Weird (4.00 / 2)

I was in DC last week (for tourism) and overheard a few professional women on the subway. It sounded like they'd just been to a meeting where network neutrality was being discussed, and that they had been convinced that additional charges for things above "basic services" would be fair. One woman said "At first I wasn't convinced, but the way they described it..."

Now I don't know who these women were, where the meeting was at, etc. But it's funny that just a few days later the news comes down that network neutrality legislation is once again being delayed.

My guess is that the telecom lobbyists have been at work, hard.

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by: existenz @ Thu Feb 26, 2009 at 15:41:11 PM CST

It's at least possible ... (0.00 / 0)

... that the additional charges may not be nefarious. They could help pay for content.

Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn is the latest convert to my idea that payment for content on the internet could be similar to payment for cable television content.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/...

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

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by: Caro @ Fri Feb 27, 2009 at 09:27:50 AM CST

[ Parent ]

What a bunch of crap (4.00 / 3)

In a major departure from previous Democratic strategy, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is scrapping the idea of pursuing legislation mandating an openly accessible Internet in favor of negotiations with stakeholders aimed at reaching a comprehensive accord.

Of course, by stakeholders, they mean stakeholders only on one side of the debate. The stakeholders that have the most to lose without net neutrality protections (small internet content providers and consumers) never have a seat at the table.

Conduct your own interview of Sarah Palin!

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by: fwiffo @ Thu Feb 26, 2009 at 16:18:00 PM CST

hearings? (4.00 / 1)

That's an excellent point. What I'd like to know is if they will be holding - or have held? - public hearings on the matter. I know they probably have a lot of past testimony to go by, but if they want to go for negotiation over legislation, then let's make them open negotiations.

Some people I know who are wonkier than me about telecom have not been thrilled with the idea of a "net neutrality" law  because the track record of Congress on technical issues is poor - that legislation would be too specific and so become obsolete relatively quickly, or that providers would be able to make changes that would conform to the letter of the law but violate the general intent. I can certainly see their points, but I doubt that those are the concerns being raised by lobbyists. The more on-the-record Congress is about this issue, the better.

not everything worth doing is profitable. not everything profitable is worth doing.

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by: tatere @ Thu Feb 26, 2009 at 17:12:58 PM CST

[ Parent ]

A good reason to oppose legislation! (4.00 / 1)

While everyone wants a "neutral" Internet, the ugly truth is that you can no more achieve it via legislation than can you achieve universal health care by legislating that it's illegal to get sick.

Yes, I"m one of those wonky telecom pros, an anti-Bell consultant to competitors, and I was warning against serious abuse of the Internet, by the Bells, before the term "network neutrality" was even coined.  I warned that the FCC's version of "broadband" was really "Fat Wasteband, Broadband Internet's Evil Twin".  That's what VZ and AT&T want to give you.  It's "broadband", but not the Internet.

However, the way the Internet actually works (this is behind the scenes and not visible to the average user), it depends on the risk of "non-neutral" actions by ISPs in order to keep things under control.  In the real world, an ISP who tolerated spam would simply be cut off, with all of its customers -- that's a strong incentive for ISPs to not allow "pink contracts", and for users to avoid those who might.  What constitutes spam?  In a fully-neutral Internet, you can't block spam or spammers, or for that matter DDoS attacks, botnets, or other malware.  Even if you limit neutrality to "legal" uses, you lose necessary management control.  What people want is "good neutrality", where the network does things to protect users, and their freedom to access non-abusive applications, from those who might be abusers or simply hog too many resources.

The way good neutrality happens is a bit more complex.  The Internet needs to be "open entry" to new ISPs, via guaranteed access to the underlying telecom.  That is what the Cheney-Rove FCC did away with in 2005, reducing the ISP business to a duopoly.  (The Supreme Court did not rule that they had to; the FCC was lying.)  And with a duopoly and closed entry, there's serious risk of abuse.  So while the simple, obvious, and wrong answer is to regulate the behavior of the ISPs, bad stuff goes down on the Internet orders of magnitude faster than regulators, let alone legislators, can deal with it. The fix has to be in the telecom arena, "below" the Internet. ISPs themselves should not be content-regulated.

Boucher, FWIW, is Verizon's pet rep in the House (Rockefeller is their guy in the Senate).  He joined in the anti-Comcast chorus last year, but only to make life harder for Verizon's biggest competitor.  He's carried VZ's anticompetitive water in the past, notably the Goodlatte-Boucher bill that would have let VZ behave even more anticompetitively (it didn't pass, but the Rethug FCC implemented it anyway).  It's tragic that he now has Markey's portfolio; he's likely to obstruct any really good telecom legislation.

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by: fgoldstein @ Thu Feb 26, 2009 at 21:59:07 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Nobody ever left Congress broke (0.00 / 0)

unless they got caught...

and even then, if they were careful, there'd be little things...

is boucher in a safe seat? is he gay? broke? cheating?

in any case, it's corruption at work, and it stinks all the way out to the farouking Rockies...

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by: konopelli @ Thu Feb 26, 2009 at 16:31:07 PM CST

Unbelievable (4.00 / 1)

on both counts.

I saw the beginning of the debate on the mortgage restructuring.  It involves allowing bankruptcy judges to modify lines according to their own discretion.  The Republican outcry was really slimy, talking about it being an expansion of welfare, rewarding irresponsible people while punishing people who pay their bills and go to work, etc.  I was so heartened by the prospect of reversing some of the problems with the Bankruptcy Bill.

As for the net neutrality back off -- this sounds really suspicious.  I hope you find out exactly what happened, and then let everyone know about it.  Opting for providers to come to agreements instead of legislating rules?  That sounds like an incredibly big sell out.  I want to know who did this and who was involved and why.

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by: joanneleon @ Thu Feb 26, 2009 at 16:47:01 PM CST

Legislation is only a band-aid (4.00 / 2)

While I agree that we need legislation to achieve some form of network neutrality, there's a much better way to do it than detailed rules on how ISPs can function.

Divestiture.

Force the local cable and phone companies to divest all of their outside plant wiring into independent companies, or perhaps even the local municipality, which is then regulated as a common carrier. Said operator would be required to lease access to the wiring to any and all commercial providers willing to pay the tariffed rates. Those rates would be sufficient to pay off the capital cost of construction plus ongoing maintenance.

That gives you a selection of competitive ISPs all using the same wires. If you don't like the service or policies of one ISP, you can switch to another. You don't even need to define "network neutrality", an act fraught with hazards.

Does this sound familiar? It should -- it's exactly how the Internet used to work, first with dialup and then with DSL.

It all came apart with broadband. The phone and cable companies told us how fantastically expensive it would be to deploy, but not to worry -- they'd build it for us with investor money. That was a Faustian bargain. Just as there's no such thing as a "free" cell phone -- you'll pay for it many times over during your service contract -- we're paying dearly for having handed the carriers a monopoly, or at best a duopoly. That was no bargain.

For a while, Congress and the FCC fell prey to the fiction that we could have our cake and eat it too. Bell companies would be required to lease their wires to CLECs, competitive local exchange carriers. The Bells could compete with them as long as they operated at "arms length"; they had to treat the CLECs and their own services equally. We saw how well that worked out. We now know from experience that the ONLY way to guarantee competition and real choice is to completely separate the ownership of the wires in the streets from the service providers who use them.

This is hardly a radical idea, nor is it "socialism". We've done it with roads for centuries. The various governments build and maintain the roads (with a lot of private contractors), everyone can use them, and the revenues from gasoline and motor vehicle taxes cover the costs. Over these roads run private vehicles, taxi cabs, commercial transportation companies, even government bus services, all in competition with each other, all providing choices to the traveler or shipper. But none of them can use ownership of the roads as a weapon against their competitors.

This is basically the purpose of antitrust law, which believe it or not, is still on the books after years of being ignored by the Republicans.

This is such an obviously good idea that it'll never happen. Look at what the telcos do whenever a municipality builds its own fiber network. They're at the state capital the next day to get a law banning it as "unfair competition". They're terrified that everyone might see how well the idea works.

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by: KA9Q @ Thu Feb 26, 2009 at 23:15:14 PM CST

Exactly (4.00 / 1)

You hit the nail on the head, Phil.  The outside plant (fiber, wire) is a natural monopoly, but services should be  competitive.  This requires that the two operate separately.

In the UK, this has already been done.  BT voluntarily moved its loop and related services into a regulated subsidiary, OpenReach, which sells wholesale to BT Retail and competitors on an equal basis.  This improved their profitability -- it's not a zero-sum game.

I've recently drafted generic text for a bill to force separation of the large telcos at the state level:

http://www.ionary.com/separati...

Of course it could be done at the federal level too, but sometimes states are easier to move.

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by: fgoldstein @ Fri Feb 27, 2009 at 07:25:03 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Waxman (4.00 / 1)

Remember that Waxman was backing DiFi's attempt to sneak an attack on net neutrality into stimulus.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...

Which is why lefty blogo-joy for Waxman's replacement of Dingell (who was a gradualist on net neutrality, but supported it and knows as much about telecom as anyone) was a little unbalanced.

Yes, we need someone greener in the position. but in exchange we've given Darrel Issa free rein at Oversight and given Waxman more power for some things we don't agree with him on.  

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by: emptywheel @ Fri Feb 27, 2009 at 10:27:59 AM CST