A company named M2Z wants to accelerate the availability by of broadband internet by using some of the radio spectrum. They have some provisional funding setup but need the FCC help to make this happen. It’s got a dialog going, but some analysts are saying the FCC will be unlikely to bite.

The company proposes to offer a premium service, at speeds of around 3 megabits a second — comparable to faster services offered by telephone and cable companies — for $30 a month or less. M2Z has offered to give the government 5 percent of the revenue from this service.

M2Z plans to include a filter with the free service that would block access to “indecent” material, a definition Mr. Sachs said could be made by the government, just as it controls standards for broadcast television.

The emphasis on the filtering is mine. I have to wonder how lousy that filtering would be? Most filtering programs I’ve seen to date have been mediocre at best, so my guess is this is an empty promise from M2Z. But maybe the government would be suckered by this promise? Power users would be ponying up the 30 bones to get the premium three megabit connection because even 384k seems slow once you’ve been enjoying a cable or faster line.

I’d love to see cable and EVDO get some competition. And then there’s Google who has been toying with offering free WiFi in some areas. More competition wouldn’t hurt Google either.

With that all said, I’d still store this away in the likely will never happen drawer.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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