It's the Internet, Stupid

A collaborative commentary on The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), which proposes a new economic foundation for the USA through "job preservation and creation, infrastructure investment, energy efficiency and science, assistance to the unemployed," and the FCC's creation of a a "National Broadband Plan" for Congress by February 17, 2010.

There's risk in confusing broadband and Internet. If the National Broadband Plan starts from the premise that the U.S. needs the innovation, increased productivity, new ideas and freedoms of expression that the Internet affords, then the Plan will be shaped around the Internet. If, instead, the Plan is premised on a need for broadband, it fails to address the ARRA's mandated objectives directly. More importantly, the premise that broadband is the primary goal entertains the remaking of the Internet in ways that could put its benefits at risk. The primary goal of the Plan should be broadband connections to the Internet.
The FCC's Internet Policy Statement of 2005 is a first attempt to codify important aspects of the Internet independent of access technology. It advocates end-user access to content, and end-user choice of applications, services and devices. It says that Internet users are, "entitled to competition," but it does not spell out the entitlement to the benefits of competition, such as increased choice, lower price and diversity of offers. It fails to provide for information about whether advertised services perform as specified. It doesn't address packet inspection, packet discrimination, data collection or end-user privacy. It is not clear that all of these are within the FCC's purview, but it is abundantly clear that all of these factors should be critical to a National Broadband Plan that addresses broadband connections to the Internet.
Therefore, we urge that the FCC's National Broadband Plan emphasize that broadband connection to the Internet is the primary goal.

itstheinternetstupid.com (via Seth Johnson).

* As an aside -- in light of the immediately prior 2 posts, I keep hearing Dr. Steve Brule's voice when I read this post's headline.

Discussion

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#1 posted by mackenzi, June 7, 2009 1:15 PM

Long live FCC! KB1SHW
What are they trying to say? Most of the Internet is pork? Unfit to consume?

#2 posted by superforestnyc, June 7, 2009 1:18 PM

Confusingly delicious.

#3 posted by mdh, June 7, 2009 1:33 PM

I agree, the spirit of the law really ought to be written into the law - else we wind up with just a series of tubes.

#4 posted by Anonymous, June 7, 2009 2:44 PM

And China is requiring new PC hardware to be shipped with web page blockers installed.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124440211524192081.html#mod=testMod

Bad times.

#5 posted by Anonymous, June 7, 2009 2:54 PM

Why didn't you think of that, dummy?

#6 posted by Takuan, June 7, 2009 3:07 PM

nope, if China wants to cripple herself that's her business.

#7 posted by taj, June 7, 2009 5:37 PM

And in breaking news, ... the Swede sitting next to me just whispered over that there shall be at least one Pirate in the EU Parliment!

#8 posted by taj, June 7, 2009 5:39 PM

#9 posted by Ilovechocolatemilk, June 7, 2009 6:46 PM

Since this article is horribly vague and poorly worded, I'll tl;dr it for you.

Basically Obama released about 7 billion dollars worth of funding to develop our national broadband infrastructure, the intention being that every single person in the nation should eventually have access to broadband internet. Under the agreement made with Congress, the FCC has to come up with a comprehensive proposal on how to spend these funds by February of 2010.

Knowing this, what the above article is trying to say is that the necessity for high-speed internet is often confused with access to broadband connection. While seemingly a trivial distinction, it actually has greater implications for the future of the internet; if we closely associate them too much, we are basically granting telecoms (who manage broadband connections) free license to regulate what we see and can do on the internet. Since this is Boing Boing, you can bet your ass that the bottom line is invariably this: Net Neutrality.

#10 posted by Bob Sacamano, June 7, 2009 7:43 PM

Thanks chocolate milk ... I didn't quite get it.

#11 posted by Takuan, June 7, 2009 9:11 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cfwsfGqgPM&feature=related

#12 posted by Brynn217, June 7, 2009 10:36 PM

Umm... I believe the speaker would like to see the FCC focus more on connection speed and quality instead of actual content...

The money approved is supposed to be to help 'ALL Americans" become connected to the internet.. What the goal seems to be is to have the FCC adopt a Standard of Connection to assist people with their service... I can understand this need because at the moment we all have DSL, CABLE, WI-FI, Cell Phones and more that get us connected at different speeds with many different types of lag...

But, I'm afraid, if we get the FCC involved in this area, we may end up with Del, Compaq, or Microsoft coming out with the "Hummer Box" that will get 9mpg, opps Bits per second, and they might offer us a fuel additive, opps Fiber Optic connection, that'll bump our connection to 18mpg..

umm..