts are shameful. An open internet is a public resource that deserves scrupulous regulation and a regulating authority that is its champion. An open and accessible Internet is essential to America’s future. It will help revitalize our economy, improve our education and health care, engage millions more people in our democracy and give new meaning to freedom of speech. In crafting the national broadband plan, the Federal Communications Commission must protect Internet users from corporate gatekeepers who seek to keep prices high and speeds slow, limit access to content and stifle innovations and market choice. Net Neutrality must be a basic and enforceable rule of the Internet. Allowing powerful corporate interests to dictate the future of modern communications is a mistake that cannot be repeated. Corporate finance, by its very nature “games” the system in order to maximize profits regardless of service levels. Public service regulation allows providers reasonable profits while assuring that the public has the best service possible. Today, America ranks 19th worldwide in average broadband speeds available to our citizens. Australia ranks seventh. Yet Australia has committed $45 billion toward extending their fiber infrastructure to every home. The FCC must demonstrate the will to plan a level of investment that will put America in the top tier of countries vis a vis broadband speeds. We owe it to the country to gain a place on the leading edge of this technology, a place we have abandoned in deference to maximizing corporate profits.
Frank Paynter
You know Frank if Obama really wants to have an economic renaissance (holy f after 10 oz Appleton’s rum I could still spelll renaissasdcsce) 🙂 he ought to tell all the ILECs to go F themselves and start a FTTC or FTTH plan to ensure every household has fiber if they want it. If you make the householders responsible for the cost of fiber from their home to the WAN on the curb then each homeowner that wants it would be looking at about $800 to $2500 one time fee (more if buried underground) depending on whether the fiber is single or multimode etc.
Hell, government could pay for the connections… probably cost around $60 billion, a drop in the bucket compared to hedge fund bail-outs.
I third the notion put there by Alder and implied in the whole post that we can supplant the corporate gatekeepers to the Net, build out the system, recoup the expense and then use what profits the corps were pocketing to help fund worthwhile content on the net.
We feel we are paying for content now, because we are. Only the money is not reaching the creators. Talk about expropriation. Intellectual property bullshit has nothing on the fuckards who refuse to acknowledge that the Internet is more than a set of pipes and wires, and that what we are on it for is not to look at blank screens.
The NYT, WaPo, blogs, Youtube et all are subsidizing Comcast Verizon and the whole leaden keiretsu I call Big Pipe.
See here:
http://interimtom.blogspot.com/2009/07/fuck-piper.html
and recursively here:
http://interimtom.blogspot.com/2009/07/belatedly-fcc-released-notice-of.html
and here:
http://interimtom.blogspot.com/2009/07/to-david-simon.html