PeerFlow

Clogged: Internet Demise Predicted, Again

I predict this prediction will be misused by the duopoly to lobby for more favoratism for the duopoly:

User demand for the Internet could outpace network capacity by 2010, according to a study released today by Nemertes Research. The study found that corporate and consumer Internet usage could surpass the Internet access infrastructure, specifically in North America, but also worldwide, within the next three to five years.

...

As Internet capabilities continue to expand and users strive to be constantly connected, usage of the Internet via the mobile phone, set-top boxes and gaming devices has exponentially increased thus limiting bandwidth capacity. This is due in large part to voice and bandwidth-intensive applications, including streaming and interactive video, peer-to-peer file transfer and music downloads and file sharing. According to ComScore, nearly 75% of U.S. Internet users watched an average of 158 minutes of online video in one month alone and viewed more than 8.3 billion video streams.

— Internet could clog networks by 2010, study says, By Sarah Reedy, TelephoneOnline, Nov 19, 2007 1:03 PM

If I had a nickle for every time imminent demise of the Internet has been predicted. This has been going on since before the Internet even existed, and the results have been different than in this prediction.

China: Unlocked iPhones

Can't get an unlocked iPhone inthe U.S.? Try China:

The iPhone is readily available in computer superstores in most large Chinese cities. In Beijing's Zhong Guancun, a 15-story mall filled with technology vendors, almost all the stalls are stocked. Two weeks ago, the blogger of Too Many Resources for the iPhone asked several of these vendors whether they could sell him 100 iPhones. They all answered "No problem."

— China's New 'Love Craze' — Black Market iPhones, By Aventurina King, Wired, 11.19.07 | 7:00 PM

These are unauthorized uninsured iPhones. Apparently they aren't copies: they're the real thing. The iPhone is manufactured in China, and these ones are shipped out and back through Hong Kong or eBay.

Meanwhile, back in the U.S. of A., you're stuck with an iPhone that works only on AT&T's network, while the FCC finagles a spectrum auction so lockin will continue and plans further media consolidation so you won't know anything better.

Bruce Sterling sums it up:

(((China is the New America because, not only do they have sexy movies, they have iPhones that actually work and aren't choked to death with legalistic BS IP consumer lock-in.)))

— China: The New America (part II), By Bruce Sterling, Beyond the Beyond, November 20, 2007 | 7:44:11 AM

-jsq

FT on FCC: SOP

From London, it appears the emperor's apparatchik has no clothes:

The commission, under Mr Martin, has turned US media policy into mere political theatre, while technology marches on apace, revolutionising media markets without any serious input from the regulators in the public debate about the implications.

Big Media control of the airwaves is simply not the threat to democracy and choice that it once was (in the days before cable or, for that matter, bloggers and MySpace). This is yesterday’s battle. It is time to move on to the tougher challenge: how to ensure that quality news survives the YouTube era.

— New rules for yesterday’s problem, Editorial, Financial Times, Published: November 14 2007 19:15 | Last updated: November 14 2007 19:15

Well, the first step would be to ensure that people get to look at it, for example that they are able to view the Financial Times. Economic models would be good, too. Some traditional news media seem to be developing those.

But it is not clear how one troubled industry (newspapers) can be helped by grafting it on to another one (the broadcast media), when both have essentially the same problem: the internet is stealing their advertising revenues.

Well, the New York Times has discovered can make more money by advertising if they don't charge for articles. And that didn't involve merging with a TV station. With real ISP competition, somebody would also develop a real first-mile ISP business plan.

-jsq

Decreasing Competition: Teletruth Documents FCC Harm to Wireline

Here are the main points:

• 56% Drop in Competitive Local Exchange Carrier Lines: Loss of 10 Million Competitive Lines Since 2004 -- and Falling.
• Lack of Competitive Choices Led to Massive Local and Long Distance Price Increases; Billions in Investor Losses.
• FCC's Deregulation Picked Winners and Losers -- The Duopoly -- Creating Economic Harms to Wireline-Competition, Favoring Cable Companies.

...

DROP 10,330,000 lines -56%

Only 7.1% competitive lines.

— Part One: Harm to Wireline Competition: Harm to Customers and Investors. TeleTruth, 15 November 2007

Many details are in the report. The bottom line is that there is no effective competition in wireline POTS in the U.S.

-jsq

Wiretapping before 9/11: AT&T, NSA, Verizon, Level 3

Why would an administration that currently has access to all data going over the Internet want more competition in the ISP market?

Mark Klein going to Washington to blow the whistle some more on AT&T on giving NSA unfettered access to AT&T's network:

"If they've done something massively illegal and unconstitutional -- well, they should suffer the consequences," Klein said. "It's not my place to feel bad for them. They made their bed, they have to lie in it. The ones who did [anything wrong], you can be sure, are high up in the company. Not the average Joes, who I enjoyed working with."

— A Story of Surveillance, Former Technician 'Turning In' AT&T Over NSA Program, By Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post Staff Writer, Wednesday, November 7, 2007; Page D01

While the Washington Post, for example, does get at one main point:

Contrary to the government's depiction of its surveillance program as aimed at overseas terrorists, Klein said, much of the data sent through AT&T to the NSA was purely domestic. Klein said he believes that the NSA was analyzing the records for usage patterns as well as for content.

It neglects to mention an even bigger point:

Obama Catches up with Edwards on Net Neutrality

Back in June, John Edwards wrote a letter to the FCC back in June about the 700Mhz auction, in which he got it about the Internet and participation and opportunity.

Now Barack Obama answers a question from a former AT&T engineer, Joe Niederberger, that made it to the top of a video contest:

Would you make it a priority in your first year of office to re-instate Net Neutrality as the law of the land? And would you pledge to only appoint FCC commissioners that support open Internet principles like Net Neutrality?"

— Net Neutrality becomes issue in presidential race, Extra Technology News, 29 October 2007

Part of Obama's answer:

Facebook, MySpace and Google might not have been started if you did not have a level playing field for whoever has the best idea. And I want to maintain that basic principle in how the Internet functions. As president I’m going to make sure that [net neutrality] is the principle that my FCC commissioners are applying as we move forward.

Here's the question and answer on video.

-jsq

U.S. Broadband Competitiveness: Let's Study It To Death

Let's study it to death:

The United States is starting to look like a slowpoke on the Internet. Examples abound of countries that have faster and cheaper broadband connections, and more of their population connected to them.

What's less clear is how badly the country that gave birth to the Internet is doing, and whether the government needs to step in and do something about it. The Bush administration has tried to foster broadband adoption with a hands-off approach. If that's seen as a failure by the next administration, the policy may change.

In a move to get a clearer picture of where the U.S. stands, the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday approved legislation that would develop an annual inventory of existing broadband services -- including the types, advertised speeds and actual number of subscribers -- available to households and businesses across the nation.

— U.S. sees some countries overtake it in broadband speeds, but is there a problem? Associated Press, 30 Oct 2007

On the one hand, this sounds like a popular approach to global warming by its deniers: now let's ask some scientists to study it. After all, the Okefenokee and surrounds burned more acres than in living memory, western wildfires have increased fourfold since 1970, 30 million people in half a dozen southwest states may run out of water in the next decade or so, and 12 million people in the Atlanta metro area are less than 3 months from having no water. And hundreds of climate scientists have already turned in their verdict. But, hey, now let's ask some scientists to study it.

On the other hand, this is Ed Markey's committee, and he has seemed serious about doing something, so maybe he's just cojmpiling a case. Sure, he's probably reacting to people like this who are taking the same tack as outlined above:

FCC To End Cable Exclusive Deals for Apartments

Regulation by PR?

Why wait for a boring FCC meeting that no one will watch to announce a major policy, when you can talk to a New York Times reporter instead? Days before the official FCC meeting at which the issue will be discussed, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has just told the newspaper that his agency is ready to strike down the exclusive contracts that cable operators have signed with apartment managers and homeowners' associations across the country.

— FCC to strike down exclusive apartment complex cable deals, By Nate Anderson, ars technica, October 29, 2007 - 01:45PM CT

Ars technica indicates that Martin sounds like he's serious on this one. Of course, Martin sounded serious about open access rules for 700Mhz spectrum, too, yet watered them down until they don't mean much. However, ars technica points out the biggest backers of this apartment rule change are telcos, so maybe he really means it this time. Hm, and I wonder who will sue this time?

FiOS: Sort of Fast 20Mbps Symmetric

Verizon is starting to sell sort of fast symmetrical access, that is, 20Mbps in both directions. The price is $64.99/month, which is only about twice what you pay in Japan for more than twice the bandwidth. Also only in New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York.

In an apparent reference to the ongoing Comcast stifling or perhaps even to Verizon's own admission of deceptive marketing of "unlimited" wireless telephone access:

Many FTTH providers also cap their symmetrical service, and whether the 20/20 tier would be capped was the first question fired at Verizon on the conference call.

"We don't impose caps upon our subscribers," insisted Susan Retta, Vice President of broadband solutions for Verizon. "We expect customers who order this 20/20 service will want to use it frequently, and we intend to give them the bandwidth that they ordered and they expect."

— Verizon Unveils Symmetrical 20Mbps FiOS, So far only in NY, NJ and CT... by Karl, BroadbandReports.com, 02:34PM Tuesday Oct 23 2007

Well, the bandwidth people expect in Japan is 50 to 100 Mbps, and only 30Mbps and above is considered actually fast, as in ultra-highspeed broadband. Here in the U.S., where the media don't report on other countries much, perhaps expectations are lower.

Interesting admission here:

Qwest Case and National Competitiveness

This case will forever be murky if retroactive telecom immunity for participating in illegal wiretapping passes, yet it has already thrown some light on some of the murkiest areas of government-corporate interaction.

Former Qwest CEO Joseph P. Nacchio, who has been convicted of insider trading for selling stock while Qwest's stock price was tanking, claims he had reason to believe Qwest would get lucrative government contracts, and that Qwest was denied them because he refused to participate in an illegal program. When this happened is very interesting:

The phone company Qwest Communications refused a proposal from the National Security Agency that the company's lawyers considered illegal in February 2001, nearly seven months before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, the former head of the company contends in newly unsealed court filings.

— Former Phone Chief Says Spy Agency Sought Surveillance Help Before 9/11, By Scott Shane, October 14, 2007

So if Nacchio is right, massive wiretapping by the current U.S. administration didn't start as part of the "War on Terror"; it must have started for some other reason.

The best the prosecution has been able to come up with is:

Comcast v. CxOs: Blocking Lotus Notes, Too

Comcast stifling isn't just for BitTorrent anymore:

The EFF found that not just Gnutella—another file sharing app—was being blocked, but Lotus Notes, an app businesses use to share calendars, emails and files over the net had its traffic interfered with as well. It's fine to piss off a bunch of file sharers, but when Comcast starts making sure that a CTO can't get the files off his work machine, that's a different story altogether. Net Neutrality, we need you!

— Comcast Blocking Gnutella and Lotus Notes Traffic? Gizmodo, 22 October 2007

Nevermind the CTO. Think of the CFO and CEO:

Lotus Notes! As in, corporate enterpriseware that suits use to synchronize their projects.

—Comcast also screwing with Gnutella and Lotus Notes (!?!) by Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing, October 22, 2007 1:43 PM

Meanwhile, over in Japan, everybody from the national and local governments to broadband providers to application writers to Internet participants are concentrating on fast speeds, ubiquitous use, and new applications, not to mention international competitiveness.

Japanese Broadband Growth: FTTH Pulls Up

Japanese broadband uptake as of March 2007:

14.013 million	aDSL
8.803 million	FTTH
3.609 million	Cable
11 thousand	Wireless

More impressive than raw numbers is the graph, which shows aDSL growing rapidly from 2001 to 2003, after which FTTH suddenly becomes the new growth broadband connection.

As of March 2007, merely 95% of all Japanese households had broadband, and 84% had ultra-highspeed broadband. Japanese government goals for 2010 are 100% and 90%, respectively. Ultra-highspeed seems to be defined as both up and down over 30Mbps.

Until now, FTTH has been the mainstream in terms of ultra-highspeed broadband, with upload and download speeds of over 30Mbps, but other wired and wireless technologies are aiming for technologies that will match if not overtake FTTH, and there will be a need for ongoing developments in broadband technology in terms of higher speed and larger volume to meet user needs.

— Study Group Report: Moving towards Establishing a Usage Environment for Next-Generation Broadband Technology, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), MIC Communications News, Vol. 18, No.13, 12 October 2007

Higher speed services in testing now include speeds faster than 1 Gbps, which would be around 300 times faster than what passes for broadband in the U.S.

SCO, Unix, and Net Neutrality

What does this have to do with net neutrality?

The Lindon-based SCO Group Inc. says it is planning to lay off 16 of its 123 employees and has asked a federal bankruptcy court to keep their identities secret because it fears they could be harassed.

SCO also is facing an effort to push ahead with a trial in federal court in Utah that could determine that SCO owes Novell as much as $35 million in licensing fees because of a ruling in a dispute over ownership of the Unix software program.

SCO filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 14, the result of a long court battle with Novell and IBM over ownership and use of the Unix computer operating system program. SCO claimed it, and not Novell, owned the copyright to Unix and that IBM had used parts of that code in developing the Linux operating system, whose code is open to the public and can be used or altered by individuals or companies for their own uses.

— Stricken SCO to lay off 16 workers, Lindon-based firm asks court to keep ex-employees ID secret, By Tom Harvey, The Salt Lake Tribune Article Last Updated: 10/15/2007 11:45:43 PM MDT

Unix was actually invented by a couple of researchers at AT&T Bell Labs, in an attic, in their spare time. AT&T never knew what to do with Unix, and eventually shuffled it off to Western Electric, whence it finally percolated over to SCO (I've probably omitted a few owners in between).

Meanwhile, Microsoft made billions out of an operating system (and clever legal ploys such as boot loader contracts). And Unix and its offshoots such as Linux underly everything from Apple's OS-X to mobile phones to Google.

This seems to me the archetypical example of why we shouldn't expect telephone companies to innovate, no matter how much of a monopoly they have. If we want innovation, we want net neutrality and competition.

-jsq

Fitch: More RLEC Consolidation

Likely consolidation in Rural Local Exchange Carriers:

RLECs are experiencing relatively little organic growth, the company says, because the increased revenues from such growing services as high-speed data "have not materially offset declining voice revenues. The erosion of the traditional wireline voice business of the RLECs, mainly by competition from cable multiple-system operators (MSOs) and wireless operators, has already led to some industry consolidation over the past year."

Over the longer term, RLECs also face the uncertain effects of increased competition on service revenues for the rural operators as well as uncertainties on the regulatory side.

"In the absence of meaningful organic growth, acquisitions become a means for rural carriers to increase revenues, cash flow and diversity," says John Culver, senior director at Fitch Ratings.

— Lack Of Growth Could Spell RLEC Demise, TelecomeWeb, 12 Oct 2007

The RCCC acquisition may be one of these.

-jsq

FON: Cringely to Spain to Britain to U.S.?

Cringely claims credit for wireless craze:

Several years ago I wrote a column describing a system I had thought up for sharing Internet hotspots that I called WhyFi. Among the readers of that column were some entrepreneurs in Spain who went on to start the hotspot sharing service called FON, which now has more than 190,000 participating hotspots. Those Spaniards have been quite generous in attributing some of their inspiration to my column. And now this week FON signed a deal with British Telecom that promises to bring tens of thousands more FON hotspots to the UK and beyond. This isn't FON's first deal with a big broadband ISP -- they already have contracts with Speakeasy and Time Warner Cable in the U.S. among others -- but it is one of the biggest and points to an important transformation taking place in the way people communicate.

— You Can't Get There From Here: The myth of bandwidth scarcity and can Team Cringely really make it to the Moon? By Robert X. Cringely, Pulpit, PBS, October 5, 2007

Much like really fast broadband in Japan, FON is an American idea that people in another country adopted and ran with.

Google v. Verizon v. FCC + Lobbyists

Verizon is suing the FCC about the watered down rules the FCC passed recently. Now Google has filed a complaint with the FCC about that. And apparently Verizon has been having private meetings with FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. Could this be one source of the illegal leaks the GAO finds the FCC providing to lobbyists?

While Verizon's court case proceeds through the legal system, the company's competitors have grown unhappy with the way that Verizon has handled its FCC lobbying. Frontline Wireless has gone so far as to ask the FCC to bar Verizon from the auction because Verizon has allegedly not disclosed some of its lobbying contacts with the agency quickly enough or in enough detail.

Despite Verizon's reticence to spell out exactly what it has been talking about with FCC Chairman Kevin Martin in private meetings, Google believes that it has pieced the conversation together. Google's understanding is that Verizon wants the FCC to impose the open access requirements only on the network, not on the devices. That is, Verizon could still sell handsets that are locked and controlled by the company, but its network would have to be open to unlocked handsets from any operator.

According to Google's new public statement on the issue, "From our perspective, this view ignores the realities of the U.S. wireless market, where some 95 percent of handsets are sold in retail stores run by the large carriers. More to the point, it is simply contrary to what the FCC's new rules actually say." Those rules focus on customer freedom to access content and applications from any device.

In a filing with the FCC, Google asks the agency to stick to its original plan. The company points out that while the open access rules might make the spectrum less attractive to Verizon (and thus might bring in less money at auction), the rules actually make it "more attractive, not less" to Google.

— Google attacks Verizon's attempt to water down 700MHz "open access" rules, By Nate Anderson, ars technica, October 04, 2007 - 11:11AM CT

Silly Google! Verizon is part of the incumbent duopoly, and you're not!

-jsq

FCC: Media Consolidation in November

Last year the FCC rushed through approval of the AT&T-Bellsouth merger at the last minute in December before the new Congress was convened in January. This year the rush is on reducing ownership of the majority of media in the U.S. from 50 owners to 5 in the past two decades wasn't enough already.

The Federal Communications Commission is responding to critics’ complaints that the agency isn’t giving them enough time to examine the scientific studies prepared for the agency’s media ownership review.

The FCC’s Media Bureau today extended the deadline for comment by three weeks, citing the request of Free Press, Consumers Union and the Consumer Federation of America.

Nearing the end of its examination of media ownership rules, the FCC on July 31 released 10 studies of various issues of media consolidation and indicated they could help form the basis of any rule changes. The studies included examinations of the impact of consolidation on news content, opinion, advertising and programming and also looked at minority ownership trends.

FCC Extends Deadline for Comments on Media Ownership Studies, By Ira Teinowitz, TV Week, September 28, 2007

Various groups complained, so the FCC made an extension:

The FCC said comments that were to have been filed by Oct. 1 now may be filed through Oct. 22, with responses now due by Nov. 1.

That's right: three more weeks to study an issue that will affect news, politics, government, and, well, basically everything for the indefinite future. Or, to be more specific, to study studies picked by the FCC.

Some observers are relatively confident of concessions, apparently not taking into account that some previous concessions have already fallen by the wayside:

Net Neutrality Won't be Fixed by Anti-Trust: B. Cherry

At TPRC Sunday, Barbara Cherry walked through the evolution of bodies of law in the U.S., and made some fascinating observations, including:

• Net neutrality is a manifestation of moving from a Title II industry-specific business legal regime under the Communications Act of 1934 to a Title II-based regime and greater reliance on a general business regime of antitrust and consumer protection laws, as the FCC did in August 2005 for wireline broadband access service to the Internet and in 2002 for cable modem access service.
• Simply mMoving among traditional and deregulatory legal regimes for transportation carriers does did not strip common carriage status; it merely changesd the legal overlay that enforcesd it.
• FCC stripping broadband of common carriage was a radical departure: nothing classified as common carrier has ever been declassified before.
• Anti-trust doesn't automatically cover problems from previously addressed in the Title II industry-specific regime when a business is moved to the Title II general business regime. Anti-trust needs modification to do this.
• Liability is also different between regimes. Without tariffs some legal protections for limited liability constraints are gone, and common carriers are now potentially fully liable for damages. The final filed rate doctrine should have no applicability to a detariffed world.

The above is, I think, a reasonably close paraphrase of some of her points.

I infer from this that the economists and politicians and telco and cableco executives who say that we shouldn't regulate because we don't know what will happen and anti-trust will catch problems if they occur are not taking into account that anti-trust doesn't automatically apply to or address problems in the new legal regime into which broadband has been thrust.

In other words, people see things in the context of what they know, and economists don't usually know about legal evolution.

Telco and cableco executives, on the other hand, may well have business and political reasons for claiming there's no need for regulation, whether or not they know that existing anti-trust law is inadequate. doesn't apply.

You can't have markets without some form of property rights of contract law. There is also basic legal infrastructure you need for communication infrastructure.

I see little or no understanding of these points in FCC, FTC, or Congress.

Prof. Cherry's whole paper is well worth reading: Consumer Sovereignty: Redrawing the Boundaries Between Industry-Specific and General Business Legal Regimes for Telecommunications and Broadband Access Services, by Barbara A. Cherry, TPRC, 30 Sep 2007

-jsq

PS: Markup for increased accuracy kindly supplied by Prof. Cherry.

Google Planning Fast Trans-Pacific Cable?

Google may be getting into international infrastructure as well as domestic:

Google is planning a multi-terabit undersea communications cable across the Pacific Ocean for launch in 2009, Communications Day has learned.

The Unity cable has been under development for several months, with a group of carriers and Google meeting for high-level talks on the plan in Sydney last week.

Google would not strictly confirm or deny the existence of the Unity plan today, with spokesman Barry Schnitt telling our North American correspondent Patrick Neighly that "Additional infrastructure for the Internet is good for users and there are a number of proposals to add a Pacific submarine cable. We're not commenting on any of these plans."

However, Communications Day understands that Unity would see Google join with other carriers to build a new multi-terabit cable. Google would get access to a fibre pair at build cost handing it a tremendous cost advantage over rivals such as MSN and Yahoo, and also potentially enabling it to peer with Asia ISPs behind their international gateways - considerably improving the affordability of Internet services across Asia Pacific.

Google plans new undersea "Unity" cable across Pacific by Grahame Lynch, CommsDay ASEAN, September 21st, 2007

Coyly refusing to confirm nor deny, Google has nonetheless left bread crumbs along trail of its ambition:

Copper-Based Competitors

The chutzpah:

Ed Shakin, a lawyer for Verizon, said network-sharing requirements are no longer needed in certain cities now that cable companies and other competitors have rolled out Internet and phone service. "What competitors want are artificially low prices," he said. "It comes down to a fight about price, not availability."

— Telecom Changes Put Competition on the Line, By Kim Hart, Washington Post Staff Writer, Thursday, September 6, 2007; Page D01

So Verizon is reducing the number of competitors, but as long as there is at least one, that's enough, they say. Apparently Verizon thinks its competition is the Highlander: There Can Be Only One.

-jsq

Merger Mania

Interesting post here on Scott Cleland's Percursor Blog:

A major reason why the stakes are so high in the FTC's review of the Google-DoubleClick merger is how remarkably fast online advertising is overtaking other advertising industry segments that have been around for decades.

— Online ad trends show the huge stakes in the Google-Doubleclick merger, by Scott Cleland, Precursor Blog, Wed, 2007-09-05 17:38.

Interesting especially in that I don't recall him having any similar trepidations about the AT&T-Bellsouth merger.

He quotes eMarketer as saying that:

a recent report from equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson predicts that the Internet will displace television as the No. 1 ad medium by 2011." [bold added]

Cleland did not provide a link to eMarketer or to VSS.

A little googling finds the VSS press release about its report, which actually says:

Internet advertising is expected to become the largest ad segment in 2011, surpassing newspapers.

— New Veronis Suhler Stevenson Forecast: Shift to Alternative Media Strategies Will Drive U.S. Communications Spending Growth in 2007-2011 Period; Consumer Media Usage Expected to Level Off Going Forward, Press Release, Veronis Suhler Stevenson, 7 Aug 2007

VSS says newspapers: not television. Looks like somebody had television on the brain.

The Amazon Channel

It's all very well to talk about net neutrality or Internet freedom and how it affects 700Mhz spectrum sales or freedom of the press. But what does all this have to do with the average Internet user?

Suppose the telcos and cablecos get everything they want.

To buy a BBQ grill on eBay, you'll have to pay for the eBay channel. This is above whatever you pay the seller for the grill or eBay for your membership. You'll have to pay your local Internet access company just to let you get to eBay to participate in the auction. Oh, maybe you'll be able to get there anyway, but your access may be so slow that you'll pay for the eBay channel out of frustration.

If you want to buy a book from Amazon, you'll have to pay for the Amazon channel. For search you'll need the Yahoo channel or the ask.com channel or the google channel. Assuming your favorite search engine is even offered as a channel. Many smaller services probably won't be.

Maybe it won't be quite this bad.

Warp Speed From Behind

As we've mentioned before Japan has Internet connections much faster than those in the U.S. This point is getting more mainstream media play:

Broadband service here is eight to 30 times as fast as in the United States -- and considerably cheaper. Japan has the world's fastest Internet connections, delivering more data at a lower cost than anywhere else, recent studies show.

Accelerating broadband speed in this country -- as well as in South Korea and much of Europe -- is pushing open doors to Internet innovation that are likely to remain closed for years to come in much of the United States.

The speed advantage allows the Japanese to watch broadcast-quality, full-screen television over the Internet, an experience that mocks the grainy, wallet-size images Americans endure.

— Japan's Warp-Speed Ride to Internet Future, By Blaine Harden, Washington Post Foreign Service, Wednesday, August 29, 2007; Page A01

So is it just for video? If so, maybe we'd better let the telcos have their way.

Comcast's Secret Bandwidth Limits

Just when you think it's all telcos doing things dire for Internet freedom:

Comcast has warned broadband Internet customers across the country to curb their downloading or wind up on the curb.

The company has a bandwidth limitation that, if broken, can result in a 12-month suspension of service. The problem, according to customer complaints, is that the telecom giant refuses to reveal how much downloading is too much.

The company, which a few years ago advertised the service as “unlimited” has an “acceptable use policy” which enforces the invisible download limit.

The 23-part policy, states that it is a breach of contract to generate “levels of traffic sufficient to impede others' ability to send or retrieve information.” But nowhere does it detail what levels of traffic will impede others.

—Comcast Cuts Off Heavy Internet Users, Customers complain bandwidth limits are secret, By Joseph S. Enoch ConsumerAffairs.Com, August 24, 2007

And you have to wonder how long that AUP said that while Comcast was advertising "unlimited".

This part is especially enlightening:

Douglas said the company shuts off people's Internet if it affects the performance of their neighbors because often many people will share a connection on one data pipe.

So instead of fixing their bad topology, they penalize customers for using it.

Well, it's a free market, right? Comcast users who don't like it can switch to, er, if they're lucky and have any choice at all, probably to whichever of Verizon or AT&T happens to be in their area. There couldn't be any problems with those providers, could there?

Meanwhile, if you want to follow this Comcast controversy, here's the Comcast Broadband dispute blog that one of the cast-offs started, presumably using his new DSL connection.It's kind of like salmon organizing against a dam upstream.

-jsq

Duopoly Spies

Well, I had been waiting to post something about the telcos and domestic wiretapping until more news came out, since much of it was still hearsay. But now National Intelligence Director and former National Security Agency Director Mike McConnell has confirmed it:

Now the second part of the issue was under the president's program, the terrorist surveillance program, the private sector had assisted us. Because if you're going to get access you've got to have a partner and they were being sued. Now if you play out the suits at the value they're claimed, it would bankrupt these companies. So my position was we have to provide liability protection to these private sector entities.

— Transcript: Debate on the foreign intelligence surveillance act, By Chris Roberts, ©El Paso Times, Article Launched: 08/22/2007 01:05:57 AM MDT

Ryan Singel points out in Wired's Threat Level blog that this is even though the same McConnell signed a sworn declaration in April saying to reveal that NSA and Verizon had such a relationship "would cause exceptionally grave harm to the national security."

Heck of a Job, Stickler

Richard Sticker ((ABC 4 News))

What practical difference does it make when a president appoints political commissars as heads of departments and agencies, enforcing ideologicallines instead of doing their job?

Also coming to light, is the fact that Stickler's nomination to head the mine administration was twice rejected by congress and rejected when republicans were still in charge. Rejected reportedly by senators who were concerned about Stickler's safety record when he operated mines. After his nomination was twice rejected by the Senate, President Bush gave Richard Stickler the mine safety job with a recess appointment. That's a presidential appointment made when congress is not in session.

Finally, congressional investigations and hearings are now expected to look at a key provision of federal mining law, one which requires the U.S. Government to be the main communicator when an accident occurs. ABC News now notes it took the mine safety administration two days to take public control of the Crandall Canyon Mine. ABC also adds, "Others were irate that [mine owner Bob] Murray was allowed to publicly predict success and contradict MSHA itself while agency officials quietly looked on."

— Federal mine safety official's credentials questioned, Chris Vanocur, ABC 4 News, Last Update: 8/20 2007 8:00 pm

Dead people in mines. Dead people in Hurricane Katrina. Postal rate hikes for small publications. Wireless spectrum handed over to a few big companies. And of course massive consolidation of first mile Internet ISPs in the hands of companies that aren't delivering on their promises and that indulge in repeated political censorship while cooperating with the government in wiretapping.

The stakes going forward are even higher, including economic competitiveness, control of information, and political discourse and with it the survival of a political system.

At least the traditional media finally noticed the problem with the appointment of the Mine and Health Safety Administrator. Imagine if we had more proactive investigative media that might have actually noticed his appointment when it happened. And imagine if we had none, which is a very real possibility with continuing media consolidation and increasing control over the Internet by a very small number of companies.

-jsq

Freedom to Degrade

BT made an interesting presentation at an IETF meeting in which it described a spectrum whose endpoints are

• demand side — freedom to degrade others
• ...
• supply side — freedom to degrade competitors

— re-ECN architectural intent by Bob Briscoe, UCL, BT, 68th IETF, Unofficial Birds of a Feather (non-BoF), Prague, 21 Mar 2007

My, freedom is so degrading.

Rage Against Distributive and Content Control

And now you do what they told ya, now you're under control

The Pearl Jam (and John Butler Trio and Flaming Lips and Rage Against the Machine) AT&T censorship fiasco has reached the attention of an FCC commissioner:

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, fire-breathing advocate of network neutrality regulation and opponent of media consolidation, has taken a stand on AT&T's now infamous censorship of Pearl Jam front man Eddie Vedder's anti-Bush remarks at Lollapalooza. In an interview with OpenLeft.com's Matt Stoller, Copps supported the idea that there's a link between AT&T's deletion of Vedder's political comments from a webcast of the concert and the network neutrality fight that's brewing in the halls of Congress.

"Events like this are connected to the larger issue of network neutrality, so it is very very important," Copps said in response to a question about whether or not AT&T's censorship of Vedder has any implications for network neutrality. He went on to say, "So when something like the episode occurs with Pearl Jam that you're referencing that ought to concern all of us... because if you can do it for one group, you can do it to any group and say 'Well, it's not intentional,' and things like that. But nobody should have that power to do that and then be able to exercise distributive control over the distribution and control over the content too.

— FCC Commissioner: Pearl Jam censorship linked to net neutrality fight, By Jon Stokes, ars technica, Published: August 17, 2007 - 01:56PM

And it's good that Copps sees the connection between this episode and media consolidation. Copps talks a good talk, but will he do more than "grudgingly accept" this sort of thing, like he did the bogus 700Mhz auction rules? Will he vote against, and will he persuade other commissioners to do the same? And can someone persuade Congress to change the FCC's tune? It's all very well to rage against the machine, but who's going to change it?

Or can we get some Internet access competition? Then we could have Internet freedom.

-jsq

AT&T: Net Neutrality Tool?

Forbes, normally more of a capitalist tool than a flaming radical rag, keeps covering AT&T's Pearl Jam fiasco:

AT&T's “content monitor” hit the mute button during part of Pearl Jam’s “Blue Room” Live Lollapalooza Webcast sponsored by the telecom, depriving viewers of some anti-George Bush lyrics—and handing live ammunition to “net neutrality” proponents in the form of an almost perfect example of what they predict will happen if a few companies are allowed to control the broadband pipeline.

— AT&T Silences Pearl Jam; Gives 'Net Neutrality' Proponents Ammunition, Staci D. Kramer, PaidContent.org, 08.09.07, 7:45 PM ET

Their followup gets even better:

AT&T spokesman Michael Coe said that the silencing was a mistake and that the company was working with the vendor that produces the webcasts to avoid future misunderstandings. He said AT&T was working to secure the rights to post the entire song - part of a sing-along with the audience - on the Blue Room site.

— AT&T Errs in Edit of Anti-Bush Lyrics, By MICHELLE ROBERTS, Forbes, 08.10.07, 10:59 AM ET

While the lumbering dinosaur was working on that, Pearl Jam already had the uncensored version on their site.

And it just keeps getting better.

Yet Less Spectrum

Not being content with squelching competition in the 700Mhz auction:

The Federal Communications Commission is seeking to shut the door on a plan by a group of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to offer free wireless broadband Internet service everywhere in the U.S., the chief executive of the group said Wednesday.

M2Z Networks Inc. issued a statement Wednesday in which it said it would take the FCC to court in an attempt to force the agency to conduct a thorough analysis of the plan before it determined whether it would back it or not.

The company has proposed taking 25 megahertz of spectrum that is currently vacant and using it to build a wireless broadband Internet network to provide free service to 95% of Americans within a decade.

— UPDATE: FCC Opposes Silicon Valley VCs' Free-Broadband Plan, (Updates with comment from Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Cal., in the fifth paragraph.) By Corey Boles, Dow Jones, August 15, 2007: 05:14 PM EST

Why would the FCC object to that?

700Mhz: Duopoly As Usual

Susan Crawford reads the 700Mhz auction rules and confirms the worst:

1. Those Carterfone protections don't mean too much. The no-locking, no-blocking requirements are hedged in by substantial limitations: the winning licensee will be able to lock and block devices and applications as long as they can show that their actions are related to "reasonable network management and protection," or "compliance with applicable regulatory requirements." In other words, as long as the discrimination can be shown to be connected (however indirectly) to some vision of "network management," it will be permitted. (Discrimination "solely" for discrimination's sake is prohibited, but that's not too difficult to avoid.)

— Many, many devils in the details: 700 MHz rules, by Susan, from Susan Crawford blog, 13 Aug 2007

So it's ILECs vs. CLECs, round two. Guess who'll win?

And even supposedly Cmr. Copps "grudgingly accepted" these rules. Seems to me we need a whole new FCC, so we can get some real rules of the road.

And what we really need is some real competition.

-jsq

Pearl Jam Censored by AT&T?

Photo: AP Photo/Magnus Johansson-MaanIm

Political censorship?

After concluding our Sunday night show at Lollapalooza, fans informed us that portions of that performance were missing and may have been censored by AT&T during the "Blue Room" Live Lollapalooza Webcast.

When asked about the missing performance, AT&T informed Lollapalooza that portions of the show were in fact missing from the webcast, and that their content monitor had made a mistake in cutting them.

— LOLLAPALOOZA WEBCAST: SPONSORED/CENSORED BY AT&T? News, PearlJam.com, 7 August 2007

So, "a mistake".

Uhuh.

But it gets better.

Russian Roulette

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps has a way with words. Last year he said we should be talking about Internet freedom rather than net neutrality. And now he says we're

playing Russian roulette with broadband and Internet and more traditional media

— FCC Commissioner: US playing "Russian roulette with broadband and Internet" By Nate Anderson, ars technica, August 03, 2007 - 09:20AM CT

And the Russians are winning.

It's Good to be King!

How are those merger conditions coming along?

Remember the story back in June about how AT&T had extremely quietly started offering $10 DSL as was required in its deal to buy BellSouth? The company was promoting many other, more expensive, DSL options, but the only way you could get the required $10 version was if you specifically knew to ask about it. Broadband Reports points to an interview from an Atlanta newspaper with AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson where he's asked about the $10 DSL. The interviewer points out that no story about AT&T resulted in a more irate response from AT&T customers as its story about the hidden offer for $10 DSL, suggesting that this was a huge issue for AT&T customers. Stephenson's response? First he denies that the company made it hard to find, and then he says that they're not promoting it because customers don't want it. This, despite the clear response from customers to the very newspaper who was conducting the interview. Then, he basically admits that the $10 DSL doesn't work very well, saying that they don't promote it because they don't want to give customers a product that sucks. Of course, he says that as if it's not his company that has quite a bit of control over whether or not the product sucks.

— AT&T CEO: We Don't Promote $10 DSL Because No One Wants It, Techdirt, 1 August 2007

This is even though the AJC reporter introduced the question with:

Of all the things the AJC has written about AT&T lately, none has caused more reader irritation than AT&T's $10 a month DSL offer, which was required by the Federal Communications Commission when you bought BellSouth.

— Q&A: AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, By Scott Leith, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Published on: 07/27/07

The techdirt writer goes on to point out that this is what SBC used to do with naked broadband, too, i.e., dance around and do nothing. After all, without regulation or competition, it's good to be king!

-jsq

Mergers + Bad Regulation = Higher Prices

What hath mergers wrought?

AT&T and MCI long distance increased over 200+% since 2000 for low volume users, 80% increase in Verizon local service in New York City since 2000, 472% since 1984, new bogus late fees or ‘shortfall’ fees, a 29% increase of the Universal Service Fee since 2006, and increases to every service, from packages, toll calls, and calling features to inside wire maintenance --- it goes on and on. Worse, plans are being made to increase the FCC Line Charge to $10.00, increase Universal Service and even add new fees.

Competition was supposed to lower prices. Instead, America’s phone customers have been taken advantage of, especially low income, low volume users, and seniors. Teletruth has received multiple AT&T and Verizon bills ALL showing major increases, new charges, and new problems. If competition did exist for local, long distance, packages, etc. then all of these increases would not have happened.

— AT&T and Verizon Local and Long Distance NJ and NY Phone Bills Show Massive Price Increases. Phone Mergers and a Lack of Competition Are to Blame. FCC Phone Rate Data Are Hiding the Problems. TeleTruth News Alert, 25 July 2007

Mergers and bad regulation, that is.

The Martin 700Mhz wireless acution plan leaves the same two big incumbents, AT&T and Verizon, in place. And Verizon is probably going to be a bit bigger soon, once it absorbs RCCC. Should we expect a different outcome this time?

-jsq

RCCC Stock Up Just Before 700Mhz Auction

Previously I wondered where the big wireless telephone carriers would find enough bandwidth to buy outside the pending 700Mhz auction, as Republican Commissioner Robert M. McDowell suggested. Well, the place to look is the stock market. A day before the FCC decision of yesterday, the stock of Rural Cellular Corp (RCCC) went up about 30% on news that Verizon was buying RCCC. Such a sale has to have been pending for some time; probably at least six months. So it seems that McDowell's assertion is useful political cover for Verizon, if not prediction of future acquistions. Maybe both; I guess we'll see.

-jsq

FCC's Martin Wireless Auction Plan

The Post has some interesting analysis of which FCC commissioners said what when they approved Chairman Kevin Martin's 700Mhz wireless auction plan:

The "open-access" provision was endorsed last month by FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin, a Republican, and gained support from the two Democratic commissioners, Jonathan S. Adelstein and Michael J. Copps. Deborah Taylor Tate, a Republican commissioner, also voted in favor of the deal. Martin said he hoped the proposal would encourage a new entrant to compete with the cable and phone companies that provide broadband service.

Republican Commissioner Robert M. McDowell voted against the proposal, arguing that placing any conditions on the sale of airwaves would hurt smaller carriers by making smaller licenses without any requirements appealing to larger bidders.

"Smaller players, especially rural companies, will be unable to match the higher bids of the well-funded giants," he said.

— FCC Approves Airwave Use For All Phones, Wireless Network Opened To Options if Not Firms, By Kim Hart, Washington Post Staff Writer, Wednesday, August 1, 2007; Page D01

It's not clear to me where the bigger players will find enough smaller licenses without any requirements to be worth their while. Unless those licenses are also attractive because of the Universal Service Fund.

What did the corporate players say?

AT&T U-Verse Considered as Cable TV

In case it wasn't obvious why the telcos want local TV franchise laws repealed:

A federal judge has thrown up a roadblock in front of AT&T as it attempts to roll out its new U-Verse IPTV service in the state of Connecticut. In an opinion issued yesterday, Judge Janet Bond Arterton ruled that AT&T's U-Verse IPTV service is a cable television service like any other and is therefore subject to local franchising agreements.

— Federal judge: AT&T U-Verse == cable TV, By Eric Bangeman, ars technica, Published: July 27, 2007 - 10:44AM CT

But isn't it different from cable if it's carried over IP?

Universal Slush Fund

The regulatorium in action:

A decade-old telephone tax intended to help bring affordable service to rural areas has instead turned into something quite different: a bottomless and politically protected well of cash for cell phone companies that do big business in rural America.

Over the past four years, there’s been nearly a tenfold increase in government subsidies paid to a handful of so-called “competitive” providers — cellular phone companies paid by the fund to offer service in rural areas where an existing carrier already receives a subsidy.

The Universal Service Fund has collected $44 billion over its 10-year lifetime from a surcharge on the phone bills of nearly every American.

Regulators and lawmakers have long viewed the fund as inherently flawed. Even a member of the federalstate board that runs the program calls it “bizarre.” But efforts to change it have been derailed repeatedly by companies that benefit from the largess, and by supporters in Congress who represent sparsely populated states.

— Federal fee on phones is windfall for cell firms, By John Dunbar, ASSOCIATED PRESS, Updated: 07/29/07 6:37 AM

The article goes on to say wireless telephone companies benefit the most because they can connect rural customers at much less cost than landline telcos can. But that's not all.

Crack Google?

Cringely gets anxious over Google's floor bid for 700Mhz. After pointing out that Verizon and AT&T coming around to Kevin Martin's leaked counterproposal of watered down "open access" rules, he says:

Look who Google is up against -- all the largest Internet service providers in the U.S. Google will not win this even if they win the auction, because the telcos and cable companies are far more skilled and cunning when it comes to lobbying and controlling politicians than Google can ever hope to be. The telcos have spent more than a century at this game and Google hasn't even been in it for a decade. And Google's pockets are no deeper than those of the other potential bidders.

— Is Google on Crack?: Eric Schmidt bets the ranch on wireless spectrum, Robert X. Cringely, Pulpit, 27 July 2007

Cringely is missing the point about who Google is up against. These outfits have not been the largest ISPs for more than a century. They've been telephone companies for more than a century. And being around for a long time isn't necessarily a sure win. Look at the Vatican; it's been around for two thousand years, and it's managed to lose most of its traditional heartland of Europe. Sure, Google is fragile, in some senses even more fragile than Microsoft, as Cringely points out. But even Microsoft is losing market share from IE to an open source browser, Firefox. Google, as a proponent of open source that actually understands it, has a fair chance here. The incumbent duopoly telcos aren't really in the Internet business; Google is.

Maybe Cringely's right that Google alone couldn't win the auction. But Google and Sprint possibly could. Sure, Sprint is a phone company, too. But that doesn't mean it's going to side with the rest if it scents profit. Maybe with a little help from Apple.

Let's hope that's what Google is really up to, rather than expecting to get Martin to change the rules and then wait for AT&T to deliver another striped bass.

I also don't think Cringely is taking into account the stakes here.

Internet Robber Barons

Paul Krugman examines how far behind the U.S. is in every metric of Internet speed and broadband uptake, and why:

What happened to America’s Internet lead? Bad policy. Specifically, the United States made the same mistake in Internet policy that California made in energy policy: it forgot — or was persuaded by special interests to ignore — the reality that sometimes you can’t have effective market competition without effective regulation.

You see, the world may look flat once you’re in cyberspace — but to get there you need to go through a narrow passageway, down your phone line or down your TV cable. And if the companies controlling these passageways can behave like the robber barons of yore, levying whatever tolls they like on those who pass by, commerce suffers.

— The French Connections, Paul Krugman, New York Times, 22 July 2007

Krugman reminds us that as recently as 2001 the U.S. was far ahead. And then he gets specific.

The Internet As a Market: Al Gore and Reasoned Discourse

So I've been wondering what to say about Al Gore's book, The Assault on Reason. A story in The Economist helped me out. After lauding Gore for calling Mr. Bush's risky schemes well before most people, for denouncing the invasion of Iraq back in 2002, for his Oscar, and for being "the man who changed the climate of opinion climate change", it then ridicules the book's core thesis:

But he does not stop there. He worries about America's money-saturated politics. He lambasts television for infantilising the electorate.

...

He sometimes comes across as eccentric—as when he lambasts television for killing public discourse, then celebrates the internet as its potential saviour. A few minutes online, reading the zealots on either the right or the left, should have been enough to explode that illusion.

— Gore in the balance, From The Economist print edition, May 31st 2007

That last would appear to be the sort of trivialized, perhaps even infantilized, reaction Gore is lamenting. The big advantage of the Internet is you get not just a few zealots at extreme ends of an arbitrary spectrum: you get all the shadings and colors and depth you can absorb. And you can weave your own strands in this home-made tapestry.

Internet Radio: DRM Air

Previously we saw a last-minute reprieve for Internet Radio. I read SoundExchange's press release, but I didn't catch this:

Under the new proposal, to be implemented by remand to the CRJs, SoundExchange has offered to cap the $500 per channel minimum fee at $50,000 per year for webcasters who agree to provide more detailed reporting of the music that they play and work to stop users from engaging in "streamripping" ­ turning Internet radio performances into a digital music library.

— SoundExchange Confirms Minimum Fee Offer: Reminds Commercial Webcasters of Obligations to Pay New Royalty Rates, Press Release, SoundExchange, 13 July 2007

Alan Wexelblat explains that part about "streamripping":

So it's that simple. Become our agents in preventing people from recording Web radio streams or face the financial axe.

— When is a Reprieve Not a Reprieve, by Alan Wexelblat , Copyfight, July 19, 2007

Apple vs. AT&T

Apple has a reputation for "using its partners to its benefit":

Blackberry Co-CEO Jim Balsillie sees the same thing happening with the recent launch of the iPhone.

Balsillie recently criticized Apple’s seeming willingness to commoditize the iPhone as an Apple product, rather than bringing AT&T Wireless in as an equal partner.

He also has issues with the iPhone being free of AT&T’s logo and with activation having to go through Apple’s iTunes music store rather than the AT&T Mobility site.“It’s a dangerous strategy,” says Balsillie.

“It’s a tremendous amount of control. And the more control of the platform that goes out of the carrier, the more they shift into a commodity pipe.”

— Blackberry CEO Says Steve Jobs & Apple Screwing Over AT&T. CEOSmack 7 July 2007

Meanwhile, AT&T is still locking the customer into a 2 year contract, even though the customer is paying full price for the iPhone, unlike most other phones AT&T sells. So it would appear AT&T is using Apple to gain AT&T customers.

And maybe Apple didn't want AT&T as a full partner because Apple perhaps is preparing to have iPhone work on other networks, as well? That would be a good thing.

-jsq

700Mhz and Competition

Positions on future uses of the 700Mhz spectrum formerly occupied by analog TV aren't just for presidential candidates anymore. Congress is hearing arguments:

Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who chairs the subcommittee that handles telecommunications and Internet issues, urged the FCC to "seize this opportunity to create an open-access opportunity for wireless service in this auction." He added that wireless carriers are "exerting far too much control over the features, functions and applications that wireless gadget makers and content entrepreneurs can offer directly to consumers."

— FCC Auction Should Allow for Open Wireless Network, Say Lawmakers, By Kim Hart, Washington Post Staff Writer, Thursday, July 12, 2007; Page D08

Some search, VoIP, and computer companies say auctioning off some of that spectrum with open access requirements would promote competition, while telcos claim it would hurt their investments, stifle competition, and reduce revenues to the government from the auction. I think it may well reduce direct government auction revenues, but the economic benefits of real competition should be worth it. You'd think the nominally free market supporting telcos would agree with that.

Internet Radio: Live Air?

Sunday was when Internet radio was supposed to turn into dead air, after even an emergency court hearing had failed. However, during a Congressional hearing Friday,

...Jon Simson, director of SoundExchange – the label-affiliated organization responsible for setting royalty rates – told Congress that the group would not enforce the new royalty rates and would continue to work on negotiating new rates with the Digital Media Association (DiMA), who are acting on behalf of webcasters. “This is definitely a step in the right direction,” Pandora founder Tim Westergren, told us this morning. “At this point, provided there’s good-faith negotiations, they’re not going to go after people.”

— Public Outcry Staves Off Destruction of Internet Radio, Evan Serpick, Rock & Roll Daily, Rolling Stone, 7/13/07, 12:54 pm EST

Is this any way to run a regulatorium? All the regulatory bodies stonewalling, the courts not listening, and only one man deciding not to proceed?

TV4U? Not Me!

Franchise reform, if you don't have enough supporters, apparently you can just write their names in anyway:

At a Capitol press conference, several others leading the fight against the bill -- including former Madison Mayor Paul Soglin and communications professor Cynthia Laitman -- said their names also falsely showed up as supporters of the deregulation bill on petitions given lawmakers by TV4Us, the private group leading the ad and public relations push for the bill.

"I don't know how it happened," said Soglin, who said he has pushed for tight municipal controls and consumer protections over the cable TV industry since 1971. "AT&T gets very confused."

— Legislators seek probe of misuse of names, By Steven Walters, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, WEDNESDAY, July 11, 2007, 11:15 a.m.

How confused?

A Cisco Way

Cisco has a policy blog, in which they back no regulation before market failure:

In other words, there is no reason to rush to impose burdensome Net Neutrality regulations in the broadband market. If there is one thing that we have learned from 70+ years of communications regulation, it is that regulation has significant costs and unintended consequences. The FTC clearly recognizes that government should react to actual problems, not hypothetical ones.

It's funny how the Internet grew up with net neutrality, but now it's "burdensome." Maybe innovation and competition are burdensome to incumbents.

-jsq

Market Failure?

Here's an interesting directive from the White House:

The order requires federal officials to show that private companies, people or institutions failed to address a problem before agencies can write regulations to tackle it. It also gives political appointees greater authority over how the regulations are written.

— House Balks at Bush Order for New Powers, By Jim Abrams, The Associated Press Tuesday, July 3, 2007; 8:16 PM

How does this work?

Broadband Produces Employment

Many have assumed that broadband is good for the economy; now here's a study with rivets:

More specifically, for every one percentage point increase in broadband penetration in a state, employment is projected to increase by 0.2 to 0.3 percent per year.

— The Effects of Broadband Deployment on Output and Employment: A Cross-sectional Analysis of U.S. Data, By Robert Crandall, William Lehr and Robert Litan, Brookings Institution, 2007

Of course, this is like saying every state in medieval Germany that had a printing press produced employment in the printing industry. There are economic and social effects far beyond mere employment. What should be done?

The paper has a few recommendations:

The surest route to lower prices is provided by increasing competition in the delivery of broadband services.