Strange things are afoot it seems in the FCC.
http://www.circleid.com/posts/86257_fcc_internet_filtering/What could be bad about free wireless Internet access? How about censorship by federally mandated filters that make it no longer "Internet." That's the effect of the FCC's proposed service rules for Advanced Wireless Service spectrum in the 2155-2180 MHz band, as set out in a July 20 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking [DOC].
Acting on a request of M2Z Networks, which wants to provide "free, family-friendly wireless broadband," the FCC proposes to require licensees of this spectrum band to offer free two-way wireless broadband Internet service to the public, with least 25% of their network capacity. So far so good, but on the next page, the agency guts the meaning of "broadband Internet" with a content filtering requirement. Licensees must keep their users from accessing porn:
§ 27.1193 Content Network Filtering Requirement.
(a) The licensee of the 2155-2188 MH band (AWS-3 licensee) must provide as part of its free broadband service a network-based mechanism:
(1) That filters or blocks images and text that constitute obscenity or pornography and, in context, as measured by contemporary community standards and existing law, any images or text that otherwise would be harmful to teens and adolescents. For purposes of this rule, teens and adolescents are children 5 through 17 years of age;
Like or hate lawful pornography, we should be disturbed by the narrow vision of "Internet" the filtering rule presupposes, because you can't filter "Internet," you can only filter "Internet-as-content-carriage." This filtering requirement constrains "Internet" to a limited subset of known, filterable applications, ruining the platform's general-purpose generativity. No Skype or Joost or Slingbox; no room for individual users to set up their own services and servers; no way for engineers and entrepreneurs to develop new, unanticipated uses.
I cant see anyone business savvy applying for this segment of the wirelss spectrum with the internets major revenue generating activity killed stone dead, maybe its designed like this to ensure only religous fanatics step forward and apply ?
