Excuse Me, Michael Copps, You're The Good GuyExcuse Me, Michael Copps, You're The Good Guy

Last week I was spitting nails about the Federal Communication Commission's decision in the Logan Airport WiFi case. But it turns out I was spitting them at the wrong person. I called Commissioner Michael J. Copps the thief-in-charge at the FCC. My mistake. That would be FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin. Copps, a Democrat in his second term on the commission, has fought the good fight against the FCC's star-chamber decision-making in favor of big-money corporate and against the interests of . He proved it again yesterday in an opinion piece in The Washington Post that points out something we should all be very disturbed about: The United States is 15th in the world in broadband penetration.He cites some interesting facts and figures to support the contention (although he doesn't state it in these terms) that Americans are paying more and getting less from broadband service providers than other developed countries. For example, while the FCC defines 200Kbps as "high-speed," Asian and European customers get home connections of 25 to 100 Mbps, fast enough to stream high-definition video. And commission statisticians conveniently overstate broadband access and don't bother to keep any stats at all on the cost of broadband services.

The cause of the problem, he says, is lack of competition. But he doesn't go far enough. What he's too politic to point out is that the FCC is a major cause of the lack of competition. Chairman Martin, and before him Chairman Michael Powell, have presided over an FCC that has functioned as the major domo of a cozy club of media and communications giants.

Copps has some proposals for change -- The FCC needs to work to lower prices and introduce competition, for example; it must expand advanced telecommunications availability, open spectrum availability, drive technological change.

Copps is obviously one of the good guys at the FCC. I apologize for my mistake in calling him names. Michael Copps is not a thief. But if his quote in the story on Logan Wifi is right, then I'd have to say he's naïve. ""Today's decision ensures that the WiFi bands remain free and open to travelers," he said. I stand by my opinion that the FCC's decision had nothing to do with freeing WiFi.

In his Washington Post piece Copps thumps the bully pulpit of the op-ed page and declaims, "We need a broadband strategy for America." Surely Copps is just being politic here. He may be naïve about WiFi, but he can't be so naïve that he isn't aware we have a broadband strategy. It is "the fatter the cat, the better we feed it." The FCC has spent years pampering AT&T and Comcast and Time-Warner and Verizon and the other members in good standing of the Telecom Fat Cats club.

The Democratic Party's successes this week raise some hopes that change might be possible. Vitally important Internet neutrality policy may have a much better chance in the next Congress, for example. It's a good time for reminders like Copps's article and this week's call for reforms from CompTIA that there's work to be done. It's time to kick some cats.