The Ethos Group promotes universal access to high-speed Internet by supporting the deployment of new community-controlled infrastructure. We believe that new, accountable infrastructure is a key element that compliments other strategies to transform our media and resolve its problems. By focusing on thoughtful infrastructure, we seek to support reform work in three broad categories

Making our own media – Those who create independent media frequently rely on corporate-controlled methods of distribution. In order to secure our human right to communication – to speak, to be heard, and to listen – we need infra-structure that is accessible to all and responsive to our shared needs.

Equality of access – In order for us to function as a society, we need communication systems that unite us. The infrastructure we have is distributed unevenly based on our economic class and geography. The content sent out over that infrastructure is frequently racist and sexist. When a community controls its own infrastructure, it can address these problems directly and aggressively.

Reforming corporate media – Even if we do not shift all media to travel over infrastructure that we own, expanding that option offers a point of leverage in dealing with media corporations. Cities that have built their own communications infrastructure have seen corporate providers drop their local rates in re-sponse. Having a competing radio or TV station, website, or newspaper in a market is an important tool for influencing the content of an entrenched corpo-rate outlet.

The Ethos Group addresses these broad issues by promoting infrastructure development in line with our principles of accessibility, accountability, and affordability.

Two recent TECHNOLOGY developments, convergence and wireless Internet, make it more possible than ever to achieve accessibility, accountability, and affordability in our communications networks. This is a critical juncture in telecommunications history; now is the time to examine and invest in broadband infrastructure.

Convergence is the term used to describe the transition from a diverse array of communication media to a common, digital medium. New digital technologies make more efficient use of existing fiber infrastructure and the public airwaves than traditional analog signals and take advantage of the protocols developed to move data across the Internet (IP or Internet protocol). In other words, we are exchanging more and more of our media – phone calls, email, music, television, movies, and all else – via wireless connections to the Internet.

Wireless technologies have drastically reduced the resources required to deploy broadband infrastructure. You can now do it as an individual or in collaboration with your neighbors, as many already have. As important, the perceived magic of wireless has inspired the governments of many cities, states, and even small countries to build networks. In some cases, they are realizing that bigger investments in super-high-speed fiber optic cables make sense economically and socially.

These new technologies together offer one of the most significant opportunities we will have in our lifetime to completely redesign how we communicate and exchange media. Corporations and for-profit interests have recognized this and are working hard to redesign communications networks to maximize their profit margins, building closed, unaccountable, expensive systems. We need to take immediate action to expand the open systems of communication that have been the hallmark of the Internet since its creation.

To that end, The Ethos Group supports the following POLICIES:

Open Access – For most of their history, the phone lines in this country were an open access system, requiring that the owners of the wires allow other companies to use them for a fair price. Thanks to a ruling from the FCC, approved by the Supreme Court, our communication systems are now closed – the owners of the wires control who uses them and what travels over them. Net neutrality does not go far enough. It prevents discrimination at the level of content, but it does not address the divide in ownership of and access to infrastructure. To restore open access and expand it to the Internet, Congress could pass new regulation or the public could invest in new infrastructure that would level the broadband playing field.

Open Source / Open Standards – New technologies can be open or closed. If they are closed, the soft-ware or protocols can be owned by a single entity and their use require permission and/or licensing fees. If they are open, anyone can use them. Open source allows for fast, inexpensive innovation and adaptation. Open standards allow different devices, whether from a major corporation or a hobbyist, to communicate with each other. In both cases, development costs can be spread across multiple public institutions, private companies, and individuals who often volunteer their time to these projects. All share in a common owner-ship of the tools developed in this fashion and the general public is the prime beneficiary.

Open Airwaves - The public airwaves are often the least expensive way to communicate. Even in the United States, more people own radios than telephones. Digital signals allow for much more efficient use of the airwaves. As examples, the same frequency band needed to broadcast one color TV signal in 1960 can broadcast ten signals of equal quality today; the same band it took to make one mobile phone call in 1940 today can handle 100,000 simultaneous phone calls. But the current, closed licensing regime restricts public access to the airwaves. In contrast, unlicensed spectrum lowers the barrier to participation in our communication networks and promotes innovations like wireless Internet access.

There are a variety of MODELS for building infrastructure that offers an alternative to unaccountable corporate networks, but they fall within these three categories:

Community and Civic Networks - Private individuals, neighborhood associations, and local non-profits using unlicensed spectrum and wireless technology have been distributing Internet access to their communities for over a decade. (The difference between community and civic is whether there is shared ownership and active participation from the users or a small group of people giving Internet access as gift to their neighbors.) This is the community that pioneered Wi-Fi in the first place and continues to innovate with participatory business models and open source solutions.

Municipal & Government Networks - Around the world, nearly every level of government is getting in-volved in building communication networks. Japan is building a network that in two years time will give every single home in Japan the same quality of communication that a handful of supercomputer centers in the US now enjoy. As more cities, counties, and, more recently, states, come to see the Internet as a necessary utility like water and electricity or as critical infrastructure like roads and ports, they are becoming more active in implementing broadband networks. Hundreds of municipal entities already own portions of their communications infrastructure, but increased usage, the high price of bandwidth, and the affordability of wireless are inspiring many to invest further. Some cities are forming new non-profit organizations to own or manage the new infrastructure, thus expanding local accountability while lessening the impetus to place profits before public service.

Regulated Corporate Networks – Some cities are offering franchises to private corporations to build wireless networks using municipal assets, like lampposts, rooftops and rights of way. When cities decide to facilitate a corporate investment in new broadband infrastructure rather than invest in it themselves, they can still take steps to ensure a workable solution. Contracts can include a service level agreement (SLA) to ensure quality of service, a community benefits agreement (CBA) to direct revenue towards expanding par-ticipation in the network, and open access requirements to ensure competition and promote innovation. All of these measures require vigilant oversight to ensure compliance, so transparency and direct community participation are important elements during the contracting process.

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