Apart from the technological disaster that would ensue that would seriously damage our competitiveness in the world of the future (which our adminstration is already rushing to move us the third world status), nationalizing the internet into a public utility would also put the government in a China-like position to control access, censor websites, monitor content, identify dissidents and shut down communications, control contact with the rest of th world.

Nationalizing the internet, of course, woudl be a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for imposing and administering a totalitarian state.

Has she looked at the US Postal Service lately, that famous “quasi-government” organization? If we absolutely, positively want the internet DESTROYED beyond all capacity for common usage, let’s make it a public utility and let the government run it!

She needs to get out in the fresh air and sunshine more.

“DARPA may have created the Internet, but let’s remember that the Internet was able to thrive, grow and prosper thanks to more innovations in the private sector than one can shake a stick at.”

Yes, the fact that Kohler and American Standard make innovative toilets is clear proof that we should privatize the sewer systems.

nationalize it, control it, and as a bonus make it worse, more inefficient, cumbersome and expensive.
The dominate and destroy gene in all collectivist mobsters and usually the above is just for starters.
But little liberals everywhere love it, “trod on us, abuse us please”.

The original ARPANET, consisting of four linked university computers, came online in 1969. For those of you with a public-school history education, that was the same year that NASA put a man on the moon.

Since that time, the government has been largely hands-off on the evolution of ARPANET into the internet, while it’s maintained a virtual monopoly on space operations.

So what do we have to show for forty years of these different approaches to technology development? Well, the internet now has and estimated more than 600 million computers and is, as this whole discussion shows, it’s become a part of everyday life. Today, NASA’s finally admitting that the Shuttle’s been an unmitigated disaster, and they’re in the process of planning to get back to the moon in another ten years or so.

No, I don’t think that letting the Obama administration take over the internet would be a good idea. But then again, I don’t think it would be a good idea to have the government take over the banks, car makers, insurance industry, financial capital, health care, energy…

Well, you get the idea.

I live in a country where the government is controlling every aspect of what I see? MSNBC, CNN, NYT, Wash. Compost and now the Internet? Not only do they want to screw us over, they want to control the media so that when we start to complain about being screwed over we’re told what they want us to hear instead of the truth.

We have free city wide internet access. We also pay for a private service (AT&T) in our home. Sometimes AT&T is slow or malfunctioning and I switch over to the free service. This is very convenient. If I sit in my yard or in the park, I also use the free service. The free service is paid for by advertising not by taxes or private payments.
If this is the future of internet access, I think Americans are very lucky.
In the same way, I use both the US postal service and Fed-Ex and UPS, It’s wonderful that we have so many options in this country. Although on the subject of the postal service, I believe that the US post must deliver mail to every address while private services do not have that requirement. I think that ensuring that every American has access to the mail is a service worth subsidizing.

Hello? Am I in China now? My govennment is going to tell me how/what to think and dole out the amount and type of information I can hear and see? The information THEY think I should know?

I keep hoping this is all a bad dream and I will wake up to an America I can recognize.

I think you’re being a wee bit hyperbolic in equating the term “public utility” with “nationalization.”

Consider the question rural electrification, which took off with the New Deal’s REA (Rural Electrification Program). The REA didn’t bother with urban areas, because the private sector had those well in hand; instead, the REA went after those areas which, for whatever reason, were left unpowered by the private sector. After establishing the infrastructure, the government turned things over to what became known, in most places, as RECCs–Rural Electric Cooperative Corporations–which are owned by their members and receive no government funding whatsoever. We secured our electric service from an RECC for most of my youth; our service was inexpensive, and we received dividend checks for more than a decade after we left the service area, thanks to efficient local management.

The same holds true for the telephone utilities. People seem to think that everyone in the US is served by some piece of the former Bell System, but there are thousands of RTCs (Rural Telephone Cooperatives) operating today. Same business model, same local ownership, same lack of government involvement after the initial startup.

While we’re at it, the general use of the “public utility” equates with “regulated by the states’ Public Utility Commissions.” All of my utilities are currently provided by the private sector, all of them operate under licenses granted by my local government, and all of them are regulated by the state Public Utility Commission. (I note, thanks to a quick Google, that firms such as Reuters and NASDAQ refer to the “public utility subsidiaries” of companies such as AEP.)

There’s no reason that the development/enhancement of Internet infrastructure cannot follow the same model as that used by the RECCs and RTCs in the past, with government sponsorship of infrastructure followed by handoff to a locally-owned corporation.

Until we see some concrete proposals, I suggest that talk of “nationalization” in this context is premature at best, and fear-mongering at worst.

…and, in fact, share some of them; I, too, think that the Administration has gone way too far with GM, and that both the Bush TARP and the Obama stimulus packages were horrible cases of excess and overkill. (Neil, I’m not a “lefty” per se, but a centrist - there are more than a few issues on which I lean to the right.)

I would suggest that, in the case of Internet infrastructure, the difference is that we have a fairly robust, viable private sector. We had the same in the days of the REA; the problem was that, for large chunks of the country, the cost-benefit analysis (or cost-profit, if you will) was not strong enough to get those private sector players out into the boonies. We see that today, even in cases such as UPS/FedEx; there are still chunks of the country that don’t get guaranteed “next-day service,” right?

It’s interesting to note that I’m a boundary case where Internet access is concerned. I have DSL, and could switch to cable modem if I so chose; if I lived one mile away, however, neither would be available to me. (I live in a small town, but within 12 minutes of a city with a population of 250,000; don’t think I live out in the proverbial sticks.) There is room to expand which the private sector isn’t willing to tackle; why not see what else can be done, especially for something as potentially gamechanging (in terms of employment) as Internet access?

My general point is simple. Let’s debate actual proposals, instead of just firing off the “NATIONALIZATION!” cannon at first blush. (By way of comparison, where’s the hue and cry about Gov. Schwarzeneggar’s statement that it’s time to study the possible legalization of marijuana?) I’m fine with study groups or feasibility studies, but I’m not going to raise the red flags until I see recommendations or proposed legislation; there’s no point in it.