things i think

Free American broadband! Another interesting and informative article over at Salon. Who knew that our broadband prices were so, so much higher than those in other countries? Also some bits, that I actually had heard about, that talk about how big corporate is trying to block community broadband services.

I also find the FCC's definition of success completely amazing. "Instead of counting the number of subscribers in a particular area, the FCC considers an entire ZIP code as 'covered' if at least one person living in that area has a broadband connection. This allows the FCC to make misleading boasts about how broadband coverage reaches 99 percent of the country." Yeah, that makes complete sense to me... not.

It's also incredibly amazing that I find myself agreeing with Justice Scalia's side in the Brand-X case. He said in his dissent, "When all is said and done, after all the regulatory cant has been translated, and the smoke of regulatory expertise has blown away, it remains perfectly clear that someone who sells cable-modem service is 'offering' telecommunications."

Much more in the article, so I'll stop copy-pasting it here and just say go read it.