Thursday, October 2, 2008

US Broadband's poster boy...?

First, a couple of disclosures:

  1. I'm a Democrat, and an Obama supporter, and
  2. I tend to side with free markets when questions of governmental industry regulation arise.
That being said, McCain, if this article is to believed, has been no friend to improving the U.S.'s broadband Internet service level or its spread. Obama gets the Internet, and understands how broadband levels the playing field for the distribution of many services (not the least of which being education).

How about this proposal: we force big telco and cable to grant access to their carrier lines for broadband services, and in return we grant school choice to rural districts with charter and private schools based on distance learning models? Decisions, decisions....

2 comments:

Aluva Mbuku said...

Isn’t McCain simply doing the bidding of the powers that be? The MSM and its corporate owners do not want a free, fast and open internet. They want it fast for them and slow for everyone else. My point may go more towards what the future internet will look like. However, isn’t blaming McCain for the internet being slow a little like crediting Al Gore for inventing the internet?

JRR2OK said...

First, Main Stream Media has no desire to keep broadband speeds and penetration down. On the contrary, the faster and more widely used broadband becomes, the more varied market applications (and therefore revenue channels) appear. Internet is restricted primarily by the large telco providers through various means.

Even though I never blamed McCain for the Internet being slow. I simply said he's no help to improving current conditions (which is true, check his record). However, your Gore analogy is a good one. Gore didn't invent the Internet, but he helped pass the legislation that enabled it and was a staunch early supporter. McCain isn't responsible for the Internet's under-performance, but he certainly does what he can to preserve the status quo and discourage competition.