Fast, affordable Internet access for all.
On Thursday, Oct 22, at 1:00 PM PDT (which is 4:00 PM EDT and, most importantly, 3:00 CDT), I will be a guest on CNET's The Real Deal - a live show that takes questions from listeners and viewers.
Following up on my recent piece about Comcast and the public interest, I wanted to note some good arguments for network neutrality.
Not too far away from Chattanooga, Tennessee, (home to the largest muni fiber network in the U.S.) lies Cleveland (Tennessee).
Want to provide 100-Mbit/s broadband service to every U.S. household?
Many have held up the CyberSpot Wi-Fi network in Florida's Saint Cloud as a successful example of public provisioning of wireless. From my perspective, the network was always interesting in that it did not attempt to pay for itself out of network revenues. The city built the network and provided services over the 15 square miles for free - they viewed it as a public service.
San Francisco has leveraged its municipally-owned fiber in a program to overcome the digital divide. Projects like this are a good early step for larger communities. First, invest in fiber to public buildings, schools, etc., to cut costs from leased lines (often, while upgrading capacity). Second, begin to leverage that fiber to increase affordable broadband availability in the community.
The Chair of the Federal Communications Commission has taken a stand for network neutrality - the founding principle of openness of the Internet. In short, network neutrality means the entity providing you access to the Internet cannot interfere with the sites you choose to visit - it cannot speed them up or slow them down in order to increase their profits.
