Nordstrodamus
05-27-2005, 01:52 PM
I remember a few years ago Bill Gates was in a venture to place something like 240 low earth orbit satellites around the world to deliver broadband internet everywhere for something like $10 billion dollars.
That may sound like a lot, but that only comes to something like $300 per american and less than $2 per human being. And given the potential benefits I'm going to ask the question of whether it might be wise to have the government do this and make it available for free worldwide.
Here's the pluses:
1. Free speech available around the globe.
2. Huge cost savings for the average internet subscriber.
3. Ubiquitous internet
4. Existing providers would have to improve their service (eg fiber optic)
Cons
1. A lot of internet providers go out of business.
Depending on implementation here are some other consequences (without a pro or con judgement)-
If the US alone controls it-
1. We could reserve special usage to military operations the way we do with GPS.
2. We could try to censor the net according to our laws (probably to try and stop file sharing)
3. We can ensure that china and other communist country based users will not be censored or tracked.
4. We could try to surveil the net.
If it's multinational effort-
1. It would be even cheaper
2. We might end up making concessions on it's freeness.
Thoughts?
That may sound like a lot, but that only comes to something like $300 per american and less than $2 per human being. And given the potential benefits I'm going to ask the question of whether it might be wise to have the government do this and make it available for free worldwide.
Here's the pluses:
1. Free speech available around the globe.
2. Huge cost savings for the average internet subscriber.
3. Ubiquitous internet
4. Existing providers would have to improve their service (eg fiber optic)
Cons
1. A lot of internet providers go out of business.
Depending on implementation here are some other consequences (without a pro or con judgement)-
If the US alone controls it-
1. We could reserve special usage to military operations the way we do with GPS.
2. We could try to censor the net according to our laws (probably to try and stop file sharing)
3. We can ensure that china and other communist country based users will not be censored or tracked.
4. We could try to surveil the net.
If it's multinational effort-
1. It would be even cheaper
2. We might end up making concessions on it's freeness.
Thoughts?