wrythings

I’ve heard some variant of this phrase for a good while now, but, what does it really mean?

Becca Vargo Daggett has often addressed the vacuity of this meme… but I think we need to be more aggressive in disentangling the motives behind this phrase.

It’s pretty clear it’s either a point of rhetoric, or the result of framing that has been used to box out certain options.

I most recently heard the phrase at the Community Media Summit convened by the Benton Foundation and the Community Media Workshop (June 15, 2007). At the Summit the Chicago Report on Digital Excellence was unveiled. Rep. Julie Hamos stood up shortly following a comment by Gordon Quinn. The summit and the report had a strong focus on the questions of Municipal Wireless and other communications infrastructure.

Gordon asked a very clear question as to the presence or lack of political will to just provide the infrastructure ourselves, as a city. (I’ll pass over the near deafening silence this was met with, though this is the crown that should most clamor for it.)

Rep. Hamos praised the vision articulated in the Digital Excellence report and cited the need for a similar bold vision and plan for the state of Illinois. She commented that the sentiment among the political establishment is a preference for public-private partnership in the field of communications/network provision, rather than direct public investment of the sort Gordon proposed.

In telecommunications and other new networks, the community, the public, the people will always pay for the network in the long run, and generally speaking, they will pay many times over. There is no getting around that. We will pay for the networks. Should we subsidize their build-out?

So, what is behind the language of the public-private partnership?

One thing is certain, public officials (and perhaps much of the public) have lost an appreciation for the meaning of public utility. Many of the entities we formerly regarded as public utilities have been deregulated, or operate with minimal regulation.

Criticism of the situation marks one as anti-business or anti-corporate. These are not strictly the same thing, but that is part of the point… the view that Business is Business is Business conflates all business interests in one frame.

We then easily succumb to the argument that we need to keep Government from competing with Business… else it will be bad for all businesses, else it will adversely affect the employment base, else these corporations may disinvest in your state or town.

I don’t buy any of it, but it appears the threats work, or they work enough to take away the courage and conviction…

Telecom and media infrastructure, including provision of Internet services is by no means a competitive market. Nor is it effectively regulated at any level. That is not to say there arent regulations in effect… no, there are, and they tend to serve as barriers to market entry more than as protection of community and consumer interests.

So, please, tell me, what is the virtue of a public-private partnership other than 1) the term partnership gives us the warm fuzzies, 2) public figures can point to projects moving forward (much ado about nothing?) … and a third false-virtue: private sector capture of lucrative contracts and markets through political influence and incumbent positioning.

There is a lot more to be said about this phrase… perhaps the most damning is that it is a catch-all and offers no hope for precision. It doesn’t articulate a clear business model, but it is used to shape the business model and ownership debate in any number of sectors. Isn’t it great to see the power of rhetorical strategy… how public discourse can be derailed away from clear business and public interest questions through vacuous and emotive concepts?

Is it any wonder our public leaders won’t stand up for pubic initiatives?

Kaliya asks: When the 9/11 of the net happens what will we do?

We’ve been living with the politics of fear for a long time. It’s a ham-handed strategy for social control. This politics of fear is a misdirection… we all know that we need to be wary of those claiming to protect us. I certainly agree with the call to Organize, and to Organize now… but my doubt in this is whether we can truly rally sufficient support to defend the character of the Internet and all our beloved ‘Net freedoms when our society has been willing to let go of our basic but hard fought civil rights.

From: http://keep-the-core-neutral.org/

The Keep The Core Neutral Coalition is committed to protecting freedom of expression and innovation in domain name policy at ICANN.

This means basing gTLD-approval policy on criteria of only a technical/operational and related nature, and refraining from embedding any particular national, regional, moral, or religious policy objectives into global ICANN policy.

http://keep-the-core-neutral.org/join

(more…)

Via Jon Lebkowsky’s Weblogsky: Telecom and the Internet: Why?

A number of excellent points made by Bob Frankston… my favorite concerns incentives. Policy makers feel they need to accommodate the demands of Telecom providers… to “incent” the build-out and upgrading of networks. With all this incenting we’re pretty far behind… and where do we find the innovation? Not among the Telecoms.

The long awaited report from the Mayor’s Advisory Council on Closing the Digital Divide was released Friday June 15th at the Community Media Summit convened by the Benton Foundation and the Community Media Workshop under the title The City that NetWorks: Transforming Society and Economy Through Digital Excellence.

Digital Excellence is both means and end for Chicago as the City of Excellence. The Chicago Digital Access Alliance (CDAA) had a large hand in bringing this vision into the public sphere. We’ll turn a critical eye to the details of the report, as is our duty, but for now we celebrate it’s release and the vision that has been established, and we offer our deepest gratitude to Julia M. Stasch for her service to our city in chairing the Mayor’s Advisory Council and shepherding this visionary and historical document.

Stay tuned for analysis and response.

Via the GIO listserv:

Maine is first state in nation to pass net neutrality resolve

Resolution Recognizes Importance of Nondiscriminatory Access to the Internet

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We’ve got to get wireless policy right. Harold Feld argues well that we have some wrong-headed notions around trespass and theft when it comes to wireless (wifi) connectivity.

Our wireless signal doesn’t stop at the border of our property. It propagates into our neighbor’s space and into the commons. It can limit their ability to use the spectrum in that space. There is a case to be made for public nuisance, but we’re talking about unlicensed spectrum.

What may escape public awareness is a willingness to share. There are enough people sharing and intending to share content and connectivity that we can’t expect the person gaining access through our network to assume we want it closed to outsiders unless we close it ourselves.

That’s Harold’s point. The burden of securing your network should come before any notion of trespass or theft can apply.