Net Neutrality 12-13-2006

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Alaska’s Stevens Left Out in the Cold

Senator Ted Stevens boasted this summer that he had nearly all the 60 Senate votes he needed to muscle his massive telecommunications bill through Congress by the end of the year. But as his fellow lawmakers called it quits this weekend, his quest to overhaul America’s telecom laws ended in failure.

[ . . . ]

Some doubted that a rowdy coalition fighting for such a nebulous cause as net neutrality could shut down a bill backed by Stevens, the powerful chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.

“This is a huge victory for real people and a clear signal to the next Congress that standing up for big bold ideas is a winning political proposition,” declared Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org Civic Action, a member of “Save the Internet” group that campaigned to sink the bill

But if his crowd is serious, it will have to do more than block legislation – it will have to get laws passed requiring net neutrality in the next Congress. That will be a great deal more difficult than thwarting Ted Stevens.

Want to know what you can do?
MA Bell Monopoly Versus the Free Internet — Tell the FCC Net Neutrality Is Not Negotiable

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Net Neutrality 9-24-2006

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Pro-Net Neutrality Nuggets Are Buried in Verizon’s Poll

On behalf of the Net Neutrality community, I’d like to thank Public Opinion Strategies and the Glover Park Group for their recent survey on Net Neutrality. And a fine piece of work it is. On one hand, some of the poll was so over-the-top that it’s easy to discredit. On the other hand, if you look a little deeper, it appears that the Verizon-sponsored work not only bolstered our case, but provided the seeds to start a wider discussion of a new broadband policy for the country.

[ . . .]

There is a common theme through the first three crucial questions.

The first question — “How important is it to you that (Insert State) residents have a choice of service providers when it comes to cable TV – in other words, that there is more than one company to choose from?” In the overall survey of 800 voters, 73 percent said the choice was “very important Separate surveys from 400 voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Missouri had similar results.

The second question — “How interested would you be in having more companies to choose from for your cable TV service?” The response was that 50 percent were “very interested” and 26 percent were “somewhat interested.”

For the third question, a multiple choice one, 56 percent of those surveyed said more choices would bring about lower prices, 50 percent said better customer service (not exactly a vote of confidence) and 40 percent, new technologies.

The central theme, and what these questions show clearly, is that consumers want choice. Let’s look at this on two levels. Consumers want choices in Internet applications and services. They don’t want a telephone or cable company deciding for them what Web sites or applications will function better than others. They don’t want a telephone or cable company cutting an exclusive deal . . .

We can look at the choice issue in another way with a word substitution. Imagine if the question read: “How important is it to you that (Insert State) residents have a choice of service providers when it comes to high-speed Internet service – in other words, that there are more than two companies to choose from?” Or what if the second question read: “How interested would you be in having more companies to choose from for your high-speed Internet service?”

[ . . . ]

Once upon a time we had a flourishing, competitive Internet industry, with thousands and thousands of Internet Service Providers. Little by little regulatory decisions . . . whittled the once-flourishing industry down to next to nothing. Most of the country has no choice in broadband. Some places don’t have broadband, and won’t for the foreseeable future.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Net Neutrality 9-21-2006

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Commerce Poll on Telecom Bill Reeks of Desperation

The Senate Commerce Committee released yesterday, and posted on its web site today, a Verizon-funded push-poll that not surprisingly finds 1. Most Americans want competition in cable and 2. Most Americans are opposed to “onerous” (that’s the word used by the supposedly independent “bi-partisan” write-up of the poll results) net neutrality regulations.

[ . . .].

Check out the poll’s loaded question on net neutrality:

Which of the following two items do you think is the most important to you:

Delivering the benefits of new TV and video choice so consumers will see increased competition and lower prices for cable TV

OR

Enhancing Internet neutrality by barring high speed internet providers from offering specialized services like faster speed and increased security for a fee

Faced with this choice, is it any surprise that 66% of the 800 registered voters surveyed (91% of whom were clueless about net neutrality) opted for the delightful delivery of benefits of new video choices over the insidious barring of cool new services such as faster broadband and better security?

The survey, conducted by not one but two bought-and-paid-for political polling firms, Public Opinion Strategies and The Glover Park Group, is just routine message manipulation by the pollsters . . . But the fact that once again, the United States Senate is disseminating corporate propaganda on one of its most powerful committee’s web sites, funded by stiffs like you and me, should get everybody hopping mad.

. . . The Senate Commerce Committee has given up even a thin veneer of working for the public. It’s working for Verizon now.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Net Neutrality 9-16-2006

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Guess the State and Win a Subsidy: Senate Plays Geography Games in Telecom Bill

Are you good at geography? If so, you may enjoy the small geography quiz buried deep inside of the telecommunications bill now pending in the U.S. Senate. Hidden on page 121 is a paragraph directing the FCC to expand universal service payments to “insular areas, including any insular area that is a State comprised entirely of islands…”

[. . . ]

As it turns out, the list of states covered by this provision is quite short:

1.Hawaii.

And, by total coincidence, a senator from that state — Daniel Inouye — is the co-chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee — which wrote the bill.

[. . . ]

The provision illustrates how far the bill has strayed from a hoped-for focus on eliminating unneeded regulation. At its core, there still is substantial positive reform: streamlining of the video franchising process. But that important change is surrounded by a luau of special interest provisions. . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Net Neutrality 9-09-2006

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Senate Commerce Committee Circulating Astroturf? [via freepress]

[ . . . ]

One interesting bit in all the noise: Public Knowledge points to this promotional pdf that is being circulated by the Senate Commerce Committee itself to “sell” its Senate Communications Act of 2006. You’ll note that among the list of supporting “consumer groups” are some familiar faces (like Consumers for cable choice) who are actually incumbent lobbyists dressed up as consumer groups. You’ll also notice that for whatever reason, the impartial committee promotional pdf features editorials solely against net-neutrality.

[ . . . ]

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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