Will the FCC make broadband free?

I don't know what the vote will be, but I feel a "hell yeah" is in order.

Hell Yeah!

because the internet is such a great tool for education and communication a lot of cities have built free wifi networks that span their entire city. wi-fi isn't actually a good way to do it but it is becoming cheaper and more effective to provide broadband internet speeds wirelessly and it has been going this way for awhile... this would speed it up a lot however! It would also save me a lot if it became available in my area (I'm going to have to pay 60 bucks a month for wireless broadband next year at school) so i hope this happens soon.... I'm also looking forward to see if they allow google to use the tv white space to broadcast internet, I've heard they could do 200 gigabits a second with that :D

mork: I like the reference to Comcast and Cox "victims", an accurate description.

I'm all for the public internet access suggested here but there are some big problems with making it work. Since the companies bidding on the airwaves will have to buy a lot of hardware to support access and speed they will give it short shrift even if they factor it into their bid. They will use minimal hardware, they'll pay little concern to quality, they won't upgrade it, and they'll probably bury it in online advertising to generate revenue. Even if the commission spells out the minimum requirements the company will get by with the least possible effort and will force the commission to ride shotgun on them forever. Any minimum requirements will be hopelessly outdated within 6 months and they will fight tooth and nail every time a new upgrade mandate comes along. Their "premium" customers will get whatever 'good stuff' they have to offer and the non-paying users will have to fight over protracted periods of time just to get crap. The cause is good, the method will amount to zero.

@ markov

I feel the access to media and information is currently undergoing a metamorphisis.
Free is becoming a business plan worth considering.
I recently read a newspaper article by a gentleman who has written a book on this subject. I just tried to find the article on-line, unfortunately with no success.
The gist of the idea is that a company can profit by having a paid service that only a very small percentage of users utilize and also use the masses to promote their product or service. Hotmail and Google come to mind as examples. This business model as a mainstream idea is definitely in its infancy but there are other examples of it popping up. Radiohead, NIN and more recently metallica are applying these ideas in varying degrees to promote and sell their music.

My hope is that the purchaser of this spectrum of bandwidth uses the free aspect of it to their advantage.
Imagine how popular Yahoo would become if we could all log onto their homepage virtually anywhere in an urban environment just by registering an account. Even if the speed was painfully slow or the site loaded with advertising it would be the talk of the town. Some users would inevitably be willing to pay for a higher quality service and this may lead them to consider competitors but they may lean towards choosing the Yahoo if everybody was using it.

I almost forgot hubdub.
Another Great Free Service.

yeah free can be very profitable with some creative use, and I think it would work pretty well.

Came across this article a bit earlier this morning.

FCC chief's free broadband plan delayed

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FREE_BROADBAND?SITE=AZTUS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

As the creator of this Q I regret not making an allowance for postponement in the settlement details.
The FCC will not be deciding to proceed with this proposal on June 12, so I propose this settles as 'No'.

disclosure: I wagered on Yes only.

"We won't know whether the FCC will proceed with the idea (the commissioners vote on June 12),"

@mork It was a part of your history of this question that the FCC might not proceed on June 12th, in fact I thought that this was the whole question. If they do not proceed, it should settle as NO, just as you have suggested.

I wish the admins can allow this question to be extended , but I am afraid there will be objection due to my specific mentioning of june 12 in the 'settlement details'.

The question specifies June 12th for settlement, as the author himself notes in these comments. Extending or voiding this question would not be fair, as the intended date is clearly stated.