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Net Neutrality 6-07-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

FCC Chairman: Too soon for net neutrality rules

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) — Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin said Monday that it would be premature for the agency to issue rules on the doctrine of Net neutrality, which would prevent discrimination in the delivery of services over the Web. . . .

Martin added that the commission has demonstrated its willingness to step in and take action if it sees, for example, a large cable or phone company discriminating against certain content providers. However, he said: “We’re not seeing widespread examples of abuses in the marketplace that would justify us trying to adopt rules at this time.”

The FCC chair said the commission’s main objectives under his watch are to make sure broadband deployment continues; that the regulatory environment “rewards” investors in new technologies; that there be sufficient competition to ensure “more innovation” and benefits for consumers; and that there be an “even playing field” that “treats like services alike.”

Specifically, he referred to digital subscriber line-based broadband technology and the cable modem, which enable users to obtain fast Internet connections.

Net Neutrality: Who’s David? Who’s Goliath?

I guess since they really only care about one side of the value chain of the Internet – the side that touches the users – they are viewed as representing the “little guy,” the end-user, the consumer. In reality, they are using their market power and big business lobbying oomph (that is a technical term) to shape the debate so that they can benefit from the network but don’t have to invest in it.

The “other” side of the debate, mainly the service providers, are trying not to get their hands tied in developing next generation networks with speeds and feeds that will be able to support all the high-bandwidth consumer and business applications that are coming down the pike. They actually care deeply about consumers as well, which is why they are seeking help from their large users (see pro-net-neutrality advocates above) to pay for differentiated services and quality of service which will help offset the huge cost of their infrastructure investment.

Craigslist is being blocked by Cox Interactive – is this a net neutrality issue? By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher

An SVW reader left this tip:

I use Cox cable internet, Cox’s media empire printed classifieds is one of their big revenue drivers. Guess what? If you try to access Craigslist over Cox Cable internet… its nearly impossible! It appears that they throttle access to craigslist – as a matter of fact there have been a zillion complaints but hey, who can blame Cox? They’re trying to stop the opening cap in their money dam! Maybe you should investigate this tip further. Cheers.

I did investigate further, I walked out of my apartment and across Alamo Square and popped in on Jim Buckmaster, the CEO of Craigslist. Jim was just getting back from work and I spoke with Susan Best, publicist for Craigslist. Susan said they have known about the problem with Cox.

Jim soon arrived and said the problem of access had been going on since late February. It had something to do with the security software that Cox isusing from a company called Authentium.

Cox has been collaborating with Authentium since April 2005 to develop the security software suite.

Back on February 23rd Authentium acknowledged that their software is blocking Craigslist but it still hasn’t fixed the problem, more than three months later. That’s a heck of long time to delete some text from their blacklist. . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 5-25-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

Should the Net Be Neutral? [via Free2Innovate.net, and Red Bank TV]

Congress is considering several competing pieces of legislation. One bill, sponsored by Rep. Joe Barton (R., Texas), embodies the phone company view, while another bill recently introduced by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R., Wisc.) supports net neutrality. Both the House and Senate will hold hearings this week.

The Wall Street Journal Online invited Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist and a net neutrality proponent, and former White House spokesman Mike McCurry, who heads a phone industry group, to debate the issue. Their exchange, carried out by email, is below.

Network Neutrality and Enterprise Business Article online

This article will introduce the concept of Network Neutrality for business and technical managers. It will survey some of the published viewpoints on Net Neutrality, both for and against, and will begin delving into the potential impact on enterprise business. Let’s begin with background information and published opinions from the Web on the subject. Although not quoted in their entirety, the articles are extensively hyperlinked to ease further research into the discussion.

FCC commissioner indicates that Net Neutrality may be enforceable under current regulations

Nationally there seem to be two prevailing approaches to Net Neutrality:

1. Push for legislation in Congress to give the federal government control over Net Neutrality

2. Let the FCC handle Net Neutrality and then when a telco violates Net Neutrality we let the courts sort it out.

I don’t like either of these approaches.

I favor the approach of using the Cable TV franchise application process to express our concerns to the telcos and to let them know as consumers that if they don’t promise to uphold the tenets of Net Neutrality then we will choose not to do business with them. And when I say “as consumers� I mean as communities, whether at the town level or the state level.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 5-16-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

This day is without food blogs

But access to the Internet is not exactly equal now, is it? People pay for varying speed of connection to the Internet, dial-up, DSL, T1, etc. Those with more money can access the Internet at much faster speed than those with less. That’s what you think, yes?

That is something different though. Currently, consumers can pay for different speed of connection, but once they are connected to the Internet, there is no difference between accessing the massive Yahoo.com or the little chezpim.com. But when the new law is passed the service providers will be allowed to dole out different websites or services at different speed.

Net Neutrality and Lying

There’s been some debate lately about whether or not to run the ads from the telecom companies Astroturf campaign “Don’t Regulate the Internet.”

Those who think blogs should run them tend to believe that one shouldn’t stifle free speech – and hey, why not take their money and then write against them?

For me, the issue is simpler – they’re liars. They’re advertising a fundamentally dishonest idea – that the Internet has never been regulated, and that we shouldn’t start now.

The Internet has always been regulated. It started off as a government network designed to survive nuclear attacks (which, as everyone notes, is why it’s so good at routing around damage, including censorship) and along with government research labs its initial backbone was universities.

All through that time, and indeed through the 90’s and almost up to the current day, there was a simple rule – you couldn’t discriminate against traffic. You couldn’t give some packets priority over other packets.

That was the rule. It was the regulation.

The FCC recently got rid of that rule. However they can put it back any time. . . .

If it’s not neutral it’s not Internet [via Jeff Pulver]

The customers of AT&T and Verizon did not ask to get cut off from the Internet. . . . There exist no examples of success with the “walled garden” approach, because the nothing can match the breadth of content and innovation of capacity of the public Internet. The decoupling of connectivity from use and user associated with neutrality makes this breadth of content and innovation possible.

The opposition to net neutrality arises like all regulatory debates as themeans to raise prices, but people in the US already pay more for lessbandwidth than citizens of Europe and Asia.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 5-13-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

Well since Net Neutrality didn’t pass….

On one hand I agree with the philosophy of the free market. I think it is one of the things that makes this country great.

On the other hand nothing gives a free market a black eye like an out of control monopoly.

And that is what we are up against here. It isn’t that one company has a monopoly. It is that there is an effective monopoly at the county and city market levels.

CIO MAGAZINE The Net Neutrality Debate: You Pay, You Play? BY BEN WORTHEN

Last April, Cisco Systems published a white paper explaining how the companies that own the phone lines and cables that connect homes and businesses to the Internet—the proverbial last mile—could use new routing technology to boost revenue. The technology would allow telephone and cable companies to establish priority lanes . . . and then charge the Googles, Yahoos and Amazons of the world for access to these highway toll roads. Cisco’s paper predicted that this new strategy would allow broadband service providers to create new revenue-sharing business models with any company that sells content online.

The plan had only one problem: It was illegal.

The telecommunications laws that have governed the Internet since its inception require network owners to treat all traffic the same. The laws date to the 1930s and were put in place to force telephone companies to prevent a scenario where one company could refuse to carry calls placed by a rival’s customer. The Internet was designed with the same principle in mind. . . . it was the only thing standing between the telecommunications companies and a vast new revenue stream.

Since then, a Supreme Court ruling and a series of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decisions have eliminated this barrier, prompting Congress to rewrite the nation’s telecommunications laws. The new bill, which could be finalized as early as the summer, will in all likelihood officially eliminate net neutrality as the legal principle that governs the Internet. “If net neutrality goes away, it will fundamentally change everything about the Internet,” says James Hilton, associate provost for Academic IT Works of the University of Michigan.

The impact of these changes on CIOs and their companies will be profound. The telecommunications and cable companies argue that allowing them to govern their networks as they see fit gives them a financial incentive to innovate at the core of the network, and develop new technologies that could guarantee things that CIOs want, like security and better quality of service. Proponents of net neutrality counter that the principle is the reason that the Internet and the corresponding online ecosystem have developed into the commercial and cultural phenomenon they are today. . . .

The new Internet will certainly make telecommunications decisions more strategic. CIOs will not only need to worry about how much bandwidth to buy, but which lane they want their traffic to travel in. And tiered service is just the beginning. Telecommunications companies will be able to rearchitect their networks however they see fit. Over time, the new architectures and the services that network owners deliver will result in complicated payer/payee relationships between companies and telecommunications companies. And if a telecommunications company decides it wants to introduce a new Internet standard, CIOs may be forced to rearchitect their company’s systems.

. . . For all the talk about equal access and treating all data the same, the net neutrality debate is just window dressing for a less gentlemanly argument over who gets to profit in the online economy. More bluntly, Steve Effros, former president of the Cable Television Association, says, “This is about who pays.”

Big Lie of the Week

Here’s a quick guide to help you cut through the industry spin:

The big telecom companies say: “Is the Internet in Danger? Does the Internet need saving? It keeps getting faster. We keep getting more choices.” . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 5-09-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

COPE Telecom Bill Affects Net Neutrality, Local Cable Franchises and Funding for Public Access
[via Cause we all know how well it worked with radio…]

AMY GOODMAN: Is this a reprise of what happened when Michael Powell, the son of Colin Powell, who used to head the F.C.C., tried to push through the media consolidation rules, the changes in them?

ROBERT McCHESNEY: I really think it is, because I think what we’re seeing is this across-the-board outrage at the corruption of the process in which powerful special interests sneak through these privileges that benefit only them. And their public relations, when it’s subject to scrutiny, is laughable. It doesn’t hold up. And that’s why they have do it secretly, because they know if once the public hears about this and they go to the websites like savetheinternet.com, which is the intersect that all this coalition, right and left, has come together, where all of the information is collected. Once people hear about this, they absolutely are outraged, and the big guys can’t win, and that’s their main worry now, because we have to stop these bills this summer. We can’t let this go through and force Congress to go through an election cycle this fall and have to answer for this before the voters of this country and then come back next year.

Information Toll Road

Who is in favor of network neutrality, Microsoft, Yahoo, ACLU, Amazon, Guns Owners of America just to name a few. Who is against it, AT&T, TimeWarner, Comcast, and Verizon.

This is not a blue state or red state issue, nor is it a capitalist vs. Socialist, it is the battle of who controls information. As of right now, the information superhighway is open to anyone who wants to pay a small fee for service or to a company to host a site, if this bill passes congress and the senate, the superhighway will turn into a slow toll road.


John Carroll On Net Neutrality by Broadband Issues

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. John Carroll of ZDNet:

The Internet is not threatened by access tiers. In fact, it can be enhanced by making new bandwidth-heavy services more economical and reliable in ways that would be impossible given a naive enforcement of “net neutrality” rules.

I could not have said it better myself. I am terrified of this becoming a large, politically charged issue, in which all rational technical discussion is thrown aside because the Technorati love Google and whatever Google wants, Google gets. I just can’t possibly see how the government can do a better job regulating this problem than the market.

Let’s say, for example, that Comcast decides to degrade all VOIP services except their own. Do you have any idea how loud the outcry would be from their customers? Would they really shoot themselves in the foot like that? Are we all so naive as to think that large businesses truly hate their customers?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

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