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Dueling Network Neutrality Commentary on NPR
cube farmer writes Wednesday National Public Radio featured a commentary by telecom representative Scott Cleland in opposition to Network Neutrality legislation. Thursday Craig Newmark, the Craig behind craigslist, countered that Network Neutrality is essential for consumers. Who made the stronger case?
I feel Craig made the stronger argument - as it was plain and simple. Although I found it interesting that both referred to how the net is *now* as being what they believe it should be. Craig believes it's free now and should remain so. Scott Cleland seemed to say that it's open now, and to keep it open, close it down. Odd that..
{} ------ When I think of a good sig, I'll put it here
Except I only heard the commentary from Scott Cleland. It was chock full of misinformation and outright lies. I have never been even remotely "upset" after listening to a story on NPR, and after having heard this, I was incensed and immediately wrote an angry feedback message to NPR about it.
Point and counterpoint debate is good, but they need to air them both back-to-back, lest they let the lobbyist get away with the utter crap he was spewing.
I even tuned into Morning Edition yesterday morning specifically to hear the counterpoint argument, and it didn't air at the same time of day.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
And it wasn't just that I disagreed with him over net neutrality. He couldn't make a case that letting telco's balkanize the internet was in the interests of the consumer.
The way I see it this is nothing more than pure greed from AT&T (we know how much they look out for consumer interests), Bellsouth and handful of other companies all of which got a sweet deal when the internet was privatized. But in the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately corporate handout game, that history doesn't seem to matter now. There's a reason Bellsouth has a thirty person lobbying office on K Street. They spend millions on the hill and wouldn't be doing it if they didn't think there were billions waiting at the other end of this sweetheart legislation.
If internet traffic is such a burden, sell of those assets and move into another line of business. If it's such a loser, get of the business. Because I'm all a flutter over poor, poor Bellsouth not being able to set up toll booths on the net so they can charge at both ends of the pipe.
What's new and interesting to me is how special interest legislation is now connected to massive PR campaigns. The RIAA's launch to equate copyright infringement with theft, even though they are very different issues. The TV commercials touting tons of CO2 as a good thing for the environment. I'm just getting sick of corporate interests propagandizing TV and the mainstream media for political issues.
I want my government back, I want my news to be written by real journalists, not PR staff angling for a press hit, I want my privacy back and I want to own the data about me. Why is that asking so much?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Improve things? We're just trying to keep things from getting worse!
"Damage control" describes most of my political action lately - I generally fancy myself as a progressive, bleeding heart left liberal (yes there's a bit of sarcasm in there for some of you), but lately I have found myself feeling like a bit of a short-term regressivist - I would like to turn back the political clock to September 10, 2001. Ironically, I would consider this "progress."
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
If the carriers think they can get away charging more, let them try it.
Sure let them try charging their customers more. If I want google.com to download faster than the next guy, then charge me more. But going to google and saying that we are going to make it look like it is your company's fault for slow download speeds if you don't pay us a kickback, is not a legitamite business practice.
In fact I really don't see anything supporting this practice in the current law, so the only question I have is why the FTC and attorney generals wouldn't just prohibit it under existing laws.
I mean is it a legitamite practice for blackmailers to DoS attack a web site in order to exact extortion money? Why would the telecoms in effect doing the same thing be considered legitamite?
One of the things that the NPR broadcasts helped to underline in my mind was the fact that there is a presumption in all the commentary on this issue so far that the battle is between the telcos (really ISPs of any stripe) and the content providers. And while these interests do represent certain vested Internet players, they ignore the group that is the predominant player on the Internet: the users. The obvious answer is that the telcos and content providers each shout with a [somewhat] unified voice, they've got the money, and they are interested in the outcome.
Where is the American Automobile Association for Internet users? I know of no such organization that is the AAA's analog in the Internet community, and just like AAA has worked on issues that effect drivers in the U.S., we need the same kind of unified lobbying force on behalf of the Internet user community. Irrespective of your stance on this issue, it should be pretty obvious that without involving the users, neither side on this debate is going to come up with a solution that benefits anyone but themselves.
<epiphany>Hey, an American Computer Association [for lack of a better name] could even use the 'roadside service' type approach that AAA uses, where if you were interested, you could pay a membership fee and get technical support in return!</epiphany>
Actually, here's a very simple legal definition of good network neutrality:
That essentially sums up the net neutrality debate and solves it in one paragraph. I challange anyone to come up with a more succinct statement, or to give an example where Something Bad Happens(TM) because of that statement that couldn't otherwise happen.
They misrepresent the issue badly and it goes downhill from there. That article simply proves that academics have no clue either, and fail to apply critical thinking to the positions which are communicated to them.
How is Wharton wrong? Let's see:
- I work in DC, for a trade association, and around here it is called the Law of Unintended Consequences. It's a law because anything, including inaction, is guaranteed to have some unintended consequences. If avoiding unintended consequences was the bar for Congressional action nothing would ever get done. It is a content-free, all-purpose argument used to stall progress on any issue of your choice (witness: global warming).
- Congress has been making laws about telecommunications since at least 1934. It's a little late to argue that they shouldn't do anything. In fact the current mess is a direct result of the 1996 Telecomm Act and the Supreme Court's interpretation of it as announced last June. So let's not pretend that the Internet was free of regulation until now. In fact it has been heavily regulated from the very beginning, by Congress. It's a far more accurate view to say that Congress is considering unfucking Internet regulation, as opposed to saying that they are fucking it for the first time.
- One way the Internet was regulated was through the concept of "common carrier" which dates back to the 19th century and the development of the railroads. ISPs until recently were required to be neutral because their signals were all carried over telephone lines (the dial up era), which are subject to common carrier regs. The introduction of the cable modem raised the question of whether that infrastructure was common carrier, and the question of common carrier on cable networks was what the Supreme Court decided last June. They decided it does not apply, which would seem to allow cable networks to do whatever the fuck they want on their pipes.
- The current fuss is due to the ILECs (old telephone companies) demanding parity with the cable companies. They are asking Congress to re-write the 1996 Telecomm Act to give telephone companies the same freedom as cable companies. As a result anything the FCC says (their "4 assurances" included) is not worth two shits because the FCC can only implement the laws as written by Congress. They can promise you the moon today but if Congress gives it away then tough shit. DO NOT think that access to content is safe. If the cable and telephone companies get their way in the re-write, they will have the power to do whatever they want, including slow down or even block whatever content they feel like. Assurances from the FCC made now have no bearing on the issue, because the problem is in Congress, who overrides the FCC.
- The question of prioritizing new types of data, and companies like Akamai, are not related to the concept of net neutrality. Those are red herrings put up by the ISPs to distract and confuse. Net neutrality is about being content neutral not technology neutral. Net neutrality provisions, if written correctly, would allow the development of new services and routing technologies, but they would have to be based on technical factors, not content or originating IP. These proposals are out on the table but are ignored by the big ISPs in favor of manipulation, lying and distortion in an attempt to grab absolute power over what you can see and do on the Internet.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
That's the whole point of this debate. The Supreme Court decided, based on the 1996 Telecomm Act, that cable Internet service is not subject to common carrier status, and that will go into effect this August. However DSL and other telco lines still are considered common carrier. Hence the huge amount of money the telco companies are spending now, to convince Congress to rewrite the 1996 Act to free them from common carrier laws too.
BUT what Congress should do is simply rewrite the laws to re-apply common carrier to cable Internet. That would reset the bar to where it was one year ago. Tell your member of Congress.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.