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Net Neutrality 7-2-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

What If End-Users Owned Their Access Pipe?

PBS tech columnist Robert Cringely has penned an intriguing (and I think important) piece called “If we build it they will come: It’s time to own our own last mile.” It’s apparently based on conversations he’s had with Bob Frankston, who years ago wrote the VisiCalc program (which Cringely describes as “the first killer app”) and who last year authored an essay entitled “Connectivity is a Utility.” Cringely describes Frankston as “one of the smartest people I speak to.” . . .

If We Build It They Will Come. It’s time to own our own last mile. by Roger X.Cringley

To Bob [Frankston, the programmer who wrote VisiCalc] the issues surrounding Net Neutrality come down to billability and infrastructure. While saying they are doing us favors, ISPs are really offering us services they can bill for. Nothing is aimed at helping us, while everything is aimed at creating a billable event. Take WiFi hotspots, for example. Why should the telephone or cable company care about who connects to my WiFi access point? They are my bits, not the ISP’s. I paid for them. If I can download gigabytes of pornography why can’t I share my hotspot with someone walking down the street wanting to check his e-mail? Frankston’s analogy for this is accusing someone of stealing your porch light by using it to read a street sign.

It isn’t about service, it is about creating billable events, that’s all. And billable events, by definition, are things we have others do because we are unable or unwilling to do for ourselves. So a Verizon or a Comcast does us a favor, they say, by licensing rights to a movie and allowing us to buy or rent it over the Internet. We could buy the rights ourselves, but who would know where to even go? And wouldn’t Verizon, as a big buyer, necessarily get a better price? When you have a preferred or exclusive provider versus a competitive marketplace, prices are always higher, not lower. In this case the ISP isn’t doing us a favor, they are forcing us to buy from them something that we might well be able to buy from someone else for a lot less. . . .

The New Paranoid style in American politics By Andrew Orlowski

The “Net Neutrality” campaign – which created little excitement except on the outer fringes of the web – suggests that the left is now just as capable of being haunted by paranoid fantasies as the right.

What the internet has achieved, with its twisty maze of echo chambers all alike, is a rapid acceleration of this paranoid discourse, which expels nuanced and complex reasoning. Let’s have a look what was being written this week, after the Senate failed to pass those “Neutrality” provisions, as these hundreds of Nation States of One broadcast their distress signals.

“This could mean the death of small internet businesses,” wrote one MySpace blogger, quoted on CNET. A Republican opponent of the “Net Neutrality” legislation was graced, on the same site, with this riposte:

“Thanks, Jim, for being a fascist and promoting fascism in our country.”

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 6-29-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

Net Neutrality Matters by Scott Russell

Imagine a world where Internet performance is controlled by the company who owns the cables and where speed is sold to the highest bidder. Imagine a world where some Web sites load faster than others, where some sites aren’t even visible and where search engines pay a tax to make sure their services perform at an acceptable speed. That’s the world US Telecommunications companies (telcos) such as AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner are trying to create. . . .

To the lay person, it may seem like a laughable proposition. As Cory Doctorow (FreePress) put it, “It’s a dumb idea to put the plumbers who laid a pipe in charge of who gets to use it.” And yet the US congress is swaying towards the view of the telcos, so what’s going on?

Blogtopia “Under Grave and Immediate Threat”

Imagine trying to cope with today’s world without blogs.

On second thought, it’s too painful.

Yet, it may happen sooner rather than later:

Blogs have gained a growing cultural and political impact in the United States and worldwide. In the United States, they’ve been credited with playing a key role in the resignation of a U.S. Senate Majority Leader and the public repudiation of a longtime TV news anchor. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of the English language deemed “blog” its word of the year in 2004. The Technorati website boasts that it keeps track of some 28 million blogs worldwide.

Undeniably, blogs and their collective identity known as the “blogosphere” have become an extraordinary phenomenon. And no matter what topics they may discuss or what political leanings they may espouse, they are all under grave and immediate threat.

The Internet’s Oedipal Drama

Fundamental changes have already taken place in the Internet’s traffic load. In the good old days when the Internet was a private club for elite Universities and defense contractors, traffic was light even for the primitive pipes of the day. When congestion collapse appeared it was viable, just barely, to manage it with an end-to-end system that relied on good behavior on the part of the community, because there was a community. The overloaded Internet of the mid 80’s got new life from exponential backoff and slow start in TCP, because the most aggressive consumer of bandwidth was ftp, the files it transferred were short, and users were patient. They didn’t have spam, viruses, worms, or phishing either.

Now that the Internet has to contend with a billion users and multi-gigabyte file transfers with BitTorrent, the honor box model no longer works at all. When BitTorrent is slowed down by backoff, it simply propagates more paths, creating more and more congestion. In another year, the Internet is going to be just as unstable as it was in 1985.

This being the case, the carriers have to implement traffic limits inside the network, building on the mechanisms established as far back as the 1980s with RED and its progeny. This is the only way to control BitTorrent. There is no community and we’re not patient people.

And while they’re doing that, it makes perfect economic and technical sense to implement voice- and video-oriented QoS. Even Berners-Lee acknowledges this, he’s just on the neutrality bandwagon because he’s exercised about third-party billing for web content, a very obscure concern. So whether the phone company manages its links or not, whether they offer third-party billing for QoS or not, and whether the phone company competes with Akamai by offering content caching or not, the Internet will either change or collapse.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 6-12-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

Why has Web 2.0 Been (Relatively) Quiet on Net Neutrality??

The point is that I searched through Technorati, and could not find the usual Web 2.0 suspects writing, but just pointing people to fun videos that are cutesy; they are not really taking the banner of Net Neutrality.

I have discussed this with a couple of other bloggers – and wonder if Web 2.0 has not rushed to this because they are so caught up with themselves. Do they think that the banners of open source, community Web, and whatever the buzz words du jour are going to save their companies? If you look at the Web 2.0 sites -Facebook, Riya, YouTube, Second Life, Songbird, BitTorrent and others – they are total bandwidth hogs. Look at how much Second Life is growing, to the point that it is holding virtual conferences, virtual concerts. But at least is it suited to find ways around the potential costs of the loss of Net Neutrality, as it already charges for membership.

And, well, since Friday it is even a bigger issue since the House rejected Net Neutrality.

Now, while the big Net companies – MSFT, Google, Yahoo – have been to the hill to fight for Net Neutrality, the other side of the debate has just been as active. But is smarter and better at lobbying. Just imagine if the Web 2.0 companies rallied their users to send a letter or email to their Senators and Congressman. Would not those voices be heard, or am I a little too Mr. Smith Goes To Washington?

Net Neutrality: Who voted for What?

The largest telephone and cable companies such as AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Time Warner want to be able to decide which websites run fast, slow or not at all. They want to be able to charge extra money for fast service and if web sites don’t pay extra then they’ll be doomed to a slow connection.

Net Neutrality wants to ensure that all sites get equal treatment.
The supporters of Net Neutrality include leading high-tech companies such as Amazon.com, Earthlink, EBay, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Skype, Vonage and Yahoo. Prominent national figures such as Internet pioneer Vint Cerf, Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig and FCC Commissioner Michael Copps have called for stronger Net Neutrality protections.

For More Information check out the Net Neutrality FAQ
Yesterday the House of Representatives voted NO for Net Neutrality. The list below shows the people who voted. I have arranged them by state so you can easily see how your representative voted. If you are FOR Net Neutrality and your representative voted NO then don’t vote for him/her in the next elections.
[THE COMPLETE VOTING LIST FOLLOWS]

The Marching Morons Strike Again [Read more…]

Net Neutrality 6-02-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

E-BAY Comes Out in Support of Net Neutrality!

Today, as a registered Seller on E-Bay, I received an e-mail from the E-Bay President and CEO Meg Whitman making a strong case for Net neutrality. Ms Whitman has come out very strongly in support of blocking passage of any bill(s) that would allow the telephone and cable companies to create a “two-tiered” system of network access.

I think this is an excellent and well written letter that clearly explains what the Telecoms are attempting to accomplish. I will post the letter in its entirety:

Net Neutrality and Snakes on Rocketboom today

Not that we ever need an excuse to get our daily dose of Rocketboom, but in today’s episode, Amanda Congdon covers Net Neutrality in between her rants on Snakes on a Plane.

Boiling the Frog – a Net Neutrality Metaphor by Art Brodsky

The metaphor goes like this: If you throw a frog into boiling water, it will jump out. But if you put a frog in warm water, and gradually raise the temperature, it will become acclimated, until it becomes cooked. Gross, but accurate. This is what the telephone companies and their allies who sell them equipment are doing. The metaphor was on display last week when Verizon Executive Vice President Tom Tauke testified before the Senate Commerce Committee. Verizon is not trying to do away with the current Internet, Tauke said. (Water warm).

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 5-29-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

A Long Way From Done

Coming Soon: The Web Toll from Popular Science;

“Welcome to the brave new Web, brought to you by Verizon, Bell South, AT&T and the other telecommunications giants (including PopSci’s parent company, Time Warner) that are now lobbying Congress to block laws that would prevent a two-tiered Internet, with a fast lane for Web sites able to afford it and a slow lane for everyone else.‿

In a thought process straight from “the tunnel‿ Christopher Yoo, a professor at Vanderbilt University Law School, argues that “consumers should be willing to pay for faster delivery of content on the Internet, just as many FedEx customers willingly shell out extra for overnight delivery. ‘A regulatory approach that allows companies to pursue a strategy like FedEx’s makes sense,’ he says.‿ Of course he, along with so many others, have yet to answer the “charges‿ that the consumer HAS ALREADY PAID!!!

Adam Cohen drinks the Kool Aid

The New York Times isn’t what it used to be. Rocked by scandal over the made-up reporting of Jayson Blair, torn apart by the dramatic ouster of Howell Raines, and shaken-up by Judith Miller’s megaphoning the Bush Administration’s fantasies about Iraq’s nuclear program, it increasingly relies on sensationalized, drama-queen reporting and opinion to hold on to a piece of market share. The most recent example of the Times’ descent into rank hysteria is a column today by Adam Cohen on the pending destruction of the World Wide Web:

Save Free Speech on the Web from Corporate Greed

And here in America, the greed of the big corporations is just as likely to stifle true democracy and freedom as it is to encourage it. As has been pointed out, for example, a free press is only free to those who can afford to own the press. We’ve all witnessed the growing lack of diversity of opinion in the broadcast media, where one or two large corporations, like Channel One, have bought up most of the smaller, once independent radio stations across the nation. Local programming has fallen and so has the rich mix of different voices and divergent opinions that was once the hallmark of local radio.

Now, the Internet also is being threatened, as this article in today’s New York Times shows. The telecommunications conglomerates want to start charging fees for use of the Web. By charging fees, they would be creating a tiered system that would favor large commercial sites that could afford steep fees while marginalizing smaller, independent sites. Those who couldn’t afford the pricey fees would have access only to lower speeds or perhaps no access at all.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 5-19-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

Sensenbrenner, Conyers Introduce Bipartisan Net Neutrality Legislation

WASHINGTON, May 18 /U.S. Newswire/ — House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-Wis.), along with Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) and others, today introduced bipartisan legislation to preserve Internet freedom and competition. . . . Internet access has dramatically enhanced the ability of Americans to access this medium and has been a catalyst for innovation and competition. H.R. 5417, the “Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2006,” would ensure competitive and nondiscriminatory access to the Internet.

Chairman Sensenbrenner remarked, “This legislation is a necessary step to protect consumers and other Internet users from possible anti-competitive and discriminatory conduct by broadband providers. The FCC recently reported that 98 percent of American consumers get their high speed broadband from either a cable company or a DSL provider. This virtual duopoly creates an environment that is ripe for anti-competitive abuses, and for which a clear antitrust remedy is urgently needed.”

“This legislation will provide an insurance policy for Internet users against being harmed by broadband network operators abusing their market power to discriminate against content and service providers. While I am not opposed to providers responsibly managing their networks and providing increased bandwidth to those consumers who wish to pay for it, I am opposed to providers giving faster, more efficient access to certain service providers at the expense of others. This legislation will ensure that this type of discriminatory behavior will not take place, and will help to continue the tradition of innovation and competition that has defined the Internet,” continued Chairman Sensenbrenner.

The Wall Street Journal Blows it Big Time
[Wall Street Journal Article Follows]

The change the providers want to make is hard to describe because the double charging concept is so foreign to us. Basically it’s without precedent. But I’m going to try.

It would be like setting up a toll interstate highway system. As it stands now, everyone getting on that highway system would have to pay a toll to each state where you get on the highway. How much you currently pay determines whether you can get into the fast lane, or if you have to stay in the slow lane.

Now imagine a different, additional, toll structure. Say a truck was going from Florida to Wisconsin. Under the new system (what the internet providers want to do), the truck would pay his toll to Florida like he always did and get into which ever lane he paid for. But now he would also have to pay an additional toll to Wisconsin the moment he got on the highway or he wouldn’t be allowed to get off the highway there.

It might almost sound reasonable except where the analogy falls apart when you translate it to the internet. Be cause with the internet, you put your data on in one place, but it doesn’t get off in one place, but many. And under the new system you would have to pay an additional toll everyplace you wanted your data to be able to get off the highway.

The Web’s Worst New Idea

Under a law like this–variations are floating around both houses of Congress–the country could look forward to years of litigation about the extent and nature of the rules. When the dust settled we’d have a new set of regulations that could span the range of possible activities on the Net. What’s more, the rules aren’t likely to stop with the phone and cable companies that have Mr. Markey and his friends at Moveon.org so exercised.

Non-discrimination cases could well be brought against Net neutrality backers like Google–say, for placing a competitor too low in their search results. Google’s recent complaint that Microsoft’s new operating system was anti-competitive is a foretaste of what the battles over a “neutral” Net would look like. Yet Google and other Web site operators have jumped on the Net neutrality bandwagon lest they have to pay a fee to get a guaranteed level of service from a Verizon or other Internet service provider. They don’t seem to comprehend the legal and political danger they’ll face once they open the neutrality floodgates. We’d have thought Microsoft of all companies would have learned this lesson from its antitrust travails, but it too has now hired lawyers to join the Net neutrality lobby.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE