[IP] Is Low-Cost Wi-Fi Un-American?
Begin forwarded message:
From: EEkid@xxxxxxx
Date: May 23, 2005 5:05:37 PM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Is Low-Cost Wi-Fi Un-American?
Is Low-Cost Wi-Fi Un-American?
By Timothy Karr
Public broadband networks would free people from high corporate charges.
We have Big Media to thank for saving Americans from themselves. Just
as the notion of affordable broadband for all was beginning to take
hold in towns and cities across the country, the patriots at Verizon,
Qwest, Comcast, Bell South and SBC Communications have created
legislation that will stop the creeping socialism of broadband
community Internet before it invades our homes.
And to think that Americans might want to support high-speed access
at costs below the monopoly rates set by these few Internet Service
Providers (ISPs). Today, monthly broadband packages offered by the
national carriers hover above $30, barring access to millions of
Americans who can’t afford the sticker price.
Telecommunications giants have mobilized a well-funded army of coin-
operated think tanks, pliant legislators and lazy journalists who
stand ready to paint community Internet as an affront to American
innovation and free enterprise. Their weapon of choice is industry-
crafted legislation that restricts local governments from offering
public service Internet access at reasonable rates. Laws are already
on the books in a dozen states. This year alone, 10 states are
considering similar bills to block public broadband or to strengthen
existing restrictions.
Spinning broadband as theirs alone to provide, ISPs have chalked up
some early victories—including a draconian law now on the books in
Pennsylvania that strips local governments of the right to choose
their own homegrown broadband solutions without the prior approval of
a monopoly phone company. In late 2004, Verizon dictated the law word-
for-word to local legislators, who then quietly slipped it into the
middle of a lengthy bill that appeared to call for improved
communications infrastructure for all Pennsylvanians. It will have
the opposite effect.
Forcing public broadband networks to ask permission from Verizon
before offering service is akin to forcing public libraries to ask
permission from Borders before checking out books.
Meanwhile, the United States has slid from first to 13th place in
national broadband penetration, falling behind South Korea, Japan and
Canada, where effective private-public sector initiatives have paved
over the digital divide, allowing more citizens to reap the economic
benefits of the open information era at a fraction of the costs we
take for granted.
Not so in the United States. A nation that once prided itself as the
global pacesetter in technological innovation and affordable
communications is now the thrall of corporations eager to keep a
basic 21st Century right—their right to connectivity—from citizens
who can’t afford exorbitant access fees. How has America fallen so
far back?
The struggle for accessible, locally provided broadband has been
building for several years. But it didn’t hit the corporations’ radar
until the middle of 2004, when larger cities such as Philadelphia and
San Francisco recognized broadband access as a basic public utility—
no different from water, gas or electricity—that they could provide.
It’s easy to understand the local appeal. Broadband networks have
proven a win-win for municipal governments: Community internet
creates free-market competition for communications services, improves
schools, enhances public safety and social services, and encourages
entrepreneurs through public-private partnerships. These networks are
relatively cheap to build and bring technology—and resulting economic
opportunity—to low-income urban neighborhoods and rural communities
that are routinely passed over by the large commercial providers.
For consumers and citizens, low-cost broadband is extremely popular.
Across the country, municipal referenda and city council measures in
favor of building public broadband pass easily—in some cases offering
not only community Internet, but also television and telephone service.
“Access to the Internet today is as much a necessity of life as the
more traditional services and should be available to all,” says
Jonathan Baltuch, an economic development consultant from St. Cloud,
Florida, a city that voted to provide citizens with a wireless
network covering 30 square miles.
According to Baltuch, St. Cloud’s municipal network has yielded a
considerable return to residents. Prior to the city’s broadband
network, a St. Cloud resident paid on average $450 a year for
commercial Internet access. Today, they pay on average $300 a year in
property taxes—money that not only provides broadband access but also
supports efforts to keep city streets clean, pick up residential
garbage and provide for local police and fire protection. “By the
city providing this one service to its residents the average
household savings will be 50 percent more than the average tax bill
for all city services,” Baltuch says. “Further, the $3 to $4 million
per year that is leaving the city to flow to corporate headquarters
all over the country will stay in the local economy.”
Philadelphia decided to follow suit. Last year, Mayor John F. Street
announced plans for “Wireless Philadelphia” a project that by next
year will provide the city’s population of 1.6 million, spread out
over 135 square miles, with a full range of Internet services.
It was at this point that the incumbent ISPs began to show their
horns. The ISPs are loath to loosen their stranglehold on a market
that, according to the Telecommunications Industry Association, could
yield $212.5 billion in revenues by 2008.
With so much at stake, it was time to mark out their territory and
smother municipal broadband projects wherever they began to take
root. The goal was simple—legislate competition out of existence. But
to do so the industry needed allies in its fight against local
choice. It found them easily among state representatives willing to
sell statehouse votes to fill their campaign coffers and Washington-
based think tanks—such as the Cato Institute and the New Millennium
Research Council (NMRC)—willing to produce “research” that pleased
their corporate funders.
To this mix of industry sock puppets add a gullible media. In a
finely targeted media campaign, the “evils” of municipal broadband
were pressed upon local journalists who were willing to echo
corporate concerns without digging for an opposing view.
Too often, newspapers failed to follow the money that linked their
sources at the Cato Institute and NMRC to the industry—taking at face
value comments and data from these think tanks without revealing the
conflicts of interest that would impugn their research.
A report discrediting community Internet issued by NMRC, for example,
has been cited nearly a dozen times by journalists in the two months
since its release. Not a single reporter bothered to let readers in
on the fact that the NMRC receives money from the same corporations
whose policy positions it just happens to profess.
On February 17, the battle over access finally graced the front-page
of the New York Times, with a story pegged to Philadelphia’s
ambitious plans to turn the city into “one gigantic wireless hot spot.”
The first quote by Times writer James Dao went to Adam Thierer,
identified as “director of telecommunications studies at the
libertarian Cato Institute.” He told the Times, “The last thing I’d
want to see is broadband turned into a lazy public utility.”
Dao failed to note that the Cato Institute is funded by Verizon, SBC
Communications, Time Warner, Comcast and Freedom Communications. Dao
then interviewed David L. Cohen, executive vice president of Comcast,
who also disparaged community networks.
Again, Dao failed to alert readers to Cohen’s web of interests that
might impugn his integrity. In a previous incarnation, Cohen served
as chief of staff to then Philadelphia Mayor Edward Rendell. Rendell
has since moved into the governor’s mansion, while Cohen jumped to
the private sector. This relationship might explain why last December
the governor ignored widespread public opposition and signed into law
the bill that shafted Pennsylvania communities seeking to offer
homegrown broadband services.
These corporations say that they’re shutting down homegrown broadband
efforts to safeguard the best interests of American free enterprise.
But, as Dianah Neff, Philadelphia’s chief technology officer, asked
in a recent column for ZDNet: “When was the last time they were
elected to determine what is best for our communities? If they’re
really concerned about what is important to all members of the
community, why haven’t they built this type of network that meets
community needs or approached a city to use their assets to build a
high-speed, low-cost, ubiquitous network?”
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2071
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