Category Archives: Net Neutrality

A FiOS Way

Verizon has a policy blog. It’s been around for most of a year now:

I’ll leave clever humor comparing this blog’s name with the terminology for amphibious offspring to others, yet in one sense the comparison is appropriate. “PoliBlog” is very much a site in its infancy, and none of us here at Verizon is sure how it will evolve. But evolve it will.
The intent of PoliBlog is to present perspectives on issues of importance that intersect public policy, politics, markets, and business in the broadband world. That’s a big pool to swim in, and it reflects the constantly changing world we live in.
—, Welcome Aboard, by Tom Tauke, PolicyBlog, October 02, 2006

I have to give them points for seeing it as an emergent communication method including their point of view, rather than just dictating talking points.So far, they seem to be sticking to that. And they’re getting some interesting comments, pro and con. But let’s look outside their blog box a bit. Continue reading →

FTC: What, Me Worry?

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says there’s no need for net neutrality:

FTC Chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras said that without evidence of “market failure or demonstrated consumer harm, policy makers should be particularly hesitant to enact new regulation in this area.”

So in a “market” where the average customer has at most two choices, we’re supposed to wait for a market failure? Continue reading →

Framing Net Neutrality

Here’s an interesting exercise in framing net neutrality:

On the one side are traditional media – phone and cable companies, the carriers – in rare agreement. They do not want to be regulated, and they want to preserve the profitability potential that protects their network upgrades. They are therefore joined by some hardware tech firms. On the other side is what might be called the internet-industrial complex – consisting of idealistic net community folks, small start-ups, large Silicon Valley corporations pretending to be both – and Hollywood, in another strange bed fellowship.
The US Congress is in the middle; by the latest count six bills are pending, and while none is likely to be passed for now, the process itself has been a boon.
— A third way for net neutrality, By Eli Noam, Financial Times, 29 August 2006

Note “internet-industrial complex”, in analogy to Eisenhower’s phrase, “military-industrial complex”. Yet the cablecos and telcos are said to be “in rare agreement” when actually they have long been acting on the same side on this issue; after all, it’s in both their (short-term) interests to keep the number of players down. With no competition, there’s no real market, and thus no real competition (which long-term means they won’t be competitive with their international competitors, which are already offering speeds ten times faster for similar prices). Continue reading →

e911 vs. Net Neutrality

I don’t usually blog the same article twice, but Cringely said something else important (the all-caps emphases are his):

Now let’s look at this in the context of net neutrality. For the cable companies, at least, it probably doesn’t matter. That’s because while cable Internet service and cable VoIP service both use the CMTS, it is easy for the cable company to configure its VoIP product as completely separate from its Internet product. IF YOUR CABLE OPERATOR WILL SELL YOU VOIP SERVICE WITHOUT INTERNET SERVICE, THEN NET NEUTRALITY DOES NOT APPLY.
If excess Internet traffic causes problems for the VoIP services of these cable companies, they can prioritize their own VoIP packets with impunity because VoIP isn’t defined as an Internet service. And for that very reason, packet prioritization can — and will — occur even if the broadband ISP has signed an agreement promising net neutrality.
The next level of this ploy is to validate the un-Internetiness of the VoIP system through public service interconnects like 911. “Should calling the police get priority treatment?” will be the question and most courts won’t say “no.”
— Beyond Net Neutrality: If at first you don’t succeed, change the game. Robert X. Cringely, I, Cringely, April 6, 2007

The various VoIP companies better be worried about this trick, because it’s all the incumbent duopoly really needs to say their own VoIP is an essential public service and any others are interfering with public safety. Continue reading →

Internet Deconstructs Spin?

Joe Trippi thinks the Internet changes politics from spin to something better:

Internet activism is spelling the end for the age of spin, the online campaign guru Joe Trippi will warned two British politicians, suggesting that the rules for dealing with “old media” no longer apply.
…
“Command and control … [is] a disaster in the peer-to-peer social network world.”
— Does the Internet Spell the End of Political Spin? By Tania Branigan, The Guardian. Posted June 15, 2007.

Dave Weinberger suggests more or less the same thing, somewhat less optimistically, Continue reading →

Incumbents Preparing

Cringely gets pessimistic:

In the end the ISPs are going to win this battle, you know. The only thing that will keep them from doing that is competition, something it is difficult to see coming along anytime soon, rather like that lemonade-powered sports car.
— Beyond Net Neutrality: If at first you don’t succeed, change the game. I, Cringely, Pulpit, April 6, 2007

Is he just whining? Continue reading →

AT&T Attacks Content

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.
…
As AT&T has begun selling pay-television services, the company has realized that its interests are more closely aligned with Hollywood, Cicconi said in an interview Tuesday. The company’s top leaders recently decided to help Hollywood protect the digital copyrights to that content.
“We do recognize that a lot of our future business depends on exciting and interesting content,” he said.
— AT&T to target pirated content, It joins Hollywood in trying to keep bootleg material off its network. By James S. Granelli, L.A. Times, June 13, 2007

Now it’s for Internet video. Which is what “James W. Cicconi, an AT&T senior vice president,” meant by “exciting and interesting content.” Nevermind participatory customer-generated content, or that customers might not want AT&T monitoring their content. Continue reading →

U.S. Presidential Candidates per WCA

The Wireless Communications Association International (WCA) has put up a website it says is:

…the authoritative go-to resource for comments by – and comparisons between – top U.S. policymakers regarding the pace and benefits of broadband deployments. The ongoing U.S. Presidential election campaign already features the policy positions of the candidates. Broadband services play a vital role in a host of areas in both the North American and world economies. These much-sought benefits go beyond consumer desires to include community economic development in rural and urban regions, plus critical applications in education, public safety, military preparedness and disaster response.
— WCA Thought-Leaders Forum: U.S. Presidential Candidates Debate Broadband, accessed 13 June 2007

It’s somewhat unfortunate that it’s phrased as Broadband, not Internet policy, but given the membership of WCA, that’s understandable. I can’t tell at first glance how thorough it is. They ask for comments.

-jsq

Media Ownership

While we’re on the general subject of postal and Internet rates and a free press,, let’s look at who owns the U.S. media:

In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S. … When the 6th edition of The Media Monopoly was published in 2000, the number had fallen to six. Since then, there have been more mergers and the scope has expanded to include new media like the Internet market. More than 1 in 4 Internet users in the U.S. now log in with AOL Time-Warner, the world’s largest media corporation.
In 2004, Bagdikian’s revised and expanded book, The New Media Monopoly, shows that only 5 huge corporations — Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch’s News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) — now control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric’s NBC is a close sixth.
— Number of corporations that control a majority of U.S. media, Media Reform Information Center, accessed 21 June 2007

This might be worth remembering the next time you hear that the market will sort out any problems and there’s no need for regulation. Would that there were a market so that that could be true.

-jsq

None Should Be Favored

What’s the theory behind the recent postal rate changes? The Chairman of the Postal Board of Governors spelled it out 27 years ago:

“…none should be favored and none benefited. Each party pays the cost of service it consumes, not less, and does not bear the cost of others’ consumption.”
— James C. Miller III and Roger Sherman, “Has the 1970 Act Been Fair to Mailers?” in Roger Sherman, ed., Perspectives on Postal Service Issues 63 (1980).

And the Postal Regulatory Commission is following that theory. Continue reading →

Peerflow

Open participation through a fast Internet