Comments on: IIA Gives FCC 10 Reasons to Focus on Digital Divide Instead of Net Neutrality http://www.blackweb20.com/2010/02/05/iia-gives-fcc-10-reasons-to-focus-on-digital-divide-instead-of-net-neutrality/ The premier destination for African-American’s in Technology and New Media Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:10:41 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Not A. Shill http://www.blackweb20.com/2010/02/05/iia-gives-fcc-10-reasons-to-focus-on-digital-divide-instead-of-net-neutrality/comment-page-1/#comment-34355 Not A. Shill Fri, 05 Feb 2010 23:04:26 +0000 http://www.blackweb20.com/?p=12034#comment-34355 "The net neutrality debate, which only concerns those already online, is a distraction from creating an effective National Broadband Plan. The people who have the most to lose from this balancing act are the socially and economically disenfranchised"<br><br>Hogwash. The FCC has 2,500 employees, and the National Broadband Plan team isn't even working on the Network Neutrality NPRM. In fact, the FCC is not really "working" on it in any sense; the NPRM is out for comments, and the FCC won't even turn its attention to this until later this year.<br><br>But this is all a smokescreen from the Bell and Cable-funded IIA.<br><br>The simple fact is, Net Neutrality sure does matter to the un- and under-served. Despite the rhetoric, deployment isn't the problem. Price is somewhat of a barrier to some, but the big Bell and Cable companies flat out refuse to compete on price, even as their cost decline and profits rise. The biggest barrier to adoption is simply interest in broadband. And ensuring that content remains open and diverse is a key to helping solve the digital divide.<br><br>Honestly, all this uncritical acceptance of Bell-funded propaganda on Blackweb 2.0 is really getting old. For an alternative perspective, check out this from Bruce Dixon:<br><br><a href="http://blackagendareport.com/?q=content/how-corporate-dollars-dominate-black-and-latino-conversation-network-neutrality" rel="nofollow">http://blackagendareport.com/?q=content/how-cor...</a> “The net neutrality debate, which only concerns those already online, is a distraction from creating an effective National Broadband Plan. The people who have the most to lose from this balancing act are the socially and economically disenfranchised”

Hogwash. The FCC has 2,500 employees, and the National Broadband Plan team isn't even working on the Network Neutrality NPRM. In fact, the FCC is not really “working” on it in any sense; the NPRM is out for comments, and the FCC won't even turn its attention to this until later this year.

But this is all a smokescreen from the Bell and Cable-funded IIA.

The simple fact is, Net Neutrality sure does matter to the un- and under-served. Despite the rhetoric, deployment isn't the problem. Price is somewhat of a barrier to some, but the big Bell and Cable companies flat out refuse to compete on price, even as their cost decline and profits rise. The biggest barrier to adoption is simply interest in broadband. And ensuring that content remains open and diverse is a key to helping solve the digital divide.

Honestly, all this uncritical acceptance of Bell-funded propaganda on Blackweb 2.0 is really getting old. For an alternative perspective, check out this from Bruce Dixon:

http://blackagendareport.com/?q=content/how-cor…

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