Successful Blog

Net Neutrality 5-08-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

Mike McCurry — Hurting The Internet, Hurting His Admirers
[via Misinformation in defense of net neutrality ]

The Online Reporter carried this headline, “Telcos freed from FCC broadband regulations.” The article began:

The FCC said that phone companies such as Verizon, SBC, BellSouth, Qwest and other local telcos will no longer be regulated by traditional telephone rules when it comes to their DSL broadband services. The FCC agreed unanimously to classify DSL broadband as an “information service” rather than a telephone service. Phone companies will no longer be required to open their broadband networks to access by third-party ISPs.

After a one-year transition period, the phone companies can arbitrarily end any agreements they were forced to make with independent ISPs.

In other words, the FCC re-wrote the definitions to exclude telecom companies from our nation’s telecom laws! And we are now 9 months into a 12-month period, at the end of which a radical shakeup of the Internet will take place. Mike McCurry knows that the free and open Internet most Americans think is the “status quo” is actually GONE in 3 months. [emphasis L. Strauss]

So it’s more than a little bit deceptive when McCurry asks, “What service is being degraded? What is not right with the Internet that you are trying to cure?” McCurry is implying the exact opposite of what he knows to be true. That’s a lie, and it’s a genuinely sad sight for those who once admired him.

Academics for net neutrality by Open Access News

Many college presidents find themselves caught in the middle of the debate, confides a college lobbyist who asked not to be identified. On the one hand, they want to maintain good ties with AT&T, Verizon, and other broadband carriers because in many cases, they provide communication services to campuses. Some college presidents may even serve on the companies’ boards. On the other hand, the presidents do not want their distance-learning and research programs to suffer because of a tiered Internet that would cause their institutions to pay more than they can afford for reliable, fast Internet service.

Reporters Without Borders: Introduction Internet – Annual Report 2006

Everyone’s interested in the Internet – especially dictators

The Internet has revolutionised the world’s media. Personal websites, blogs and discussion groups have given a voice to men and women who were once only passive consumers of information. It has made many newspaper readers and TV viewers into fairly successful amateur journalists. Dictators would seem powerless faced with this explosion of online material. How could they monitor the e-mails of China’s 130 million users or censor the messages posted by Iran’s 70,000 bloggers?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 5-07-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

A rant on Net neutrality

The key phrase is “a government-managed regulatory habitat”.

Maybe what is needed is more legislation, not less. And not controls over what the Telcos and cable companies do with net neutrality but controls to force them to open up their monopoly to competing 3rd parties. eg

– Force them to sell wholesale bandwidth to 3rd party ISPs – Force them to sell space in their switching centres to 3rd party ISPs to unbundle the local loop.

When direct competitors are selling net neutral broadband, how will the Telcos be able to offer hobbled broadband?

The problem here is a common one to all utilities that have a monopoly hold over a single connection on the last mile.

Dogs, Cats, And Net Neutrality by Jason Lee Miller

Net Neutrality was interesting enough because of the opposing punditries that kissed and made up (for this battle anyway), but the Parents Television Council (PTC) soldiering alongside Democrats? Verizon sponsoring sessions at the Small Business Summit?

Maybe Bill Murray in Ghostbusters was right. The end of the world will have “dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!”

Net Neutrality: Urban Legend # 5

One of the most useful websites I know of is snopes.com, which provides information and analysis of e-mails circulating on the Internet, from the “Bill Gates is Giving Away Money� hoax to the famous 602B e-mail tax bill. Among other things, Snopes ranks the e-mails based on circulation and other factors. Currently, the number five hottest email — beating out warnings about ether-laced perfume and the dangers of rat urine on soda cans — is a missive in support of net neutrality regulation circulated by Move.on org.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Link Leak Epidemic Spreads Powerful Link Love

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Simplenomics Is Still Leaking

I went by to check on the situation at Simplenomics and the epidemic has spread . . . Day 3 and more leaks have sprung. Click to see where they’re going now.

Simplenomics Day Three of Link Leak

Link Leaks Love Company

So here’s a few more.

These two ladies know more about blogging than I will know for years and years. I watch them and read them just to learn things. I’m the nice one and these TWO ARE EVEN NICER. Visit her blog and her blog if you want the proof.

This fella helps me out whenever I need it and never once has asked for a thing. He’s a knight, a Web Design Powerhouse. and a gamer. Check out ReRetro and you’ll know where his head is.

This young lady is always one to rally to a cause that good. She delivers and helps those in trouble. She holds the hearts of everyone. Zilla knows the true meaning of Link Love and what to do about a Link Leak Epidemic. So do her friends Cheryl and the artist. Bet Mike will be seeing a few of them.

Another thinker, world traveler, gorgeous lady runs the Parody. We’re blog buddies with yet another blogger we enjoy. Link love shared all around.

Link Leak Out Powers Any A-List

Who says the A-Listers have all the power? A Link Leak doesn’t cost a thing, and it makes all of us B, C, and D list bloggers stronger. We become a force together with a web of linked up love. When’s your blog going to start leaking?

Mike Sigers started the Link Leak Virus from Eaton Ellsworth’s Blogtipping Idea. Want your name in the SOB HALL of FAME? Add your own Link Leak idea.

Joe will tell you It’s Nice to be Noticed. So come on now notice someone this weekend. Spread the Link Leak Epidemic. Link love adds to your property value.

Then contact the Small Office Herald and let Martin know.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles
Cow- . . . Er . . . Blogtipping
Are YOU in on the Link Leak Project

Net Neutrality 5-05-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

What’s Really at Stake with Net Neutrality by Josh Silver [via caelidh ]

Broadband will soon deliver nearly all television, radio, phone service – and of course the Web – to most Americans. This transition is our big chance to do an end run around 24-7 lapdog journalism, low-brow entertainment, celebrity gossip, and rampant commercialism that has left the public in a fog of Brangelina, windbag pundits, sound bytes and little knowledge about what’s happening in the world and what our elected officials actually think or stand for.

If we lose this net neutrality battle, we lose the greatest opportunity of our lifetimes to get critical journalism and diverse media into living rooms across the nation, as the largest cable and phone companies turn the Internet into modern cable TV: they control what you see and how much it costs.

Neutrality of the Net

This is an international issue. In some countries it is addressed better than others. (In France, for example, I understand that the layers are separated, and my colleague in Paris attributes getting 24Mb/s net, a phone with free international dialing and digital TV for 30euros/month to the resulting competition.) In the US, there have been threats to the concept, and a wide discussion about what to do. That is why, though I have written and spoken on this many times, I blog about it now.
[Note: This is the blog of Tim Berners-Lee, who created the World Wide Web]

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 5-04-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

Net Neutrality = A Financial Services Industry Free-Ride?

When it comes to the issue of Net neutrality—or what my PFF colleagues more appropriately call “Net neutering“—it seems like a lot of people are forgetting the old lesson that there is no such thing as a free lunch in this world. The latest example of this is summarized in this Reuter’s article discussing the possibility of the financial sector potentially gearing up to jump into the “Capitol Hill fight over the future of the Internet [to] stop an effort it says could add billions in costs just to maintain current offerings.�

‘Net Neutrality’ Battle Widens

“Net neutrality is not about being neutral, it is about companies that benefit from selling video on the internet and their potential advertisers looking to have the cost of the bandwidth they use paid by the consumer,” said Bill McCloskey, BellSouth spokesman.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 5-03-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

Tim Berners-Lee On Net Neutrality: It’s Important, But Now What?

This is a big issue that many people don’t seem to want to dig in on. Those who are against net neutrality regulations say that the regulations will screw things up even more, but ignore the potential downsides to letting the telcos end net neutrality. Those who want regulation say network neutrality is very important and thus needs to be written into the law — but ignore the potentially stifling aspects of bad regulations. The problem is that both sides then are talking about different things… and there’s no one looking at if it’s written into law, how can it be written to cause as little damage as possible and if it’s not written into law, how can people feel comfortable that network neutrality will remain an option going forward?

why network neutrality matters, and is worth fighting for

Craig Fields from Gun Owners of America hit the target right-on when he said

“Whenever you see people on the far left and far right joining together about something Congress is getting ready to do, it’s been my experience that what Congress is getting ready to do is basically un-American.”

Net Neutrality and Work: Howz that going to work?

So, I was just sitting here thinking about what a stupid idea eliminating net neutrality would be for me as a private individual. You know, thousands of religious websites to choose from, DailyKos on “sloth-speed”, marketing majors in ecstasy, when it occured to me that my work life could be disrupted as well.
My work depends on my ability to get to governmental as well as a lot of very small company websites to download information, software and documentation. Are they all going to have to pay protection money to get into the fast lane?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE