Long before there was a looming spectrum crises, there was broadband over power lines. BPL promised digital subscriber line data rates through electrical wall outlets. The FCC approved it seven years ago. It has since languished. Why, especially now that broadband has become a priority such that the president is stumping for it?

Maybe FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski thinks time is not on his side—at least when it comes to the commission's national broadband plan.

A lot of what passes for journalism these days is sheer flapdoodle. The profession now encompasses everything from screeching buffoonery to the wholesale publication of classified government documents. These activities should be defined separately from the real thing,

We neither need to define specific examples of innovation nor exalt it generally to justify a national broadband plan, but we all would be better served by objective and practical analysis of how we get there.