Net Neutrality’s Second Coming
October 29th, 2007 by tkarrDon’t always believe the purveyors of conventional wisdom in Washington. Some of these DC pundits are so steeped in their own “knowledge” that they get stuck spinning their wheels when faced with evidence to the contrary.
This was the case for a few of Washington’s finest who recently hunkered down behind their laptops to convince the world that Net Neutrality was dead and gone.
Greatly Exaggerated Rumors of a Death
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The issue is a “fading memory,” one crowed. It “barely raises a yawn” said another.
That Net Neutrality has remained a centerpiece of public activism outside the Beltway was lost on these naysayers.
The Road to Recovery
As any 12-step veteran can tell you, denial can be interpreted as a final cry for help. And more than one Potomac insider could use an intervention.
Fortunately, some of their colleagues have stepped in to report that the fight for Net Neutrality is alive and well. It’s leading the news and being vigorously debated on the Hill and along the campaign trail.
Indeed, earlier today support for Net Neutrality emerged as the No. 1 issue that thousands of visitors to TechPresident had selected to be answered by all the presidential candidates. By Monday afternoon’s count, more than twice as many people had voted for the Net Neutrality question over any other issue at 10Questions.com.
Sen. Barack Obama answered their question during a live forum on MTV. “Yes, I am a strong supporter of Net Neutrality,” he said, adding that discrimination “destroys one of the best things about the Internet — which is that there is this incredible equality there.”
On the Hill and in the Media
On Capitol Hill, both Republicans and Democrats have joined in a call for urgent congressional action in defense of Net Neutrality. Last Thursday, Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) called for new hearings, citing recent incidents of blocking of cell-phone and Internet traffic.
The senators wrote that recent actions by Comcast and Verizon have raised “serious concern about the phone and cable companies’ power to discriminate.” They called upon the Senate Commerce Committee “to determine if they were based on legitimate business and network management policies or part of practices that would be deemed unfair and anti-competitive.”
In less than two days, 10,000 activists wrote their members of Congress supporting the senators’ call for hearings.
Net Neutrality has become the topic du jour among tech-forums and trade press as well, including prominent reports at SlashDot, Ars Technica, Consumerist, Machinist, BetaNews, WebProNews, GigaOm and, yes, even CNet News — whose own DC navel gazer declared the “death of Net Neutrality” just a few weeks ago.
Gatekeepers in Need of a Solution
In mainstream press, Stephen H. Wildstrom, a senior technology writer and editor at BusinessWeek, wrote that he had shifted his position to support Net Neutrality following recent incidents of network gatekeeping. “The behavior of the top telecommunications companies, especially Verizon Communications and AT&T, has convinced me that more government involvement is needed to keep communications free of corporate interference,” he wrote.
In the Washington Post, Rob Pegoraro wrote last week that customers ought to have a simple remedy in cases where the only Internet providers available attempt to block or slow their connections. “The network-neutrality debate will never go away as long as [the lack of choice in the ISP market] remains the case,” he writes, “nor should it.”
At the San Jose Mercury News, Vindu Goel writes that efforts to restore Net Neutrality protections had been unsuccessful in the absence of evidence that Internet providers were meddling with the free flow of information. He adds that all this has changed since Comcast began blocking peer-to-peer sharing.
“There was no real evidence that Internet providers were discriminating against any content,” he concludes. “Now there is.”
Life Beyond the Beltway
Net Neutrality has also been debated in recent issues of the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal and in hundreds of new blog posts since early October.
So the next time some insider tells you that Net Neutrality is dead I advise you to check his pulse instead. Then point out the more than 1.5 million Americans - from every state and county across the nation — who are taking action to protect the free and open Internet.
And if you can spare it, give him some change for bus fare and a map of the world beyond the Beltway.
October 31st, 2007 at 6:43 am
Washington’s Finest
I do not think that Washington gets it. Bloggers will not allow Washington’s finest goof balls to block access to the Internet. Save the Internet is an important topic, but Washington’s finest have not figured this out. Bloggers and Internet based citizen journalists are on the march to protect our freedom of speech in this new dynamic medium called the blogosphere.
November 1st, 2007 at 3:37 am
[…] Read full story at Save the Internet […]
November 1st, 2007 at 7:14 am
The Rosemead Star News says. http://rosemeadstarnews.blogspot.com/
There is a movement to use child protection to stifle free speech. Even though child protection advocates have a good argument in proposing controls on internet content, free speech advocates have a better argument. Namely, when the government starts controlling internet content and the blogosphere our free speech rights are in danger.
November 2nd, 2007 at 6:52 pm
“… Vindu Goel writes that efforts to restore Net Neutrality protections had been unsuccessful in the absence of evidence that Internet providers were meddling with the free flow of information. He adds that all this has changed since Comcast began blocking peer-to-peer sharing.
“There was no real evidence that Internet providers were discriminating against any content,” he concludes. “Now there is.”
This is just like Bush claiming that waterboarding isn’t torture if it’s “classified”. Should we have Net Neutrality laws on the books? Why? Because we state in the law what we WANT. We say “it will NEVER BE LEGAL to balkanize the internet” - we don’t have to wait for the first CRIME to know we need a LAW.
Free-market ideologues can stay married to the likes of AT&T, Verizon and Comcast. For my part I say: we, the people, deserve better and we deserve it now. See http://communityfiber.org for a model for a Community owned-and-operated Fiber To The Home network - get a ONE GIGABIT connection at your home and business at standard utility rates, all vendors to users on the network compete on a level playing field, there CANNOT be a threat to network neutrality once we own our own network, and users will save up to $1000 per year EACH over telco/cableco costs.
Let’s quit worrying what the SCUMBAGS want to do and instead BUILD OUR OWN NETWORK AROUND THEM. And put them out of business, as they deserve. Service, my a**. A DSL user in the Central Valley (e.g. Manteca) will wait UP TO ONE AND THREE-QUARTER HOURS ON MUZAK HOLD to report a problem with their line. We could be getting ONE GIGABIT on fiber but Verizon is selling DSL speeds on Fiber! AT&T wants to do fiber to the NODE and then use COPPER to get to you, capping you at 55 megabits (VDSL.)
Tell them: We’re going to BUILD OUR OWN FIBER NETWORK and then you fellas can TAKE A LONG WALK ON A SHORT PIER.
They can balkanize their remaining eight customers at will, then.
November 6th, 2007 at 7:09 am
Dateline November 6, 2007 from China - Center for Democracy and Technology news brief - This is a great site for Save the Internet information. This could happen in America, if we let our guard down. We cannot allow government nabobs, hiding behind government regulations, to limit our access to information and Internet resources. Stand up and be counted.
“For a brief period last week, the Chinese government hijacked foreign search engines. Chinese Internet users trying to search on Google, Yahoo and Microsoft were redirected . . . . . to the Chinese search engine Baidu. Democratic governments understand the connection between human rights and Internet freedom. They have been quick to condemn the Internet crackdown in Burma and China and the lack of Internet freedom in much of the world”.
“But at the same time, democratic countries are themselves increasingly turning to content blocking and online surveillance to address terrorism and other perceived dangers at home. In doing so, they are in danger of sacrificing their moral authority to ensure that the global Internet moves toward greater freedom”.
“In Germany, there is an uproar about a proposal to give the government powers to spy virtually, using e-mails infected with spy ware”.
They are gatekeepers today, but tyrants tomorrow. We have to be alert to the dangers ahead. Stay alert.
November 12th, 2007 at 11:32 am
[…] no doubt, is why Google wants to expand their assets. To avoid losing them. Consider that, if net neutrality fails to materialize, Googs could be positioned to send untold billions of dollars AT&T’s way […]