Tim Fernholz — Why the US is planning to make telephone users pay for public school internet

The US government is mulling a plan to increase its investment in broadband at public schools and libraries by $1.5 billion, at the cost of a small increase in telephone service fees. 

It’s easy to tell where people stand on the issue: Those who favor the investment, like Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler, note that the average household already pays about 99 cents per phone line into the “Universal Service Fund,” a government account dedicated to increasing access to communications networks. Those who oppose the proposed 16-cent increase, as the outspoken Republican FCC commissioner Ajit Pai does, call it a 16% increase in the telephone tax.… 

Behind the political squabbling, US internet infrastructure lags that of other wealthy countries in usage rates and quality. According to data assembled by the OECD, the US is in 16th place when it comes to broadband penetration, 12th when it comes to average speed and 22nd at median speed.

Because we "can't afford" it.

The debate over plugging more school children into speedy broadband connections—an investment in a future high-tech work force—is a proxy for the larger question of how the government should stimulate the economy and whether the internet should be seen as a public good.

Quartz
Why the US is planning to make telephone users pay for public school internet

Tim Fernholz

Timothy Karr — What Ted Cruz Doesn’t Want You to Know (via Moyers & Company)

What Ted Cruz Doesn’t Want You to Know (via Moyers & Company)

By now it seems pretty clear that Senator Ted Cruz has a plan to occupy the White House. But he doesn’t want people to know too much about it. And he definitely doesn’t want you to know about the special interests that have already begun to bankroll…

---

FCC to set standards for mass disruptions of Americans’ communication

Following an investigation into a public transit authority that cut off mobile phone service amid a protest earlier this year, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said recently that it would attempt to outline the circumstances under which officials may legally disrupt wireless communications in the U.S.

In a release last week (PDF), FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski noted that his staff had been investigating the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) authority’s preemptive disconnection of mobile phone towers in their subway system: an action that stymied a demonstration which aimed to shut down one of the train platforms as a protest of police brutality.

A similar tactic was attempted by Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak ahead of an angry revolutionary tide that toppled his government early this year. The order to cut off the entire country’s access to the Internet and mobile networks — which was carried out by Mubarak’s corporate partners in the West — was ultimately a tipping point that drove even more people into the streets.

Facing a media backlash against the disruption of cellular service in August, BART spokesman Linton Johnson blamed protesters for creating an unsafe situation. He argued that BART administrators committed to the action, which was not outlined by policy, in order to preserve public safety.

The FCC’s guidance was issued just before BART took a vote on a new policy (PDF) thatapproves disconnections, but limits interruptions to “extraordinary circumstances” like the threat of a bomb with a cellular detonator, or if officials have evidence of “imminent” criminal activity.

The new policy also specifically recognizes that “any interruption of cellular service poses serious risks to public safety and that available open communications networks are critical to our economy and democracy.”

Read the rest at Raw Story

FCC to set standards for mass disruptions of Americans’ communication

By Stephen C. Webster