Net Neutrality // Current

added
1 month ago

We must ensure ISPs don't stop the next Google getting out of the garage

If politicians want to effect economic recovery, national competitiveness, good public health and high civic engagement, they have a duty to keep the internet free and open. But politicians around the world seem willing to sacrifice their national interest to keep a few powerful phone and telcoms companies happy.

Between filtering, fiddling connection speeds and capping usage, ISPs are pulling the rug out from under the nations that have sustained them with generous subsidies and regulation.

Between these three factors – reducing the perceived value of the net, reducing the ability of new entrants to disrupt incumbents, and penalizing those who explore new services on the net – we are at risk of scaring people away from the network, of giving competitive advantage to firms in better-regulated nations, of making it harder for people to use the net to weather disasters, to talk to their government and to each other.

Telcoms companies argue that their responsibility is to their shareholders, not the public interest, and that they are only taking the course of maximum profitability. It's not their business to ensure that the Googles of tomorrow attain liftoff from the garages in which they are born.

But telcoms firms are all recipients of invaluable public subsidy in the form of rights of way and other grants that allow them to string their wires over and under our streets and through our homes. You and I can't go spelunking in the sewers with a spool of cable to wire up our own alternative network. And if the phone companies had to negotiate for every pole, every sewer, every punch-down, every junction box, every road they get to tear up, they'd go broke. All the money in the world couldn't pay for the access they get for free every day.

If they don't like it, they don't have to do it. But we don't have to give them our sewers and streets and walls, either. Governments and regulators are in a position to demand that these recipients of public subsidy adhere to a minimum standard of public interest. If they don't like it, let them get into another line of work – give them 60 days to get their wires out of our dirt and then sell the franchise to provide network services to a competitor who will promise to give us a solid digital future in exchange for our generosity.If politicians want to effect economic recovery, national competitiveness, good public health and high civic engagement, they have... more

Jonathonish
added this

3 responses

added
2 months ago

Metering: The End of The Internet As You Know It

Last month, the nation's No.2 cable company Time Warner Cable announced plans to test a new billing system known as "metering" that charges Internet customers depending on how much they download. Customers who exceed their limit--say, by viewing online videos--would face steep penalties on top of their subscription rate.

Time Warner Cable's usage penalty would take the unlimited service we enjoy today (albeit slow compared to other nations), and make Internet more like cell phones, where you get overcharged by companies making record profits. It is the latest version of the Net Neutrality debate: should the companies that deliver Internet be allowed to block it, slow it down, or in this case, overcharge for it?

Here's why this issue threatens the Internet as you know it: Cable companies Time Warner and Comcast, and phone giants AT&T and Verizon sell the vast majority of high-speed Internet service in the United States. Phone and cable companies like these have no other competition in 97% of US markets, thanks to corrupt policies passed by the Bush Administration at the companies' behest.

These duopolies are betting on the future of their "triple-play" phone-Internet-TV service, so that you'll pay them more than $100 per month and they can keep earning record profits. They know that if you start downloading video from online innovators like Hulu.com and Roku.com, eventually you won't need their expensive, advertising-ridden television service. If you decide to use online phone providers like Skype, you won't need their expensive phone service. The answer? Jack up the cost of Internet, and once again eliminate the competition. This is exhibit A for when we need government to establish and enforce consumer protections; the same brand of policies we needed to prevent the financial meltdown and protect New Orleans.

Fortunately, Time Warner Cable's pricing scam was met by fierce opposition from consumers, public interest groups and members of Congress. Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) spoke out against the scheme, and Time Warner Cable scuttled the plan in four of the five test cities. Beaumont, Texas, was the city left as the lone petri dish, and Congressman Massa has promised legislation to curb the price-gouging. Yesterday, Rep. Massa told the Philadelphia Inquirer he is looking for a Republican co-sponsor for the bill: "This is bigger than a college kid surfing the Internet. Anything that limits access to the basic Internet is a threat to the economy."

Time Warner Cable is regrouping, and says it is planning a "customer education process" to teach the public that high prices and Internet caps are good for us. And while the company tries to get its messaging right, other phone and cable companies are dipping a toe in the metering pool. AT&T is already testing a billing scheme that caps Internet use, and other Internet service providers are preparing to do the same. Comcast is billing for over-usage, but they are using a cap that is much higher than Time Warner, and more reasonable.

There are a host of other reasons why we should be worried about Internet service providers' march toward overcharging for high usage: First is journalism. We continue to learn about Madonna's adoption problems and Ms. California's old photos, but if you want substance in your news, you'll have to look beyond corporate media's steady stream of sensationalism, celebrity gossip and product placement. We need fast, neutral, affordable Internet that can deliver video, audio and other multimedia to enable efficient production and distribution of journalism and other educational content.

Another is access. Today, some 40 percent of American homes do not have high-speed Internet, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And high-speed Internet access in the US is already far more costly and slower than in 21 other developed countries. Time Warner's pricing plans would put the Internet even further out of reach for tens of millions ofLast month, the nation's No.2 cable company Time Warner Cable announced plans to test a new billing system known as... more

atomiclegion
added this

0 responses

added
2 months ago

Three Must See Presentations: Power of the Internet and why our governments are trying to control it

There is a very good possibility that the World War III option is an attempt to control the Internet by eliminating Net... more

salviad
added this

0 responses

added
3 months ago

Dems with Cablewood Friends Tying the Knot Backdoor Style

NET NEUTRALITY WILL SOON BE DEAD if you don't get off your duffs. Ever wonder why our internet speed is thirty times slower... more

privateibber
added this

0 responses

added
4 months ago

Obama picks Net neutrality backer as FCC chief

President Obama on Tuesday nominated Julius Genachowski as the nation's top telecommunications regulator, picking a campaign... more

Sons_Of_Liberty
added this

1 response

added
4 months ago

Fighting Piracy Is Pointless

What's the point of fighting PC game piracy? According to Stormrise developer Creative Assembly Australia's... more

Nettle
added this

20 responses

added
5 months ago

Free Press Update on the Broadband Stimulus Package | Free Press

Whoo hoo! Net neutrality from the stimulus bill! Go Bama! Beginning the effort to assure neutral access to high speed internet... more

uppityprogressive
added this

17 responses

added
5 months ago

Net Neutrality Narrowly Escapes Stimulus Doom | WebProNews

Feinstein Tries To Slip One In Though it had nothing do with creating jobs or stimulating the economy and had everything to do... more

uppityprogressive
added this

8 responses

added
5 months ago

Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion.

Almost everything we now do on a regular basis, from sending emails, taking photographs, writing text messages, calling on our... more

covelogibbs
added this

2 responses

added
5 months ago

Google Joins Fight Against BitTorrent Throttling ISPs

Hundreds of ISPs all over the world limit and restrict BitTorrent traffic on their networks. Unfortunately, most companies are not very open about their network management solutions. With a newly launched website, Google is now helping out by supporting applications that distinguish the good ISPs from the bad.

ISPs have been throttling BitTorrent traffic for years, but only recently has this become a hot topic. In collaboration with New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute and the PlanetLab Consortium, Google is helpng ‘the cause’ by launching Measurement Lab (M-Lab), a site that helps users determine if their ISP is interfering with BitTorrent traffic.

Among other tools, M-Lab will run the Glasnost application developed by the Max Planck Institute. Last year, tests performed with the Glasnost tool revealed that Comcast and Cox were actively interfering with the BitTorrent transfers of their subscribers.

The Java applet developed by the Glasnost project uploads and downloads data via BitTorrent for a few seconds, and compares that to your regular download speed. It detects if your ISP is limiting all BitTorrent traffic, or just the flow of data through well known BitTorrent ports. All in all this tool should be able to tell you whether your ISP is messing with BitTorrent traffic or not.

In their quest for Net Neutrality, Google is backing the M-Lab project with 36 servers in 12 locations. Google will also provide network connectivity for the tools hosted on M-Lab. The servers Google has promised will be rolled out over the next few months, while the PlanetLab Consortium manages the tools hosted on the site.

The project aims to reveal the throttling practices of ISPs worldwide and put an end to all the secrecy. “Transparency has always been essential to the Internet’s success, and everyone can agree that Internet users deserve to be well-informed about what they’re getting when they sign up for broadband,” says M-Lab, explaining the ideals behind its website.

Among the other Net Neutrality tools hosted on M-Lab is a diagnostic tool which allows user to test their connection speed and receive sophisticated diagnosis of any slowdowns. More tools will be added soon, Google powered.Hundreds of ISPs all over the world limit and restrict BitTorrent traffic on their networks. Unfortunately, most companies are not... more

Sons_Of_Liberty
added this

1 response

added
6 months ago

Democrats sneak Net neutrality rules into 'stimulus' bill

The House Democrats' $825 billion legislation released on Thursday was supposedly intended to "stimulate" the... more

bansheewail
added this

53 responses

added
6 months ago

Freedom Plaza

Based on a true story. While strolling down a Washington DC street toward Freedom Plaza, an Iraqi news correspondent confides a... more

Pericles_Lewnes
added this

16 responses

added
7 months ago

Time to settle net neutrality debate

I had lulled myself into believing we were all but done with this whole debate about net neutrality, the notion that service providers must treat all traffic equally.

I mistakenly thought a ruling by the Federal Communications Commission back in September in a case involving Comcast had settled the issue, once and for all.

Silly me.

A story that appeared on The Wall Street Journal's Web site over the weekend and in Monday's paper claimed that Google was asking for preferential treatment from network providers that appeared at odds with its previous support for net neutrality. The article also said that President-elect Barack Obama was backtracking on the issue. And the story reported that Stanford Professor Lawrence Lessig, a leading advocate for a free and open Internet, had "softened" his stance.

The article prompted heated denials from all three.

But while the story may have been off target, it's clear from the subsequent dust-up that the issue of net neutrality is far from settled. The article and the subsequent back-and-forth of blog postings and press releases revealed that some fault lines remain, even among supporters.

So job one for the new FCC under President Obama should be to define and make permanent net neutrality. The FCC should establish clear guidelines for what constitutes acceptable network management. It's in the best interest of service providers, Internet companies and consumers to get this done and move on to other issues.

If net neutrality seems like so much Washington policy wonkishness, well, it's not. As Internet traffic explodes, telecommunications companies like Comcast and AT&T have argued that they're spending vast sums of money on new infrastructure that companies like Google are eating up with their search and video traffic. The service providers would like to charge some companies more to carry certain types of content, or to restrict the amount or type of content to end users to help manage that flow of traffic.

For instance, Comcast was accused of blocking file sharing and peer-to-peer network services for extended periods, uses that generate a heavy amount of traffic. Until the practice was brought to light, confused customers couldn't understand what was happening.

The problem is that this punishes consumers, who face either lower quality service, or higher costs. Telecom companies could essentially set up a toll service, and those costs will get passed on to consumers either directly, in the form of higher broadband costs, or indirectly by companies that are forced to pay more to have their content carried across the Internet.

This is bad for innovation and bad for our wallets.

More at url:I had lulled myself into believing we were all but done with this whole debate about net neutrality, the notion that service... more