http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1148

So I ask Google: are you still not evil?

A statement of support for wireless net neutrality, or even your reasons for opposing it, would be appreciated.

To the Net Neutrality Coalition: Be ready for a potential disappointment from Google, and more importantly be ready to move on without them, into the wireless frontier.

by Barry Payne, Economist, Ph.D. ex-FCC staff bbpayne@earthlink.net

Controlling BitTorrent to “improve” network flow?

The way electric utilities interrupt customers on an “interruptible rate” to prevent an outage to customers on the “firm rate”?

If electric utilities did what Comcast is doing, they’d be cutting off or delaying the flow of electricity to FIRM customers BY TYPE OF USE, i.e., lighting, electric motors, computers and hair dryers, not by the NEUTRAL use of kilowatts and kilowatt-hours the way they do now, independent of how the electricity is used.

Comcast is controlling network flow through SELECTIVE, IDENTIFIABLE CONTENT. If Comcast were NEUTRALLY controlling PEAK NETWORK USE to avoid outages or slowdowns to other customers, it would be controlling KILO-BYTES AND KILO-BYTE SECONDS, not SPECIFIC CONTENT.

For example, the use of BitTorrent during peak periods could equal 10,000 emails, 3,000 web page connections or 4 digital movies in terms of IDENTICAL peak use imposed on the network. Each source could be equally (neutrally) responsible for the peak congestion.

Picking and choosing among those sources for delay or cutoff by Comcast based on CONTENT is non-neutral discrimination. For example, a traffic jam could be alleviated by preventing entry of say 200 buses, 200 trucks or 600 cars, where any of the three take up the same amount of road space to cause the same amount of congestion.

Comcast should not be making these choices among internet use content any more than a traffic cop should be deciding whether one bus or one truck causes more congestion than three cars - if there was a “congestion fee”, the bus and the truck should be assessed three times that of a car as a “neutral” control of traffic.

Instead, Comcast and other facility-based broadband providers are posturing to force customers into a newly created “fast-lane everything” package with much higher prices, perhaps double or triple the price for what customers get now. Degraded quality at lower speeds would be used to force customers into the high-price package.

Achieving such market power outcomes requires that the current conditions of net neutrality, in place by default, be undermined and abandoned to whatever degree necessary. That’s why this case is important - it will tend to set a standard for net neutrality going forward absent any hard laws or FCC rules on the issue.

Comcast should be required to show its peak network capacity cannot be met. It should be forced to cease overselling network capacity along with vague language designed to allow it to control delays, cutoffs, pricing and content at will.

If Comcast threatens that it will not maintain maintenance or buildout of the network or to impose discriminatory pricing unless net neutrality is abandoned, its monopoly franchises should be suspended and considered for competitive buyout and takeover by a new provider under conditions of net neutrality.

If Comcast insists that a “fast-lane” is necessary to alleviate congestion, it should be allowed to provide one under the condition that existing broadband capacity and access remains undisturbed and overhauled with clear pricing and capacity maximums available to end users.

This is the way it will be. I wonder sometimes if the average person understands what freedom of speech is all about. I never hear this subject on the news. Gosh, do I have to hear more goofy stories about Hollywood nabobs going on about, who care. Access to the internet, the most dynamic communication innovation in our time, is one of the most important topic today. Sorry for ranting. Take care.