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Net Neutrality 5-18-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

The New “Pipes� Are Already Paid For!

This doesn’t feel like an original source but it is informative – from Jason Lee Miller at WebProNews on May 12th. “Telcos Lay $200 Billion Goose Egg.â€?

Jason begins this discertation with this;

� The U.S. is ranked 12th in broadband penetration, says AT&T CEO Ed Whiteacre, and in order to bring America up to speed through fiber-to-the-premises (fttp) wiring, content providers are going to have to pony up to use his “pipes.� He doesn’t mention that the new pipes to be built have already been paid for, and they’re very late in coming.�

Already paid for? . . .

Well, here you go – Jason points to Bruce Kushnick’s book “$200 Billion Broadband Scandal. This book documents the largest fraud case in American history!â€?

“Starting in the early 1990’s, the Clinton-Gore Administration had aggressive plans to create the “National Infrastructure Initiative� to rewire ALL of America with fiber optic wiring, replacing the 100 year old copper wire. The Bell companies — SBC, Verizon, BellSouth and Qwest, claimed that they would step up to the plate and rewire homes, schools, libraries, government agencies, businesses and hospitals, etc. if they received financial incentives.�

Wall St. Journal gets it [also via Wall Street Journal Straight Up]

From the mountaintop [the Wall Street Journal], straight talk on Internet regulation:

Don’t kid yourself that the issue here is “censoring� the Web. The issue is Internet survival. AT&T talks about the coming Multimedia Explosion as new forms of video traffic rapidly overtake Web-surfing, file transfer and email as the prime users of backbone capacity. Literally, “net neutrality� would result in an increasingly unreliable Internet as more and more high-bandwidth applications contest for space on networks that nobody would have an incentive to expand.

The real issue is where will the big bucks come from to create an Internet capable of handling the services now envisioned, let alone those not yet dreamed up. BellSouth’s Chief Architect Henry Kafka told an audience in March that a typical broadband user today consumes about two gigabytes of data a month, at a network cost of $1. Once TV has gone high-definition and on-demand, a typical user will consume about 1,120 gigabytes a month at a cost of $560 (that’s in addition to the administrative, sales and service costs that today make up the lion’s share of the user’s bill). “Clearly that’s not what the average user is going to pay per month for their video service,� Mr. Kafka said. “That’s why we need help.�


Net Neutrality, and the hope the US could learn some lessons from African experience

As I think back on it, the vast majority of the policy work I did in Africa was, on one level or another, net neutrality work. As Voice over IP became increasingly important in African nations, I was concerned that phone companies would claim authority over any electronic voice traffic, forcing one of the most interesting developments in telephony into illegality to protect their lucrative monopolies… which is precisely what happened in most countries. Some countries are now discovering they have to undo these decisions and make VOIP possible now, because it’s such a powerful technology and economic force, letting people communicate with families overseas because technical innovation and invention has lowered the price of voice transmission.

It would be a shame to see the US make the same mistake many developing nations made almost a decade ago.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality: Red Bank TV

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Who Says Blogs Aren’t Useful?

Tom has lived in Red Bank, New Jersey, since he bought a home there six years ago. He’s not an activist. In fact, he says he has no political affiliation at all. Tom’s just a guy like us, who works with and uses technology. He also cares about negotiations between the town of Red Bank, New Jersey, and Verizon Communications.

So he made a blog.

Why Tom Made the Blog

Tom made the Red Bank TV Blog because he believes that as part of the cable franchise agreement with the town of Red Bank, Verizon Communications should make three promises:

  • Promise to provide A la carte cable service to Red Bank residents
  • Promise not to object to a Red Bank Municipal WiFi network
  • Promise to keep the internet a level playing field by upholding the tenets of Net Neutrality

Tom’s blog got my attention. I bet it got Verizon’s attention too. I hope this article helps it get the attention of Doc Searls, Jeff Pulver, Om Malik, and many others who want to know what local folks are doing. Tom’s blog is a great example of someone following through on what he believes.

Blogs used well are transparent to the purpose they are used for. No one will be wrapping fish in Tom’s blog tomorrow, or the next day for that matter. There’s so much to talk about in what Tom is doing.

I bet if you have a question about how it’s going, Tom will see it and answer it here.

–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

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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

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

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 5-02-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

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

How Real Is the Threat?

Big telco execs are on the record:

AT&T’s Ed Whitacre wants consumers and content providers to pay for use of his network. “The Internet can’t be free … for a Google or Yahoo or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes free is nuts.�

BellSouth’s William Smith told reporters that he would like to turn the Internet into a “pay-for-performance marketplace� where his company could charge for the “right� to have certain services load faster than others.

Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg says that Web applications need to “share the cost� of the broadband services already paid for by consumers. “We need to pay for the pipe.�

Net Neutrality Not An Optional Feature of Internet

Imagine the prospects of an info tech industry without “software neutrality� where Intel charged a fee to enhance software performance. Pay Intel and your applications run faster. The incentives driving Moore’s Law disappear in this pay-to-play model. Intel’s profit maximizing incentives become serving the interests of software companies willing to spend the most on “enhancing software performance� not the end users of computers. The meritocracy driving competition between software companies disappears as Intel picks winners and losers based on willingness to pay. Innovation becomes permission based at Intel’s discretion. . . .

The Internet does not exist without net neutrality. Consider the misleading assertion that tinkering with network neutrality simply amounts to adding class of service as in the case of air travel or HOV lanes on highways. . . . The telco and cable companies have in mind creating another type of customer not a class of service. They want suppliers to pay for the right of transit. It amounts to airlines charging Time Warner for the right of readers to take Time magazine on an airplane. It means charging Ford tolls in addition to drivers for the right of Ford cars to use highways.

Sen Stevens tries to sneak the Broadcast Flag into law posted by Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing

Sen Stevens tries to sneak the Broadcast Flag into law
Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) has snuck the Broadcast Flag into a bill on Net Neutrality. The stealth clause authorizes “the FCC to establish a broadcast flag to allow TV stations to protect digital content from Internet piracy.”
What this means is

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE