NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Europeans Are Eating Our Lunch; Our Broadband Plan Is Toast
----- Forwarded message from David Farber <dave@farber.net> ----- Date: Sat, 9 May 2009 10:02:32 -0400 From: David Farber <dave@farber.net> Subject: [IP] Europeans Are Eating Our Lunch; Our Broadband Plan Is Toast Reply-To: dave@farber.net To: ip <ip@v2.listbox.com> Begin forwarded message: From: dewayne@warpspeed.com (Dewayne Hendricks) Date: May 8, 2009 9:10:04 PM EDT To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy@warpspeed.com> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Europeans Are Eating Our Lunch; Our Broadband Plan Is Toast [Note: Worth reading! DLH] Posted May 8, 2009 | 03:53 PM (EST) Europeans Are Eating Our Lunch; Our Broadband Plan Is Toast by Art Brodsky, Communications Director, Public Knowledge <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-brodsky/europeans-are-eating-our_b_200258.html > For a couple of hours yesterday (May 7), there appeared a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, someone in the U.S. Senate was serious about a broadband policy. Everyone seems to agree that we need one. President Obama campaigned on one. The idea that the Internet is a necessity more than a luxury is rapidly taking hold. Yesterday at a discussion here in Washington, I heard a story about a man in rural Vermont who fixes engines. He needs a broadband Internet connection to order parts, to view diagrams and to download manuals - the kind of tasks you can't do on dial-up and which don't have materials available in print. That glimmer was that the Senate Commerce Committee announced a confirmation hearing for May 12 for Julius Genachowski, the pick to be the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). But the glimmer, much like a buffer copy, was only transitory. A couple of hours later, the hearing was postponed until after Memorial Day. Why? The Republicans now have to pick not one, but possibly two nominees for the FCC, and haven't decided on a package. It would be horrible, just horrible, for the Senate at least to proceed on the Democratic nominees, Genachowski and perhaps Mignon Clyburn, daughter of House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) to fill out the Commission while the Republicans hash it out. Or not. It would be nice if all parties grew up and let the Commission get a chairman already. Not happening. The result is that the agency continues to drift while the Senate Republicans are trying to work the angles on Texas politics for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, (R-TX), and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) ponders. It's not even clear whether the Republicans need one nominee, to replace FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, or two, if current Republican Commissioner Rob McDowell is to be jettisoned when his term expired in June. Hutchison, the senior Republican on the committee who is running for governor, has reportedly selected Meredith Atwell Baker, former administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), who is also by happenstance the daughter-in-law of Texas Republican major domo James Baker. That's a view of the short term. The pessimistic view of the longer term is - who cares? The Europeans and the rest of the world are going to continue to eat our lunch on broadband anyway, so it really doesn't matter whether it's another six weeks or whenever for the FCC to get fully kitted out with commissioners. What the Europeans Are Doing Earlier this week, the European Parliament came within a few votes of passing another major broadband/telecommunications policy. Only the continuing greed of Hollywood kept the matter from passing. The Parliamentarians, to their credit, voted that a judicial order is needed before someone's Internet service can be taken away. French President Nicolas Sarkozy was backing his "three strikes" law to allow Internet Service Providers to kick a customer off of the Internet if there are three accusations of copyright infringement. (Note to the Freedom Fries crowd: Did you know that le baseball was such a French passion that they adopted "three strikes"? Who knew? Pas moi.) Instead, the Parliament voted overwhelmingly, 407-57 for an amendment which provided: "that no restriction may be imposed on the fundamental rights and freedoms of end-users, without a prior ruling by the judicial authorities." The result of the popular rebellion is that approval of the European plan will be pushed back until next year. Here on our side of the pond, the FCC is due to come up with a broadband plan by February and submit it to Congress. The Notice of Inquiry the FCC issued April 8 is 59 pages of question about what policy should be put in place to help bring back America's broadband penetration. Meanwhile, the Europeans were ready to pass a 12-point program. Here are some highlights from the European Commission summary: "Functional separation as a means to overcome competition problems: National telecoms regulators will gain the additional tool of being able to oblige telecoms operators to separate communication networks from their service branches, as a last-resort remedy. This new remedy was advocated in 2007 by the 27 national regulators in a unanimous opinion. Functional separation can rapidly improve competition in markets while maintaining incentives for investment in new networks. Functional separation has already been implemented in the UK since January 2006 where it triggered a surge in broadband connections (from 100.000 unbundled lines in December 2005 to 5.5 million 3 years later). The new EU rules on functional separation will also add legal certainty for countries currently moving towards different forms of separation, such as Sweden, Poland and Italy, while ensuring overall consistency for the benefit of the single market." [snip] RSS Feed: <http://www.warpspeed.com/wordpress> ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ----- End forwarded message -----