An unusual skirmish over the future of the Internet is being waged this week in the velvet cloaked chambers of New York City Hall, where city council members are weighing whether vacant television airwaves should be opened to the Internet.

It’s unusual because spectrum policy of this sort is not often discussed beyond the confines of the Federal Communications Commission and meetings with experts and lobbyists inside the Beltway.

That New York’s City Council decided to take up spectrum access speaks more to the long reach of D.C. lobbyists than it does to the actual oversight of the Council.

The powerful lobbyist in question is the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB). The issue is the use of television “white spaces,” vacant frequencies between TV channels.

New technology can open this vacant frequencies to powerful high-speed Internet services — sending open and ubiquitous broadband signals over mountains and through buildings, potentially connecting tens of millions of Americans to the Web.

Scare-mongering at the NAB

White spaces may become available for use after television broadcasting goes digital in February 2009.

While almost everyone else sees its tremendous potential to serve the public good, the NAB wants to hoard this spectrum.

According to the NAB’s chicken-little lobbyists, white spaces spell the death of television as we know it.

One of them parachuted into New York on Monday to sow fear and misinformation about others using these airwaves. Television screens could go black, he told the City Council; emergency communications could get garbled. The miracle of modern communications would come to a screeching halt. Let anyone other than his employers and their corporate allies gain access to this public spectrum and the sky will fall.

For New York City in particular, the NAB and their sudden allies in the theater lobby are predicting an especially ominous future. In a time when the city has failed to recoup the tourism lost since 9/11, the lobbyists are warning that Broadway shows — a consistent income earner for the city — could be disrupted as white space devices interfere with the wireless mics worn by the actors, singers, dancers and stagehands.

When Politics Trump Innovation

As you may have guessed by now, white spaces are very political. And when NAB lobbyists muddy up the debate the political process is not pretty, and rarely productive.

But that’s their intention.

Put clearly, the issue boils down to this: The fight over white spaces pits those who have access to spectrum, and want to keep it for themselves, against those who don’t, and want spectrum to be used to serve other purposes as well.

In the middle of this fight is developing technology, which should make this spectrum useful for more than just TV, without causing interference to anyone. FCC engineers are sorting out the technical specs at the moment. And it’s only a matter of time before they see to it that the haves and the have nots will be able to enjoy this spectrum in ways that benefit us all.

The NAB doesn’t want that. Working with New York’s theater lobby, they have managed to get the City Council to draft a resolution that mangles the issue and throws up all sorts of static about opening up these airwaves to innovation.

Corporate Welfare Bums

It’s a tactic not based in the facts about white spaces, but in the history of a powerful corporate lobby that’s skilled at freezing out innovation that might threaten its near complete control of a valuable slice of airwaves.

For decades NAB members — deep pocketed commercial broadcasters — have benefited immensely from free, government-granted access to these airwaves. Now that they’re being asked to grant equal access for the Internet, they’re contriving doomsday scenarios to scare folks off and intimidate elected officials — including the good members of New York’s City Council.

The broadcast companies owe their existence to governmental largesse, including multi-billion dollar FCC licenses handed to them for free. Now they’re biting the hand that’s stuffed them to the gullet in a bid to protect their government granted fiefdoms.

Politics should not stand in the way of innovation, especially technology that could bring vast benefits to so many.

The sky isn’t falling. White spaces should be opened for everyone.

What if I told you we could use empty TV channels to connect millions of people to the Internet?

The technology exists to do just that. But a powerful corporate lobby is standing in the way with a multimillion-dollar misinformation campaign aimed at Congress and the Federal Communications Commission.

This month and next Washington will face a critical choice: Use new technology to open the Internet for everyone, or side with the lobbyists and prevent millions from getting connected.

This latest front in the battle over the future of the Internet is about “white spaces” — empty frequencies between TV channels on the public airwaves.

If you remember rabbit ears on your set, white spaces are the static between the network channels as you turned the dial.

New technology can open this unused spectrum to powerful high-speed Internet services, bringing open, ubiquitous and affordable broadband to millions of Americans now left off the grid.

Washington Smoke Screens

Here’s the problem: The National Association of Broadcasters and cell phone companies want to hoard this publicly owned resource. Their lobbyists have been blitzing Washington with misinformation to prevent white spaces from being used to benefit millions of people.

Unfortunately, many key decision makers simply lack the bandwidth to look into white spaces technology and decide for themselves. Instead they rely upon the lobbyists who come knocking with lies and spin meant to paint this technology as a danger to mankind.

But broadcasters are simply blowing smoke to protect their FCC granted broadcast fiefdoms. As a result, we’re being kept from using airwaves that could help fill one of the biggest holes in our national infrastructure.

Spanning the Divide

Too many Americans have been left on the wrong side of the digital divide — sidelined in a nation that increasingly demands high-speed Internet access to get things done, keep up in school and find out what’s happening in the world. The answer to this problem is right in front of us.

This week tens of thousands of people have signed a letter urging Congress and the FCC to skewer the industry spin and serve the public by opening white spaces to unlicensed, high speed Internet services.

Members of the Wireless Innovation Alliance (including Free Press) have declared this Wednesday “White Spaces Day.” We will bring your letters to the Hill and deliver them to your member of Congress.

Unless we urge Congress and the FCC to push back against industry and open up white spaces, Washington could side with the lobbyists and deny us one of our last, best opportunities to build a better Internet.

It’s a familiar story. Big media companies use any means possible to squash new ideas that threaten their control over information.

It’s time we changed that status quo and opened up white spaces for everyone.

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9-23 UPDATE: FCC Chairman Kevin Martin hints at the benefits of unlicensed access to White Spaces.

Sure, we don’t get the day off from work to celebrate, but that doesn’t make today any less important – it’s “OneWebDay,” and across the country and the globe people are hosting events to recognize the role the Internet plays in our society.

Fittingly, the theme of this year’s OneWebDay is online participation in democracy. The organizers of OneWebDay understand that we’re in a new age of civic involvement. “The Internet has also become the means by which citizens around the world build movements to hold their elected leaders accountable and support those who represent their interests; it is also increasingly the medium through which citizens interact with their governments,” says a OneWebDay press release.

More than 50 organizations have posted entries to an E-Democracy Time Capsule capturing hopes for the Internet’s future, profiling E-Democracy heroes, and discussing Internet policy issues.

OneWebDay is more than just taking a moment to appreciate the Internet. It highlights both how far the Internet has taken us, and how much further we still have to go.

On the third anniversary of OneWebDay, we still have a gaping digital divide with millions of Americans stuck with slow or no Internet access. The need for affordable and ubiquitous access to broadband has never been more pressing.

And at the same time that we celebrate the marvels of the Internet, we also know that it’s under threat. Big telephone and cable companies are doing all they can to destroy Net Neutrality – the principle that keeps them from discriminating against online content.

Initiatives like InternetForEveryone.org are pushing our lawmakers to create a national broadband plan that gives all Americans accessible, affordable and open Internet. And here at SavetheInternet.com, we’re continuing our work to get Washington to enshrine Net Neutrality into law.

Likening OneWebDay to Earth Day, Nathaniel James of Media and Democracy Coalition put it best in a blog post: “We are learning to protect our precious planet by consuming more carefully, treading more lightly, and asking our elected representatives to support the cause. It’s time to organize the leadership and will we need to collectively shape an Internet future that benefits all.”

David All of TechRepublican has made a compelling case for why Net Neutrality is in line with core conservative values. In a commentary at TownHall.com, he writes that while conservatives generally believe in a hands-off regulatory approach, this general rule should not apply to an Internet where “last mile” access is controlled by powerful media and telecommunications companies.

All points out that Congress’ deregulatory approach to the telecom industry has had disastrous consequences, leaving us with only a handful of companies providing Internet services. He writes:

“This monopoly/duopoly status by the big phone and cable companies has given them immense power to exercise control over the free flow of speech and commerce over their networks. Despite promises to the contrary, companies like Comcast have used their control of the broadband network to prevent certain types of applications from being usable by consumers. Other network providers have even interfered with the transmission of certain types of political speech over their networks.”

All further notes that many Internet Service Providers intend to monitor users’ e-mail for “networking management” purposes and to block or stall messages they decide will slow Internet traffic. All said that just as Americans don’t want the postal service opening and inspecting mail, ISPs should not be allowed to read and block online information. He writes:

“We should be concerned about the power of the broadband network operators to control speech and economic activity over the Internet, and be willing to support some modest, limited countervailing check on their power when it is abused.”

Last month, the FCC voted to punish Comcast for illegally discriminating against and blocking online content. While All acknowledged that it may “seem strange for a conservative to support regulatory action like this,” he said the FCC’s decision was an important step in preserving an open and free Internet. He writes:

“Now more than ever, conservatives need content neutral access to the Internet because it presents us with a way of communicating and building power without having to rely on the mainstream media and being subject to the liberal bias of the networks and national newspapers.”

Despite what some Net Neutrality opponents want us to think, everyone benefits from a neutral and non-discriminatory Internet.

America is the birthplace of the Internet, but judging by the current state of the broadband market, you’d think we’re a late bloomer. U.S. consumers face high prices, slow speeds and little to no choice among broadband providers. The Federal Communications Commission – the agency charged by Congress with the duty of facilitating a top-rate broadband marketplace — has done little to improve this situation. In fact, they’ve actually managed to make things worse.

The FCC is compounding the problem faced by U.S. consumers by submitting yet another misleading report to Congress — a report that paints a rosy picture of the U.S. broadband market.

Every few years, the FCC is required by Congress to submit a report that answers a basic question: Is high-speed Internet, or broadband, “being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion”?

This year, the FCC concluded that the answer is yes.

The FCC asked for public comment on this question before issuing its report. Traditionally, these comment periods have amounted to little more than flattery and congratulations from Internet Service Providers. The ISPs pat the FCC on the back for continuing to “deregulate” the Internet, and, in response, the FCC tells Congress that the ISPs are great and that everything is just dandy in the U.S. broadband market.

But this time, consumer groups led by Free Press decided to crash the party. Simply by pointing out the facts, it was easy to illustrate the sorry state of the U.S. broadband market. The FCC can’t say that broadband deployment is proceeding at a reasonable pace, because they’ve defined broadband in a way that ignores reality and the will of Congress.

Congress defines high-speed Internet as the “capability that enables users to originate and receive high-quality voice, data, graphics and video telecommunications using any technology.”

Note the use of the word “originate” in this definition. When Congress established this standard, it clearly wanted to see the deployment of two-way communications technologies, not one-way technologies like cable TV. The ability to originate content depends on the upload speed of a broadband connection. To simply originate a standard quality television signal, a customer would need 2 to 4 Megabits per second (Mbps) of upload speed. To actually provide Internet users with the type of high-quality video envisioned by Congress, we would need an upload speed much higher than this, perhaps closer to 40Mbps. Yet many U.S. ISPs only offer 1Mbps or less of upload speed.

Take a look at Qwest’s latest “deal.” For more than $100 per month, you will receive a connection that has a download speed of 20 Mbps, but an upload speed of less than 1Mbps. Clearly, this level of asymmetry is not what Congress had in mind.

But the fact that the U.S. broadband marketplace is plagued with connections that have upload speeds that are barely better than dial-up doesn’t seem to trouble the FCC. In June, the FCC concluded that “broadband” is, in fact, being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion. Since the agency had no defense against the facts presented by consumer groups, it simply ignored them.

The FCC’s conclusion is so wrong that it cannot be allowed to stand. In early July, Free Press and other consumer groups filed a “petition for reconsideration” arguing that the FCC broke the law because it had, among other reasons, “offered an explanation for its decision that runs counter to the evidence before the agency.” We’re asking the FCC to reverse its findings.

Last week, the FCC asked for public comment on this petition. Tell the FCC what you think about your “broadband” connection speeds. Go to the FCC site, plug “07-45” in the box marked “proceeding,” and make your voice heard.

Just 25 years old, Alex Steed considers himself an old activist – that is, compared to other “millennial activists” who range in age from 15 to their late 20s.

But what sets Steed and other millennial activists apart isn’t so much age – it’s how they participate in activism. Steed says that millennial activists are defined by a sense of “digital fluency” and leverage most of their social and political power using the Internet.

“The same way that for many people activism means a particular set of things, like picket signs or making phone calls at a phone bank, to the millennial, I think one of the top three techniques will always include the connectivity provided by the Internet,” Steed said.

Indeed, Steed himself is a self-proclaimed millennial activist, relying on the Internet for much of his social organizing. But he’s fascinated by the way people only a few years younger than he is are harnessing the Internet to create change in increasingly creative and effective ways.

And he wants to learn more. In October, he’s launching a tour of the United States called “Millennials Changing America: The Next Generation of Organizing.” He plans to visit 30 cities in two months to “listen to, record, and share [the] stories” of American youth who are socially and politically engaged online.

Among other questions, Steed wants to find out why youth are engaged. “I want to know, where is information coming from? How much information comes from Facebook? What are best practices? What works in Idaho that doesn’t work in San Francisco?”

When Steed was first becoming politically active online, he said he could talk about issues on message boards. Now, he says politics has become more participatory because of the Internet, allowing young people to connect and organize with online tools, from using social networks to blogs to posting videos.

Steed hopes his project will be able to highlight youth action that crosses the political spectrum. “I’d really like to bridge the dialogue because I think what unifies all of us is our medium, not necessarily what candidate we align ourselves with.”

And while Steed is not specifically stumping for Net Neutrality and digital inclusion along his tour, the profiles of young people he creates should further help the cause of an open, neutral, affordable and ubiquitous Internet.

“If I go across the country and profile 35 to 70 people, there’s going to be all these case studies as to why it would be dumb to restrict Internet usage.” He continued, “These stories will… show what’s possible for a kid with endless access in San Francisco versus a kid with little access in the middle of the country – or even in San Francisco in a different neighborhood.”

Despite iron-clad evidence of wrongdoing and a bipartisan majority vote at the Federal Communications Commission, Comcast is appealing the FCC’s landmark order to stop the company from blocking Internet content.

Comcast is hoping the courts will overturn the FCC’s decision. The company’s actions come as no surprise – they’ve lied and pulled last-minute stunts to try to sway the FCC’s vote in their favor; now, they’re trying to slip out of being held accountable.

The Aug. 1 order requires Comcast to stop its ongoing practice of blocking Internet traffic by the end of the year and disclose all past and future “network management” practices.

The Communications Act has long established the FCC’s legal authority to promote competition, consumer choice and diverse information across all communications platforms. In 2005, the FCC unanimously adopted an “Internet Policy Statement” explicitly guaranteeing Internet users the right to access the lawful content, applications and services of their choice.

Last fall, the Associated Press caught Comcast secretly blocking users’ legal peer-to-peer traffic, calling the company’s practice the “most drastic example yet of data discrimination.” In response, Free Press and Public Knowledge filed a complaint, triggering the first test case of the FCC’s policy statement. This order concludes the FCC’s exhaustive months-long investigation, which included two public hearings at Harvard and Stanford universities and more than 50,000 public comments.

The victory against Comcast was a milestone in the fight for an open Internet. We defied every ounce of conventional wisdom in Washington by proving that activists, bloggers, consumer advocates and everyday people could join forces through Free Press to defeat a major corporation.

But Comcast’s lawsuit clearly indicates an Internet still at risk. Without laws that codify Net Neutrality, ISPs can try to evade the FCC.

Marvin Ammori, general counsel of Free Press and author of the complaint, says, “The future of the Internet is too important to tie up in legal limbo. Congress should act now to pass Net Neutrality laws that clear up any uncertainty once and for all.”

Comcast and their lawyers are going to spend whatever it takes to overturn the FCC’s precedent-setting ruling that Internet gatekeepers have no right to block users’ access to the free and open Internet. But we’ll be fighting back, defending the FCC ruling in court.

Net Neutrality may seem like a no-brainer to you, but that doesn’t mean your neighbor is convinced. Now’s your chance to have a say and influence the Net Neutrality debate.

Opposingviews.com, which hosts online debates about the most pressing social and political issues, is asking people to weigh in on the future of the Internet by answering the question: Should the government regulate Net Neutrality?

The site frames the debate this way:

“Net neutrality is the principle that says all information flowing across the Internet should be treated equally. But with more people streaming data-rich video and playing online games, the Internet faces congestion concerns. Should carriers be able to sell multi-tiered access to heavy users? Should sites that generate massive traffic — like Google and Yahoo! — pay extra fees? The U.S. Government is examining Net Neutrality and its financial, legal and social implications. Do we need federal intervention to ensure fairness, or is this an issue for the market to work out?”

Organizations that fall on both sides of the argument have been pitted against each other in the online debate. Net Neutrality proponents – SavetheInternet.com, Open Internet Coalition and Public Knowledge – say that Net Neutrality encourages innovation and that consumers deserve protection from discrimination and outright censorship by ISPs. Groups opposing an open Internet – the Cato Institute and Hands Off the Internet – say Net Neutrality is not in danger.

What do you think? Add your voice.