

The National Broadband Plan - brlewis
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/03/the-national-broadband-plan.html

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earle
This is pretty crazy, actually..

"If the U.S. military ranked 17th in the world, you can bet that as a nation
we would make strengthening our armed forces a national priority. Yet that's
just how the U.S. stacks up against the rest of the world in terms of access
to high-speed Internet connections. The vital communications systems that make
our economy work and serve as a platform for business innovation and social
interactions are second-class."

Well, where do we stand on Education, and Healthcare, and why aren't we fixing
those?

At a minimum, why are we not refocusing how the Internet was built by focusing
this broadband effort on educational and research facilities, as opposed to
multimillion dollar grants for Ski Resorts who need high speed Internet
connections in rental homes.

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sili
Agreed. Yesterday there was a segment on NPR regarding this issue. The article
does not mention this, but the newly allocated spectrum will not be just
handed out to the established big players. However, it will be auctioned off
which is still a problem. Unless there is a way to ensure that smaller parties
have a way to get at least a part of that spectrum, the auctions will be
dominated by the large carriers who can pay more.

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brlewis
The idea of making that whole 500mhz unregulated is interesting. I'm eager to
hear what knowledgeable and/or opinionated people here think.

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bsaunder
_When you take a technology and unregulate it and let the market operate,
you'll get way better results than when you lock a technology up in the hands
of one owner._

That about sums up my view on patents as well.

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earle
This is pretty crazy, actually..

"If the U.S. military ranked 17th in the world, you can bet that as a nation
we would make strengthening our armed forces a national priority. Yet that's
just how the U.S. stacks up against the rest of the world in terms of access
to high-speed Internet connections. The vital communications systems that make
our economy work and serve as a platform for business innovation and social
interactions are second-class."

Well, where do we stand on Education, and Healthcare, and why aren't we fixing
those?

At a minimum, why are we not refocusing how the Internet was built by focusing
this broadband effort on educational and research facilities, as opposed to
multimillion dollar grants for Ski Resorts who need high speed Internet
connections in rental homes.

