Some say this is necessary to pay for infrastructure.We’re going to control the video on our network. The content guys will have to make a deal with us.”
— AT&T’s New Boss Wants Your World Delivered to Him, Save the Internet, 27 April 2007
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Some say this is necessary to pay for infrastructure.We’re going to control the video on our network. The content guys will have to make a deal with us.”
— AT&T’s New Boss Wants Your World Delivered to Him, Save the Internet, 27 April 2007
Posted at 08:45 AM in Capacity, Net Neutrality, Telephone, Video | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: AT&T, Bellsouth, content, Ed Whitacre, iTunes, Randall Stephenson, SBC, video
But it’s also a timely reminder of how these deals are placing unprecedented strain on the web’s capacity. Internet traffic growth surged past capacity growth last year. Average traffic was up 75 percent while capacity grew only 47 percent, according to the folks at TeleGeography.Poor telcos and cablecos; straining to keep up.— Katie Couric, Expensive Date, Hands Off the Internet, April 20, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Posted at 09:31 AM in Broadband, Capacity, Net Neutrality, Telephone, Video | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: AT&T, capacity, Katie Couric, net neutrality, profits, streaming video
-jsq
Posted at 09:37 AM in Broadband, Internet Access, Internet Speed | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: broadband, OECD, Point Topic, U.S.
The United States has the largest total number of broadband subscribers in the OECD at 58.1 million. US broadband subscribers now represent 29% of all broadband connections in the OECD.That may sound like good news. But remember the U.S. is the third largest country in the world by population. So figuring broadband users per 100 persons, as the OECD does, the U.S. comes in number fifteen out of the thirty OECD countries.— OECD Broadband Statistics to December 2006 (all emphases are in the original)
Posted at 07:57 AM in Broadband, Internet Access, Internet Speed | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: broadband, cable Internet, Canada, DSL, fiber, FTTH, Japan, Korea, OECD, U.S.
Well, not really:
The answer is sales. The RIAA isn't pushing for every artist, it's pushing a few select products. One star selling a million records is worth a lot more than one hundred stars selling ten thousand records each, even if the end numbers seem to tally up the same.In other words, apparently RIAA is pushing the fat head and doesn't care about the long tail; much less about participation.— Can you hear me now? by Brett Thomas, bit-tech.net, Published: 21st April 2007
Posted at 11:06 AM in Copyright, Distributed Participation, Radio | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Copyright Royalty Board, Internet radio, iTunes, long tail, participation, RIAA
The big split in the most recent Supreme Court COPA decision is between Kennedy and Breyer, with Kennedy saying that there are plenty of choices of relatively-effective (and certainly less-restrictive) filtering tools out there for parents to use, and Breyer essentially saying that parents are helpless so mandated shields of various kinds should be put in place to protect kids. It turns out that, in fact, parents are knowledgeable and are giving advice to their children about what to do online.It turns out because the Pew Internet and American Life Project did a study on Teens, Privacy, & Online Social Networks, in which they asked things like whether teens hold back information from their online profiles and how much their parents know about what they're doing. That, plus what Judge Reed had already determined, which is that there are pretty effective software screening products available that parents can use if they want to.— Pew on teenage online social networking practices, by Susan Crawford, Susan Crawford blog, Thu 19 Apr 2007 06:43 PM EDT
Yes, even children benefit from open participation through the Internet. Perhaps parents could learn from their children, too.
-jsq
Posted at 09:20 PM in Law, Public Policy, Public Safety | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: COPA, Lowell Reed, parents, participation, Pew, teenagers
The short of it is this: As long as we understand the Net as what Jay Sulzberger calls "some bundle of services delivered by the Telephone Company and/or the Cable Company", we'll not only never have Net Neutrality, but not even a conclusive conversation about it.If the big-telco-provided Internet were actually a free market for Internet service provision, we could maybe leave it to the market to protect Internet participants by providing open access among them. But it's not; it's at best a duopoly (telco and cableco) in most places in the U.S. So we need laws to provide for open access. And it would be nice if we also had more service providers, so there would be some semblance of competition.We also can't have a productive conversation about it if we start with a regulatory conclusion and work our way back to businees from there.
Here's a frame that may help: The Net is the best platform for free enterprise ever created. How do we help get that built out for everybody? I suggest that we've barely started, and that what Cringely gets from Comcast (and what most of us get from whatever company provides it) is still just an early prototype.
— What Net do we want? Doc Searls, 17 April 2007
-jsq
Posted at 02:46 PM in Competition, Distributed Participation, Net Neutrality, Telephone | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: AT&T, framing, net neutrality, service provision
Posted at 01:15 PM in Communication, Distributed Participation, Net Neutrality, Telephone, Video | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: 1993, AT&T, Bell Telephone, Internet prediction, net neutrality, telcos
Proponents of net neutrality would like you to think that large service providers had nothing to do with inventing our modern Internet, but this notion isn’t true. Even though explorations into the Internet began at major academic universities for the purpose of research, it is highly unlikely that private companies would never have entered into the market of Internet services. Companies eventually moved into the Internet communications market, albeit backed by government protectionism through such policies as the Communications Act of 1934.— Net neutrality not for 'the little guy', The only ones who would feel the burden of varying price increases would be large content providers, such as Google, Yahoo and Amazon. By Christopher S. Gordon, Daily Texan, 13 April 2007
Posted at 09:25 AM in Competition, Government, Net Neutrality | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: commercialization, ISPs, net neutrality, privatization, PSINet, telcos, UUNET
"To what extent are supporters of net neutrality also tacitly supporting piracy?"Speak up for open connectivity and free speech, as Rock the Net is doing, and you're a supporter of piracy?— Get Real - The Net Is Not Neutral, By Sonia Arrison, TechNewsWorld, 04/13/07 4:00 AM PT
Posted at 08:40 AM in Government, Music, Net Neutrality | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: music, net neutrality, piracy
Net neutrality is not a luxury: it's life, or death.Found on Rock the Net.
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Posted at 08:45 AM in Government, IPTV, Net Neutrality, Public Safety, Telephone, Television | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: net neutrality, rocketboom
Musicians, including well-known bands and smaller independent artists, have joined together in supporting Net Neutrality . On the actual website, Rock the Net, you can quickly get a list of the supporting artists and a list of upcoming concerts.Or several different lists, but still, it's quite a few bands (362 bands so far, and 105 labels), some of them quite well known; others obscure (as yet).— SimpleTEXT creates a visual symphony, Ben Woods, WHAS11.com, 03:54 PM EDT on Monday, April 16, 2007
Posted at 06:19 PM in Music, Net Neutrality | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: music, net neutrality, Rock the Net
"Sometimes I think Net Neutrality, who knows about it?," Waxman said at that meeting. "What's going on now in the communications area is we are moving to a duoplet. We'll have the telephone companies. And we'll have the cable companies. They both have wires that go into the home. You'll have a choice of one or the other for your telephone services, cable services, and Internet services. Those are going to be provided by one or the other."So there's at least one elected representative who sees a duopoly.— Silenced: Progressive Sites Censored, by Kriss Perras Running Waters, Malibu Arts Reviews, 8 April 2007
Posted at 08:22 AM in Competition, Government, Net Neutrality | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: competition, Congress, duopoly, Henry Waxman, net neutrality
Net neutrality is the underlying principle of a free and open Internet that all users can access the content or run the applications and devices of their choice. These Internet Service Provider companies, from whom you took at least $10,000 each from Verizon and AT&T just last year, will take away our ability to access information by charging higher prices and essentially squeezing out the "little guy" content providers who can't afford to pay. These companies had nothing to do with inventing the Internet, the World Wide Web or Web browsers. While their infrastructure costs money, they were heavily subsidized for this with our tax dollars, and they already charge for both bandwidth and access. Don't be fooled into thinking that these companies would not continue to provide these services and innovate if they did not have this additional revenue stream, which will only serve to enrich their shockingly high level of profits.The rest of her post is also well worth reading.&mdash A lesson for Rep. Smith on net, Angie Yowell, Public affairs graduate student, 9 April 2007, The Firing Line, The Daily Texan, 11 April 2007
Continue reading "Grad Student Explains Net Neutrality to Elected Official" »
Posted at 12:48 PM in Distributed Participation, Government, Net Neutrality, Public Policy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Angie Yowell, AT&T, FCC, net neutrality, Rep. Lamar Smith, Verizon
With momentum in Congress building to pass Net Neutrality legislation, the FCC and even the Federal Trade Commission quickly swung into action. The FTC, which has been hostile to Net Neutrality since it emerged as a serious concern, held what it described as a "public workshop on 'Broadband Connectivity Competition Policy.'" In giving heavily "favored carriage" to panelists hostile to NN, the FTC unintentionally but compellingly demonstrated why NN is so necessary; to preserve the ability of citizens to access all viewpoints over the Internet, including those of independent and diverse voices, and then make their own choices, rather than have the government or the cable and telco companies choose for them.And as we've already seen, net neutrality opponents are already using the FCC inquiry for that purpose, even though the inquiry isn't complete.The FCC also mobilized, launching an official "inquiry" into Net Neutrality. An FCC "inquiry" is often a no-deadline, never-ending process that results in no action. As Brooks Boliek noted in The Hollywood Reporter, critics contend that the FCC "majority on the five-member panel is stalling because they don't want to do anything to prevent such big network companies as Comcast or Verizon from turning the Internet into their own personal amusement park" That's spot on; this is little more than an attempt to give NN opponents an argument to fend off calls for meaningful Congressional action to preserve the freedom of consumers to choose what websites they can visit on the Internet.
— Net Neutrality Update, Creative Voices' 1Q 2007 Newsletter, April 10, 2007
Continue reading "Hostile Corporate Takeover of the Internet" »
Posted at 04:01 PM in Government, Net Neutrality, Public Policy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Creative Voices, FCC, FTC, hostile corporate takeover, net neutrality
Now, Maricle is worried that the big boys might gain an edge on the virtual highway where he set up shop. That explains why he and five other Internet devotees from Albuquerque sat down with Republican Rep. Heather Wilson in late February to urge her to act on "Net neutrality," legislation that aims to block telephone companies from providing a premium service to Internet customers who pay higher fees.Politicians respond to local constituents.— The Human Face of Net Neutrality, By: Jeanne Cummings, The Politico, April 9, 2007 05:34 PM EST
Posted at 06:31 PM in Government, Net Neutrality, Public Policy, Telephone | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Center for Responsive Politics, citizen lobbyists, grassroots, net neutrality, politics
Someone has taken the time to research these claims, and finds them hollow:
Why the surge of sky-is-falling rhetoric in the early months of 2007? Three possible explanations include misapplication of anecdotal evidence, the conflation of long-term and short-term views, and political gamesmanship.Anyone who's been on the Internet for a while has seen Imminent Death stories over and over, since about 1974, that is, back in the ARPANET days before the Internet proper even existed. Various opponents of Internet technology or deployment seize on the glitch of the moment and build that molehill into a mountain.— The Future of the Internet: Scare Stories, CIO Insight, By Edward Cone, April 4, 2007
Continue reading "Imminent Death of the Internet Predicted (by net neutrality opponents)" »
Posted at 03:54 PM in Net Neutrality | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Internet death, net neutrality, politics, streaming video
For the past 18 months, it has been open secret that Rogers engages in packet shaping, conduct that limits the amount of available bandwidth for certain services such as peer-to-peer file sharing applications. Rogers denied the practice at first, but effectively acknowledged it in late 2005. Net neutrality advocates regularly point to traffic shaping as a concern since they fear that Rogers could limit bandwidth to competing content or services. In response to the packet shaping approach, many file sharing applications now employ encryption to make it difficult to detect the contents of data packets. This has led to a technical "cat and mouse" game, with Rogers now one of the only ISPs in the world to simply degrade encrypted traffic.Why degrade encrypted traffic? Because traffic these days is encrypted to prevent flow shaping on it. Slowing down all encrypted traffic catches that, including unauthorized movie sharing and the like. However, it also catches legal and authorized encrypted traffic. For example, I always log in on my remote computers using ssh, which is encrypted. This is for privacy. So is Rogers now making privacy slow?— The Unintended Consequences of Rogers' Packet Shaping, Michael Geist, Law Bytes, 5 April 2007
Packet shaping doesn't have to be a problem with net neutrality, but in this case it looks like it is.
-jsq
Posted at 10:26 AM in Net Neutrality | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Canada, net neutrality, packet shaping, Rogers
Today, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) declared that wireless broadband Internet access service is an information service under the Communications Act (Act). This action places wireless broadband Internet access service on the same regulatory footing as other broadband services, such as cable modem service, wireline broadband (DSL) Internet access service, and Broadband over Power Line (BPL)-enabled Internet access service. It thus ensures that wireless broadband Internet access services are similarly free from unnecessary regulatory burdens. Competition among all of these broadband services will provide consumers with more and better services at lower prices.Well, there is more competition in wireless Internet access than in cable or telco Internet access, but given the track record of this classification thus far in actually promoting more and better services, I have to remain sceptical. Also notice the word "consumers", not participants.&mdash: FCC CLASSIFIES WIRELESS BROADBAND INTERNET ACCESS SERVICE AS AN INFORMATION SERVICE, Chelsea Fallon, FCC, 22 March 2007
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Posted at 09:11 AM in Distributed Participation, Government, Public Policy, Wireless Internet | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: FCC, information service, net neutrality, wireless Internet
Everybody agrees that there are no actual problems with net neutrality, and as our own Chris Wolf explained last week, it doesn’t make sense to fashion legislative remedies to situations that don’t actually need remedying. If anything, it just shows that the supporters of net neutrality laws are looking for any avenue possible to impose restrictions on ISPs that would benefit the big online content companies. Whether through the Senate, through the FCC, through the state legislatures, it doesn’t really matter. Any opportunity to regulate the Internet is one they want to pursue.Everybody? Such confidence to be able to speak for everybody with no exceptions! Situations that don't need remedying? I think the situation before August 2005 needed less remedying; now that the telcos have already gotten the FCC to abrogate net neutrality, the situation does need remedying. Restrictions on ISPs that would benefit the big online content companies? Only in the sense of no new charges for something they're already paying for, and restraints on the ISPs restriction content or speeds. "Any opportunity to regulate the Internet"; oh my. How dastardly those net neutrality proponents must be!— Ask Questions First, Change Policy Later, Hands Off the Internet, April 3, 2007 at 10:24 am
Posted at 08:45 AM in Government, Net Neutrality, Public Policy, Rural Access | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: 2008 election, FCC, net neutrality, POTS, rural ISPs
Former Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lawyer Adam Candeub claims that the government agency destroyed a 2004 study on the implications of local media ownership. The study, which revealed that locally owned television stations provide more local news coverage, blatantly contradicts the FCC's assertion that "commonly owned television stations are more likely to carry local news," an argument used by the agency to justify a position in favor of a hands-off approach to media ownership restrictions.It seems somebody gave Senator Barbara Boxer a copy, so its existence is known, even though FCC commissioners deny any knowledge of it.— Senator calls for investigation of buried FCC study, By Ryan Paul, ars technica, September 17, 2006 - 09:58AM CT
Posted at 12:04 PM in Government | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Barbara Boxer, FCC, local ownership, net neutrality
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