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Time to answer questions. "President Obama has picked a former telecommunications lobbyist and campaign fund-raiser to serve as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, raising serious questions about his 2007 pledge that corporate lobbyists would not finance his campaign or run his administration.

    He was also a big “bundler” for Mr. Obama ... it is almost certain that he raised money from people whose companies he would regulate, creating potential conflicts of interest. ... [He] should disclose how much money he raised from telecommunications executives and explain how he would make sure that those relationships would not influence his decisions at the F.C.C."

    Part of the answer should be to reverse JG's policy of stonewalling the press. He would run away in terror if a reporter tried to ask him questions. Jules had something like 3 announced press conferences in 4 years. It was harder to get information from Genachowski than I'm told it was from Karl Rove. Wheeler has enough experience to handle tough questions and should live up to Obama's promise of transparency.

   People I respect who recommended Tom include Gigi Sohn and Susan Crawford, so I'm withholding final judgment. I read about 20 of his blog posts, none of which suggested he would take on the incumbents. He has at least a mild case of "beltway blindness," where reality is overwhelmed by the massive lobbying that sets the agenda.

On schedule, truly open, reaching unserved. “I’m going to bake us a cake,” promised a woman in Big Lake Township, who proceeded to hug Tim McAfee of Pioneer Broadband for connecting her home with fiber. (Maine Sun Journal) Over 100 communities in Maine are connected by one of the three fiber rings of the Maine Fiber Network . McAfee, Fletcher Kittridge of GWI, Craig Gunderson of Oxford Networks and other local entrepreneurs are renting the fiber for $10-20/mile/month. They then offer services, including GWI’s “Gigabit Main Street” in Orono and Old Town. Part of the national “Gig-U” project, GWI is working with the University of Maine to deliver fiber speeds unavailable in Verizon’s Boston or AT&T’s Chicago.
    There’s a large area unserved on the map, but almost all of it is “Unorganized Territories” with few towns. The project cost was $32M, not much to bring a backbone to nearly a million people. That was enough for 1,000 miles of new fiber, network gear and facilities, and project overhead. Subtracting the other costs of the project, I estimate they spent $20-25K/mile or slightly higher, confirming the realistic costs in mixed terrain of a fiber build.
    CEO Dwight Allison said. “We built a highway through the state and said as long as you pay the toll anybody can get on this,” he said. “That means more competition, more startups. You can start a GWI-type of company now and have, in essence, a $32 million fiber network at your disposal without having to write out a $30 million check.” (MSJ)

Price of success: High costs per unserved, probable failure of incumbent Fairpoint

The primary purposes of the U.S. broadband stimulus were to reach the unserved and to create jobs. Three Ring Binder efficiently created jobs constructing the network with only modest overhead or waste. It also is effectively connecting the University of Maine and other public services, a secondary goal.
    There’s also good news for 30-40 families in Big Lake Township. Big Lake is proceeding based on expectations of $176K of local and state financing, That’s about $6K per home served, a lot of public money. There’s no reason to believe the company inflated the subsidy demanded; extreme rural builds often are that expensive. Many, probably most, of the BTOP projects, are backbones with no guarantee of ever connecting the unserved. 
    Also suffering will be Fairpoint, the incumbent that has already gone broke once. The local companies taking advantage of Three Ring Binder are likely to effectively win away Fairpoint customers. Other aggressive New England companies, like Vermont Tel where I’ve done some consulting, will further erode Fairpoint’s base. When Larry switched the stimulus funding from “unserved” homes to overbuilding existing fiber, he doomed some incumbent carriers.

Join me and make a difference. 303,000,000 Americans have just been offered access to the notoriously secret ITU WCIT documents. Just join ITAC, the State Department International Telecommunications Advisory Committee, and enjoy access. “It takes a simple email with a request to be placed on the ITAC listserv, based on some material interest in a given topic,” Paul Najarian of State writes. Simply send an email to join ITAC_Listserve_Requests@state.gov and you automatically have access to ITAC. That's actually proving true, and email me if you need details how to make this work for you. Until now, no one knew about it so almost no one applies except insiders. It’s really that simple. I’ve recommended three people and they were all treated respectfully.

  Uncle Sam wants you, as  Ambassador Terry Kramer makes clear below and confirmed to me in a brief phone call. “We welcome all interested stakeholders to participate in our WCIT preparatory process and help the U.S. Government form positions in advance of the conference.  We solicit this input and feedback through the United States International Telecommunications Advisory Committee (ITAC).” His colleague, Ambassador Phil Verveer testified to Congress, that ITAC is “open to all interested parties to review and advise on the regional and national contributions to WCIT as they are submitted.” 
    To my amazement, the discussions are substantive. With almost no one outside the system, it's become a convenient forum for State to share information with NTIA, FCC, and others, as well as two dozen or so corporate people who are on the inside. So it's actually a useful point to express your opinion. Being on ITAC gives you access to the main ITU and WCIT documents, along with a painful number of exceedingly boring emails. The meetings are in D.C. at State and generally have call-ins. 
    Until recently, I was the only person speaking at most meetings who wasn’t part of government or have strong corporate ties. No one else spoke up, for example, when U.S. proposals for NGN resembled a blueprint for the Great Firewall of China. (Our security agencies have similar requirements.)
     I wrote that the ITU wanted to open the documents http://fastnetnews.com/itu/186-i/4822-itu-qmembers-free-to-publish-any-documentsq-and-they-will-im-told based on ITU sources and some comments from Europe. I had no expectation the U.S. would join actively, but that’s exactly what Ambassador Kramer promises

“Recently, the ITU Council announced its decision to make public one of the summary documents of proposals to amend the International Telecommunications Regulations.  In addition, at the recent meeting in Geneva, the Secretary General stressed that “all ITU members have full access to all WCIT-12 documents and can share them within their constituencies.”

Ethiopian journalist blogger sentenced to 18 years, probably tortured.
Hundreds of journalists are jailed around the world, including many journalists. Eskinder Nega stands out because of the harsh sentence handed out but a country that’s virtually a client state of the U.S. The U.S. State Department notes “Today, Ethiopia is an important regional security partner of the United States. Total U.S. Government assistance, including food aid, between 2000 and 2011 was $6.226 billion. In FY 2011 the U.S. Government provided $847 million in assistance.”
    Hillary Clinton almost surely had the power to prevent this sentence. She presumably held back because the Ethiopian government is waging war against Islamist in Somalia with U.S. backing. The NY Times reports, “Mr. Nega’s case stemmed from writings challenging the prosecution of fellow reporters and editors. Senator Patrick J. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, strongly condemned Mr. Nega’s conviction in June, saying the Ethiopian government ‘misuses its institutions to silence its critics.’ PEN International, which honored Mr. Nega with a press freedom award this spring, said Friday that it was ‘appalled’ by the sentencing and called for his immediate release.” Chairman Emanuel Cleaver of the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus also spoke out. (Below)
   On Internet governance, the U.S. is constantly claiming we stand for freedom. To be respected on freedom and human rights, the U.S. needs to honor it everywhere.