Good to see more advocates for a less restrictive market stepping up and getting more aggressive with vocalizing their concerns. That’s what the Center for Individual Freedom did in a blog post last week addressing the apparent overreach that the Federal Communications Commission has been executing for almost three years.

Sometimes I think regulators, the FCC included, forget which country we are living in. Seems to be a love affair with all things extra-national no matter what side of the aisle the trouble maker sits on. Newt Gingrich would like us to use some Chilean form of retirement accounts to satisfy the social security issue. Julius Genachowski constantly reminds us that South Korea has greater broadband deployment and speeds than we do. Let’s not forget that the Republican Party believes that President Obama wants to make a European socialist system.

The last charge is pure nonsense, of course, but Mr. Genachowski and his FCC sure tempt many to fall for that lie when his FCC focuses on everything else but how best to get spectrum into the hands of carriers that are in the best position to put that national resource to its optimal use.

It’s too early to tell what the full impact may be cities and counties from Georgia’s SB 313, the Broadband Investment Equity Act. Staff at the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia relayed their initial assessment that the bill appears to impact just one county, but a more complete review may be needed. I haven’t heard from the Georgia Municipal Association yet, so we’ll have to stay tuned.

About five years ago, states were drafting legislation to basically keep municipalities out of the delivery of cable services. Now it seems like it may be to keep municipalities from providing broadband. I can’t say whether it’s a trend with broadband, but it will be interesting to see what develops on the state and local level given the increased attention to the lack of broadband service to approximately one-third of American households.

You tell me. Do you think broadband provided by a public entity is the way to go?

The Wall Street Journal Online today published a piece about the Internet Corporation on Assigned Names and Numbers accept requests for new web domains. It seems that if I want to have a web domain ending as .altondrew or .centrism, I could apply for it, along with sending a $185,000 fee with each request.

I don’t see the benefit consumers of digital information will glean from expanding an Internet domain name or address. Branding, especially on the Internet, requires feeding the short attention span. If you want to increase broadband adoption, scaring consumers away with long domain names won’t cut it.

My mom got her first computer a few weeks ago. She sent her first e-mail a couple days ago. Yes, at 68 she is now a pedestrian in cyberspace.

I descend from a line of merchants, with my very first memory having been in my great aunt’s store in the Irishtown section of Basseterre, St. Kitts. My mother worked in that store as well. From time to time the old merchant in her will spring an idea as to how best to put her capital to work. I have no doubt that she will eventually go through the same thought process as she learns how to use her lap top.

My nine-year old son is following his ancestors’ footsteps. The word “career” flows out of his mouth easily and probably more often than most teenage and twenty-something knuckleheads I see running around these days. With a “low on minutes” cell phone to their ear and pants low on their waists, young people today appear to be carrying on the same silly, consumer centric behavior of their parents and grandparents, only this time in digital form.

When I think about the level of unemployment we minorities face in this country and the poor performance of our gross domestic product, all I can conclude is that we have to pursue a different mindset. We are, in the words of my sister, addicted to a narrative that we just can’t seem to shake.

Writing for the MMTC’s Broadband and Social Justice blog, Ava Parker posted a piece that highlights the fork in the road consumers of digital technology now face. Do we continue with a mindset focused primarily on consuming communications and entertainment, or do we start turning our mobile information access terminals into productive capital and use this capital to create another source of equity; equity that allows us to weather the next financial or economic crisis.

Just when opponents to the AT&T, T-Mobile merger are beginning to get comfortable with their argument that the merger would mean the end of competition, along comes Verizon, Comcast, and Time Warner to shake things up a bit.

According to an article in Politic365.com, Verizon is purchasing 122 wireless licenses from Spectrum Co., a partnership that includes Comcast, Time Warner, and Brighthouse Networks.

This partnership definitely offers access to more broadband capacity. The last thing consumers need is dropped calls or interrupted data flow.

It also puts pressure on the FCC to reassess its position that the deal bewteen AT&T and T-Mobile will somehow lessen competition when you have transactions like these that increase capacity, increase the number of potential wireless carriers, and keeps prices in check.