FCC Free Broadband Vote on Dec 18th

First white spaces and now maybe AWS-3.  If you recall, we've dicsussed the importance of the coming vote on AWS-3 because of the mandate that the winner of the auction would be required to allocate part of the bandwidth to provide for a free national broadband access.

This has been the brainchild of the outgoing FCC chairman Kevin Martin.  It was first proposed back in 2006 and on December 18th, it may become reality if the outcome by the FCC is in our favor.  This has gotten Dave the mobile warrior very excited. So excited in fact, he had to send me a remind in the form of an USA Today article.

And we all should be excited.  Forget the fact that it's free broadband access.  It means millions of Americans who do not have or cannot afford) fast access to the Internet and the vast treasure of information will now be able to get onto the information superhighway that many of us have taken for granted.  Education, jobs, competitions.  Free flow of information to even more people.

Be sure to stay tuned for the results and the impacts.  I'll say this now.  The future impact should the FCC do the right thing will mean a great deal to the future generations.

I also want to say this issue has not made everyone happy, particular T-Mobile (read here for reasons why) and telecoms in general who are in the market for profit.  At the end of the day, it is about profit, not about subsidies.  I don't care for subsidies.  But it is about parity, and that is important.

Via USA Today

Related Onxo Links on this matter:

• AWS-3 Saga Continues
• M2Z wants bring you free broadband.
• Wireless access like healthcare debate.