There was an article in the Rutland (Vermont) Herald last June which was probably ignored by everyone but me. In Vt. probes sale of broadcast spectrum, the Herald notes that the Vermont State Colleges did a no-bid deal with Utopian Wireless Corporation which the state is questioning, as it appears that the licenses are worth a lot more than Utopian paid for them:
"We estimate the value of these EBS license to be in excess of $500,000," Smith wrote. "Vermont is home to numerous wireless broadband companies that are working hard to meet our rural broadband goals. Many of these companies are desperately seeking out licensed spectrum that will ensure their company's future. It appears that Utopian's mission is purely speculative in nature, with hopes of selling those assets to a larger national provider. It is unlikely that a national provider would have Vermont as a priority for building a wireless broadband network."
As Iraq burns, lots of other stuff is going on in policy-land. For instance, the propaganda campaign against a free and open internet has heated up. Here's the Washington Post's economics columnist, Steven Pearlstein, on net neutrality.
Perhaps this is the kind of economic illiteracy we should expect from people who get their information from "The Daily Show" and the Daily Kos. But isn't it time for the rest of us to move on and acknowledge that the days of the online free lunch are over?
Of course, what's actually happening is that Comcast is randomly cutting off paying customers for downloading 'too much' without telling them what the download limit is. Fortunately, shills like Pearlstein may soon become irrelevant in this fight, as Apple is considering making a game-changing move in our communications infrastructure. Steve Jobs is eyeing a piece of the spectrum we fought for earlier this year and helped set partially free.
I'm surprised no one has blogged about this yet, so let me take the first swing:
The FCC set its rules for the upcoming wireless auction, essentially splitting the difference in favoring both AT&T (who wanted no restrictions) and Google (who wanted complete open access).
The end result is a big step forward, but is much less than it could have been, and we all lose as a result. Read more at Scholars & Rogues: http://scholarsandro...
I run the nonprofit Mountain Area Information Network (MAIN)http://www.main.nc.us... in Asheville, N.C. Among other things, MAIN is a wireless ISP serving four mountain counties with broadband Internet.
Our sustainable business model is based on a simple principle: give citizens and locally-owned businesses the option of spending their Internet dollars to support local news and information.
We currently have 400 wireless subscribers, and we're adding 8-10 new subs per month. We began operation in 1996 as a dial-up ISP, serving the entire mountain region of western North Carolina (roughly the area of Vermont).
Our ISP revenues (we also offer webhosting and nationwide dial-up under the IndyLink.org brand) support a low-power FM radio station, WPVM-LP http://www.wpvm.org at 103.5 FM and an online news and information portal that attracts more 16,000 unique visitors per day. We also led the effort to create public access TV in Asheville, which went on the air in August, 2006. http://video.google....
Thank you for engaging the American people directly on the issue of building a better Internet future for us. We should expect all of our elected representatives to be willing to enjoy such a frank and honest expression of ideas, and the fact that this is exceptional says something both about the state of the American political scene, and you personally--the latter being a worthy compliment indeed.
So, without further ado, here are my basic principles for improving America's Internet.
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