back to article US carriers attack FCC's puritan broadband

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 …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    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.

  2. James O'Brien
    Paris Hilton

    So umm

    How soon till they start griping about Phorm or whoever stealing their ads that support this away from them and have to shut the whole thing down?

    /Paris because well. . .even she could see THAT one coming

  3. Lou Gosselin

    How

    "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.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Open Spectrum

    Everything else is fraud. Take your spectrum back from broadcasters.

    http://www.reed.com/OpenSpectrum/

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Leave the [federal] goverment out of it.

    ... 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.

  6. Charles
    Black Helicopters

    Re: even if they get the license

    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.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    "Great Australian Firewall" ?

    Would that be the Great Carrier Reef?

  8. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Flame

    And I here I was thinking blue-on-blue action...

    ...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.

  9. Jacob Reid
    Dead Vulture

    @Destroy All Monsters

    That was what I hoped too...

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Re: Great Australian Firewall

    The "family friendly" filter for blacklisting porn sites. That also blacklists other "illegal materials" as well.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/17/australia_cyber_safety_no_opt_out/

  11. kain preacher

    @ac

    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

  12. Diogenies
    Black Helicopters

    RE great Australian firewall

    You mean the one the Kevin 747 want to implement ?

    Icon as helicopter is closest to plane that dear leader so loves

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