Newsflash: FCC Shows Interest In....Factual Broadband Data Agency promises 'enlightened, data-driven decision-making...' Tuesday Jul 14 2009 12:44 EDT In what's a bit of refreshing news for an agency that's been, well, scientifically and factually challenged in recent years -- new FCC boss Julius Genachowski says the agency will be employing the help of Harvard's Berkman Center to help verify the accuracy of broadband coverage data. According to Genachowski, the move will "help lay the foundation for enlightened, data-driven decision-making" at the agency. For an FCC that's spent a decade pretending coverage and competitive issues didn't exist in order to placate incumbent ISP lobbyists, admitting they have a problem is a positive first step for the agency. |
FFH5 Premium Member join:2002-03-03 Tavistock NJ 2 edits |
FFH5
Premium Member
2009-Jul-14 12:15 pm
Berkman Center report due before BB location data ready» hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_ ··· 86A1.pdfThe Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University will conduct an independent expert review of existing literature and studies about broadband deployment and usage throughout the world. This project will help inform the FCCs efforts in developing the National Broadband Plan. The Berkman Center isn't going to gather broadband penetration data. All they are going to do is process what data is given to them and create a report for the FCC to help with their broadband plan. It is very likely the report will be complete long before all the broadband location data is even available. P.S.>> Also, the FCC named an ex-MS bigshot to run their shop as managing director. » hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_ ··· 73A1.pdfManaging Director, Steven VanRoekel: Mr. VanRoekel has over 18 years of Information Technology and management experience and was most recently a top executive in the Windows Server and Tools division at Microsoft Corporation. Mr. VanRoekel held various positions in his 15 years at Microsoft, including managing Microsofts cross-industry Web Services team and serving as Speech and Strategy Assistant to Bill Gates. Mr. VanRoekel also assisted Mr. Gates in his transition from CEO of Microsoft to Chief Software Architect and advised the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on its shift in giving philosophy from a focus on technology to a focus on world health. This is the guy who will be running the FCC and also who is supposed to fix up the mess of the FCC web pages. | |
| Matt3All noise, no signal. Premium Member join:2003-07-20 Jamestown, NC |
Matt3
Premium Member
2009-Jul-14 12:24 pm
ChangeWow, is this the "Change" we've all been waiting for? I am shocked that the current administration's appointees who are just now starting to take office are trying to change how things are done. I didn't vote for this. In all seriousness, I especially like this part and it should satisfy folks who were clamoring for openness: Results of the Harvard review will be made public, said Genachowski, in keeping with his pledge of openness and transparency. | |
| | | | | | | | | |
| S_engineer Premium Member join:2007-05-16 Chicago, IL
1 recommendation |
to Matt3
Re: ChangeWell we have yet to see this "change" occur. A cynical viewpoint, yes; but we've been down this road before. Does this mean that the Berkman center will be working with Connected Nation?
It would be nice to have this data before any national broadband plan could take place, but I guess they could use that for the plan thats introduced in stimulas version 30.2 | |
| | | Matt3All noise, no signal. Premium Member join:2003-07-20 Jamestown, NC |
Matt3
Premium Member
2009-Jul-14 1:05 pm
Re: ChangeAs has been said numerous times, this isn't the official broadband stimulus. This is a tiny portion of the economic stimulus that will be dispersed for broadband deployment. | |
| | | | S_engineer Premium Member join:2007-05-16 Chicago, IL |
Re: ChangeI know Matt, but factual data should accompany any monies spent by our gov't for the purpose of legislating a plan. Outsourcing this to Harvard, or Connected Nation will only facilitate more questions since, the FCC should already have this data in the first place! | |
| | | | | Matt3All noise, no signal. Premium Member join:2003-07-20 Jamestown, NC |
Matt3
Premium Member
2009-Jul-14 3:03 pm
Re: Changesaid by S_engineer:I know Matt, but factual data should accompany any monies spent by our gov't for the purpose of legislating a plan. Outsourcing this to Harvard, or Connected Nation will only facilitate more questions since, the FCC should already have this data in the first place! I don't think you can satisfy everyone. If the government did it themselves, you'd have accusations of waste and incompetence, now that they're getting Harvard to do it, we see allegations of it not being open enough. I am just glad they are finally mapping it! | |
|
DaveDudeNo Fear join:1999-09-01 New Jersey |
If the facts dont fit...I have never seen such grandstanding before in my life, with this administration. Suddenly because they said, its factual. How about lowering taxes, and free market healthcare ? | |
| | |
Re: If the facts dont fit...said by DaveDude:I have never seen such grandstanding before in my life, with this administration. Suddenly because they said, its factual. How about lowering taxes, and free market healthcare ? I agree, please so this and you should have alot of haters turn very happy. | |
| | |
to DaveDude
Better still! NO taxes and FREE healthcare! | |
| | | |
Re: If the facts dont fit...rd, your biting yet subtle sarcasm brought a smile to my face. | |
|
| IT GuyOw, My Balls Premium Member join:2004-07-29 Las Cruces, NM Cisco ASA 5505 Cisco Meraki MX64
|
to DaveDude
This is off-topic, but an issue that bugs me all the same. Admittedly, I am no tax expert by any means. But I think it is extremely unrealistic to expect taxes to go down at all in the face of our extreme debt and economic woes.
Can someone explain to me how we can pay down our country's debt without raising taxes? | |
| | | jester121 Premium Member join:2003-08-09 Lake Zurich, IL |
Re: If the facts dont fit...Tax rate cuts stimulate the economy every time they've been tried, the problem is that the crooks in Washington (and in nearly every state capital) won't curb their spending along with it to balance a budget and pay off debt. | |
| | | | |
Re: If the facts dont fit...said by jester121:Tax rate cuts stimulate the economy every time they've been tried, .... right wing myth. all available data shows the stimulative effects of tax cuts are small, at best. and tax cuts DO NOT pay for themselves. from the WSJ: » blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2 ··· s-faded/In a letter to Spratt released Friday, CBO director Peter Orszag said, The short-term effects of EGTRRA and JGTRRA in stimulating aggregate demand in the economy have largely dissipated by now, and the supply-side effects of those policies are uncertain but are probably small.Congressional budget office fact sheet: » budget.senate.gov/democr ··· 2702.pdfCBO Confirms that the Tax Cut is the Primary Cause for Deterioration of the Budget. These new estimates confirm despite continuing efforts by the White House to mislead the public about this that the Presidents tax cut enacted last year is the single biggest cause of the deterioration in the budget. | |
| | | | | jester121 Premium Member join:2003-08-09 Lake Zurich, IL |
Re: If the facts dont fit...said by nasadude:right wing myth. all available data shows the stimulative effects of tax cuts are small, at best. and tax cuts DO NOT pay for themselves. from the WSJ: » blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2 ··· s-faded/In a letter to Spratt released Friday, CBO director Peter Orszag said, The short-term effects of EGTRRA and JGTRRA in stimulating aggregate demand in the economy have largely dissipated by now, and the supply-side effects of those policies are uncertain but are probably small.Congressional budget office fact sheet: » budget.senate.gov/democr ··· 2702.pdfCBO Confirms that the Tax Cut is the Primary Cause for Deterioration of the Budget. These new estimates confirm despite continuing efforts by the White House to mislead the public about this that the Presidents tax cut enacted last year is the single biggest cause of the deterioration in the budget. Typical left wing knee jerk propaganda. (Quoting a publication like the WSJ is nice, but when they're relying on the numbers from the partisan CBO it's kind of moot. And pay special attention to the URL in your second reference: budget.senate.gov/ democratic/pre···2702.pdf For an equally partisan response: » www.heritage.org/Press/N ··· 807a.cfmThrowing around phrases like "all available data" doesn't help you make your point, it just makes you sound like you think you're smarter than everyone else. | |
| | | | | | 1 edit |
Re: If the facts dont fit...said by jester121:Typical left wing knee jerk propaganda. .... I expected that response. The congressional budget office is widely accepted as non-partisan, with studies, analysis, etc. being requested and used by both republicans and democrats. as for the heritage foundation, if they said the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, I would not believe it unless I had observed it myself. forgot to mention: everyone knows facts have a liberal bias | |
| | | | | | | huntml join:2002-01-23 Mullica Hill, NJ 1 edit |
huntml
Member
2009-Jul-14 6:20 pm
Re: If the facts dont fit...said by nasadude:I expected that response. The congressional budget office is widely accepted as non-partisan, with studies, analysis, etc. being requested and used by both republicans and democrats. as for the heritage foundation, if they said the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, I would not believe it unless I had observed it myself. forgot to mention: everyone knows facts have a liberal bias I've never heard a sitting congressman or senator OF EITHER PARTY accuse the CBO of being biased. In fact, I'm sure that if there were any such case to be made, it would be part of the standard set of talking points for whichever party was in the minority at any given time, and you'd have been hearing it every Sunday on the talking head shows for years now, regardless of which party was in control of Congress. | |
| | | | | | | |
to nasadude
This is so true. It's like listening to conservative Christians call laws supporting the teaching of evolution in schools a "liberal bias".
I hate it when obviously biased conservatives claim "bias" when sites demonstrate *facts* that support liberal claims, and then point to far more deceitful sources of right-wing information. | |
|
| | openbox9 Premium Member join:2004-01-26 71144 |
to IT Guy
said by IT Guy:Can someone explain to me how we can pay down our country's debt without raising taxes? Cut spending. It's no different than balancing your checkbook. Basic principle, don't spend more than you earn. | |
| | | | huntml join:2002-01-23 Mullica Hill, NJ 3 edits |
huntml
Member
2009-Jul-14 1:56 pm
Re: If the facts dont fit...According to figures I've seen, only about 19% of US govt spending is both discretionary and unrelated to defense/'war on terror'/etc.
And non-discretionary things like Medicare and Social Security are growing at rates that are multiples of everything else.
This being the case, you could cut ALL of the discretionary spending not related to defense and security -- all transportation spending, all non-legal and non-defense regulatory spending on things like FDA, OSHA, FTC, FCC, EPA, welfare, etc. -- and we'd still be in a huge hole, budget-wise. | |
| | | | | openbox9 Premium Member join:2004-01-26 71144 |
openbox9
Premium Member
2009-Jul-14 4:29 pm
Re: If the facts dont fit...Make no mistake, drastic debts require drastic measures to pay for them. There's a lot of fat wrapped up in various pieces of government. Tightening the belt isn't palatable for some, but there are a lot of programs that can be downsized or cut altogether. Federal jobs would most likely need to be cut along with several social and other government programs. None of which will be tolerated by special interests in Washington, so I predict continued growth in our debt. | |
| | | | | | huntml join:2002-01-23 Mullica Hill, NJ |
huntml
Member
2009-Jul-14 6:17 pm
Re: If the facts dont fit...said by openbox9:Make no mistake, drastic debts require drastic measures to pay for them. There's a lot of fat wrapped up in various pieces of government. Tightening the belt isn't palatable for some, but there are a lot of programs that can be downsized or cut altogether. Federal jobs would most likely need to be cut along with several social and other government programs. None of which will be tolerated by special interests in Washington, so I predict continued growth in our debt. Yes, but even if all the discretionary parts of the budget were comprised of 50% waste, you'd only be able to shave about 10% of the bottom line. That might get us just about to the black now, or slightly above the line, but at the rate entitlements are growing we'd be in the same position in a few years. | |
| | | | | | | openbox9 Premium Member join:2004-01-26 71144 |
openbox9
Premium Member
2009-Jul-14 7:50 pm
Re: If the facts dont fit...I'm talking more than just shaving discretionary spending That's also why I said it won't be tolerated by special interests groups. | |
| | | | | | | | huntml join:2002-01-23 Mullica Hill, NJ 1 edit |
huntml
Member
2009-Jul-15 10:33 am
Re: If the facts dont fit...said by openbox9:I'm talking more than just shaving discretionary spending That's also why I said it won't be tolerated by special interests groups. You are right. The obvious places where there is money to be shaved from the federal budget -- social security, Medicare, and defense -- are the ones with the widest, best organized lobbies, and the ones for whom people who'd go after them would be most susceptible to demagoguery by their defenders. I really don't see a solution. I think the entire country is going to have to go through a California-style fiscal meltdown before anything is done to get the budget in order. Cutting spending is politically untenable, as is raising taxes, the baby boomer retirement wave is just at its beginning, so things are just going to keep getting worse until the dollar and the market for US securities collapse, and we wake up one day in late-80's Argentina with hyperinflation and a government whose finances have completely collapsed. I personally am glad that my family still has a large tract of rural land, and I still remember how to farm from my boyhood days. I think they are going to come in handy some day pretty soon. | |
| | | | | | | | | |
Re: If the facts dont fit...I could cite data demonstrating the absolute idiocy of your doom and gloom predictions but I really feel like I'd be wasting my time talking into a wall.
As for openbox, I'm sure you'd love to cut socialistic programs. That would help the rich a great deal wouldn't it? | |
| | | | | | | | | | openbox9 Premium Member join:2004-01-26 71144 |
openbox9
Premium Member
2009-Jul-15 4:03 pm
Re: If the facts dont fit...said by sonicmerlin:As for openbox, I'm sure you'd love to cut socialistic programs. That would help the rich a great deal wouldn't it? I'm not rich by any stretch, nor am I benefiting from any social programs, so it's not just the rich that benefit. While there are no doubt beneficial social programs funded by our fed government, more often than not the programs appear abused and wasteful. | |
| | | | | | | | | | huntml join:2002-01-23 Mullica Hill, NJ |
to sonicmerlin
said by sonicmerlin:I could cite data demonstrating the absolute idiocy of your doom and gloom predictions but I really feel like I'd be wasting my time talking into a wall. Given that we have had no interaction whatsoever of which I am aware, I don't believe you have a basis upon which to assess my willingness to listen to any data you might cite. Further, based on this, your first and only message to me of which I am aware, you seem to me to be a person prone to making snap judgments and forming unwarranted opinions based on insufficient data. This in turn causes me to have some doubt as to whether any data you might cite might actually demonstrate what you believe it does. But please feel free. I am always willing to learn, even from people as uncivil as you seem to be from your first message to me. | |
|
| | wentlancYou Can't Fix Dumb.. join:2003-07-30 Maineville, OH |
to IT Guy
Get corporations to pay their fair share, rather than having lots of loopholes to hide their money in! | |
| | | | TransmasterDon't Blame Me I Voted For Bill and Opus join:2001-06-20 Cheyenne, WY |
Re: If the facts dont fit...said by wentlanc:Get corporations to pay their fair share, rather than having lots of loopholes to hide their money in! How long is it going to be before people realize corporations do not pay the taxes that are levied on them they just past it on to who ever it is that consumes what ever it is they make. | |
| | | | | Rogue WolfAn Easy Draw of a Sad Few join:2003-08-12 Troy, NY |
Re: If the facts dont fit...Sadly, many people keep forgetting this. When faced with higher taxes, a corporation's executive staff will not say "Well, let's pay ourselves less to make up for it", they will say "Well, let's raise prices to make up for it" or "Well, let's cut back on service/employees/benefits to make up for it".
Let's make taxes fairer for everyone, sure, but let's also remember that corporations get their money from us. | |
| | | | | | huntml join:2002-01-23 Mullica Hill, NJ 4 edits |
huntml
Member
2009-Jul-14 6:27 pm
Re: If the facts dont fit...said by Rogue Wolf:Sadly, many people keep forgetting this. When faced with higher taxes, a corporation's executive staff will not say "Well, let's pay ourselves less to make up for it", they will say "Well, let's raise prices to make up for it" or "Well, let's cut back on service/employees/benefits to make up for it". Let's make taxes fairer for everyone, sure, but let's also remember that corporations get their money from us. I agree with you in principle, but the problem is that corporations DO NOT WANT TO PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE. It is the fiduciary responsibility of a corporation, after all, to maximize return on equity, and this necessarily involves attempting to minimize tax liabilities. Taxes are only applied to *profits*, after all, which makes them a direct hit on return to shareholders. The Obama administration put forward a series of proposals intended to eliminate corporations' abilities to dodge taxes by shuffling their profits to offshore corporations. You know, the whole 'three thousand US corporate subsidiaries all headquartered in the same Cayman Islands office building' issue. It has been uniformly lobbied against the by most if not all of the corporate and CoC lobbying groups (even the ones that are more pro-Democrat and try to develop reputations for good corporate citizenship like the Business Software Alliance), and attacked by pro-business (mostly, but not all, Republican) legislators, and is having a hard time moving forward. | |
|
| | | openbox9 Premium Member join:2004-01-26 71144 |
to wentlanc
Corporate tax rates are higher than individual tax rates | |
| | | | | •••••••••••••••••
| WiseOldBearLaissez les bons temps rouler! Premium Member join:2001-11-25 Litchfield Park, AZ 1 edit |
Life is GoodLa vita va bene | |
| powerhogStinkin' up the joint Premium Member join:2000-12-14 Owasso, OK |
powerhog
Premium Member
2009-Jul-14 2:15 pm
what data?The article states that the FCC has employed the Berkman Center to "review the data". One could assume that means they will VERIFY the data, but it's just as likely that they'll take the existing data and simply use it to develop a broadband plan.
We've had plenty of "data-driven" plans. The problem is that the data has always been flawed. We'll have to wait to see if this time is any different. | |
| |
Well then...Well then, I think I can now quote an Aerosmith song...
"Dream On. Dream On. Dream On. Dream until your dreams come true". | |
| fatnesssubtle
join:2000-11-17 fishing |
from the articlequote: Levin has an ambitious timetable for the plan, including holding over 20 workshops in August and early September. The first "milestone" for that workshop comes up July 16, when the FCC plans to post the names of the coordinators for those workshops, which include business, healthcare, e-government, job training, energy, public safety and more.
| |
| |
Verify Data vs. verify data collection?I don't think the point is to do an independent mapping to verify industry generated data, but rather to give an independent assessment of the data collection and mapping techniques used by the industry mapping. I sincerely hope that's what this is. We need some independent, consumer-focused (non-astroturfing) organization to hold the industry's feet to the fire, and make sure they don't just give us a map that's a big pink blob covering a county labeled "broadband access" | |
|
| |
|
|