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more on Coalition Asks FCC to Ensure End-to-End
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2002 14:08:48 -0500
------ Forwarded Message From: Bob Frankston <rmfxixB () bobf Frankston com> Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2002 09:54:50 -0500 To: dave () farber net, "'ip'" <ip () v2 listbox com> Perhaps I have a tendency to jump to solutions but it is important to ensure neutrality by aligning incentives. If the service providers had no other business than selling capacity then the incentive is to do it by whatever means are available and doing it very economically. For example, one can increase DSL capacity and distance before putting in new fiber. One company cannot own both the service business and the transport business -- at least until there is effective competition. If there is an advantage to owning both that in itself is a reason not to and if there isn't an advantage that is a reason not to. So separating them is the only option. The reason it is necessary to be explicit is that there is a tradition of creating additional regulations to fix previous problems which only creates new unintended consequences to be remedied. With incentives aligned it is not only possible but necessary to remove nearly all of the current regulations and thus achieve a much higher degree of transparency. The mention of Disney is a reminder that there is also the issue of ownership of the bits. In this case I side with them -- they should own the bits until the bits reach the buyer. ATT's ability to demand and get a percentage of AOL transaction revenue is something that would have been illegal in the days when we had a regulated monopoly. It is disappointing to see the FTC stand on the sidelines now that we have unregulated monopolies. This is a far simpler case than the one against Microsoft. Why does legacy telecommunications industry get to keep their exemption from anti-trust now that there is no longer any excuse for it? We shouldn't have to ask for a remedy given that the violations of anti-trust (and free speech) are so blatant. The good news is that the need for change is becoming too obvious to ignore. What we need to focus on is the mechanism and the awareness of the concept of connectivity -- the simple commodity out of which it really is trivial to create the current telecommunications services and it is possible to do far more. The companies themselves already have a separation of the facilities (wire) operations from the business/service side -- there really are two distinct businesses. All we ask is recognition of the inherent conflict of interest and that it is not only unnecessary but dysfunctional and that we cannot afford it anymore. Bob Frankston http://www.Frankston.com -----Original Message----- From: owner-ip () v2 listbox com [mailto:owner-ip () v2 listbox com] On Behalf Of Dave Farber Sent: Saturday, December 14, 2002 07:31 To: ip Lawrence Lessig: A threat to innovation on the web By Lawrence Lessig December 12 2002 Updated: December 13 2002 In a report issued last week, LeggMason, the financial adviser, highlighted an important policy issue emerging in the United States. It concerns one of only two great internet policy proposals floating about in Washington just now (the other has to do with spectrum), and is an idea that the rest of the world could benefit from as well. The proposal is to get regulators to help preserve the neutrality of the internet. Last month, led by Vermont's Public Services Board, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners unanimously endorsed a proposal calling on the Federal Communications Commission to ensure that access to the internet remain neutral, meaning that access providers be prevented from exercising control over how consumers use the network. A few days later, a strange coalition of companies and consumer activists, including Disney, Microsoft, and the Media Access Project, sent a letter to the chairman and members of the FCC, asking the government to ensure the "ability of consumers and business to communicate with one another ... without obstruction from network service providers." Both steps signal, LeggMason reported, a "key policy issue" that will increasingly frame the telecommunications debate: "the extent to which the network provider can restrict the customers' use of the network." The question here is an old one, but it is important that a broad range of commercial and non-commercial actors now agree upon it. The internet was born a "neutral network", but there are pressures that now threaten that neutrality. As network architects have been arguing since the early 1980s, its essential genius was a design that disables central control. "Intelligence" in this network is all vested at the "end" or "edge" of the internet. The protocols that enable the internet itself are as simple as possible; innovation and creativity come from complexity added at the ends. This "end-to-end" design made possible an extraordinary range of innovation. When Tim Berners-Lee started to sell the idea of a "World Wide Web", he did not need to seek the approval of network owners to allow the protocols that built the internet to run. Likewise, when eBay launched its auction service, or Amazon its bookselling service, neither needed the permission of the telephone companies before those services could take off. Because the internet was "end-to-end", innovators and users were free to offer new content, new applications or even new protocols for communication without any permission from the network. So long as these new applications obeyed simple internet protocols ("TCP/IP"), the internet was open to their ideas. The network did not pick and choose the applications or content it would support; it was neutral, leaving that choice to the users. This ideal of neutrality predates the internet. It would be a strange and bad thing if the electricity grid discriminated against Sony television sets by serving reliable electricity only to Panasonic TVs. Likewise, it is desirable that the roads are not built to favour Ford trucks over BMWs, but are instead designed to favour none, equally. In both cases, policymakers have long understood the importance of platform neutrality. In both cases, neutral platforms enable the broadest scope for innovation and growth. But increasingly, the providers of internet connectivity are pushing a different principle. US broadband companies are trying to ensure that they have the power to decide which applications and content can run. Under such a regime, if Microsoft wants to sell Xboxes to run on the broadband network then it will have to pay the network providers for that privilege. Or if Disney wants to stream movies on the internet, it too will have to pay the network tax. Now Disney, and Microsoft are big companies, you might think. What's wrong with taxing the rich? But the argument of this emerging coalition is that neutrality on the network helps innovation generally. An internet where innovation required the permission of the network owner would be much less creative. The growth and potential of the network comes from leaving it open to grow as consumers and innovators choose. This neutrality will not come naturally. The tendency of network providers will always be, as it has been so far, towards control. But it is an important and promising development that so broad an alliance of companies could join consumer activists to push the government to preserve the most crucial aspect of the internet's original environment. It might seem strange that this lesson in preserving the original values of the internet should come from Microsoft and Disney - two companies that have suffered a great deal of criticism from network activists. But on this issue both deserve praise. Policymakers must see that what makes innovation possible on the internet is the freedom to innovate without the permission of a network owner. Lawrence Lessig is a professor of law at Stanford Law School and author of The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World ------ End of Forwarded Message ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as rcv-interesting-people () frankston com To unsubscribe or update your address, click http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ ------ End of Forwarded Message ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com To unsubscribe or update your address, click http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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