"F.C.C. Plan to Widen Internet Access in U.S. Sets Up Battle"--that's the headline in The New York Times, atop a piece co-authored by a Cable Game fave, Brian Stelter.
Indeed, Brian's fingerprints on this story remind us that the Internet has plenty to do with TV. The FCC, of course, is now chaired and controlled by Julius Genachowski, one of Barack Obama's best friends. And so the question: Will all these proposed rules changes, all thousands of pages of them, as they spill out over the next few years, be used to stick it to Fox and Fair & Balanced media in general? And how will other big players in The Cable Game be affected, such as Comcast?
As we have seen in the health-care bill, the Democrats and their allies in the bureaucracy and on K Street have a way of tucking in little provisions that they hope nobody notices, until it's too late. Only alert nitpickers and hairsplitters were able to catch the "death panels," and the pro-abortion positions. The Cable Gamer hopes that others are just as alert on this broadband strategy.
As Stelter and co-author Jenna Wortham observe, a lot of what the government has in mind sounds pretty attractive:
The Federal Communications Commission is proposing an ambitious 10-year plan that will reimagine the nation’s media and technology priorities by establishing high-speed Internet as the country’s dominant communication network.
So all questions are on the table: How much will the Internet cost? How fast should it be? Will we be able to get TV on the Internet? Who will regulate such programming/content, in terms of indecency, or perhaps also in terms of the "Fairness Doctrine," which liberals would love to impose on Fox and other media?
Continuing, Stelter and Wortham add:
The blueprint reflects the government’s view that broadband Internet is becoming the common medium of the United States, gradually displacing the telephone and broadcast television industries. . . . According to F.C.C. officials briefed on the plan, the commission’s recommendations will include a subsidy for Internet providers to wire rural parts of the country now without access, a controversial auction of some broadcast spectrum to free up space for wireless devices, and the development of a new universal set-top box that connects to the Internet and cable service.
The effort will influence billions of dollars in federal spending, although the F.C.C. will argue that the plan should pay for itself through the spectrum auctions. Some recommendations will require Congressional action and industry support, and will affect users only years from now.
And yet there will be obstacles, most notably the carriers, including the cable companies and the telcos. And so there'll be plenty of furious lobbying in the years ahead, as the FCC plans on going after the providers, to make them step up their game:
To get there, analysts say the F.C.C. must tread carefully with companies like Comcast and AT&T that largely control Internet pricing and speeds. Already, there are questions about the extent to which the F.C.C. has jurisdiction over Internet providers. . . .
In a move that could affect policy decisions years from now, the F.C.C. will begin assessing the speeds and costs of consumer broadband service. Until then, consumers can take matters into their own hands with a new suite of online and mobile phone applications released by the F.C.C. that will allow them to test the speed of their home Internet and see if they’re paying for data speeds as advertised.
“Once again, the F.C.C. is putting service providers on the spot,” said Julien Blin, a telecommunications consultant at JBB Research.
So how will Comcast, for example, react to this FCC initiative? It's a given that everybody hates the cable companies, and so how will the cable companies fight back? We have already seen, for example, Comcast setting up a new website, NBCUtransaction.com, devoted solely to pushing its side of its pending acquisition of NBC-U.
The Cable Gamer would love to cover only such important issues as Megyn Kelly's off-the-shoulder dress that she wore yesterday, Friday, on Fox--she looked like a Greek goddess, and deserves her own ode.
But TCG, who, alas, would never dare wear a sleeveless dress in public, realizes that this FCC story is more important.
