FCC chair Julius Genachowski has very big plans for his bloated agency. In one of the biggest power grabs asserted since  DARPA freed the Internet,  the FCC seeks to spend $25 billion under the pretense of providing service to those who have none and to emergency responders.

The national broadband plan that the Federal Communications Commission submits to Congress later this month is now expected to cost up to $25 billion. But since the nation’s lawmakers are looking for ways to reduce the national debt, the FCC is seeking ways to offset the cost through spectrum auctions and other measures.

To have any chance of meeting its goal of providing broadband service to 100 million Americans, the FCC will need to find support for an estimated $9 billion commitment to cover underserved parts of the country, industry observers say. Moreover, the commission wants Congress to spend $12.5 billion to $16 billion over the next 10 years to provide police, firefighters and other emergency workers with wireless Internet access.

There’s a problem here. The FCC has never been effective at delivering on its  promises. From the horribly mis-managed USF that was already supposed to delivery service where it did not exist to insuring a competitive access market, the agency spends large and fails miserably. Even if the FCC could change its stripes and actually deliver on its promises, bloated bureaucracy insures that only a small fraction of funds raised will actually provide service. Then there’s the funds. Where will they come from? Answer: you and me. Look for an effort to extend what services will have USF fees added and for new spectrum auctions. Big auctions insure that only the deepest pockets of the telcos will control wireless, keeping prices very high. Adding so much new authority to the FCC isn’t just a bad idea. It could end US broadband leadership forever.

An army of approximately 2 million temp census takers are fanning out across the nation to collect data, including internet access information.  With a growing clueless class that thinks their vote is simply a way to get the rest of us to pay for things, I worry about how that data will be collected and used. The problem with the insisting that someone else will always pay assumes that the rest of the population is even more blissfully empty headed than the clueless.

The current federal administration’s stated goal is to connect 100% of Americans. Considering the fact that around 20% of the population does not want service enough to pay for it, it’s an easy guess where we are going. Is it really such a good idea to task the feds with providing access? We are already lagging behind the rest of the developed world and one more drag on broadband capital will not improve things. Is getting the government to force your neighbor to pay for your access really any different than stealing their Wifi?

Right now, finding open access Wifi may be easier in the UK than it is here on  the other side of the pond.  From businesses like the famous Wimpy to educational institutions public places often offer a public connection.

Unfortunately, it appears that American politicians aren’t the only ones who have been bought by the telecom and entertainment industries. A new law proposed for the UK would end public Wifi to “protect copyrighted material”.

The U.K. government will not exempt universities, libraries, and small businesses providing open Wi-Fi services from its Digital Economy Bill copyright crackdown, according to official advice released earlier this week.

This would leave many organizations open to the same penalties for copyright infringement as individual subscribers, potentially including disconnection from the Internet, leading legal experts to say it will become impossible for small businesses and the like to offer Wi-Fi access. (Cnet)

Anyone who has actually used a shared public Wifi connection knows that the idea of downloading a movie from it is laughable, and and uploading one impossible. I think that this is more about forcing people to pay for access away from home than protecting copyright.

This little $2.1 million piggie yet is more proof that the billions appropriated to provide broadband stimulus will provide neither broadband or stimulus. Instead, new bureaucracy is being created to decide how much money and more is needed to actually build something (maybe) and it will take years. Unfortunately the tax payers who funded this cookout will be smelling lots of bacon and get nothing they can sink their teeth into.

The Kentucky Finance and Administration Cabinet’s Commonwealth Office of Technology will use about $1.6 million for broadband data collection and mapping activities over a two-year period. It will use $500,00 for broadband planning of improvements and expansion activities over a five-year period, according to a news release.

The state’s assessment will include an examination of broadband speed, location and technology type, the release said.

Information will be collected from public and private broadband providers by Moon Township, Pa.-based infrastructure engineering and consulting firm Michael Baker Corp. (NYSE: BKR).

The Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, in cooperation with state universities and community colleges, will verify and field audit the information, the release said. The effort will be led by the University of Louisville and Murray State University. (Business First)

… Of lawyering — Know your facts before you make your case. Which pretty much sinks the Australian Internet censorship law. –

South Australia’s thin-skinned candy-ass politicians passed a law prohibiting any anonymous political commentary on blogs (but not “real” news-sources) prior to elections on penalty of a fine of AU$1250. Defending the measure, South Australia’s Attorney General, Michael Atkinson claimed that a poster on AdelaideNow, Aaron Fornarino, was a fictional construct created by his political opponents to smear him. Turns out that Mr Fornarino lives just down the street from Atkinson’s office. Humiliated, Atkinson rescinded the censorship law: “From the feedback we’ve received through AdelaideNow, the blogging generation believes that the law supported by all MPs and all political parties is unduly restrictive. I have listened. I will immediately after the election move to repeal the law retrospectively… It may be humiliating for me, but that’s politics in a democracy and I’ll take my lumps.”

The major foopah? Atkinson, the regional AG made the claim that the person posting on an Internet site lambasting him was not a real person but fictitious, made up by the opposition party. Problem? Yeah, the person exists and there are pictures to prove it. Much to Atkinson’s credit, he will move for repeal of the law after the major embarrassment.

Linky.

Remember me telling you that a FCC managed neutral net would by anything but in practice?

Yet now that the FCC has formally issued draft net neutrality regulations, they have a huge copyright loophole in them — a loophole that would theoretically permit Comcast to block BitTorrent just like it did in 2007 — simply by claiming that it was “reasonable network management” intended to “prevent the unlawful transfer of content.”

You heard that right — under these conditions, the new proposed net neutrality regulations would allow the same practices that net neutrality was first invoked to prevent, even if these ISP practices end up inflicting collateral damage on perfectly lawful content and activities. (EFF)

And then there’s how this could impact Netflix subscribers:

….include a potentially nasty loophole, Netflix warned—the “managed services” category that the Commission created in its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking back in October.

“Netflix is concerned that network operators will use so-called managed services in a way that harms unaffiliated content or service providers that compete directly with services provided by the network operator,” the company told the FCC earlier this month. “In short, if left unchecked, the ‘managed services’ category could engulf the Commission’s open Internet policies altogether” and let ISPs end run any regulations. (Ars Technica)

The loophole being discussed clearly enables your broadband provider the power to discriminate in the realm of content distribution. Of course both cable and telcos are very keen on protecting their own closed content distribution business.

Want a neutral net? I’ve got news for you: There isn’t one. Never has been. Never will be. Networks can not work correctly if they are not managed. The only fix is to open the market to competition. That way if Comcast noodles with your downloads, you’ll have more than one alternative provider. An open local loop could yield dozens of providers vying for your dollar. This is what the FCC should address. So called net neutrality is nothing more than a distraction for the real problem: a broadband duopoly.

… In Hungary? Yeah I know, Ole Tux is just an OS. That is what I thought too. Still do by the way. But in Hungary a political party — Jobbik — has sprung up.:

We are going to implement open standards in the public sector and will promote the spread of open source solutions among the general public and among businesses. Under these directives, government and public sector documents can be stored only, in open document formats, on systems running open standards applications.

We are going to develop open standard interfaces, in order to encourage municipalities, the tax department, the banking sector and public offices to use open source solutions.

We are going to supply government funded and developed applications for municipalities, nation wide, to eliminate parallel and wasteful developments.

When both proprietary and open source software will be available with the equal functionality to accomplish a particular task, we will make the use of open source solutions, mandatory.

We are going to implement open standards in the school system and will introduce open source computing as a subject in schools, under the discipline of computer sciences.

That ladies and gentlemen is the Jobbik party platform. Sound wild? Well I will just direct you to Sweden where the Pirate Party has a foothold in Parliment after raising petitions and funds on the Pirate Bay file sharing suit. They now have over a dozen affiliated Pirate parties in the world. So it would not be far fetched at all.

Linky.

There was a rampant fraud during the Internet boom of the 90’s that resulted in the investment  bubble of the same period. In every major case, existing laws were broken and lax oversight allowed the bubble to grow. The blame should be shared by those in government who were supposed to be enforcing those laws. Instead of admitting to their lack of oversight, a new law was passed that would prevent further fraud. Unfortunately, it also killed the good IPO’s along wit the bad ones.

Ever since the passage of a piece of bad legislation called Sarbanes-Oxley, there has been a draught of American startups. The few that have been turning up are being built from the ground up with he intent to sell out to larger concerns. Not only has this killed innovation, the lack of IPO’s to invest in  sent the mountains of dollars that the fed keeps printing into commodities (like energy and food), therefore driving up prices. It also made the derivative a more desirable risk investment since there were no start ups to invest in. So, SOX not only put the brakes on the American tech industry, it also set the stage for the financial collapse we’re currently stuck in.

“I.P.O. has become a bad word in the Valley,” said Richard Barton, a founder and the chief executive of Zillow.com, a real estate site, and a venture partner at Benchmark Capital.

When start-ups grow up, the founders pay back their investors by selling the business to a bigger company or selling shares to the public. Public offerings have long been the more desirable option. They earn the founders and investors more money and the promise of continuing returns, and enable them to keep expanding the company.

Still, in a survey of start-ups by the venture capital firm DCM, only 19 percent said they expected to go public. Three-quarters said a major barrier was stricter regulations for public companies.

“People don’t want to run public companies anymore because they don’t want to get dragged through the mud,” said Rob Coneybeer, a managing director at the investment firm Shasta Ventures. “They’re so focused on paperwork that they can’t focus on building a business.”

In the last two years, only 18 tech start-ups have gone public, compared with 143 in the two years prior. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which tightened corporate governance and accounting rules, has taken a lot of the blame. (New York Times)

Sadly, there’s little being done in Washington to restore American innovation. The current regulation and tax happy crowd running the Congress and the White House can’t be doing much to encourage the best and brightest of us to take risks. Sure, there’s been a ton on “investing of stimulus money” by the feds, but outside  of the military and NASA in the 60’s and 70’s, governments track record at fostering the creation of anything useful is horrible. So what’s happened to those best and brightest innovators who are not working for the feds or on a salary at the corporation? They’re sidelined. In fact many simply have gone John Galt or literally have retired from creating value and jobs. It’s time to change course.

… but the jury is still out. A new group with a new website and mission is about to hit the wireless arena. The name of the group - Focus Driven. Their website is Focusdriven.org. Their mission, to raise awareness of the distracted driver –

Each year, thousands of families suffer the loss of loved ones needlessly at the hands of drivers distracted by their cell phones. Whether texting, using hands-free or handheld phones, these drivers not only put their lives on the line, but they risk killing others on the road.

FocusDriven provides victims of cell phone distracted drivers, and their friends and families, with an outlet for sharing their stories. We also provide those interested in this issue with opportunities to get involved.

FocusDriven can help you petition your state legislation; educate your friends, families and coworkers about the hazards of distracted driving; or share your story with state representatives to help support legislation for safer roadways.

FocusDriven supporters and advocates know, and many have experienced, the very real consequences of drivers distracted by their cell phones. We ask you to make the pledge to not drive distracted, share what you learn on our site with those you know and get involved to help make our nation’s roads safer.

Are the aims admirable? Yes. But it can be like anything else — unless moderation and common sense is applied then the spiral downward is a swift and sure one. Two examples to my point. MADD — mothers against drunk driving. Early on they had a very positive affect on drunk driving. But slowly the mission itself changed from one looking for results (which was the basis for their early success.), to one of success at all costs. Even when the results can be marginal at best and the overall community results unfavorable.

The second I can provide is bradycampaign.org. They too started out with a laudable goal to reduce gun violence. (The violence is the issue, not the gun, its just the instrument. But that’s a different story.) They have slowly morphed not into a gun violence advocate but a gun banning advocate. The lever of that transformation being the funding by various anti gun sub-groups. What I would envision is that Focusdriven.org would become over funded by a Telco PAC and then slowly twisted to a meek shell of its former mission. Don’t let that happen to you.

I wish them God speed. This is an issue that needs a societal response. There are times in life that do not require you to answer the phone. Driving happens to be one of them.

Linky.

If I were writing the FCC’s extension request it would go something like this:

Dear Congress, we need another 30 days to put a better clown suit on the duopoly’s wish list so we can spin it to the public  as a broadband plan. We’re also going to need a little extra time to get all of your individual earmarks carefully spun as a benefit for all Americans, even if they have nothing to do with broadband. If you would like to see the offiicial document instead of my speculative interpretation, go here.

What will the final plan include? The buzz coming out of the industry, FCC hints and from Congress all points to a continued duopoly lock on last mile access and a new reallocation of spectrum. I predict we’ll be sold on the idea of putting new spectrum on the auction block that will be largely consumed by the current duopoly and wireless cartel. Will be get a better pipes? Maybe a little better mobile one. Reality is if the wireless cartel can lay its hand on more spectrum it can deliver more bandwidth from fewer towers. If the spectrum is auctioned, only players with deep pockets will have a chance of winning. That means no new competition, and no real innovation. It also means a new invisible tax as the cost of auctioned spectrum will be passed to the consumer through higher charges.

If this predictable path is followed,  we’ll have very much the same broadband as we have now, controlled by very much the same people who have been satisfied with putting the United States in a race to last place when it comes to average end user bandwidth at the highest prices in the developed world.

Sick of it? You can write your representative and the President and tell them you will vote them out if something does not change. I’m doing that every few days and you should too. Remind them we need less “help” from Washington and a lot more competition.