Category Archives: Distributed Participation

Benton, Universal Service, TPRC, Social Contract

bentonfoundation.png Many good papers on aspects of universal service at the Benton Universal Service Project:
As Congress and the FCC put universal service reform at the top of its telecom policy agenda, the Benton Foundation is supporting a series of papers advancing a new vision for Universal Service — for making broadband as universal as telephone service is today and a pathway for retaking the lead as a broadband leader. This project outlines the policy rationale, the pathway forward, and the 12 key steps for advancing universal broadband and modernizing the universal service program for the information age.
Many of the authors of the papers are on a panel this afternoon at TPRC, including topicssuch as
The social contract implicit in telephony universal service versus the social contract implicit in broadband universal service.
Hm, maybe Verizon could learn from that one?

-jsq

Verizon Blocks and Unblocks Pro-Choice Group

hp_naral_logo.gif Here’s what happens when you have a telco thinking the Internet is subject to its internal policies and political predilictions:
Saying it had the right to block “controversial or unsavory” text messages, Verizon Wireless last week rejected a request from Naral Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group, to make Verizon’s mobile network available for a text-message program.

But the company reversed course this morning, saying it had made a mistake.

“The decision to not allow text messaging on an important, though sensitive, public policy issue was incorrect, and we have fixed the process that led to this isolated incident,” Jeffrey Nelson, a company spokesman, said in a statement.

“It was an incorrect interpretation of a dusty internal policy,” Mr. Nelson said. “That policy, developed before text messaging protections such as spam filters adequately protected customers from unwanted messages, was designed to ward against communications such as anonymous hate messaging and adult materials sent to children.”

Mr. Nelson noted that text messaging is “harnessed by organizations and individuals communicating their diverse opinions about issues and topics” and said Verizon has “great respect for this free flow of ideas.”

— Verizon Reverses Itself on Abortion Rights Messages, By Adam Liptak, New York Times, September 27, 2007

Is the Internet a public network, or isn’t it? If it is, I don’t see why any ISP should be blocking messages based on content. (Spam is a different matter: spam is unsolicited.) There are various opinions as to what laws, if any, cover text messages. But the main point isn’t even legal. If the telco-provided network isn’t a public network, it’s not the Internet.

-jsq

Content Protect v. Internet Freedom

content_protection.png Here’s another view of what the telcos and cablecos have in mind for us, or, rather, what they want in our minds: approved content. This is substantially different from the Internet freedom we have today to look at whatever we want to and to publish our own content.

Remember:

AT&T Inc. has joined Hollywood studios and recording companies in trying to keep pirated films, music and other content off its network — the first major carrier of Internet traffic to do so.
Get ready for the Amazon Channel or settle for Internet Base Service. Continue reading →

Internet as Analysis Supplier: Is the Surge Working?

michael_greenstone.jpg Steven Levitt points out there are other ways to measure the effects of a military action than listening to politicians or generals, and the Internet can promote the production of such measures, and the analysis of them by multiple parties. On several measures, M.I.T. professor Michael Greenstone finds results of the U.S. “surge” in Iraq to be mixed. Then he brings in another measure:
The most interesting part of Greenstone’s paper is his analysis of the pricing of Iraqi government debt. The Iraq government has issued bonds in the past. These entitle the owner of the bond to a stream of payments over a set period of time, but only if the government does not default on the loan. If Iraq completely implodes, it is highly unlikely that these bonds will be paid off. How much someone would pay for the rights to that stream of payments depends on their estimate of the probability that Iraq will implode.

The bond data, unlike the other sources he examines, tell a clear story: the financial markets say the surge is not working. Since the surge started, the market’s estimate of the likelihood of default by the Iraqi government has increased by 40 percent.

— Is the Surge Working? Ask the Data, Not the Politicians, By Steven D. Levitt, Freakonomics, September 15, 2007, 11:55 am

This kind of analysis seldom gets written for traditional channels because (2) there’s no academic incentive for it and (3) the only money in it is usually from special interests. Here’s the main point:
1. This paper shows how good economic analysis can contribute in a fundamental way to public policy. Anyone who reads Greenstone’s article will recognize that it is careful and thorough. It is even-handed and apolitical. It combines state-of-the-art data analysis techniques with economic logic (e.g., using market prices to draw conclusions about how things are going).

…

4. The internet can potentially solve both problems (2) and (3) above, leading to an increased supply of good, timely analysis. If people like Greenstone can immediately get their findings into the public debate through the internet, it gives a real purpose (not just an academic one) to doing the work. In addition, there are now online peer-reviewed academic journals that have greatly sped the time from submission to publication, potentially increasing the academic payoff to someone like Greenstone. With many respected economists now blogging, there is also a vehicle for these folks to weigh in on the quality of policy-related economic writings — like I am doing in this blog post.

If the Internet helps focus many eyes on bugs and make them shallow, why can’t it do the same with political and military actions?

Right now it can. Without net neutrality it wouldn’t be able to.

-jsq

When I invented the Web, I didn’t have to ask anyone’s permission.

timbi.jpg One sentence sums it up:
When I invented the Web, I didn’t have to ask anyone’s permission.

&mdash: Net Neutrality: This is serious by timbl (Tim Berners-Lee), DiG, Wed, 2006-06-21 16:35

That’s Internet freedom. That’s why we need net neutrality.

What is net neutrality?

If I pay to connect to the Net with a certain quality of service, and you pay to connect with that or greater quality of service, then we can communicate at that level.
Where you and I are any pair of participants on the Internet. Continue reading →

Twaddle v. a Wonder of the World

goldengate.jpg It’s good to see a newspaper not mince words:
A free-for-all web (after normal monthly broadband charges have been paid) is one of the wonders of the world and a binding force for all communities.

…

The Federal Communications Commission has just been advised by the US department of justice, under heavy lobbying from the operators who stand to gain from higher data charges, that a neutral net might “prevent, rather than promote” investment and innovation. This is twaddle. An open-access net has produced one of the greatest surges of innovation ever recorded and has given an opportunity for people all over the world to communicate with each other and share knowledge on equal terms. Long may it continue to be so.

— In praise of… a freely available internet, Leader, The Guardian, Tuesday September 11, 2007

The Guardian brings up a related point:

It has only become an issue because the US Congress is scrutinising the question of “net neutrality”, though why the US authorities – rather than an international body – should deem themselves to have jurisdiction over the internet is not clear.
The usual answer to that is that a properly constituted international body would do even worse. Although nowadays, it seems the otherwise unlateralist U.S. government is toeing the (pseudo-)capitalist international party line.

-jsq

Whatevermerit

qualls1.jpg
Photograph by
Martynka Wawrzyniak
Ashley Qualls, aged 17, builds a myspace site, Whateverlife, earns $70,000/month, quits school, buys house, refuses $1.5 million buy out.
Her MySpace page layouts are available for the bargain price of…nothing. They’re free for the taking. Her only significant source of revenue so far is advertising.

— Girl Power, by Chuck Salter, Fast Company, Issue 118, September 2007, Page 104

Ads by ValueClick Media, not DoubleClick.

Now imagine her doing this on a properly commoditized and monetized broadcast content duopoly-controled Internet. She wouldn’t be able to get approval, and if she did, she wouldn’t be able to afford the broadcast fees.

Internet freedom? Whatever!

-jsq

PS: Seen on SocialDailyNews.com.

The Amazon Channel

packages.gif It’s all very well to talk about net neutrality or Internet freedom and how it affects 700Mhz spectrum sales or freedom of the press. But what does all this have to do with the average Internet user?

Suppose the telcos and cablecos get everything they want.

To buy a BBQ grill on eBay, you’ll have to pay for the eBay channel. This is above whatever you pay the seller for the grill or eBay for your membership. You’ll have to pay your local Internet access company just to let you get to eBay to participate in the auction. Oh, maybe you’ll be able to get there anyway, but your access may be so slow that you’ll pay for the eBay channel out of frustration.

If you want to buy a book from Amazon, you’ll have to pay for the Amazon channel. For search you’ll need the Yahoo channel or the ask.com channel or the google channel. Assuming your favorite search engine is even offered as a channel. Many smaller services probably won’t be.

Maybe it won’t be quite this bad. Continue reading →

Warp Speed From Behind

JBrbop02.jpg As we’ve mentioned before Japan has Internet connections much faster than those in the U.S. This point is getting more mainstream media play:
Broadband service here is eight to 30 times as fast as in the United States — and considerably cheaper. Japan has the world’s fastest Internet connections, delivering more data at a lower cost than anywhere else, recent studies show.

Accelerating broadband speed in this country — as well as in South Korea and much of Europe — is pushing open doors to Internet innovation that are likely to remain closed for years to come in much of the United States.

The speed advantage allows the Japanese to watch broadcast-quality, full-screen television over the Internet, an experience that mocks the grainy, wallet-size images Americans endure.

— Japan’s Warp-Speed Ride to Internet Future, By Blaine Harden, Washington Post Foreign Service, Wednesday, August 29, 2007; Page A01

So is it just for video? If so, maybe we’d better let the telcos have their way. Continue reading →

Facebook as PicturePhone

Phone1.jpg Jeff Pulver has an interesting point that orty years later it’s an Internet company that delivers what a telco long ago promised:
During the past couple of weeks I have come to appreciate just how simple and easy it has become to send Video Messages to friends on Facebook. While the concept of a video phone dates back to the work of AT&T and their demonstrations at the 1964 World’s Fair, it has taken the advent of the Video application on Facebook and it’s general ease of use to get me to take the time and use it as part of my daily (Internet) life. While I have discovered how the Facebook video application can be used in various ways, my favorite is to send a personal video message to a friend.

— My Favorite Facebook Application: Video, Jeff Pulver, Jeff Pulver blog, August 27, 2007

While a telco did invent or at least publicize the videophone, forty years later it’s an Internet application that delivers something like it on a mass scale. And maybe one reason the Facebook version of it is popular is that it isn’t quite like what AT&T predicted: it isn’t interactive television. Experience indicates people don’t necessarily want to be seen live any old time regardless of their state of dress or coffee.

And more obviously, there’s no fancy equipment to buy, so the worldwide clientele is already there on the Internet. It’s the difference between distributed participation and being sold a centralized service.

-jsq