Re: Senator Clinton Introduces Rural Broadband Bill

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob Frankston <Bob19-0501 () bobf frankston com>
Date: April 4, 2007 11:16:43 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net, ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: RE: [IP] Re: Senator Clinton Introduces Rural Broadband Bill

I realize my comment on a 5¢ tax for email to cover the cost of the  
40¢ stamp on email was too cryptic for many of the readers but left  
it at that in the previous message because if you have to explain it  
it loses its effect.



I can’t help myself – wry humor is irresistible.



Perhaps a better analogy would be to compare the government’s efforts  
to investing in leeches to cure disease. Apparently it does produce  
euphoria but if you continue you die. Today’s approach seems to use  
leaches to provide more of that broadband as they suck the value out  
of the economy. (spelling counts)



The end-to-end argument defines the Internet but it’s a constraint  
that says you can’t depend on the middle so are thus not limited by  
it – but governments seem intent on ensuring a dependency on a middle  
both because they can go and buy it and because they can sit there to  
watch what is going on and tax it.



We should be investing in the edge – educating people to understand  
the technology so they can be in control. The digital divide is more  
about understanding why you’d want to get connected and secondarily  
about how to share connections to reduce costs.



The word “broadband” is like the word “radio”. If you ask people  
about radios they’ll think about Howard Stern (or NPR?) before they  
think about oscillators. I keep pointing out that broadband is an  
industry not really a technology anymore. And it’s the antithesis of  
the Internet yet because we managed to communicate despite it people  
want more of whatever it is.



It’s not very different from assuming that because the post office  
delivers mail it’s involved in email. But then rural broadband is  
just as misguided. Two years ago Bob Pepper (then at the FCC) noted  
that WISPS (wireless ISPs) were already ahead of the predicted rural  
deployment. As a percentage of disposable income rural connectivity  
is less expensive than urban. The big problem is not more broadband  
in the style of rural electrification – it’s getting people to  
understand the concepts. If you have copper wire why is it locked  
into old style telephony instead of being used as a high performance  
transport?



The tragedy, as my short comment implied, is compounding this  
misunderstandings by locking us into legislation that reinforced the  
biggest lie – that the telecom industry delivers that Internet from  
the great hydro-Internet plans located somewhere or another. Alas,  
the FCC feeds these misunderstandings rather than challenging them –  
but then can we expect an agency to argue that it has outlived its  
mission? I’m sure there is a desk dedicated to assuring compliance  
with buggy whip safety laws…



-------------------------------------------
Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/7494666-5774f7
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com