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Net Neutrality 6-23-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’ve added these links to the Net Neutrality Page today.

Net Neutrality: This is serious by Timbl

. . . There have been suggestions that we don’t need legislation because we haven’t had it. These are nonsense, because in fact we have had net neutrality in the past — it is only recently that real explicit threats have occurred.

Control of information is hugely powerful. In the US, the threat is that companies control what I can access for commercial reasons. (In China, control is by the government for political reasons.) There is a very strong short-term incentive for a company to grab control of TV distribution over the Internet even though it is against the long-term interests of the industry.

Yes, regulation to keep the Internet open is regulation. And mostly, the Internet thrives on lack of regulation. But some basic values have to be preserved. For example, the market system depends on the rule that you can’t photocopy money. Democracy depends on freedom of speech. Freedom of connection, with any application, to any party, is the fundamental social basis of the Internet, and, now, the society based on it. . . .

Call the Telecoms’ Bluff on Net Neutrality.

The Government should, henceforth, treat the internet more like the Interstate Highway System than the telephone network.

This would mean that the Gvt, or a federal regulatory agency, should take control of and/or subsidize the building and maintaining of the network from now on. Take the financial burden of it away from the telecoms.

Make it a matter of national security, if you have to, to get that network built up, and to provide unfettered access to it by the public.

This, is a proposal that the telecoms should jump on in a heartbeat for two reasons:

1. The immediate financial windfalls it gives them.

2. It actually has the effect of slowing down the development of alternative high speed internet competition form other sources.

If, as I expect, the telecoms get their wish on Net Neutrality, you will see the rapid expansion of satellite, or other broadband internet technologies takeoff. And the sheer competition from those other sources will force the telecoms to scrap their differentiated charges to various tiers of content providers.

But, in the meantime, I think we should start floating my alternative proposal to take the wind out of the telecoms’ sails. This proposal will show us whether the telecoms are really concerned about building the network, or in just finding a way to make more money.

Larry Lessing on: Tim Berners-Lee on Net Neutrality: “This is serious”

One clue to this Net Neutrality debate is to watch what kind of souls are on each side of the debate. The pro-NN contingent is filled with the people who actually built the Net — from Vint Cerf to Google to eBay — and those who profit from the competition enabled by the Net — e.g., Microsoft. The anti-NN contingent is filled with the entities that either never got the Net, or fought like hell to control it — telecom, and cable companies.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 6-22-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’ve added these links to the Net Neutrality Page today.

Jeff Pulver’s Save the Internet Contest Winners

And the winner is . . .
Congratulations to Chris Burke for claiming the $1000 prize in our “Save the Net” Viral Ad Contest. We intend to use the submission to spread the word in policy circles to ensure that government crafts policy that best advances the open Internet to allow for maximum creativity and innovation.
Chris’ winning entry is available at:
http://files.bungie.org/thisspartanlife/Blog05_S3.mov

Here are a few of the better runners-up:
http://www.anders.com/video/save-the-net.mov

http://67.15.182.229/nn.html

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7050009655852167999&q=save+the+internet

We are now launching Round II of the “Save the Net” Contest.


Tuning Fork

One of the other issues surrounding this bill is that cable companies believe telcos will cherry pick their towns, offering IPTV service only to areas with higher incomes. It’s illegal, but not hard to believe, even though the Telcos deny it’s their intent. To top it off, Congress plans to put that regulatory wonder, the FCC, in charge of making sure the phone companies don’t. Can’t you just imagine Telco Legree rubbing his hands together at the prospect of an agency as inept as the FCC regulating the phone company steamroller? It’s like asking a Little League commissioner to oversee drug testing for Major Leaguers—he’d be out of his league. Oh, wait…

What this boils down to is cable companies and telcos fighting to force their own agenda on consumers while telling us it’s for our own good. Meanwhile, Congress, ever obliging and the one-time guardian of the people, is really only interested in placating industry lobbyists and corporate interests. As to what’s going to happen down the road, suffice it to say that it’s all likely to work out in the end…for them.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Link Leak Virus In Tuscany Interpol List

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The Link Virus Epidemic

Link Leak Virus is a special strain of the indie virus with blogtipping mutations that occur in threes. On Open Comments Night the virus got out of control again. This time in Tuscany. Here are some cool links that were shared:

Interpol is searching neighboring countries for the following link leak virus carriers. If you see them, please approach with caution. All are known to break out in laughing for no apparent reason. One of their hideouts appears to be the Savannah College of Art and Design (a.k.a. SCAD). Bugs in the room picked up much discussion about it.

Joe, aka Photo Poet, Master of Disguise. It’s said no real picture of him exists.

Mark, aka Laffin’ Wiki. He’s got an unexplained fear of scissors near his blog.

Chris, aka Call Him Jack, the Interrogator. He’s known to be packin’ Klondikes.

Scot, aka Pacific Pen. He’s drawn the bottom line on every international crime.

HART, the Storyteller. It’s believed he passes code to nefarious ladies via stories about toast and the scenery in Canada.

Brian, the Consigliere. He appears as a mild mannered MAVS fan who likes alliteration. He hasn’t been heard from since last night’s game. He may have fallen victim to foul play.

Trisha, aka Butterfly Woman. She has a reputation for flitting in and out of tight situations.

Minic, the Document Specialist, is suspected of providing the paperwork that allows these folks to cross borders at will.

Christine, aka the Derrick Destroyer, sings for the coppers, but never snitches.

Deb, the Doc, keeps to the sidelines, but is a suspected cohort.

Kathleen, aka Fashion Moll, hasn’t been seen with this group before. She could be a nice lady who was seduced by the free snacks and beverages in the sidebar.

Tom Vander Well, Wine Quaffer, fraternizes with this unlikely group, but has never been charged with a crime.

Borneo Cat knows the ins and outs of laundering email so that it looks like it came from a real person.

Mike Sansone, aka the Conductor, has the international railway system in his pocket. He can miss any train in a second.

Starbucker, aka Mountain Getaway Driver, knows the back road escape routes through the Alps and the Rockies. He refuses to drive both on the same day, though.

Jamsi, Shananagan, and Keith Dsouza were seen in the company of these folks. It’s not known whether they were kidnapped and brainwashed to comply via grape Kool Aid and chocolate chocolate chip cookies.

The code-writing donkey and moose missed the flight and are still at the airline desk arguing about it. However, certain suspicious bunny villains were discussed and seen lurking about.

Meanwhile, both Interpol and the link leak suspects are wondering if Martin, the Ears, Neumann might be a mole. He spent 20 hours listening in on podcasts. Attempts are being made to find out just what it is that he’s publishing.

This Week’s Comment Quiz

One question, one answer for one link. Post the answer on your blog and leave a link to the post with the answer in the comments below. I’ll link your post when I announce you as winner. If we do it this way, I can take three winners.

The question is:

How many comments does it take to get a haircut?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Link Leak Virus Page

Introducing Seb’s Random Thoughts

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SOB Hall of Famer: Seb’s Random Thoughts

Sebastian Had a Major DIGG Article Yesterday

Sebastian Prooth, owner of Seb’s Random Thoughts and Podcast Periodical, is a student of media, and an avid blogger, writer, and technology enthusiast. He’s also a computer/tech geek with his 12+ years using MS Windows and the OS X system he uses daily next to his PC. Sebastian talks about technology, news, and just about anything that’s going on. This isn’t CNN or Technorati mirror; it’s more of a mirror of the author sharing with readers — from the head and from the heart.

Notes from Liz: Sebatians’s topics might be random, but his thinking on them is anything but. Seb is a deep thinker who brings sincere and insightful viewpoints to whatever electic topic he tackles. Whenever I stop in at Seb’s blog, I find myself leaving a comment because he has spurred me to think about what he has wrote and to respond with as much thought as he has invested. One read of his posts will surely show you what I mean. Click on his logo and see for yourself.

Go there and Digg Seb’s article on Skype. It’s almost 400 now.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Has your SOB Blog Been Introduced to US?
Blog Promotion: May I Introduce You?

Net Neutrality 6-21-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’ve added these links to the Net Neutrality Page today.

Net Neutrality–The Video Parody

I made a parody of Woody Guthrie’s famous song “This Land Is Our Land”, with Net Neutrality as the subject. I remixed video footage from the fantastic Elephants Dream animated movie short, a Blender Foundation project that was released under a Creative Commons license. You MUST see the original movie to understand how amazing the graphics, animation, music, and sound effects are in this animation. Visit their site and buy the DVD, which has a high definition version of the movie. That version is better than Pixar and I love Pixar! Note: The quality of even the “decent” version of my parody is absolutely no match for the breathtaking quality of the original, let alone that of the high definition movie.

Coyote Gulch . . . Robert Cringely:

“But all packets aren’t created equal. TCP packets over longer distance connections, for example, are effectively at a disadvantage, because they are more likely to have data loss and require retransmissions, thus expanding their appetites for bandwidth. By the same token, packets of all types that originate on the ISP side of its primary Internet connection have the advantage of functioning in an environment with far greater bandwidth and far fewer hops. Perhaps the best example of this disparity: packets that pass through private peering arrangements, versus those traveling from one backbone provider to another through one of the many NAPs, with their relatively high packet loss.

“This ‘to NAP or not to NAP’ issue has been with us for a long time. Smaller and poorer ISPs that can’t attract peering deals with their larger brethren are stuck with communicating through the NAPs, which requires more time and bandwidth to transfer the same number of data packets successfully. This has long been a marketing point for bigger and richer ISPs. But beyond marketing, this disparity hasn’t received much public notice. There are many ISPs that have both private peering and inter-NAP connections, yet whether they send a packet through the NAP or not hasn’t been a huge public issue. Perhaps it should be. It has certainly been possible for ISPs to pretty easily put a hurt on packets, and they probably have been doing so, though most pundits assume that we are still living in the good old days.

The funny thing about scale — Kafka’s numbers are wrong [via Ken Camp ]

In a telephony online article in early May, BellSouth’s Chief Architect Henry Kafka was quoted as saying:

The average IPTV user will likely consume about 224 gigabytes per month, he added, at a monthly cost to carriers of $112, a giant leap from the less than $5 attributed to Internet use. If that content were high-definition video, the average user would be consuming more than 1 terabyte per month at a cost to carriers of $560 per month.

“Clearly that’s not what the average user is going to pay per month for their video service,” Kafka said. “That’s why we need help.” . . .

Kafka’s numbers are wrong because the cost of bandwidth is not linear as volume increases. Scale creates economies that result in a lower cost per Mps (or Gigabyte downloaded). I have personally noticed in my own studies that the cost doubles in order to quadruple bandwidth, although this is not confirmed by my colleagues (or any other sources for that matter).

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

The Mic in ON in Tuscany!

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It’s Like Open Mike Only Different

Here’s how it works.

The rules are simple — be nice.

It’s like any rambling conversation. Don’t try to read it all. Jump in whenever you get here. . . . Just go to the end and start talking. EVERYONE is WELCOME.

 

Here’s what we might be talking about:

Tonight after 7pm Chicago Time

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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pm The Mike Is in Chicago!