It is pretty obvious that eventually companies like planetLabs are going to drive down the cost of Satellites to the point where they are deployed at such capacity that internet is ubiquitous. The "too cheap to meter" of Eisenhower IS coming to internet, however, in the interim we will have a battle.
I think the smartest way to outflank the ISPs is to focus on paying hardware hackers and developers to create a hardware solution so that we can create city wide subnets. Then these can either buy bandwith from Cogent-esqu companies or ISPs. This will greatly increase our collective bargaining power.
I see this functioning like roman city states or like the judicial, legislative and executive branches of government. Distributing power across a broad enough playingfeild to allow things to get done (not really true in American Gov't anymore) while limiting any individuals power.
IDK just a concept I have been working on.
As far as a quick layman's glance has shown, the problem is specific to the 'last mile' bit of data connection, which is run by Comcast, Verizon, etc...
The backbone pipelines are run by companies like Level3 and Cogent, which are not of concern for this debate.
'Last mile' wires tend to be one company per city, so we're stuck trying to prevent relatively small-scale monopolies from extracting rents via regulation. The better solution is competition.
Enter Google Fiber, spurring competition: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/04/21/4973046/att-may-bring-g...
I've heard a little chatter about the subnet idea, but it'd be tricky to do 'underground' with regards to city regulation and trickier to get approval for.
That said, right now, we're in an awareness building phase, so I can support this crowdtilt (rhetorically, I am a starving founder after all!). Think pre-American Censorship Day on SOPA, not the run-up to the blackout.
But I recommend everyone write strong, well-reasoned comments here: http://www.fcc.gov/page/fcc-establishes-new-inbox-open-inter...
I'm (PolitiHacks) coordinating with Engine and Free Press to serve as a focal point for converting founder anger here into effective political metrics. Would there be interest in calling in or G+ Hangout for 15-30 minutes early next week with one of the activists to lay out the political strategy for the leading up to May 15?
Congress is elected by you and me, and in sufficient numbers we can affect what they do. The FCC is not elected by us, and they really have no responsibility to us. I think they are already aware that this would be bad for consumers, but they clearly don't care unless some other power pressures them otherwise.
The Electronic Comment Filing System, or ECFS, "serves as the repository for official records in the FCC's docketed proceedings and rulemakings". The ECFS docket for this (14-28, "Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet") has about 500 filings in the last 30 days, and about 15,000 since the FCC announced it on February 19th:
https://www.fcc.gov/document/new-docket-established-address-...
http://www.reddit.com/r/dogecoin/comments/24cqlo/lets_fund_a...
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