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White House opposes FCC's free Internet plan
The Bush administration opposes a Federal Communications Commission plan for free, nationwide wireless Internet access, according to a report Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal.
The FCC has been considering auctioning 25 megahertz of spectrum in the 2155MHz to 2180MHz band. As part of the rules for using the spectrum, the FCC plans to require license holders to offer some free wireless broadband service.
The FCC sees the idea, which is based on a proposal submitted to the FCC by M2Z Networks in 2006, as a way to provide broadband Internet service to millions of Americans who either can't afford or don't want to pay for high-speed Internet access.
However, in a letter sent to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin on Wednesday, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez expressed the administration's opposition to the idea, which could be voted on as early as next week, according to the report.
"The administration believes that the (airwaves) should be auctioned without price or product mandate," Gutierrez wrote, according to the Journal's report. "The history of FCC spectrum auctions has shown that the potential for problems increases in instances where licensing is overly prescriptive or designed around unproven business models."
An FCC representative told the newspaper that it had received Gutierrez's letter and was reviewing it.
"We agree that market forces should help drive competition, but we also believe that providing free basic broadband to consumers is a good thing," the representative told the Journal.
The FCC essentially threw its support behind the idea in October with the release of an engineering report that dismissed concerns about interference for existing providers.
Existing providers like T-Mobile USA, which spent $4.2 billion in 2006 acquiring spectrum in an adjacent band, said that opening up this spectrum would cause interference and disrupt service.
The report, however, concluded that spectrum could be used as planned "without a significant risk of harmful interference."
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. Before joining CNET News in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers. E-mail Steven. 
No wonder Bush and Republicans, in the pocket of big business, oppose it.
Clearly, the Bush administration would oppose such a plan.
In order to push something like this through, it would have to start out as a defense project (just like GPS, the interstate highway system and the Internet itself). For the cost of one (sorry, I can't actually name this thing, but it is truly awesome, unknown to most Americans, is classified and is very, very expensive) you could build out and operate such a network for about 15 years. Congress would simply promise the military that they could have exclusive use of this network anytime the President says so (just like GPS, the interstate highway system and the Internet itself, and the Iridium constellation which was launched as a commercial concern, but failed and was purchased by the US Navy). By the way, the Defense department could easily build such a network and wouldn't even miss the money.
Working against common sense for profit.
What happened? It's like all the money turned their brains inside out. They used to be the good ones.
Ron Paul should leave them to start a neo-Libertarian party.
LOL. Now that's funny...I'm busting a gut over this one. LOL
When was that? Do you mean Abe Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt? You can't be serious if you're talking about any time in the last 50 years, that's for sure....
Or are you talking about Nixon? He passed the clean air and clean water act, but oh wait, he was a crook.
How about Reagan? Oh wait, he was a lying crook too that gave weapons to the commies and delayed freeing American hostages until he could recognize a political gain from it (Iran-Contra). he destroyed all progressive legislation to build safer and more fuel efficient cars, destroyed all alternative energy/anti-oil initiatives, attacked education (the first thing every Republican wants to do is insure people remain ignorant) and the list continues. Name a single good thing about Reagan, and he didn't "win" the cold war, the Russians went broke when the price of oil fell...
Perhaps you mean the Newt, Trent Lott, Delay, McCain, any Bush that ever lived, and a new up and coming POS, Sarah Palin...
Name one, and that ****** bag Joe Lieberman doesn't count....LOL....
I love the Republican comments. Democrats never do math. They just get stars in their eyes. Spend some time researching taxes paid out in socialist countires and come back to me with how great an idea you'd think these things are when you're paying 60% in taxes for "Free" things.
The majority elected mostly democrats over the past 2 years' election cycle, in a response to the massive errors committed over & over by the republicans previously in power. Therefore, Republicans Fail!
The sad result is that Democrats are now in majority power, and it's going to suck in new and different ways now. The real problem is the LACK OF REAL CHOICE IN AMERICAN POLITICS!!!!
BOTH Republicans and Democrats have failed at representing the majority will over the past several years. Our government is broken. It's now just a fancy-dressed football game where the masses of sheeple root for one side or the other, while ignoring the fact that we need to all cooperate to win in general. Not that we all would ever cooperate or anything... But my main point is that the 2-party system is a ripoff to the voters, and a $hitty facade of democracy.
I am sure the Republicans are just chomping at the bit, about the release of the white space spectrum to unlicensed usage, which is inherentlky more free than any licensed band usage such as this.
That being said, this country could not function without communication networks, just as it could not exist without transportation networks. Imagine if corperations owned all the roads, highways, and interstates. You pay for them with your taxes, should they be privatized instead? Transportation of information or materials, its still the same function.
Free the internet from the corperations, free the communication for all, it can be done with minimal one time costs of establishing standards, and rules to adhere and design to. Free market forces will make it profitable to design, build and sell devices to these standards, without using tax payer money, nor re-occuring end user service fees.
When its wireless, there is no network medium to maintain (the asphalt of the roads) the taxes you say are required are miniscule compared to the value of free communication.
If the fore fathers of our country had any other type of communication than speech and print at the time of the writing of the bill of rights (of which they both spelled out clearly should be free), do you not think they would have just consolidated it to freedom of commuinication? Why have we then turned around and restricted - licensed - sold - taxed - controlled all other forms of communication?
The 700 billion bailout is in fact a glaring example of socialism in action; that bailout was essentially the US admitting that pure Capitalism has failed miserably. Accepting that and moving to add more socialistic aspects for the benefit of the entire nation is just common sense at this point. Of course, that assumes such a thing still exists in the US. Looking at it from the outside in that is not a foregone conclusion...
People confuse con jobs and get-rich schemes with free trade. They are not the same. In a free trade, both parties benefit by obtaining something they value more than what they gave up. In a con or get-rich scheme, someone wants something for nothing or close to it.
It's lack of ethics and people living beyond their means which caused this recession more than anything else.
The bankers have caused this massive economic failure. Have you ever seen a poor banker?
Think about supply & demand, production & consumption, etc... Economic basics. In a sound economy, there is enough money to represent only the amount of goods & tangible services being produced & consumed. But what does a banker produce?
Bankers produce nothing, but they take profits out of our economy. For every economic cycle when a banker takes interest money out of the loop, that economy shrinks by the amount of money the banker takes out because he doesn't produce anything to back it up. Of course, he can go "poof" and create new money with the aid of the Federal Reserve, but that inflates the money supply and devalues the currency that you work to earn. So the only real solution is non-profit banking. The US Gov't has the power to do this, and they could just buy all the banks and fix the economy by eliminating the banker's deficit.
Of course, this will not happen, because the bankers own the government.
The 1.3 trillion-dollar bailout was the exact opposite of what our government should have done, and as a result our economy will only get worse in the long term. Congratulations, America. Do you feel the butt-raping that our money-government is giving you?
Most bankers don't really make as much as you think. The people at the very top of the large banks, yes. The rest, no.
RE: Capitalism, Socialism, etc...
Free trade isn't fair and never will be. Greed always makes it fail.
So some bureaucrat holding a gun to your head saying give me 50% of your paycheck to spend on whatever I want is your idea of fair? No thanks.
@m_w_b:
Banking is a service just like many others. If you don't like them, you can keep your money on a shelf in a tin and use cash or money orders to pay your bills. The last one who should be running the banks is the federal government. They are without a doubt the least efficient organization on the planet. The last thing they need is more of our money to squander.
What? You don't make any sense... must be a Republican.
Actually, I'm a Libertarian. If you had half a clue what was going on you would have known that.
The only thing that makes this country special is the degree of individual freedom (L) it guarantees it's citizens. Any movement away from that toward socialism (D) or fascism (R) is evil.
The Republicans want none of that. They love it when the poor stay poor and they absolutely hate education. This allows them to keep people down -- just where they want them.
Bush and the Republican goons are gone in a few weeks. So I have no doubt this will pass in one way or the other.
Before deciding anything Republicans (politicians and Joe-the-Dumb-Plumber types too) must always ask themselves a single, simple question, and then base their decisions on the answer. The question is "Does it / this help someone (anyone) other than me?".
If the answer is no, then ti fits the motto/sub-motto and they're all for it.
If the answer is Yes, then it has to be prevented especially if it involves quality of life or education.
If the answer is maybe, the trick is to find a way to make money from it and insure no one benefits as much as you. If that's not possible, then it has to be prevented/destroyed/eliminated.
Helping anyone else in society is socialistic and evil. To be a Republican means you're either selfish, stupid/ignorant, and/or both.. Look at every single republican and find any of them that are interested in peoples welfare (unless they've found a way to profit from it). Find one single republican that doesn't put his fear of taxes, or fear of helping others without gain above his/her own self interest. It can't be done.... If it isn't self serving, it simply isn't "Republican".....
Now for an opposing viewpoint--someone who has actually done some research:
http://newsbusters.org/node/9323
It's about the role of government--it's not meant to be a giant charity. Nobody is stopping you from giving whatever you want. Just keep your thieving hand out of my wallet. Thank you.
So, in other words, you don't care at all about helping those in need? Very selfish.
Not everyone is capable of making the same kind of living, you know. Some people need help, and people who take your attitude surely won't unless forced to.
"forced to" being the operative phrase. Any time you threaten to 'force' someone don't be surprised when they resist. Nice of you to show your true colors.
Personally, I don't believe in the use of force except in self defense.
Hey man no ones forcing you to do anything... Your free to move to another country any time you want!
/Wave Laters man!
"Free wireless for all" is similarly bad. A free wireless spectrum would be so congested with spammers, people downloading torrents, etc., it would quickly become useless for everyone.
That's just human nature. When something is free, we waste it. A finite spectrum (bandwidth) is only efficient if we attach a fee to it; then people wont take it for granted.
The real bandwidth limitation is your own physical existance, you can only consume so much information at once, and that amount of information is easily supplied with current technology, once you get away from hierarchial network structures, and centralized control thinking.
Wake up, mother nature already figured this out 1000's of years ago. Every living cellular organism on the planet already works like this.
All you really have to do is bring a 'cell phone tower' functionally down to an individual user device level, and presto, a network that grows in capacity with the number of users (devices).....QED.
What's so hard about that?
Of course, if LTE does in fact come on line next year - as Verizon recently announced - and in conjunction with WiMax competing, I think prices will come down anyway. The new 'Clear' appears to be priced for $30 / 3 Mbps (unlimited) and $40 / 6 Mbps (unlimited) for fixed WiMax, and that's not bad for wireless. And once LTE is available, I suspect Clearwire will have to drop their prices to remain competitive with LTE's higher bandwidth rates.
And how is the level of "decency" higher than here in America? :p
Obama can build something new, but you can't get the stink of Bush and the Republicans out of what's left. It's like someone shat on the living room rug. You can never get it clean enough (or get that vision out of your head). You simply throw it out and start over....
The Media/Telecommunication companies will never allow free internet usages period. It will cost them money and what amazes me is the absolute show of greed since the internet speed they were offering in the first place for free was barely under 112k, only twice the old slow 56k speeds. You can barely surf the internet with that speed now a days.
As for paying for things, the US could well afford to insure everyone for emergency heatlh care by putting a few cents tax on gasoline - just ten cents per gallon could provide emergency care for the whole of the current uninsured population - but will it happen - hell no - it smacks of SOCIALISM - man, this is the home of the brave and land of the free where nothing is free, better someone dies on the steps of a hospital than they get FREE treatment for a heart attack.
- by aznric3boi91 December 15, 2008 7:19 AM PST
- obviously is a good thing with free wireless.... okay the cost that goes to the troops will be used in the wifi area and the extra tax will just bundle in with the universal health... its just that easy....
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