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Net Neutrality 10-06-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

Educause: Telecommunications> Net Neutrality Complete Resource Including talking points, links to legislations, and several papers.

What you can do:

EDUCAUSE has prepared a set of “Talking Points” to help encourage members to bring this important issue to the attention of their campus legislative representative, particularly those whose campus lies within the district of the key Congressional members (Senate; House) that will be voting on this issue in the near future.

[ . . .]

Most Popular Library Content (2)
Lessons for the Future Internet: Learning from the Past (2006) by Michael M. Roberts, EDUCAUSE
The Case for Preserving Network Neutrality (2006) by Matthew Kazmierczak and Josh James, American Electronics Association

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 10-05-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

MORE FROM:
Neutrality’ Is New Challenge for Internet Pioneer
an Interview on Net Neutrality with Sir Tim Berners-Lee By JOHN MARKOFF Published: September 27, 2006

[ . . .]
Q. Do you have a view about the behavior of the telephone companies in this debate? Is this simply traditional monopolist behavior, or is it more subtle? Have you talked to them to understand their motivations?

A. I have tried, when I’ve had the opportunity to find out, to understand their motivations, but I can’t speak for them. So all I can do is guess. But my guess is that it’s not that this is a nefarious planned plot to take over the Internet by a bunch of people who hate it. What I imagine is that it is simply the culture of companies, which have been using a particular business model for a very long time. So I think there is a clash of corporate cultures.

Q. What do you make of justifications involving quality of service, which would give certain types of Internet data, like voice and video, right of way over other kinds of data?

A. They say, “It will cost us an awful lot of money for this quality of service, and therefore we will have to disband neutrality.” They’re not actually logical. Some people say perhaps we ought to be able to charge more for this very special high-bandwidth connectivity. Of course that’s fine, charge more. Nobody is suggesting that you shouldn’t be able to charge more for a video-capable Internet connection. That’s no reason not to make it anything but neutral.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 10-04-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

Internet Freedom and Innovation at Risk: Why Congress Must Restore Strong Net Neutrality Protection

READ THIS ONE IN ITS ENTIRETY

Net Neutrality rests on three guiding principles:

  • No discrimination against lawful content. Net Neutrality ensures that Internet users have the right to access lawful websites of their choice and to post lawful content, free of discrimination or degradation by network providers. . . . .
  • Equal Internet access at an equal price. Under Net Neutrality, network providers cannot give preferential treatment to their own services at the expense of competing sites consumers want to use. . . . .

    • .

  • Consumers choose network equipment. . . . Net Neutrality prevents network providers from eliminating competing equipment by making it incompatible with their gateway. In the process, it ensures that equipment choice remains in the hands of Internet users, where it rightfully belongs

[ . . .]

In 2005, the Telecoms Captured the FCC and Eliminated Net Neutrality Protection Following the Supreme Court’s Brand X Decision.

[ . . .]

In 2006, big network providers have censored lawful content and blocked their Internet competitors:

  1. Time Warner’s AOL blocked all emails that mentioned www.dearaol.com, an advocacy campaign opposing AOL’s pay-to-send e-mail scheme.
  2. BellSouth blocked its customers’ access to Myspace.com in Tennessee and Florida.
  3. Cingular Wireless, run by AT&T, bars access to PayPal to make a payment on Ebay because it has struck a deal with another online payment service, which pays Cingular for that privileged status.

[ . . .]
The United States Senate is currently considering a bipartisan bill offered by Senators Olympia Snowe and Byron Dorgan, S. 2917, the Internet Freedom Preservation Act [Hyperlink to Snowe-Dorgan bill], that would restore Network Neutrality protections in place before July 2005. The Snowe-Dorgan bill requires that any content, application, or service offered through the Internet be provided on a basis that is “reasonable and non-discriminatory” and equivalent to the access, speed, quality of service, and bandwidth of services offered by network owners. It further prohibits network providers from blocking or degrading lawful Internet content. Finally, it leaves the choice for attaching legal devices to networks squarely in the hands of consumers, and not the Telecoms and cable companies.

A Telecom-sponsored alternative bill offered by Senator Ted Stevens, S. 2686, the Communications, Consumer’s Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006 [hyperlink to Net Neutrality provision of Stevens bill], permits Net discrimination to continue unabated. The bill provides no protection for Internet users and entrepreneurs. Instead, it merely includes a toothless requirement that the FCC study the Internet market for five years and file annual reports to Congress on the activities of network owners. Telecoms and cable companies are spending tens of millions of dollars in ads and big-dollar contributions pushing the Stevens bill to members of Congress. They view it as a small price to pay for the billions in profits they will reap as gatekeepers for the Internet’s content and users.
[ . . .]

READ THIS ONE IN ITS ENTIRETY

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 10-03-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

The telecom slayers [via Eat4Today]

For more than a year, telecom lobbyists, who include former Bill Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry, have outgunned Scott and his ragtag army of bloggers, Internet entrepreneurs and consumer-rights activists on Capitol Hill. But on this fall day in his bare-bones office in Washington, Scott is grinning in victory. He knows he has succeeded in tripping up the lobbying goliaths with a simple weapon that couldn’t be more appropriate in the battle over the Internet: a low-budget video posted on YouTube.com.

In the unadorned black-and-white film, college kids sit in front of a webcam and talk about the evils of an Internet without Net neutrality. “Do you want companies to control your clicks?” a goateed young man asks the camera. “This means slower connections to sites that are under competing ISPs,” another says. “Let’s keep the Internet free!” After a guitar solo and a hazy image of the American flag, the video goes black and directs viewers to SavetheInternet.com.

In the first week after it was posted on YouTube on Aug. 17, the video was viewed over 350,000 times, according to figures provided by the site. By comparison, the infamous “macaca” video of Virginia Sen. George Allen calling a man of Indian decent the racial slur, was viewed 200,000 times in roughly the same amount of time. A testament to the power of viral marketing, the Net neutrality video “is doing the work of 30 full-time communications professionals,” [Ben] Scott [coordinator of SavetheInternet] says. “And the best part is, I have no idea who made it.”

In fact, the video was made in a little over an hour by Ben Going, a 21-year-old waiter from Huntsville, Ala., and an aspiring Internet filmmaker. Going says he pieced the video together because he feels that his hobby, his business, his way of life, is under attack. He is not alone. All summer long, hundreds of Web users like Going have flooded the Internet with videos and blog postings. An online petition in favor of Net neutrality has gathered more than 1.1 million signatures, and a letter-writing campaign spawned online has resulted in a flood of letters to Congress members. Barry Piatt, communications director for Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, a leading Net neutrality advocate, says his office has received close to 1 million letters on Net neutrality, “a virtually unprecedented level” of mail for any issue, let alone one as technical as this one. And the “overwhelming majority” of the letters, Piatt says, favor Net neutrality.

[ . . . ]

The battle erupted in the wake of a 2005 Supreme Court ruling, which changed the regulatory classification of ISPs and removed the nondiscrimination protections on the Internet. Facing fewer restrictions on how they could govern the Internet, the likes of AT&T and Verizon made no secret that they intended to create a lucrative Internet fast lane, open only to Web sites that can pay. Critics quickly responded that an Internet where only those who can pay the rent can display their wares will stifle innovation and choice. “Consumers will have all of the choices and selection of a former Soviet Union supermarket,” says Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, a key ally of Net neutrality.

Here is the link for the above referred to YouTube videol: Save the Internet

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Net Neutrality 10-02-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.
MORE FROM:
Neutrality’ Is New Challenge for Internet Pioneer an Interview on Net Neutrality with Sir Tim Berners-Lee By JOHN MARKOFF Published: September 27, 2006

[ . . .]

Q. You’ve spoken about the concept of a Dark Net, which would balkanize the Internet. Do you have a nightmare scenario?

A. In the long term, I’m optimistic because I think even if the United States ends up faltering in its quest for Net neutrality, I think the rest of the world will be horrified, and there will be very strong pressure from other countries who will become a world separate from the U.S., where the Net is neutral. If things go wrong in the States, then I think the result could be that the United States would then have a less-competitive market where content providers could provide a limited selection of all the same old movies to their customers because they have a captive market.

Meanwhile, in other countries, you’d get a much more dynamic and much more competitive market for television over the Internet. So that you’d end up finding that the U.S. would then fall behind and become less competitive until they saw what was going on and fixed it. I just hope we don’t have to go through a dark period, a little dark ages while people experiment with dropping Net neutrality and then, perhaps, put it back.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Net Neutrality 10-01-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

Podcasting and the battle for Net Neutrality

I just read a post over at MacMikeNews.com about Podcasting. . . . it really hit home why the Telecommunications Corps. and the Cable and Media outlets are scrambling to trash Net Neutrality. . . . They’re LOSING THEIR AUDIENCE.

Many people who are downloading podcasts are using it as a replacement for radio, and are starting to use it as a replacement for television. Think about this– podcasts are commercial free, for the most part. Podcasts are downloaded and can be heard or watched at the convenience of the downloader. And since the technology is easily accessible ANYONE can, with just a bit of learning and some inexpensive equipment, create and upload a podcast. . . . I just sampled a few, and though on some the quality was a bit uneven, I’d say that many of the most popular are pretty damn good. Even better, the quality of the CONTENT is much better than the “lowest common denominator” crap that either commercial tv or radio stations think we want to view or listen to.

[ . . . ]

Now, let’s take this a step further– the political scene. If any smaller and less well financed candidate were to be able to take their message directly to the people via podcast . . .

[ . . . ]

One further step– what do artists and musicians need big media companies for if they can take their offerings directly to the people and CUT OUT THE MIDDLEMAN?

[Media and Telecomm Corps] stand to lose billions of dollars if the internet remains free. They will be cut out of the income loop if people don’t need them as a media delivery device.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE