FCC (Under New Leadership) Finally Gets One Right

I’m one of the people old enough to remember far enough back in time to when the FCC was a body that actually protected the rights of citizens, and was not merely a tool of big business. During the late ’70s, when I was very young and had not much more to do than be an amateur radio operator, I remember the FCC policing the airwaves, keeping things in line, and removing those who would interrupt or disturb the natural flow of things.

In those times, the FCC was a harsh but fair entity, that was on your side, as long as you were on the side of the law. During the ’90s, that was cut out, and I personally had to deal with more than one idiot, and saw the lack of response by the government when said idiots broke the law. One lasting memory is one where I was unfortunate enough to move next to someone who had plenty of money, to buy equipment, but not enough intelligence to use it properly. This ‘junior scientist’ decided that it would be fun to hook an amateur radio linear amplifier up to his already modified CB radio, so that in the course of doing his nightly yapping, he managed to wipe out radio and television reception across a few different designated frequency bands, for the entire neighborhood.

A few calls to the FCC yielded no release from this torture, as we were told that nothing could be done due to cutbacks in the FCC’s funding. I was told that, unless someone in the house had problems with a pacemaker, or a heart lung machine, caused by the friend of Marconi next door, it would do no good to call.

Flash forward to the late ’90s.

During the late nineties, and all of this century, we have had to deal with an inept and almost inert FCC, on two fronts. First, it was the sellout on the digital television transition, which could have been done so much better, and, the other major battle of the day, net neutrality.

Net neutrality is a concept so simple in concept that only the government could screw it up. People pay ISPs for complete and total access to the internet, therefore no ISP should, at any level, be filtering, or restricting content.

Simple. Easy.

Apparently not for the Bush administration, and the employees of the FCC of those years, because those people managed to neatly side step the address of the problem for eight years.

Fortunately, it appears that time is over.

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from slashdot

“FCC chairman Julius Genachowski delivered Monday on President Obama’s promise to back ‘net neutrality’ — but he went much further than merely seeking to expand rules that prohibit ISPs from filtering or blocking net traffic by proposing that they cover all broadband connections, including data connections for smartphones. Genachowski stated: ‘I understand the Internet is a dynamic network and that technology continues to grow and evolve. I recognize that if we were to create unduly detailed rules that attempted to address every possible assault on openness, such rules would become outdated quickly. But the fact that the Internet is evolving rapidly does not mean we can, or should, abandon the underlying values fostered by an open network, or the important goal of setting rules of the road to protect the free and open Internet. … In view of these challenges and opportunities, and because it is vital that the Internet continue to be an engine of innovation, economic growth, competition and democratic engagement, I believe the FCC must be a smart cop on the beat preserving a free and open Internet.’”

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Why it took so long to get here is something we can only imagine, but I’m certain it had something to do with graft.

As I write this, I am watching the President restate those words, telling us that we can look forward to a free and open internet, and that more money will be put into DARPA, the agency that gave us (along with former VP Al Gore) the internet. It is on the record, with no way to equivocate now.

It might be necessary to have some small ceremony every year, to commemorate this.

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Quote of the day:

There is no greater importance in all the world like knowing you are right and that the wave of the world is wrong, yet the wave crashes upon you.

- Norman Mailer

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