Wireless is no exception to net neutrality

After reading 113,038 comments on the preservation of an open Internet, you might think the Federal Communications Commission would have enough information to make its rules about net neutrality.

Not so. Once again the FCC has invited public comment, this time about two specific issues: whether net neutrality rules should apply to wireless broadband, and whether ISP’s should be allowed to offer “specialized services” that would fall outside the net neutrality purview. Let’s talk about the wireless issue this time, and touch base later about specialized services.

The big ISP’s argue wireless should be exempt from open Internet rules because of an alleged spectrum crunch, and the obvious physical differences between wireline and wireless networks.

Wireless traffic is predicted to increase by almost 4000% from 2009 to 2014 (yikes) and there is a limited amount of spectrum available to handle the traffic, they say.

Also, unlike physical wireline or fiber networks where ISP’s can plot the location of their customers and connections and plan accordingly, wireless customers move around all over the place all the time, and sometimes crowd together in areas. The Obama inauguration on the Mall when millions gathered and sent photos of themselves back home or to Facebook might be an example.

I am excited about filing comments with the FCC as the Digital Democracy Project Director for Common Cause urging the good Commissioners to protect the Internet and keep it open – regardless of how one accesses it. Traffic jams and crowding are in fact very good reasons to have basic rules of the road apply and be enforceable. Don’t you think?

Monkey Business

An artist would draw the three monkeys to resemble Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin at a tea party.  Pouring from the spout into each cup would be money. The caption would read, "hear no facts, see no facts, and speak no facts."

You are no artist, though, so when the epiphany strikes, a  thousand words gush out all over your blog explaining why these iconic leaders of the free world lie.

El Rushbo, Glenn and Sarah's pathological lying is caused by rare medical conditions.

Completely deaf until he got a bionic ear, Rush now gets his facts directly from Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man. Every time Rush alludes to the President as "Imam Obama," he gets six million bucks, and a new wife every 100th time he suggests Obama wasn't born in the United States. It works out pretty good for Rush, considering his disability.

Glenn Beck is going blind and (according to him) is too damn lazy to learn braille. No wonder why, as he was "restoring honor" in front of the Lincoln Memorial last week he said, "I went to the National Archives, and I held the first inaugural address written in his own hand by George Washington." This is completely false, of course. What he was really holding was his new $2 million Fox News contract. He just couldn't see it.

If the blind leads the blind, both will fall in to a ditch, but if the Blind leads the Tea Party, he gets rich. Now you get it.

Sarah 'Barracuda' Palin's primary diagnosis is, of course, being a beautiful woman, but its her zoophilia that best explains her speech impediment. This mama grizzly took down a moose, field dressed it, and turned it in to chili before shooting that cute helpless wolf from a helicopter (or was it a caribou?) No wonder why she can't speak.

You think back when as Governor she blurted, "we're gonna consider how to manage the public's expectation desiring the lawmakers and the public acknowledge these are short-term temporary funds that should not lead to government growth two years from now when the dollars are gone, and we will...we will consider on a case by case basis whether the dollars need to be applied for or the dollars that are in the budget today could or should be vetoed. It's going to be a long process still in deciding what to do with the dollars."

It makes a lot of cents now.