FCC Apparently Not Very Concerned About Consumer Views On Broadband
from the keep-quiet-and-take-what-we-give-you dept
We recently expressed our concerns with the state of the government's attempts to increase broadband in the US. Karl Bode, over at Broadband Reports has now hit quite a homerun with his analysis of 5 signs of why the broadband plan is in trouble. The whole thing is worth reading, but I wanted to highlight number 5 on the list, because it's a big problem:The FCC continues to hold "workshops" to discuss the direction and scope of the national broadband plan. They're also recording presentations by all of the FCC's "constituents," and offering consumers instantaneous access to all of the documents being presented at the workshop at the Broadband.gov website. All of this is absolutely great. What's not so great?This definitely seems like politics as usual. And it's a problem, not just for the FCC, but for the very businesses involved in these discussions. Ignoring consumer will these days is increasingly a suicide pact. The businesses leading this discussion would be well-served to look at what's happening in other industries (music, newspapers) where business execs have been trying to ignore consumers' rights and interests, in the belief that they have some sort of monopoly control over their market. Those things can disappear quickly, and when stripped of such artificial protections, it's amazing how fast the consumers you mistreated will move elsewhere.
There are 51 panelists attending the latest 8 workshops. Out of those 51, there are just five people not directly associated with a company: Dave Burstein, Craig Moffett, George Ford, Victor Frost and Henning Schulzrinne. Moffett is a stock jock who's positions (such as upgrades are unnecessary and consumers should be paying more money) are clearly not going to serve anyone but investors. Ford works at the Phoenix Center, an AT&T-funded "think tank," who's job is to parrot AT&T policy positions.
Of the remaining three, only Burstein, a long-time telecom beat reporter, will likely ask any hard questions -- and then again his job is to get scoops, not to represent the public interest. Zero of the originally scheduled attendees acted as public interest witnesses. After complaints by consumer groups, Dr. Mark Cooper from the Consumer Federation Of America was added at the last second, but the fact that this was an afterthought raises questions about how "transparent and inclusive" this process really is.
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Filed Under: boondoggle, broadband, broadband policy, broadband stimulus, consumers
Companies: fcc
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How the HECK does this guy even have a seat at the table. He should be kicked out and ignored. Why are we even tolerating this nonsense.
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Re:
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You're Wrong
Their control over US broadband is rooted in the high expense of building out the "last mile" of their networks, such as in fiber to the home. The return on investment of fiber can be 5-10 years, possibly even longer if the takeup rate isn't at or around the 30% mark.
Very few companies who have enough initial capital to build out FTTH are willing to invest in such a long-term project (investor greed). Obviously Verizon is the only major carrier currently doing something like this, but they're actually cherry picking their highest ROI areas and leaving many others behind.
There are in fact many rural carriers who have been wiring up rural houses with fiber for years, willing to take on the ~10 year ROI project that FTTH represents, but they lack enough capital to build out to all their customers.
So yes, a workshop that lacks consumer interest speakers is very detrimental to the national broadband plan.
On the other hand, Blair Levin, the guy in charge of the 1996 Telecom Act, is drafting up the plan. So unless he's secretly turned into a stodgy old conservative, I think the plan will be an ambitious one in the end.
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Re: You're Wrong
and please tell, how much of that is funded via government grants?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: You're Wrong
Actually that's not true at all. Read
http://www.muninetworks.org/content/how-ntia-dismantled-public-interest-provisions-broadband -stimulus-package
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Re: Re: Re: Re: You're Wrong
and I'm not sure where you got this quote, please provide citations.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: You're Wrong
I want proof, I want the government to publicly document, on some government website, in detail exactly where every dollar went and who gets it. Without such government transparency why should I not assume the worst? If the government has nothing to hide then why not document this information? Do you have the govt website that documents this?
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Totally OT
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Re: Totally OT
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Right
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who's
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Re: No, You Are Wrong
As far as building infrastructure in the public domain, be careful what you wish for; the governments who have used public funds to build "public broadband infrastructure" are the same ones who feel it is their right to regulate the content on that network, police for copyright, and spy on their citizens. The current Administration may have qualms about doing so, but it was not so long ago that we had a different Administration that had no such qualms, and that was when they did not even own the infrastructure (certain companies were complicit with government in its efforts while others told it to take a hike).
As far as the article above, what I find perplexing is that the author seems to belive that there is one "consumer" view and that certain entities that claim to represent that "consumer view" indeed do so. Besides the 10% of the population that cannot access broadband, about 50% of who see consider broadband relevant to their lives and would adopt broadband, what exactly is it that consumers want that they are not getting? Is this all about the price of broadband? If it is, then what do the consumers want the FCC to do about price? It cannot give broadband away for free, just like the energy companies do not give electricity away for free even that is a far more essential service than broadband. If this is about speed, what app or service do you want to run that you cannot run with the speeds currently available? Based on my family's usage, we can run every app or service we want with the service we are getting from our cable broadband connection. And my provider has been increasing its basic speeds every year without charge, I assume to keep up with more bandwidth-intensive apps and services as they are developed.
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Re: Re: No, You Are Wrong
I hope so.
"The large telco/cable ops are not likely to get any of the stimulus funding"
And why should I believe this, because you said so?
"As far as building infrastructure in the public domain, be careful what you wish for; the governments who have used public funds to build "public broadband infrastructure" are the same ones who feel it is their right to regulate the content on that network, police for copyright, and spy on their citizens."
A: Most of that was via networks ran by private entities so there doesn't seem to be a difference between whether the network is in the public domain or not
B: I'm not saying that the government should run it, just that the government should give everyone the opportunity to provide broadband to anyone. If the government wants the information they would still have to either operate with private entities or do so illegally either way, so it seems to make no difference if the broadband infrastructure is in the public domain or not (or if they do it legally, via court orders, then it still makes no difference). Now you are simply resorting to baseless scare mongering to support your position.
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Re: Re: No, You Are Wrong
Almost everyone there seems to be industry reps, why should we believe these people in any way represent consumer views?
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Re: Re: No, You Are Wrong
No one said that there is only one consumer view, but the point is that consumer views and consumer groups are being ignored almost completely. Industry reps, instead, are the ones that are expected to represent consumer views and I see no reason to believe they will represent any views but the views that increase their personal profit margins.
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Re: Re: No, You Are Wrong
You have given me no reason to believe this.
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Re: Re: No, You Are Wrong
Not only have you given me no reason to believe this, there are many reasons (as shown on that site and many others and the many other dishonest things the government does, the list of those goes on and on) to believe otherwise.
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Re: Re: No, You Are Wrong
Considering that the NIH tells us how much grant money they give away and how many grants but they do not give us a list of exactly who gets what grants, I find this hard to believe.
(ie: see)
http://taggs.hhs.gov/AnnualReport/FY2008/discretionary/by_major_activity.cfm
I think federal agencies only give as much information as they are required to by law and even then they try to interpret the law in ways that disfavor transparency as much as they can. I think one huge problem is that too many unelected officials (they're appointed by elected officials but they're not elected by the people) have too much control over law and much too often they stand to serve private interests at public expense (ie: the FDA, FCC, USPTO, NTIA, etc...). Ron Paul is trying to pass a bill to help alleviate the problem (The Congressional Responsibility and Accountability Act) but lets see how far it goes (while Ron Paul is a great public servant the fact of the matter is that we don't have enough people like him in power to make a big enough impact).
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What he said
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Off the subject... kind of .... broadband penetration...
But not very far off .... Big Ole Grin ...
Questions ....
How do we figure out which internet providers serve which areas? (since they dont want the info out there... to prevent competition)
And how do we reduce internet access cost? (we figure out the penetration of Internet access and point out we only have one choice normally, the local laws need to change)
What do we do to create a map of internet service providers service area's is the following ....
1) IP Address (this finds us the service provider)
2) physical Mailing address (Location, Location, Location)
How do we do this .... hmmmm .... give me a sec ...
Okay, it took me half an hour to figure out.
to figure out which companies cover which area in the USA.
1) Contact the following mail providers (yahoo, google, msn ... etc) and ask them to ask for street location .... What is your street address?
2) What are the service providers? ie Ip addresses? (tracert)
More to follow ..... IP and bandwidth need to have rules ....
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Re: Off the subject... kind of .... broadband penetration...
3)
4)
5)
and six will be discussed later
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Re: Off the subject... kind of .... broadband penetration...
The only way to get the data is to make it required and fineable for noncompliance, which would have to include falsifying data too.
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Any imbalance will only be from a monetary standpoint, and not necessarily a user's.
What we need to be mindful of is that the govt. and it's 'entities', as it were, will be the ones using the best connections running hardware we can only dream of. THAT is what I am afraid of.
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cable company called vyve braodband
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