FCC's Free Broadband Pushes Constitutionality

The FCC's (read Chairman Kevin Martin's) 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