How would Barton-Dingell work for mesh broadband networks? 

Clive Thompson has a nice piece in tomorrow's Times Magazine about wifi meshes, and how they might be awfully helpful in emergencies.  They might be awfully helpful for basic connectivity too.

The basic idea behind a mesh network is that cheap small devices are smart enough to automatically detect access points and other cheap small devices.  Together, these cheap small devices can form an ad hoc wireless network, using unlicensed spectrum.  "Devices" and "routing" become synonymous, because your network is self-configured.  Any open wireless point can serve as a beginning for a mesh network. 

We can assume that local bandwidth will continue to grow, and that open places will exist for wireless access.  Mesh networks capable of dynamically updating and "healing" themselves -- while providing high-speed internet access for free -- are inevitable. 

Under Barton-Dingell, a node in a mesh network (anyone participating in that network) would be categorized as a "BITS Provider":

1.  A "provider" is anyone who offers to provide BITS.

2.  "BITS" are packet-switched services that are offered to the public (as mesh networks certainly are), "with or without a fee."  So free networks fit into this.

3.  A BITS has to be able to provide to "subscribers" the ability to send and receive packetized information.  Yup.

4.  A "subscriber" is "any person who consumes goods or services" even if the services are free.  Yup. 

So the first step is that in order to be legal, the mesh network would have to apply to be a BITS.  (Who applies on behalf of a headless, ad hoc, ever-changing cooperative arrangement?  It's anyone's guess.)

And here's the kicker:  The FCC could say You Can't Be A BITS.  The headless, ad-hoc mesh could fail to provide information that the Commission thinks it needs (no limitations in the bill as to what that information is).  Or -- even more likely -- the Commission could simply determine that the the "BITS provider’s offering of BITS would harm consumers."  End of story. 

Even if the mesh somehow got through this process (which it wouldn't), being a BITS is hard work.  Many of the old Title II common carrier obligations have been moved over to BITS.  The FCC will be mandating all kinds of consumer protection requirements (and what are the "terms of service" for a mesh?), access to the disabled, privacy terms -- a thick regulatory web.

A mesh, if it could talk, would say, "I'm going over to the darknet.  They'll never approve of me."  If Barton-Dingell is the law of the land, ad hoc won't be permitted.