DISQUS

It should also be said that, at low frequencies, the ionosphere can either absorb or reflect radio signals. This varies, with the ionosphere being more reflective at night (hence, FCC rules about AM stations and the traditional "clear channel" regulations).

It also makes for nutty behavior during sun spots, which makes amateur radio operators get really excited because they can "DX" far-away stations. These spots follow a rough cycle. I can't wait until 2012!

Also, "attenuation" in the broad sense of the word, does happen due to topography (lower frequencies pass more easily through trees and walls). That's why the 700 MHz frequencies were so highly valued.

At least we can agree on science.

I'm glad we can agree on this one. I co-authored comments with a bunch of individuals from Berkman, saying similar things. Your comment that "ultimately, it represents an effort by the FCC to begin treating wireless broadband more like broadcast spectrum" is right on. The first header in our comments is, "Broadband is not Broadcast."

I posted about it here and you can read our comments here.

And Adam, I congratulate you on a fine piece of rhetoric. I am almost swayed to your way of thinking. Almost.

The problem with your reasoning on this issue is that it is characteristically simplistic. Characteristic, that is, of a flavor of libertarianism that is focused so narrowly on government regulation that it develops willful blindness to regulation from other sources. The "regulatory Leviathan" sprouts tentacles not just via bureaucrats and legal code, but via "market" actors as well.

As I noted here, your intellectual hero Ithiel de Sola Pool recognized this fact. In the case of cable he explicitly supported common carrier regulation in order to preserve it as a "technology of freedom." Elsewhere, he refers to "the libertarian features of the common carrier system."

How could such a revered thinker align regulatory intervention with libertarian principles? The answer is that Pool did not fall prey to narrow-minded categorizations of what was or was not "regulation." He recognized that market-motivated firms could regulate communication and commerce.

Furthermore, no matter what Bruce Owen thinks, the current nondiscriminatory safeguards being advocated in the name of net neutrality are far less imposing than the full common carriage regime.

The 1979 decision FCC v. Midwest Video Corp. was directly discussed in this current docket. You may recall that this was the decision that said that the Commission did not have jurisdiction to impose common carriage on cable because cable was a "broadcast" service. Whether or not this finding was consistent with the "blue sky" rhetoric which won cable its deregulated position to begin with, is another matter.

Ultimately we must ask whether there is any role whatsoever for government in ensuring free speech and free markets in the presence of gatekeepers. Otherwise, libertarianism is just a euphemism for anarchy.

Adam Thierer has just written another thought-provoking post on TLF/PFF about the well-trod net neutrality debate. He is riffing on a ZDNet article by long-time net neutrality critic Larry Downes. The heart of his (and Larry's) argument is that the Internet should remain free from meddlesome regulation. I must say that I wholeheartedly agree. Where I take issue, is whether most net neutrality proposals are necessarily meddlesome. This is a critical distinction too fine for Thierer or Downes.

I agree with Thierer on a great number of issues. He is spot-on when it comes to the perils of presumptive content regulation in the name of child protection. The risks of caving to DOPA-style regulation or other ill-conceived technological "solutions" to the issues that youth face online cannot be underestimated. Closing off vast swaths of the internet to the next generation of online artists, innovators, and entrepreneurs is self-evidently foolish. What Thierer fails to recognize is that the risks he envisions under the banner of "child protection" are paralleled in the world of net neutrality -- just not in the way that he assumes.

(my critique continues at http://managingmiracles.blogspot.com/)</p>

I've posted a critique of the Owen article here.