Re: Internet Pioneers Speak Out on Net Neutrality

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Richard Shockey" <richard () shockey us>
Date: October 17, 2009 12:08:08 PM EDT
To: <dave () farber net>
Subject: RE: [IP] Re: Internet Pioneers Speak Out on Net Neutrality


For IP if you wish.

***

Some regulation IMHO is necessary. Its highly debatable whether this  
should
be legislative vs administrative. Communications networks have always  
been
regulated in some form due to their "natural monopoly" aspects.

It would be useful at this point to remember how the debate started.  
Ed "My
Pipes" Whitacre then chairman of ATT and now of GM made one of the most
truly astounding PR blunders in the history of corporate America, even
greater than New Coke.

"How concerned are you about Internet upstarts like Google (GOOG ), MSN,
Vonage, and others?"

ED-ATT "How do you think they're going to get to customers? Through a
broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they  
would
like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that
because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it.  
So
there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use  
these
pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed  
to
use my pipes?"

Most everyone who reads this list understood exactly what he was  
saying, in
effect  "I own anything that goes on my pipes and I'll be the biggest  
toll
troll on the Internet."  Well here we are.

There are two aspects of this discussion that have not properly  
addressed
and any reasonable inquiry by the FCC needs to take them into account.  
First
is what constitutes legitimate "Network Management" or "Congestion
Management". The FCC, irrespective of whether they institute a NOI or  
NPRM
needs to call out and request specific technical input from industry  
on what
is currently being used for network management now and in the future.
Datagram discrimination is going on all the time right now for perfectly
legitimate reasons. I doubt the FCC is intending to make MPLS illegal
anytime soon. All datagram's may be created equal but some are in fact  
more
equal than others. Anyone that know how voice is being transmitted over
almost all carrier IP networks understands that.

It would have helped if the FCC would have reconstituted its Technical
Advisory Committees to advise them on issues like this but again some  
of us
are still not seeing a sufficient level of engineering talent internal  
at
the FCC to deal with complex problems like this.

As the Internet Pioneers correctly point out, the key issues are
"nondiscrimination" and "transparency". Transparency you can read, in  
part,
as _disclosure_ which is a good thing and it seems that more and more
operators are doing that. The Comcast Bot Scanning project being  
discussed
here and elsewhere is a excellent example. IMHO Comcast is trying to  
"do the
right thing" here.

Of real concern is "nondiscrimination" and there has been insufficient
discussion on the anti-trust aspects of this. The ultimate fear is that
innovation on the internet will be stifled by operators using their  
network
management capabilities to directly impair or discriminate against their
competitors. That IS a problem since for the last 15 years there has a  
been
a significant dilution of anti-trust capabilities and enforcement  
mechanisms
by both government and specifically by private parties.

We should remember that Bill McGowan at MCI fought ATT for years to get
non-discriminatory interconnection agreement from ATT and won a landmark
Sherman Act case ( which paid MCI treble damages). The Supreme Court  
Trinko
decision and others have essentially eliminated the ability of private
parties to sue carriers for discriminatory practices. Any discussion  
of Net
Neutrality needs to take into consideration what are the remedies  
available
to both government and private parties if a proper definition of what
"nondiscrimination" can actually be agreed to.  I suspect fear of treble
damages could be a powerful incentive to non-discriminatory behavior.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
> Sent: Saturday, October 17, 2009 6:00 AM
> To: ip
> Subject: [IP] Re: Internet Pioneers Speak Out on Net Neutrality
>
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Brett Glass <brett () lariat net>
> Date: October 17, 2009 12:22:32 AM EDT
> To: dave () farber net, "ip" <ip () v2 listbox com>
> Subject: Re: [IP] Internet Pioneers Speak Out on Net Neutrality
>
> ...and I strongly disagree. Regulation would be damaging and stifle
> innovation.
>
> --Brett Glass, "Internet Pioneer" (The world's first WISP)
>
>
>
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