Month: June 2006

Have you ever seen Free Press’ list of supposed facts about Net Neutrality? Most of them aren’t facts at all, not surprisingly.

PSEUDO-FACT #1: Network Neutrality protections have existed for the entire history of the Internet.

REAL FACT: Actually, there is no legal precedent at all for the anti-QoS provision of the Neutrality regulations, and many commercial Internet customers use QoS today. Even the Internet2 Abilene network tried to use it.

PSEUDO-FACT #2: Network discrimination through a “tiered Internet” will severely curtail consumer choice.

REAL FACT: How can the expansion of service plans be a curtailment of choice? The QoS plan doesn’t affect web surfing, it’s something that opens broadband up to alternate uses, as the Cable network has for ten years with Triple Play.

PSEUDO-FACT #3: Network discrimination will undermine innovation, investment and competition.

REAL FACT: All networks discriminate, that’s how they manage traffic and prevent overload. A richer service space frees innovation by providing it with the necessary support in the network for new things.

PSEUDO-FACT #4: Network discrimination will fundamentally alter the consumer’s online experience by creating fast and slow lanes for Internet content.

REAL FACT: The Internet has always had fast and slow lanes for content, that’s why the round-trip-time to the nearest Yahoo! portal is so much faster than for a generic web site. The two main tiers today separate the consumer Internet from the commercial one. COPE narrows the gap, and Free Press wants to increase it. Key point.

PSEUDO-FACT #5: No one gets a “free ride” on the Internet.

REAL FACT: Not all riders pay the same price per bit today. Google pays wholesale and I pay retail. Google is not paying a “fair share”.

PSEUDO-FACT #6: Phone companies have received billions of dollars in public subsidies and private incentives to support network build-out.

REAL FACT: That’s given us a nice copper network, but now we want a fiber optic one, and that’s going to cost more.

PSEUDO-FACT #7: There is little competition in the broadband market.

REAL FACT: Yes and no. Most consumers have four choices, two of which are wireless, but most choose wire because it works better. The laws of physics aren’t neutral.

PSEUDO-FACT #8: Consumers will bear the costs for network infrastructure regardless if there is Network Neutrality.

REAL FACT: So let’s drop the corporate income tax, OK? The same logic applies, you see.

PSEUDO-FACT #9: Investing in increased bandwidth is the most efficient way to solve increased network congestion problems.

REAL FACT: It’s part of the solution, but not the total solution. There is more bandwidth in the access network than in any one internal path, so the billion users on the Internet can always overload any one interior link. That’s why we need both fast pipes and QoS.

PSEUDO-FACT #10: Network owners have explicitly stated their intent to build business models based on discrimination.

REAL FACT: All business models depend on discrimination, as do all tax laws and all criminal laws. It’s not a bad thing when we discriminate rationally.

PSEUDO-FACT #11: The COPE Act will not deter discrimination, but it will tie the hands of the FCC from preventing it.

REAL FACT: It gives the FCC the power to levy fines up to $500,000 for denial of access or degradation of access. That’s not peanuts.

PSEUDO-FACT #12: Supporters of Network Neutrality represent a broad, nonpartisan coalition that joins right and left, commercial and noncommercial interests.

REAL FACT: You’re basically a bunch of no-nothing kooks from both fringes who agree on an issue just like Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader agree on their opposition to NAFTA, for different reasons. Show me somebody who’s: A) Knowledgeable; and B) Not a fringe figure who supports your regulations and I’ll buy him a beer. I haven’t seen that person yet. And no, Moby doesn’t meet my requirements.

Thanks for asking.

Tomorrow is the hearing on the telecom reform bill in the Senate Commerce, Science, & Transportation Committee. Ben Scott of Free Press represents the pro-regulation side of the neutrality debate, and an array of speakers on various sides of the ISP and Telco spectrum. Scott’s a good choice to speak for the neuts because he’s easily confused. Here’s some nonsense he spewed in a sound bite on a fictitious report his employers released recently:

“The issue of Network Neutrality is about who will control the future of the Internet,” said Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, who will testify on behalf of the consumer groups at the Senate hearing. “Will a handful of phone and cable behemoths dominate an anti-competitive marketplace and do away with the Internet as we know it? Or will consumers, content creators, educators and small businesses continue to enjoy a free, open and competitive Internet? Every major consumer organization in the country is committed to meaningful, enforceable Network Neutrality.”

The Big Lie here is that the COPE Act expands consumer choice, while his bill restricts it. It should be a good hearing. His organization funnels the money into the Save the Internet campaign, and one of their employees, Tim Karr, runs their Astro-blog.

Yesterday, I happened the see a video clip from the Annual Kos event in which Matt Stoller of MyDD tried to make a rousing argument in favor of regulation. He had to admit that he knows nothing about the issue of Telecom policy, which was interesting because the regulations he proposes don’t actually relate to telecom policy. They’re a new and unprecedented intervention into Internet routing and service plan regulation, a totally virgin territory for government regulators. Stoller admitted that it’s just a good guys vs. bad guys issue for him, one that’s lots of “fun”. You can see the video clip at Link TV’s web site by clicking here.

So my question is this: “should the US Congress take advice on virgin regulatory territory from someone who admits to knowing nothing about the subject matter?”

I’ve got a list of questions I’d ask if I were a member the Senate panel, which I’ll post later just for fun.

One of the more interesting things that’s come to the surface recently is that the high-profile Internet guys who are listed on the pro-regulation side have said things that indicate they’re actually opposed to the specific provisions of the Markey and Snowe-Dorgan bills. Tim Berners-Lee, for example, wrote on his blog that he believes it should be OK for ISPs to offer service plans optimized for QoS or not:

We may pay for a higher or a lower quality of service. We may pay for a service which has the characteristics of being good for video, or quality audio.

…but these bills forbid that level of consumer choice.

And then there’s the Vint Cerf paradox, where a guy who hasn’t worked as an actual engineer for over twenty years wants specific engineering regulations on the Internet, oh, and they just happen to benefit his current employer. He’s a Good Guy, so Matt Stoller loves him.

See Matt Sherman for some good links on today’s news, including a story on News.com and an editorial in the Washington Post.

Writing on ZDNet in response to some mad ravings by Huffington Post blogger Russell Shaw, George Ou offers the best explanation of QoS ever:

I’ll say this loud and clear; QoS is a reordering of packets that is an essential part of network traffic engineering. Take the following example where A represents VoIP packets and b represents webpage packets.

No enhanced QoS policy
AbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbAbAbbbbbbAbA

With enhanced QoS policy
AbbbbbbbbbAbbbbbbbbbbAbbbbbbbbbbAbbbbbbbbbbA

Now note that there are only 5 A packets in the entire stream for either scenario and you still get the exact same throughput for the b packets with or without prioritization for the VoIP A packets. The difference is that the A packets are now a lot more uniform which makes sound quality go up and the webpage b packets don’t really care about uniformity since all they care is that they get there at all intact. With this QoS example, you can improve VoIP without affecting the average throughput of web surfing. More precisely, QoS has ZERO throughput effect on non-prioritized when there is zero congestion on the pipe. If it had been a congested network, then QoS will have minimal effect on non-prioritized traffic.

All those who think “net neutrality” regulations are fine should read this article and try to understand it. He breaks the issues down with great clarity and anybody who thinks he can regulate the Internet had better be able to understand what he’s saying.

Some clever wag once said that a political gaffe is when a politician accidentally tells the truth. Here’s Zoe Lofgren accidentally telling the truth about her corporate masters:

“Google is a multi-billion corporation that was founded in a Stanford dorm room. That is about to change, unless this House adopts net neutrality rules.”

Google will no longer be a multi-billion dollar corporation if it can’t control the Internet, you see. Truth is so refreshing.

Hilarious:

A new proposal in the U.S. House of Representatives takes the concept of mandatory Net neutrality that companies like Amazon.com, eBay, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have publicly embraced–and extends it to, well, those same companies.

Rep. Charles Gonzalez, a Texas Democrat, has proposed an amendment (click for PDF) to a telecommunications bill being debated Thursday that says neither broadband providers nor commercial Web sites and search engines may engage in so-called discriminatory practices.

(Also on Thursday, the House rejected the original Net neutrality amendment aimed at broadband providers proposed by Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat.)

Charlie Gonzales is one of my heroes.

The Mercury News finally ran a decent anti-regulation Op-Ed today:

As more and more of our lives migrate to the Internet, if we want our TV viewing, phone conversations and other applications to be at least as reliable as they are now, it is critical that networks be allowed to become smarter — to partition bandwidth and prioritize packets to make sure that different types of content get appropriate handling. The equivalent of HOV lanes (which give priority during heavy traffic) and FedEx delivery (which allows people to pay more for faster and more reliable service) must be permitted on the Internet for it to become what we all want it to be.

Maybe someday we’ll have the techno-utopian world of infinite bandwidth, but the last time I checked, there isn’t an infinite supply of anything. So, in a world with limited bandwidth, should traffic from an Internet-connected toaster have the same network priority handling as the VoIP traffic from police and fire departments?

Network neutrality proponents answer that question “yes.” But the correct answer is so obviously “no” that there is clearly some other agenda at work.

It’s a day late, but who cares, Googoo lost their bid to control the Internet.

The Googoo (Google + Yahoo) Coalition didn’t learn anything from their humiliating defeat in the House yesterday. Free Press founder Bob McChesney is still singing the same old song:

If we lose Net Neutrality, we lose the most promising method for regular people to access and provide diverse and independent news, information and entertainment. We will see the Internet become like cable TV: a handful of massive companies will decide what you can see and how much it will cost. Gone will be the entrepreneurship and innovation that has made the Internet the most important cultural and economic engine of our times.

A huge pack of lies, as nobody wants to censor your news. The Enhanced Services concept actually reduces inequities in the performance of the not-at-all-neutral Internet of today and allows new applications to flourish tomorrow.

Read similar sentiments from McChesney’s partners in the Regulate the Internet Coalition:

“Special interest advocates from telephone and cable companies have flooded the Congress with misinformation delivered by an army of lobbyists to undermine decades-long federal practice of prohibiting network owners from discriminating against competitors to shut out competition. Unless the Senate steps in, today’s vote marks the beginning of the end of the Internet as an engine of new competition, entrepreneurship and innovation,” said Consumers Union Senior Policy Analyst Jeannine Kenney.

In other words, “I have no clue about this whole Internet thing but I’m really, really scared that Google can’t buy itself a permanent niche on it.”

“The American public favors an open and neutral Internet and does not want gatekeepers taxing innovation and throttling the free market,” said Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press. “The House has seriously undermined access to information and democratic communication. Despite the revisionist history propagated by the telcos and their lobbyists, until last year, the Internet had always been a neutral network.

Well, yeah, except the Internet is not now nor has it ever been a neutral network and you’re lying when you say it has been.

“This is not Google vs. AT&T,” said Mark Cooper, Director of Research at Consumers Federation of America. “CFA has been battling to keep the phone companies from putting tollbooths on the Internet since the early 1980’s, but now every business and every consumer that uses the Internet has a dog in the fight for Internet Freedom. This coalition will continue to grow, millions of Americans will add their voices, and Congress will not escape the roar of public opinion until Congress passes enforceable net neutrality.”

Yeah, right. Look, dude, you should stick to evaluating toasters and leave big complicated things like networks to the people who understand them. If we need your help, we’ll ask for it.

The fight moves on the Senate, presuming the Googoo Coalition doesn’t get enlightened first, where I predict a similar outcome.

The fundamental problem with the Googoo Coalition is its refusal to admit that it wants to engage in regulation and the consequent failure to devise a realistic regulatory framework. If you’re not honest about what you’re doing, it’s hard to do it well.

Here’s a good, honest, factual account of the Google snow-job that failed from the Associated Press:

Demanding assurances of net neutrality are content providers such as Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Yahoo! Inc., and Internet users ranging from the Christian Coalition to rock musicians.

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., offered an amendment stating that broadband network providers must not discriminate against or interfere with users’ ability to access or offer lawful content.

Without that amendment, said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California, “telecommunications and cable companies will be able to create toll lanes on the information superhighway. This strikes at the heart of the free and equal nature of the Internet.”

It was defeated 269-152. “You can call an amendment net neutrality,” said Rep. Paul Gillmor, R-Ohio. “But it’s still government regulation.”

Emphasis added, for emphasis. That’s from Frisco, where the local paper had taken the side of corporate welfare for Google. The shameless nature of their regulations is too obvious for reporters to ignore.

The vote on final passage of the COPE Act was 321 – 101. These are the scoundrels and hooligans who were bamboozled by Google into voting against fiber optic broadband networks. Everybody else in the House is a hero today.

Abercrombie
Allen
Baird
Baldwin
Becerra
Berman
Blumenauer
Brady (PA)
Brown (OH)
Capps
Capuano
Case
Cleaver
Conyers
Continue reading “The Rogues Gallery”