Fight Brews Over How to Build a Better Internet (The stimulus bill has $6 billion to expand broadban

[Omaha Steve]

Marta was CWA for 18 years.

http://www.flatheadbeacon.com/articles/article/fight_brews_over_how_to_build_a_better_internet/8000/

By Ben Arnoldy, The Christian Science Monitor , 01-31-09
America, where the Internet was invented, has fallen behind many European and East Asian countries in Internet speed, cost, and reach.

Roughly 10 percent of US households have no access to a high-speed, or broadband, data connection. Barely 3 percent have fiber-optic connections capable of delivering high-speed data that future industries are expected to rely on. While countries like Sweden are wiring themselves up with the next-generation Internet, the US is making do with a network roughly on par with Iceland.


Switch and Data’s PAIX in Palo Alto is a primary Internet exchange point in North America. - Tony Avelar/The Christian Science Monitor

So a $6 billion effort to upgrade America’s Internet – part of the stimulus package Congress is trying to pass – would seem a political slam-dunk. The US stimulates its economy right away with projects that would pay dividends well into the 21st century.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Stakeholders are at odds over whether it’s more important to quickly stimulate or wisely invest, to get the most speed from federal bucks – or the most bang.

That tension, inherent throughout the $825 billion stimulus package, is especially acute in broadband development. Congress is sympathetic to reformers who see this as a chance to inject more competition into the market, even if that means relying less on big companies that could quickly lay new fiber-optic cable.

“The goals of getting the most broadband built in 2009 and early 2010 are in conflict with the goals of layering up the process with a number of reform proposals,” says Rob Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF).

Few dispute the importance of upgrading America’s Internet. Slow connection speeds are delaying advances in everything from remote video-conferencing to telemedicine to technologies and new industries not yet invented.

There’s also consensus that broadband investment brings jobs. Put $5 billion into broadband expansion and 100,000 new jobs in telecom and information technology materialize within a year of the money being spent, according to the Communications Workers of America (CWA), using data from the Department of Commerce. Once built, the economic gifts keep coming: Every percentage point increase in broadband penetration raises employment 0.2 to 0.3 percent, according to the Brookings Institution.


FULL story at link.

[BlooInBloo]

1. One would hope that we could get fast internet to hicks AND lay better piping.

[msongs]

2. some ideas to keep corporate whores from hijacking the 'net...

no layers or divisions of service for various fees - one fee for full service

no bundling of fees with higher fees for stand alone internet

no retention/tracking of net use without explicit advance permission of users

opt IN required instead of OPT out

ISP cannot share or sell customer provided information - unless court ordered if that

we have charter, a cable company that gets a monopoly over cable in exchange for kick backs to our city and
payoffs (oops, campaign contributions) to local politicians. Far as I know there are no restrictions on
what charter can do and charge. they have tiered services, bundling, restrictions on downloads, many of the
negatives.

of course one can get DSL, except ATT will not provide it if one is too far from a phone routing center.

our city is also getting ready to roll out FREE ATT wireless across the city, but again, a MONOPOLY with tiered
service and bundling.

Msongs

[BlooInBloo]

3. Here's a very knowledgeable person, who feels pretty good about it....

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/01/30/broadband_stimulus/

Lots of people are wary about the stimulus bill, and on broadband there was a good deal of concern that it would end up simply funding the incumbents to do what they were going to do anyway, without really taking the opportunity to bring in new models of broadband. But from the current versions: the version the House passed, and the Senate Appropriations Committee released, I'm actually reasonably optimistic.

The Senate proposal is better along two dimensions. First, it stands at 9 billion dollars instead of 6 billion dollars, and is to be disposed purely through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration Technology Opportunities Program. 9 billion is not the 44 billion Free Press was arguing for, but it is no chump change, either. It's about 40% of what Verizon had planned to spend over six years as its investment to shift to FiOS. Second, it is all to be administered through the NTIA, through a program that was set up during the Clinton Administration to support experimentation and deployment of public and non-profit efforts, and to study public networks; a program that has been starved of funds for half a decade.

By comparison,the House bill appropriates almost half the money for administration by the Secretary of Agriculture, because, as we all know, that is how one gets a coherent national communications policy... or something. The Senate is putting off the political pressure to put it in Agriculture by postponing that decision for negotiations between the Secretaries of Commerce and Agriculture later on, leaving it at the discretion of Commerce to transfer some of the money to Agriculture. The House bill is, however, clearer on the access conditions imposed on those who receive funds. It requires grantees not only to adhere to the minimal net neutrality standards adopted by the FCC's Statement of Principles, but also to run both wired and wireless broadband networks on an "open access basis."

[Hestia]

4. Most likely 100,000 new Union Workers - CWA will be lobbying hard on that

[HillbillyBob]

5. It should be federal owned not AT&T or Sprint or any of the those sonsabitches

who are nothing but greedy bastards

[.... callchet ....]

6. The internet should be regarded like the Postal Service

But they are dying to tax it and regulate it out of existence for the common person.