There are 25 Senators on the committee that confirms FCC commissioners. So, Britt Blaser had the idea that we all together could come up with the 25 questions we want asked, and then provide one question per Senator, with backing material, etc.

There’s a “starter kit” of 13 questions up on a survey, with space for you to add your own. There’s also a “Fast Internet for All” Facebook app that can connect Senators to questions.

I very much like the idea of shaping the hearings this way. Personally, I find many of the 13 starter questions currently in the survey to be “gotcha questions,” and I hope the project ends up with questions that are more useful for discussion. But that’s up to you and me.

[Tags: fcc policy ]

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According to CNet:

Andrew McLaughlin, currently listed as Google’s director of global public policy, will leave Google to accept a position within the Obama administration reporting to the nation’s new chief technology officer, Aneesh Chopra, according to a report in The New York Times. McLaughlin’s new title will be deputy chief technology officer, and he would become the third high-profile Google executive to join the government since Obama was inaugurated in January.

I know Andrew. He was a Berkman fellow and I’m happy to be one of the many people who call him a friend (not to overstate our relationship). Andrew is incredibly smart and very thoughtful. (He’s also kind and funny.) You may disagree with his policy recommendations on, say, Google’s presence in China or how to handle Turkey’s desire to block YouTube videos that mock Mustafa Kemal Ataturk but if you have a chance to hear Andrew talk about such issues, you will come away impressed by his knowledge, his seriousness, his vision, and his empathy. He is committed to open access and understands the power of the Net. I’m very happy to have him in our government.

[Later: Here’s Ethanz on Andrew.]

[Tags: andrew_mclaughlin obama google policy politics ]

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Pardon the self-bloggery-floggery, but Wired.com has just posted an article of mine that presents Robin “ZipCar” Chase’s argument that the smart grid and smart cars need to be thought about together. Actually, she wants all the infrastructures we’re now building out to adopt open, Net standards, and would prefer that the Internet of Everything be meshed up together. (Time Mag just named Robin as one of the world’s 100 most influential people. We can only hope that’s true.)

The article is currently on Wired’s automotive page, but it may be moved to the main page today or tomorrow.

[Tags: smart_grid mesh infrastructure stimulus ]

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Stephen Conroy, Australia’s Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, today gives a talk ([Tags: broadband telecommunications australia ftth fttp net_neutrality ]‘>transcript here) to the National Press Club in which he outlines the case for treating broadband access as a service as fundamental as electricity. Australia is implementing a national rollout, providing wholesale access to competitive access retailers. They want 90% of the country connected. “Our rollout will start at 100Mbps, but once fibre is distributed, future hardware upgrades can boost speeds even further to 1000Mbps and beyond.” (No mention of Net neutrality or the openness of access; a truly competitive market would help ameliorate some of the need for that.)

Conroy ends his talk with a summary:

Broadband, like electricity in the century past, has the potential to drive innovation, productivity, efficiency and employment across the economy.

It will, over time, influence every activity and process throughout our daily lives.

Broadband will transform health care.

Broadband will revolutionise education.

Broadband will underpin our future carbon constrained economy.

vBroadband will secure our infrastructure investments.

The National Broadband Network will support applications and services in these and other sectors that today we cannot begin to imagine.

And for the first time they will be delivered over a genuinely competitive platform.

It is our responsibility and obligation to ensure that these opportunities are available to future generations of Australians.

[Tags: broadband telecommunications australia ftth fttp net_neutrality ]

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Doc blogs about the unfairness of Craigslist becoming an adjective attached to “killer.” Yes, it’s unfair. It’s what the tabloid press does. And increasingly, that just means “the press.”

That’s the sort of catchy name that sells papers. But, as Craig points out in his blog, Craigslist does not promise anonymity. In fact, it promises that it will rat out rats. Wikipedia makes the same promise. Good. Of course, this assumes the police are not persecuting innocents as part of a totalitarian state, but I’m happy Craigslist helped the police arrest the sick fuck who otherwise probably wasn’t done murdering women ^allegedly.

The PR job doesn’t stop with the media, of course. Craigslist’s PR company fumbled the ball here in Boston. This Businessweek story is excellent, but the Boston Globe coverage has been miserable (here, here and here). The PR agency seems intent on keeping Craig from commenting, shunting inquiries to CEO Jim Buckmaster. Nothing against Jim, but Craig’s name is on the site. Craig has earned his reputation for honesty, bluntness, and service. Craig is known, respected, and even beloved. So, master the buck, Craig. It stops with you.

PS: The Globe ought to take a look at the “Erosphere” classified ad section of the Boston Phoenix before coming down on Craigslist.

[Tags: craigslist anonymity pr marketing ]

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Pew Internet has a new report out about the role of the Internet in the recent presidential campaign. It confirms that more than half of us went online for info, and many of us were quite active. In fact, here’s one nugget from the report:

Due to demographic differences between the two parties, McCain voters were actually more likely than Obama voters to go online in the first place. However, online Obama supporters were generally more engaged in the online political process than online McCain supporters. Among internet users, Obama voters were more likely to share online political content with others, sign up for updates about the election, donate money to a candidate online, set up political news alerts and sign up online for volunteer activities related to the campaign. Online Obama voters were also out in front when it came to posting their own original political content online–26% of wired Obama voters did this, compared with 15% of online McCain supporters.

Lots of fodder for thought in this survey…

[Tags: election campaign politics pew ]

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From the Australian government’s press release:

New National Broadband Network

The Rudd [Australian federal] Government today announced the establishment of a new company to build and operate a new super fast National Broadband Network.

This new super fast National Broadband Network, built in partnership with private sector, will be the single largest nation building infrastructure project in Australian history.

This new National Broadband Network will:

* Connect 90 percent of all Australian homes, schools and workplaces with broadband services with speeds up to 100 megabits per second—100 times faster than those currently used by many households and businesses

* Connect all other premises in Australia with next generation wireless and satellite technologies that will deliver broadband speeds of 12 megabits per second

* Directly support up to 25,000 local jobs every year, on average, over the 8 year life of the project.

[Slightly later:] Here are responses by Benoit Felten and Paul Budde.

[Tags: broadband australia ]

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At Freedom to Connect, I was unable to blog Benoit Felten‘s excellent and very popular talk because there was too much in it, and there were some terms I didn’t understand. But I did like the following quotation from Ad Scheepbouwer, CEO of the Dutch telecom, KPN:

In hindsight, KPN made a mistake back in 1996. We were not too enthusiastic to be forced to allow competitors on our old wireline network. That turned out not to be very wise. If you allow all your competitors on your network, all services will run on your network, and that results in the lowest cost possible per service. Which in turn attracts more customers for those services, so your network grows much faster. An open network is not charity from us, in the long run it simply works best for everybody.

Benoit went on to talk about whether the US situation is sufficiently like that of the Netherlands to warrant learning a lesson from KPN. You can see a version of his talk here: 1 2 3 4.

[Tags: benoit_felten broadband net_neutrality fcc ]

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Here’s a snippet from an interview with Kevin Werbach running at Knowledge@Wharton. Kevin was one of the chairs of Obama’s FCC transition team.

The FCC really needs to think about itself as an economic stimulus agency, as an agency that’s about creating jobs and fostering investment. Look at the telecommunications and media and technology sectors — there is a tremendous opportunity for growth. These are not industries that are going down. These are industries that, in many ways, are growing. And they’re the foundation for other kinds of new jobs

There’s a ton of policy stuff that needs to be done, but this is the kind of strategic thinking we need going forward. Here’s some more of Kevin. You know, I really wouldn’t be crying in my beer if Kevin were made an FCC Commissioner. In fact, you’d hear a whoop coming from my house that’d have you dialing the emergency number of the Happiness Police.

[Tags: kevin_werbach fcc net_neutrality telecommunications ]

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[Note: Live blogging with all the suckiness and unreliability that that entails] Kevin Werbach was co-chair of the Obama FCC transition team, among many other things. Dan Gillmor is interviewing him:

Q: What does a transition team do?
A: You get to participate in a quasi-hostile takeover of a $14T organization. We reviewed the FCC to find out what was going on.

Q: What was going on at the FCC?
A: It’s no one thing. Commissioner Martin ran the agency in a closed, politicized way. He was very distrustful of the staff.

Q: What was broken?
A: I can’t discuss details.

Q: What would you do if you were Chairman?
A: If I told you, I’d ensure I could never have that job. The real opportunity for the FCC is to get ahead of the curve. What will the world be like in 20 years? What will be requirements of the iPhone in 20 years?

Q: Are we going to get to lots more open spectrum?
A: Chairman Powell was thinking about the future of spectrum. That got shoved aside by Martin.

Q: How real is this change, then? Will we see deep change?
A: There will be tremendous change. But people on the outside should keep pushing the Administration to do better. It really matters who wins the election.

Q: What some things that could be done that couldn’t be reversed?
A: Successes are the things that are hard to reverse. The telcos understand that they need to evolve to something else.

Dan opens up the Q&A to the audience.

[harold feld] What’s achievable with spectrum policy with this Admin?
A: NTIA just got its head, so it’s early. The FCC and NTIA need to coordinate. We need to know how spectrum is being used. Do an inventory.

Q: Can you start blogging again…?
A: I’d love to, but it takes too much time. So I’ve started tweeting ([email protected])

Q: Smart grids. What’s going on between the FCC and other bodies in trying to set new standards?
A: I don’t know what’s going on in that, but it’s important. I have a law review article coming out that argues that standards are a form of regulation.

Kevin asks Dan: What would you do as FCC Chair.
A: Resign.

[Tags: kevin_werbach dan_gillmor f2c09 f2c fcc ]

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