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House Representatives weigh in support on nationwide Wi-Fi plans

The quest to see a national free Wi-Fi network continues, this week winning the ringing endorsements (PDF) of House Representatives Anna Eshoo and Edward Markey.

National Wi-Fi, or the concept of a nationwide wireless internet service available for free, seeks to spread wireless broadband access to all the places not covered by traditional broadband internet service. Both plans – there are two, one from Silicon Valley-based M2Z Networks and the other from the FCC – emphasize providing high-speed internet to rural and underprivileged communities, which are usually out of reach for traditional, landline high-speed internet service.

M2Z Networks made an initial proposal for 384kbps service in July 2006, but found its ideas scrapped last fall after the FCC criticized its speed and questioned the company’s benchmarks. Rather than take the FCC to court, M2Z lobbied Rep. Eshoo to draw up the Wireless Internet Nationwide for Families Act, which instead would force the FCC to auction off available space in the 2155-2175 MHz band to create a nationwide Wi-Fi network.

Around the same time it rejected M2Z’s initial proposal, the FCC drew up nearly identical plans (PDF) to sell the same chunk of spectrum to the highest bidder.

Both current initiatives face stiff resistance from incumbent wireless telcos such as AT&T and Verizon, who recently raised concerns over potential signal interference.

Recent tests conducted in the UK suggest that there won’t be any problems, write Eshoo and Markey, who say that “unnecessary interference testing would needlessly delay this auction.”

Such doubts “[constitute] the very rationale to kill this effort totally,” reads the letter. “The British Office of Communications … concluded that [service] can operate … without causing substantial interference.”

Opponents’ objections point specifically to the way the spectrum would be duplexed, claiming that techniques such as unpaired Time Division Duplexing or paired Frequency Division Duplexing would be unable to operate due to signal interference.

Notably, both proposals stipulate that any free wireless offerings have mandatory content filters, preventing users from viewing any material that “would be harmful to teens and adolescents,” including pornography and anything “contemporary community standards” deem as obscene. Free-speech advocates call this condition unconstitutional.

M2Z Networks is backed by Silicon Valley heavyweights Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers, Charles River Ventures, and Redpoint Ventures.

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This makes me sick.
By Ordr on 10/14/2008 8:56:18 AM , Rating: 3
Our country is falling deeper into the hopeless maw of Socialism. We are being continually taxed to fund the programs for parasites who expect everything, from food, to housing, and now the internet, for free. It is getting to the point where those who contribute the least end up getting the most while the poor productive suckers are footing the bill.




RE: This makes me sick.
By StevoLincolnite on 10/14/08, Rating: 0
RE: This makes me sick.
By Ordr on 10/14/2008 9:28:29 AM , Rating: 5
All of what you mention can be, and in many cases has been, done by private charities through voluntary funding rather than at the gunpoint of the state.


RE: This makes me sick.
By masher2 (blog) on 10/14/2008 9:41:49 AM , Rating: 5
> "The Good thing about a "Socialist" Society [is] that the Government has a say in everything"

This is a good thing??


RE: This makes me sick.
By FITCamaro on 10/14/2008 10:23:31 AM , Rating: 4
It's great for those sucking off the system. It sucks for anyone who truly wishes to excel. Or companies who wish to market a hot product which the government then deems that should be provided to everyone at what they decide is an affordable cost completely ignoring the fact that said company might have spent billions of dollars developing said product.

How much drug research happens in socialist countries? Almost none. Why? Because what's the point of spending billions developing a drug when the government will then tell you what you can sell it for and force you to let others produce it as well? Companies are in business to make money. Not to help you. If helping you is profitable, then businesses will do it.


RE: This makes me sick.
By StevoLincolnite on 10/14/2008 10:43:21 AM , Rating: 1
quote:
It's great for those sucking off the system. It sucks for anyone who truly wishes to excel.


Not really, try living in such a place for a few years, people still excel.

Heck you do not need a "Massive" income to live really well, it comes down to how efficiently you can manage money, My best friend is a Low-Income earner and lives better than a Middle Income Earner, Despite there being a 40 thousand dollar difference in yearly wages.

Those people who are "Sucking" off the system, will eventually get jobs and pay there taxes, The good thing is that people are placed into work sooner, rather than later, or other possible alternatives they may choose like suicide when they cannot even buy basic essentials, because they lack certain skills to get a job for various reasons like being kicked out of home.

quote:
How much drug research happens in socialist countries? Almost none. Why? Because what's the point of spending billions developing a drug when the government will then tell you what you can sell it for and force you to let others produce it as well? Companies are in business to make money. Not to help you. If helping you is profitable, then businesses will do it.


We have several Institutes that research cancer, the immune system, autoimmune diseases – such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis – malaria, neural development, genetics and drug discovery, and have made some significant discoveries.
There is allot of promotion/campaigns on mental health currently going around also, as for our drug and health system... And I quote:

quote:
A Commonwealth Fund survey of primary care physicians and patients in five other nations—Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom—finds that the U.S. health care system ranks last or next-to-last on five dimensions of a high performance health system: quality, access, efficiency, equity, and healthy lives. Much of this underperformance is attributable to the lack of universal health insurance in the U.S. Our failure to cover all Americans also underscores the findings of the 2007 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey, which found financial barriers are much more likely to prevent many U.S. adults from getting the care they need than adults in the six other participating countries. While no one country provided a perfect model of care, there are many lessons to be learned from the strategies at work abroad.


http://www.commonwealthfund.org/aboutus/aboutus_sh...

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/publi...

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/publi...

So in those respects it's not to bad.


RE: This makes me sick.
By nah on 10/14/08, Rating: -1
RE: This makes me sick.
By masher2 (blog) on 10/14/2008 1:20:04 PM , Rating: 5
> "average OECD government spending as a percenatge of GDP has gone up from 5-10 % in the 1960s to around 35-40 % today "

Plastic surgery rates have gone up also. By your logic, that proves cosmetic surgery is responsible for the productivity increases of the past 40 years.

The truth is that government spending is a drag on the economy and productivity gains have occurred despite government involvement, not because of it.


RE: This makes me sick.
By nah on 10/14/08, Rating: 0
RE: This makes me sick.
By Oregonian2 on 10/14/2008 2:29:12 PM , Rating: 1
If socialism worked so wonderfully, Eastern Europe may have embraced it's former political structure a bit stronger rather than having a string of revolutions toward more capitalistic non-government run systems. I know folk from there, those formerly extreme socialistic states stunk to live in (they loved the countries themselves, but the political/economic systems they had until revolution stunk -- according those I know).


RE: This makes me sick.
By nah on 10/14/08, Rating: 0
RE: This makes me sick.
By masher2 (blog) on 10/14/2008 2:44:58 PM , Rating: 2
> "Don't confuse political systems for economic ones---socialism and capitalism are essentially political systems"

Eh? You've made the same mistake you've accused others of. While both systems have political overtones, they are most certainly economic systems.

> "No economist will tell you that a perfect market system will be good for a country"

Actually, any economist from the Austrian school will tell you just that.


RE: This makes me sick.
By nah on 10/14/2008 3:12:25 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Eh? You've made the same mistake you've accused others of. While both systems have political overtones, they are most certainly economic systems.


You are confused----in economics---economic systems are referred to as market, mixed, traditional or command---never as capitalist or communist or socialist--because these are socio-political terms

quote:
The main criticism of modern Austrian economics is its lack of scientific precision. Austrian theories are not formulated in formal mathematical form, but using verbal logic. Mainstream economists believe that this makes Austrian theories too imprecisely defined to be clearly used to explain or predict real world events. Economist Bryan Caplan noted that, "what prevents Austrian economists from getting more publications in mainstream journals is that their papers rarely use mathematics or econometrics."[39] This criticism of the Austrian school is related to its rejection of the use of the scientific method and empirical testing in social sciences in favor of self-evident axioms and logical reasoning .[2][3] The Nobel prize winning economist Paul Samuelson wrote that, "I tremble for the reputation of my subject" after reading the "exaggerated claims that used to be made in economics for the power of deduction and a priori reasoning [the Austrian methods]."[15]


Wiki as usual---in any event--my profs thought they were a bunch of loonies--and I happen to concur with their beliefs--in this respect, in any event


RE: This makes me sick.
By odessit740 on 10/14/2008 4:02:41 PM , Rating: 3
Arguing on the internet with a socialist is like winning the special Olympics... even if you win you're still retarded.


RE: This makes me sick.
By MamiyaOtaru on 10/15/2008 12:05:26 AM , Rating: 1
And the other guy is too


RE: This makes me sick.
By barclay on 10/14/2008 10:55:41 PM , Rating: 3
>"Mainstream economists believe that this makes Austrian theories too imprecisely defined to be clearly used to explain or predict real world events."

One of the chief criticism of economic modeling is that to make their predictions, economists must inevitably limit their variables by making certain assumptions. This is often very helpful in identifying general laws (i.e. all other factors being equal, as the price of a good or service increases, consumer demand for the good or service will decrease). However, when combining all the various laws to model the entire economy, the large number of unknowns and assumptions can often lead to predictions that do not come to fruition. Unforeseen variables arise.

The Austrian school fully acknowledges the limits on human knowledge. In fact, this imperfect human knowledge is the basis of why they argue the market is necessary. Much like the scientific method, market mechanisms provide a means to cope with human fallibility.

In this is regard, the Austrian school is to economics what the empiricist were to science.

Far from "a bunch of loonies," Mises and Hayek are among the greatest minds of the 20th century and their theories have been repeatedly validated by reality.