It has been...
Without a "net neutrality" problem. Strangely however, with every passing “no-problem” day, the pro-regulation crowd becomes ever more shrill and ever more insistent that if government doesn’t regulate, it will be “the end of the Internet as we know it”!
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The Federal Communications Commission is moving ahead with proposed "Open Internet" rules, which would give federal regulators vast new powers, and ultimately lead to government control of the Internet.
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The Internet has become a powerful communications and economic force because it has been free from government interference. To make sure the power and promise of the Internet continues, we need to keep it free of government interference.
Notable Quotes
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What Tech Issues Loom Large for Election 2012?
Kenneth Corbin
CIO
WASHINGTON—This fall’s presidential election certainly will not tip on the candidates’ views on technology policy, but for industry groups and a slew of inside-the-beltway types, issues such as cybersecurity, net neutrality and spectrum reform are matters of deep concern.
Moreover, the fissures on those issues are to an extent emblematic of the broader philosophical divisions between the candidates that figure to play prominently in the campaign.
A panel of tech policy advocates representing both left- and right-leaning groups gathered here at the Capitol building for a debate that offered a preview of the litany of technology issues that will await the next administration, sharing thoughts on the extent to which any has a chance of entering the mainstream debate.
Propelling the Internet Backwards in Time
The U.N. Wants to Run the Internet
Authoritarian regimes want to prohibit anonymity on the Web, making it easier to find and arrest dissidents.
By L. Gordon Crovitz
Wall Street Journal
Here’s a wake-up call for the world’s two billion Web users, who take for granted the light regulation of the Internet: A group of 193 countries will meet in December to reregulate the Internet. Every country, including China, Russia and Iran, gets a vote. Can a majority of countries be trusted to keep their hands off the Web?
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a low-profile United Nations organization, is overseeing this yearlong review of the Web. Its process is so secretive that proposals by member countries are confidential. The Obama administration has yet to nominate a negotiator for the U.S. side, even though Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said last year that his goal was “international control over the Internet.”
Net Neutrality Fails the Reality Test
By Seton Motley
Breibart.com
Network Neutrality is disastrous Internet policy, cooked up in the fevered swamps ofuniversity faculty lounges and Media Marxist grievance group offices. Every encounter with Reality has been for Net Neutrality and its proponents an abysmal failure.
Net Neutrality is Socialism for the Internet – it guarantees everyone equal amounts of nothing.
It requires all content on the Internet be treated equally. Meaning the hospital downloading a dying patient’s MRI gets no more broadband speed than the guy next door downloading the panda sneezes video on YouTube. Meaning your work files get the exact same network treatment as a SPAM-riddled email invading your Inbox.
Thus does Net Neutrality fail the Reality test.
Obsolete communications law stifles innovation, hurts consumers
By Scott Cleland
Daily Caller
Conventional wisdom supposes the Internet was essentially invented overnight, that cell phones burst onto the scene in the late 1980s and that new communications technologies are brought to the market at a breakneck pace. What no one tells you is that the original 1990s’ Internet technology had been around since 1969. Cell phones? That technology was invented in 1947, but wasn’t approved for consumer use until 1982. And computer modems were first invented in the 1950s, only to have obsolete laws hold up mass market consumer adoption until after 2000. Imagine how better our lives would be had consumers gained access to these phenomenal communication innovations before the government bottleneck got in the way!
Change is the only constant with technology, yet the foundation of communications law that governs one-sixth of the economy hasn’t changed in 80 years. While the 1996 Telecom Act wisely changed communication policy from monopoly regulation to competition, it merely amended part of the 1934 Communications Act, leaving much of the monopoly-assumed regulatory legal foundation intact and creating a profoundly contradictory statute overall. A law divided against itself cannot, and should not, stand.
The Cable Industry Needs Less Regulation and More Freedom
David Williams
Taxpayer Protection Alliance
Fortunately, the free market doesn’t work like group projects in grade school where one poor performer could bring down the grade of the entire group. When one company fails or does not adequately meet customer demands, it may go under – but usually this does not lead to the failure of an entire industry. And that particular company’s shortcomings don’t typically have negative repercussions on the industry or hold the future of the industry back. That is unless – or until – the government regulates that industry. There has been a concerted push to regulate the broadband industry and make it into a quasi-public utility and the repercussions could be disastrous.
Another thing left back in grade school is a teacher to go cry to when things don’t go one’s way. But that hasn’t stopped Netflix from pouting over a new specialized service Comcast is offering. The service allows Comcast’s Xbox 360 customers to stream thousands of movies and shows from XFINITY On Demand without counting against the data usage threshold that applies to broadband internet access services. (And it should be exempt from such a data cap because the service in question is a cable service, which would render the rules governing Internet streaming inapplicable).
Why Do ISPs Impose Data Caps?
by Eli Dourado
TechLiberation.org
There is a Senate Commerce Committee hearing today on online video, and our friends at Free Press, Consumers Union, Public Knowledge, and New America Foundation argue that it should be used to investigate ISP-imposed data caps.
If data caps had a legitimate economic justification, they might be just a necessary annoyance. But they do not have such a justification. Arbitrary caps and limits are imposed by multichannel video providers that also provide broadband Internet access, because the providers have a strong incentive and ability to protect their legacy, linear video distribution models from emerging online video competition.
FreePress’ Latest Net Neutrality Folly Pushing for Shareholder Votes
By Scott Cleland
Precursor Blog
FreePress’ latest net neutrality folly and political agitation is pushing the SEC to make shareholders from AT&T, Verizon and Sprint vote on inappropriate, ill-advised, and unwarranted proposed shareholder resolutions in favor of wireless net neutrality in the weeks ahead.
Let me count the ways this is a waste of time and abuse of process.
First, it inappropriately and destructively attempts to politicize non-political entities, by trying to force a public political position from non-political corporate entities, whose contractual and fiduciary responsibility to shareholders is to economically/financially grow the value and profitability of the corporation.
Second, the appropriate place to have political votes is in legitimate political processes, elections or representative votes or decisions by elected officials at the appropriate local, state, and Federal level, which enjoy the constitutional, political, and relevant authority and legitimacy to decide political issues in a meaningful, substantive and productive way.
Why the Verizon-Cable Agreement is in the Public Interest
By Scott Cleland
Precursor Blog
The evidence below shows the Verizon-Cable agreement is clearly in the public interest, if the FCC fairly reviews the agreement and all of the relevant facts, in the full context of the highly competitive wireless ecosystem.
Top Reasons Why Verizon-Cable Agreement is in the Public Interest
Increases competition: The agreement increases competition because it enables:
- Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks to most competitively, economically and efficiently offer wireless service to their customers for the first time as part of a bundle of their existing services; this agreement also enables and encourages Comcast to economically offer consumers a new competitive video entertainment choice, Xfinity Streampix, over Verizon Wireless devices; and
- Verizon wireless to most competitively, economically, and efficiently offer a new competitive full wireless/cable service bundle to its wireless customers where Verizon geographically does not have a cable, DSL or FIOS offering. The agreement also encouraged Verizon to invest in a new joint venture with Coinstar-Redbox to offer value-conscious consumers yet another video entertainment competitive choice.
New Year, New Shot to Eliminate Antiquated State Telecom Laws
Last year saw a slew of states review telecommunications laws designed for a bygone era. Tennessee phased out special charges for in-state long distance calls that subsidized phone companies. Florida and Kansas now allow companies subject to price regulations to better compete with new, less regulated providers.
Increased competition has resulted from convergence in the industry, as providers once broken into segregated markets (e.g., cable TV, local and long distance phone, wireless, etc.) now all offer similar broadband phone and video services, or at least a pipe to get them. However, state laws have been slow to change, regulating some legacy companies differently than new entrants, their competitors in the market.
IFC Reply Comments to FCC: Title II Reclassification Unjustified, Unnecessary
Before the
Federal Communications Commission
Washington, D.C. 20554
In the Matter of Framework for Broadband Internet Service
GN Docket No. 10-127
FCC Docket No. 10-114
Reply Comments
of the Undersigned Members of the
INTERNET FREEDOM COALITION
Introduction
The Commission is being asked by Free Press and other organizations to pursue a radical course of action – reclassifying information services as telecommunications services in order to regulate the Internet for the first time. We write to urge the Commission to keep the Internet free of new government regulation and taxation and to refrain from rushing into such a potentially disastrous course of action.
Analysts are only beginning to grasp the extent of the disruptive and destructive consequences of regulating the Internet under Title II of the Communications Act, and the Commission is in no position to predict the outcome, much less assure Americans it will be positive. Americans have heard political leaders admit that we will not know the full extent or nature of massive health care and financial services regulations until after the underlying legislation has been passed. Now, Americans are facing the imposition of an even lesser-understood regulatory regime over the Internet without the benefit of any legislative process whatsoever.
IFC Supplemental Reply Comments: FCC Lacks Authority, Justification for Reclassifying Internet as Title II Service
Before the
Federal Communications Commission
Washington, D.C. 20554
In the Matter of
Preserving the Open Internet GN Docket No. 09-191
Broadband Industry Practices WC Docket No. 07-52
Supplemental Reply Comments of the Internet Freedom Coalition
Just two days prior to the Commission’s deadline for reply comments regarding the above Notice of Proposed Rulemakings, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in Comcast v. FCC that the Commission has no authority to enact Net Neutrality rules. The deadline for comments was extended, particularly to facilitate discussion of other methods of promulgating Net Neutrality regulations.
Beginning with comments on the National Broadband Plan filed by Public Knowledge in January, a small number of organizations have since proposed classifying the Internet as a Title II common carrier service as a way of asserting the Commission’s authority to enact Net Neutrality regulations. The Internet Freedom Coalition respectfully submits these reply comments in strong opposition to any effort to reclassify the Internet as a Title II service.
IFC Reply Comments to FCC: Refuting Free Press’ Arguments for Regulating the Internet
Before the
Federal Communications Commission
Washington, D.C. 20554
In the Matter of
Preserving the Open Internet GN Docket No. 09-191
Broadband Industry Practices WC Docket No. 07-52
Reply Comments of the Internet Freedom Coalition
The following comments are submitted by the undersigned members of the Internet Freedom Coalition. They are submitted in reply to comments filed by proponents of Network Neutrality regulations, and are attributable only to the signatories.
Internet Freedom Coalition Comments to the FCC, Opposing Network Neutrality Regulations
Before the
FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION
Washington, DC 20554
In the Matter of
Preserving the Open Internet, GN Docket No. 09-191
Broadband Industry Practices WC Docket No. 07–52; FCC 09–93
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
Comments of the Internet Freedom Coalition
Introduction
The Internet Freedom Coalition is an ad hoc coalition of organizations and individuals committed to the continued growth and improvement of the Internet, who believe regulations and taxes are harmful to those ends. The Internet Freedom Coalition believes that a free and open Internet is beneficial, but argues that regulatory intervention in the well-functioning marketplace that has thus far produced a vast, free and open network would unnecessarily limit the current and future supply of bandwidth, and would harm both producers and consumers. These comments are attributable only to the individual signatories.
