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TechnoratiNet Neutrality's Quiet Crusader
Free Press's Ben Scott Faces Down Titans, Regulators in Battle Over Internet Control
Bearing video cameras, laptops and cellphones, a small army of young activists flooded into a recent federal meeting in protest.
Members of public-interest group Free Press weren't there to support a presidential candidate or decry global warming. The tech-savvy hundreds came to the Federal Communications Commission's hearing at Harvard Law School last month to push new rules for the Internet.
For the first time, Congress and the FCC are debating wide-reaching Web regulations and policies that would determine how much control cable and telecommunications companies would have over the Internet. The issue has given rise to a new political constituency raised on text messaging and social networking and relies on e-mail blasts and online video clips in its advocacy.
Although Free Press has generated buzz for its aggressive and sometimes controversial tactics online, its ringleader in Washington is an unlikely crusader. A soft-spoken 30-year-old PhD candidate, Ben Scott has become an operator in multibillion-dollar battles involving corporate titans, regulators and consumers debating policies over who controls the media and the Internet.
"There have been policy moments in the past when the market has been shaped by decisions made in Washington -- radio in the 1930s, television in the 1950s and cable in the 1980s. That moment is now for the Internet," said Scott, who runs a nine-member office.
Working mostly behind the scenes, Scott has been a driving force for "net neutrality," a concept that in policy terms has come to mean enforcement of open access online, so cable and telecom operators cannot block or delay content that travels over their networks. In a complaint filed at the FCC last November, Scott and his staff called for action against Comcast, which admitted it slowed content over its network involving the BitTorrent file-sharing site.
Scott and the group's 500,000 members, most of whom joined online, helped sell their argument. Free Press drew together strange bedfellows, including the Christian Coalition, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Gun Owners of America, and helped set in motion a broader debate on the issue that resulted in the recent FCC hearing in Cambridge, Mass. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) also sponsored a bill to strengthen governance against Internet service providers trying to control consumers' Web access over their networks.
"Ben has exquisite political judgment and is a key player in net neutrality and wireless issues because he represents a new, grass-roots dynamic in the battle against media concentration and the communications colossus," said Markey, chairman of the House subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet.
Under pressure, Comcast yesterday said it would work with BitTorrent to improve the transfer of large files over the network.
Free Press's critics -- who spoke on condition of anonymity because discussions on net neutrality policy are ongoing -- say the group often oversimplifies complex technical issues, dismissing the importance of some network management practices that block spam and pornography, for example. Free Press is also not the populist group it makes itself out to be, critics noted, partnering with corporate interests when it suits its goals, as it did with Google on net neutrality. Also, they said the group is not as boot-strapped as it may appear, with donors such as billionaire George Soros and singer Barbra Streisand.
Free Press has more than $5 million in funding, in part from major foundations such as the Soros Open Society Institute. Its annual lobbying budget is $250,000, compared with the $13.8 million spent by Verizon Communications, $17.1 million by AT&T and $8.9 million by Comcast last year.
The group, founded in 2003, was the brainchild of Scott's doctoral adviser, University of Illinois media history professor Robert McChesney. Its first mandate was to fight policy changes allowing greater media consolidation between local newspapers and broadcast concerns.
Scott, who was in Washington at the time, joined soon after.
"It was the moment when core policies were being set up on the future of digital media and communications," McChesney said. "For Ben, who had studied this stuff, it was like asking a political scientist to be chief of staff to the president."
The issue also resonated with Free Press's fast-growing membership. Members regularly blasted the FCC and lawmakers with e-mails, video and online petitions. They flooded the agency's hearings on media ownership around the country to protest the rules. A Philadelphia district court eventually overturned the regulations, sending the FCC back to the drawing board.
"What we've done is organize the massive pent-up frustration that the media wasn't measuring up," Scott said.
Harnessing that is sometimes just a matter of capturing a moment and publicizing it online.
When Free Press employees discovered Comcast had paid people to attend the hearing at Harvard and appear supportive of the company, it blasted e-mails with photos and video of some hired stand-ins sleeping in the front rows. The video was viewed 60,000 times on YouTube.
Members of Free Press "are people in their 20s and 30s who are active in politics, who have grown up on the Net, who have come to learn and appreciate the value of the Net and want to preserve it," said Richard Whitt, the Washington telecom and media counsel for Google.
If the issues are new to Washington, so is Scott's understated style.
The son of a Methodist minister, Scott is no bombast. He doesn't interrupt people. When he speaks -- whether it's about media ownership or low-power radio -- he does so with a studied economy of words, and in a voice that makes people crane to hear him.
"Ben Scott and his people are bringing thoughtful, knowledgeable arguments and doing their homework," said Blair Levin, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus. "And they never are saying they want you do something 'because we said so.' "
Scott's kindred spirit at the FCC might be Democratic commissioner Michael J. Copps, also a student of history who recently read a biography on Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Scott and Copps recently bonded over the book, drawing comparisons between the New Deal and net neutrality. At another meeting that day, Scott and the other Democratic commissioner, Jonathan S. Adelstein, held forth on legal definitions and case law for net neutrality.
Scott understands that effectiveness lies in the ability to cater the message to the right audience.
"Ultimately power is transacted on a personal level," he said, "and ultimately people make decisions based on conversations with people that they trust."
Catherine Bohigian, chief of the FCC's Office of Strategic Planning, said Scott keeps discussions going by advocating without aggression.
"You are able to talk about issues and don't have personalities that get in the way," she said. "We've been on the other side with him on some issues; but being a nice guy, you want to work with him."
It's not that Free Press's approach doesn't occasionally backfire.
On Valentine's Day, as part of an e-mail campaign, Free Press posted an fictional online video of FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin in a hotel room with big corporate lobbyists.
"Let's just say I didn't get calls back from the chairman's office for a couple weeks," Scott said.
Eventually Scott was forgiven, and Martin consulted him about a net neutrality hearing scheduled for next month at Stanford University.
"There have been times I might have agreed or disagreed with the position he's taken, but his ability to mobilize at the grass-roots level and advocate and communicate effectively has certainly had an influence at the commission," Martin said of Scott.
At Scott's urging, Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) wrote a bill in June to expand the number of low-power radio stations on the FM dial -- an issue that had languished for a long time.
After low-power advocates Pete "Petri Dish" Tridish and Hannah Sassaman approached Scott three years ago to craft their message and go against the powerful National Association of Broadcasters, Doyle took up their cause.
"What people don't know is that getting a bill like this together requires a lot of hard work. It's laborious, and a lot of people don't want to do it," Doyle said. "But Ben and his people are coming prepared and with all the facts and figures and willing to do the hard work and that makes us on the committee really take notice."
© 2008 The Washington Post
30 Comments so far
Show AllNet Neutrality is a big issue that we all should be concerned about. The money/power structure wants to get an iron fisted grip on anything that can make them more money and give them more power. The internet started as a way for national labs to share information. The web began as an easier way for people to use the internet. Now that it is popular and wide spread, the titans want to control it all and lock in their fortunes forever at everyone else's expense.
AdeleTheCzech -- Yes, Namaste is as you say (thank you for noticing), which I have hyperlinked through my blue underlined screen name (above left, on each post), to a more detailed description of the use of Namaste, from within CD Nov 07.
Similarly, for those interested in better use of HTML tags (bold, italic, & blockquote), please follow this reference, where I have already discussed HTML text formating here.
In addition, those interesting in better understanding the editor, and how to link to previous CD pages, can go here
Namaste
… … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … & … ML King … … Inspiration … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed »
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — MLK
Namaste: I notice that you manage to get both bold and italic type (very few folks on this site do). Would you be kind enough to post what program you originally type the text in (I assume it's not in the "Join the Discussion" box at the bottom, but rather WordPad or something else) that allows you to do this? It's SO much nicer than having to use caps for emphasis.
Thanks!
Adele
P.S. Someone told me that "namaste" means (roughly) "The divine in me salutes the divine in you." Is that about right? It's beautiful.
savantsquirrel -- I heartedly agree with your comments, but you need to go further than your reference that stated: "If the cable and telco companies can create an artificial scarcity of bandwidth then they can argue they must prioritize data and charge content providers more in order to make sure the Internet operates smoothly"
Your own evidence shows that they've already shortchanged USA infrastructure upgrades and fallen behind Japan service/price ration.
Thus it isn't a question that teleco/cable Cos "can" create scarcity, it' a question of them immediately stopping the lying and providing better services for lower costs.
Otherwise, and more likely regardless, we all should do as RTDRURY suggest to switch to "publicly owned/operated telecomm satellites"
¿ Does anyone know (or have experience) with the better ones ?
Namaste
To blueticket70,
Sorry you don't like a return of insulting "tone". But that should be expected when, without invitation or cause, you attack someone else's post, including his (my) name, and implying him (me) to be more stupid than yourself.
I stand by "you fail to grasp" and now base it even more firmly on your invocation of Saint Ralph and the notion that only unelectable politicians are suitable and can be hoped for to serve society. (Grasp pertains to reality.)
Who own most of the conglomerates that want to regulate the WWW?? I would bet that there are a fair few (if not considerably more) Zionist interests..
The last thing that they want is a "free-from-their-manipulation" media channel..
That is the very BEST reason why Net Neutrality is VITAL..
I can't understand this BullShit about people aren't paying...
Of course we are.. When I pay $50 a month for my cable access, I'm PAYING FOR the fucking infrastructure..
How the content gets paid for is the problem of the Content Provider alone.. Nobody forces them to front up to the www with their stuff.. If it is worthy, it will sell. If not, good riddance..
To AdeleTheCzeck,
Thanks for a good worthwhile tip about www.parentstv.org
savantsquirrel: The fact that the U.S. telco and cable firms have not properly invested in their infrastructure is evident by the fact the U.S. is rapidly falling behind many other countries in several Internet benchmarks such as speed, cost and penetration
It's no surprise that the US is falling behind in internet services because the corruption that caused it to fall behind in healthcare and other sectors is systemic.
When one embraces a public interest agenda one can easily see why the US falls behind, but when one embraces a corporate profit agenda, it's puzzling.
The enthusiasm a progressive feels for efficiency/value resembles the enthusiasm a capitalist feels for profit/wealth.
When the telcos embrace efficiency/value, they might be worth depending on. Until then, we should look into publicly owned/operated telecomm satellites.
Unless there is net neutrality, some day you will try to log on to commondreams.com, and get a wrror message...but Rush Limbaugh's home page will load like lightening
Sorry for the long post, but the following is a section from my master's dissertation that I think is very pertinent to this thread, especially in response to those that make the bandwidth argument such as bjohn up above. If anyone would like me to send them the full version of this paper please let me know.
One of the primary arguments put forth by the telco and cable firms in order to try to justify their pecuniary interests is that they need the extra revenue in order to build, improve and expand the infrastructure. This seems like a reasonable argument, however, under close scrutiny their argument has no basis in reality. The telco and cable companies had already been making very handsome profits from consumers with network neutrality in place, they would just like to make more money by charging content providers "for the best service" (Reich 2006). Telco and cable firms receive billions in revenue not only from users who pay them for access to the Internet but also from content providers and their own content as well (Scott, Cooper, and Kenney 2006: 12). There are also other sources of revenue and favors of which many people may not be aware. For instance, when Americans pay their phone bill there is a Universal Service Fund charge, which goes towards maintaining the infrastructure. The total revenue from this charge has been $15 billion USD in the past five years (Ibid: 14). In addition to this the land on which the phone companies run their lines is public land and they are charged a pittance for its use (Ibid: 14). They are charged very low fees for the use of this land because they provide a "public service". If net neutrality is abolished then it would be not so much a public service but a profit service. The cable companies are not as fortunate, although they are required to pay a higher percentage (low nevertheless) for the land they run their cables over; this has amounted to $20 billion USD in the last ten years (Ibid). If the telcos were charged full price for the use of this public land it would amount to substantially more money.
More tellingly Bruce Kushnick has written a book, "$200 Billion BroadBand Scandal", which describes the promises made by the telcos that they would improve and expand their infrastructure by laying high speed, high bandwidth fiber optic cable across the country to every home. This fiber optic cable was supposed to be open to all competition. Among other things, he argues the telco firms received $200 billion ($2000 per household) by being permitted to charge higher rates and receiving government tax breaks, subsidies and incentives. Kushnick states they have gone back on their promise by not delivering on their commitment to lay down this fiber optic cable and instead investing in inferior services such as copper wire (Kushnick 2006). The telcos have been depreciating their networks instead of building them and have been using their money (hundreds of billions) in order to purchase other telephone companies (Scott, Cooper and Kenney 2006: 12-13). This money could have been used to build up the network. There is much credence to the statement, "The idea that there is no revenue in the industry to upgrade the networks is a tall tale" (Ibid: 13).
The fact that the U.S. telco and cable firms have not properly invested in their infrastructure is evident by the fact the U.S. is rapidly falling behind many other countries in several Internet benchmarks such as speed, cost and penetration (McChesney and Podesta 2006). Thomas Bleha, writer for Foreign Affairs, argues that broadband in the U.S. is "the slowest, most expensive and least reliable in the developed world" (cited in Ibid). Part of the problem is the telco and cable companies in the U.S. hold a monopoly or duopoly on service, providing 98% of the methods in which people are able to go online (Ibid). In most instances customers have only the choice between the two, or in many instances only have the option of one, while in some parts of the country neither is available (Scott, Cooper and Kenney 2006: 16). When the customer has no other option other than this monopoly/duopoly then there is no real incentive on the part of the provider to improve service. In many other countries high Internet speed, penetration and low cost can be accounted for by government regulation, open access and true competition (Ibid)(Turner 2005). For instance, most people in Japan enjoy connection speeds that are ten times faster at a fraction of the cost of what is available in the U.S. (McChesney and Podesta 2006)(Cerf 2006).
Another argument put forth by the telco and cable companies is there is so much more traffic online and new applications are taking up considerably more bandwidth, so they must prioritize data or charge some content providers more than others in order to maintain a higher quality of service. Again, this is a specious argument. If the telco and cable companies would actually invest in the infrastructure and follow through with their promises, there would never be a reason to prioritize any data that flows across the internet, because with enough total bandwidth everything would get through without any problem. In many other countries there is no concern with undercapacity because there is so much bandwidth that all applications and online activity can be accommodated. A major concern of network neutrality proponents is that without NN the cable and telco companies actually have an incentive in not making enough bandwidth available (Scott, Cooper and Kenney 2006: 18). If the cable and telco companies can create an artificial scarcity of bandwidth then they can argue they must prioritize data and charge content providers more in order to make sure the Internet operates smoothly (Ibid). The telcos have argued if they do not pass on the costs of building infrastructure to content providers then this cost would be passed on to the consumer ; if the content providers are charged more for their online presence then surely the content providers will pass their extra costs onto their customers (Ibid: 17). As previously argued the telco and cable companies have no legitimate reason to charge anyone any more than they already do. To highlight this point further it has been argued by chief Internet architects that it is much less expensive simply to create more bandwidth than to implement all the changes in software and hardware as well as the necessary monitoring in order to discriminate against certain data (Bachula 2006).
Hey JavaRunner,
Great post, great link, thanks. In that same spirit, I recommend a book (if you're unfamiliar) called "In the Absence of the Sacred" by Jerry Mander, who also wrote "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television." He's a true prophet.
I pay for 1.5 Mb down, 378 kb up 24/7. Usually get half or less. Centurytel dsl.
I pay for 120 volts and I get it almost every second from the power company. Other than a meter charge I pay only for the power I use. Wisconsin regulates power companies to some extent so far.
phone and internet are deregulated to provide competition - but there is none only 1 phone or dsl possible here - satellite you have to buy your own equipment and also doesn't guarantee speed.
Web 2.0, the multi-lane Information Tollway, has been in the works for a long time. Silicon Valley tekkies have been working on it since at least 2002. It was already available at most ISPs since at least 2006. It's just a matter of time until it is fully implemented. And whether you vote Dem, Rep, or Ron Paul it will be implemented...unless the people find some leverage to stop it. In that regard it's kind of like the assault on Iran: it's been in the works for a long time and who you vote for will not change that.
Web 2.0 is a technology that makes it easy for governments around the globe to parcel out high speed, regular speed and slow speed to Internet bandwidth consumers, kind of like how Big Gov already sold off cable bandwidth to Big Telcom under both Democrat and Republican administrations alike. Ralph Nader has covered this whole scam extensively. "Our" government has been selling off public domain -- or "privatizing" -- like forever. (And please, Obama would be no exception.) So Web 2.0 is just business-as-usual inside the Beltway. The "new" Information Tollway is just the electronic version of the NAFTA Superhighway that will enable foreign governments and foreign corporations to buy up or lease or build U.S. paved roads paid for with our tax dollars and then toll us to drive down our own roads. Can you say "just another big scam?" And, yes, we citizens already paid for the development of the Internet also under DARPA administration with our tax dollars. So, yes, "our" government has no right to sell Internet bandwidth to anybody. It truly is ours. But we are so dumbed down by Big Telcom brain rot that we don't even know what's rightly ours anymore.
The corporatacracy (Big Gov/Big Biz) is only waiting for the optimal moment to announce that the Information Highway is no longer the Information Freeway. And that that whole concept went the way of the Bill of Rights. You see in our post-9/11 world things like human rights and free speech simply can't co-exist with security. You either get one or the other and most Americans are too timid to sacrifice even a little bit of their sacred security for things like equal Internet access. Hence the Information Highway will become the Information Tollway. If you get a "liberal" in November the excuse for privatizing the Internet will be something like "globalization" or "free trade" or something like that. If you get a McCain the excuse will be El CIA-duh is pulling a 9/11-type Red Light doomsday event on us using the Net and we just have to -- you guessed it -- "secure" it. Either way we will loose, unless we find some leverage on these guys.
For another take on Web 2.0 check out "The Spider in the World Wide Web" at http://www.sillyconvalley.net/blog/?cat=10
Daniel David:
Your tone is insulting ("failed to grasp...")
You're not going to win any hearts and minds that way.
Here's what I've grasped: that anybody who rises to that level is compromised in some way. Somebody has something on them (think Mena, Arkansas). That's their ticket to the Grand Ball.
People who live normal lives, who have principles they actually practice, aren't invited to dance. (Kucinich, Gravel, etc.). Principled people who live like monks (hello, Saint Ralph) are SERIOUSLY not invited.
Expecting that any of the corporate-approved candidates would, upon election, deviate from the customary plunder, is flying in the face of way too much historical evidence.
That's why pledging our votes to any one of them now, based on the hope that they might be amenable to our pleas later, is, well, failing to grasp the obvious.
oops sorry for double post
We have a problem here in Canada that i'm sure one can find elsewhere.
in my province Saskatchewan the telco a monopoly called Sasktel, offers internet via dial-up to it's rural customers.
here is the set up.
$39 a month for 120 hours ( plus basic phone charges of 20$ a month) if you go over the 120 hrs. it is billed @ $1.85 a minute or part of a min. meaning if you go 1 min. and 1 sec over it is called 2 min.
So you need more time?.. ok here is what they offer..
IF you buy their long distance package,( an extra $40 or so ) you can get 180 hours of time per month.. same overage penalties.
so now you pay close to $80 bucks a month for this.
when asked why this is so.. they claim ''it is to pay for the infrastructure to supply these services..'' dang i thought all the telephone wires have been in place for years and years.. guess i was wrong.
So i asked them why I can get UNLIMITED
internet access from a private company for 6$ a month using my telephone and basic phone service.. NO ANSWER
lol Guess i better shut up or my basic phone rate of 20$ a month will suddenly cost me 100$.. to pay for infrastructure
We have a problem here in Canada that i'm sure one can find elsewhere.
in my province Saskatchewan the telco a monopoly called Sasktel, offers internet via dial-up to it's rural customers.
here is the set up.
$39 a month for 120 hours ( plus basic phone charges of 20$ a month) if you go over the 120 hrs. it is billed @ $1.85 a minute or part of a min. meaning if you go 1 min. and 1 sec over it is called 2 min.
So you need more time?.. ok here is what they offer..
IF you buy there long distance package,( an extra $40 or so ) you can get 180 hours of time per month.. same overage penalties.
so now you pay close to $80 bucks a month for this.
when asked why this is so.. they claim ''it is to pay for the infrastructure to supply these services..'' dang i thought all the telephone wires have been in place for years and years.. guess i was wrong.
So i asked them why I can get UNLIMITED
internet access from a private company for 6$ a month using my telephone and basic phone service.. NO ANSWER
lol Guess i better shut up or my basic phone rate of 20$ a month will suddenly cost me 100$.. to pay for infrastructure
thanks bill clinton for screwing our country in so many ways, if only he had just stuck with monica instead.
Well since the corporate controlled rightwing propaganda machine never reports any real news most people that are politically aware get their information from the internet. The internet simply reports some truthful information regarding worldwide issues. However, there is no internet site that I am aware of that actually has a leftwing agenda.
So since the corporate media is controlled by the far right and the airwaves are controlled by the crazy-drug-using-rightwing-nutjobs there is no voice for the left. The concept of a "free press" in the United States of America is the biggest and worst most destructive jokes in the world. And since the criminally corrupt bush administration has officially moved us to a fascist state it will only get more difficult to find a crumb of truth anywhere in America and American puppet nations.
Seeing as how the Internet is the last true mass communication medium that is not monopolized by corporate ogres, it is utterly vital that what made it great: its' anarchic character and truly democratic nature that bypasses corporate gatekeepers, remain. I much prefer the thrill of discovery after wading through a morass of dross as opposed to being spoon fed by corporate proxies who have an agenda to fulfill and quotas to meet.
WAS NET NEUTRALITY JUST SUPPORTED BY HITLER ALONG WITH VEGETARIANISM, OR DID IT ALSO CAUSE THE RECESSION AND MELTING POLAR ICE?
Free Press's critics — who spoke on condition of anonymity because discussions on net neutrality policy are ongoing — say the group often oversimplifies complex technical issues, dismissing the importance of some network management practices that block spam and pornography, for example. Free Press is also not the populist group it makes itself out to be, critics noted, partnering with corporate interests when it suits its goals, as it did with Google on net neutrality. Also, they said the group is not as boot-strapped as it may appear, with donors such as billionaire George Soros and singer Barbra Streisand.
The Godwin's law crowd is desparate. Funded by sources that make Soros and Streisand look like donations to the Salvation Army, one would think Copyright Pirates are kidnapping children and trafficking them into in bondage and slavery to produce spam.
Next, on MSM, is there a net neutral terrorist living in your neighborhood? We bring you Jonah Goldberg to explain how anyone who supports net neutrality is a Liberal Fascist.
That's why hulu, a large content provider, recently joined with the landline duopoly that controls 93% of broadband to oppose net neutrality.
As late as mid-2007, ex-CEO Ed Whitacre of AT&T was threatening content providers with what has become known as "Whitacre tiering", an extortion tax over and above the cost of bandwidth already paid by content providers.
Large content providers banded together to oppose Whitacre and other forms of discrimination by supporting net neutrality.
So why did hulu break ranks and oppose net neutrality, invoking ridiculous Godwin's law-like threats?
It has nothing to do with the details of protecting copyrights or controlling porn and spam, and everything to do with undermining competition among content providers.
Currently, hulu content is "free" through an advertiser model that operates on a level playing field thanks to net neutrality, however fragile.
Even though hulu ownership is concentrated and would likely face antitrust problems in other venues, on broadband, its market power is diluted, so it is forced for now to compete with other content on the level playing field of net neutrality.
But hulu has plans to undermine competition by undermining net neutrality.
By joining with AT&T, for example, in the absurd claim that network neutrality would interfere with copyright protection via the blanket filtering of broadband data, hulu is attempting to gain leverage and market power over other content providers through alliances with network providers.
Why isn't hulu threatened by Whitacre fees like the other content providers if net neutrality is abolished? Did hulu cut a back room deal with network providers to avoid them, or will it just collect and share them with network providers through the market power attained after eliminating net neutrality?
Why isn't hulu concerned about what happened to the interruption of BitTorrent traffic by Comcast on claims of "managing network congestion". (Comcast justed backed off this problem through negotiations, but due to the threat of enforced net neutrality, not due to non-existent "competitive pressure")
Once net neutrality is securely eliminated, content providers will be forced to merge with hulu-like content or be squeezed out as the complex of concentrated content and duopoly facilities begin to impose a cable tv-like stair-step pricing structure onto broadband with forced bundling and packaging of grossly overpriced content.
This would occur in the form of discriminatory bandwidth and volumetric tiering coupled with fast-lane and "everything" packages not consistent with competitive outcomes.
The shills spreading the absurd scare tactics about net neutrality don't explain, for example, how net neutrality to date never suppressed the emergence or incentive to provide hulu-like content, or never impeded the hardware and software innovation associated with network development - if anything, enhancing it greatly instead.
In fact, it was the deregulated market power of the facility-based networks that suppressed broadband deployment for the last 15 years that has put the U.S. way behind on this score. Thanks to them, broadband in the U.S. sells for twice the price with half the bandwidth compared to global counterparts.
But the private market powers attempting to take over broadband aren't satisfied. With a regulatory and legislative community generally hostile to the vibrant competition among content providers and consumers, net neutrality has become the last hurdle to overcome and undermine the corresponding last frontier of competitive electronic commerce and free speech.
The answer to bad speech is more speech, not less speech. The answer to bad content is more content, not less content. Net neutrality is the answer from the ground up, not the top down.
Net neutrality enables and promotes competition, it does not prevent or impede competition in any way.
Landline duopoly networks are a monopoly in many places and will not emerge as effective competitors to each other for years. (The incidence of wireless broadband as a stand-lone "third pipe" of competition to the duopoly is the exception, not the rule.)
The shills against net neutrality are attempting to undermine competition and refuse to acknowledge the most basic differences between competitive content and the landline duopoly network over which it is provided.
These shills are heavily funded by expected monopoly profits resulting from the elimination of net neutrality and are engrained seamlessly throughout a public relations noise machine designed to undermine net neutrality.
Like Mike McCurry, spreading a myth about how net neutrality encourages "internet bandwidth hogs", like a bus with 20 passengers is a "highway hog", compared say, to 4 cars with 5 passengers each that take up similar road space but don't qualify as "hogs".
The con artist McCurry can't even keep the high school math straight to sell the con. He needs to explain, for example why 10,000 emails can't take up the same bandwidth capacity as one digital movie, and as long as it's paid for, how one is a "hog" and the other is not.
Every single scare tactic brought up by the shills is easily dismissed trivia or resolved with neutrality, not without it, as it has been for years to date, under an ongoing regime of net neutrality.
Net neutrality needs to be implemented now, more than ever, with effective, enforceable legislation.
We should push to maintain net neutrality for another reason as well: remote access. Many use the net to access their computers at home from a remote location for security reasons, and even to keep an eye on the nanny taking care of their children.
One poster complains about bandwidth hogs. Their are other ways to address this issue, though, rather than prioritizing website access. How long would you be willing to wait in order to access Common Dreams, for example? And could this not be used a means of censorship by powerful interests?
Long Live Free Press, Long Live Adbusters! and those like them that carry out these important messages to the sheeple of america.
Peace Coup and Daniel David: If you want to advance the goal of unbundling cable TV packages and letting each of us choose which channels we'll pay for (called "cable choice" or "a la carte programming"), there's an organization of over 1 million members you can join. One of their main goals is to fight for cable choice. The other two are to reduce the horrific violence and the increasingly sick sexual acts shown as "entertainment" in prime time, when children are likely to be watching. I joined several years ago, mainly because of my concerns about our culture's glorifying of violence as entertainment, but cable choice is also a major issue with me now.
You've probably never heard of this group, or if you have, the fact that Brent Bozell is involved might have been toxic. It's called the Parents Television Council (www.parentstv.org), was founded by comedian --and intellectual-- Steve Allen, and after Allen died was run by Bozell until he retired recently. They are very savvy about the levers of power in Washington, and if any group can get the FCC to approve cable choice (Kevin Martin has spoken favorably of it already), it's the PTC. You might want to check them out (and ignore their hyperventilating on sexual content if you think that's a minor problem on television).
blueticket70,
You fail to grasp that Obama is not a "random Democrat" and he is not Bill Clinton. As for the Congress, if Obama is privileged to lead, having followers there would be helpful.
The first ''lie'' the big media companies spew is ''the bandwidth is all used up''
fact; there is enormous amounts of bandwidth sitting idle so that providers can falsely jack up prices for an artificially scares resource ..sound familiar?
second all of the ISPs to some extent ''oversell'' what they offer...
look at the bandwidth they claim to offer.. i guarantee you will NEVER ever get the bandwidth you paid for..
thats like me selling you a car claiming 50 miles to the gallon , but you never get more than 30 miles to the gallon.. any other business (except airlines) does this they are prosecuted.. why not these 2 select entities?
if you want to here real news and real events , not the pablum spewed out by MSM via control of the net...
email, write . scream on the corner if you have to this is too important to let slide.
The importance of this issue cannot be overstated.
I'd like to see the power of eminent domain (mostly used these days to steal property from the poor and give it to the rich) used to reclaim the networks for those who've been overpaying for them all these years. That would be a true "public purpose" in the spirit of the Fifth Amendment.
As for Daniel David's assertion that simply voting for any random Democrat will bring victory, readers should recall that Democrat Bill Clinton gave away the store when he signed the telco laws.
What will really bring victory? This quote from Republican FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is worth rereading:
"..his ability to mobilize at the grass-roots level and advocate and communicate effectively has certainly had an influence at the commission," Martin said of Scott."
I get the political argument; but what will we do about bandwidth hogs like bittorrent, which already are stressing the 'net and which threaten to hijack this public resource for their own purposes? Will net neutrality create an opening for sabotage of the system, if a group decides to attack it by downloading trillions of terabytes all at once?
There are corporations in the wings that would like to buy for their own interests a class of internet service that exceeds and precludes others. And there are corporations that would like to capture (from you) and sell that very preferred capabilty. There are also corporations that would like to enhance some (their own) "messages" and slow down other (citizen) messages. This net neutral stuff is an extreme battleground in the global struggle of whether corporations shall control people, or people (via their governments) shall control corporations. It is vitally important that PEOPLE win this one. And, yes, in the USA anyway, your chances will be best on this for the next 8 years if Obama is in The White House and a stable of Democrats are in the Congress.
And peace coups above is quite right about cable and our need to end the TV "bundle" monopoly.
The History Channel is not the only version of history we should have.
The cable music channels are monopoly controlled entities that lose big in any open competition with the world of music available on the internet.
We should have more than four sources of news and the news should be more than just personal politics and celebrity obsession.
Our monopoly controlled cable lineups need to be kicked to the curb forever.
We need the internet to converge with our living room televisions as soon as possible. We should be able to access whatever content we want at the time of our choosing.
We need the internet to take over the television set rather than allow the cable monopolies to control the internet.