Redstate

While I can see advantages to broadband with wider availability, where would that take us? The next step I picture would be argument like: "It's unfair that everyone's tax dollars were used to create this network that only people who can afford a computer can take advantage of, so out of fairness we need to provide every household (heck maybe every person) with a free computer."

We built all them roads & stuff without buying everyone a car.

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The CIA has better politicians than it has spies - Fred Thompson

I'm glad you have other plans too. Nobody here is contributing to his reelection, but some of us believe in giving credit where credit is due. Sen. Durbin is taking a risk by visiting a site like this to engage in a discussion about a matter of national policy. Nobody would have batted an eye if Durbin reacted the way that most politicians on either side of the aisle would have reacted by reflexively turning down the chance to have a policy discussion on a site run by and for the other party's base. Instead, he's not only posting on the site but will also be taking questions. Don't ruin the chance for future dialogue for the rest of us by acting like a jerk when a Democrat politician shows some interest in what we have to say.

www.republicansenate.org

that's pretty comical.

I'm sure it will be a very positive evening.....I look forward to learning more from the big risk being taken.

" in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."
Abe Lincoln

treat him with some dignity

Now that's gonna be tough. I better just lurk or else hack off my fingers if I start to say anything about anything at all except broadband. Think: broadband, broadband, broadband.

I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful 100 percent.

My only hope would be with helping build some sort of infrastructure on a massive scale which private companies might not be able to afford to do (especially with the way banks are stopping loans lately).

You are correct, though, in that it is something we may want to watch - elsewhile we might see some sort of fairness doctrine being applied to the internet.

It becomes a foothold then a stranglehold.

No matter the intentions, that which they touch is sooner than later regulated and taxed. They will determine "problems," and they will act to "solve" them.

Congress has no Constitutional power to do any of this.

These people can't help it.

I agree with you.

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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.

Try reading up about ARPANET sometime.

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(Formerly known as bee) / Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community

They'll just subsidize those who are willing to build rural infrastructure. That's the same thing we did with rural electrification and the rural water project (basically city water for rural people).
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

the REA.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.

"do we need a national broadband strategy? It seems like our technology sector does relatively well on it's own."

"relatively well" is how my wood-fired microwave oven did. But I'm glad I traded up.

Broadband speeds commerce. And it moves faster than complacency, which in the world economy, is never a good strategy.

Broadband penetration in the US is currently over 80%. I am curious how a national strategy will improve that growth rate? Let's exclude subsidies and wasteful government oversight.

"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"
Contributor to The Minority Report

Marcus, you've already got some good questions for Senator Durbin. I'll be eager to hear his answers.
I'm curious to about the 'over 80% statistic. Where can I read more about that?

Unfortunately, we pay to get that statistic and breakdown. However, if you read Pew and Ipsos, you should be able to get some "free" statistics.

Don't forget to include numbers such as wireless, where the US leads the world.

"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"
Contributor to The Minority Report

About 80% would cover those in urban and suburban areas. The 20% are in areas that will probably never be served without some kind of government subsidy to build out the infrastructure. I imagine that will be the point of the legislation. Even plain ole analog cable TV service (and how long has that been around?) never got built in rural areas. The only reason electric and telephone did was because of government subsidies.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

Your 80% number is probably misleading, as it requires a definition of how broadband penetration is defined. Here you see that the number is at 47% of adults have broadband access in the home, and that the US does not do well in broadband adoption compared to other developed countries.

As for the wireless market, the US is the largest national market by dollar terms, but I believe is already overtaken by China in numbers, and is certainly at a lesser state of advancement than the Japanese wireless market. None of that is shocking due to the population and population density factors, but what you are claiming is just not true.

If you have numbers that you can share that would be great, but numbers that can't be seen are useless since they come without context and definition.

-jb

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/

"Let's exclude subsidies and wasteful government oversight."

What, Congress is all going to die?

Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.

I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful 100 percent.

we're satisfied with being 25th in broadband penetration worldwide (and falling).

The 80% penetration figure cited below is for "active Internet users," not for the population as a whole. That figure is a pathetic 53%.

In addition, the quality (speed) of our broadband is inferior to that in many other countries and costs more.

Yep, we're on track for a (third) world class system. American ISPs have failed miserably in living up to their promises.

See http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/

The United States has BY FAR the best network infrastructure in the world. A T1 in the US is about a 1/3 the cost of an E1 in the Western Europe and that is assuming best case for the European cities.

The problem is that we lag behind other countries in last mile service to homes. And the reason is because the United States is a very big place with some very sparsely populated areas.

As FIOS becomes more widely deployed those statistics will changed dramatically.

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why ... I dream of things that never were and ask why not. - Robert Kennedy

My understanding is that it requires fiber all the way to the house. That's even worse than existing broadband solutions which transport over copper. At least with existing DSL technologies, a telco can run a fiber line to a neighborhood junction and run copper from there (the 14K foot limit to DSL only applies from the end of the fiber drop). The infrastructure buildout for FIOS will be huge if every house needs a new install. With DSL or cable, there is usually no need to monkey with wiring from the junction box into the home/business.

Fiber isn't notably more expensive to run than copper. A little bit more but not much. The big costs in deploying fiber are access rights to get to the houses from the main fiber drops.

Verizon is currently rolling FIOS out to new neighborhoods. But once they get some decent penetration and real revenues they will roll it out to established neighborhoods.

FIOS installations will be amortized over 20-30 years which only a Verizon or an AT&T can do. So while they are expensive they can spread the costs over a very long period of time.

Not only that but Verizon will now be able to offer broadbands speeds beyond what PCs can handle PLUS provide TV service that will make the cable companies drool with envy.

They will also be able to add countless other services such as real-time movie downloads or live concert hookups in HD or video telephony to other FIOS users.

Fiber to the home will revolutionize consumer broadand.

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why ... I dream of things that never were and ask why not. - Robert Kennedy

My point is that it just exacerbates the availability problem. Having to do house-by-house installs is painfully slower than simply upgrading a neighborhood junction box and transmitting signal across existing copper.

I suspect that at least part of the reason that Durbin is even talking about this stuff is the lack of broadband penetration outside medium to large cities. And FIOS simply does not fix that issue.

does it say anything about a national broadband strategy? Exactly why do we need a federal national broadband strategy devised by the CongressCritters inside the Beltway?

The current penetration of broadband is not the result of a bunch of techno-weenies in DC, its the result of private businesses pursuing profit. When and if it becomes profitable to bring 6MB broadband to every house and hovel from sea to shining sea then they will do so.

John
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Why would God invent something like whiskey? To keep the Irish from ruling the world of course

does it say anything about NASA, or medical research, or....

I guess when it's profitable to go to the moon, some private business will...wait, we already went to the moon.

Fortunately, there were a few side benefits:
http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html

Rigid ideology can be a very snug straitjacket.

of the space program, it was clearly impossible for a private initiative to go to the moon and do many of the other things done by NASA. There is little business call for a space telescope so the public provides it. Besides, it waa a matter of national "image" to beat the Russians. Thanks to improvements in technology, some of which are a result of NASA, private ventures are moving into that arena.

On the otherhand, there is no shortage of private initiative, demand and capital in communications. Broadband expands as the technology inproves and as capital becomes available and demand allows for a profit. Germany may have twice our broadband penetration but it is worth remembering that Germany fits neatly inside Colorado.

What the feds mean by national strategy is taxpayer funded deployment, even if it makes no sense from a technical or business standpoint.

John
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Why would God invent something like whiskey? To keep the Irish from ruling the world of course

Building the infrastructure is never going to make any business sense. It's just too costly. So, the question is, do we want a universal infrastructure for broadband like we have for roads, electricity, and telephone? If the answer is yes, it will have to be subsidized. If the answer is no, we need to realize that some areas will never have any decent broadband options, even 20 or 30 years from now.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

To say that building the infrastructure is never going to make business sense itself makes no sense. 10-15 years or so ago there was no such thing as DSL. If you wanted high speed access you got a T-1 or better and paid several thousand a month for it. Then some genius figured out a way to use a "dry pair" for very high speed data up to 18,000 feet from the Central Office. DSL is now available piggybacked on your voice line (if it meets the technical requirements) or as a dedicated line.

In addition to a dedicated loop DSL I have two voice lines at my home, one of which has DSL the other can't because of the loop configurations. The shared DSL/voice line has DSL at 6MBs while the dedicated DSL will not run over 2MBs. A friend of mine in California moved into a new development and has Verizon FIOS --- he gets 15MN DSL for $30.00/month.

In the intervening years the demand for high speed access, and the competititon to provide it, combined with ever improving technology, has driven the price of DSL down continued to come down as has the cost of T's --- a T-1 can now be had for under $400/month and better during a promotion.

There are places where wired broadband is just not going to be economical with today's technology but the key is "today's technology." If the demand is there is rural areas someone will eventually find a way to provide it. Some electrical providers are even evaluating methods of providing high speed data over long-span power lines.

The free market remains the best solver of these kinds of problems.

John
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Why would God invent something like whiskey? To keep the Irish from ruling the world of course

Is going to remove the infrastructure requirements. That infrastructure still has to be built.

We still need electrical lines, polls, and transformers to get power to rural areas. Technology hasn't changed that fact in 100 years.

We still need some kind of decent lines to get broadband to rural areas. Whatever they are (fiber, copper), they'll need to be buried in the ground, and that ain't gonna be cheap today or 20 years from now. The economics will never be right to pay for that... just as if rural electrification never happened, vast chunks of the US would still not be electrified. And if we depended on private industry to build roads paid for by user fees, certain areas would be very well served, while others would be completely without access.

It's not a technology problem, it's a construction problem. That problem will always be there. As technology improves rural options over jury rigged infrastructure, it will also improve performance over urban purpose-built dedicated infrastructure. The massive gap in performance will still be there.

The free market is the most efficient way to allocate capital, which 99 times out of 100 is a good thing, but there's always that 1 time out of 100 where we don't want the most efficient allocation of capitol. That's when government has to get involved. I'm not sure if this is one of those 1 out of 100 times, but if it is, government will have to be involved for it to get done.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of broadband to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

That's good enough for me.

Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.

What we could use is something akin to the Rural Electrification Act, except for broadband instead.

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(Formerly known as bee) / Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community

is a great question, and one that should be presented to Durbin. We don't have to agree with him. We should just be prepared to have a civil discussion with him. I seriously doubt that he expects to get 100% buy-in to what he's proposing, and I doubt he would even with the left.

Seems like people are debating here the merits of his idea - some are for it and some are nervous. Isn't that exactly what you'd want?

And anyway, is THIS the thread you're talking about? You said someone from the Durbin camp was going to post here, so that would be in a separate post right?

I seem to have a vague recollection of reading something in Godel Escher Bach (perhaps it was from Lewis Carroll) about a discussion related to "The name of the song is called..." where it went on about what the actual name is vs what that name is called. (Maybe you have to be a math nerd like me to see the humor in that.)

But, what I have seen in the past is three things, two of which should be avoided:

1.) People come in and debate the merits of the issue in a reasoned way.

2.) Trolls come in here and crap on the rug, leaving the moderators to pick it up.

3.) Honest RSer's get so bent out of shape over something that they sometimes lose their cool.

All I'm wanting is to see that everyone keeps their head about them so that we can build on this success and make Redstate even stronger than what it is today. If I said something that led you to believe I was questioning THIS thread or debate in general, I apologize.

Vos can't ledo astrum si vos intentio pro clouds

Formerly known as ShowMeConservatism. For more common sense conservatism, visit the Show Me Conservatism blog.

I don't have a linky poo because I read it in the old fashioned paper, but on July 24, 2007, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed entitled Broadband Baloney that absolutely destroyed that study.

I'll only mention one thing cause this is a reply, not an article.

The OECD conclusions really unravel when we look at wireless services, especially Wi-Fi. One-third of the world's Wi-Fi hot spots are in the U.S., But Wi-Fi is not included in the OECD study unless it is used in a so-called "fixed wireless" setting. I can't recall ever seeing any fixed wireless users cemented into a coffee shop, airport, or college campus. Most American Wi-Fi users do so with personal portable devices...snip

In short, the OECD data does not include all of the ways Americans can make high-speed connections to the Internet, therefore omitting millions of American broadband users.

In my book, when I see a hole like that in any study, the whole crummy thing goes in the circular file. YMMV.

I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful 100 percent.

use Wi-Fi hotspots as their primary broadband access?

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why ... I dream of things that never were and ask why not. - Robert Kennedy

I'd say just about zero.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

How many people use public hotspots because they can't afford their own?

I'll certainly grant that it is greater than zero but it isn't a large number.

I use those hotspots all the time but I am probably one of the most wired people around. I have about 5 different means to access the Internet.

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why ... I dream of things that never were and ask why not. - Robert Kennedy

I believe we are talking about availability, not affordability. There are certainly many people use wifi (and not necessarily public ones, either) because they don't want to pay for their own broadband. But I'd say the number that use wifi because they can't get their own broadband would be about zero.

Either way, I think we are in agreement that the study can't be faulted for not including the wifi hotspot at a NYC Starbucks (when broadband is available to anyone who wants it in that area). If you don't have broadband in an area, you don't have any wifi hotspots to use, either.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

WiFi just extends existing high bandwidth capabilities.

I'm a little torn on the issue. On the one hand I believe that the Internet will become like our roadways. There might some nominal fee for it but it will be near free in the future. So I can why it might be sensible to start building for it now.

On the other hand I really don't see this as being that big a deal.

I am far more concerned with the fact that we are spiraling towards a duopoly for Internet service.

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why ... I dream of things that never were and ask why not. - Robert Kennedy

As much as I am not a fan of government subsidies, this is a case where the infrastructure will simply not be built in a lot of areas if the government doesn't make it happen. If the infrastructure were there, though, they could certainly get companies to offer service over it. I'd have to say I'm glad we didn't take the libertarian hands-off approach when it came to electricity, telephone, and roads. Broadband could probably fit into that list.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

Where's kowalski when I need him? I'm getting in way over my head.

This article was focused on wifi hot spots, but they are not one and the same with wifi. The way I understand it, hot spots are those people who provide wifi for free, using their internet connection (and sometimes accidentally - for failure to secure reasons - people you don't want to have your credit card information). Like Starbucks.

But wifi is available and boostable into areas not currently serviced by other means, which makes it possible for rural areas, though we would have to pay an access fee, just like city folks.

And the biggest problem to me is the unknown. Like how much innovation is currently in the pike that regulations will shut down? That number is unknown as well, but it might not be negligible. We have accomplished an awful lot so far without a whole lot of gov't interference, with the obvious exception of the military birthing the blessed thing.

I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful 100 percent.

It works great for covering the inside of a starbucks and part of the parking lot. Not so much for covering somebody who is 5,10, or 20 miles from the nearest town. In large installations like office buildings, airports, and hotels, they use lots and lots of those access points to get total coverage. They have to, because of the very limited range.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

is used to describe the short-range wireless that uses the 802.11 protocol families (.b, .g, .n). WiFi generally travels over a distance of around 50-100 ft, although more sophisticated antenna technologies can extend that considerably (although most normal users don't use Yagi antennae). WiFi "hotspots" are simply 802.11b-equipped access points that connect to the Internet via a publicly-available WiFi AP. Some are free (e.g. Panera), and others require a payment or subscription (T-Mobile in Starbucks, etc.) As someone mentioned previously, the presence of a WiFi access point indicates that some flavor of broadband services is available in the area. This could be a T1 or similar connection, rather than the commonly-available DSL or cable modem service, although that would be a very expensive alternative to those other, cheaper technologies.

There are wireless technologies that can be used beyond the range of WiFi. For example, wireless broadband is offered by most of the mobile providers (Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, etc.). This "3G" technology can provide near-DSL speeds within most major metro areas. Outside the metro "ring", there is usually no 3G coverage. I have a broadband card from Sprint, and when I'm at major airports, I can often get speeds of up to 700kb download. It depends how close you are to the cell tower.

Also, there are other wireless technologies that can be used across a medium distance. I'm not familiar with the exact technology employed, but several friends of mine who live in central IL subscribed to a wireless service that had a line-of-sight antenna on top of a tower or grain elevator and broadcast to an antenna on top of their house, and that signal was transformed into a cable/DSL modem-style connection.

I'll bet you didn't know that, did you?

I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful 100 percent.

These 7.5 million people who use hotspots also have available broadband, by necessity, since those wifi access points have to be connected to the internet somehow to do any good. So how is this relevant?
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

I'll bet you didn't know that, did you?

p.s. see my next post further down. It was a little more serious.

I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful 100 percent.

Seriously, Wi-Fi may yet come into play in a significant way in rural areas.

You may remember (and you may not) that I am one of the poor souls afflicted with low speed. I am currently flogging away with 19.9k. That's k. As in Kilo. As in not M. You are probably about 1,000 times as fast. You may even be faster than me in other ways as well, but certainly in your connection speeds.

On the other hand, I have followed it somewhat closely as it relates to my life. We will never get DSL. The phone co. already figured out that those lines are expensive and there are other services coming down the pike that are going to be cheaper and faster, leaving them with really nice expensive wire lying there under the ground doing nothing.

There is a movement to Wi-Fi in the rural areas using cell phone towers as boosters. This was coming to my little neck of the woods about a year ago, but lawyers got in the way, as they were unable to resolve liability issues with the towers.

Apparently, they were also having trouble getting the distance they wanted as the hills are not conductive to good wi-fi usage.

Maybe it would work better in KS.

However, a local electric co-op is making a satellite service available and I am evaluating it. Two of my neighbors got it and they love it. I called on it, and they want $219.71 to install the equipment and then $58/month to provide 512 kb/sec. If I want 1 meg/sec it would cost me $78/mo.

Back to the study though, the point is that they don't know, and they didn't count them. It may not be a statistically significant number, or it might be a large number, but to fail to address it causes me to ignore the study. As I said, YMMV.

I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful 100 percent.

I am lucky enough to have wireless access in my area, but it it's not a WiFi hotspot. It's some fixed microwave setup. You need a metal dish with clear line of sight to the tower (which is on a grain elevator in this case). It's not that fast, only about 512kps, but it is always on and does not require a phone line. The range is only a few miles.

Satellite is a non-option as far as I'm concerned. Not only is it slow, the latency is horrible. It just takes far too long to go out and bounce off a satellite (twice). I don't see that ever improving, thanks to the physics involved. That makes it unacceptable for a lot of uses that require low latencies. I'd take dial up over satellite, unless all I did was download big files and never wanted to use a VPN or anything.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

Once Verizon gets their FIOS really rolled out. They are going to absolutely crush everyone else when it comes to home broadband. They will be able to deliver gigabits of bandwidth.

AT&T is certain to get its act together in this regard soon as well.

Once that happens the rural users will be left in the dust as even the most optimistic over-the-air technologies can't touch fiber.

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why ... I dream of things that never were and ask why not. - Robert Kennedy

The guys who built those wireless access nodes did so during the dot com boom and then promptly went bankrupt after the bubble burst and they couldn't raise any more funds. My current ISP bought their parts of that infrastructure out of the liquidation. So I don't see this infrastructure being replicated all over the country.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

I wanted wifi, but will gladly settle for satellite. Dial up is really just too slow. Unless you have DSL, which is not so bad, I guess.

And I guess I'm OK with the VPN problem, as I don't know what that is. :)

I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful 100 percent.

A VPN is how you connect to a private network (say, your office) over a public connection (broadband internet connection). That is a requirement for me. If we are going to get a foot and a half of snow, I work from home instead of spending 6 hours trying to get to work and back. VPNs are a great thing.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

and is the primary reason I live in "town" rather than out on a farm like I'd prefer to. I don't work in an office - I either work at home or I travel to customers. And when I work at home, I need very fast access and VPN. Satellite is a non-player for VPN, as you pointed out. The lack of broadband penetration effectively shuts out rural areas from growing in the "new technology" universe. If I wanted to do something like open a business office in a far-flung little town, I couldn't do it because of the lack of network infrastructure.

The parallel with REA is a good one. Telephony carriers aren't going to make big bucks providing broadband to towns with 500 people. So something else has to be done to bring the technology benefits to these areas.

What about Wimax? I thought that has a range of several miles.

Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you. Washington Elected Elite

that has yet to be deployed to any great degree. It still appears to be in its infancy. I just did some research on it a few weeks ago, and it appears to still be a mishmash of competing standards, none of which has emerged as the standard. But conceptually, it would fix the "last mile" problem in areas that have coverage - and that's always the catch. Even with 3G wireless, coverage is restricted to metro areas, and I see no reason for WiMax to be any different in the foreseeable future.

It all comes down to business investment - how much does it cost me to install a tower and the accompanying infrastructure, versus the return in additional subscriptions and revenues that tower would bring? In metro areas, that equation is easy to close. But it's not so easy in rural areas. Should the fact that a particular area won't be profitable exclude that area completely from coverage? Again - that's one reason why the whole Durbin thing is under consideration.

Wikipedia has a pretty good WiMax overview:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiMAX

Wi-Fi as a last mile provider is very difficult to implement. The technologies involved aren't really designed to handle distances beyond a couple hundred meters.

However, 3G/4G wireless service could be the way to go. Currently that is still a nascent technology in the States.

Back to the study though, the point is that they don't know, and they didn't count them. It may not be a statistically significant number, or it might be a large number, but to fail to address it causes me to ignore the study. As I said, YMMV.

The study did address it. They said they counted fixed wireless users. And we DO KNOW that it isn't a large number because wireless access still requires broadband access in the area. Wi-Fi isn't realistically capable of providing last mile access to remote areas. As such there is no reason to include it when analyzing broadband availability.

San Francisco deployed a city wide Wi-Fi solution but it is so slow as to be mostly useless.

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why ... I dream of things that never were and ask why not. - Robert Kennedy

Yes, I'll take 4G please.

No, I don't need it. But I'm sure I'd like it.

The way I understood it, the study was measuring people who had subscribed to broadband. I think that a larger portion of college kids than you think (and I know my brother-in-law who travels on business) uses hot spots for their internet access. You may have 5 ways of getting on, but you're a rich lawyer. If you were a college kid and your parents bought you a laptop and your school provided free access, I'll bet money you wouldn't buy it on your own.

And unless I'm mistaken, those people weren't counted as "connected".

The study did address it. They said they counted fixed wireless users. And we DO KNOW that it isn't a large number because wireless access still requires broadband access in the area. Wi-Fi isn't realistically capable of providing last mile access to remote areas. As such there is no reason to include it when analyzing broadband availability.

They did count those who were using wifi now in rural areas, and no, I don't guess it's a very large number. But my original point was that they didn't count college kids using hot spots as connected to broadband, and they absolutely are and I'm willing to bet that the number is large.

I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful 100 percent.

This is a good debate. Do we want to be "tricked" like Madeline Halfbright was or like Charlie Brown getting the football pulled away, by taking the high road? Or do we slash and burn and declare WOL. There are good arguments on both sides.

History shows Dems snuggle up when they want something but look out from behind once they get what they want.

Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you. Washington Elected Elite

Let's just turn Redstate into the right-wing version of DKos. That would be just lovely. GMAFB.

One of the things that differentiates RSers from the KosKidz is the civility that is generally afforded here. As long as one sticks to the subject at hand and provides a well-reasoned argument that can be supported by fact, then they are welcome.

To invite Durbin here and then blindside him with a bunch of crap unrelated to the issue at hand would be wrong. The guy is a senator. I don't care what you think of his politics, he deserves some respect and courtesy.

I can see the blog-headlines now: "Snotty smarta** kids turn away Durbin at Redstate". "Durbin Ambushed by Conservative Wingnuts" ... etc.

Just because the KosKidz act like dipwads doesn't mean we have to also. Grow up, pal.

you are right on with the fact that RS is special because of the civility shown here. Because of that fact, there should be no reason why he couldn't answer other questions outside of Broadband...he'll be respected, right?

So let's get this straight...he never would have engaged RS had Bluey not pushed the issue...and now we embrace a guy that has said stuff in public that had he blogged at RS, would have sent hime to the pile in record time...all because of legislation that might be good?.....

" in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."
Abe Lincoln

Comparing a United States Senator to some anonymous blog poster?

I think it is a pretty reasonable thing for him to do. Having a bunch of anonymous posters blind side him with questions that are likely to be very skewed would be a great disservice to RedState and blogging in general.

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why ... I dream of things that never were and ask why not. - Robert Kennedy

crap that man has said was mean, hateful, untrue, and damaging to others. And this site prides itself of not tolerating that.....and it's bizarre that for the sake of a piece of proposed legislation, he is going to get VIP treatment....

I never realized that the Broadband issue is such a pressing concern....man, I hope Ward Churchill doesn't get behind this ...Not sure if I could be civil to him.

" in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."
Abe Lincoln

has nothing to do with this legislation. It has to do with respecting a United States Senator.

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why ... I dream of things that never were and ask why not. - Robert Kennedy

when I'm walking to the beach, and see a piece of crap on the ground, I don't wonder if it came from a poodle, a basset, or Franz the Prince...I know its crap and I avoid it.

Senator, Congressman, blog moderator, whatever....respect is earned...

I'm tired of this stuff...RD will not doubt be treated well here...and for RS that is a good thing. How about asking him back to field a broader range of questions?

" in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."
Abe Lincoln

And your first paragraph is exactly why he would never field a broader range of questions. Instead of being asked questions about current bills being proposed or his support for the White House's foreign policy he would get questions like "Senator Durbin, why do you think that American soldiers are no different than Nazis".

Believe it or not it is RedState that needs to earn respect in this regard, not a sitting United States Senator. RS needs to show that it can be mature.

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why ... I dream of things that never were and ask why not. - Robert Kennedy

rules are rules. But how the heck is making someone accountable for their actions and words immature?

I sure as heck won't in this instance push it, out of respect for RS...are you saying under no circumstances I should be allowed to ask tough questions?...

" in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."
Abe Lincoln

given the right environment.

But also remember that a lot of the tough questions bandied about here are based on snippets of information.

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why ... I dream of things that never were and ask why not. - Robert Kennedy

If you really want these guys to engage in meaningful conversation, you shouldn't expect to get the whole enchilada at once. Just bite off this one, innocuous topic right now and show the guy that we're not just a bunch of right-wing Kos-like idiots. Have a decent, civil conversation about the matter at hand without threadjacking it six ways to Sunday, and maybe the guy (or his Dem peers) might be willing to come back and try something a little more daunting.

Is it too much to ask to have a civil, non-confrontational interaction with a U.S. Senator? He doesn't owe us anything by coming here. The least we can do is be hospitable.

The world must be coming to an end...

;-)

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why ... I dream of things that never were and ask why not. - Robert Kennedy

Flyer isn't all bad....most of the time.. :P

" in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."
Abe Lincoln