[ NNSquad ] Re: Sen. Franken to the Netroots: Only You Can Stop the Corporate Takeover of Free Speech

[Barry Gold <BarryDGold@ca.rr.com>]

Edward Almasy wrote:
> On Jul 26, 2010, at 3:33pm, Richard Bennett wrote:
> > Franken's remarks stand the First Amendment on its head. The First Amendment protects the citizens from violations of our speech rights by the government, while net neutrality laws are attempts to have the government limit the services and business models of a group of companies.
>
> This is only true if network connectivity is purely a matter of private commerce.  If (as I and many others believe) the Internet has become a de facto part of our public infrastructure, then we have to consider the services and business models controlling that infrastructure in a different light, on par with those operated by the government.
>
> Franken's speech is just one more facet of the push to remold the old legal model to allow it to function as intended within the new 21st century reality.

I think part of the problem is that we need to recognize that "the 
Internet" is not one monolithic thing, and the different parts need 
different models for how government interacts with them.

The "core" -- the high-speed connections between ISPs, looks a lot like 
the way the designers of the Internet intended -- lots of different 
routes, any break tends to get routed around, anybody who doesn't "play 
nice" with others finds themselves bypassed.  IMHO, there is no reason 
to regulate this segment.  There is competition among the players, and 
most of the players at this level are close enough in size that there is 
no excessive concentration of market power.

The problem occurs in the "last mile" -- the connection between 
end-users and their ISP's "central office".  Two problems, actually:

1. There is typically a monopoly, or at most duopoly at this level.  The 
customer has a choice: the cableco (DOCSIS) or the telco (DSL).  A few 
people are lucky enough to be offered FioS, but Verizon cut way back on 
expanding that service.  Frankly, if there were three (completely 
separate) channels, I would think that's enough to entitle the providers 
to be free of regulation, except for...

2. In most areas, the service ("telephone" or "cable") is via utility 
poles or tunnels that were built with assistance from the government -- 
taking easements for the poles and wires (or tunnels) by eminent domain 
or by requiring easements as a condition for building permits.  So the 
underlying "cable plant" does not represent only the capital investment 
by the telco/cableco, but also a grant from the government.  As such, I 
think the government has the right to impose reasonable regulations. 
People can rightly disagree about which regulations are "reasonable", 
however.  (I'll also note that this right/duty applies mostly to _local_ 
governments who provided the easements, but the FCC has taken away that 
right from local governments, so the right/duty to regulate falls to the 
FCC.)

That said, I'm not willing to go as far as some NN advocates.  For 
example, I do not see high-speed Internet access as a "right" (which is 
being advocated and in some European countries _legislated_).

What I do want to see is that those using these grants should be blind 
to the port number or other indication of the protocol being used.  But 
I *do* think it is reasonable for ISPs to limit the _quantity_ of 
packets and/or bytes that a given user may send in a period of time -- 
or to use the QoS bits to distinguish between at least 3 kinds of traffic
  a) traffic that needs low latency and/or low jitter.= (e.g., VoIP, 
gaming)
  b) traffic that needs a reasonable bandwidth (because the user is 
waiting for it) (e.g., most HTTP traffic)
  c) "batch" traffic, that can move slowly as long as it gets there 
eventually (P2P and _some_ types of "cloud" computing).

That would enable the ISP to experiment with different ways of 
delivering service, different business models, etc., without arbitrarily 
deciding "we like X, so we'll support it, but we don't like Y so we'll 
do our best to break it." [That's even ignoring the "whack a mole" 
problem with P2P and other developers using various tricks to disguise 
their traffic]

  [ In fairness, it should also be noted that satellite and cellular
    Internet is generally available, and in many areas local WISP
    services are available (often restricted to line-of-sight).
    However, wireless Internet services usually cannot compete
    effectively against the cable/telco ISPs, since wireless
    offerings tend to offer lower speeds, are usually more expensive,
    and often are encumbered by significant usage restrictions.
    Wireless tends to be the popular choice only when other
    alternatives are not available.

       -- Lauren Weinstein
	   NNSquad Moderator ]