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Net Neutrality 8-27-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

Not so long ago

AT&T used their monopoly over local service (the telephony last mile) to make it impossible for competition to emerge in long distance or the manufacture of equipment.

It was all so complicated that the FCC was completely overpowered — at the antitrust trial before Judge Greene, DOJ called a bunch of former FCC-ers to testify that they couldn’t supervise the Bell System. This wasn’t market failure, this was regulatory failure. Complete inability to cope.

So Judge Greene drove them through discovery and trial with a firm hand, and after 11 months DOJ and AT&T came up with a consent decree. It separated the local telephone part from everything else (putting local service into the hands of seven operating companies made up of 22 former operating companies). It specifically said that those operating companies couldn’t get into offering content, or manufacturing equipment, or operating long distance service — because they couldn’t be trusted not to discriminate in favor of their own stuff. After the decree and the complicated process of splitting up the company, long distance prices plummeted, a vibrant market for equipment emerged, and the internet arrived.

[. . . ]

So where are we now? The seven operating companies crept back into long distance service, got rid of the consent decree (and Judge Greene’s firm hand) in the 1996 Act, manipulated/litigated their way out of allowing competitive local service to emerge, and now …. they’re mostly reconsolidated. We really have two phone companies in the US: Verizon and AT&T.

And they don’t really have competitors for broadband access — just gentle telco/cableco giants. Maybe colluding gentle giants — the gentlest of all.

[. . . ]

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 8-6-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

Net Neutrality Tool Misses the Point

. . . However, what some are missing is critical to this whole net neutrality debate. It’s not that we won’t know or be able to detect if we’re experiencing packet discrimination. Heck, we already know broadband providers are going to discriminate because they’ve told us they will—AT&T’s Whitacre even said it recently again, in case there was any question.

No the issue is this: we’ll know the discrimination is happening, but the internet surfing public and web-based businesses will be unable to do anything about it. Why? Because last year the FCC gave up that discrimination complaint-process role and in Congress’ telecom bills (House and proposed Senate), even if the FCC changed its mind and wanted to do something, its hands will be tied. . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 7-14-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding these links to the Net Neutrality Page.

Broadband competition? Not so much

In the first part of this year, the US average for cable modem service was US$39.45 a month, while DSL was slightly less expensive at US$35.38. . . .

The report does note that these are standalone prices, and allows that there might be more competition between the two technologies if bundling deals are taken into account. Both the cable industry and the telcos are offering substantial discounts to customers who sign up for multiple services from the same company, and both have the ultimate goal of providing Internet, telephony, and video services.

. . . It’s because consumers don’t have many options that some form of Net Neutrality provisions are necessary, according to the group’s Art Brodsky. “Federal Communications Commission (FCC) statistics showing that just about everyone who has broadband gets it from either the telephone company or the cable company,” he writes. “The FCC has affirmatively pursued the policy of creating this situation, and it’s one of the main reasons we need a Net Neutrality policy. There is no real choice.”

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 7-11-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding these links to the Net Neutrality Page.

Good News – Maybe

We interrupt this series on Telecommunication Pricing to bring you an important message. According to a story in Saturday’s NY Times, Federal District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan is considering major modifications to the already accomplished SBC/AT&T and Verizon/MCI mergers. We’re going to mash that up with a quote from Vint Cerf who is now at Google.

“Through the eyes of a layperson, the mergers, in and of themselves, appear to be against public interest given the apparent loss in competition,” the Times reports Judge Sullivan wrote. “In layperson’s terms, why isn’t that the case?”

. . . follow the link to read the mash up.

A net neutrality movie: It Happened to Jane (1959)

Unlike the movie, we don’t have a Doris Day to charm “the meanest man in the world.” So it comes down to congress and the FCC in the United States, and similar government organs in your country. Grassroots activism seems the only course since it’s nigh on impossible to out-lobby phone and cable companies.

So:

What will you do for the Internet this week?

How will you defend your right to call unimpeded? And in private?

Who will you call?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 7-1-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

Stopping the Big Giveaway – by John Kerry

The Commerce Committee voted on net neutrality and it failed on an 11-11 tie. This vote was a gift to cable and telephone companies, and a slap in the face of every Internet user and consumer.

It will not stand.

I voted against this lousy bill for two reasons: because net neutrality and internet build-out are crucial to building a more modern and fair Information Society, and both were pushed aside by the Republicans.

. . . Why are United States Senators afraid to say that companies should be expected to foster growth by building out their broadband networks to increase access?

. . . This bill was passed in committee over our objections. Now we need to fight to either fix it or kill it in the full Senate. Senator Wyden has already drawn a line in the sand — putting a “hold” on the bill, which prevents it from going forward for now. But there will be a day of reckoning on this legislation soon, make no mistake about it, and we need you to get engaged — pressure your Senators, follow the issue, demand net neutrality and build-out.

It’s not just net neutrality that is at stake

Kos wrote yesterday that the Net Neutrality amendment was defeated yesterday in the Commerce Committee, and there have been several diaries about that since. A bill that was kept however has not been remarked upon here. This is the revival of the broadcast flag, which the FCC had mandated several years ago but was struck down by a court. Now the entertainment industry is trying to bring the broadcast flag back with a new law. . . .

With respect to the broadcast flag however, Republicans take precisely the opposite position. By supporting the broadcast flag, they are saying that it is necessary for the government to control which of those transmissions that we listen to or watch on TV we can record: something that is unprecedented. It has been taken for granted up until now by everyone that if you can hear something on the radio or hear it on TV you should be able to record it, but the broadcast flag would change all that. The government would require all electronic devices that are capable of receiving digital TV or radio signals to implement restrictions blocking recording of those signals if the producer of the signal has embedded in it a flag indicating that it does not want the signal recorded. In other words, the government will mandate that you no longer control what you do with your electronic devices, but the corporations of the entertainment industry do.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 6-30-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

Net Neutrality Amendment Defeated in Senate Committee

“We are not going to get it solved with one solution or the other,” telecom analyst Jeff Kagan told the E-Commerce Times. “We have to come up with alternatives and compromises. I don’t know what will be acceptable to both sides.”

A U.S. Senate committee on Wednesday rejected an amendment that would prevent Internet service providers from charging Web firms more for faster service to consumers. The amendment failed by an 11-11 vote. . . .

Psst! The Internet just went corporate

Did anybody feel a disturbance in the Force yesterday? Nope, I didn’t either. But Neo was spinning in his cybergrave: The ‘Net went corporate on Wednesday, with the blessing of the U.S. Congress.

Yes, you can still surf anywhere you want on the Internet. But depending on what you’re looking for, it may take forever to load. See, there’s this bill sponsored by the telecommunications industry (uh-oh) intended to remunerate carriers for their support of the Internet. It all comes down to that wonderfully vague and innocuous term “‘Net neutrality”: Right now, everyone’s site is carried with equal speed and service, whether it’s Google.com or Ihaveapetferret.net. But the telco companies want high-dollar outfits (like Google) to pay for better service. That means Ihaveapetferret.net (and any other small site without Google million$ at its fingertips) likely won’t have the cash to pay up — and will get ghettoized by the carriers. Meaning… unless your blog is a blockbuster, no one’s going to read it. It’ll simply take too long to load.

Has Anyone Read the FCC’s USF for VoIP Order yet? To lift from Stephen Colbert, “Is it bad or the worst thing we have ever seen out of Washington?”

All I can do is ask: Was recent DC activity on Capitol Hill a calculated effort of misdirection of David Copperfield proportions (David Copperfield of modern magic and Claudia Schiffer fame, not the David Copperfield of Dickens fame, although many a VoIP provider might, as a result, find itself living in a Dickensian “Bleak House” as a result)?

How come we couldn’t see the humungo elephant right in front of our eyes? While we were amassing all our troops on the hill trying to protect our flank on the eastern front, we were getting wiped out this week on the western front. Why does the FCC say VoIP providers give us all your money?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE