When Telcos Speak with Forked Tongues
June 20th, 2006 by tkarrCritics of Net Neutrality measures in Congress have claimed there are no historical examples of abuse by ISPs and therefore government should not interfere. However, Jason Miller of WebProNews writes about an example of abuse coming out of Canada that shows how the words of intent coming from the men who run phone and cable companies have not been considered as evidence of what will happen here in the U.S.
The Net Neutrality opponents have “downplayed arguments in favor of Net Neutrality as ‘a problem in search of a solution,’ ‘rhetorical excesses,’ or ‘cock-and-bull’ stories,” Miller writes. He points to an instance where Canada’s Shaw Communications is charging customers a fee for “Quality of Service Enhancement” that will allow them to run Vonage’s phone service instead of their own:
“…It is a perfect example of where the consumer is forced to pay a third time for the service they want (expect that as the norm without legislative protections) and a large company bullies a smaller company infringing on its turf, staunch supporters of a perverted idea of a free market will again discount it only because it happened in Canada and not the U.S.
“But mostly it is important to remember who benefits most on either side of the issue. Over a million petitioners have pleaded with Congress to preserve the open nature of the Internet, but Congress seems more inclined to listen to a handful of corporations who stand to reap billions of dollars against the interests and desires of their customers - a customer base that will have few choices in the end.”
Companies like AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth have publicly committed to Net Neutrality principles stating that it “makes no sense” to degrade or block Internet services. The free market would not allow it; we would lose customers, they claim, conveniently ignoring the fact that most U.S. broadband customers have nowhere else to go.
Meanwhile they’re spending millions lobbying Congress against any meaningful legislation to protect Net Neutrality. AT&T and Bell South, even, “have expressed their intent to follow Shaw’s example and extend those types of tolls to other Internet services,” writes Miller.
The telcos talk out of both sides of their mouths — claiming that they have no intention to block or degrade customer access to sites while also talking about charging content providers in a way that would allow them to do just that.
Meanwhile, our elected representatives are being snowed over by a telco media and lobbying blitz that has convinced many to vote against the best interests of their constituents — and to hand over control of the Internet to companies that plan to undermine its very freedoms.
June 20th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
Is this the End of the Internet as We Know It? Not really, it’s exactly the sort of thing that Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee says is legitimate:
So who are going to believe, a journalist with an axe to grind or the Father of the Web? Dude, that’s not even a close call.
June 20th, 2006 at 6:41 pm
e-mail from Adam Smith (WA):
Thank you for contacting me with your support of Network Neutrality. I have had many people contact me with what I believe to be misinformation about how I voted on this issue and I would like to take a moment to explain.
First, I would like to say that when the House of Representatives passed HR 5252, the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act (COPE), I voted in support of the network neutrality amendment that was proposed by Representative Markey. As you are aware, network neutrality is the idea that broadband service providers should operate their networks in a non-discriminatory manner by not favoring or blocking particular content, services or applications. I fully agree with this idea and voted for the Markey amendment in an effort to ensure the Internet remains open and equally accessible to all.
Unfortunately this amendment failed by a vote of 152-269.
After the failure of the Markey amendment I voted for passage of the COPE bill. The overall bill did contain some language addressing the Net Neutrality issue. Specifically, it gives the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the authority to enforce a set of principles which are intended to protect consumer
access to Internet content and services of their choice. The FCC
principles are as follows:
* Consumers are entitled to access the lawful internet content
of their choice;
* Consumers are entitled to run applications and services of
their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement;
* Consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal
devices that do not harm the network; and
* Consumers are entitled to competition to network
providers, application and service providers, and content providers.
The bill also provides the FCC with the exclusive authority to adjudicate complaints alleging a violation of the broadband policy statement. It requires the FCC to enforce the policy using procedures in the Communications Act, and treats a violation of the broadband policy statement as a violation of the Communications Act. The measure sets the maximum forfeiture penalty at $500,000 per violation. It requires the FCC to resolve complaints within 90 days of receiving them. If the FCC determines that a violation has occurred, it would be authorized to adopt an order requiring compliance in addition to any forfeiture penalty.
I agree this language terribly inadequate but if I had not voted for passage of the COPE bill there would be no further movement on this legislation this year — in other words, network neutrality would have died had the COPE bill failed to pass. Taking this into consideration, I voted for the bill thus moving the debate to the Senate where there is growing support for a bill by Senators Snowe and Dorgan which is likely to be brought up as an amendment when the Senate debates this legislation. The only way to secure
network neutrality this year was to send the bill to the Senate.
Finally, the overall intention of the bill was to provide real competition within the broadband market, offering consumers greater choice which will translate into a lower price. The bill represents the first major change in telecommunications law since enactment of the 1996 law that deregulated and promoted competition within the telephone and cable TV industries. Over the past 10 years the industry has changed in numerous ways and this bill would implement a streamlined national approval process while allowing the local and county governments to retain important elements of local control such as maintaining rights of way and collection of local franchising fees.
Many groups spent weeks, if not months, advocating for Network Neutrality. After reviewing the issue very closely and meeting with dozens of people on both sides of the issue, I decided to
support it. As I stated above there has been some misleading
information about my stance on Network Neutrality and I wanted to take this opportunity to make it clear — I supported the Markey amendment which would have strengthened the Network Neutrality language in the COPE bill and I will continue to push for this language to be added into the bill.
I look forward to hearing from you again in regards to how best to put into law protections to ensure network neutrality, but please be
assured that I strongly support that objective.
Sincerely,
Adam Smith
Member of Congress
June 20th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
From the Tim Berners-Lee blog post that RichardBennett is quoting:
“No, not really
Submitted by Richard Bennett (not verified) on Wed, 2006-05-03 14:22.
You make a number of claims that are either misleading or simply wrong, so I’d like to point some of them out and show you where your analysis of the “neutrality” concept breaks down.”
It seems Richard is confused.
Here’s the link to the comment he posted on ’s blog:
http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/132#comment-6846
Be sure to read the entire article as well as the rest of the comments.
June 20th, 2006 at 6:51 pm
[…] Who Benefits Most? […]
June 20th, 2006 at 6:56 pm
Please do read all the comments, indeed.
Tim is very clear that’s he’s not opposed to QoS.
June 20th, 2006 at 9:16 pm
I wouldn’t call it an axe to grind. I just think its important…especially when it becomes obvious the cabal that’s running things in Washington…
Anyway, QoS is a small example and harbinger of bigger things to come. What most of us want is a guarantee of a smaller digital divide, not a larger one.
As for Tim Berners-Lee, I think you’ve mischaracterized and boiled it down to a matter of “packets.” It’s larger than that and for another source on TBL’s feelings, see:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5009250.stm
June 20th, 2006 at 9:31 pm
Thank you, Jason, but I’ll take what Tim wrote to me personally as more indicative of his views than an account filtered by a journalist. The Internet is a great disintermediator, and we no longer have to rely on poorly-informed advocacy journalists to explain things to us. Tim and I both design networks, you see, so we understand each other just dandy.
Your story claimed that QoS for a fee is a danger to the Internet, a point of view that isn’t endorsed by network engineers. We have QoS for a fee on the Internet today, you see, and it helps.
Tim is concerned about the possibility of charges to third parties for higher-speed access to customers of a particular ISP. This isn’t a QoS-for-fee issue, it’s something we call bandwidth-on-demand. Do you know what that is?
QoS, you see, isn’t about bandwidth, it’s about jitter. Do you know the difference?
The QoS service offering from Shaw is a perfectly legitimate product. The consumer decides if he wants it, and if he does he decides where and how to use it. It doesn’t lock him into Vonage or Skype and it has nothing to do with the Shaw voice product which uses a different frequency band, Do you know what a frequency band is?
June 20th, 2006 at 11:50 pm
well that was only slightly condescending, thanks.
QoS as a danger to the Internet…I said it was a beginning, an opening to more sweeping measures to limit competition…I understand the Darwinian aspects business and I understand that companies do what they have to do to eliminate competition.
Without getting into the dogma of the nature of packets and jitter (yes, I know what jitter is), what I and many others want is a protection against monopolies and duopolies that rob the consumer of choices…it’s difficult enough to balance what the government takes with what modern life requires without our governors working with those that create and present the modern life to squeeze us at every turn. It’s death by nickel and dime.
This isn’t as small as a QoS, or an extra ten bucks for that matter. It’s about what is very likely to happen as corporations, whose job it is to expand revenue paths for shareholders, look to those shareholders and act without consideration for the end-user. Some call it a slippery slope, but if you listen to the other side, that slope is steeper and precariously jagged…we are told from telcos that the Internet will end, that people will not be able to get medical treatment, and that the end user will have to pick up the bill for Google, which is some serious FUD on their part.
As we become increasingly reliant, they become power brokers — very reminiscent of petroleum companies that have had only concern for the bottom line and not the slob at the pump. The Internet, like gasoline, has become a commodity.
Consider this question posed to Exxon’s CEO from Today’s Matt Lauer:
“Would Exxon-Mobil be willing to lower profits over the summer to help out in this time of need and crisis as it’s been described?”
Tillerson: “Well, we work for the shareholders.”
That was a “no” as Lauer pointed out. This is the result of a gov’t/corporate cabal. The forward-thinking of us look down the road to see yet another modern commodity, required for daily life, for business, for school, under the grip of a group of shareholders.
That’s not an axe to grind, or some ignorant journalist spouting off (thanks again for the condescention), that’s a sincere concern for the future.
June 21st, 2006 at 4:20 am
Richard,
Skipping straight back to the real issue here: You can’t trust a monopolist to self regulate. So, what do you do? You regulate them so they don’t abuse the power they have. QoS is just justification for what will eventually become commercially motivated discrimination on the packet level. That will evolve into censorship, and all kinds of nasty things.
So — whatever, Richard. You’re going to continue to spew your misguided nonsense. Just like McCurry is. Go ahead, I just hope that enough people see through all the propaganda being spewed by telco companies and lobby groups and make an informed decision based on the facts. The facts are basically everything that you forget to mention, everything that you conveniently skip over in your arguments. You cite QoS, video franchise competition, etc. But you tend to not talk about how the various telco CEO’s openly, publicly and on camera/the record stated that they want to discriminate against any heavy bandwidth user — even though those heavy users are already paying for their bandwidth and the consumer is paying for their bandwidth…
Respectfully,
Dan
June 21st, 2006 at 6:00 am
Actually, Dan, I did talk about the things you fear, but I did it in technical rather than emotional language. I’m a network engineer, the guy who designed the Ethernet cable & hub system that we all use today, and parts of the WiFi system as well. When I see a service announcement on QoS I understand what it’s for and why it’s needed.
The reactions to these new technologies I see on this blog and its fellow-traveler sites like myDD and agonist and Daily Kos amaze me. I feel like a jungle explorer showing a flashlight to a stoneage people who shriek in fear because they “know” there’s an evil spirit in the flashlight and they care, deeply, about evil spirits and their effects. They sing songs and dance around fire to free their village of evil spirits because they’re good and decent people who care, deeply, about their fellow villagers.
All this talk about Enron and slippery slopes and censorship is simply crap, Dan, it has nothing to do with the wisdom of QoS on a packet network.
The question of bandwidth fees and bandwidth boosts isn’t a QoS question and doesn’t belong in the same discussion.
I’m especially disappointed by our Mr. Miller because he’s supposed to be in the business of explaining technology to the layman and he should know better than to say the things he’s said here about QoS leading us on the slippery slope to hell.
The immediate issue is simply this: Shaw offers a QoS extra; is that a good idea or a bad one? And you can leave all the clap-trap about Enron and oppressing the workers and saving the whales and the virtues of the vegan diet out of it. Pick on topic, discuss it until you understand it, and move on. And developing a grassy knoll theory doesn’t constitute understanding.
June 21st, 2006 at 6:10 am
Let me rephrase that in simpler terms. The title of this post is “When Telcos Speak with Forked Tongues”. A couple of posts back there was one claiming that Cox Cable blocks Craig’s List. Both posts peddle falsehoods.
Nobody believes the boy who cries wolf, and that’s who the Save the Internet movement has become.
Find a real issue, not simply one that’s easy to demagogue because few people understand it. One way or another, the truth will come out on this one, I can assure you.
I saw “Outfoxed” tonight, and I was not at all surprised to see all the big names and faces of the Net Neutrality movement in the film or in the credits. This is simply a “professional scare the liberals” movement, and the putative issue is irrelevant. Today it’s the Internet, yesterday it was Rupert Murdoch, tomorrow it will be crabgrass, who cares?
What a waste of time.
June 21st, 2006 at 8:03 am
Mind you, if they really have no intention to transgress network neutrality, then law prohibiting it should be no problem. The simple fact that they are resisting, implies intent.
And it doesn’t matter who says that its normal and ok. It would harm the internet—which has hitherto been ripe ground for small business. Such behavoir would do for the internet what the RIAA have (until very recently) been doing for the music industry for a century: shut out the little guy.
This brings us to a prime example of the benefit of a level playing field. The internet has made it possible for very very small businesses entities to publish music—which irks the big boys to no end. For recent (about 20 years ago) example: the lobbyists were able to stall DAT’s entry in the the USA long enough for the consumer market to be vandalised with that horrid DCC abomination, so that DAT never got the foothold needed to bring the prices down withing reach of tiny companies. They were completely unable to do that with the internet. Vertically marketting the internet would grant them their wish.
Follow the money trail.
June 21st, 2006 at 11:47 am
Richard, since you’ve abandoned technical arguments and broadened your attack to the style of argumentation (…Nobody believes the boy who cries wolf…I saw ‘Outfoxed’ tonight), lets use your examples to take a look at your own argument style.
You’re right. A lot of us are liberals and have been active in other progressive campaigns, but at lot of us are not. The Christian Coalition just joined moveon.org in advocating net neutrality. You’re not going to red-bait Roberta Combs or scare off Instapundit or the Gun Owners of America just because some of us don’t think Fox is truly fair and balanced.
A lot of us don’t have a deep understanding of Internet protocol, but a lot of us do. You’re not going to technobamboozle Tim Berners-Lee. So you’re left to misquote him and appeal to his authority when all the while you’re on record as telling him he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
We know what jitter is, Richard, probably better than a lot of the people in the legacy telcos and cable companies, because we were doing this stuff before they even knew what it was. Its pretty hard to debug something when the people you’re working with at the common carriers think its voodoo; you need to have a top down view of your end and their end.
One hallmark of the Rove/swiftboat style of argumentation is to accuse your opponent of what you’re guilty of, before he can accuse you. In that spirit, let me reprise the third paragraph of your most recent post:
“Find a real issue, not simply one that’s easy to demagogue because few people understand it. One way or another, the truth will come out on this one, I can assure you.”
June 21st, 2006 at 12:51 pm
Richard,
Congradulations and thanks for your very useful inventions. You still haven’t
addressed what everyone is concerned about.
The CEO of ATT, Verizon, Deustch(sp?) and others have all publically stated
that they want to charge content providers for access to the “fast lane.” This
clearly can only be done if the “fast lane” has only a limited number of sites
in it, otherwise its not the fast lane, but the normal lane. With that in mind,
what exactly are they doing that is good here? They are fighting for the right
to gatekeep the Internet and decide which sites load quickly, which sites load
slowly and, golly gosh gosh, which sites don’t load at all…
Its nasty business, and they have all publically stated that this is their intention.
Then, they take it back. They say “We didn’t mean that, you must be nuts.”
Rubish… we know what we read and heard. We’re not idiots.
What do you say to that?
June 21st, 2006 at 12:52 pm
I really should have spell checked that last one =x
June 21st, 2006 at 1:14 pm
I’ve read a lot that Vint Cerf (”Father of the Internet”) has been saying about Net Neutrality and it sounds reasonable. However, I was intrigued when a friend forwarded me Dave Farber’s (”Grandfather of the Internet”) most recent post in opposition to Net Neutrality legislation:
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200606/msg00014.html
I guess grandfathers and fathers can disagree on policy, but it seems to me that Cerf (given his position at Google) has a lot more at stake in the issue than Farber. Or is this just a case where reasonable people can agree to disagree without some personal agenda?
Also, I wish the movement would stop with the whole “Christian Coalition and MoveOn agree…” crap. I was going to sign the petition until I read that they had joined. While I recognize that there are only a few right wing groups in support (two?), I really don’t know why progressives need to “validate” the effort by touting support from neanderthals like the Christian Coalition and — for God’s sake — the Gun Owners of America (?!)…
June 21st, 2006 at 1:42 pm
netjunkie->“I really don’t know why progressives need to “validate” the effort by touting support from neanderthals like the Christian Coalition and — for God’s sake — the Gun Owners of America (?!)…”
To me, one of the main tenets of liberal and progressive thought is that we are inclusive of people who may disagree wildly on other issues.
One of the political necessities of politics is that we form narrow coalitions with diverse groups to achieve a majority.
One of the tried and true methods of Machiavellian politics is to foement dissention among minority groups to prevent these narrow coalitions from forming.
I am happy to stand with the Christian Coalition and the Gun Owners as long as it is clear my support stops at the edge of the net neutrality issue. I bet, on learning that I go by “PBCliberal,” they’d say the exact same thing about me.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:06 pm
This issue has peaked my interest as I am currently setting up a free wireless network, so, I read through HR5252 (not the telco act of 1934) and only found a tiny piece on net neutrality… it states that a political authority (like a state) can’t lawfully be biased… so much for the internet disapearing. There was one section that angered me:
(2) The term `broadband service provider’ means a person or entity that controls, operates, or resells and controls any facility used to provide broadband service to the public, by whatever technology and whether provided for a fee, in exchange for an explicit benefit, or for free.
If I am providing a free service with my own equiptment in a legal manner, don’t tell me what I can and can’t do!!! I need to be able to shape the traffic, or it won’t be free!!
June 21st, 2006 at 9:13 pm
Sheep,
How exactly do you need to shape the traffic? Network Neutrality is the concept that you, as an Internet service provider, cannot sell “fast-lane” access to a particular website. That, to say, that that particular paying website cannot load faster than its immediate competition — or be the only website of its kind to load at all — or receive redirected traffic originally intended for its competition.
Basically, it is saying that you have to provide a level playing field for the websites visited by your clients. You can’t charge websites extra to be able to connect to your customers or any other networks.
As long as you don’t plan on doing something like that, you should be cool… Maybe I’m just misunderstanding your whole post =x
Dan
June 21st, 2006 at 9:54 pm
Also, the COPE act (HR5252) is the legislation that didn’t have any net neutrality provisions in it, so you aren’t going to find any “must carry” (to borrow a term from cable regulation) requirements in it. There were several amendments suggested, but they were all voted down.
Now that bill is in the Senate for its consideration, the Snowe-Dorgan bill (S2360) is the leading legislation to ,mandate net neutrality. This legislation is required because neutrality previously was mandated by special agreements that the megatelcos accepted in exchange for being allowed to merge, and was less impertivie because of requirements by the FCC that fostered competition at the local level by requiring utilities to share their facilities with other DSL providers, which are no longer in place.
Its a terribly complex issue in which monopolies which gained tremendous power through government regulation are now hiding behind astroturf organizations that falsely claim govenment regulation is suddenly appearing from nowhere.
Read S2360. The Findings section pretty much lays out how we got here and why we this bill must pass to keep the internet free. The Obligations of Network Operators Section is what you’d expect any reasonable ISP or cable internet provider to provide.
This legislation should not be necessary. If there were a truly free market at the last mile, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. But we’re quickly approaching a pre-divestiture telcom landscape, yet we are today many times more dependant on point-to-point electronic communications than we were when we broke up AT&T.
June 21st, 2006 at 10:50 pm
1. COPE contains a reference to the Four Freedoms.
2. “Findings” aren’t regulations, they’re just window dressing to justify the loss of freedom that’s to come in the bill’s regulatory language.
3. Snowe-Dorgan is an abomination.
June 22nd, 2006 at 3:45 am
1. COPE might reference a lot of things but one thing it doesn’t do is provide any meaningful Network Neutrality language. It gives no real enforcement power to the FCC and, well, frankly COPE is the abonination.
2. Think of the freedom lost if we don’t regulate. Big picture, Richard. Look at the big picture.
3. The bill provides meaningful neutrality rules. Sounds kind of cool to me ;-]
On a totally off-topic note: It is 2:45 AM. Bed time.
-dan
June 22nd, 2006 at 5:02 am
You obviously haven’t read the COPE bill, dan. Why are you wasting my time?
Snowe-Dorgan kills legitmate services and fails to offer any meaningful protection against abusive practices because it doesn’t even know how to define them.
Bob McChesney’s “Save The Internet” Coalition was been reduced to peddling misinformation.
June 22nd, 2006 at 8:27 am
(whoops–previously posted this in the wrong place…)
WARNING!
I received a telephone call yesterday from “Anonymous” (big surprise) looking for “consumer opinions” on the Net Neutrality issue.
They do indeed speak with forked tongues–the question was phrased like this:
“Who do you think should pay to protect Internet freedom? If you think big corporations should pay, Press 1; if you think consumers should pay, Press 2.”
Sneaky, sneaky. I wish I could file a Do Not Call Registry complaint, but the caller ID number is anonymous and they don’t mention who they’re calling for. Bastards.
June 22nd, 2006 at 11:01 am
A push poll, a staple of Rovian politics. Its been around a long time, but was most effectively used against John McCain “Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?”
At least, if they’re stooping to these tactics, they’re concerned about losing.
Richard->You obviously haven’t read the COPE bill, dan. Why are you wasting my time?
I’ve read the COPE bill, and I suspect from reading his comments that Dan has too. Unless you’re being paid to post here, reading and posting is your own discretionary action and you’re wasting your own time.
Why not talk about the issue and stop the namecalling?
June 22nd, 2006 at 12:26 pm
Its really sad that this has become a partisan issue. That both sides are scared of losing and are fighting it out to the death. That people like Richard simply refuse to look at the big picture and to understand the damage that our perfect, always-right government is about to do.
Part of me wants to just give up, to say: “Richard, I’m sorry. I’ve been wrong this whole time. Our government got COPE right just like they got the war right. “ Hah. I don’t think the government has made a single logical decision in years.
Holy molly! They did, when they had Network Neutrality laws for the past decade!
For the record:
I’ve read COPE and Markey and just about every bill. I’ve watched the debates and read a lot on the topic. Don’t insult me.
PBC — thank you. The issue is what is going to happen to the Internet. Dvorak is calling this the Golden Age of the Internet — and Golden Age’s never last. I am tending to agree with him for the first time in years, we’re doomed.
Richard — I’ve suspected for a long time that you are being compensated or paid for posting here. To throw some doubt into the community, apparently I’m not the only one. We’ll never be able to prove it and I am sure you’ll deny it.
Even if you’re not, many people are. Many people are being paid to promote anti-Network Neutrality concepts. If this was right, the huge lobby effort wouldn’t be necessary.
Heh, it is amazing how the phone companies are about to rape us all and you’re waiving around their flag. “Hey, Little Timmy. Did you know that big phone companies always do what’s right? Well, they do. I know what is best for the Internet. I‘m right, a million people are wrong. Yep, me.”
June 22nd, 2006 at 3:43 pm
Tim Karr is paid to edit this blog, and I’m not being paid to comment on it or for anything else to do with this regulatory battle.
I’d be glad to be paid as long as I can say what I think. Send me an e-mail to richard at bennett dot com if you’d like to pay me and we’ll discuss my terms and conditions.
Dan, the COPE bill allows the FCC to issue $500,000 fines for violations of the Four Freedoms. Why don’t know that?
June 22nd, 2006 at 5:01 pm
Right on, Richard.
QOS won’t kill the Internet, it will enhance it. Why is making a fast lane on the web seen as a bad thing? If Walmart has a lot of money and wants to have 20 express lanes in each store they can do that. But KMart can’t afford that, so should you make express lanes illegal.
Why not make it illegal for stores to discriminate when they place candy bars at the checkout lanes. They have snickers, but not Rolos. You have to go to the candy isle for that which takes longer (the slow lane). Shame on the stores.
I find it incredibly hard to believe that an ISP (excluding China who censors the web) would redirect traffic from say yahoo.com to google.com. From what I understand COPE already takes care of that one. “Consumers are entitled to access the lawful internet content
of their choice”.
If Verizon decided to offer free Internet access then I believe they have the right to censor whatever they want on the free access. Do any of these sound familiar?
* Beggers can’t be choosy.
* Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
If Verizon parterned with Google to redirect their “free internet access users” from yahoo.com and msn.com to Google, then so be it. If you want don’t want to be censored then pay for the Internet like everyone else otherwise don’t complain.
No one is going to redirect the traffic of paying customers, if they did, as Richard just said, they would have to pay half a million in fines for violating the COPE bill.
And if I had the option to pay an extra $5 or $10 a month for VoIP or video QOS I would do it, what’s wrong with that. Oh no, I getting better service, God forbid I pay more for it; it only makes since.
For those of you that say it will doom small businesses, hogwash. They can still get Internet access to host their sites and services. They can still list their pages on search engines such as Yahoo and Google. The only difference is their webpage may not load as fast or the video might have jitter. Or they can just adjust their prices like everyone else so they can pay for QOS service.
“… they want to charge content providers for access to the “fast lane.” This clearly can only be done if the “fast lane” has only a limited number of sites in it, otherwise its not the fast lane, but the normal lane.”
Not so. Why do you think there’s a limit to the number of sites on the ‘fastlane’? Before the ‘fastlane’ get conjested the telcos turn on a few more fibers to add more bandwidth to the fastlane. A “lane’s” capacity is virtually limitless and can always be expanded.
You see this happening all the time on the roads. A highway handles traffic very well then the region gets populated and there is much more traffic. What happens? They begin construction and expand the 4-lane highway to a 6 or 8 lane highway. What makes you think this can’t be done with networks?
Someone please tell me a REAL problem that Net Neutrality would resolve.
The last thing we need right now is the government hindering new technological advances.
June 22nd, 2006 at 5:38 pm
keith->Someone please tell me a REAL problem that Net Neutrality would resolve.
All the ones you just outlined.
You used all kinds of analogies, but you didn’t apply the critical element that is the driving force in all of this. The lack of competition. When the store is one of two stores, because of a legacy of government control keeping everybody else out of the business, fairness through legislation suddenly becomes an imperitive, just as it has always been for regulated telecommunications. Your best example is how things work in China, where there is one internet provider by governmental fiat.
keith->I find it incredibly hard to believe that an ISP (excluding China who censors the web) would redirect traffic from say yahoo.com to google.com….“
I found it incredibly hard to believe that Worldcom would redirect voice traffic through Canada to avoid paying access fees to local telcos. It was even expressly illegal, but they did it nonetheless. Today, they’re called Verizon.
keith->“Consumers are entitled to access the lawful internet content of their choice”.:
Yeah, and I’m entitled to call my Congressman. But that doesn’t mean he has to get back to me in any kind of meaningful or timely way.
June 22nd, 2006 at 5:46 pm
[…] Everyone seems to agree that video is the next important thing on the web. That’s why YouTube blew up - and why there are so many other similar services popping up - that’s why the MPAA is so hot to shut down developing technologies, and that’s why ISPs are getting all worked up about net neutrality. Yet among all the large-corporate action there are those groups out there who are attempting to enable Joe Internet-Users to make and distribute their work. […]
June 22nd, 2006 at 8:19 pm
Keith,
Creating a fast lane at Wal-mart vs K-mart are two different things. First it is not fair to assume that K-mart can’t open a fast lane or a dozen of them.
The right way to put it would be a Wal-mart putting in a high speed highway to their store that skips over K-mart. So you can drive in traffic to K-mart and hit a lot of stop lights, whatever, or you can zip straight to Wal-mart. This wouldn’t fly in the real world, people want to choose where to go and where not to go and they want the trip to be equally miserable going everywhere.
The Internet allows for the trip to be equally fast and pleasent to every website. But, if the telco’s get their way it won’t be. Some websites will have a high speed highway going to their doors, others will have people waiting in traffic to get there.
We can take it a step further and say that Wal-mart might just pay the city to build a giant wall around K-mart so no one can get to it at all… That is what we’re looking at.
Has nothing to do with fast checkout lanes. Has a lot to do with controlling where you go and how you get there, and if your experience is pleasent and fast or slow and nasty.
Hope that helps,
Dan
June 22nd, 2006 at 8:23 pm
Keith,
Also — as PBC said, what if there were only two stores to buy stuff from? The reason Wal-mart and K-mart are priced as they are is because they have to be to stay in business.
If the only two places you could buy products at period was Wal-mart and K-mart then imagine how high the prices would get… you would have no choice.
Same thing with Internet access. Cable company or phone company? Which do you use?
———–
Richard,
I am sure Tim Karr is getting paid for his full time work at Free Press. He has to pay bills like anyone else. I doubt that he is getting anything unreasonable…
The Telco’s on the other hand are spending millions on McCurry and Co.
While you may have legitimate reasons for not supporting Network Neutrality, most people who take your side are not as honorable. Most are doing it simply because their paycheck says TELCO on it — or worse their check has 7 numbers on it and says LOBBY GROUP on it.
Honest discussion is cool by me. Even if we disagree.
Dan
June 22nd, 2006 at 8:39 pm
…most people who take your side are not as honorable…
I don’t care who’s virtuous and who isn’t, I care about getting the best policy. If it were a virtue match, I would have won long ago.
June 23rd, 2006 at 7:27 am
Richard. Your modesty knows no bounds.
In Richard’s virtuous reality, telcos are allowed to erect new tollbooths on the onramps and exits of the infomation superhighway. They are allowed to determine which Web sites get to enter the fast lane based on who pays them the most.
Their idea is to stand between the content provider and the consumer, demanding a toll to guarantee quality delivery. It’s what Timothy Wu, an Internet policy expert at Columbia University, calls “the Tony Soprano business model”: By extorting protection money from every Web site — from the smallest blogger to Google — network owners would earn huge profits. Meanwhile, they could slow or even block the Web sites and services of their competitors or those who refuse to pay up. How virtuous!
These same companies would like Congress to “trust them” to behave. They say that Network Neutrality is a “solution without a problem,” ignoring the fact that they themselves have stated — in the pages of the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and Businessweek — their intention to defy Net Neutrality as soon as they’re given the Congressional greenlight.
These virtuous companies are the same firms that willfully defied their customer privacy agreements to hand over our personal phone records to the National Security Agency.
Over the last decade, these same companies have made repeated promises to lawmakers to to build new Internet services into underserved communities in exchange for favorable legislation. Once the laws are passed, they scrap their plans to deliver the services to those who need them most. Hey, trust them.
They and Richard have argued that all the evils associated with their plans to discriminate are “hypothetical.” This same argument would rule out missile defense systems, CDC action to prevent a bird flu outbreak or any government effort to protect our citizens from a real and present danger.
The Internet has been a hotbed of innovation precisely because there are no barriers to entry on the last mile. Broadband providers want to change all that at the expense of the Internet freedom customers enjoy today. They have announced their plans to dsicriminate while — at the same time — blowing hot air about giving you more choices.
It’s Richard’s brand of “virtue” that’s paving the Internet’s road to Hell — or at least to a world where the phone and cable companies control what you do, where you go, and what you watch online — which would be hellish indeed.
June 23rd, 2006 at 8:00 am
Tim, do you get paid by the word?
“Net neutrality” is a simple concept, all it really means is “consumer pays.”
And if, as you say, “neutrality” is the law of the Internet and always has been, there’s no way we could know a priori what the consequences of abandoning it might be. One that comes readily to mind is subsidized connections so more poor people could have broadband.
Maybe that’s why the Black Chamber of Commerce and LULAC oppose the regulations put forward by the (mostly white, mostly middle class) telecom regulator class.
June 23rd, 2006 at 8:46 am
@ Dan,
“The reason Wal-mart and K-mart are priced as they are is because they have to be to stay in business.”
There are more reasons these two are priced as they are. One is that they have enormous control over their suppliers because of the sheer weight of the dollars they spend with them.
@ Mr. Bennett,
“I don’t care who’s virtuous and who isn’t, I care about getting the best policy.”
I think you’ve proven beyond any doubt that you care more about displaying your arrogance and winning an argument with your “intelligence.”
“If it were a virtue match, I would have won long ago.”
And the sky would be filled with flying pigs.
June 23rd, 2006 at 12:01 pm
Bennett->“And if, as you say, “neutrality” is the law of the Internet and always has been, there’s no way we could know a priori what the consequences of abandoning it might be. One that comes readily to mind is subsidized connections so more poor people could have broadband.”
This would be a more compelling argument if the CEOs hadn’t told us their intentions in response to the analysts wondering aloud where future revenue growth will come from at telcos who no longer are on the leading edge of telecommunications development.
As far as magnanamous acts of philanthropy, telcos and cableconglomerates’ histories speak for themselves. These are the folks who have been papering state legislatures with money to get them to outlaw free municipal wifi while pursuing poilicies that redline broadband in poorer areas of the city, through the argument that there’s not sufficient return on investment.
I don’t know why the Black Chamber of commerce or LULAC is promoting this, just as I don’t know why McCurry is dissembling in an area he knows little about. I smell money.
You’re big on claiming you have virtue. I’m not in a position to say one way or the other, but it appears that you have no ability to see it in others, or you wouldn’t be making the arguments you’re making about telcos underwriting broadband for the poor and trying to play the race card.
June 23rd, 2006 at 1:29 pm
Mark,
That is true, but beyond all that the main reason is because they have to offer lower prices than each other. They get those prices low through numerous means but the actual reason is because they have a lot of competition.
If cable and telco companies had serious competition then our quality of service would increase and costs decrease. But they don’t, and thus they don’t have to lower prices or increase quality of service.
Richard McCurry,
You really crack me up…lol.
The “consumers pay more” thing is hillarious. It is such clear BS.
Without network neutrality consumers will end up paying extra for everything in an al-la-carte Internet service. Not the other way around.
Dan
June 23rd, 2006 at 1:30 pm
Mark,
Well spoken ;-]
June 23rd, 2006 at 5:23 pm
I didn’t say “consumer pays more” I said “consumer pays, [period].”
So you disagree with what I actually said?
June 24th, 2006 at 2:44 am
Richard:
[quote]
“Net neutrality” is a simple concept, all it really means is “consumer pays.”
[/quote]
You are playing with words. You’re clearly insinuating that consumers will pay more.
And yes, I disagree with what you are saying… for the countless reasons all over this website, this blog and in my other responses to you. For the reasons in PCB Liberal’s responses and also Tim’s responses.
-d
June 25th, 2006 at 7:27 am
Tim Berners-Lee refuses to debate.
June 25th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
Richard,
Okay…. again, you didn’t address a single point.
-dan
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