In what Engadget calls “one of the best keynotes ever,” Google co-founder Larry Page announced during his CES appearance the creation of Google’s premium video service, which will be offered as part of a new Google Video Store. According to the official press release, the Google Video store, which will be available at Google Video, will feature both free content and videos that entail a fee.
The line-up of content partners includes “CBS, a full slate of NBA games from this season and outstanding performances from the past, music videos from SONY BMG, Charlie Rose interviews as well as news and historical content from ITN and new titles being added everyday.” Additional content includes classic cartoons (“Felix the Cat,” “Casper The Friendly Ghost,” and “Rocky and Bullwinkle”) and historic, news and educational footage from ITN (the 1896 coronation of Tsar Nicholas II).
The content can be viewed on a downloadable player and non-protected content can be viewed on iPods and PSPs.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 9:13 PM | Print | Comments (0)While sitting here waiting to read Engagdet’s live coverage of Larry Page’s keynote at CES, Google’s PR department sent me a press release (not up on the wires or Google’s web site yet, it seems, so no link) announcing Google Pack.
It’s pretty much what the leaked information said it was — it’s a software bundle consisting of · Adobe Reader 7 · Ad-Aware SE Personal · GalleryPlayer HD Images · Google Desktop · Google Earth · Google Pack Screensaver · Google Talk · Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer · Mozilla Firefox with Google Toolbar · Norton AntiVirus 2005 Special Edition · Picasa · RealPlayer · Trillian.
Google first downloads and runs something called the Google Updater, what Google says is “a new tool that intelligently downloads, installs and maintains all the software in the Google Pack.” It’s pretty important to notice that in order to get the software, you have to agree to allow Google to collect anonymous usage data from you first.
The whole Pack installed very quickly, under five minutes, mostly because I already had all the software on my laptop. Some items — such as Mozilla — were simply updated. It was difficult, however, to figure out to stop the install of some software; I didn’t want to download Norton AntiVirus and had to “pause” the download, creating a little bit of confusion regarding whether that pause would affecting the other software updates/downloads that had occurred. (It didn’t.)
Other than that fleeting problem, Google Pack was swift and easy and the company promises that updates of all this software will occur in an equally painless fashion. In the press release, Google’s Marissa Mayer said
We developed Google Pack to give users a way to painlessly install all the essential software they need - pre-configured in a sensible way - in a matter of minutes. Better yet, users don’t have to keep track of software updates or new programs - we maintain and update all the software for them.
Although I thought the idea of the Google Pack sounded somewhat…underwhelming, the experience is pretty cool — fast, efficient, free and a lot of software that is very useful. For the average Internet user, Google Pack could come in handy…and help Google expand its footprint while gaining a whole lot of useful data.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 7:23 PM | Print | Comments (0)Recent posts by Michael Parekh (see here, here and here) and Om Malik (see here, here, here and here) on network neutrality, Internet-delivered video and the relationship between the two, remind me once again that, as a society, we face an important and as-yet-to-be-resolved conflict between two fundamentally different business models and, at least to some extent, the underlying values they reflect.
One model is based on the unrestricted end-to-end connectivity of the Internet, and is exemplified by companies like Google, Yahoo, eBay and Amazon (and legions of smaller players), and the services they provide. This model is also generally favored by municipal-broadband advocates. In my view, the values underlying this model are openness, accessibility, low barriers to entry, rapid innovation and information dissemination, meritocracy (all of which drive dynamic but potentially volatile markets). So far, the Internet model has yielded a wide range of business models, and an interesting and dynamic mix of altruistic social responsibility that can quickly generate great social good, matched by a Wild West libertarianism that tends to keep the door open to equally creative and fast-moving abuses like spam and viruses.
This Internet model is on a collision course with a more established model based largely on the near-monopoly business models enjoyed for decades by telcos and cable operators, who now share the broadband access market as competing duopolists. This model is built largely on the financial virtues of entrenched market power, which in turn supports relative predictability in terms of customers, revenues, cash flows, margins and other financial metrics. This, in turn, minimizes the risks associated with what can be very large capital investments in network construction and upgrades. To the extent this predictability is seriously disrupted, pipe-owners’ high-fixed-cost asset values suffer. Even with today’s modest disruption of that predictability, cable and telco stocks have not been faring well.
Another aspect of this conflict is that today’s access duopolists operate networks that, while evolving, are still not especially well-suited for the mass customization and democratization of media production and distribution that many believe is the logical evolution of the Internet model (and in Internet time an “evolution” can happen pretty darn fast).
And while some very smart cable and telco CTOs and CFOs are working hard to find financially viable and technically sound upgrade strategies to overcome the historical shortcomings of their networks, even these planned future upgrades tend to fall short of what is probably the ideal—an all-optical network delivering dedicated fiber to each premise, supplemented (for mobility and extremely low-density applications) by high-capacity next-generation wireless using a high-grade slice of spectrum—say, a portion of the broadcasters’ 700 MHz band that will become available not too far down the road.
After reading and writing about telemedicine last night and scanning a long Washington Monthly essay entitled “Let There Be Wi-Fi,” I’m struck again by how important these Internet-related issues are to the future evolution of our economy and society and to finding solutions to its mega-problems (e.g., healthcare, education, global competition, political corruption, to name just a few).
And, while I sympathize with cable and telco management that face financial pressures and more competition than they’ve ever faced before (two competitors is a lot more than one, which is a whole lot more than none, but its still pretty far from what Adam Smith had in mind when he talked about “free markets”), it seems a big mistake for us, as a society, to adopt policies geared mainly toward protection of incumbent business models, revenue streams and margins, if these policies put at risk in any significant way the incredible dynamism of the Internet, which has driven and continues to drive unprecedented innovation in response to genuine market demand and social needs.
Here’s where Robert Cringely’s series of “Google” posts come into play (see his first two posts here and here, and his most recent one, which focuses on video advertising, here). One of Cringely’s main points is that Google will move deeper and deeper into the “network infrastructure” business in order to weaken the control exerted by pipe-owners that may have increasing incentives and ability to favor their own services and financial interests through imposition of a two-tiered Internet structure.
A November post by Michael Parekh talks about the emerging “Big Bypass Battles” and the relationship between “Co-Pass” (a Yahoo strategy in dealing with telcos) and Bypass (which seems to be more of a focus for Google and Earthlink).
In a more recent post, Michael highlights the linkage between what’s happening this week at CES and the regulatory/business issues raised by duopoly ownership of access networks.
With all the focus over Google and Yahoo! focusing on Video (NY Times), AND the Wall Street Journal reporting on new video download services being introduced by Google at CES, (with similar offerings by all the GYMAAAE companies), it’s important to remember that there is another battle brewing behind the scenes. And it’s likely to really determine how successful these video offerings will be and how soon. And that’s the increasing efforts by the telco and cable companies to get both the content providers and potentially consumers to pay more for “higher quality broadband delivery” of these video streams.Om Malik cites the WSJ story I discussed in a post last night. He also cites a podcast he did with Niall Kennedy on the subject of a “Two Tier Internet” (the audio is here and a transcript is here). As Om puts it:
The argument is that the phone companies are going to charge for better performance for say games, or movie downloads or software downloads. It is not a bad thought, though only in cases where latency is a big issue. The argument of better network performance, as many in the business would tell you, is a bit of chimera. Even if you buy into the argument, as a consumer, what I would like to see is that if incumbents charge for the network access, then they pass on those savings to consumers.
In the podcast, Om echoes Michael’s point that we are in a transitional period during which “business models and regulatory rules of the road are fought over, re-negotiated, and accepted by the content producers, distribution networks, and of course by consumers.”
…charge a premium from certain people who want better performance, that is fine. The minute they start imposing a toll tax, this quasi-toll tax for the access part of it, that is where things get a little complicated. That’s where, as a consumer, you have to stand up and scream, because why are you paying them fifty dollars when they define what you can see or what you can’t see? So we cross that bridge when we get to it. Right now everybody’s made threats, nobody’s followed through. So it’s something we have to watch very carefully.
I’d suggest that, even as the “convergence” on display at CES continues to unfold, another equally important form of convergence is also gaining momentum. To mangle Michael’s phrase, I’ll call it the “Big Bypass Private/Public Convergence.”
During the past few years, we’ve seen a growing interest in the idea of “municipal broadband” or “community Internet” among cities large and small, who see it as both a driver of healthy economic growth and a tool for supporting government functions, public safety, education, healthcare, traffic management and other “social goods.”
A new phase of the Community Internet movement is characterized by the emergence of “bypass” models largely funded by Internet-based companies like Google or Earthlink, but with the active cooperation of city governments and local communities.
A third and related force is the pushback by incumbents against Community Internet initiatives, which is putting pressure on cities to avoid putting taxpayers’ money at risk and to not get too directly involved in the provision of commercial services. This, in turn, seems likely to push the Community Internet movement in the direction of the Public/Private models proposed by Earthlink, Google and others.
These market and regulatory dynamics seem likely to encourage alliances in which local communities join forces with private Internet-based companies like Google and Earthlink to design, build and finance Big Bypass networks that are extremely high capacity, symmetrical and “open access” in design and, especially if Google is involved, that leverage the power of “intention-based commercial information” (i.e., targeted advertising) as a source of revenue to finance construction and maintenance of these networks.
So, while what Michael describes as “Co-Pass” deals are likely to continue between Internet players and pipe-owners (see reference to Movielink-BellSouth talks here), it seems likely that pressure will continue to build in the direction of Big Bypass Public/Private deals as well, especially as incumbents’ moves toward a two-tiered Internet clarify the difference between their vision of IP networks and the vision imbedded in the original design of the Internet.
Sometime in the next few months, a book will be published that lays out an argument and basic blueprint for construction and operation of publicly controlled “Internet public roads.” Having read drafts of the book, my guess is that it will intensify pressures already building toward a Big Bypass Public/Private Convergence and will help clarify a path of opportunity for that convergence to unfold in local communities, and to be accommodated and perhaps even encouraged by state and national policies.
This won’t and shouldn’t stop Co-Pass deals from moving forward, but it may help create Big Bypass network alternatives in more and more communities around the country. As this occurs, other communities, as well as state and national policymakers, will get to evaluate and compare the Two Tiered Network model and the various Bypass models taking root in some communities.
In terms of legislation, it seems to me that the safest route is to give both basic models enough breathing room to develop rather than to cobble together a complex set of rules that will invariably lead to years of lawsuits and shelved business plans waiting for lawsuits to be resolved.
To paraphrase Google, my advice to legislators is “don’t do evil, even if its well intended.” Let the Co-Pass deals get done on a Two Tiered Internet operated by cable and telco incumbents, but also let Big Bypass Public/Private deals get done around fiber networks, wireless and perhaps a swarm of ad-supported Google Cubes. And let investors place their bets, while letting local communities make collective decisions through a democratic political process. That’s what I call IP Democracy.
Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 6:29 PM | Print | Comments (0)China is not known for free speech, and the Chinese government routinely polices its citizens’ use of the Internet to nip any dissention in the bud. But now it has an ally — Microsoft, which voluntary (i.e. without even being asked by the Chinese government) shut down a blog of a potential government critic. This controversy has been brewing in the blogosphere for days, and now has landed in the New York Times.
MSN appallingly shut down Zhao Jing, a blogger who also goes by the online pen name, An Ti or Michael Anti. Mr. Zhao also happens to work as a research assistant in the Beijing bureau of The New York Times. The controversy started on January 3 when Rebecca Mackinnon posted a lengthy item in her blog about MSN yanking Zhao’s blog because he was alleged to be supportive of journalists who were on strike following the firing of independent-minded editors at the Beijing Daily News.
What’s unusual is that the government didn’t ask MSN to take down the blog — MSN did that of its own accord, presumably out of fear that the Chinese government might end up blocking all of MSN’s blogs.
What does Zhao think of Microsoft’s action? Here’s a quote from the NYT article:
Mr. Zhao said in an interview Thursday that Microsoft chose to delete his blog on Dec. 30 with no warning. “I didn’t even say I supported the strike,” he said. “This action by Microsoft infringed upon my freedom of speech. They even deleted my blog and gave me no chance to back up my files without any warning.”
How does Microsoft explain itself? According to the Times’ piece:
“This is a complex and difficult issue,” said Brooke Richardson, a group product manager for MSN in Seattle. “We think it’s better to be there with our services than not be there.”
As insipid as this response may seem — morality is always a “complex and difficult issue” — Microsoft does have a tiny point. Zhao’s old blog at U.S.-based BlogCity is said to be responsible for the Chinese government blocking all BlogCity blogs. Still, you’d think that Microsoft might express a twinge of shame at being such an obsequious boot-licker to a tyrannical regime, no matter what the business consequences.
Or as Microsoft employee Robert Scoble put it
OK, this one is depressing to me. It’s one thing to pull a list of words out of blogs using an algorithm [a routine practice by virtually all ISPs in China]. It’s another thing to become an agent of a government and censor an entire blogger’s work. Yes, I know the consequences. Yes, there are thousands of jobs at stake. Billions of dollars. But, the behavior of my company in this instance is not right….Guys over at MSN: sorry, I don’t agree with your being used as a state-run thug.
Scoble has invited Zhao to start posting on his blog. But there may be no need for it. Zhao has restarted his old blog at BlogCity.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 3:52 PM | Print | Comments (1)Yahoo! officially unveiled its Go service today with Terry Semel’s keynote presentation at CES. Go covers three new areas of Yahoo! service distribution: mobile devices, TV sets and desktops.
Go Mobile connects mobile phones with Yahoo!’s service and “integrates the company’s familiar communications services with the phone’s built-in e-mail, messaging, address book and calendar applications.” Go Mobile is launching with AT&T and Cingular in the U.S. and with Nokia in international markets. Yahoo also separately announced that Motorola phones will come pre-installed with Yahoo! ready applications.
AT&T will also synch up with Yahoo! with a co-branded AT&T Yahoo! Go Mobile service aimed at letting the nation’s largest DSL provider take their broadband experience with them on Cingular phones.
The second part of Yahoo!’s announcement is Go TV, which won’t launch for a few months. Go TV is a downloadable software platform for PCs connected to TVs that allows users/viewers to access Yahoo! services on the TV set. Go supports Internet video search, Yahoo! video viewing, PVR functionality, photo viewing and access to My Yahoo! (One question here: how many people know how to connect their PCs to their TVs?)
Yahoo is working with Intel to make its services available on media devices, including mobile devices, powered by Intel’s Viiv technology.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 2:02 PM | Print | Comments (0)Saul Hansell has a series of blockbuster scoops condensely packed into one article in today’s New York Times. Hansell confirms what Om Malik and The Wall Street Journal have already reported — Google plans to announce today a premium video-on-demand service. But, Hansell has details on a new service called Yahoo Go that would extend Yahoo’s services — particularly video services — to the TV set, an initiative CEO Terry Semel plans to announce at CES today.
Yahoo will unveil free software designed to transport Yahoo content to TV sets, software clearly aimed at competing with Microsoft’s Windows Media. The software will contain an interactive electronic program guide as well as user reviews and ratings of shows. Yahoo’s video will be advertiser supported, but like Google, Yahoo plans to announce later this year a premium video option.
The software Yahoo will unveil enables program recording on the PC, much the way PVRs function for TVs now. Although Yahoo’s email and IM services won’t initially be available on the TV set, the company plans to make them an option later this year. The Yahoo TV software will run on any computer with Windows XP or any mobile device using Intel’s new Viiv technology.
Google’s Page will announce today that CBS and the NBA have agreed to sell their programming via Google Video, with CBS charging $1.99/pop for each program, a price level established by Apple’s iTunes video service. While Google plans to offer video advertising (a prospect we outlined in our recent Television 2.0 report on Google), the new service won’t initially be advertiser-supported.
And unlike Yahoo’s service, Google’s new DRM technology will not allow the transport of content to mobile devices. But Google, and Yahoo, are announcing today deals with mobile phone makers that will their services more transportable.
Motorola will start making models of wireless phones that have dedicated buttons linking to Google’s web sites. And Yahoo will introduce software that synchronizes a user’s Yahoo account with some cell phones made by Nokia and Motorola.
Update: Rafat Ali has more details on Yahoo’s Go service here. The Yahoo Go site is live here and will feature a podcast of Semel’s CES keynote, slated to start at 12 ET.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 7:21 AM | Print | Comments (0)
A piece in the Wall Street Journal continues the discussion of a “two-tiered Internet” that would require independent service providers to pay telcos “to receive priority treatment [on] increasingly crowded [broadband access] networks.”
The WSJ story says Movielink “has discussed the issue with BellSouth, and quotes Movielink CEO Jim Ramo as saying that “we’re willing to explore a commercial relationship” that “increas[es] the quality of service to customers” by allowing them to download movies faster. The Journal also reports that BellSouth “has floated the idea of seeking a small percentage of the $2 to $5 that Movielink, the consortium of five studios, charges for every movie download” and “is in early talks” with “at least one gaming company.”
The size and structure of the fee systems remain to be worked out, and the regulatory implications aren’t clear. But already, the phone companies are meeting heavy resistance from companies that say making them pay for priority delivery of their content amounts to holding them ransom, thus hurting competition and, ultimately, the consumer.Vonage CEO Jeffrey Citron is clearly not a fan of the “two-tiered Internet” increasingly favored by telcos:
“They want to charge us for the bandwidth the customer has already paid for,” said Jeffrey Citron, chief executive of Vonage. Customers who already pay a premium for high-speed Internet access, he said, will end up paying even more if online services pass the new access charges to consumers. “The customer has to pay twice. That’s crazy.”
Mr. Citron said he thinks that if the Bells tack on extra charges, cable companies that also provide broadband will soon follow. Vonage said it hasn’t so far held talks with any phone companies about paying Internet access fees.
Smaller companies say they may not be able to afford paying for premium network access. And as the phone companies start to offer their own Internet-based content such as video and Internet-based phone services, they could gain an unfair advantage over rivals who are paying them fees to offer the same services.Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 2:37 AM | Print | Comments (0)
Scanning a story in the Kansas City Star provided a nice change of pace from the Google & gadget fever surrounding CES. The topic, one dear to my heart since the mid-80s, was telemedicine.
The article discussed a number of intriguing telemedicine applications, but it also made clear that, while telemedicine-enabling technologies have come a very long way in the past 20 years, its advocates have not made much progress when it comes to dealing with our nation’s dysfunctional healthcare system (having recently spent nearly a week dealing with a family health emergency, I can personally testify to this dysfunction, the system’s impressively high-tech elements notwithstanding).
Supporters seeking to accelerate the use of these new technologies say they will not only make health care more accessible, but also improve treatments and reduce costs.
[Robert E.] Litan, vice president for research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation and senior fellow in the economic studies program at the Brookings Institute, said that telemedicine benefits “are as substantial as what the federal government is likely to spend on homeland security over the next 25 years.” He said under the right policies, savings “could exceed what the United States currently spends annually for health care for all its citizens.” Health care currently consumes 16 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product…A scholar with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Brookings Institution estimates savings of nearly $1 trillion.
The story underscores the importance of ubiquitous, high-capacity and affordable broadband networks, suggesting to me that telemedicine’s potential impact on our healthcare system should become a significant part of the broadband policy debate.
While independent experts confirm these savings are realistic, they also complain the U.S. telemedicine revolution lags the rest of the world. Most Americans still don’t have access to broadband, smaller hospitals can’t afford the technology and current laws slow the approval process of the technology for medical use or make it hard to use across state lines. In short, they say there is an urgent need for a national policy on telemedicine.
“It’s absolutely essential to get broadband to more citizens,”…said Russell Bodoff, executive director of the Center For Aging Services Technologies, which last month made a presentation at a White House conference.
Current U.S. laws also run counter to the technology. For instance, Americans can’t use Asian equipment that allows diabetics to use cell phones fitted with blood testing kits. The reason? A cell phone is not an approved medical device. Medical licensing laws also don’t allow a specialist in certain states to monitor the health of a patient in another state, shutting off some patients from a specialist. In addition, the technology is so new that most insurers won’t reimburse hospitals for the costs, so most health providers absorb it as a cost of doing business - at least for now.Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 12:53 AM | Print | Comments (1)
Glenn Fleishman at WiFiNet News points to a long Washington Monthly essay by media reform advocate Robert McChesney and John Podesta, former Clinton Chief of Staff and now President and CEO of the Center for American Progress. The essay closes with the following conclusion, which Fleishman calls “a doozy and a winner.” Given Podesta’s background and current position, the conclusion strikes me as a potential Democratic campaign theme in the 2006 and/or 2008 elections.
Simply empowering local governments and community groups, in coordination with private entrepreneurs, to provide universal affordable, broadband may be the single best thing we can do to make America the pre-eminent economy—and democracy—of the 21st century.
To help make their point, McChesney and Podesta draw parallels between broadband today and electric power roughly a century ago:
[C]ommunities that didn’t have electricity couldn’t produce as much, and couldn’t keep up with urban competitors. Rural communities were left with the choice of forming a government-owned utility or being left in the dark. Even big cities like Detroit built municipal power systems to cut prices and extend service. In response, private utility companies responded with a massive propaganda and misinformation campaign that attacked advocates of municipal power as “un-American,” “Bolshevik,” and “an unholy alliance of radicals.”
In 1935, [FDR] created the Rural Electrification Administration (REA), which gave loans and other help to small towns and farmer cooperatives interested in setting up their own power systems. The REA turned out to be one of the New Deal’s most successful programs. Within two years, hundreds of new municipal power utilities were up and running across the country, and within 20 years, virtually all of rural America had electricity [and]…municipally owned electric utilities and rural electric cooperatives…still account for more than a quarter of the power in the country today.
They also compare US broadband development to Japan and South Korea:
American residents and businesses now pay two to three times as much for slower and poorer quality service than countries like South Korea or Japan. Since 2001, according to the International Telecommunications Union, the United States has fallen from fourth to 16th in the world in broadband penetration. Thomas Bleha recently argued in Foreign Affairs that what passes for broadband in the United States is “the slowest, most expensive and least reliable in the developed world.”…most Japanese citizens can access a high-speed connection that’s more than 10 times faster than what’s available here for just $22 a month.
The economic ramifications are profound. “Asians will have the first crack at developing the new commercial applications, products, services, and content of the high-speed-broadband era,” writes Bleha. Already, South Korea, which leads the world in the percentage of its businesses and homes with broadband, is the number one developer of online video games—perhaps the fastest-growing industry today…
The countries surpassing the United States in broadband deployment did so by using a combination of public entities and private firms. The Japanese built their world-class system by ensuring “open access” to residential telephone lines, meaning competitors paid the same wholesale price to use the wires. The country is also establishing a super-fast, nationwide fiber system via a combination of tax breaks, debt guarantees and subsidies. But of particular note, the Japanese government also encouraged municipalities to build their own networks, especially in rural areas. Towns and villages willing to set up their own ultra-high-speed fiber networks received government subsidies covering approximately one-third of their costs.
The authors also challenge incumbent arguments against what they call “Community Internet.”
Community Internet has the potential to revolutionize and democratize communications in this country. And that may be the reason why big cable and telephone companies and their political allies have launched a sophisticated misinformation campaign…First, they contend that municipalities have no place in the “free market.” Of course, the cable and telephone giants don’t mention that their own monopolies—which control 98 percent of the broadband market—have been cemented with extensive public subsidies, tax breaks and incentives (as well as free rein to tear up city streets). Verizon, for instance, didn’t complain last fall when Pennsylvania handed them subsidies for broadband deployment worth nearly 10 times what Wireless Philadelphia will cost. Neither did Comcast object when Philadelphia approved a $30 million grant to build a skyscraper that will house its headquarters.
[C]ritics of Community Internet claim that cities are too “lazy” or inefficient to manage complex systems and will be unable to adapt to changing technologies. But municipalities have a long track record of successfully and efficiently operating power plants, sewage systems and subways. It’s hard to imagine that the broadband networks—most of which will actually be operated by private contractors—are any more complex. Perhaps the more obvious question is: If these systems are destined to fail, why are the telephone and cable companies expending so much energy trying to stop them?
And they offer some suggestions for federal policymakers:
Congress could boost the speed and reliability of community wireless networks by making available more “unlicensed spectrum”—those portions of the public airwaves not exclusively reserved for government or commercial use. Exisiting “Wi-Fi” networks operate in “junk bands” cluttered with signals from cordless phones, microwave ovens, baby monitors and other consumer devices. At lower frequencies-–like in the television band-—signals travel farther and can go through walls, trees and mountains. Opening up some of this spectrum would make Community Internet systems much faster and cheaper to deploy, allowing a new generation of broadband entrepreneurs to enter the market. The broadcasters are about to return a sizable chunk of spectrum as part of the digital television transition, a portion of which could be reserved for Community Internet if Congress doesn’t auction it all off to the cell phone companies. Another option would be to reallocate vast, unused “white spaces” between TV channels for wireless broadband. Either way, more “unlicensed spectrum” is the key to making universal, super-fast broadband for $10 a month a reality.
Most importantly, the federal government must ensure that the cable and telephone monopolies can’t crush innovative projects like Wireless Philadelphia and the emerging national movement for Community Internet. Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) have introduced a bill that would free municipalities to decide for themselves which technologies best serve their citizens. U.S. policy should create incentives for communities to build advanced telecommunications networks in hundreds of cities and towns across the country, creating robust competition for communications services, assisting small entrepreneurs through public-private partnerships, and bringing opportunity to low-income urban neighborhoods and rural communities too often neglected by large entrenched monopolies.Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 12:37 AM | Print | Comments (0)
Blogs We Read
