Open: for business

This is basically more added to this.

Belatedly:

The FCC released a Notice of Inquiry on developing a national broadband plan that will seek to ensure that every American has access to broadband capability. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 requires the FCC to create a national broadband plan and to deliver it to Congress by Feb. 17, 2010. The FCC seeks comment on the most effective and efficient ways to ensure broadband access for all Americans, strategies for achieving affordability and maximum utilization of broadband infrastructure and services, evaluation of the status of broadband deployment, and how to use broadband to advance consumer welfare, public safety and other national purposes. link

Comment at Listics:

In crafting the national broadband plan, the Federal Communications Commission must protect Internet users from corporate gatekeepers who seek to keep prices high and speeds slow, limit access to content and stifle innovations and market choice.

Broadband Opportunities for Rural America

FCC develops strategy for rural broadband

Rural broadband vs. red tape "Fortune"

The biz publications (e.g., "Fortune") always have these stories depicting federal efforts as squabbling, lacking in determined, forthright action. They usually downplay the complexities, the ethical elements that enter a host of decisions, definitions, and planning exigencies.

It's a tried and true USian way to side-step the difficulties inherent in capital expenditures that attempt to implement equitable policies - such as open access to the Net. We are a closed business world masquerading as an open society.

Access is the moment in Capitalism at which fake scarcities, exorbitant overcharges, massive profiteering, failures of cooperation, and mere business-as-usual enter the system. Healthcare, Internet Service Provision, and Open Access Publishing all suffer from the failure to adequately articulate the justifications for public access.

Incidentally, the Internet itself was a hack - how did corporations end up controlling it?