Fix Our Internet
The United States has the worst Internet speeds vs. costs of any of the developed countries. Here's Susan Crawford with some of the reasons and hopefully some badly needed cures.
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Moving Slowly in the Fast Lane
"..Thirty years ago, two-way communications in this country were controlled by Ma Bell. After eight years of litigation, AT&T agreed to divest itself of its local telephone companies, and those local telephone companies (the “Baby Bells”) agreed not to leverage their local monopolies into the market for long distance service.
Where are we today? The Baby Bells have re-consolidated. Telephone service in this country is essentially controlled by AT&T (in the West) and Verizon (in the East), with Qwest filling in gaps. And two-way communications in this country – which, these days, means highspeed internet access – are controlled by a duopoly of Big Phone and Big Cable. Many Americans don’t have a choice of highspeed providers, and, as Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America, Free Press, Media Access Project, and U.S. Public Interest Group recently told the FCC, “Americans pay 10 to 20 times as much [as people do in other countries] for far less service.” The duopoly is something like Shamu and Godzilla on hire for televised wrestling – giant beasts gently swatting at one another for the cameras. They aren’t competing, these giants. There is a clear failure in the market for highspeed internet access in this country.
Even people who don’t often think about interactive communications have heard that the U.S. is lagging far behind many other developed nations when it comes to highspeed internet access. As with other key infrastructure issues – like Head Start and healthcare – we just don’t seem to care about giving our people a firm foundation for life.."
Continue.
Labels: net neutrality, Save the Internet
posted by Dean @
Thursday, June 21, 2007
5 comments
5 Comments:
Crawford is correct about one thing, that the U.S. lags behind many other developed countries in terms of high speed internet access. That is one of many reasons why enacting so called "net neutrality" regulations is a terrible and misguided idea. I work with the Hands Off the Internet coalition on this issue and thought you may be interested to hear the other side of this debate.
As HOTI stated in a recent report filed with the FCC,
"'Current regulation and consumer protection laws are sufficient to address any potential harms, which have been greatly exaggerated by those advocating net neutrality regulation,' the filing notes, adding, 'The FCC already has the authority and jurisdiction it requires to intervene if in the future a broadband provider engages in a practice that is deemed harmful to consumers or in anyway adversely impacts net neutrality.
Hands Off also explained to the Commission why it is important to consider the context in which the net neutrality issue arises. The Hands Off submission explains that broadband capacity, especially in connections to consumers at their homes, must be greatly increased to handle the massive increase in data traffic (due in large part to video applications like YouTube). As explained in the FCC filing, tiered services and new business arrangements by broadband access providers will not result in content discrimination or service degradation, but will spread the cost of the new build-out so that consumers will not be saddled with the entire cost. Additionally, the submission shows that prominent economists agree that the unintended consequences of premature regulation could well result in a slowdown in broadband deployment and higher costs for consumers.
Thanks.
..I work with the Hands Off the Internet coalition on this issue and thought you may be interested to hear the other side of this debate.
As HOTI stated in a recent report filed with the FCC..
Point taken. It should be understood that HOTI is a coalition formed specifically to oppose Network Neutrality. The bulk of HOTI's funding comes from newly formed AT&T and from other corporations. Source.
Dean, the HOTI coalition has many member organizations, including AT&T, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Black Chamber of Commerce, 3M, Citizens Against Government Waste, and many more. All of this information is readily available on our website.
Also, you or anyone else doesn't have to trust me, but we raise very real issues and problems with so called "net neutrality." For example, most of the senior network engineers, including Robert Kahn, the "father of the internet" have issued strong warnings against net neutrality legislation. As is noted in this Guardian article
Neutrality would have made designing a better internet much harder, says the man commonly described as the father of the internet.
Dr Robert Kahn says that Neutrality legislation poses a fundamental threat to internet research because it misunderstands what the internet really is; it's a network of networks, and experimentation on private networks must be encouraged."The internet has never been neutral," explains Crowcroft. "Without traffic shaping, we won't get the convergence that allows the innovation on TV and online games that we've seen in data and telephony."
A much more logical approach, as the FTC recently noted in their report is to proceed cautiously.
According to Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras, “This report recommends that policy makers proceed with caution in the evolving, dynamic industry of broadband Internet access, which generally is moving toward more – not less – competition. In the absence of significant market failure or demonstrated consumer harm, policy makers should be particularly hesitant to enact new regulation in this area.”
Just a few things to consider. Thanks.
A much more logical approach, as the FTC recently noted in their report is to proceed cautiously.
I agree with proceeding with caution.
Also since you brought up the matter of trusting you. You're posting anonomously to my little Blog from an Internet group who gets a bulk of their funding from corporations who will have a BIG interest in how the Net Neutrality debate turns out. So please excuse me if I don't take your comments without keeping all that impersonality in mind. This little Blog is for my own amusement and hopefully a few of the people who come by. There's no corporate funding here. As I said we'll definately agree on the proceeding with caution and that's a start. We'll see where it goes from there. Thanks!
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