Hollywood Is Still On The Wrong Side Of Net Neutrality

from the that's-unfortunate dept

A few days ago, BitTorrent's Chief Content Officer, Matt Mason, posted a plea to Hollywood to get on the net neutrality/open internet bandwagon, pointing out that having a free and open internet is very much in their interest, if they really want new platforms to emerge that give Hollywood more options than just the big players who dominate the space:

Let’s also consider what an open Internet has meant for Hollywood so far, and why it might be worth protecting. An open Internet has made new financing, production, distribution and marketing models a reality. More users are being reached, and re-engaged, thanks to platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. More films are being produced. The global box office hit a new record of $35.9 billion in the last year. And digital movie purchases surged 47%, now making up for declines in physical sales and rentals. If you look at the facts and figures, the industry is in the best shape it’s ever been in. It’s impossible to ignore the impact of the open Internet on film.

It’s worth thinking about what’s at stake, beyond the lot. The Internet has ushered in a new era of funding, and with it, an emerging creative middle class; an unprecedented indie boom. The startups and platforms that fund our creative middle class are poised to disappear with Net Neutrality. Any studio or production company that can’t pay for access or funding will fail.

The impact of a closed Internet is not abstract: something felt only in Silicon Valley, something for the government to work out. An unequal Internet is an Internet that’s unsustainable for film.

And, indeed, many in the entertainment business certainly do appear to recognize the issue. One of the leading proponents of net neutrality and the open internet is Senator Al Franken, who has long been a supporter of Hollywood, given his past career. And it was great to see a large group of famous musicians recently speak out in favor of net neutrality.

But, tragically, the powers that be among the legacy entertainment industry still seem to view net neutrality as a problem, not an important part of their future. It appears this is a combination of a few factors, led by their continued and irrational fear of "piracy." Because of this, they seem to think that any sort of "open" internet is a problem. In fact, back in 2007, the MPAA specifically argued that net neutrality would harm its anti-piracy efforts. Similarly, both the RIAA and MPAA have lobbied strongly in the past for special loopholes and exceptions to any net neutrality rules that would allow ISPs to block content the legacy guys don't like. In fact, one of the most famous net neutrality violations involved Comcast throttling BitTorrent connections. The Songwriters Guild of America once claimed that net neutrality would mean an end to songwriting.

Of course, none of that is true. Many are simply kneejerk reactions to being overly fearful of the internet. One hopes that in the years since all those statements were made, many in those industries have since realized that an open internet is important to their future. The end of net neutrality would actually be incredibly damaging to them, as it would also lock in the power of a few larger internet players of whom the entertainment industry is already distrustful. Netflx, Amazon and Google will survive just fine on a non-neutral internet. They can pay the bills. It's the other guys, the new and innovative startups that will provide the necessary competition, who may get left behind.

The MPAA, RIAA and others seemed to hope that without net neutrality, the internet could be crafted into a system more like cable TV, with more centralized power and less innovation. But hopefully they now realize that's not a good thing. It would be good if they finally spoke up about it, though.

Filed Under: hollywood, internet, net neutrality, open internet, piracy

Lobbyists (And, Oh Yes, Everyone Else), Start Your Engines: FCC Opens The Floor For Comments On Net Neutrality

from the and-we're-off dept

As was mostly expected, the FCC this morning voted 3 to 2 (along expected party lines) to move forward with Tom Wheeler's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), which effectively flings open the doors to the public comment period concerning what the FCC should do about net neutrality. As we've been discussing, the basic idea the FCC is proposing will open up a potentially bifurcated internet with fast lanes and slow lanes, even as the FCC insists this isn't true. Of course, the main point the FCC has been making, which is accurate, is that what happened today doesn't change anything. They're basically just setting up the process for the eventual changes that could have a very large impact.

After folks on Wheeler's own side threatened to revolt, combined with a lot of public pressure, Wheeler apparently did a last minute revising of the plans, to make it more explicit that he'd like the public to weigh in on paid prioritization and Title II reclassification. It also appears he's added in this vague concept of a "ombudsperson" who will supposedly try to make sure that we don't end up with ISPs behaving badly.

At this point, what we basically have is open season on lobbyists trying to influence the FCC one way or another, eventually leading to some sort of rulemaking, followed (inevitably) by a bunch of lawsuits from broadband providers who aren't going to be happy with any solution. And, of course, the potential (unlikely as it may be) for Congress to get involved.

Stacey Higginbotham over at GigaOm has the best rundown of the issues up for comment in the NPRM. If you're trying to understand what exactly people are really commenting on (beyond the broad claims of "net neutrality" "open internet" "fast lanes" "reclassification" "common carriers" and the like), that's a good place to start. I know folks like to view this on a more simplified yes/no level, but this isn't an issue that neatly fits into a series of simple yes or no options, in part because of two big reasons: (1) telecommunications law is a massive mess and (2) this is all a symptom of the real problem: the lack of meaningful competition.

And while Wheeler has suggested that the FCC is willing to knock down laws that block competition, we'll believe it when we see it in action. On top of that, Wheeler made it clear today that he still sees the interconnection issue as a separate issue, even thought it's becoming clear that that's where the real problem is. Oh, and while lots of people are calling for Title II reclassification, and there are many reasons to believe that may be the best solution, it's also exceptionally messy as well, because Title II has lots of problems as well. The FCC would need to deal with those problems, via forbearance, which creates a whole different set of headaches.

In short: this is a very messy process, and there are many, many places where it can (and likely will) go wrong.

But, that doesn't mean that everyone should just throw up their hands and go home to their (increasingly slow) internet. The broadband lobbyists will not be doing that. And, of course, they know quite well how to play the lobbying game and how to work the ins-and-outs of everything above. It is why it's going to become increasingly important to become much more informed on a variety of these issues and the true implications of the choices the FCC makes in the coming months. If you would like to weigh in, and I do suggest everyone seek to share their comments with the FCC, I would suggest first spending a little time more deeply reading through the full set of issues and what the pros and cons of different options may be. You can file comments directly with the FCC or via a very, very handy Dear FCC tool that the EFF put together.

Update: And... many hours later, the FCC has finally released the actual NPRM. Take a look.

Filed Under: fast lane, fcc, lobbying, net neutrality, nprm, open internet, paid prioritization

Contrary To What Big Broadband Players Will Say, The FCC Has Acted Many Times To Protect Net Neutrality

from the a-look-at-the-history dept

The cable and phone companies are telling people in DC that the Internet has benefited from "no" net neutrality rules. They claim, since there were no rules for a decade, we don't need them now. They've got the story exactly backwards: we have had active FCC interventions on net neutrality. That's one reason we have had a neutral Internet until now. Indeed, since 2004, we have had enforcement actions, policy statements, merger conditions, spectrum conditions, and a rule. The first time we have had the FCC announce that it would not ensure neutrality but would instead authorize fast lanes ... was Chairman Wheeler's comments earlier this year.

While very often imperfect, the FCC has done much to ensure an open internet. Carriers have not historically engaged in rampant discrimination partly due to the threat of FCC action. In 2004, the FCC's Chairman issued a speech about the "Four Freedoms" online, which promised to keep the Internet an open platform. In 2005, the FCC punished Madison River, a small telephone company that was blocking Vonage, an application that powered online phone calls competing with Madison River's own service. In 2005, the FCC adopted an Internet Policy Statement and pledged to respond to any violations of the statement with swift action. In 2008, after it was discovered that Comcast, the largest ISP in the nation, was interfering with some of the internet's most popular technologies -- a set of five peer-to-peer (P2P) technologies -- the FCC enjoined Comcast in a bipartisan decision. Much of the cable industry was engaging in such actions, so this wasn't a small exception. In 2010, the FCC adopted the Open Internet Order that was only recently struck down.

Additionally, in the years since 2005, the FCC has conditioned spectrum assignments and mergers on net neutrality rules. The largest three broadband providers have been (or remain) subject to net neutrality for many years. AT&T accepted two-year net neutrality conditions in its merger with BellSouth, and SBC accepted a two-year condition in its merger with AT&T. Verizon accepted a similar condition in its merger with MCI. Verizon purchased a 22MHz band of spectrum (the C block) in the FCC's 2008 700MHz auction for $4.7 billion dollars, and did so subject to open internet conditions modeled on the Internet Policy Statement. Comcast has been subject to network neutrality rules since its merger with NBC in 2011, and the merger condition extends for seven years. Both Verizon and Comcast's conditions still apply today. Moreover, Congress imposed contractual obligations on internet networks built with stimulus funds -- nondiscrimination and interconnection obligations that, at a minimum, adhered to the internet Policy Statement, among other obligations.

In light of these merger obligations, license conditions, FCC adjudications and rule-making, stimulus conditions, and consistent threats of FCC action, startups have enjoyed a generally neutral network that is conducive to, and necessary for, innovation. These actions provided some certainty that startups would not be arbitrarily blocked, subject to technical or economic discrimination, or forced to pay carriers so that the carriers' consumers can access all the innovation online.

Following the Verizon v. FCC decision, and under the Chairman's proposal, that will likely change, in ways that harm entrepreneurship and the public interest.

The past decade of tech innovation may not have been possible in an environment where the carriers could discriminate technically and could set and charge exorbitant and discriminatory prices for running internet applications. Without the FCC, established tech players could have paid for preferences, sharing their revenues with carriers in order to receive better service (or exclusive deals) and to crush new competitors and disruptive innovators. Venture investors would have moved their money elsewhere, away from tech startups who would be unable to compete with incumbents. Would-be entrepreneurs would have taken jobs at established companies or started companies in other nations. The FCC played an important role. The Chairman and this FCC shouldn't break that.

Filed Under: broadband, conditions, fcc, history, mergers, net neutrality, open internet, regulation, spectrum, tom wheeler

Cable Industry Lies Through Its Teeth: Falsely Claims Greater Broadband Investment & Support For Net Neutrality

from the lying-liars dept

So we already had the story about AT&T's FUD claiming that all sorts of horrible things would happen if the FCC went with Title II reclassification, and now Comcast and the other cable companies are ramping up the FUD efforts. They have a "friendly" Congress person, Rep. Gene Green, passing around a letter to his colleagues, which claims that:

In the years that broadband service has been subjected to relatively little regulation, investment and deployment have flourished and broadband competition has increased, all to the benefit of consumers and the American economy.

And it hints that such investment would somehow go away with reclassification. Of course, this is all a lie. In part, because Wall Street hates capital expenditure and gets angry any time broadband providers actually invest in broadband, these companies have actually been doing everything possible to decrease how much they spend on infrastructure investment over the past five years. Even worse, they're playing stupid statistical tricks to try to hide it. Thankfully, Matthew Yglesias, over at Vox.com calls them out on this. The big cable lobbying organization, NCTA, pulls two tricks with the following chart that it uses to falsely pretend that broadband investment is increasing: First, the more obvious trick is that those numbers are cumulative -- which is what you generally do when you want to hide the actual rate of investment per year. But the rate is actually slowing down quite a bit. The second trick is more subtle. Note that there are three years between each of the first four numbers? But between the second to last one and the last one, there are four years. That's because the actual numbers would show pretty clear decline in investment, so they're fudging it by combining cumulative totals and then adding an extra year to that last number. Yglesias then used that data to calculate the actual averages showing a more accurate picture: As you can see, it certainly suggests that, as they've grown more powerful, and as real competition has decreased, investment has been cut back significantly. That fits with plenty of other evidence concerning how the major cable and telco companies have acted. That story about "greater competition" is -- as we've discussed previously -- a complete joke. That's fudging statistics in a different way, lumping in totally non-competitive wireless accounts, which can't be used as broadband replacements.

Update: NCTA has responded to Yglesias's article, claiming that "the [original] chart had a few simple errors" which it claims to have now fixed. It also posted a new chart with yearly data, which still appear to show a decline from peak investment, though NCTA tries to spin at as continued growth in investment. It does appear that there are cycles, but investment has clearly declined. In fact, this new chart appears to confirm Yglesias' point, that capital expenditure hasn't grown massively as NCTA suggested (and that's because... it hasn't).

Oh, and Comcast's now even got the gall to argue that allowing it to merge with Time Warner Cable will mean more net neutrality protection and a "faster internet." It's putting those claims in big newspaper advertisements Of course, they're being misleading. It's what they do. They're defining "net neutrality" very narrowly, based on the merger terms that were forced upon it when it bought NBC Universal. But that's got little to do with the actual net neutrality issues of today. As for a "faster internet" they mean, yeah, sure, if internet companies agree to pay extra (meaning you'll pay extra too).

I'm not exactly sure what the cable companies think they accomplish with these kinds of easily debunked claims, but it really makes them look excessively desperate.

Filed Under: broadband, cable, fcc, investment, lies, net neutrality, tom wheeler
Companies: comcast, ncta, time warner

A General Reminder For Policymakers: Don't Muck Up The Public's Ability To Use The Internet

from the a-reminder dept

I know that it's become a bit too tempting for lots of people to declare this or that tech policy issue "the next SOPA," but the response over the last few weeks to the FCC's upcoming rulemaking on "the open internet" and net neutrality certainly feels a lot closer than pretty much any previous issue. David Carr has a writeup over at the NY Times that explains the situation most succinctly -- with a truly key point being buried deep in the middle, in which he recaps the SOPA story. I'll bold the key line:

In the debate between the Beltway vs. the Valley, my money is on the Valley. Remember in 2012 when a clueless Congress lumbered into Internet regulation by coming up with SOPA and a companion bill in the Senate (the Protect I.P. Act)? The entertainment companies that backed the legislation thought it was no big deal, but then a group of Silicon Valley players — many of the same ones who are now coalescing to oppose new Internet regulations — unleashed their user base and a huge wave of protest erupted. Both bills went down hard.

In the weeks after the SOPA debacle, I was at the Sundance Film Festival and then in Hollywood, talking with entertainment executives. They looked like extras from “The Walking Dead,” with bite marks all over them. They didn’t know what hit them because they did not understand the intimate relationship that the Valley has with its customers.

Way too much digital (and real) ink has been spilled that totally missed the point concerning the SOPA battle, arguing that it was the "tech industry" or "Silicon Valley" taking on Hollywood. But, as we noted many times, that was never the situation at all. It was the users of those internet services who led the way, with the companies joining in after the fact. Many people on the other side of these battles still don't realize how much has to do with the users first. They assume, incorrectly, that it's all about lobbying dollars, but miss out on the simple fact that a large public outcry beats lobbyists every time.

In the end what matters is votes. Lobbyists win on issues where there is no public outcry because in those situations its easier to keep the lobbyists happy. But when the wider public gets activated, politicians know that votes come first, and lobbying can't stop the tidal wave of public support on an issue. And that's where those not paying attention get confused. They don't realize that many people really, really love the services that the tech industry has built. People have very positive emotional attachments to them -- and that's often because those services provide amazing connections and interactions and do so without giving people the feeling of being ripped off.

That's usually not true with things like entertainment and it's especially not true with broadband.

Yes, some people argue that because users "don't pay" for many internet services, the services don't actually have their best interests in mind, but that's just wrong. The reason these internet services are so successful is that they build great products that users love -- and they often give them away for no monetary exchange, based on alternative business models. You can argue about whether or not those business models are fair, but to argue that these companies don't try to build great products for their users is simply incorrect.

And, because of that, when there are issues where the interests of the public and these tech companies align -- those on the other side may discover just how difficult it is to play the same old lobbying game. When the public gets moving on an issue, old style lobbying games get steamrolled. Whether or not that happens with net neutrality remains to be seen, but many of the same initial ingredients are certainly in place.

Mucking with a functioning internet is just not a good idea.

We don’t want two Internets — a good one and a bad. We want the money and investment to flow toward a single infrastructure that works rapidly and efficiently, as it does in so many other countries. It should be a medium in which videos of your niece dancing to Beyonce, streaming coverage of Occupy Wall Street and “House of Cards” all play smoothly when you hit a button.

Given the mounting opposition, the F.C.C. commissioners would be well advised to delay any changes this Thursday. And if they don’t, they may end up starring in a sequel: “SOPA II: When Nerds Bite Back.”

Filed Under: broadband, fcc, net neutrality, public, sopa, tech industry

Tom Wheeler Revising His Net Neutrality Plans... But Not Actually Fixing Them

from the keep-pushing dept

So, this seemed pretty likely given FCC boss Tom Wheeler's continued shift in the way he describes his "open internet" net neutrality rules in the face of an awful lot of criticism, but the WSJ reported this weekend that Wheeler has been spending the last few days "revising" the rules that he's set to release this week. Each time Wheeler has spoken about this, he's inched slightly closer to actually putting Title II reclassification (making broadband providers common carriers) on the table, though very few people actually believe he'll do that. While he'd previously suggested that reclassification was a reserve back pocket option if his original rules didn't work, on Friday, he said that reclassification would be one possibility that he wanted people to comment on once the new proposal was released.

So it's good to see Wheeler doing some last minute revising -- but it appears that he's still trying to thread the needle with some "middle ground" approaches, in which he allows for some forms of paid prioritization. As multiple people have pointed out, if you do that, it's no longer a net neutrality proposal:

In the new draft, Mr. Wheeler is sticking to the same basic approach but will include language that would make clear that the FCC will scrutinize the deals to make sure that the broadband providers don't unfairly put nonpaying companies' content at a disadvantage, according to an agency official.

The official said the draft would also seek comment on whether such agreements, called "paid prioritization," should be banned outright, and look to prohibit the big broadband companies, such as Comcast Corp. and AT&T Inc., from doing deals with some content companies on terms that they aren't offering to others.

Mr. Wheeler's language will also invite comments on whether broadband Internet service should be considered a public utility, which would subject it to greater regulation. The FCC has so far not reclassified broadband as a utility, and providers have fiercely opposed such a move, saying it would cause innovation and investment to collapse

So it appears that his new plan is to more explicitly put the different plans out for comment, without actually really endorsing anything, and letting AT&T and Comcast's lobbyists ratchet up the rhetoric war. What he appears to be proposing is a useless "third way" option, which everyone will hate, while letting everyone fight about the other options. In other words: it's more of the same from the FCC.

Filed Under: fcc, net neutrality, open internet, title ii, tom wheeler

AT&T Warns FCC Of A Parade Of Horribles That Wouldn't Actually Happen If FCC Reclassifies Broadband

from the fud-fud-fud dept

As it appears that the FCC is (at least publicly) potentially warming to the idea of reclassifying broadband services under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, we warned that the big broadband providers would go absolutely apeshit. And, so it begins, with AT&T sending a ridiculous FUD-filled letter to the FCC warning it about a whole bunch of horrible things that it says will happen if the FCC does go with the Title II option. Of course, almost nothing it describes is actually true.

For example, AT&T pretends (based on absolutely nothing) that if the FCC reclassifies broadband providers as telco services, it will have to reclassify all sorts of other services, including various internet companies such as search and email providers:

Section 222 obligations would also kick in, imposing new obligations on a host of entities and causing wholesale disruption of current Internet business models. ISPs at both edges of the network, as well as transit providers, content delivery networks and others would appear to be statutorily required to take reasonable measures to prevent disclosure or use of information, such as IP addresses, websites visited, customer location information and other data, and they would be precluded from using this information without customer consent. Email providers and search engines, as telecommunications service providers in their own right, could likewise be subject to these requirements.

[....]

Moreover, it is foolish to think that the Commission could reclassify the provision of broadband Internet access to consumers as a telecommunications service without similarly reclassifying a broad array of other functionally analogous services in the Internet ecosystem. For example, there is no logical or legally sustainable basis to distinguish between ISPs serving consumer “eyeballs” and those serving content and other edge providers. Likewise, transit providers and content delivery networks (CDNs) would be telecommunications service providers subject to Title II, as would connected device customers. (The latter would be resellers of telecommunications services and thus telecommunications service providers in their own right.) Indeed, the logic behind reclassification would dictate that when a search engine connects an advertising network to a search request or effectuates a connection between a search user and an advertiser, it too would be providing a telecommunications service. And so too would an email provider that transmits an email or a social network that enables a messaging or chat session. The point is, once the Commission separates transmission from information processing, there is no way logically to limit that rationale to one segment of the Internet and not others. Every entity that provides an over-the-top communications capability, whether it’s voice, text, or video, becomes either a facilities-based provider or a reseller (or both) of a telecommunications service.

Except that's not true. As Jon Brodkin at Ars Technica points out, this appears to ignore basically all of the past dozen years of FCC decisions, including those that defined broadband as information services in the first place. The FCC was able to narrowly tailor those decisions to specific types of broadband, without impacting other types of services, and there's no reason why it can't do so here with reclassification. As Free Press's Matt Wood told Brodkin: "Nothing in Title II says that every last provision has to apply to any Title II service."

AT&T also spends a lot of time quoting idiotic assessments from Wall Street about how reclassification would be viewed by investors. This is a total red herring and actually should work against AT&T's point. After all, if Wall Street had its way, broadband providers wouldn't invest in their networks at all, because that's just wasted capital expenditure. The analysts that AT&T quotes are the same people who were hammering Verizon for years about its decision to invest in fiber to the home with its Fios service. That investment -- which Verizon's CEO Ivan Seidenberg did despite Wall Street freaking out -- helped Verizon build a much better internet offering (though, the company basically stopped investing in it once Seidenberg left). Wall Street's concerns are about the impact on the next three months. The FCC's concern is supposed to be on making sure we have a fast and competitive communications infrastructure. Wall Street's concerns about investment should actually be a clear signal to the FCC that it may be moving in the right direction, in setting up a system whereby the big broadband providers actually have incentives to improve their network.

In short, the Wall Street analysts fretting is really just them worried that AT&T (and others) might actually have to invest in building a better network. That's a good thing.

Even more hilarious is that nearly all of the Wall Street analyst quotes that AT&T tosses out are from five years ago, and many are insisting that there's no need for reclassification because of all that "competition" in the broadband space. But now we know that was bunk then, and it's even more bunk today. Look at some of these quotes from the 2009/2010 time frame:

Craig Moffett of Bernstein Research observed, on the day the Commission proposed Title II reclassification, that: “Markets abhor uncertainty. Today we got uncertainty in spades.” He added that “it is unclear what, precisely, this means for [other] information service providers, including Google”; that he “expect[ed] a profoundly negative impact on capital investment”; and that the “third way” was “an unequivocal negative development[.]”

Jonathan Chaplin of Credit Suisse explained, also in the aftermath of the reclassification proposal, that “[t]he biggest disconnect between Washington and Wall Street is on how the competitiveness of the industry is viewed. . . . Competition is doing its job and regulations would make it very difficult for companies to get reasonable return on investment. . . . The threat of regulation could discourage investment and cost jobs[.]”

Mike McCormack of J.P. Morgan agreed that investors were “extremely nervous about what’s coming” out of this proceeding, and added that “[b]roadband is a very competitive place so there’s no point [in] fixing it[.]”

There may be a "disconnect" between Washington and Wall Street, but there's also a big disconnect on the actual state of broadband in the US. It's not competitive and it sucks compared to much of the world. It's a disgrace, but Wall Street analysts don't care, because all they want is to make sure that broadband providers aren't doing capital expenditures on actually building a better network. Their short-term, narrow concern is on the next quarterly numbers from AT&T, Verizon and Comcast -- not the overall impact of good broadband infrastructure on basically the entire economy (including, by the way, those big broadband providers). It's an incredibly short-sighted stance. Ivan Seidenberg didn't fall prey to idiot Wall Street analysts for years -- and yet AT&T insists their word is gospel.

Filed Under: broadband, fcc, fud, net neutrality, open internet, reclassification, title ii, tom wheeler
Companies: at&t

FCC's Tom Wheeler Says He'll Ask For Public Comment On Whether It's Appropriate To Reclassify Broadband

from the well-now-it-gets-a-bit-more-interesting dept

This morning, a bunch of Senators joined with over 150 internet companies and over 100 venture capitalists to ask the FCC's Tom Wheeler not to make a big mistake with his "open internet" rules and enable a multi-tier internet, where broadband companies with tremendous market power can create fast lanes.

Wheeler has now responded to that original letter from over 150 internet companies (disclosure: we were one of the companies that signed that letter). While reiterating his previously stated promises that he really wants to protect an open internet, he also dropped this tidbit:

The item we will vote on next week seeks input on the best way to accommodate this goal. We will specifically ask whether Title II or Section 706 of the Communications Act is the best way to address the matter of Internet openness.

That's a bit of a shift. All indications before were that, at this stage, the focus was entirely on Section 706, with Wheeler merely promising to hang onto Title II in his back pocket. Putting it up front and center, and asking for public comment on the use of Title II reclassification (which would make broadband providers subject to common carrier rules) is a big deal. Wheeler further stated that he's really committed to this based on his own earlier experiences. While many have (rightfully) pointed out that Wheeler is a former cable industry lobbyist, he notes that he's also been on the other side of networks with monopolistic powers:

As an entrepreneur who started companies that offered new programs and services to cable companies, I was subject to being blocked from access to cable networks. It is an experience that made me especially wary of the power of closed networks to innovate on their own agenda to the detriment of small entrepreneurs.

To a very large extent, this experience has been the backbone of my long-time support for the Open Internet. It is the openness of the Internet that makes it special. My job at the FCC is to protect that openness, and the innovation and expression it allows to flourish.

Of course, some of his previous statements have suggested that he still doesn't understand the full nature of the problem (interconnection and the lack of competition). So it remains to be seen what really happens. However, it's encouraging to see that Wheeler seems to be progressively moving closer to making Title II a legitimate option.

Of course, as that gets closer and closer to the table, the insane freakout from broadband providers and their (very powerful) lobbyists will reach a fever pitch. This fight is far from over, but it's getting more interesting day by day.

Filed Under: 706, broadband, fcc, net neutrality, open internet, reclassification, title ii, tom wheeler

Webhost Protests FCC's Net Neutrality Proposal By Limiting FCC Access To 28.8Kbps

from the welcome-to-the-slow-lane dept

Earlier this week, venture capitalist Brad Feld put up a good post concerning the risk of the FCC's "open internet" rules actually turning into the ability for big broadband providers to set up a "fast lane" for large companies to pay for faster access to users. He suggested was that the best way to make clear how bad an idea this would be, would be to have internet companies demo the slow lane:

What if we did the same by Demoing the Slow Lane for a day. Algorithmically, all sites could slow themselves down dramatically, demonstrating what performance might look like over a 1/1 pipe. Or even a 0.5/0.5 pipe....

Let the world see “Waiting for”, “Connecting”, and “Buffering” show up in their browser continuously throughout the day. Explain what is going on. Then click a button to bypass the Slow Lane and get normal connectivity.

Instead of everyone getting tangled up in the legal question of what “net neutrality” means, consumers can see what could happen if / when ISPs can decide which companies get to use their fast lanes by paying extra and who is relegated to the slow lane.

It appears that (as many, many of you sent in), one web hosting company has adopted a somewhat modified plan based on a similar concept. Neocities has taken the FCC's IP block and rate limited any traffic from the FCC to Neocities' site down to the equivalent of a nostalgic 28.8Kbps modem (old man in me: I remember when those were considered "fast").

Since the FCC seems to have no problem with this idea, I've (through correspondence) gotten access to the FCC's internal IP block, and throttled all connections from the FCC to 28.8kbps modem speeds on the Neocities.org front site, and I'm not removing it until the FCC pays us for the bandwidth they've been wasting instead of doing their jobs protecting us from the "keep America's internet slow and expensive forever" lobby.

Neocities will let the FCC use a fast lane for just $1,000 per year. Neocities has also released the code it used, in case anyone else would like to do the same thing.

Filed Under: fast lane, fcc, net neutrality, open internet, rate limited
Companies: neocities

Diametrically Opposed FCC Commissioners Both Agree That Tom Wheeler Should Pull Back On Net Neutrality Rule Making

from the think-this-through dept

So last night we wrote about over 100 internet companies asking Tom Wheeler, to rethink his plans for his open internet "net neutrality" rule making -- warning that proposed rules that harm an open internet would be a very bad thing. In that post, we mentioned that FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel had asked Tom Wheeler to delay his plan to push forward with the rulemaking, but that Wheeler intended to move forward anyway. This morning, the pile-on against Wheeler continued, starting with a fantastic letter from over 50 venture capitalists who invest in the internet space, warning what bad rules will do to innovation and the economy (a letter they put together in less than a day).

And then another FCC commissioner, Ajit Pai, also asked Wheeler to hold off and not offer up his open internet rules at the meeting next week. It would be big in general to see two FCC commissioners directly asking the FCC chair to hold off, but it's especially noteworthy that it's Pai and Rosenworcel doing this -- as they tend to come at things from the opposite end of the spectrum (FCC-ish pun not intended). Pai is a Republican commissioner and Rosenworcel is a Democratic one -- and they generally don't agree on much, policy wise. In fact, it's unlikely they agree on why these rules should be stalled -- but at least they both realize that rushing forward with half-baked rules are a serious problem.

For about a decade now, I've argued that one of the reasons why net neutrality became a "toxic" issue was because it became a partisan issue. In the early days it wasn't, but somewhere in the mid-2000s, it suddenly became a "Democratic" issue, and Republicans started attacking it. And that just killed any rational discussion about keeping an open internet. Perhaps, now that the issue is finally getting renewed attention, we can get passed partisan bickering and focus on making sure that the internet actually remains open, with greater competition, and continued freedom to innovate.

Filed Under: ajit pai, fcc, jessica rosenworcel, net neutrality, open internet, tom wheeler, venture capitalists