Freepress-dc

Running notes from the FreePress.net Washington DC Summit, May 13, 2009

Author: Bill Densmore (densmore@mediagiraffe.org)

Today's event (http://www.freepress.net/summit) has drawn about 600 people, according to organizers, to the seventh floor of the Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue. Key sponsor is the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

The program was set up as podium-style presentations in the morning and small-group breakouts in the afternoon. Starting lineup with Alberto Ibarguen, head of the Knight Foundation, and Josh Silver, executive director of Northampton, Mass.-based Free Press.

In one talk, Free Press research director S. Derek Turner blames the Federal Communications Commission for mishandling open-access provisions in the 1990s which have resulted in America's broadband infrastructure being slower and less ubiquitous than some other developed countries. The jist of his talk is that FCC policies enshrined a telecom "duopoly," stiffling innovation, driving out small competitors and allowing AT&T, Verizon and other carriers to earn what Turner called "obscene" profits on residential landlines. "I think most of us can agree that this record of abject failure must end now," he says.

Recommendations (there were six; I'll fill in later):

• FCC should do everything it can to enshrine open-access on the Internet, and put non-communications in the Communications Act.
• The telecom Universal Service Fund should be used to fund Internet broadband buildout.