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.

No sooner had I posted my wonkish critique of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) score for S.911, the Rockefeller Public Safety/Spectrum Bill over on my Wetmachine blog ("Where snark meets wonk and the sparks fly!") when Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) turns around and drops a new version of the plan as part of his debt ceiling bill (Best version of Debt Ceiling bill I could find here).

Yesterday, I posted why the proposal in the House Republican Spectrum Reform discussion draft makes no sense economically. For those who would argue that it does, I reply: then it ought to run both ways. In every auction, the FCC ought to be required to present two options: the licensed option for individuals and the unlicensed option for "collective" bidding.

The story of Andre Vrignaud may well end up being the template for the soon-to-be-popular genre of “I just hit my data cap and now I cannot access the internet” stories.  The long version is here, but the short version is that Vrignaud got a call from his ISP Comcast last month.  The call informed him that he had hit his 250 GB monthly data cap.  He wasn’t really sure why (he has roommates, they all stream movies and music regularly) but he chalked it up to one of those things.

This month he got another call from Comcast telling him he hit his cap again.  Because this was the second time, Comcast informed him that they were cutting off his internet access for a year.

Yesterday I attended the White House event on incentive auctions. It was probably the most sensible public event on the pro-incentive auction side I’ve attended to date. While I have had several discussions with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) staff that persuade me that, if Congress gave the FCC generic authority to do voluntary incentive auctions (subject to limitations to protect broadcasters – including low-power broadcasters – that want to stay in the broadcasting business), they could design a pretty good auction that would get more spectrum out for both licensed and unlicensed broadband access.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski has a spectrum politics problem problem. On the one hand, he learned from last year’s D Block battle that he needs to stay aggressively on message to sell his spectrum reforms.  His every speech on spectrum therefore reads like a campaign speech for incentive auctions. ‘We have a looming spectrum crisis, we need bold action, Congress must act now to pass incentive auctions.’ But, as Genachowski has discovered, this approach can have unintended consequences. Recently, Commissioner Robert McDowell reported that this focus on incentive auctions created uncertainty in Silicon Valley over the FCC’s commitment to the TV white spaces (TVWS).

AT&T commemorated the one-year anniversary of the National Broadband Plan in its own, unique way.  It levied bandwidth caps on its customers.  It then told its customers that it was a no-no to use data from their broadband data plan service to connect a Blackberry to a laptop.  Not all data is created equal.  Separate tethering plan required, it seems. That basically sums up the state of broadband in America.

And it bought T-Mobile, further shrinking competition in wireless broadband, further concentrating an already concentrated market.  Now instead of the big four wireless companies, there are the bigger three.

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.

The announcement by the White House that it would support reallocating the D Block – the 10 MHz of spectrum left over from big broadcast band auction of 2008 (the 700 MHz Auction) – to public safety use rather than auction it for commercial use defies conventional wisdom on two fronts.

President Obama’s State of the Union speech last night certainly hit quite a few high notes for the tech community.  There were a half dozen mentions of the Internet, shout-outs to Facebook and Google and a mention of better use of wireless spectrum.

He certainly set an ambitious goal: “Within the next five years, we’ll make it possible for businesses to deploy the next generation of high-speed wireless coverage to 98 percent of all Americans.”  What he didn’t say was that his Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman, Julius Genachowski, has sentenced all of those wireless users to a second-class Internet experience by leaving them out of the already vague Net Neutrality order issued in December.