Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

Reed Hundt is a former FCC Commissioner. He gives a good presentation that I did not take notes on. Here's how it ended:

We ought to invest in building a public thoroughfare of access. That thoroughfare should get faster and faster — symmetric. If it costs $1K per household to get fiber to the home, that's a tenth of the cost the anti-missile shield that doesn't work. The total cost would be about $20B-25B. (This is the amount it would cost to deploy minus what people would be willing to pay.)

The thoroughfare gets us to the public space of the Web. In this public space democracy in the US will be defined. It is in that space that we will learn how to debate issues and form groups. We won't agree, but we'll learn to talk with another.

Q: You're a socialist.
A: Nope. I don't the government to own it. I want it to write a check. Frankly, if Warren Buffet wanted to write it, I'd be happy. My point is how small that check would be.

Q: (Dave Hughes) There was a school library fund of $2B (E-Rate). It wasn't well spent
A: There's never been a perfect government rule. The big story is that a country were able to create $4B spent every year on Internet acccess in classrooms, which is why 75% of all kids 6-20 have learned about the Internet at school. That is almost half again the penetration in that group outside of school.

Q: It's not just telephone companies. Media companies are also part of this equation.
A: If it were up to me, I'd say let's have an auction. Whoever comes forward locally and offers to be the lowest-cost provider of the 100Mb thoroughfare would win.

Q: You're for telecom subsidies. From our perspective, the subsidy process is subject to gaming by large companies. Smaller operators can't play that game. It's a disincentive for innovation.
A: There's pork and there are good public services. The last several Congresses should make us wary. A modest public expenditure could create a very large public property.