FCC Commissioner Blasts US Broadband Internet Policy

[mandy]

In a speech at the YearlyKos convention, Copps spoke like a man with a fire in his guts. He's proud of America but "worried" by the path that it has gone down with respect to broadband Internet and media consolidation, which he sees as ideas joined at the hip.

In both cases, "a small number of corporate gatekeepers" now control the public's access to information, an arrangement that threatens to "invert the democratic genius of the Internet." When the Internet first exploded onto the scene, people hailed it as a revolutionary communications tool that would allow for the creation of a truly democratic media in which anyone with a message could get the word out to others. Now, Copps notes that most connections to the Internet are controlled by massive corporations who seem eager to prevent any neutrality safeguards from being placed on the networks they manage...

full article: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/200...ernet.html

[mandy]

A related article:

This is part three of my explanation of how America went from having the fastest and cheapest Internet service in the world to what we have today -- not very fast, not very cheap Internet service that is hurting our ability to compete economically with the rest of the world. Part one detailed expected improvements in U.S. broadband based on emerging competitive factors, yet decried that it was too little too late. Part two explained how U.S. broadband ISPs are different from most overseas ISPs and how those differences make it unlikely that we'll ever regain leadership in this space. And this week's final part explains that this all came about because Americans were deceived and defrauded by many of their telephone companies to the tune of $200 billion -- money that was supposed to have gone to pay for a broadband future we don't -- and never will -- have...

full article: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/...02683.html