Neutral Net? Who Are You Kidding?

Posted by Richard Bennett

Wired has a half-good article on Internet regulation today, Neutral Net? Who Are You Kidding?

“Net neutrality” has many meanings, but in the broadest sense refers to a cooperative principle whereby everyone on the net is supposed to make the same effort to help deliver everyone else’s traffic. In fact, pushing bits through the network-of-networks that [...]

Saving the Internet from Web tedium

Posted by Richard Bennett

What’s really going on with “net neutrality” regulations is that the Big Content companies are afraid the Internet will become more a medium of communication than a means of delivering canned content, and that will eat away at their profits. So they’ve concocted this whole FUD campaign that dishonestly makes Quality of Service enhancements for [...]

John Carroll is not a moron

Posted by Richard Bennett

He’s pretty clear on why “net neutrality” as imagined by leftwing blogs and pandering politicians is big, steaming load of crap:

That’s a bit of an exaggeration. Broadband providers, most notably AT&T, aren’t suggesting that they will “control what we access over the Internet.” Rather, they are saying that some content may be given “fast track” [...]

Adam Cohen drinks the Kool Aid

Posted by Richard Bennett

The New York Times isn’t what it used to be. Rocked by scandal over the made-up reporting of Jayson Blair, torn apart by the dramatic ouster of Howell Raines, and shaken-up by Judith Miller’s megaphoning the Bush Administration’s fantasies about Iraq’s nuclear program, it increasingly relies on sensationalized, drama-queen reporting and opinion to hold on [...]

Tiered peering and business models

Posted by Richard Bennett

This post by Dave Siegel on tiered peering addresses some the most high-anguish issues in a truly application-neutral Internet:

The issue of peering is this. If ATT demands that content providers pay them in order to put them into the premium class (similar to how our IP-VPN customers pay us to put traffic in the premium [...]

Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination

Posted by Richard Bennett

Columbia University law professor Tim Wu coined the term “net neutrality” in a paper he published in the Journal of Telecommunications and High Technology Law. The paper is an interesting read because it’s sharply opposed to the regulations adopted by the House Judiciary Committee this week, so I’d encourage anyone who wants to have a [...]

Zoe Lofgren is a moron

Posted by Richard Bennett

Zoe Lofgren spins tall tails about the Judiciary Committee’s bid for power, making the grandiose claim that it saves the Internet:

The bill requires broadband providers to operate their networks in a non-discriminatory manner and makes sure that the phone and cable companies cannot favor or block access to the Web sites or online services [...]

Google wins a battle

Posted by Richard Bennett

Droolin’ Jim Sensenbrenner got his fascist bill through his committee today:

By a 20-13 vote Thursday that partially followed party lines, the House Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would require broadband providers to abide by strict Net neutrality principles, meaning that their networks must be operated in a “nondiscriminatory” manner.
Impeach the bastard.
Seriously, this was a [...]

Scruffy Hippies at the Ball Park

Posted by Richard Bennett

The scruffy hippies doing Google’s dirty work failed miserably:

About a dozen protesters convened outside AT&T Park (formerly SBC Park) in San Francisco before a Giants baseball game. They held up signs telling AT&T to “stop wiretapping Giants fans” and exhorted baseball fans to switch to the left-leaning Working Assets long-distance provider.
The fans seemed, for the [...]

Nine choices for broadband in Phoenix

Posted by Richard Bennett

The Lippard Blog took a look and found nine choices for consumer broadband in Phoenix. So much for the “duopoly” theory.
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