Ryan Paul at Ars wrote up Lauren Weinstein’s network measurement proposal Sunday, as I did briefly last Friday.
In his summary of the “sides” in this debate, Paul casts supporters of net neutrality regulation as concerned with “widespread quality of service (QoS) discrimination that would stifle freedom of expression on the Internet and allow the broadband duopoly to set up exploitative digital toll booths to cash in on content delivery,” linking to another Arsticle – really an advocacy piece – extolling net neutrality regulation.
On the other side? – Paul writes, “Supporters of a tiered Internet argue that” –
Wait. ‘Supporters of a tiered Internet’?
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Verizon originally rejected Naral text messages, as Tim notes below, but it quickly changed its tune when the news became public. That’s because there is competition in the marketplace and public pressure made Verizon act faster that it probably has on any other issue in the last year. This is one more example of why Net neutrality advocates should relax and focus their efforts on problems that actually exist, such as the waste and corruption in the Universal Service system.
Also, I have been meaning for a while to post PRI’s new paper on Net neutrality, so here it is.
A reader writes in to point out Ken Fisher’s excellent take on the Verizon/NARAL controversy:
When first reported by the New York Times last night, the issue was tied to “net neutrality,” but this is really a red herring. Laws prevent Verizon from censoring voice calls or even individual emails, but there are no prohibitions on censoring SMS messages sent over that network. Verizon Wireless does not censor Internet content or services, even though it currently reserves the right to do so for short code messaging services. However, public outcry changed Verizon Wireless’ tune in less than 24 hours.
Verizon Wireless is quick to point out that their prohibition had been based on the topic of abortion itself, not on any particular side within that debate. That is, the company does not want to look as though it was taking sides in the abortion debate itself.
Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said, “Regardless of people’s political views, Verizon customers should decide what action to take on their phones. Why does Verizon get to make that choice for them?”
Given that Verizon Wireless was the only carrier to refuse NARAL, it’s not surprising that they have changed course so quickly. It’s proof positive that bad policies can and will be addressed if the public’s sense of fairness can be marshalled.
It’s worth bearing in mind that given the finite number of short codes available, Verizon has to exercise some level of discretion in deciding who gets to have one. And at a very minimum, I want them restricting access enough to ensure that I don’t get spam sent to my phone. In this case, the market worked: Verizon’s decision sparked a consumer outcry, which in turn caused Verizon to re-consider its decision within barely 24 hours of its coming to public attention. This is hardly a good example of the need for greater regulation.
Laruen Weinstein has posted a proposal for the deployment of a distributed global Internet traffic measurement system. Aimed at moving past the current impasse over whether their should be government regulation aimed at network neutrality, the system would measure “operational bandwidth, throughput, and other parameters of public Internet traffic” so that norms could be established and deviations from those norms could be discovered, measured, investigated, and debated.
I find it a sensible idea, and am willing to forgive his proposal’s bias toward legislation. The establishment of norms and a system for swift public exposure of deviations will be enough to harness ISPs to the interests of the Internet-using public, without the sclerotic influence of regulation.
In his latest FT.com article, Tom Hazlett, professor of law and economics at George Mason University, points out that despite all the talk about the need for mandatory “openness” or wireless Net neutrality, Apple’s “walled garden” i-Phone model has spawned some serious innovation. He argues:
“One million customers bought iPhones in the first 79 days; analysts project 4.5m units sold in the first year. Hosting this Apple party is a curious way for carriers to lock out innovation. It is even more remarkable that critics could configure Apple’s entrepreneurship as an attack on creativity. They claim that only a device that is optimised for any application and capable of accessing any network is efficient.
They are wrong. What works best for consumers is a competitive process in which independent developers, content owners, hardware vendors and networks vie to discover preferred packages and pricing. When decision-makers compete for customers and answer to shareholders, a sophisticated balance obtains. The alternative proposition, business models voted on by regulators, is a recipe for stasis.”
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In today’s Wall Street Journal, Ben Charny has an article discussing why “Free Wi-Fi [is] Still an Elusive Goal.” He notes:
The same forces slowing development of single-city wireless Internet networks are now overwhelming their supersize versions that cover thousands of square miles and scores of municipalities. A telling example of the malaise can be found in Silicon Valley, where plans to provide free, high-speed wireless Internet access to 42 cities in an area of more than 1,500 square miles have come to a standstill, says Russell Hancock, the man in charge of the effort.
It was once thought that municipal wireless networks of all sizes could be supported through the sale of advertisements that appear during the free Internet sessions and the small fee paid by those who want a faster, ad-free Internet service. However, many cities with wireless networks say that there’s been little demand for their premium services and that technology issues have limited the networks’ reach. Moreover, while businesses were willing to invest in advertising on these single-city networks, they complain about very little return on their investment.
So, once again, we see that
demand counts when it comes to broadband diffusion. That’s been a point that many of us made in the past when critiquing grand plans for muni wi-fi nirvana that all seemed to be premised on the “if-you-build-it-they-will-come” theory of economics. We’re now realizing the cost of that hubris. It’s one thing for private companies to be forced to eat the expense of over-estimating demand, it’s quite another when taxpayers might be on the line for the mistake.
Lauren Weinstein wrote a post on his blog this weekend entitled Detecting and Proving Network Neutrality Violations. The basic thesis: “Without an appropriately broad infrastructure to collect and process metrics associated with network neutrality, it is difficult to understand how anyone can reasonably assert that we would know if and when violations were taking place . . . .”
Undoubtedly. And such an infrastructure should be built in tandem with give-and-take about what consumers most want and need in terms of broadband Internet access services. That is, we need to know what “violates” net neutrality – or, if some non-neutral broadband network serves consumers better – what violates the rules for that network.
Weinstein challenges: “Not even the anti-neutrality folks should be able to logically argue against what might be termed a ‘trust, but verify’ approach.” (I’ll take “anti-neutrality folks” as a careless formulation meaning “opponents of net neutrality
regulation” – and accept the challenge.)
I think Weinstein is correct in this. The community of Internet users should run a network of monitors to determine when ISPs are deviating from their Terms of Service and customer expectations, including expectations with regard to neutrality (or non-neutrality), along with all the other dimensions of Internet access service that matter.
Given that the Internet is a communications medium, that community is well-equipped to name, shame, and punish violators of consumer interests and demands. Government regulations that freeze network design in law would focus all the discussion on legal and regulatory mandates, not the best network design, or the true interests of Internet users.
This week the Federal Communications Commission failed to muster 3 votes to deregulate the broadband access services of Qwest Communications, as it has already done for Verizon in early 2006. The nature of the relief we’re talking about is analogous to the commission’s reclassification of DSL as an “information” service rather than a “telecommunications” service in 2005. In both cases, the effect is to free broadband providers from onerous common carrier regulation, allow them to tailor their offerings to customer needs and not be forced to offer their services to competitors at regulated, cost-based rates for resale.
To be fair, the relief Verizon got didn’t garner 3 of 5 votes. Verizon’s petition was filed pursuant to Sec. 10 of the Communications Act, which provides that a forbearance petition (a petition which asks the FCC to forbear from applying a regulation) will be granted automatically unless the commission denies it for good reason within one year plus a 90-day extension. That didn’t happen, so Verizon’s petition was granted automatically. This procedure may not sound like an ideal way to conduct public business, but Congress enacted Sec. 10 because of a long history of FCC foot-dragging. The commission is a political animal, and many former staffers are employed by the companies the FCC regulates.
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Last week I posted another installment in my ongoing series about the possibility of metering bandwidth in the future (“Why Not Meter Broadband Pipes?”) Make sure to read the comments to that post because the essay provoked an interesting discussion and some outstanding suggestions from our savvy TLF readers.
On a related note, Mark Desautels, Vice President of Wireless Internet Development at the CTIA (the wireless industry’s trade association) has an editorial in RCR Wireless News today entitled, “Paying for the Bandwidth We Consume.” Mark poses a question that I have raised in some of my posts on this issue:
Much is made of the fact that consumers prefer flat-rate pricing because they know what it is going to cost each month, and that is understandable. But it also creates (potentially) huge subsidies between users. My question is: If consumers were aware of the amount of the subsidies they might be paying, would they be as opposed to paying for the bandwidth they actually use as is generally believed?
That really is an interesting question and the guys over as
DSL Reports point out that there are tools that users can download to help us answer that question. They are also running a poll right now asking people how much bandwidth they use per month.
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Do Google execs get special treatment on YouTube? Maybe. Last month, Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, spoke at the Progress and Freedom Foundation’s annual conference in Aspen. Among the topics covered were the value of an open Internet and the need for net neutrality rules. Soon thereafter, the Google public policy team posted their bosses’ speech on the (Google-owned) YouTube site. No problem with that, except that the clip runs some 55 minutes. Since early 2006, YouTube – to the consternation of many users — has limited videos to 10 minutes.
It’s not clear how the clip – one among several over-limit pieces by Schmidt on YouTube -made it past YouTube’s time limit cops. The policy itself seems clear. A notice on the YouTube “Help Center” site states clearly:
“You can no longer upload videos longer than ten minutes regardless of what type of account you have. Users who had previously been allowed to upload longer content still retain this ability, so you may occasionally see videos that are longer than ten minutes.”
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