Well, Martin needed some decent legacy to point to during his tenure as the nation’s chief communicator guy, right? Who gets credit for free national Internet will be a trivia question for academic teams, Trivial Pursuit, and high school multiple choice exams for generations to come, like which FCC guy smoothed out radio and TV, which was of course. . .yeah, I don’t know either. Bet ya he didn’t have quite the bumbling go at it Martin did though.

Anyway, back to this free Internet business. Martin’s proposal will presumably get the green light now that it’s been shown that use of specific spectrum won’t interfere with T-Mobile’s or Deutsche’s 3G networks. Nobody was using the airwaves surrounding those networks, T-Mobile and Deutsche just preferred the cushion—oh, and that nobody was getting free Internet.

If all goes well, the government will auction off the spectrum to a buyer willing to offer an ad-supported, free network—filtered for content, which we’ll get to in a minute. M2Z made a similar proposal to Martin a couple of years ago, only to be rejected after pressing the FCC to finally make a decision on it. M2Z was looking for a hand-out of spectrum in exchange for revenue-sharing from ad sales and higher-speed premium services.

Besides the “give us some spectrum, sugar” flaw in M2Z’s proposal, Martin couldn’t quite put his face on it in the waning months of his appointment and have his legacy if he signed off. Alright, so that last part’s pure conjecture, but a continued political career for Martin is not. Won’t it be nice he’ll be able to point to free Internet for everybody when he runs for office?

Free spectrum and potential interference aside as possible deal breakers—after all, those are just pure technicalities—Martin and proponents (or, if it helps in the characterization, those who smell money and lots of it) barely flinched at the requirement that the free Internet be filtered for content. They also didn’t put much stock in fundamental differences in one-way and two-way communication systems (TV is one-way, Internet is two-way). As is all too often the norm, the protect-the-children, dare-you-to-oppose approach wins over the basic fact that the government, or someone leasing airwaves from the government, will be deciding what Internet content is appropriate for you to see.

Accidental Super Bowl Pop Star nipples?

Fahgettaboutit.

Or maybe specific bloggers are declared obscene, just based on the filthy words they use. Martin foresees no problem with this.

What will be really interesting is how, after Martin slides this through, he and the FCC respond to Google and other major Internet players’ advocacy for use of white spaces—those bits of static cushion between TV signals that come available next year. Google was looking to provide a little free Internet of its own with those, probably uncensored, which will suddenly run in direct conflict with the government’s desires.   
 

Kevin Martin
FCC Chairman

Martin, who’s gearing up for a post-FCC political career, rejected a similar proposal by M2Z last year after the startup offered to build an ad-supported, content-filtered broadband network. It’s difficult to identify one reason for the rejection. M2Z got snippy with the FCC for being so slow to review their application; application subsequently (and speedily) rejected. M2Z also wanted the spectrum for free, offering the government a revenue-sharing deal.

This year, Martin pulls out his own version of universal wireless broadband, complete with the same problems M2Z faced and a couple of others. M2Z’s proposal, if approved, would have set a precedent likely to be of grave concern to Net Neutrality advocates. At its core it would be an Internet service provider actively censoring content coming across its network.

Martin would rather the government be in charge of censorship, it would seem, and the plan now before the Commission requires all content be G-rated, or in the words of the proposal, not "harmful" to a five-year-old.  "There is not a digital bucket big enough to hold all the content that would fit within this definition," quips Leslie Harris in her editorial at ABC News’s site.

Such restrictions could, in theory, even apply to news headlines with content interpreted to be harmful to children. Martin’s never really had a problem with the philosophy of government-mandated wholesomeness. Before his failed crusades against fleeting expletives and wardrobe malfunctions, both recently struck down as unconstitutional, Martin seemed bent on regulating content on cable and satellite channels in the same way as broadcast channels.

Not surprisingly, he wasn’t able to get that initiative off the ground, probably not due to protests among the citizenry and more likely due to pressures from telecom buddies (Martin was a telecom lobbyist before he was rewarded with FCC leadership), who are your next major cable TV competitors.

No worries, though. The Supreme Court should be able to keep the next administrative travesty in check as well.    
 

So far 22 public interest groups from across the political spectrum have come out against Martin’s proposal, a few of them legally filing against it and calling the plan "unwise" as well as unconsitutional. These same critics argue "a tsunami of lawsuits" is likely as a result, especially since the plan will create a government blacklist of websites.

What’s wrong with free broadband? Well, nothing, essentially, except that this free broadband, like the free lunch, doesn’t really exist. M2Z has proposed an ad-supported, "family friendly" network based upon the network television model, which sort of runs contrary to Net Neutrality principles, supported by at least a million and a half people, and opposed by incumbent broadband providers.

It runs the same risks of absurdity network TV has faced for half a century:

Who decides what’s decent?
Will advertisers decide what we see?
Will the Parents Television Council waste FCC time sparking debates over whether the term "hamsterbating" is appropriate before 9 PM?
What if Janet Jackson accidentally shows a nipple? Will it cause a Congressional hearing?

The idea behind Net Neutrality was that a democratic system stayed democratic and that no central power controlled the content.

At the same time, if the incumbents are against it, you automatically think it might be a good idea. But you’d expect them to be against free Internet, though wouldn’t you?

The broadband M2Z wants to offer the country is slow, too. About half the speed of AT&T’s apocryphal $10 DSL service – about 384K down and 128K up. Not really bad for free…except that other countries are kicking our butt in available speeds, so much that the $10 DSL might be offered for free in South Korea and nobody would care.

M2Z, which stands for "move the cost of data transport to zero," is headed up by former Clinton-era FCC Commissioner Wireless Bureau Chief John Muleta, who moved from D.C. to Silicon Valley. The company claims to have 50,000 supporters signed on to their plan, which aims to give 95 percent of the country free broadband access within the 10 years it takes to build out the network.

(Ten years is apparently the standard build-out period, as that was the amount of time given the telecommunications industry by Congress back in 1996 to build a broadband network that never arrived. And then there’s the matter of the missing $200 billion of tax-payer money that was supposed to be used to build it.)

Muleta’s company made its proposal to the FCC nearly a year and a half ago, and has yet to hear a response. He proposed that the FCC make available to M2Z a portion of unused spectrum from 2155 MHz to 2175 MHz, ideal for data but not for voice, in return for 5 percent of annual sales.

If that sounds like a bit of a bribe, well, it kind of is, and it also asks for special treatment by the FCC. Though the FCC has traditionally not had a problem with either concept in the right situation, decade-old rules (you know, the ones that required incumbents to build out the network instead of racing for long distance) require that spectrum be auctioned to the highest bidder.

Even if this particular slice of spectrum isn’t up for sale in either of the upcoming major auctions. But giving M2Z special treatment would almost certainly anger the incumbents, which the FCC is not too keen on doing.

Rightfully, though, M2Z has called for a ruling on the matter, accusing the FCC of dragging its feet. It took half the time to approve the largest merger in American history, the AT&T/BellSouth merger. Yet, a possibility for free broadband in America has sat on the shelf. M2Z has threatened to take the FCC to court if the council hasn’t ruled on the proposal by September 1st.

Which may speed up a denial chairman Kevin Martin has already promised. But it does put the FCC between an incumbent and a hard spot: How can we upset the telcos by giving special treatment to someone that wants to give America free broadband while telling America we turned down an opportunity for free broadband?

Tough one. But maybe you could say that a free, slow, and censored version of the Internet just wasn’t a good enough proposition. Or maybe you guys should ask for 10 percent, instead.