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Net Neutrality 9-15-2006

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Google End Runs AT&T, Verizon and the other Telecomms

Google is leasing a huge chunk of space, almost two full floors, at 111 Eighth Avenue in the Chelsea District of Manhattan in the landmark former Port Authority Headquarters. . . . But it isn’t the building that’s the key to understanding this move. According to the breaking story in the Village Voice,

The old Port Authority headquarters sits atop one of the main fiber optic arteries in New York City—the Hudson Street–Ninth Avenue “fiber highway.” The venerable behemoth is already one of the country’s most important “carrier hotels”—loosely speaking, the physical connection points of the world’s telecommunications networks and the World Wide Web. As a result, Google will “have access to as much bandwidth as possible and as much variety of bandwidth as possible,” says Dana Spiegel, a technology consultant and executive director of NYC Wireless.

The tenant list of this building reads like a Who’s Who in High Tech, with many of the top internet and Telecomm players in residence . . . There’s a “meet me” room known as NYC Connect . . . a carrier neutral facility . . . This will allow Google to bypass the Telecomms and go directly to Tier 2 service providers. The meet me facilities “are built to N+1 redundancy.

There is much speculation about why Google is doing this, but what it really comes down to is that Google is now master of its own fiber optic destiny and can’t be held hostage by Ed Whitacre or any other Telecomm. And if you add up the ongoing purchases of dark fiber all over the map, it spells out a future where the Telecomms will never be able to hold Google hostage to additional fees or slow down delivery of Google Video or VOIP.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Net Neutrality 9-14-2006

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New Report Skewers Telco Spin on Competition

Why has the United States fallen behind the rest of the world in accessible and affordable broadband service?

The answer, according to a report [PDF] released by Free Press, the Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union, is marketplace failures wrought by phone and cable companies’ near monopoly control of last-mile broadband markets.

The 44-page report, Broadband Reality Check II, exposes the truth behind America’s digital decline: A marketplace controlled by the likes of AT&T, Verizon and Comcast has left Americans with higher prices, slower speeds and no meaningful competition for high-speed Internet service.

It exposes the lie behind phone companies’ repeated claims that the U.S. has a diverse marketplace, with myriad broadband choices for the consumer.

It decisively skewers the notion — put forth by telco executives and their high-paid shills — that “fierce competition” precludes Net Neutrality protections.

[ . . . ]

Broadband Reality Check II also finds:

The 14 other OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] nations saw higher overall net growth in broadband adoption than the United States from 2001 to 2005.

Consumers in other countries enjoy broadband connections that are far faster and cheaper than what is available here. U.S. consumers pay nearly twice as much as the Japanese for connections that are 20 times as slow.

U.S. broadband prices aren’t dropping: Cable modem prices are holding constant or rising, and DSL customers on average are getting less bandwidth per dollar than just a year ago.

The market share of “third platform” alternatives like satellite, wireless and broadband over powerline technologies has actually decreased over the past five years.

The report contradicts the rosy picture painted by the Federal Communications Commission, by exposing the agency’s failure to rein in broadband monopolies . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Net Neutrality 9-13-2006

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Net Neutrality and the DMCA

. . . Buried deep within the legalese and copyright mumbo jumbo of the DMCA is a single but little read clause that could, in theory, have a dramatic impact on the net neutrality fight, especially if net neutrality never passes.

[ . . .]

When the DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998] (PDF) became law in 1998, telecoms breathed a sigh of relief. After years of uncertainty, it was revealed that they could not be held liable for any copyright infringement that passed through their network. As a “transitory communications” provider, all they had to do was meet a few simple requirements and they never had to worry about being held accountable.

However, it’s one of those requirements that may now prove to be a sticking point. The second requirement for a “transitory communications” provider reads as follows (emphasis added):

“The transmission, routing, provision of connections, or copying must be carried out by an automatic technical process without selection of material by the service provider.”

In short, the DMCA gave telecoms a pass on copyright infringement suits so long as they didn’t make any selection of the content that passed through their service. As long as telecoms are blindly routing requested content to its end destination, they could not be held accountable for that material.

However, the minute they start intelligently discriminating one type of material from another, their situation becomes in doubt. They no longer meet the qualifications of “transitory communications” provider and now have no clear status under the DMCA.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Net Neutrality 9-12-2006

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Amazon exec: net neutrality necessary because of “little choice” for consumers

In an interview [with ECT News] Amazon VP of Global Public Policy Paul Misener reinforces one of the reasons why we need net neutrality: our (lack of) choice when it comes to broadband. . . .

[ . . .]

By the FCC’s reckoning, that means I have broadband choice here on the northwest side of Chicago. Well, sort of. For cable, my sole choice is Comcast-and that’s what I use, with few service complaints. On the other hand, DSL is not an option for me because of the lousy infrastructure in my over 80-year-old neighborhood and my distance from the DSLAM. Broadband over power lines? Not yet. Citywide WiFi network? A gleam in Mayor Daley’s eye. WiMAX? Some day, maybe. Broadband choice? Not in any coherent sense of the word.

In Misener’s opinion, the lack of choice means net neutrality is a must because if an ISP decides to begin prioritizing certain traffic, consumers don’t have a meaningful alternative.

“[U]ltimately what can they do besides complain? Consumers have little choice when it comes to high speed Internet. If they had more choices of providers, this wouldn’t be such a dangerous situation.”

There are a number of other arguments for net neutrality, including the possibility of ISPs clamping down on traffic that they find objectionable. Misener outlines one such scenario involving a striking union and points out that while such scenarios may seem far fetched, there are no laws in place to prevent it from happening.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Net Neutrality 9-11-2006

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Net neutrality meets election-year reality Bill is stalling in Senate; telecom firms push for video [via freepress]

Although both sides continue to press lawmakers to act, most observers say Congress is too preoccupied with pre-election politics to tackle this complex issue before Sept. 29, when senators are expected to recess.

“Conventional wisdom is that the issue will simply sit there,” said Christopher Putala, executive vice president with EarthLink, a pro-neutrality Internet company.

[. . . ]

The dispute over Internet pricing, complicated enough in its own right, is joined to a separate issue — injecting more competition into the paid television market by giving phone companies what amounts to a nationwide franchise to deliver shows through their wires.

The bill that is stalled in Congress, therefore, is really designed to promote what proponents call video choice. It would pave the way for phone companies to compete with cable and satellite vendors by using their wire networks to pipe TV into homes.

The net neutrality proposals being pushed by the Internet coalition are contained in amendment to that video choice bill.

[. . . ]

But Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., put a hold on that bill — a maneuver that effectively requires 60 votes to lift — and Congress went into its summer recess leaving these twin issues of video choice and net neutrality awaiting a vote before the full Senate.

Now, most political insiders say it doesn’t look like proponents of video choice have the 60 votes they need to lift Wyden’s hold — and a Wyden staffer said he has no intention of lifting it unless he gets tough net neutrality language — making it unlikely that the full Senate will take any action soon.

[. . . there is more between after]

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Net Neutrality 9-10-2006

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Qwest CEO Speaks Out Against Net Neutrality

Dick Notebaert, the CEO of Qwest Communications, made claims last week that the concept of net neutrality is “really silly,” and could ultimately stifle competition and cost customers more.

“Competition is good, makes us better and makes us more creative,” the CEO commented. “That’s why when they talk about net neutrality, bad idea. Really silly. What we’re talking about has no basis in anything. It’s a nice move to make the consumer pay for everything.”

Notebaert went on to say that passing net neutrality legislation would be like telling FedEx that it can’t offer overnight service is UPS doesn’t.

In making this childish comparison, however, he’s avoiding the central issue under question. Internet service providers are free to cater to the needs of different subscribers by offering faster and more expensive packages to some customers than others. . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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