So the last question that David Weinberger asked of David Isenberg at the Berkman Institute on Wednesday night was, “If you were Chairman of the FCC what would be your first acts?”.
David’s answers (not quoted literally, but rather from my illegible handwritten notes)
- Gather up the open spectrum and give it to the people
- Applications and connectivity should be separated. It’s hard to be a phone company doing just wires and switches forgoing the riches of content — so I’d regulate it so that they have enough money to do their job well and take care of their people, but no more. And maybe I’d allow them to charge a nickle per month per customer, to fund an advance research center [like the old Bell Labs]
- Stop regulating anything above connectivity “go out and kill each other and may the best application win”