I am completing a survey from my Congressman, and I have a couple questions.

[Lil Missy]

He's a Repuke.

I have navigated most of the trick questions, and added my own comments for clarification. But there are a couple I'm not sure about.

In the section entitled "What issues before Congress are most important to you?"

1) Increasing federal spending on America's communications infrastructure.

Seems pretty innocuous on it's face, but I don't trust the fucker. What does that mean anyway? As in, more efficient way for US as Americans to communicate? Or better ways for them to spy and violate our Constitutional rights?

2) Increasing export outlets for our nation's agricultural producers.

Again, seems pretty innocuous on it's face. But I am wondering, what is the quid-pro-quo? Another trick question?

I try to keep up on things, so sorry if I seem to be too cautious. I can't keep up on everything.

And I still have plenty of space left for comments. :)

[sandnsea]

1. Hard to say

Maybe you could look up legislation your critter has introduced, and see what it is as it pertains to those two questions. Then you could refer to that legislation and say whether you supported it or opposed it.

[tkmorris]

2. I am guessing the second one

Will be used to justify further free trade agreements in places like Colombia. The first one may just be pork, hard to say. There is a movement to create a "free-access" wifi network throughout the US being supported by Repugs, but it would be a censored and controlled internet you accessed through it. They love that idea; they hate the anarchy of our giant system of tubes. Might be related, don't know.

[elleng]

5. Free access wifi WON'T happen!

Would be a GREAT idea! The big guys (Verizon+) just won't allow it! Thought it was first supported by Philly mayor.

[Lil Missy]

8. See? Now that's just what I mean.

I don't want my agreement for more options to American producers to become a bullshit talking point for a Repuke to advance an entirely different agenda.

A censored network controlled and operated by Repugs? Yeah, like I'd be for something like THAT!

Like I said, I prefer to be very cautious these days.

[elleng]

3. Its late so I may not be thinking too clearly, but

1) what federal spending has/does occurred on 'America's communications infrastructure?' Phone lines (phone companies do that, don't they?), radio lines (same?), tv lines (ditto), the INTERNET? Thanks but no thanks, sir; keep your hands to your self!


2) Increase export outlets? Rivers? Sea Ports? Air Ports? OK, if the Port of Baltimore (near me) etc need to be rebuilt/built up, and the responsible entities seek Federal aid to do so, seems ok to me. What such entities exist in YOUR particular jurisdiction? Mississippi River? Delta? (Probably not much grain shipped by air, eh?)

That's all I wrote!

[TexasProgresive]

15. Phone companies do that

Yes, but without some form of internal subsidies, federal and state requirements of service and some money to help defray the cost of building the network there will be limited to no broadband services outside the city limits. Options for those in rural areas are pretty poor. There are wireless companies and at least one, Hughes, that offer limited speeds for high dollars. ADSL generally doesn't exist outside the city limits and the same has always been true of cable which is totally unregulated.

[canetoad]

4. Send it back with a polite letter

saying that until they ask for your opinion without using loaded, multiple choice questions, set by THEM, you will offer your responses in your own free-form style.

Then ignore their questionnaire and write your own material. :evilgrin:

[Lil Missy]

9. I am making liberal use of the comment section for that.

:D

[Why Syzygy]

6. Obama wants to make broadband free, doesn't he?

That would be at least part of "America's communication infrastructure".

[tkmorris]

7. AFAIK Obama did not support the free wifi plan

He did promise to make broadband access "universal", without really detailing how to do that, though he did mention some form of government subsidization to get more rural communities wired up. The plan I was referring to was the brainchild of the FCC I believe, though they seem to have backed off on it a bit for now.

[kristopher]

10. Perhaps two tier internet is what you are recalling

Here is a sample article and it may not be representative of the total situation. Recommend you Google "two tier internet" and sample some of the others also.

How Would Two-Tier Internet Work?
By Ed Felten - Posted on January 18th, 2006 at 6:52 am

The word is out now that residential ISPs like BellSouth want to provide a kind of two-tier Internet service, where ordinary Internet services get one level of performance, and preferred sites or services, presumably including the ISPs' own services, get better performance. It's clear why ISPs want to do this: they want to charge big web sites for the privilege of getting preferred service.

I should say up front that although the two-tier network is sometimes explained as if there were two tiers of network infrastructure, the obvious and efficient implementation in practice would be to have a single fast network, and to impose deliberate delay or bandwidth throttling on non-preferred traffic.

Whether ISPs should be allowed to do this is an important policy question, often called the network neutrality issue. It's a harder issue than advocates on either side admit. Regular readers know that I've been circling around this issue for a while, without diving into its core. My reason for shying away from the main issue is simply that I haven't figured it out yet. Today I'll continue circling.

Let's think about the practical aspects of how an ISP would present the two-tier Internet to customers. There are basically two options, I think. Either the ISP can create a special area for preferred sites, or it can let sites keep their ordinary URLs. As we'll see, either option leads to problems.

The first option is to give the preferred sites special URLs. For example, if this site had preferred status on AcmeISP, its URL for AcmeISP customers would...
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felten/how-would-two-tier-internet-work

[Lil Missy]

11. *whoosh*

What?

Can you explain that to me in "dumb"?

[kristopher]

13. Some companies want to be allowed

Some companies want to be allowed devise ways of giving better service for people willing to pay more money. It has also been talked about as 'net neutrality'.

Maybe wiki has a better explanation.

[Lil Missy]

14. Thank you. And I wasn't challenging you personally, or trying to give you crap.

I was just askin', because I'm dumb about this.

:)

:hug:

[kristopher]

16. I never even thought to take offense. nt

[Luminous Animal]

12. Export outlets...

referring to reduced tariffs and/or "free-trade". The first one is too vague to be of any use.