There are many ways to boil down today’s upcoming FCC rejection of Net neutrality (which they did in the guise of supporting Net neutrality). Here’s one:

The end of Net neutrality means that those who provide access to the Internet — to our Internet, for it is ours, not theirs — have every economic incentive to keep access scarce. By not providing enough bandwidth, they can claim justification for charging users per bit (or per page, service, download, etc.), and justification for charging Net application/data providers for the right to cut ahead in line.

This is ironic — in the not-funny sense — since the access providers’ stated justification for opposing Net neutrality is because to do otherwise would discourage investment. But, why are they going to invest in providing more bits when they make more money by throttling access? (Competition? Sure, that’d be great. Let’s require them to rent out their lines. Oh, I forgot.) Abundance would turn access provision into a profitable commodity business, which is exactly what users want, and what would stimulate innovation and economic growth.

So, now that Net neutrality is going to be overturned, the access providers will make money by preventing access. Anyone want to bet that the U.S. is now going to climb the charts of average national broadband rates and of lowest average cost? Does anyone think that we haven’t just moved back by decades when we’ll have, say, gigabit access common across the country?

For shame, FCC.

[Later that day] The FCC has clarified some of what it means. For example, they are not going to allow access providers to charge companies for fast lane access. It seems that Commissioners Copps and Mignon nudged the regulations in the right direction. Thank you for that. (Also, see Harold Feld’s take.)

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Brad Burnham, a well-known and thoughtful venture capitalist — I know him a bit, and like and respect him — has posted a letter to the FCC explaining why it ought to reject Chairman Genachowski’s compromised version of Net Neutrality (AKA “I can’t believe it’s not Net Neutrality”) in favor of something more clear and powerful.

Barbara van Schewick, an authority on Net Neutrality, has posted about a very specific example of the harm that would be done if the Chairman’s version becomes public policy: Zediva is a online DVD rental start-up that needs Net Neutrality to be viable. Zewdiva says in their own letter to the FCC:

By enabling users to watch new DVDs online, our service may be perceived to directly compete with the VideoLonLDemand service, PayPerView or other PayTV services offered by cable providers and, in some cases, the providers of fiber networks and wireless networks. At the same time, we depend on the broadband Internet access service offered by these providers to reach our users. In the absence of strong nonLdiscrimination rules and meaningful restrictions on what constitutes “reasonable network management”, these competitors will be able to exploit their control over the provision of broadband access to put us at a competitive disadvantage.

Here’s hoping that Chairman Genachowski can put on a pair of man pants and propose some real Net Neutrality (while maintaining his sense of humor).

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I was once privileged to have lunch with Michael Copps, the FCC commissioner. He was quiet, inquisitive, polite. A listener. But when he speaks, he is a fearless defender of the well-being of the interests of those his office is intended to advance.

Commissioner Copps has come out against Chairman Genachowski’s “Gosh, honey, I can’t believe it’s not Net Neutrality!” plan. Without Commissioner Copps’ vote, the Chairman does not have a deal.

Julius Genachowski should be thanking Michael Copps for giving him an opportunity to rescue his legacy.

(via Chris Bowers at the DailyKos.)

Also, a shout-out to Senator Al Franken for arguing for an open Internet as if our economy, our educational system, and our democracy depended on it … because they do.

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While FCC Chair Jules Genachowski has hesitated so long on Net Neutrality that he’s lost his legislative majority, explaining that he’s trying to balance the financial interests of providers who have already been heavily subsidized and given near monopolies, and who nevertheless have given us an unevenly distributed sub-par infrastructure, one of the other four commissioners is standing up without equivocation for an Internet equally open to every idea.

Commissioner Michael Copps calls for re-classifying the Internet as a telecommunications service, undoing the mischief of classifying it as an information service. “[Let’s] actually call an apple and apple!,” he says.

Commissioner Copps also excoriates the Google-Verizon proposal because it excludes wireless and because it would create “tiered Internets”: “‘Managed services’ is what they call this. ‘Gated communities for the Affluent’ is what I call them.”

You can read Commissioner Copps’ comments here (pdf). (via Slashdot) [Me on Googizon, and an interview with Rick Whitt, Google lawyer.]

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I’ve signed onto a filing to the FCC that encourages it to continue to distinguish the Internet from the special services carriers want to offer. The Internet is only the Internet if it is open and does not prefer some applications, sites, or content.

David Reed brilliantly articulates his reasons for signing. Here is a chunk:

the Internet was created to solve a very specific design challenge – creating a way to allow all computer-mediated communication to interoperate in any way that made sense, no matter what type of computer or what medium of communications (even homing pigeons have been discussed as potential transport media). The Open Internet was designed as the one communications framework to rule them all. Very much as vocalizations evolved into a universal human communications framework, or ink on paper evolved into a universal repository for human knowledge. That’s what we tried to create when we designed the Internet protocols and the resulting thing we call the Internet. The Internet is not the fiber, not the copper, not the switches and not the cellular networks that bear its signals. It is universal, and in order to be universal, it must be open.

However, the FCC historically organizes itself around “services”, which are tightly bound to particular technologies. Satellite systems are not “radio” and telephony over radio is not the same service as telephony over wires. While this structure has been made to work, it cannot work for the Internet, because the Internet is the first communications framework defined deliberately without reference to a particular technological medium or low-level transport.

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Blair Levin heads the national broadband initiative.

He says he can’t tell us what will be in the initiative because he doesn’t know. He’s been working on the process, which will be “open and public.” The process will be transparent, inclusive, participatory, and citizens are “Priority Number One.”

The process will be data-driven, rather than starting from the conclusions.

He asks whether 40% is larger than 108%. He says a telco says 40% is larger, pointing to a chart that shows that investment went up 40% after deregulation, but missing the data on the very same chart that shows it went up 108% after regulation. This, Blair says, violates a fundamental law of lobbying: Don’t show data that contradicts your point on the very same chart. He says we need to look at the whole broadband ecology, not at how a single sector does. He says that his team is going to take the task very seriously. And, he says, he’s sure they’ll say some dumb things and make some mistakes. He asks for leeway (as per Jeff Jarvis) to make some mistakes.

The result will be a plan, not a report. Recommendations. The policy decisions will be made by the FCC, not by Blair’s group.

He asks for our help. 1. Study the law requesting the broadband plan. 2. Attend the July 2nd FCC meeting. 3. Go to Broadband.gov. (It’s not up yet.) 4. Participate in the foming events and workshops. 5. Give them your best ideas.

[Great to hear this sort of clear commitment and clear talk. Now there’s a panel, which I’m not going to try to liveblog…]

[Tags: pdf09 broadband fcc ]

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Here’s a comment aimed at the FCC that reminds the FCC that (a) broadband and the Internet are not really synonymous, (b) the value of broadband is that it gives access to the Internet, so, (c) when designing a national broadband package, we should make sure that it supports the value of the Internet.

[Tags: internet broadband net_neutrality fcc ]

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There are 25 Senators on the committee that confirms FCC commissioners. So, Britt Blaser had the idea that we all together could come up with the 25 questions we want asked, and then provide one question per Senator, with backing material, etc.

There’s a “starter kit” of 13 questions up on a survey, with space for you to add your own. There’s also a “Fast Internet for All” Facebook app that can connect Senators to questions.

I very much like the idea of shaping the hearings this way. Personally, I find many of the 13 starter questions currently in the survey to be “gotcha questions,” and I hope the project ends up with questions that are more useful for discussion. But that’s up to you and me.

[Tags: fcc policy ]

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According to Tim Poulus, citing DSL Reports, Verizon is acting as a wholesaler, allowing DSL Extreme to sell Internet access over Verizon’s FIOS fiber lines. So, if FIOS comes to your premises, you’ll be able to buy your Net access from DSL Extreme (under the name “Fiber Extreme) instead of from Verizon, and it will cost you less than getting access via Verizon: 50Mbps for $99 instead of $150. Verizon will continue to offer a bundle of Net, TV, and telephone at a bundled price. DSL Extreme does not mention Verizon or FIOS in its press release, which is impressive in its own way.

There are subtleties, and perhaps grossnesses, of this deal that I don’t understand. (For example, Tim writes: “This is a WBA (wholesale broadband access) deal, not unbundling (ODF access, which is not really an option on PON networks anyway)…”) But it sounds like a welcome development, since open competition (which this is not (?) because Verizon is picking one particular company to allow onto its fiber) would commoditize access, driving prices down. And it might tend toward neutral, open networks for the same reason that Web browsers want to show you every page you care to point at: Browsers — and networks — that don’t show you every page look broken.

[Tags: net_neutrality verizon fcc broadband ]

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At Freedom to Connect, I was unable to blog Benoit Felten‘s excellent and very popular talk because there was too much in it, and there were some terms I didn’t understand. But I did like the following quotation from Ad Scheepbouwer, CEO of the Dutch telecom, KPN:

In hindsight, KPN made a mistake back in 1996. We were not too enthusiastic to be forced to allow competitors on our old wireline network. That turned out not to be very wise. If you allow all your competitors on your network, all services will run on your network, and that results in the lowest cost possible per service. Which in turn attracts more customers for those services, so your network grows much faster. An open network is not charity from us, in the long run it simply works best for everybody.

Benoit went on to talk about whether the US situation is sufficiently like that of the Netherlands to warrant learning a lesson from KPN. You can see a version of his talk here: 1 2 3 4.

[Tags: benoit_felten broadband net_neutrality fcc ]

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