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.)

Hank Hulquist over at AT&T writes that the FCC never regulated internet access. It's a funny thing, because I distinctly remember going through a process where the FCC reclassified DSL from a Title II telecom service to an information service. Let me rummage for a bit . . . . ah yes. Here is the link to the FCC's 2005 Order reclassifying DSL as an "information service." In fact, come to think of it, I'm old enough to remember when the telephone companies wanted DSL classified as an "interstate telecommunications service." Can I find that link on line? Why yes!

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!

Few rivalries in the media world match those of cable operators and broadcasters. Since the first cable regulation by the FCC to prevent cable operators from importing blacked out sports events and "distant signals" that threatened local broadcast content back in the 1960s, broadcasters and cable operators have constantly sought regulatory advantage over one another. Broadcasters once ruled video as its unchallenged masters. Then came cable, which became the dominant platform for delivery of video. But broadcasting continues to aggregate mass audiences and produce more popular programming. Despite all the yapping about how no one can tell broadcast and cable apart anymore, neither one can survive without the other, but both have radically different interests. As a result, the broadcasters and the cable operators, and therefore their trade associations, are constantly at loggerheads.