Re: Techdirt: Net Neutrality Debate Again Descends Into Shouting, Farce

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Jason Weisberger <jweisberger () mac com>
Date: June 25, 2007 1:09:15 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: Re: [IP] Re: Techdirt: Net Neutrality Debate Again Descends  
Into Shouting, Farce

I'm pretty confused. Why shouldn't the greatest hoax since the  
Cardiff Man degenerate into a screaming match?

Application companies don't want to pay a market-price for next gen  
IP services.
Infrastructure companies claim they can't afford to develop the next  
gen IP services for sale below cost.

This is no altruistic battle for the freedom of the internet.

This all stems from problems that step all the way back to the  
inception of the "Internet" -- as a freely brokered service between  
educational (some-what government subsidized entities) and the  
Military/Industrial complex (largely government subsidized) the  
current structure around the trading of global IP traffic worked  
great. Since we've moved off this freely traded structure among  
equals and the IP network in question is no longer academic/research  
focused but is rather a commercial entity run by businesses with  
commercial goals, for businesses with commercial goals; the old "play- 
nice this isn't a marketplace" structure has fallen down. The  
internet is a commercial beast that supports the exchange of data and  
ideas as a symptom at this point. It is paid for by your online  
banking, shopping, ad viewing and very sadly, t-shirt buying. Without  
a monkey to punch or a mortgage to lower, you'd be reliant on  
educational institutions to provide access to all this as the  
telecoms could hardly be bothered until they were almost too late.   
Do you think our universities were going to become infrastructure  
providers to all the people of the world?

Be a fun science fiction novel; hardly be entertaining to try and get  
your email.

Some of the largest application companies have taken huge advantage  
of this situation. I understand they feel they are paying too much to  
deliver their content to the users who request it -- but if we shift  
that cost back to the consumer, people are going to view a lot less  
of their great content.  The advantage taken was largely during the  
telecom bust, 2001-2003, but since getting in the drivers seat these  
Application companies have continued to drive their prices down, in  
many cases far below market.  At the time I stopped looking closely  
at application company spend with telecoms (2005) we were still  
seeing a dramatic downward trend in price for the top 5-10 consumers.  
This was long after (2001) the telcos dropping their pants in a  
desperate effort to hold onto marginal revenue to cover their  
marginal costs of operation. If we drive all the telecoms out of  
business and the networks are run by the application companies -- do  
you think Google will be more or less likely to let you have access  
to competitive search? They're suing each other over this garbage now  
-- at least there is some hope of this not being a monopoly. Google  
already wants its own network, what happens when MSFT, Yahoo, Ebay  
and Amazon all need their own? Sounds like network neutrality might  
be endangered by the Application companies too? Maybe we need Search  
Neutrality.

Really, that is a topic I've wanted to hear more about for a long,  
long time -- Search Neutrality.

Now that the great bandwidth glut of 2001-2003 is over AND there are  
a number of interesting services the telcos could offer to the world,  
if they felt they could be paid for them, the Application companies  
are crying foul? It makes me laugh -- these guys are all over one  
another with anti-trust lawsuits -- it seems to be their solution to  
everything. Scream the world aint fair.

All of the arguments I've heard for or against "Network Neutrality"  
are a waste of time. This is two industries, who are dependent on one  
another, trying to figure out how to bill each other.  Perhaps all  
we're learning here is that the invisible hand can't touch data?

If we regulate this, and I'm not saying we shouldn't  -- we should  
regulate search at the same time AND not try to put artificial price  
floors in place to unfairly shift the burden of cost onto the consumer.





On Jun 23, 2007, at 3:54 PM, David Farber wrote:

> If one reads the Register article, it says exactly what the subject  
> line says. It descended into shouting and it is not at all clear it  
> was the USG person started it. djf
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: "Robert J. Berger" <rberger () ibd com>
> Date: June 23, 2007 6:41:25 PM EDT
> To: dave () farber net
> Cc: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Subject: Re: [IP] Techdirt: Net Neutrality Debate Again Descends  
> Into Shouting, Farce
>
> This so called "par-for-the-course " synopsis has a completely  
> different spin of the event from one of the articles it is  
> supposidly quoting from.
>
> The first article makes it clear that it was the government man  
> that went nuclear and the second article called it a great discussion.
>
> I presume that some of the folks on this mailing list was there, so  
> it will be interesting to hear their take on what happened.
>
> And I have to point out that the saying that opening  700 Mhz  
> creates a competitive marketplace with Cable and Telco's is  
> complete bunk. 700 Mhz is going to give a max of 100Mhz (and  
> probably less) to be shared across a whole metro area. Fiber /  
> wired links can offer Gigahertz of ether non-shared or minimally  
> shared bandwidth. There is no comparison. And if things go the way  
> the Bush admin is moving, that 700 Mhz will be owned by an  
> oligopolist anyway.
>
> Here is the first article followed by the second article:
>
> Bush official goes nuclear in Net Neut row
>
> Shouting match with delegates
>
> By Gavin Clarke in San Francisco
> Published Friday 22nd June 2007 01:00 GMT
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/22/ 
> bush_government_net_neutrality/
>
> Supernova 2007 A San Francisco tech show degenerated into a  
> shouting match today, after a pugnacious Bush commerce official  
> squared off with heated supporters of net neutrality.
>
> John Kneuer, the assistant secretary for communications and  
> information, quickly lost his temper and began shouting back at  
> Supernova 2007 attendees after taking flack for saying the free  
> market - not government intervention - would protect internet  
> innovation and access.
>
> Taking a brief time out from shouting his responses at delegates  
> who'd rejected his claims the free market has ensured consumer  
> choice in US broadband internet access, Kneuer remarked in an  
> aside: "I started out very politely."
> That came seconds after he told delegates what they really wanted  
> was for the government to mandate terms and conditions of internet  
> service in the US.
>
> "That's absolutely what you are asking for!" he shouted to counter- 
> shots of "no!" and "there is no market place!", referring to the  
> fact a handful of phone and cable companies control the lion share  
> of broadband internet access and service in the US.
>
> Increasingly, it seems, those companies will be allowed by the  
> Government to charge for different levels of internet service -  
> ending net neutrality.
>
> Kneuer, who previously served with a Washington DC law firm  
> representing telecoms companies, had fueled the crowd's anger  
> during a short Supernova presentation.
>
> Identifying delegates as "application providers", he said it was  
> their responsibility to compete with broadband incumbents by  
> offering their own service, founded initially on portions of the  
> 700Mhz spectrum. This spectrum will be sold under auction once  
> terrestrial TV providers complete their move to digital in February  
> 2009.
>
> He ruled out government action on net neutrality, with measures  
> such as safeguarding packet prioritization and quality of service.  
> "The end state of that is innovation in the regulator space  
> outstrips the innovation in the application space," Kneuer said.
>
> "The challenge is for the right application company to play in the  
> access layer... this is a green field opportunity to have a  
> radically different market participant to bring concepts of open  
> access. If there is a pro consumer benefit to open access and if  
> consumers need and want that, the carrier that brings that to  
> consumers will have a powerful need and advantage and bring  
> competitive pressures on other access layer providers.
> "I firmly believe market forces are going to provide even more open  
> networks and access much, much, much better than I can do as a  
> regulator," he said.
>
> The Bush administration, meanwhile, was challenged to donate a  
> portion of the spectrum to academic institutions for research  
> purposes. Speaking after Kneuer, a researcher for Cooperative  
> Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA) expressed  
> frustration that there's currently no reliable way to gather  
> independent data on the internet.
>
> Researchers are instead forced to rely on vendor figures or are  
> refused information on the grounds of privacy or the law, principal  
> investigator KC Claffy said.
>
> "We need numbers on spam, but where do you get numbers on spam from  
> - anti-spam vendors. These aren't the people you want to be getting  
> numbers from when setting policy," she said. "Let's look at what a  
> public network is really used for. We cannot answer that. And the  
> carriers are about to ask us to pay for traffic, 99 per cent of  
> which is spam! If the Commerce Department really wants to help us  
> they will provide the research community with a really open network  
> we can all study."
>
>
> And then the other article mentioned by the synopsis is COMPLETELY  
> different than the take of the so called "par-for-the-course "  
> synopsis:
>
> [supernova] Bush admin guy, and then some great discussions
> David Weinberger
> http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/mtarchive/ 
> supernova_bush_admin_guy_and_t.html
> John M.R. Kneuer Acting Assistant Secretary Communications and  
> Information gives a talk. He begins by talking about the value of  
> the 700mH spectrum. It's becoming available as "leapfrog"  
> technologies are becoming available, he says. "What we really have  
> is an opportunity for a game-changing opportunity against the first  
> movers and incumbents." [I think I garbled that, but so did he.]
>
> "Net neutrality sounds very open, but it rapidly comes down to the  
> government setting rate terms and rules for access." "I firmly  
> believe that market forces are going to provide an open network  
> much much better than what we would get" through regulation. He  
> refers to our current "great success."
>
> I ask the first question. I say something like: The great success  
> has us at #19 in broadband access because there is no open market.  
> I wonder what great innovation is going to come from the  
> incumbents. We have proof that it doesn't work because we've been  
> trying it for about a decade [depending on how you count]. He says  
> we're asking for the government to set rates. I ask if anyone in  
> this audience is asking for that.
>
> Doc points out that wifi has succeeded because the spectrum was  
> left open, not auctioned.
>
> David Isenberg says that wifi wasn't auctioned, and isn't owned by  
> a carrier, yet most people in this room agree that wifi is the most  
> innovative sector in the entire spectrum. Kneuer agrees. David says  
> there's no business model, no carrier, and no market.
>
> Kneuer: Wifi is local access to get to an underlying access. It  
> doesn't lend itself to building out broad networks.
>
> David I: Same for last mile for fiber, DSL...these aren't networks  
> either. So they should be treated the same way...
>
> K: They are nodes of a DSL network, etc. If I want to build out a  
> 5mH wifi cloud, you won't be able to scale it. Wifi's  
> authoriziation was for local area networks. It does not lend itself  
> to the competing interests that need to be resolved in an efficient  
> way. When you have lots of people trying to enter a commercial  
> space and the gov't is the bottleneck, the best way to handle it is  
> in a transparent way by letting people bid for it.
>
> KC Claffy from CAIDA kicks butt explaining how much bogus  
> information there is — stats supporting the interests of the  
> incumbents, based on bad research, without review or transparency.  
> Fantastic presentation, but too fast for me to blog.
>
>
>
> On Jun 23, 2007, at 12:43 PM, David Farber wrote:
>
> > http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070622/093628.shtml
> >
> >
> >
> > from the par-for-the-course dept
> > Net neutrality is a complex issue, but as tends to happen with  
> > most things these days, it gets boiled down into easily  
> > consumable, though not wholly accurate, ideological soundbites  
> > from both sides. And even when people try to have an open, even- 
> > keeled discourse about the issue, they still run into problems  
> > explaining things well. For the most part, debate on net  
> > neutrality has glossed over the fundamental, but perhaps less  
> > incendiary issues, and been characterized by intellectual  
> > dishonesty and propagandizing from activist groups on both sides.  
> > It was hardly surprising, then, to read about a panel at the  
> > Supernova conference descending into a shouting match between a  
> > Commerce Department official (ie the "anti-regulation" guy) and  
> > "pro-net neutrality" supporters in the audience. Really, it's an  
> > apt characterization of the whole debate: a bunch of yelling, very  
> > little exchange of useful information, and nobody really moves  
> > from their previously established ideology. All this means is  
> > that, in the end, it's very unlikely for the right, or even a  
> > good, solution to emerge. Instead, it will just come down to  
> > whichever side can muster the most political clout -- which is  
> > pretty much how things have gone in telecom regulation anyway
> > Archives
>
> ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
> Robert J. Berger - Internet Bandwidth Development, LLC.
> Voice: 408-882-4755 eFax: +1-408-490-2868
> http://www.ibd.com
>
>
>
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