Re: H.R. 3458, Rep. Markey's third bill proposing to heavily regulate and micromanage the Internet

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Brett Glass <brett () lariat net>
Date: August 25, 2009 5:59:34 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net, "ip" <ip () v2 listbox com>, bob2-39 () bobf frankston com
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:   H.R. 3458, Rep. Markey's third bill proposing  
to heavily regulate and micromanage the Internet

At 02:09 PM 8/25/2009, Bob Frankston wrote:

> I see this bill as a step towards deregulation  telecom regulations
> tend to be obsessed with slicing and dicing the kinds of services and
> pricing. Without being burdened with dealing with each service there
> is very little regulation  just the assumption that we solve problem
> by providing more capacity and that's it.

Alas, this is a false assumption. Just as it's foolhardy to assume  
that the computer with the most "megahertz" is the fastest, it's  
dangerous to assume that adding capacity will solve all problems. All  
the extra bandwidth in the world, for example, will not make up for  
long latencies, too much jitter, or too many dropped packets. Service  
providers must be able to sell quality of service, just as FedEx and  
UPS can sell expedited delivery or a trucking company can sell  
refrigerated transport to prevent food from spoiling. One of the most  
serious problems with the Markey bill is that it actually prohibits  
this.

> The easiest way to meet the provisions of the bill is to have the
> transport business completely separate from the content business.

In the real business world, this is not possible because consumers  
desire and expect "one stop shopping." They expect their ISPs to  
provide them with electronic mailboxes, Web hosting, tech support  
(often for their PCs, too, even though this falls entirely outside the  
scope of an ISP's business!), and -- in the case of mobile broadband  
-- mapping services, SMS, directory services, voice mail, and more.

What's more, as bandwidth becomes more and more of a commodity, these  
ancillary services become the providers' only means of differentiating  
themselves and/or innovating.

The Markey bill does have a clause that purports to prohibit tying of  
Internet service to the purchase of other products. This is a token  
provision, however, because no one has done this since the telephone  
companies finally agreed to allow "naked DSL." And because the clause  
fails to prohibit "bundling" (which both the cable companies and  
telcos are doing; one can expect to pay a 50% premium if you buy cable  
modem service without cable), there is nothing in it for the consumer.

> Whether the bill passes or not it would be very useful exercise to
> think about the implications of such a separation. Reduced to pure
> transport it would become obvious that we have redundancy rather than
> competition and we'd see rapid consolidation into a common transport

This sounds like a proposal to drive commercial ISPs out of business  
via complete commoditization of their products, leaving behind  
government owned infrastructure

> While I would prefer a simpler bill that explicitly said bits are bits
> and saying that we should fund infrastructure as infrastructure,

With the huge deficit and national debt (which have been such a large  
issue in the debates over the economic stimulus and health care  
reform), do we really want to fund Internet out of the public purse  
when private parties are already willing and able to do it?

--Brett Glass





-------------------------------------------
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