Content Filtering Pulled From Free Broadband Proposal

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."

Overstepping?

[jythie]

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:The FCC doing something vaguely intelligent?

[Darundal]

Actually, I would be willing to bet that the proposal won't be modified to include filtering. That will come afterward, when the entire thing is up and running and they could wait for moral "advocacy" groups to complain continually and run campaigns to persuade people that unfiltered internet access is the worst thing in the world for the children and everything else. Then, they can proceed with whatever filtering, moral policing and otherwise they want to, and (they hope) lots of vague legislation letting them monitor and limit the people even more.

I would absolutely love to be called a conspiracy theorist, and have that supported by a complete lack of the above happening.

Re:How do they make money?

[Firehed]

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.

FC Isn't Evil

[maz2331]

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.

Re:The FCC doing something vaguely intelligent?

[Ethanol-fueled]

Nah, if you were a real conspiracy theorist(or sane human being) then you'd know that they will still monitor and data-mine the fuck out of it and give the data to advertising and anti-dissident goverment agencies. This half-assed display of "we're fighting for your privacy" is utter bullshit, just like every other human-run outfit which seeks to alter your perception of reality.

Re:It's still a dumb idea

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

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.

Last mile connection and "internet access"...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

A great deal of the difficulty in the various internet regulatory issues seems, to me, to arise from the fact that the provider of the last mile connection and the provider of the internet access are almost always one and the same(and, worse, even reform proposals tend to assume that they will always be so, without even cursory examination). This is tricky because the two things really exhibit rather different behavior.

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.

Take it away

[Adrian Lopez]

'I'm saying if this is a problem for people, let's take it away.'

Translation: We can always put it back in later.

Re:Degradation

[lysergic.acid]

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.

Do I Have To?

[DynaSoar]

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?

Re:The FCC and the constituion

[Apple Acolyte]

I am about as anti-government as one will come across, but I'm pretty sure that the FCC's technical regulation of the broadcast spectrum falls within Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce. It's the content restrictions that are questionable on 1st Amendment grounds.

Re:How Bad is Filtering? - Very Bad...

[Belial6]

Actually, it is likely that these "bandwidth hogs" are INCREASING your available bandwidth. How fast of a connection do you think you would have if no one ever maxed out their 56k modems. We certainly wouldn't be seeing 6mbps connections being rolled out. We wouldn't likely even see 256kbps lines. It is the guys that are watching HD movies off of netflix and running bittorrent 24/7 that are creating the expectation that we need faster internet. They are the ones that are fighting the good fight so that you and I can get good speeds tomorrow.