Last night, while we were busy making out with total strangers and getting groped in the streets of Manhattan, an historic event took place. Something incredible happened out there, people, and no, we're not talking about that Hussein dude pulling the wool over our eyes...
According to a story in Business Week, while the American people were speaking out in record numbers, the Federal Communications Commission, that Bush Administration disaster was trying to make amends for its past anti-First Amendment grandstanding-- perhaps out of fear of the anti-conservative revolution they're missing out on-- made a unanimous decision on wi-fi:
The country's top communications regulator unanimously voted to free
up the biggest ever swath of airwaves to be used by the public for
cheap high-speed wireless Internet access.
The vote came after more than six years of public scrutiny and
decides the fate of airwaves that will be made available when
television broadcasts switch over to digital signals from analog in
February. A broad coalition of opponents, including lawmakers,
musicians, and broadcasters, argued that free public use of the
airwaves would interfere with TV broadcasts and wireless microphones.
"I don't think I've ever seen anything like this [amount of pressure]
from broadcasters before," says Steve Sharkey, senior director of
regulatory and spectrum policy at Motorola (MOT), one of the companies that welcomed the FCC's decision.
Of course, don't get your wires all in a twist in excitement just yet. Wait for AT&T, Verizon, and anybody else who makes gazillions off of something we should all be getting free.
What do you think?
Via Business Week.
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