This blog post is cross-posted at The Qando Blog. 

There were two Op/Eds on Net Neutrality today, one in the New York Times, and another in the Washington Post.

The NYT version, is a fairly uninspired pro-neutrality editorial. The WaPo, version, however, requires some comment.

Yet perhaps without realizing it, those who are now advocating “net neutrality”—the notion that those who shell out the big bucks to build new much higher speed networks can’t ask the websites that will use the networks intensively to help pay for them—could keep this new world from becoming a reality. Further, they could deprive the websites themselves of the benefits of being able to use the networks to deliver their data-heavy content.

That is not, in fact, what we are advocating. Moreover, I’d bet that when the guys at Google or Yahoo get their bandwidth bills every month, they think they are already paying for the network. In fact, I bet they think that’s the whole purpose of those bandwidth charges.

I run a web hosting company myself. With every plan, you get a fixed amount of bandwidth included. If you exceed that bandwidth, even by one byte, you get charged for an additional 5GB of bandwidth. You can have all the bandwidth you want…you just have to pay for it.

That’s the standard for practically every hosting company in the world. Bandwidth isn’t free, and never has been. Everybody gets charged for it. And by everybody, I don’t just mean content providers. Individual users pay for the bandwidth they use, too. Everybody pays for bandwidth, coming and going.

No one on the Net Neutrality side is, as far as I’m aware, arguing that network providers can’t charge for bandwidth. Nor are any of the network providers giving away any of that bandwidth for free.

What the network providers are after is not the ability to charge for the bandwidth that content providers use. What they are seeking is to obtain rent from content providers, by charging more than the bandwidth is worth, and restricting the bandwidth of content providers who are unwilling to pay that rent. This is supposed to be done under the guise of rationing our precious, precious bandwidth.

But, there’s already a method of rationing bandwidth. It’s called “price”. That’s already an adequate rationing mechanism without resorting to rent-seeking.

Economists are fond of saying that there are no “free lunches,” which is to say that new products and services don’t magically appear. Those who benefit from them pay for them. A corollary of this simple principle is that markets will not work efficiently— that is, they will not generate the maximum output at the least cost— unless prices fully reflect all of the costs of products sold or services delivered.

And your point would be…?

Is it that bandwidth prices are too low? OK, then raise the price of Bandwidth from $X per GB of transfer to $X+ per GB.

Are you arguing that Yahoo! is getting some free benefit from all the bandwidth they use? If so, then I’d bet the Yahoo! bean counters would disagree when they write out those checks every month to pay for their bandwidth.

Oh, and by the way, without content providers, who would be using any of that bandwidth in the first place? If the content didn’t exist, the network would be pretty darned useless.

There are well known externalities associated with the Internet. One positive externality is that the more users there are, the more beneficial it is to be plugged in, and the more profitable it is to write software it is for Net applications. But increasingly, as content like movies, real-time games, and other data-heavy services like remote disease monitoring are made available, some data imposes negative externalities— traffic congestion, if you will— that adversely affect the ability of others to use the Net reliably.

Until recently, traffic congestion on the Net was not a problem. There was so much excess capacity in the fiber optic cables and other parts of the complex telecommunications network that additional data heavy traffic delivered from one site did not threaten the reliability of traffic delivered from other sites and routed through the Net. But that blissful world is gone now. The existing networks are rapidly running out of excess capacity. We need new cyber-highways if the brave new world of movies, fast Google searches, and telemedicine— to take a few examples— is to become at all viable.

The question, then is: who should pay for these much higher speed networks? Asking all users to pay the same amount, regardless of how much they data they download, hardly seems fair.

And, who precisely, is charging for network access without reference to the bandwidth used? I know I’m not. Nor do I know of anyone who is.

So, again, the point would be…?

Why should telecoms companies that want to build the next-generation cyber-highways be treated any differently? Shouldn’t they at least be allowed to charge data heavy sites more than others so that the many of us who don’t download lots of data don’t get socked?

Again, they already do charge data heavy sites more than little web sites. They do so through charging for every GB of transfer, which means that sites that use more bandwidth pay more in bandwidth charges.

If it helps, look at it this way:

Let’s say you’re a SBC telephone customer. You pick up the phone to call a local business. After you dial the number, you get a message that says, “You have chosen to call a number that uses GTE as its local phone service. We are unable to connect this call between the peak hours of nine AM to five PM. If you wish to connect to this business during non-peak hours, you must pay an additional service charge.”

So, let’s say you’re lucky, and the business remains open until 5:30 PM. Now, when you call, you get this message: “To connect to this number with a low-quality connection at the rate of twenty-five cents a minute, please press ‘one’ now. To connect to this number with a regular, high quality connection at fifty cents per minute, please press ‘two’ now.”

Do you think you’d like a phone service that operates like that? If not, then why would you want a tiered Internet that works like that?

Treating phone companies as common carriers has some advantages that I doubt you really want to give up. Treating the Internet that way carries the same advantages.

There may be some good arguments against Net Neutrality, but they won’t be found in this op/ed piece.

In his “Media Minutes” radio report, John Anderson hails our grassroots mobilization for “making a difference in Washington”:

A broad and deep coalition banded together to pound Capitol Hill with a call to preserve the principle of network neutrality for the internet. It began with some 50 diverse organizations. That number has since multiplied eight-fold. More than 2,000 bloggers took up the call and more than a half million people have signed on to a petition supporting net neutrality safeguards.

Anderson mentions the astroturf frontmen and their telco bosses who are spending nearly a million dollars a week running television advertisements in Washington DC, which attempt to paint AT&T’s drive to kill off an open Internet as “Good for America.”

But the politicians are waking up to the public outcry, Anderson continues: “At least two bills are now circulating… that would prohibit data discrimination.”

Listen in to John’s full report.

The cable and phone lobby is bombarding Washington with TV ads telling Congress to support their plans to seize control of the Internet. According to Jeff Chester, the industry is spending nearly $1 million a week on an ad blitz to convince elected officials to side with AT&T and Verizon — and against their constituents.

“Companies such as Qwest, Comcast, Time Warner, and AT&T want to be broadband barons,” Chester writes, “with all other content providers and users reduced to serving as merely consuming digital surfs.”

How much is the PR campaign costing? Chester replies:

Well, intrepid media consultant Gary Arlen of Arlen Communications has done the math. “About 975K is being spent on Washington-area media buying,” he told us. That sum is mostly for local broadcast TV expenditures. According to Mr. Arlen, the U.S. Telecom Association has been spending $250 K/week (and so far has run-up a six-week $1.5 million ad tab). AT&T is forking out $600K per week (for its “Choice” campaign). TV4US, a telco “Astroturf” group, is spending $75k per week for at least a four-week air time buy. The NCTA, meanwhile, has gone through at least $ 1 million nationally in a year, spending 50K a week in the DC market as Congress meets.

We need to match each telco lobbying dollar with the voice of an actual person. Let Congress know that you speak louder than industry propaganda. Contact Congress today. More than 500,000 people have already.

We’re turning the tides against “business as usual” in Washington, as Josh Silver wrote yesterday:

As predicted, the cable and telephone companies have lined up their PR henchmen and “Astroturf” campaigns in an attempt to muscle through legislation that hands them control of the Internet. But they’re now facing a formidable opposition in the form of a public that’s fed up with business as usual in the nation’s capital.

Whereas before, the big telephone companies and their hired guns were confident that Congress would simply roll over, today, no member of Congress can vote with the teleco cartel without feeling public heat.

“The Internet has revolutionized the way Americans communicate with one another and do business,” writes Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren. “It’s just common sense to keep that revolution where it belongs–in the hands of ordinary individuals, instead of a handful of big corporations.”

In a CNet News op-ed, the California Representative chides the House Commerce Committee, which “passed up its chance to keep the Internet open,” and calls on every elected official to stand firm against the telephone-cable cartel:

The latest chapter in that attack on freedom is the fight against network neutrality. For most Americans, our options for broadband Internet come down to two choices–a phone company or a cable company. Instead of continuing our freedom to use those connections with whatever content, devices and services we want, some corporations want to control what we access over the Internet. This would include giving better connections to their favored content, and charging money for that privilege.

What would the world look like if the Internet had been controlled in this way a few years ago? Imagine if the students who created Google or Yahoo had been charged a fee by a phone company for the privilege of letting their potential users have fast access. These small projects would not have turned into big ideas that revolutionized the World Wide Web. The proposed control of content goes directly against the level playing field created by Internet technology. The concept of freedom written about by Thomas Paine is being challenged by this threat to net neutrality.

If Thomas Paine were alive today, Lofgren adds, he would “write a blog about the need to protect Internet independence that would reach across the world.” By this morning’s count, more than 2,500 blogs are carrying the torch handed down by this founding revolutionary — linking to SavetheInternet.com and spreading the grassroots fire.

Click here, to get your blog involved.

The new Commerce Committee bill out from the Senate is a doozy. It doesn’t protect internet freedom. It hurts consumers. It will hurt entrepreneurs. On the other hand, I guess it won’t club baby seals though to be completely fair it hasn’t been through the Committee yet.

Jason Lee Miller provides the scoop:

Just for a recap, Sen. Stevens, whose largest contributors are telecommunications and broadcasting companies, wrote legislation favorable to telecommunications and broadcasting companies and unfavorable to the general consumer, small businesses, and Internet companies while providing “new protections” of rights citizens already have.

This is a winnable fight. We have over half a million signatures, and the Senate’s going to listen.

Tim Berners-Lee, one of the inventors of the Web, came out in support of Net Neutrality calling it fundamental to maintaining a fair and competitive market economy.

When, seventeen years ago, I designed the Web, I did not have to ask anyone’s permission. The new application rolled out over the existing Internet without modifying it. I tried then, and many people still work very hard still, to make the Web technology, in turn, a universal, neutral, platform. It must not discriminate against particular hardware, software, underlying network, language, culture, disability, or against particular types of data. The Internet is increasingly becoming the dominant medium binding us. The neutral communications medium is essential to our society. It is the basis of a fair competitive market economy.

This tip came from Om Malik at GigaOm. Om adds: “I think it is time for start-ups and their backers to take stock of what the loss of network neutrality would mean to their business. Win or lose, this one has business implications, more so for many of the smaller corporate citizens.”

The financial industry is beginning to make noise to that end. According to a story in The Hill, the financial-services industry is weighing coordinated opposition to the telco-friendly language in the House’s bill, “fearing a financial hit if lawmakers allow phone and cable companies to charge banks more for secure Web service.”

This concern is now echoing among venture capitalists and Internet innovators in Silicon Valley, according to a column by Tom Foremski.

Berners-Lee joins fellow pioneer Vinton Cerf in support of a free and open Internet.

The Editorial page of the New York Times weighs in:

“Net neutrality” is a concept that is still unfamiliar to most Americans, but it keeps the Internet democratic. Cable and telephone companies that provide Internet service are talking about creating a two-tiered Internet, in which Web sites that pay them large fees would get priority over everything else. Opponents of these plans are supporting Net-neutrality legislation, which would require all Web sites to be treated equally. Net neutrality recently suffered a setback in the House, but there is growing hope that the Senate will take up the cause.

One of the Internet’s great strengths is that a single blogger or a small political group can inexpensively create a Web page that is just as accessible to the world as Microsoft’s home page. But this democratic Internet would be in danger if the companies that deliver Internet service changed the rules so that Web sites that pay them money would be easily accessible, while little-guy sites would be harder to access, and slower to navigate. Providers could also block access to sites they do not like.

That would be a financial windfall for Internet service providers, but a disaster for users, who could find their Web browsing influenced by whichever sites paid their service provider the most money. There is a growing movement of Internet users who are pushing for legislation to make this kind of discrimination impossible. It has attracted supporters ranging from MoveOn.org to the Gun Owners of America. Grass-roots political groups like these are rightly concerned that their online speech could be curtailed if Internet service providers were allowed to pick and choose among Web sites.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee defeated a good Net-neutrality amendment last week. But the amendment got more votes than many people expected, suggesting that support for Net neutrality is beginning to take hold in Congress. In the Senate, Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican, and Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, are drafting a strong Net-neutrality bill that would prohibit broadband providers from creating a two-tiered Internet. Senators who care about the Internet and Internet users should get behind it.

Poynter posts on a warning from Dan Gillmor:

“The cable and phone companies want to control not just the pipes through which our data moves. They also want to decide what will get delivered, in what order, and at what speed. They haven’t pulled this off yet, but they’re getting closer every day. …If they succeed in capturing the kind of control they want — and they’re closer than I would have believed possible — we’ll all be harmed.”

Indeed — and content producers (especially major, mainstream organizations) probably have the most to lose if network neutrality is undermined. I think it’s high time for media companies to wake up to this threat. Yes, “network neutrality” sounds geeky, but it cuts to the heart of our industry: how content will get distributed online in coming years.

Meanwhile, Agroblogger, Sportslizard Entrepreneur, the New York Scooter Club, and Wine Education chime in. I kind of like to highlight some of the more unusual folks coming out in support of net neutrality; that’s only to highlight that threatening the free internet is bringing out a diverse group who care about this critical medium.

From National Journal:

Congressional and industry sources said Republican leaders are worried that voting against a network neutrality amendment — one that would keep dominant Bell and cable companies from charging competitors more to transmit high-speed Internet content — could be a political liability. Some technology companies and public-interest groups want FCC-enforceable regulations barring Bell and cable companies from undermining neutrality.

…

“We are trying to explain that a vote for a telecom bill that does not address the issue of network neutrality in any way is a very difficult vote politically, closer to the election, for Republicans,” said former Rep. Vin Weber, R-Minn., who was hired by technology companies to lobby his former colleagues on the subject.

“There is huge grassroots constituency for the net neutrality position: all sorts of Internet users,” said Weber. “It is a big and powerful constituency, but it is not necessarily an organized constituency. I would not like to cast a vote that can be portrayed by bloggers and others as a vote against the Internet.”

Politicians on both sides should be worried about their vote. A really easy way to organize our constituency is to threaten the medium we use to communicate with each other. We don’t like it.

Oh, and the Wine for Newbies podcast series signed on today. Congrats, you’ve managed to make wine drinkers mad!

It’s not just Ask A Ninja and Alyssa Milano. More artists are weighing in on this issue, through MySpace, blogs, and other tools that depend on a free internet.

Boston-based rap artist Mr. Lif blogged about net neutrality today, and Save the Internet is on the news page of Alternative Tentacles. Internet freedom is about artistic freedom, creative freedom, and the freedom of expression. The artists get it.