Net Neutrality 5-02-2006

Net Neutrality Links

I’ve added these links to the Net Neutrality Page today.

How Real Is the Threat?

Big telco execs are on the record:

AT&T’s Ed Whitacre wants consumers and content providers to pay for use of his network. “The Internet can’t be free … for a Google or Yahoo or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes free is nuts.�

BellSouth’s William Smith told reporters that he would like to turn the Internet into a “pay-for-performance marketplace� where his company could charge for the “right� to have certain services load faster than others.

Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg says that Web applications need to “share the cost� of the broadband services already paid for by consumers. “We need to pay for the pipe.�

Net Neutrality Not An Optional Feature of Internet

Imagine the prospects of an info tech industry without “software neutrality� where Intel charged a fee to enhance software performance. Pay Intel and your applications run faster. The incentives driving Moore’s Law disappear in this pay-to-play model. Intel’s profit maximizing incentives become serving the interests of software companies willing to spend the most on “enhancing software performance� not the end users of computers. The meritocracy driving competition between software companies disappears as Intel picks winners and losers based on willingness to pay. Innovation becomes permission based at Intel’s discretion. . . .

The Internet does not exist without net neutrality. Consider the misleading assertion that tinkering with network neutrality simply amounts to adding class of service as in the case of air travel or HOV lanes on highways. . . . The telco and cable companies have in mind creating another type of customer not a class of service. They want suppliers to pay for the right of transit. It amounts to airlines charging Time Warner for the right of readers to take Time magazine on an airplane. It means charging Ford tolls in addition to drivers for the right of Ford cars to use highways.

Sen Stevens tries to sneak the Broadcast Flag into law posted by Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing

Sen Stevens tries to sneak the Broadcast Flag into law
Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) has snuck the Broadcast Flag into a bill on Net Neutrality. The stealth clause authorizes “the FCC to establish a broadcast flag to allow TV stations to protect digital content from Internet piracy.”
What this means is

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE