Free Broadband?

Lawmakers and regulators in Washington D.C. get dinged incessantly by people seeking taxpayer support for one kind of project or another, regardless of merit. The formula almost never changes: tout the benefits, hide the costs.

An incredibly clear example of this phenomenon appeared in the Federal Communications Commission’s computer system the other day after hiding somewhere inside the agency for 189 days.

In a Jan. 24 letter to FCC chairman Kevin Martin, Alaska state representative Bill Thomas had a simple request: “a free nationwide broadband Internet system.” He explained that in Alaska, the Internet was quite important. “We use it for information and research; it is our access to daily news, our communication with our families, for many it is a vital link to the world,” the one-page letter said, unremarkably.

Thomas, a Republican who is a commercial fisherman by trade, argued for universal free broadband mainly because his “constituents support” it. Like any good supplicant, he omitted just a couple things that might be relevant to his cause. Like the cost to provide free broadband to 300 million people. Or like the financial impact on cable and phone companies that expect to get paid by their broadband subscribers.

Thomas concluded by noting that some cities within his district recently voted to support federally funded free nationwide broadband. Evidently, none of those cities volunteered to pay for it.