More Government Over-Reach: Broadband Plans!

Do we really need the FCC to develop a national broadband policy?

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission plans to release a national broadband plan next week that will lay out an ambitious set of goals for broadband deployment and adoption.

The official version of the plan will be released at a commission meeting Tuesday, but FCC followers have seen the agency unveil several major thrusts of the plan in a series of speeches and briefings in recent weeks. In a mid-February speech, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski kicked off the announcements by saying it was the agency's goal to bring 100M bps (bits per second) broadband service to 100 million U.S. homes by about 2020.

Many members of the U.S. tech community have called for a national broadband policy for years, and Congress, in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed in early 2009, required the FCC to develop the plan.

That last bit was the Porkulus Bill, in case you've forgotten.

Do we really need the federal government to handle broadband as if it were a trip to the Moon? Hasn't private enterprise done a pretty good job of developing and spreading internet access over the last 15 years? Can Uncle Sugar do it any faster?

Not bloody damn likely, and the only real justification for turning the Hounds of FCC Hell loose on it is to eventually regulate and/or eliminate private enterprise so that the Progressives can control our information flow as well as our health care and energy supplies. If you hated dial-up (which was a necessary step on the way to better systems) just wait until the government must decide whether you qualify for ObamaConnect!

Don't believe the spin from the pseudo-industry groups that are really fronts for socialist and progressive philanthropy. They talk a good game about America being "competitive in the global marketplace" but the first thing they want to do is kill off one of the big success stories of the last quarter century, our private internet technology companies.

Obama Surrenders the Internet

Don't look now but the "world community" is about to take control of the Internet.

The Obama administration has relinquished U.S. control of a system invented and developed by this nation, and up until now run under the concept that freedom of expression and capitalist development reigned.

... the fresh focus will give other countries a more prominent role in determining what takes place online, and even the way in which it happens – opening the door for a virtual United Nations, where many officials gather to discuss potential changes to the internet.

Icann chief Rod Beckstrom, a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Washington insider who took over running the organisation in July, said there had been legitimate concerns that some countries were developing alternative internets as a way of routing around American control.

[SNIP]

Beckstrom suggested that bringing more countries to the table was the best way of ensuring the long term future of the internet.

"We're more global, period. The chances of the internet holding together just went up, the cohesion just went up," he said. "We expect more active involvement from governments, a higher level of participation from many governments and we're already hearing about more governments joining the team… This was, ironically, a power move from the US."

Power move?

That remains to be seen. From here it smells more like surrender.

To a "virtual" United Nations, no less.

Without a shot.