We all are, in fact. President-Elect Barack Obama has just setup Change.gov in an attempt to be open with the American people and include them in the process. This, my friends, is called walking the walk.
One of the most exciting features is the ability to submit policy proposals like one could on his campaign site way back when. I decided to participate in my democracy and share my ideas about Internet policy. I figure, why not share 'em with the rest of the class and maybe inspire some other people to go ahead and submit their ideas, too?
My advice to President-Elect Barack Obama is below the fold.
Like what is happening with the mandatory upgrade of Cable TV, I suggest that there be a few mandatory upgrades of Internet technology. You may take these suggestions in whole or in part.
a) Upgrade the old telephone switches to modern day, high-bandwidth, fiber optic systems like they did in Japan. This is a significant infrastructure investment that will create jobs, improve the speed and reliability of communications, reduce TeleCom arguments for bandwidth caps, and lay a strong foundation for a 21st Century economy.
b) Enact a mandatory upgrade from Internet Protocol version 4 to version 6. This will ensure that there are plenty of IP addresses for our increasingly-connected citizenry and will allow the U.S. to begin to be a world leader in Internet technology. Modern operating systems will already support it, making this a law that reflects the changing times. This upgrade will provide many of the same benefits as the above item, and you can stipulate that the mandatory completion date be something reasonable. My personal best guess is 2012.
c) Make the Internet infrastructure public. No one owns roads, bridges, highways, or public transit (or, more correctly, everybody does!); why should communications lines be the only infrastructure that is controlled by corporations? Granted, they did do the work to build them, so the fairest way to do this is to sit down with them and work out a reasonable agreement to buy the lines from them. This can pay for itself, as part of the "toll" we all pay to use the Internet anyway can go to the government. Companies can provide access by controlling IP addresses, and so system would work exactly the same as it does now, except that Net Neutrality would be more easily enforceable.
Update:
d) Redefine what the government considers broadband. Our government currently defines broadband as a barely-adequate 200Kbps. There are plans to upgrade that definition to 768Kbps but a good definition should be forward-thinking. 1 Mbps is what I would consider a bare minimum; 10 Mbps would be a good number.