MuniWireless

Scott Bradner’s latest column in Network World is well worth reading. I’m in agreement with most of the comments that Scott makes there. The FCC under Chairman Martin is moving in some very unsettling directions on a number of fronts.Scott Bradner’s latest column in Network World is well worth reading. I’m in agreement with most of the comments that Scott makes there. The FCC under Chairman Martin is moving in some very unsettling directions on a number of fronts.

In particular, the recent set of principles covering consumer entitlements for Internet services issued by the FCC bothers me a great deal. As I see it, a large part of the problem with today’s FCC becomes clear when you look at the choice of words that is used to convey their decisions. In their current framework, we’re all ‘consumers’. This usage fits quite nicely their ‘command and control’ method of operation. However, today’s Internet demands a somewhat different perspective. It would have been much better to refer to all of us as ‘citizens’ or ‘participants’. This better reflects the end to end architecture of the Net. If they had come at the problem from this perspective, then outcomes of the statement of principles would have been quite different. As it is now, we ‘consumers’ are entitled to very little.

Related posts:

1. FCC Chairman Martin says US doing just fine in broadband
2. Ed Whitacre, AT&T CEO… Flip-Flopper
3. Where did the Four Net Freedoms Go?