Approximately 93 million Americans either can’t afford broadband or don’t even have access to it in their area (14-24 million Americans). This problem, often referred to as the “digital divide,” prevents millions of Americans in rural areas or with low incomes from participating in a wealth of online culture and from accessing vital resources like online newspapers, directories, and job listings – many of which are leaving the paper world behind.

Public Knowledge’s Position

Broadband has become a necessity for social, political, and economic engagement. As such, Public Knowledge believes that broadband should be treated like the vital communication tool it is and that we should be working towards building a network infrastructure that we can be proud of, just as we were proud of the electric grid and the landline telephone network.

Last Wednesday, the Justice Department planted a very large nail in the coffin of the AT&T takeover of T-Mobile when it filed a lawsuit in the District Court for the District of Columbia Circuit to block the merger.   Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole couldn’t have been more unequivocal about how the Department views the proposed merger:

On today's podcast we discuss arbitrary wireless internet limits, the potential marriage of DirectTV and Hulu, and the new British report on using evidence to make copyright policy.  We also solicit questions from our listeners for future shows.

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On today's podcast, we walk through the agreement on online copyright infringement between ISPs and content holders, the data portability spat between Facebook and Google, and get a primer on using music on the campaign trail.  We also discuss the benefits and challenges of building local community networks with Christopher Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self Reliance and muninetworks.org.

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The problem of reforming the Universal Service Fund (USF) without Congressional direction means working without clear guidance on what the FCC should, institutionally, hope to achieve. “Broadband!” Is the usual answer from reform proponents. “Basic broadband for everyone! And eliminate waste. And spur investment. And promote innovation. And create jobs. And education. And –“ Well, you get the idea.

On this weeks PK In the Know podcast, we discuss the ramifications of the Google/Verizon announcement, the reemergence (again) of a fashion copyright bill, and what the FCC's AllVid proposal means for the future of video devices.

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I hope someone made a videotape of my debate with Ray Gifford at NARUC. For my money, it provided the most succinct and straightforward framework for arguing about FCC broadband authority and where we ought to go from here. Ray framed it quite well as a conflict in vision between a classic Progressive Era philosophy and “economic analytics.” While I’m willing to debate in the economic analytics world (the two are not mutually exclusive, and economics informs progressive philosophy as much as concerns about public safety and consumer protection inform economic analytics), I think this makes a fairly good framework for how to approach these issues. Indeed, as a result of framing this as a difference in worldview, we avoided a lot of the acrimony and repetition that usually defines these debates.

With the FCC and most government actors obsessed with incentive creation, it makes sense to determine whether and how a regulatory or deregulatory action causes some desired outcome.  Consider the creation of incentives to invest in physical plant.  Incumbent carriers have spent a lot of time, money and effort arguing that regulation creates investment disincentives and deregulation does the desired opposite.  This simplistic and not always correct premise constitutes the prevailing wisdom in the U.S.

As reported by Hank Hulquist over on the AT&T Public Policy Blog it turns out that, when we blow away the rhetoric (and we in the blogosphere love our rhetoric), we actually agree on a fair amount and that our disagreement is in the more rational place where one would expect disagreement. (You can see post and links here, along with our discussion in the comments.)

So now we’ve had National Broadband Plan Day!. And, despite undeniable flaws and places where the Plan Drafters wussed out/”avoided controversy,” The Plan looks pretty damn good, actually.

Let me stress that: Pretty . . . Damn . . . Good!