Broadband Access
• Report: Metered Broadband Bad For Consumers, Businesses
• FCC Votes to Punish Comcast for Content Blocking
• Comcast Tries to Polish Its Image
• Communications Industry Urges Congress to Act on Broadband
• Comcast Cuts Deal With Vonage on Internet Traffic
• Court Upholds FCC`s Video Rules
• Report: U.S. Broadband Adoption Slowing
• Critics: FCC Inaction Slows Economic Development
• Few Are Neutral in Net Neutrality Battles
• Google Petitions FCC Over Verizon`s Use of Wireless Spectrum
---
More ...
There`s nothing virtual about the battle lines being drawn in the fast-developing Net Neutrality War. Disney, Verizon and AT&T are among the superpowers developing a shock and awe strategy intended to annihilate the rag-tag band of consumers and non-profits working to keep the Internet playing field level.
The phrase "level playing field" is a favorite of telecommunications providers trying to gerrymander the regulatory landscape to ensure that the field slants in their direction. It`s being rolled out once again as the big-money players empty their armories to launch their latest scorched-earth crusade.
The once and perhaps future monopolies have all weighed in recently against legislation to enforce net neutrality,saying that "market-oriented approaches" favor the consumer, and thatcompanies would push customers away if they tried to enact "tieredpricing" systems for faster content access.
Appearing at the TelecomNEXT convention in Las Vegas on March 20th,Walt Disney CEO Robert Iger stated, "We do not support any [NetworkNeutrality] legislation at this time."
Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg concurred, saying that lightly regulatedmarkets were "a good framework" for business and government to develop a "shared vision to vault into the markets of the 21st century."
AT&T boss Ed Whitacre modified his anti-net neutrality stance at theconvention. Whitacre pledged that his company would not block ordegrade any customer access to applications or content on theInternet.
Whitacre had previously lit up the sky by saying content providers like Google were "nuts"for trying to use AT&T`s cable and broadband networks -- "my pipes," he called them -- without paying extra for them.
Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin, who alsoattended the convention, stated that the FCC does have the authorityto issue judgments in cases of Internet providers favoring content, ormaking content providers pay extra.
But Martin shied away from supporting net neutrality outright, sayingthat he "favored a regulatory system where businesses can invest intheir networks."
Metering the Web
Although major telecom and cable companies are claiming they supportthe ability of Web surfers to access content regardless of whoprovides it, they`re simultaneously doing all they can to wring maximum profitfrom the usage of the broadband infrastructure in America and would clearly like to turn it into a virtual taxicab, with the meter always running.
Verizon recently won what it called "regulatory relief" from the FCC,as the commission lifted a number of rules governing Verizon`s pricingstructure for business broadband, as well as its obligation to payinto a fund for providing low-cost broadband services to rural regionsAmerica.
Verizon has said it will continue to voluntarily pay into the fund "fora time." AT&T, never one to pass up a government hand-out, has filed forsimilar treatment with the FCC in the hopes of an expeditedresolution.
As part of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, telecom and cablecompanies were mandated to expand their networks in order to providebroadband services to the whole of the country, in exchange forderegulation of their business and pricing.
Although businesses havebeen able to take advantage of the expanding cable infrastructure,consumers have not been as lucky.
The US ranks fifteenth in the world in rankings of broadbanddeployment, with only 40 percent of American households within reach of or able to affordDSL or cable Internet services.
FCC commissioner Michael Copps, who opposed Verizon`s regulatoryrelief award, recently criticized the telecoms` slow pace of deployingbroadband beyond cities and urban centers.
"If high-speed broadband is permitted to become a primarily urbanphenomenon, the digital gap will grow wider, [resulting in] ruralAmerica being worse off," Copps said.
Spin Cycle
Verizon is also part of the U.S. Internet Industry Association(USIIA), a trade association dealing with Internet commerce andpolicy.
The USIIA recently launched a high-profile campaign decryingsupport of net neutrality as "preventing network operators fromexploring ways to guarantee the reliability of advanced Internetservices over a public Internet that was not designed to be reliable."
In fact, the Internet was designed by Department of Defense engineers whose primary goal was reliability. Through what is called packet switching, data moves in small "packets" that can follow different routes over the network and be reassembled on the receiving end. The Internet may not be as "secure," or private, as one would like but it is extremely reliable, telecommunications observers noted.
The USIIA paid for splashy ads telling readers to "protect bloggersfrom government regulation" on popular progressive Web sites and blogssuch as the Daily Kos and the American Prospect.
Ironically, progressive bloggers are one of the groups that largelyfavors net neutrality, joining an unlikely alliance of contentproviders such as Google and Yahoo, consumer groups such as theConsumer Federation of America (CFA), and AARP.
The seniors` advocate group, famous for its lobbying power inCongress, joined a petition to push for Congressional support of netneutrality. AARP spokesman Mark Kitchens said that the increasingnumber of senior citizens active on the Internet meant that the debatedirectly affected their constituency.
For supporters of net neutrality, the issue isn`t just content, butprice as well. Consumers don`t want to be held hostage to overpricedservice that doesn`t deliver quality broadband.
If infrastructureproviders can block other companies from sharing their lines, andprioritize their own content in turn, users may be stuck with choosingbetween Verizon, AT&T, and not much else.
Daniel Berninger, analyst for the telecom and IT research firm Tier1,said that ending net neutrality would spell the end of the Internet aswe know it.
"Network neutrality allows end users to choose winners and losers inan application meritocracy that threatens service providers longdependent on barriers to entry," he said. "The idea that Yahoo couldpay Verizon to improve performance over Google means Verizon, not theend user, decides which search engine wins."
