Only John Oliver Could Make Net Neutrality So Sexy That TMZ Wanted To Cover It

from the wait,-what? dept

So this has been a bizarre week on the net neutrality front. There's been plenty of legitimate concern that such a serious issue is hard to explain to the public in a way that they would "get" the seriousness of it. However, comedian John Oliver seemed to do the impossible by summarizing it simply as the fight to prevent cable company fuckery. And, of course, the final call to action in his broadcast was to get people to go send their comments to the FCC. And, while no one seems willing to officially say that his call to action resulted in the mess over the next few days, the FCC's server appeared to melt down under some sort of pressure.

Oliver himself has mostly stayed quiet since then (the show is only broadcast once a week, on Sunday nights), but on his podcast, The Bugle, (which too few people seem to have discovered despite it's incredible level of awesomeness for many years), he addressed the issue... and how "odd" the reaction has been, in discussion with his co-host Andy Zaltzman: It's right at the beginning, but here's my quick transcript:

I've had a slightly... weird few days to be honest, after finding myself at the center of a minor technological tornado. We did a piece, on Sunday's show, about net neutrality; an issue that is, quite simply, the single most important issue that is too boring to give a shit about. We ended the segment by reminding everyone that the FCC was now accepting comments, and pointing out an email address, at which those comments would presumably be welcomed. At which point, all hell appeared to break loose. The comments page at the FCC soon went down, and they sent out a Tweet saying "we've been experiencing technical difficulties with our comment system due to heavy traffic. We're working to resolve these issues quickly." And they seemed to experience technical issues for the next few days, which became a bit of a story in and of itself, giving more attention to the issue, driving more people to the comments pages, making them crash again.

Now, my role in this is not entirely clear. But, it definitely led to one of the strangest encounters of my life. Yesterday morning, I was walking to the CBS studios to do an interview on CBS This Morning, just to generally promote the show. As I walked up the road, I saw a TMZ reporter with a camera in his hand and I thought: "Ooh! That's exciting. Someone like LL Cool J must be on the show. I wonder if I'll get to meet him."

Then, the TMZ reporter started walking towards me, and I thought: "Oh, he must want to know what door LL Cool J is likely to come out of." And then he lifted up his camera and pointed it at me, and I thought: "Oh shit!" Because, I've never been interviewed by TMZ before, Andy. That was a streak I was very happy with. I should, frankly, not be pinging anywhere near their radar. But I'm afraid that streak has now emphatically come to an end.

The guy said to me: "You crashed the FCC website. Can you tell us quickly what net neutrality is all about?" To which I basically said: "No, I can't tell you that that quickly. It's a lot more complicated than we have time for here at the side of the road." To which he said: "Well, can you tell me what the biggest problem facing America right now is?" To which, I replied: "To be honest, you're pretty much embodying it at the moment."

Now, I'm not proud of that, Andy. He was just doing his job. Although, lots of people have used that as a defense in the past for doing some pretty appalling things -- so I'm not quite sure that's an excuse enough. And, I certainly think it was an unusable enough answer, that it is unlikely to appear on TMZ. Meaning, technically, my streak continues, Andy!

From there, they go onto a discussion about a bee and Andy's miso soup. So that's about the extent of it. Neither net neutrality, nor the FCC are mentioned again. But, still, just the idea that "net neutrality" has become an issue even barely on TMZ's radar, even if Oliver is correct and it does not appear they posted anything about his "interview," is a good sign. (Update: As noted in the comments, it appears that TMZ did put the video on their website -- I've embedded it below, though it mostly talks about his status as a non-American, rather than net neutrality). As Oliver said in his original report, the best way to do something evil, politically, is to make it sound mind-numbingly boring. And net neutrality has been in that category for a long, long time. Of course, that doesn't mean that I look forward to TMZ-level (i.e., so clueless you'll want to punch your screen) analysis of the ins and outs of the issue, but it at least gives me hope that this is an issue that can actually get some mainstream interest as being incredibly important. Either that, or we'll start hearing stories about drunken orgies at the FCC and poor fashion choices by AT&T lobbyists, because that seems more along TMZ's usual fare.

Filed Under: broadband, fcc, john oliver, net neutrality, tech policy, tmz

Yes, Verizon Is At Fault In Netflix Dispute; It's Not Delivering What It Sold Customers

from the a-dose-of-reality dept

We wrote about the latest Netflix/Verizon dispute over who's to blame for poor quality movie streaming. Netflix has chosen to pin the blame on the ISPs when there's network congestion, while Verizon angrily hit back at this "PR stunt," claiming that it was actually Netflix's fault for not doing a better job routing its traffic. Except... that's not true. As we've been pointing out for the better part of a decade, this is all about the broadband companies trying to double charge. Tim Lee, over at Vox, summarizes the point nicely:

Verizon's customers have paid Verizon for the service of delivering content to them. But rather than simply performing the service Verizon's customers have paid it to perform, Verizon sees an opportunity to get paid twice: in addition to charging its own customers for connectivity, Verizon hopes to also charge Netflix to deliver its content to those customers.

Verizon is effectively using its own customers' poor experience as leverage. Verizon has been threatening Netflix that if they don't pay up, Netflix customers (who are also Verizon customers) will get frustrated and cancel their Netflix service. Of course, that threat is a lot more powerful because most customers don't have many alternatives to Verizon service.

And yes, I know that some big broadband defenders will immediately trot out the usual defense: that Verizon sold its network in a way that it never actually expected subscribers to use -- but it's difficult to see how that's everyone else's fault. If anything, it raises some questions about whether or not the FTC might want to step in and look at whether or not Verizon, AT&T and Comcast totally misrepresented what they were selling consumers.

As for the bullshit claim that Netflix is to blame because it sends Verizon more traffic and thus the "traffic ratios are unbalanced," well, Lee points out that this is actually Verizon's fault as well.

But this argument doesn't make sense. Verizon customers aren't just paying Verizon to send traffic to Netflix, they're also paying Verizon to deliver Netflix (and other) traffic to them. And there's no reason to think that carrying traffic from Netflix to Verizon customers is more expensive than carrying traffic in the other direction.

Indeed, there's a simple reason that Verizon's network receives more traffic than it transmits: that's how Verizon set it up. All of Verizon's standard FiOS packages provide dramatically more bandwidth for downloading than uploading. The entry-level service, for example, is 15 Mbps downstream and 5 Mbps upstream. The fastest package is even more lopsided: 500 Mbps downstream and 100 Mbps upstream. If Verizon builds a network that's optimized for downloading, it can't complain that its customers use it to download stuff.

And, of course, Verizon can squawk all it wants about this, but it's not going to change the fact that it's the problem here. Yes, Netflix delivers a lot of data. But if Verizon can't handle it, it shouldn't have sold it to consumers.

Filed Under: broadband, disputes, double charging, interconnection, net neutrality, peering, streaming
Companies: netflix, verizon

Verizon Sends Netflix A Cease & Desist, Saying It Can't Blame Verizon For Clogged Networks

from the really,-now? dept

So, yesterday, some of the tech blogosphere blew up over the fact that Netflix had started blaming Verizon for network congestion: Netflix claimed it had actually been testing this for a few weeks now, and others have seen it on AT&T networks as well. Verizon was, to put it mildly, not happy about all of this. It quickly told reporters that the whole thing was a "PR stunt" and pushed out an angry blog post, saying that it was all Netflix's fault for the way it routed traffic to Verizon's network. Notably, just about a month ago, Netflix had agreed to an interconnection deal, similar to the one that Netflix famously did with Comcast, but it's possible that the new ports aren't fully operational yet.

Either way, I was going to ignore this latest round of little stupid spats that have been going back and forth -- except that now it appears that Verizon has taken it up a level and actually issued a cease and desist to Netflix sayng it should no longer blame Verizon when the network is clogged. I'm not sure what actual legal basis Verizon thinks it has to do this, and wonder if Netflix will just cave in and stop with the messages. But, it certainly would create quite the interesting lawsuit if Verizon decided to go to court about this. Update: Netflix has indicated that it won't stop.

Either way, it's pretty clear that even once Netflix has signed an interconnection agreement with them, these ISP's are still not at all happy about the situation.

Update: Added an embed of the actual letter below.

Filed Under: arguments, broadband, cease and desist, interconnection, net neutrality, streaming, threats
Companies: comcast, netflix, verizon

Entrepreneurs Explain How The End Of Net Neutrality Would Mean Their Startups Don't Exist

from the just-too-expensive dept

Most of the discussion on the fight around net neutrality has focused on the big broadband providers, and to a lesser extent, the big tech companies. Unfortunately, that leaves out who will almost certainly be most impacted by all of this: the end users, as well as small startups and entrepreneurs. Many of you recognize the direct potential impact on you if your connections to certain content is stuck in the slow lane, but there's a much bigger impact out there in terms of how it will scare off or kill tons of new and powerful startups and innovations. Think about how many internet services you use regularly today. Consider how many of them didn't even exist five or ten years ago. How many of them have jumped up out of nowhere? Without a strong and open internet, realize how many future startups will never even come into existence, because the barriers and hurdles to starting a business become much, much higher.

Here are two compelling stories of startups which, frankly, almost certainly wouldn't exist if the telcos get their wish for fast lanes and slow lanes. The first comes from Ryan Singel, a former reporter/editor at Wired, who left a few years ago to build his own company, Contextly. He recently filed some powerful comments with the FCC. The FCC is receiving an influx of comments (over 45,000 last I checked) and that's even though the site was down for a while in the wake of John Oliver's plea to online commenters to speak out against "cable company fuckery." Not surprisingly, many of those comments are short (and angry) and simply state that the FCC should protect net neutrality and not give in to broadband providers' attempts to create a slow lane on the internet.

While those comments are useful, it's the thoughtful, detailed comments like Singel's that are even more important, and moving, in terms of showing how this debate has a real and serious impact on innovation. Singel's startup, Contextly, tries to be the antidote to all of those crappy "recommended content" services that many news sites use to point you to "other things you may be interested in" on other sites, but always seem to actually consist of scantily clad women and bogus diet "secrets" because that's what pays the best. Instead, it focuses on keeping people on the sites they're already on, pointing them to related content on that site (similar to what we have beneath our stories here on Techdirt, though we built our own system for that).

Singel eloquently lays out how Contextly almost certainly wouldn't exist under the FCC's proposal which would allow for "commercially reasonable" discrimination.

Like many other startups, if there were a fast lane, we would have needed to be in it on day one. We provide content recommendations at the bottom of news stories. That means that every time a news story on one of our publishers is read, a request is made to our servers to get the right recommendations and we return them along with thumbnail images—anywhere from 4 to 16 images per page. While these are individually not large, the bandwidth quickly adds up when you are serving hundreds of millions of images a month, and need to do so quickly to readers around the country and the world. It would not matter if the “slow lane” was “pretty fast.” What would matter was whether we could serve our clients as effectively as our competitors. Being unequal alone would put us at a disadvantage.

We are able to manage these costs because the cost of technology and bandwidth has dropped massively, due to technology and competition. This has made it possible for a bootstrapped Contextly—founded with the modest savings of a former journalist—to compete with companies that have tens of millions of dollars in capital.

[....]

The FCC should not make it even harder to create a company by adopting its proposal to authorize “commercially reasonable” discrimination rather than to forbid “unreasonable discrimination.” AT&T and Verizon have made it very clear they would like to extract tolls from online services such as Contextly. That's despite the fact that it's their customers who are requesting news stories from our publisher clients. Both Contextly and our publisher clients pay for our outgoing and incoming bandwidth to our hosting providers - but now the FCC proposes to let consumer Internet Service Providers extract fees on both sides of their networks.

If this were the case before I started Contextly using my savings (which were not substantial), I would have never started the company. There's no way I could have afforded to pay Verizon and AT&T and Comcast and Cox and Sprint and Time Warner Cable and AOL and T-Mobile to get Contextly images showing up quickly. Our competitors—the ones who post ads to diet pills and “hot” photos of fitness enthusiasts—could have buried us just by paying for the fast lane—without even needed exclusivity, which they could have negotiated under the Commission’s proposal.

Even the very idea of "commercially reasonable" is somewhat offensive to innovation and enterpreneurship, because it's bureaucrat-speak for "hire crazy expensive lawyers" and argue over this for years. That is not a recipe for innovation:

Hiring lawyers and negotiating complicated contracts is expensive. I incorporated Contextly myself to avoid significant legal fees and operated on handshake agreements with early customers. Negotiating performance agreements with ISPs would have required resources and skills I didn't possess (and still likely don't have). ISPs could have also asked for equity at a time where I'd have had no choice but to accept their terms—since they control the pipes that get my clients' news and information to American citizens. My equity would not have been worth much at the time, so I would have had to give up much of my company, if not a majority, to get it off the ground.

As Singel notes, "commercially reasonable" is not a standard for enterpreneurship and innovation. It's a standard for big companies to kill innovation:

...the factors of the commercial reasonableness test are too vague to provide certainty—except for the certainty of expensive and time-consuming litigation if we choose to pursue it. These standards include “harm to consumers” or “to competition” and evaluation of a totality-of-the-circumstances. These standards are an invitation to hire dozens of expert witnesses and white shoe lawyers well versed in telecommunications, competition, and consumer law without sufficient guideposts. This standard has already failed to provide any guidance in the one other place it has been used--data roaming.

.... Indeed, a “commercial reasonableness” standard is a gift to the cable and phone companies who have armies of lawyers and can crush us in legal disputes at the FCC.

The second story is a similar one, coming from Jamie Wilkinson, the founder and CEO of VHX, an online video distribution company that helps film and video makers make their videos directly available to fans. Since VHX is in the online video distribution industry, the fact that Netflix is suddenly having to cut deals with ISPs to avoid clogged pipes is of great concern. As he notes, the fact that he might have to pay for access to a fast lane is already chilling his business, as investors are suddenly less willing to fund a startup like his, since they don't know how expensive it's going to be to have to pay off all the big broadband providers, just to offer the same video experience as Netflix or YouTube. This chilling effect is very real and it's being felt by many startups already -- and hopefully more of them will start to speak out, like Singel and Wilkinson.

What's most incredible to me is that out-of-touch politicians who insist they're out there "supporting small business and innovation" are often the most against net neutrality -- even though their position will kill off many small businesses and innovation. Frankly, I still don't quite understand how net neutrality became a partisan "left vs. right" issue. In the early days, after the term was first coined, it wasn't a partisan issue and there were some interesting discussions about what net neutrality meant and why it was important. However, somewhere in the mid-2000s, it suddenly became a "Democratic" issue, with "Republicans" being opposed to it, claiming it was "regulating the internet." However, as we've discussed, the internet is already heavily regulated. The question on net neutrality isn't about regulating or not regulating the internet, but figuring out how it will be regulated: will it be regulated in a way that allows for significant competition and innovation -- or will it be regulated to allow a few giant oligopolists to become gatekeepers to innovation.

Considering that both Democrats and Republicans like to talk about how important innovation, small business and entrepreneurs are, it makes no sense for them to support plans that would actively harm innovation and small businesses -- and yet, that appears to be what many are doing. Obviously, much of this is because the big winners if net neutrality dies will be Comcast, AT&T and Verizon -- three giant companies who also are huge political donors. But if Congress (and, for that matter, the FCC) are serious about supporting and encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation, they should be paying much more attention to what those startups are saying about how all of this impacts their business right now.

And then the question is pretty straightforward: do they really support innovation, small business and entrepreneurship? Or do they support the big telcos looking to set up tollbooths to make innovation more expensive?

Filed Under: entrepreneurs, fast lane, fcc, innovation, innovators, jamie wilkinson, net neutrality, open internet, ryan singel, slow lane, small business, startups
Companies: contextly, vhx

Rep. Latta Breaks New Ground In Introducing Anti-Net Neutrality Bill Where Almost Every Claim Is Laughably Wrong

from the impressive! dept

Rep. Bob Latta achieved an impressive feat last week in introducing some legislation, which he claims is to make sure the internet remains "open and free." While we're big supporters of an "open and free" internet, what's most amazing here is that almost everything that Latta claims about the bill is not true -- including the whole "open and free" bits.

Congressman Bob Latta (R-OH) today introduced legislation to ensure the Internet remains open and free from government interference by limiting the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) authority to regulate broadband under Title II of the Communications Act.

So, first, he's saying "open and free" not in the way that internet users, innovators and entrepreneurs can set up businesses, but rather "open and free from government interference." This is, simply, bullshit. While I tend to lean on the "less regulation" side for many things, people claiming that net neutrality is a fight about "regulating the internet" are one (or more) of the following three things: (1) stupid (2) ignorant or (3) lying. The internet is already heavily regulated. The question around net neutrality is not "do we regulate or leave unregulated" -- it's what type of regulation makes the most sense.

Remember, telcos are happy to be classified under Title II for their fiber, because that's how they're able to get subsidized access to power poles and conduits (and the ability to dig up yards and bury new lines). They're also "regulated" in how they get spectrum for wireless communications. The broadband providers are thrilled to be regulated in these ways because it has made it easier and cheaper to build their networks and to keep out pesky competition.

The idea that broadband should be "open and free" from government interference is simply untrue. If the broadband providers really wanted that to be true, then they shouldn't be making use of rights of way access granted by the government. Somehow, I don't see Latta asking Verizon and AT&T to change that...

The legislation comes after the FCC released a proposal to reclassify broadband Internet access under Title II as a telecommunications service rather than an information service.

Except, of course, the FCC did no such thing. It, in fact, released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) which explicitly does not propose to reclassify broadband under Title II. It actually proposes to keep broadband as it was, preferring to put in place new rules under Section 706. The only thing on Title II is that, while making it clear the FCC is focused on Section 706, it asks the public to comment on what it thinks of Title II as an alternative. To outright claim that the FCC has proposed reclassifying is blatantly false.

Isn't it great that Congressional Representatives flat out lie to the public?

“In light of the FCC initiating yet another attempt to regulate the Internet, upending long-standing precedent and imposing monopoly-era telephone rules and obligations on the 21st Century broadband marketplace, Congress must take action to put an end to this misguided regulatory proposal,” said Latta.

Except, again, the internet has always been regulated in some form, this request for comments has upended no long-standing precedent, and broadband providers have long made use of those very same "monopoly-era telephone rules and obligations" to get government subsidies to install their broadband infrastructure. Oh, and again, the proposal does not actually suggest what he claims it's suggesting.

So, both the reasons and the overall claim of the proposal are simply wrong. Who elected this guy?

“The Internet has remained open and continues to be a powerful engine fueling private enterprise, economic growth and innovation absent government interference and obstruction. My legislation will provide all participants in the Internet ecosystem the certainty they need to continue investing in broadband networks and services that have been fundamental for job creation, productivity and consumer choice.

Yes, the internet has remained mostly open and is a powerful engine of private enterprise at the service level by keeping the network level free from discrimination. And the FCC claims to be looking for a way to keep that in place, while the telcos who are supporting Latta's proposal are looking to do the exact opposite: to limit private enterprise by allowing the infrastructure players to discriminate against services they don't like. Latta's legislation does not provide "certainty" to anyone other than Verizon, AT&T and Comcast -- all of whom will get to double-charge and increase profits.

Instead, it will create massive uncertainty for basically every other business that uses the internet. It will devastate investment into internet startups, because those with great new ideas will know that they'll have to pay extra just to reach people online. It will entrench big companies who already have the power to pay, while cutting off upstarts and innovators. It will take away the incentives for the big broadband providers to actually invest in infrastructure, because when their networks get clogged, they can charge more to internet companies. That means, the US will fall even further behind on the internet.

It makes you wonder why Rep. Latta is so against small businesses and innovation.

Oh, no, there's no reason to wonder. We already know. Latta is bankrolled by the big broadband companies with AT&T, NCTA, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, American Cable Assocation and Centurylink among his top campaign supporters. Because, of course they are.

Yes, we know that politicians mislead the public, but this is to an egregious level. Nearly everything about the reasons, the intent and the impact of Latta's legislation are completely incorrect. There are reasonable debates to be had about whether or not reclassifying broadband under Title II makes sense. But you won't get that from this bill. Thankfully, Latta can't find any other politician willing to co-sponsor his ridiculous bill, so it appears that even many other politicians heavily funded by the broadband companies recognize how totally dishonest this particular bill is.

Filed Under: bob latta, fcc, net neutrality, open internet, regulations, rights of way, subsidies, title ii

FCC Comment Page Buckles To Its Knees After John Oliver Asks Everyone To Comment

from the coincidence-or-not... dept

On Monday morning, we wrote about John Oliver's brilliant report on net neutrality, which ended with a stirring "call to action" for internet commenters to tell the FCC why it should preserve a free and open internet. If you somehow missed it, here's the clip again: Many of our commenters noted that the FCC comment page that Oliver pointed to, FCC.gov/comments, appeared to be down for most of the day, either suggesting wonderful irony or that Oliver's call to action has been monumentally successful. The FCC has put up some tweets in which it apologizes for technical difficulties, without explaining why they were occurring beyond "heavy traffic."

We’ve been experiencing technical difficulties with our comment system due to heavy traffic. We’re working to resolve these issues quickly.

— The FCC (@FCC) June 2, 2014

We’re still experiencing technical difficulties with our comment system. Thanks for your patience as we work to resolve the issues.

— The FCC (@FCC) June 2, 2014

Some of us quickly speculated that the two things were related, while some publications have simply assumed without question that it was Oliver's pleas that brought the system down. To some extent I hope that's the case, though I do fear a bit the kinds of comments people might be leaving.

Either way, the irony of the FCC having trouble under heavy loads concerning net neutrality was not lost on many people, who didn't miss the opportunity to tweet some replies mocking the whole net neutrality proposal.

.@FCC can I haz priority access?

— Falk Steiner (@flueke) June 2, 2014

@FCC Don't worry. If you pay $8M more to Comcast you might get a better connection. They might even throw in a $4M/m server lease agreement.

— Richard Risner (@Kowder) June 2, 2014

@FCC Maybe because you servers are running on the "slow lane" internet? Since when do you read comments that dont include cash bribes?

— Mark Rodgers ツ (@KC8GRQ) June 2, 2014

.@FCC You didn't save the "fast lane" for yourself? How sweet. https://t.co/BCSSbwhV1H #NetNeutrality

— Daniel Wallen (@TheWallenWay) June 2, 2014

Filed Under: comments, fcc, john oliver, net neutrality, web hosting

Verizon Begs To Be Classified Under Title II For Subsidies; Screams About Parade Of Horribles Any Other Time

from the title-ii-shell-game dept

If you've been paying any attention at all to the whole net neutrality fight, you'd know that the key issue is whether or not broadband services should be reclassified under Title II of the Telecom Act. In the early to mid-2000s, the FCC declared both cable and DSL broadband to be information services under Title I, rather than telecommunications services under Title II. This basically means they are not subject to common carrier rules, including non-discriminatory rules that are the key issue around net neutrality. And, of course, the telcos are putting up a big fight over this, listing out a supposed parade of horribles that would happen if they were reclassified under Title II.

There's just one big problem with this: those very same telcos with those very same networks are begging to have them classified under Title II at other times. Basically, the telcos absolutely love Title II when it gives them all sorts of subsidies and tax breaks.

Here, for example, you can see Verizon making it quite clear that its FiOS fiber service should be classified under Title II in New Jersey. They've done the same elsewhere. Here they are in DC. The reasoning here is simple to understand. For all the talk of why they hate Title II, Verizon (and AT&T) know that Title II gives them tremendous subsidies in the form of access and rights of way. Basically, the only way they can get the right to rip up the ground or access existing conduits and electrical poles to lay all that fiber -- is to be classified as a common carrier under Title II. So a bunch of Verizon's applications concerning its FiOS service are entirely about why they should be classified as Title II.

But here's the little dance move they pull. They claim that this infrastructure must be considered Title II, in order to get those subsidies, tax breaks and rights of way. And they insist that it's proper to classify it as Title II because it offers voice service over those lines. But, at the very same time, they claim that all other services that they provide, must be classified under Title I.

Oh, and it gets better: they claim that in order to pay for all of this (even though they're getting all these breaks and subsidies), they have to raise the prices on telephone service -- which they've done at a fairly astounding rate.

And, we're not done with the scam yet. As we've been describing for years, part of this shell game is that Verizon promises that, under Title II, it will install this fiber to everyone -- and then never delivers. And then, for the final kick in the gut, after it fails to deliver on those promises, it gets local politicians to drop the requirements it agreed to in order to get the subsidies.

And... this doesn't even touch on the issue of "IP transition," where after they get all these tax breaks and subsidies based on the claims of providing (increasingly expensive) "voice" services under Title II, the very same telcos will want to turn off that voice service, in favor of voice service over the internet. Now, voice services are clearly moving to the internet, and that's reasonable. But this is part of the telco shell game. Get all these tax breaks and subsidies by pretending all of that fiber was a Title II service, but then shut down the Title II covered-telco service the first chance they get, and shift it to an "information" service under Title I. Voila: they get all the tax breaks and benefits of Title II for installing the infrastructure, but then don't have to meet the obligations of a common carrier which they promised to meet in order to get those subsidies.

It's almost astoundingly brilliant if we weren't all left paying the (increasingly larger) bill for worse service.

Either way, whenever you see the telcos listing out the parade of horribles under Title II, it might be worth reminding them that they, themselves, were the ones who insisted on classifying their own networks under Title II because of all the "benefits" it brought.

Filed Under: access, broadband, fcc, fiber, fios, net neutrality, rights of way, subsidies, title ii
Companies: verizon

John Oliver: Stop Calling It Net Neutrality; It's 'Preventing Cable Company F**kery'

from the a-bit-more-on-target dept

In last night's John Oliver show (technically "Last Week Tonight"), his "top story" was all about net neutrality. This is both surprising (because the issue has received little mainstream attention) and awesome, because it needs much more mainstream attention. Not surprisingly, it's both insightful and hilariously funny. He mocks how the FCC has made the issue sound incredibly boring. He mocks telco industry lawyers claiming it's "not about fast lanes and slow lanes" but "fast lanes and hyperspeed lines." Oliver summarized that quote simply as "bullshit." He shows this graphic of Netflix's speed on Comcast before and after it agreed to pay up, and directly compares it to a mafia shakedown. He highlights how the broadband companies (though he unfortunately lumps telco companies in as "cable companies") have basically bought off Washington DC, amusingly comparing an FCC run by a former lobbyist regulating the cable industry to an Australian couple hiring a dingo to babysit.

And, finally, he has an amusing call to action for "internet commenters" who he suggests have been training their whole lives for this moment, when the FCC has asked people for comments on its proposal. It's just too bad he pointed them directly at the confusing FCC.gov site, rather than the EFF's much better interface at DearFCC.org.

Either way, it's great to see Oliver take on this issue in an amusing way -- and hopefully it will spur more people to speak up on the issue.

Filed Under: broadband, cable companies, fast lanes, john oliver, lobbying, net neutrality, open internet, politics
Companies: at&t, comcast, time warner cable, verizon

If Comcast CEO Brian Roberts Really Believes Netflix Gets Bandwidth For Free, Will He Pay Netflix's Bandwidth Bill?

from the just-saying... dept

So there was some buzz earlier this week when Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, speaking at the Code Conference, more or less admitted that he was seeking to shake down the entire internet:

In a series of analogies, Roberts likened his company’s role to that of a postmaster, pointing out that Netflix pays hundreds of millions of dollars to mail DVDs to its customers but now expects to be able to deliver the same content over the internet for free.

“They would like it all to be free. I would like to not have to pay for cable boxes,” he said.

Except, of course, Netflix already pays for its bandwidth. And Comcast's customers already pay for their bandwidth. What Roberts really wants to do is to get Netflix to pay a second time for Comcast's customers' bandwidth, even though they're already paying for it.

As for this argument that Netflix is trying to get anything "for free," we went through this ridiculous argument nearly a decade ago, when the lobbyists for the telcos made the same claim (though, at that time it was about Google instead of Netflix). Mike McCurry, working as an AT&T lobbyist at the time, argued that Google "will never have to pay a dime no matter how much bandwidth they use." Basically the same argument that Roberts is making about Netflix wanting "it all to be free."

So as we did with McCurry, we'd like to make a small request of Roberts: if he's so sure that Netflix pays nothing for these things, why not agree to pay Netflix's bandwidth bill? After all, he's arguing that it's free, so he shouldn't have to pay anything. Of course he knows that Netflix pays a ton for bandwidth. And he knows that his customers pay a ton for bandwidth. He's just hoping to get them both to pay more.

Filed Under: brian roberts, double paying, fud, mike mccurry, net neutrality, open internet
Companies: comcast, netflix

NY Times And Washington Post Describe Yesterday's Net Neutrality Vote In Diametrically Opposite Ways

from the because...-reporting dept

As we noted, yesterday's FCC vote concerning the NPRM on "open internet" rules was really just the start of the process. A lot of people seem confused by this -- and part of the problem is really the FCC. Tom Wheeler keeps insisting that the rules are designed to protect net neutrality and the open internet, but as lots of people keep pointing out, the rulemaking he's proposing would likely do the opposite. Because of that, you get a ton of confusion, perhaps best shown by a simple comparison, put together by Drew Oden on Twitter of the summary from both the NY Times and the Washington Post about what happened: If you can't read that, the NYT's version was:

The Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 on Thursday to move forward with a set of proposed rules aimed at guaranteeing an open Internet prohibiting high-speed Internet service providers from blocking or discriminating against legal content flowing through their pipes.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post's version was:

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday voted in favor of advancing a proposal that could dramatically reshape the way consumers experience the Internet, opening the possibility of Internet service providers charging Web sites for higher-quality delivery of their content to American consumers."

And you wonder why so many people are confused about what's going on? Of course, that's what happens when this stage of the process is really just about opening up the floor to comments, prior to the final rulemaking likely to happen later this year. But the bizarre thing is that both of the descriptions may be accurate, even as they appear to disagree fundamentally. Wheeler appears to be sincere in hoping that these rules would guarantee an open internet, but the reality may reshape how consumers use the internet by more clearly enabling such discrimination.

Welcome to the mess that is a fight over net neutrality.

Filed Under: fcc, journalism, net neutrality, open internet, reporting
Companies: ny times, washington post