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Net Neutrality 5-10-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

Smaller cable firms take aim at Net neutrality fans by Anne Broache
[via slashdot Small Cable Groups Seek To Break Net Neutrality via Advice Library]

Rocco Commisso, CEO of New York-based Mediacom Communications, delivered the latest commentary in the ongoing Net neutrality fray at an annual Washington, D.C., summit organized by the American Cable Association, a lobbying group for small and medium-size independent cable companies. Mediacom, which bills itself as the nation’s eighth-largest cable television provider, counts 1.5 million basic-cable subscribers across 23 states, according to its Web site.

“I think what the phone industry’s saying and what we’re saying is we’ve made an investment, and I don’t think the government should be coming and telling us how we can work that infrastructure, simple as that,” [Rocco] Commisso said during a panel discussion about issues faced by companies like his, adding, “Why don’t they go and tell the oil companies what they should charge for their damn gas?”

Why Even Bells Need Net Neutrality by Daniel Berninger

Another interpretation to the plain language requiring a public purpose for right-of-way concessions does not exist. Does anyone believe government should grant public assets to private entities for private purposes? The loss of net neutrality changes the terms under which the Bells enjoy access to right-of-way. The non-neutral private network deployments associated with the Bell company broadband offers look like the non-common carrier networks of the cable companies.

Democratic senator wants Net neutrality regulations by Anne Broache

As many as 600,000 letters from constituents related to the Net neutrality issue have streamed into the offices of congressional members since the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s recent approval of its own telecommunications bill, said Johanna Shelton, the committee’s Democratic counsel.

Rep. John Dingell, the committee’s senior Democrat, is still evaluating the best legislative approach but is “deeply concerned” about the potential for extra fees being imposed on Internet content and application providers and the subsequent effect on consumers, Shelton said.

“It would be unthinkable for the government to insert fees into the way the Internet is now, but yet there are a number of people who would be fine with private entities doing so and being able to selectively pick and choose and treat others differently for any reason they see fit,” she said.

Howard Waltzman, the committee’s chief counsel, viewed the House’s approach in a different light. He said the committee struck an appropriate balance with its bill by including language prohibiting the FCC from making new rules on Net neutrality but granting it the power to vet complaints of discrimination and impose penalties.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
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

Related
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

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

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

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

Related
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

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE