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Content Filtering Pulled From Free Broadband Proposal
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:23 AM
from the blocked-no-more dept.
from the blocked-no-more dept.
huzur79 writes "Electronista is reporting that Kevin Martin, Chairman of the FCC, has dropped the content filtering provisions from the proposal for free wireless broadband service, according to an interview with Ars Technica. Previous drafts of the plan required protection methods to prevent users from accessing objectionable content, such as pornography. 'I'm saying if this is a problem for people, let's take it away,' Martin said.
The proposal has received criticism and opposition from a variety of groups including the Bush administration, wireless companies, and consumer interest organizations. T-Mobile has argued that communicating data on the allocated frequency bands will cause interference and quality degradation. Civil liberties groups argue that the FCC would overstep its authority and violate the Constitution."
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Mobile: FCC Pitches Free, Bowdlerized Wireless Internet Access 298 comments
Aidtopia writes "FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is proposing auctioning off an unused part of the 25 MHz spectrum on the condition that the winner provide free wireless Internet access. The proposal sets coverage targets that ramp up to 95% of the population within 10 years. The catch: the provider must filter out obscene content." I wonder what definition of "obscene" the FCC would like to use.
[+]
FCC Cancels Free Internet Vote 257 comments
Earlier this year we discussed a proposal from the FCC which would have required winning bidders for a portion of the wireless spectrum to use some of that bandwidth for free internet access. A vote for the plan was scheduled for next Thursday, but now the FCC has canceled those plans, facing "opposition from several top officials, wireless providers, and even civil rights groups." The internet access would have had some level of filtering, to which privacy groups took exception, and the Bush administration objected to forcing requirements on the winners of the spectrum auction. Others simply asked the FCC not to take on such a major project as the transition between analog and digital television transmissions looms.
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The FCC doing something vaguely intelligent? (Score:5, Funny)
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Not really, it is still only a proposal, meaning there is still time to modify it to be stupid before it becomes official policy.
Re:The FCC doing something vaguely intelligent? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would absolutely love to be called a conspiracy theorist, and have that supported by a complete lack of the above happening.
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Sure, watch where I tunnel my SSH traffic and the rates I send it at. I don't care. You're providing me free internet.
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Yes... Not entirely unlike the speed limits [wikipedia.org] put in place on national highways after the Interstate grid was built.
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Regulating interstate commerce? That seems a stretch...where is the interstate commerce in regulating airwaves or content on tv?
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Unfortunately, that ship sailed long ago:
Wickard thus establishes that Congress can regulate purely intrastate activity that is not itself "commercial," in that it is not produced for sale, if it concludes t
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Yeah, but the problem is, the US Gov't excells at doing senseless, stupid things in record time. Logical, intelligent things, that takes decades to accomplish.
Don't worry, they'll make it even dumber in no time.
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Just remember, whenever the government does something stupid, you are part of the stupidity as their employer (assuming you're American.)
You use that word a lot... (Score:2)
"They were both poisoned. I have spent the last several years developing an immunity..."
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Another historical discovery for mankind no doubt.
yes, but... (Score:2)
The FCC is on the way into history - don't these groups read the papers...?
FC Isn't Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on, the FCC is not an evil agency by any stretch. It does have a legitimate role in issues like frequency allocations - there is only so much spectrum to go around.
It also has a great role in the enforcement of technical standards like those that prevent one user from interfering with another's use of the airwaves.
Only if the FCC interferes in the actual content of the communications can it be considered to be entering the category of "evil". Or if they mandate the use of a patented "standard" as a condition of use of the public airwaves, they are certainly at least in bed with "evil".
That said, I actually applaud the dropping of a well-meaning but ill-concieved idea.
It looks like the Chairman haas understood that what he originally wanted was impractical, infeasible, and really a bad idea.
It's okay to propose something stupid, so long as one listens to the reasons for those who object to it and doesn't respond by a "digg in the heels, fight, and whine" attitude when the suggestion and it's rationale is challenged.
Parent
But wait a minute... (Score:3, Informative)
Aside from the contradiction (which I do not think you intended), I say that the idea that it was well-intentioned is giving Martin and friends far too much benefit of doubt. On the contrary, it was a political move, for the blatantly obvious purpose of sucking up to a certain group of voters and businesspeople.
Martin has been called out before for doing exactly the same kind of thing... and di
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If you want to pretend that Martin is "ignorant" of the possible negative consequences, then I have a bridge I would like to sell that you might be interested in buying. It's a good investment. Really.
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Aus to follow? (Score:2)
Overstepping? (Score:5, Insightful)
The FCC has been overstepping it's authority for a LONG time.
The FCC exists to dole out a limited public resource, content (and esp obscenity) has never been part of it's mandate and represents little more then a moral power grab.
Re:Overstepping? (Score:5, Informative)
Check out Section 5, item (D), bullet (d) of the Radio Act of 1927, which created the Federal Radio Commission. The FRC morphed into the FCC in 1934. Specifically, the Secretary of Commerce is given the right to terminate the license of operators who transmit "profane or obscene words of language". You can view the text of the act here [netins.net]
This has been part of the FCC's mandate from the very beginning. It has been upheld by the courts, for instance in "FCC vs. Pacifica Foundation".
Parent
How do they make money? (Score:2)
The whole free wireless internet access is not going to be all that cheap to build to the requirements of 95% of the population in 10 years.
If you give free 768k access, it is going to be enough for quite a lot of people. For people who need more, you are normally competing with existing solutions in the market, thus you will have hard time selling them.
Maybe FCC hopes for someone to be stupid enough to build it and go bankrupt and then someone else to buy it for a small fraction of the building cost. In su
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From what I can understand they're hoping to dish out 10-100mbps speeds on the same bands as analog TV were once on.
For once, I'd say the tax payers on both sides of the border should help pay for this, but that it remains government-managed (or whatever is best for a public service).
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I would think dial-up companies would be hurt the most, then DSL users, and maybe some small businesses and a few comcast u
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Re:How do they make money? (Score:5, Insightful)
Knowing that I'll be able to get online when I'm on the road (even with a low-quality-but-better-than-dialup connection) is worth a minuscule portion of my tax dollars. Government ventures aren't supposed to be profitable, they're supposed to be beneficial. Not paying ten bucks a day for net access at a hotel definitely falls under 'beneficial' in my books.
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I'll agree. Heck my home connection is only 1Mbps and while I wouldn't mind some extra speed, it suffices for me just fine. 768Kbps would probably work just as well for me on a permanent basis - having it available on the road would be just awesome.
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Mod up.
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What people don't seem to notice is that many times "a minuscle portion of my tax dollars" ends up in working up to (or over) 6 mo/yr just to pay taxes. ... also come to mind those "universal services" that work like cr*p.
This means half of a citizen's income goes to keep universal services that aren't free as in freedom nor as in beer. Just think of tolls, entry fees at museums, public transportation fees, the cost of snail mail
And, no, rich people DON'T pay a bigger percentage of taxes. They pay accountan
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Knowing that I'll be able to get online when I'm on the road (even with a low-quality-but-better-than-dialup connection)
If anybody can use it the connection will be much slower than dialup. Blocking porn would have done a bit to cut down on demand. It would be nice to have a pervasive network for embedded systems deployed city wide.
This Kevin Martin, (Score:2)
It's still a dumb idea (Score:5, Informative)
How much throughput that could equal is going to depend on the way that the system is set up, how much noise there is on a given frequency, dopler shift and what kind of spectrum management is used, but no matter how you cut it it won't be much. Assuming only one to one overlapping of cells (which is very generous) and very low noise you might get a total of 4 megabits combined up and downstream to be shared by all users in a given area.
By comparison, wifi uses about 80 mhz of total space on the spectrum with up to 20 mhz assignable to a single channel connection.
If the FCC wants to give away free wireless internet they need to find a bigger block of spectrum for it.
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I think "broadband" in most politician's minds is ``has access to email''---I doubt they're intending for customers to view youtube or download stuff (or play WoW :-)
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That's simply not enough to provide a significant number of people with broadband internet, at least not with the kind of network topography this band is proposed for.
I bet it will kill the market for text messages with 1000x markups though.
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I don't quite understand how any of it works, but I don't think its all that simple to run a good push service over a shitty public IP network.
Not to mention that you would need some sort of good 2 way gateway in order for it to see any sort of wide adoption. Look at all of people with iPhones that come with "unlimited" data, but some tiny limit on text messages. You don't see too many of them using email to SMS gateways to get out of paying for texts do you?
The fact that people still use SMS
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You don't see too many of them using email to SMS gateways to get out of paying for texts do you?
I dunno anyone with an iphone. But I know a few non-tech girls who have regular phones with basic internet functionality who have practically stopped texting in favor of IMing each other.
low bandwidth only (Score:3, Interesting)
But now lots of legitimate services need high bandwidth, netflix, iTunes, even youtube, and most kids are used high speed connections that let them play games and watch videos. They need the bandwidth. So many would say we can no longer use bandwidth as a proxy, and need filtering. I disagree.
To me the best way to make sure that the most people can use this, and not just for play, is to limit the speed to .5 Mb/sec. Those who need the service will appreciate it, and those who can afford something faster will buy it. I would love to have free, reliable internet access even at 300 kb/sec. It might be a bummer for people who just want to play, but for most work it is fast enough.
Your problems of low bandwidth (Score:3, Interesting)
Blocking the bandwidth of others (except in your own small local area) will not make your own performance better.
"You cannot embiggen the small by shortening the tall. You cannot enrich the poor by impoverishing the rich." - Abraham Lincoln
Last mile connection and "internet access"... (Score:5, Insightful)
Last mile network connections, wired or wireless, are pretty close to natural monopolies. On the wireless side, there is only so much spectrum, and it isn't exactly a fluid market, and there are only so many locations where you can get zoning permission and whatnot for a tower. On the wired side, legacy environments are duopolies at best, phone company and cable company; while any new deployments run into the fact that(considering the pull itself, plus right-of-way hassles and all the rest) the fixed cost of doing a pull of any bandwidth capacity is huge, while the cost of pulling a high bandwidth line as opposed to a low bandwidth line is much smaller. It isn't quite as bad as roads, where multiple runs are generally not even physically possible; but still an oligopoly at best, monopoly at worst.
Internet access, on the other hand, has the potential to be a properly competitive market, once enough end users are aggregated at a central point. If all relevant structures in a town or geographic region are connected to a peering point, choosing any service from any provider who reaches that point is literally a matter of switch configuration, and could be largely automated.
The trouble is, as long as the two distinct services are provided by the same entity, you have massive incentives for the people who own the last mile connection to mess with the internet access, hence all the net neutrality issues, and this content filtering stuff. We need to separate the two: treat the network link between you and the peering point as a natural monopoly similar to water mains, roads, or electrical lines(whether this means regulated private monopoly, public utility administered by private contractors, or public utility administered by public employees is a matter of implementation). This portion would be simple: dumb pipe of X speed between you and the peering point. Anything from the peering point to the internet at large would be pure free market, internet access at higher or lower speeds, quotas or no, filtering or not, various numbers of static IPs, access to various other things over IP, etc.
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You presume the copper/fibre and labour to lay that cable is cheap, not to mention right-of-ways, head-end equipment, etc.
You propose that having to build all that infrastructure from scratch, you would be able to effectively compete with someone who already has all that in place (and got tax breaks, etc. while doing so over a span of decades), and thus is able to undercut you severely while still turning a profit.
Take it away (Score:4, Insightful)
Translation: We can always put it back in later.
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Do I Have To? (Score:5, Insightful)
The government wants to gives us free wireless broadband, now without content restriction.
This is the same government that conducted warrantless wiretapping. If they own the bitwaves, there's less barrier to the same occurring.
If there's restrictions, people wanting privacy will go elsewhere. If the restrictions are lifted, people will be more likely to feel safe using it for more sensitive matters. The government will be more able to catch more people.
Can anyone conceive of a better way for the government to maximize its chances of catching people doing things they find undesirable while minimizing its chances of getting in trouble and so having to stop?
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Credit where credit is due (Score:2)
Before the bile starts pouring in, let's take a moment to thank the FCC for having a suddenoutbreakofcommonsense. That they listened is nothing short of incredible, and we should savor this moment and reward them for it, before we start tearing down the proposal for everything _else_ we each think is wrong with it. :-)
Re:Degradation (Score:4, Insightful)
which is why the telecom industry tried to dissuade the government from pursuing plans for a free public wireless network. first they claimed that public wireless wasn't viable, and that all attempts to create such networks by governments have been huge failures. and now they're changing the reason for their opposition to claims of "interference and quality degradation."
it's ridiculous that they're even given a voice on this issue when they have such a conflict of interest. the only people whose opinions should be solicited is the public. just hold a nationwide referendum. if people want a public national wireless infrastructure, then it should be created. the technology has been available for a while and has been proven to be sound. San Francisco and many other smaller cities here in California already have open wireless networks, and there's no evidence that it has any impact on cellphone networks or any other communication systems.
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Re:How Bad is Filtering? - Very Bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
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