FCC Pitches Free, Bowdlerized Wireless Internet Access

Aidtopia writes "FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is proposing auctioning off an unused part of the 25 MHz spectrum on the condition that the winner provide free wireless Internet access. The proposal sets coverage targets that ramp up to 95% of the population within 10 years. The catch: the provider must filter out obscene content." I wonder what definition of "obscene" the FCC would like to use.

eww

[norkakn (102380)]

Fuck that.

Possible power grab?

[seifried (12921)]

I wonder if this is a less than subtle way of the FCC executing a power grab, first establish censoring on a free network, then start moving it to the current networks (although this would not be needed if the enough people use this as their "last mile", you just look at their traffic there).

Re:Possible power grab?

[moderatorrater (1095745)]

They licensed Fox, does that count?

note: regular Fox, not Fox News.

Definition of "obscene"

[Teun (17872)]

I wonder what definition of "obscene" the FCC would like to use.

Tell me who'll be in The White House and I'll give you an answer.

Obscenity has a clear meaning

[Phanatic1a (413374)]

I wonder what definition of "obscene" the FCC would like to use.

In the US, 'obscene' has a clear legal meaning: material that meets the three-pronged (I said 'prong,' huhuuhuh) test established in Miller v. California:

1. 'the average person, applying contemporary community standards' would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest
2. the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law
3. the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

Such material isn't protected speech. I think it should be, but there you go: it's hardly surprising that the FCC doesn't want it on a freely-accessible broadcast network. It's an infinitely more reasonable position for them to take than if they were demanding that providers filter "indecent" material, which is a) protected speech and b) has no strict legal definition.

Re:Obscenity has a clear meaning

[DarkOx (621550)]

I know you are trying to be funny or whatever but even if you don't think the Bible contains a single fact, the fact remains it is a book of stories. More then that they are some of the oldest stories we might consider part of modern Western Civilization. They more or less lay out what society is as we understand it today. Christian or otherwise to sugest the Bible does not represent artistic, political, and scientific value(even if only the social and political science aspects are verifable) makes you appear pretty stupid.

Defined.

[jadin (65295)]

FCC Okays Nudity On TV If It's Alyson Hannigan [theonion.com]

Wrong Wrong Wrong

[tweak13 (1171627)]

This isn't the 25MHz spectrum, it's a 25MHz block of the 2.1GHz spectrum. Realizing that makes this story make a whole lot more sense. There's no possible way this would work in the HF range.

Re:Wrong Wrong Wrong

[Gavin Scott (15916)]

Darn, and here I was thinking that they'd finally found a way to clean up the CB band :)

G.

The Cost Of Obscentity

[DynaSoar (714234)]

"I wonder what definition of "obscene" the FCC would like to use."

Probably the one they already use to charge violators such as Howard Stern, as well as the violators' station of origin, up to US$250K per incident. I'm not sure where it is in their regs (which I do know are online) but I recall quite clearly the sign in the studio booth at WUVT that reminded me constantly of the sword hanging over me.

What's always bothered me about the regs is the relaxation of the rules after 10 PM. When I was broadcasting, I had simultaneous netcast. After 10 PM where the station is (Blacksburg VA, eastern time) is only after 7 PM on the Left Coast (ie. pacific time). After 10 PM where? Was I simultaneously legal in Virginia but breaking the law in California?

Apply that now to on-demand, statically stored material which may or may not be infringing depending on the material and time of request. It's always before 10 PM someplace, so the owner may be liable according to the location of the requester. You can bet this is the way things would fall, because the alternative is to say 'it's AFTER 10 PM someplace', making the regs moot and removing a potential source of enforcement as well as income.

Oh yeah, and the context of the offending material matters. You can play hip hop and rap on air after 10 PM local and get away with broadcasting 2 "motherfuckers" and 5 "niggers" per minute, but try to say one of either yourself and see what it costs you. In the case of the latter, that may include body parts depending on your own color. The context of your reception can also matter, hence a "researcher" is supposed to be able to access an "obscene" web site for academic purposes without fear of reprisal. Yeah, right.

Personally I prefer Larry Flint's editorialized definition of "obscene" which puts murder and such well before sex in terms of badness. If that were used, you'd never be able to access most commercial news outlets, or much common TV or theatrical material. So sad that killing is not just accepted but expected, and fucking is outlawed.

OOPS, I think I just made it impossible for you to access this in the archives should the regulation of the proposed bandwidth go through. We'll see.

Re:Obscene is easy, its called fun

[ePhil_One (634771)]

I'll provide free internet and filter out everything that's not clear text and matching a library of 10 "known not obscene" words.

Only way to be sure

No defense against ASCII Art!

[bill_mcgonigle (4333)]

I bet I can make a raunchy ASCII Art out of your 10 words. :)

Re:Obscene is easy, its called fun

[redhog (15207)]

New RFC: Ip-over-ten-allowed-words:

Only the first eight words are used, the last two are used as out-of-bound signaling.

Data is sent three bits at a time, each bit-pattern denoted by one of the remaining eight words as described in the table below:

000 word1
001 word2
010 word3
011 word4
100 word5
101 word6
110 word7
111 word8

As long as there are any bits flowing, _any_ bit can be transmitted.

Re:Obscene is easy, its called fun

[Wandering Wombat (531833)]

Admiral Jesus says "All aboard the Censor-Ship!"

Aaaaaaaaaand, cue Peter Griffin's 'Freakin FCC' song!

They will clean up all your talking in a menace such as this
They will make you take a tinkle when you want to take a p*ss
And they'll make you call fellatio a trouser-friendly kiss
It's the plain situation!
There's no negiotiation!
With the fellows at the freakin FCC!

They're as stuffy as the stuffiest of the special interest groups...
Make a joke about your bowels and they order in the troops
Any baby with a brain could tell them everybody poops!
Take a tip, take a lesson!
You'll never win by messin'
With the fellas at the freakin' FCC

And if you find yourself with some you sexy thing
You're gonna have to do her with your ding-a-ling
Cause you can't say penis!

So they sent this little warning they're prepared to do the worst
And they stuck it in your mailbox hoping you could be co-erced
I can think of quite another place they should have stuck it first!

They may just be neurotic
Or possible psychotic
They're the fellas at the freakin FCC!

Re:Obscene is easy, its called fun

[Cairnarvon (901868)]

I like how you self-censored "piss" in a song about how bad censoring obscenity is.

Re:Obscene is easy, its called fun

[nbert (785663)]

The FCC are talking about providing free, nationwide wireless internet.. Damn them to hell!

Let's assume China would do the same thing - imagine the outrage. First of all it's hard for competitors to deal with a free service - there is no reason to invest in infrastructure if some part of government is providing the service free of charge. This will hurt in the long run. Secondly it's the gateway to censorship per se. The first step is to allow people to access restricted content for free, which will drive many people away from neutral ISP's. The next step is to make blacklists mandatory for all. In the end the majority will accept those measures and a few people will use proxies to circumvent it (sounds like China, doesn't it?).

Slashdot users in general, it seems, cannot distinguish between creator and creation. Bad things are created by bad producers, who will only ever produce bad things. Good things are created by good producers, who will only ever produce good things.

Huh? Maybe I'm not the average reader or I don't understand it because I am. I'm totally unfamiliar with the creator - creation and bad producers - good producers reasoning.

Re:Obscene is easy, its called fun

[Brian Gordon (987471)]

The government's not providing it, they're selling the spectrum to someone who has to offer free internet on it. Who the heck would agree to that offer? Yes I will pay you money to be forced to offer free services. What?

Re:Obscene is easy, its called fun

[gyrogeerloose (849181)]

Slashdot needs a say what? mod option.

Re:Obscene is easy, its called fun

[MichaelSmith (789609)]

Add anything that is not "politically correct", and it'll be filtered.

1. Encryption is mandatory over such a network

At 25 Mhz with a bandwidth of, what? 1 Mhz throughput will be 1 megabit per second shared with hundreds of users. Free wifi in the gigahertz range is already a joke. This system won't have the throughput for (decent) porn, encrypted or not.

Re:I wouldn't mind this!

[fastest fascist (1086001)]

High-temperature female displays well-hydrated feline! Amazing pseudoadults with brobdignagian dorsal features! Well-matched pairs engaging in close contact!

Re:50 kHz spectrum at 25 MHz?

[jcgf (688310)]

I agree with your concern. If we assume an S/N ratio of 20db (about 3 S units on my HF rig or noise at S6 and signal at S9 which I consider a good copy) then Shannon-Hartley's theorem says that they will get at best 333kbps. I used the example calculation #1 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theorem [wikipedia.org] and just substituted 50kc for 4kc to get this.

Anyone disagree?

Re:50 kHz spectrum at 25 MHz?

[Gat0r30y (957941)]

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin scheduled a vote on rules for another major spectrum auction, one that would encompass 25 megahertz in the 2155-2180 MHz advanced wireless services band and require the winning bidder to offer free broadband service under an aggressive build-out schedule.

The article linked above isn't nearly as good as this [rcrnews.com] one on the details of what spectrum is actually on the block here

Re:Fixed

[jejones (115979)]

Sure. "s/obscene/dissenting/g" means "everywhere you see 'obscene', substitute 'dissenting'". It's the syntax of the Unix ed text editor; see this page [die.net] for details.

Re:Obscene Defined

[supersat (639745)]

TV and radio are actually held to a higher standard for most of the day: they can't broadcast "indecent" material from 6 AM to 10 PM. In practice, most broadcasters choose not to broadcast "indecent" material at all, possibly for fear of a public outcry or advertisers backing out. Obscenity was defined by the Supreme Court in Miller v. California [wikipedia.org], and is a very tough threshold to meet. Lots of laws prohibit obscene speech, and I'm fairly certain there's a law that prohibits obscene speech from being transmitted on a licensed channel. The FCC is merely upholding the law.

Re:Leave it to the Republicans

[value_added (719364)]

to place restrictions on private industry

I'd agree, but to be fair, the FCC is required to mandate "decency" standards on the public airwaves, so extending that mandate/philosophy to a proposed public wireless system sounds like a reasonable argument.

The difficulty is that the internet, at least for the forseeable future, isn't at all similar to broadcast television or radio.