Just saying. The government helps businesses out all the time, how about turning it the other way around?

max crabb

how is this THAT much different from the government healthcare concept? It's clearly a bad idea in this case...has worked with mixed success in other countries.

bdrocker

I visited a friend over the holidays, and I the speeds are actually pretty good. Just like sitting at home with my DSL. It's pretty fast. aaaaaaaand FREE.

HelsinkiValo

Jason

aec007

Step 1: Get government to give you free spectrum based on vague promises.

Step 2: Whine about changed conditions and plead with government to let you make changes that totally undercut your original commitment.

Heck, its worked before...

Thud

smcallah

Either way, I'd be in support of something that could push higher access speeds to everyone in the country. I'm sure Verizon thinks it would jam up the internet though, and not let all their important high-paying traffic through.

icelight

tameanaka

Fatty

joelja

If we make a robot out of your corpse and sit it at a terminal then we can make you surf after life...

We can rebuild him...
We have the technology...

dOk

Unrealistic as it is, it was nice of them to try and make a point- we are paying too much, and there are people left behind

xacked

hooked-on-tronics

also, i'm with what someone said above...this congresswoman only did this so that she could say she fought for it come election time. While you dont need any credentials to get into politics...you do need to have brains. She knows as well as anyone else that for this to actually work it needs to be ad supported. she doesnt want it to take up alot of her time or anything though so she sets it up so that it comes down the minute after its proposed.

at this point in the game there seems to be a damn near infinite number of possibilities for ways to get wireless everywhere. what with the different types of wirelesss technology providers (routers everywhere, ballons, everyone providing the wireless off their own connections, etc) the geographical/social aspect(by city by town by state and the sort of plan that you use...the whole thing could be approached in different ways) and the economic aspect (make it ad supported, make it free but only for a small part of the day, make it so that you get a decent speed for alot of extra money etc etc) all the different parts lead to a whole multitude of possibilities! i think there needs to be a sitdown somewhere, and there needs to be a list made of every single possibility , and with an almost philosophical idea of what would work best for the everyone, narrow down the possibilities to at least a small handful of very good solutions.

@Blinklink11:
t-mobile has already kind of done that with hotspots...only its not very good

jrghoull

awdark

This is just a blog, I know, but having been a regular reader of Gizmodo for years, I'm finding the ongoing liberal nonsensical whinings and obvious hypocrisy as just hysterical.

"I'm not pro-corporation, so much as I am pro-reality."

I agree, it's a dumb idea, but this statement made me literally laugh out loud at your incredible hypocrisy. I mean, seriously... this blog is just a corporate love-fest for the most part--drooling over the latest Apple product for example, and pantsing the coolest new gadget from Major Corporation X.

I enjoy your blog, but Gizmodo = hypocrite.

Wingiz

200kbps is a joke in terms of speed, so why not offer it free, then charge for upgrades to higher speeds? You'd be offering free and slow access to everyone, but when they finally get tired of waiting they can shell out $30 a month for 10mbps or something. Voila, cashola.

Or heck, that porn thing, just block all the adult sites until people upgrade ahahahhaa.

tekdemon

ZeroCorpse

SneakerFiend

Who else but Google even mentioned this kind of plan? Also the fact you can't charge but you can serve up ads seems to be exactly what only they have talked about doing. I think they mentioned using a network like this for cell phone service as well, which wouldn't be much of a stretch since Wifi phones are already out.
If they get this spectrum, they could use ads to finance it, which they already do on a massive scale, and if they made an open source cell phone that works on it...bad news for some companies.

Hello_Newman

packetsniffer

so how bout the bandwith, will everyone be eating it up on 360s, i mean as if there wasnt enough lag with people on phone lines for crist sake

o and about no porn, somebody will come up with a way to make a video seem totaly innocent, run it through a program, and walla instant porn- the 1 hour conversion

exobite

DeadWriter

Each subscriber would recive a login, and from any access point (or city wide) would log in to use it. That way they still make money, while not charging extra.

Thats much more inbetween than charging crazy ammounts, or losing money (like they would here).

Blinklink11

"Noobs-R-Us is right. Google will welcome this, and sense you can't charge for the service there won't be many bidders. I wonder if Google isn't the ones pulling the strings of this congresswoman's proposal.

and to that i must say...

"Let me be the first one to welcome our Google overloards"

dOk

A better thing to do would be to encourage the installment of neighbourhood-wide free networks, as seen in some parts of New York.

Or then again, people could just steal wireless form their neighbours as usual.

ItsRabid

ab3

So in the end, it's a good thing.

CaseyG

Derffie

mferrari

mferrari

Leonard Nimrod

I was kind of sort of joking.

Sleeper_Service

unless your talking about poor as in homeless no money of any type

utube2007

Sleeper_Service

EQC

Valicious

(read third bulletin)

_newuser_

Valicious

You can always advertise loans or mortgage refinancing.

JayD16

What about 1st amendment rights.

JayD16

VNSROCK

Jurisprudence

phatoneusa

@i4ni: And while you're dying, I'll be still alive!

Reilaos~

"ad-supported" system of weak wireless broadband might be more annoying than useful, even for people who can't afford an alternative"

if you cant afford it wouldnt getting it free with ad's be better than nothing with no ad's

However i do agree no company is gonna do this unless there getting a hugh tax write off from the feds

if they could get this off the ground i'd use it but i doubt this would ever happen

utube2007

"revenue model work in a big way"

Noobs-R-Us

I think this congresswoman has targeted this auction for Google. She migh as well come out and call it a Google sale.

Noobs-R-Us

Moonshadow101

albokay

hooked-on-tronics

i4ni