One of the reasons I'm going to focus much energy on the spectrum fight is because the key leverage point for going into Iraq is a media system that allows only the powerful to speak.  Take this account by high priced operative Bob Shrum, of Time columnist Joe Klein's relationship with John Kerry in 2004.  The nexus between high priced media consultants, high priced pundits, and politicians is poison to a democratic system.  And then there are the more overt links between the press and the political class - Jeff Chester points us to this nice episode in Illinois:

Fourteen U.S. lawmakers urged federal regulators to waive media ownership restrictions that would allow Tribune Co. to be taken private in an $8.2-billion deal, according to a letter made available on Monday.

The deal, led by Chicago real estate mogul Sam Zell, needs approval from the Federal Communications Commission as it involves the transfer of broadcast licenses.

Under current media ownership rules, a company cannot own a daily newspaper and a television or radio station in the same market although media companies do under agency waivers.

Tribune has such arrangements in Fort Lauderdale, Hartford, Los Angeles and New York and earlier this month asked the agency to waive restrictions that could prevent it from owning television station and newspapers in the same city....

The 14 lawmakers from Illinois, which included Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin and House Rep. Rahm Emanuel as well as Republican House Rep. Dennis Hastert, encouraged the FCC in the letter dated May 18 to act on the applications "expeditiously and to avoid administrative delay."

Sam Zell, the mogul behind the deal, gave $5000 to Rahm Emanuel's PAC in 2005, the Common Values PAC, and to Dick Durbin.  He was also a donor to Bush and now John McCain (as well as Russ Feingold and Tom Delay).

So a media and real estate mogul is calling in political favors to waive cross-ownership requirements to consolidate media properties.  That's a problem.  This weakens our ability to have a diversity of voices speaking out, and it prevents a media check on the powerful.

The internet is our best (and maybe) last hope.  Here's Al Gore:

I truly believe the most important factor is the preservation of the Internet's potential for becoming the new neutral marketplace of ideas that is so needed for the revitalization of American democracy... People are not only fighting for free speech online, but they are also working to keep the Internet a decentralized, ownerless medium of mass communication and commerce.

That's why this spectrum fight is so important.  If we can generate enough pressure on the FCC, we can ensure that the public airwaves can be used for a wireless open network which any citizen can use to create media.  New business models will emerge, a diverse set of voices will use it, and we can revitalize democracy.  How do I know this is possible?  Well I'm doing it, in a care, right now, with nothing more than a laptop.  And you're reading and commenting on it.

Now it's time to route around the damage caused by the George Bush's, Sam Zell's, Verizon's, and Comcast's of the world, and ask the FCC to free the spectrum for public use.

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There's a big fight a brewin at the FCC.

Boingboing points us to this Forbes piece by internet law expert Tim Wu on wireless broadband and spectrum.  Basically, a huge chunk of incredible spectrum just came free, and it's being put up for auction by the FCC later this year.  This spectrum could be used for a new nation-wide wireless broadband network, a new wireless carrier, and lots and lots of innovation that is only now happening abroad.  Here's Wu:

What's needed to spur innovation is a simple requirement: that any winner of the auction respect a rule that gives consumers the right to attach any safe device (meaning it does no harm) to the wireless network that uses that spectrum. It's called the Cellular Carterfone rule, after a 1968 decision by the FCC in a case brought by a company called Carter Electronics that wanted to attach a shortwave radio to AT&T (nyse: T - news - people )'s network. That decision resulted in the creation of the standard phone jack. Applying the Carterfone rule to the next spectrum auction would ensure that our key fob designer need only look up standard technical specifications and then build and sell his device directly to the consumer. The tiny amounts of bandwidth the fob used would show up on the consumer's wireless bill.

The right to attach is a simple concept, and it has worked powerfully in other markets. For example, in the wired telephone world Carterfone rules are what made it possible to market answering machines, fax machines and the modems that sparked the Internet revolution.

This is going to be a big one.  Moveon just joined in the fight with a strong campaign, and the Save the Internet Coalition is going to weigh in.

Significantly, Google is now chiming in.

Google filed a proposal on Monday with the Federal Communications Commission calling on the agency to let companies allocate radio spectrum using the same kind of real-time auction that the search engine company now uses to sell advertisements....

We have large industry allies who want spectrum sold wholesale to consumers based on 'open access'.  This means anyone can lease spectrum for any reason, which will lead to lots of wireless innovation.  It will also end a key piece of the net neutrality fight, since cheap wireless broadband, though not as fast as wireline, will be a baseline competitive product to DSL and cable.

The deadline for comments at the FCC is May 30, and we're going to fill up their inbox and then some.  This wireless fiasco we have in America can end, soon.

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Andy Kessler has a really good post in the New York Times on a potentially revolutionary FCC auction later this year. Kessler runs down the way the public airwaves are managed (badly and for the benefit of monopolists), and discussed something called the 700 auction, which is a huge chunk of awesome spectrum coming free in two years.  There are lots of bidders, but one group is being left out.  Us.  

Wifi is a great example of what happens when individuals can innovate around a monopoly.

But the telecomopolists can't have some clown sitting in a Starbucks writing an opinion piece bypass their for-pay infrastructure, so they always insist on ownership of spectrum in separate licensed bands. For their use only. Ownership. Until the 1990s, most of the licenses were given away. But the F.C.C. and their European counterparts, thinking there might be a free market model of bandwidth management of the future, started auctioning off spectrum. Third generation, or 3G, licenses raised $150 billion or more for governments, that's real money, and the auctions were considered a success.

But 3G ain't free -- the winners, AT&T, Verizon, Orange in the U.K., and the like just passed along the costs as higher prices to customers. It was just a game of having the deepest pockets to outbid mere mortals. Customers would eventually pay. It was hidden tax on us peons - damaging economic growth instead of promoting it. And not coincidentally, 3G uses spread spectrum technology so callers can share the airwaves without interfering. So why exactly does someone have to "own" this spectrum?

That's why auctioning off this 700-MHz block is so last century. The lower the frequency, the further signals can travel without degrading, better to penetrate homes and offices. This is a desirable chunk of spectrum. But why not just make it an unlicensed band? Entrepreneurs will come up with more interesting services than cellphone operators who think text messaging is somehow worth 10 cents a pop.

F.C.C. Chairman Kevin Martin has asked for free market proposals for use of the spectrum. Recognizing that police and fire departments with 500,000 radios operable in this band are going to have an important say, one proposal from Hundt and his company, Frontline Wireless, offers a mixed use of the spectrum, with public safety getting priority during emergencies. This is the same guy who triggered the largest misallocation of capital in history with his Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996. Hundt has backers in uber-C.E.O. Jim Barksdale (Netscape, FedEx) and uber-venture capitalist John Doerr. An ex-bureaucrat may be clueless, but these Silicon Valley vets should know better. Owning this spectrum would be great for them and a Frontline I.P.O., but not for the economy.

And use by first responders? Easy. Engineer in an emergency switch, controlled by, heck, the same emergency broadcasting system screeching in our radios. During an actual emergency, it could throttle back data speeds for civilians. Downloads of "Fear Factor" can wait while the flood or fire rages.

Can this be true? An avowed free-market capitalist advocating a "let's all own it together" approach to communications? That's right. Despite their façade as public companies, telecom monopolists (that's you, AT&T) are government blessed anti-competitive entities whose idea of innovation is call waiting. We, the people, can do so much better. In fact, Wi-Fi has already begun to unleash the creative chaos of entrepreneurs. We shouldn't allow behemoths to bid on virtual shackles of our airwaves.

This is real.  The public airwaves are sitting there waiting to be reclaimed from the dropped call monopolists.  Even Tom Friedman gets it.

I've been thinking of running for high office on a one-issue platform: I promise, if elected, that within four years America will have cellphone service as good as Ghana's. If re-elected, I promise that in eight years America will have cellphone service as good as Japan's, provided Japan agrees not to forge ahead on wireless technology. My campaign bumper sticker: "Can You Hear Me Now?"

I began thinking about this after watching the Japanese use cellphones and laptops to get on the Internet from speeding bullet trains and subways deep underground. But the last straw was when I couldn't get cellphone service while visiting I.B.M.'s headquarters in Armonk, N.Y.

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I'm on break, but I want to highlight this editorial from the LA Times on a coming spectrum auction that is the next stage of the net neutrality fight.  Here's the deal.  Right now, dropped calls, high hidden charges, bad phones, poor and costly wireless internet and roaming costs are all symptoms of a wireless monopoly held by a few big cell phone companies.  Essentially they don't care about you moving to another competitor with better service because you really just can't.

Verizon and AT&T run a digital plantation where they don't let phones and features on their network they can't control. It's a permission system - if you want to use your phone on a Verizon network, you have to get permission.  It's a lot like cable operators, and if it's not theirs they don't want it.  This is why wireless service is expensive, why it sucks with dropped calls and why you can do things in Europe and Japan like pay for sodas with your phone but you can't do them here.  It's also why roaming charges are so high.  There's effectively a wireless monopoly, which means that you can only get an iPhone if you use AT&T wireless.  And if you are a non-profit that wants to let people text you money at a rally and have it go on that person's phone bill, Verizon and AT&T will happily grab half the cash meant for you and take 180 days to get you the balance.  So, at say, Obama's 20,000 person rallies, there are high barriers to having supporters get involved at the rally since everything the campaign wants to do has to be approved either directly or indirectly by Verizon or AT&T.  This is true at every single music concert or public event in the country.  An entire mobile economy is going unused here because of this predatory corruption, though in the rest of the world the mobile economy is racing ahead.

Here's why this could soon change.  The FCC is about to auction off a whole lot of really nice spectrum that could completely blow the lid off this system.  It's possible that if the FCC is fair, we could get a wireless broadband wholesaler, which would simply rent their network to whoever wants it for whatever purpose they want it.  You'd be able to plug your phone into your computer and get broadband.  Cell phone and broadband service would be instantly cheap and universal, getting around redlining that denies broadband to poor and rural areas.  There would be fewer dropped calls.  Roaming charges would drop dramatically.  You could pay for things with your phone (or any mobile device you can invent).  You could use any phone for any network, and download ringtones easily.  And the big national telcos would actually have to compete with all of this.

Silicon Valley is buzzing about the potential here, as are media reform groups (and smaller wireless companies).  This is all part of the move to take back public airwaves from the people that give Imus-types privileged positions in public discourse.  This is genuinely revolutionary stuff, and the FCC is going to rule on it soon.  Hopefully we can get Ed Markey and John Dingell to hold hearings and force Chairman Martin to open up the spectrum.  

There are real allies here, just as there were in the net neutrality fight.  In fact you can consider this part of the net neutrality fight, part of protecting and expanding the digital commons.  And because of the anti-redlining and cost reduction components, there is a much larger coalition that could be formed here.  Every non-profit in the country has an interest in open access.  And so does every cell phone user who had a dropped call, or who wants wireless broadband for low cost.

After all, these are the public airwaves, our airwaves.  However much he doesn't like it, they don't belong to Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg.

UPDATE: In related news, Verizon is patenting the internet.

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