Category: Net Neutrality

The faux grassroots Save the Internet Coalition funded by Google, Microsoft, EBay, Amazon, and Yahoo failed to convince the House Commerce Committee that their hysterical claims about the Impending Death of the Internet were well-founded today, and the Committee voted their Markey Amendment down by a 34-22 vote. True to form, they’re hailing this defeat as a victory:

The Markey Amendment failed in committee 22-34. Democrats Rush, Green, Gonzalez, Towns, and Wynn all voted no on the amendment and betrayed the netroots. The rest of the committee Democrats voted for the amendment.

Action now moves to the Senate.

The thing that annoys me most about this group is their total lack of integrity; I dislike that even more than the pie-in-the-sky insistence on getting a free ride from the Telcos. The fact that they can get the door slammed in their faces for a second time and call it “Victory” underscores the point.

Here’s a link to the bogus Markey Amendment.

Via Declan McCullough’s Politech mailing list, here are a few sane people opposed to Neutering the Net.

Telepocalypse by Martin Geddes: F2C: Network neutrality speech:

An open, free net is an emergent outcome, not an a-priori input to be legislated into existence. We need to capture and accellerate the experiments in how networks are built, financed and sold; and protect those experiments from incumbent wrath until the results are in.

But most critically, don’t fossilize the network in 2006 by adopting network neutrality.

Some more Martin:

So neutrality rules that entrench our “Internet Mk1” as somehow sacred, hallowed and for all time are just totally counter-productive. Better to allow Verizon to screw over their customers and make it worthwhile for someone to bypass them entirely using newer technology. Or just swallow your pride and copy the unbundling rules that work just fine over here. BT can deploy a two-tier walled IMS garden, if they like. Just they have no way to make me buy it unless it creates some compelling value.

The Only Republican in Frisco:

You should not be surprised that the loudest advocates of ‘net neutrality are those on the far left, including MyDD, Kos, MoveOn and Craig Newmark (lovely guy but hardened socialist). Their arguments are very much in line with things like McCain-Feingold and the old Fairness Doctrine….

The history of the Internet has told us we should imagine the unimagined. Let’s preserve the absence of inhibition that has gotten us this far. Keep it libertarian. No new laws.

(Put another way: think about what the FCC has done in the name of “decency”. Now expand it to private bits on private networks. That’s “neutrality”.)

Mark Cuban:

I would rather have little Johnnys grandma getting priority for her video checkup with the doctor at the hospital over little Johnny getting his bandwidth to upload the video of the prank he pulled on his buddy.. I would rather make sure that information from life support or other important monitoring equipment, medical or otherwise is finding its way without interruption, and without the end user having to pay for an off the net solution. These are the applications that make the net great. These are the applicatins that offer equal opportunity to those who are disadvantaged.

And check out Hands off the Internet, the Telco lobbying group.

Declan’s own take is quite reasonable:

Whatever you think of the desirability of Net neutrality, keep in mind what the legislation actually says. It would award the FCC the power to regulate what business models will be permitted on the next generation of the Internet.

And this from a guy who’s all for free downloads and that sort of thing.

It’s rather difficult to find the actual text of the Save the Internet bill that our fuzzy-minded friends are complaining about as it’s not in Thomas yet. Not to worry, the Benton Foundation has posted the original text and the April Update on its web site. This is the section that they’re worried about:

II. Net Neutrality

The legislation gives the FCC authority to enforce its broadband policy statement and principles when it receives a complaint that the principles have been violated. On September 23, the FCC concluded that it has the jurisdiction necessary to ensure that providers of telecommunications for Internet access or Internet Protocol-enabled (IP-enabled) services are operated in a neutral manner. Moreover, to ensure that broadband networks are widely deployed, open, affordable, and accessible to all consumers, the Commission adopted the following principles:

* To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice.

* To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement.

* To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network.

* To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.

After reviewing a complaint, the FCC would be able to issue an order that a violating entity comply with the above principles.

In addition, within 180 days of enactment of the legislation, the Commission is to submit a study to Congress regarding whether the objectives of the broadband policy statement and principles are being achieved.

I frankly don’t see what the fuss is about. The Coalition’s complaint, at the end of the day, is that the above language isn’t strong enough, and that certainly appears to be a load of crap.

The underlying issue is this: When a cable company or Telco has deployed a cable plant that allows it to accelerate voice services such that VOIP is as good as the existing telephone network, can service providers such as Google and Skype use these enhanced facilities for free? The bill says that’s the Telco’s call to make, not the government’s, and I’m all for that. The Telcos need to make money in order to have the incentive to upgrade the cable plant. They’re not charities and they shouldn’t be forced to act as if they were.

Google is looking for a free ride not on the ordinary Internet, but on a new cable system that performs better than the ordinary Internet. They want Fedex service for the price of bulk mail, and that would be a no-go even if Google weren’t a dangerous monopoly that cooperates with the Chinese government to stifle free speech.

Don’t believe the crap about Telcos blocking web sites, the plain language of the bill prevents that. Read the bill and decide for yourself if it’s progressive or regressive.

For more information, see the Benton Foundation’s page and the Committee’s page.

Check out the membership of the Save the Internet Coalition and ask yourself why it’s all a bunch of pie-eyed world saviors without a single networking guru in the ranks.

Joining this coalition amounts to putting a big sign on your back saying “I’m an idiot.”

Why? Simply put the Internet of the past is not so well-designed that it should be the Internet of the future. If we’re going to move serious amounts of phone calls and video programming over the net, the plumbing will have to change. Network neutrality is simply standing in the way of progress, and this coalition has consistently demonstrating abject ignorance about how the Internet works.

H/T Jeff Jarvis, who doesn’t get the fact that some resources really are finite.