even if they get the license
There's no way that this should be a censored source of access. That's patently unconstitutional. Not that that simple fact ever bothered the blue-noses in charge of things.
To the surprise of no one, engineers representing America's incumbent wireless carriers and broadband internet providers have attacked the FCC's plan to grace the country with a free "third pipe." Earlier this month, the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) told chairman Kevin Martin he could move ahead with his …
"This free network would offer open-access to any application and any device. It would provide download speeds of at least 768kbps. "
Is this intended for handhelds or home PCs? The above seems to indicate that it doesn't matter. 768kpbs is still pretty good for wireless internet.
How do they intend to serve up ads for the free access?
Injecting data into http has been done, but it is full of technical and legal problems.
Require the installation of adware on the PC? It probably won't run on Linux, or isn't the "any device" clause genuine?
People will find ways to remove the ads, or at least install the ad software on a dummy machine any proxy through it.
Maybe there will be enough people who do respond to the ads to pay for the free portion of the network. I just know that ad-supported dial up has been tried in the US and failed, this seems to be the same business model.
... they only screw things up.
If an individual city wants to cough up the cash for free wireless broadband, then they can do that. This is starting to look like a creepy attempt to regulate net access in the states, and might turn into that "Great Australian Firewall" that Howard is so keen on pushing.
This isn't to say that the model for auctioning off bandwidth isn't flawed, but as silly as it might sound, I trust T-Mobile more than the FCC.
Actually, the government does have the authority. See, these transmissions are going to be public and over-the-air. These therefore count as broadcasts and therefore can fall under the auspices of the Federal Communications Commission, who we *know* has authority to regulate broadcast media such as the major networks and radio stations.
...as the title made me hope at least one Carrier Battle Group had decided to express some rightful outrage against the federal bureaucracy and was currently laying waste to a few D.C. buildings with the pinpoint accuracy of Cruise Missiles, JDAMs and F/A-18 delivered force packages.
Damn.
There's no way that this should be a censored source of access. That's patently unconstitutional. Not that that simple fact ever bothered the blue-noses in charge of things.
Um if the can censor whats on tv, whats the difference in a government run free network ? Oh did I mention its free, there are other alternatives to get the net