Congress

I have to give National Journal's Tech daily and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK) the quote of the week award. In talking to reporters today after a brief visit to the PFF luncheon I attended today, Chairman Stevens had this to say about the Net neutrality supporters:

"There's no way you can appease the people" that support net neutrality, he said. "It's a fetish -- it's really something that doesn't exist. But they want to stop this bill because it might exist."

The recent high tech letter to Senate leaders against net neutrality is very helpful because it shows that many Silicon Valley and high tech companies also oppose preemptive net neutrality legislation.

This letter had a simple clear message: that no Internet regulation has been key to the Internet's success; that "correcting a nebulous concern many have severe unintended consequences"; and that net neutrality legislation could discourage investment  in broadband networks. 

My previous blog on how the "FCC auction seeds more competition," apparently rankled our opponents over at Public Knowledge who see a dark cloud on every competitive horizon. Harold Feld of Public Knowledge derisively spat all over the auction results in his blog because the new DBS consortium was outbid, it strengthened the existing four big telco wireless players and it let cable bid for spectrum. 

This clash of views is instructive because it highlights the huge philosophical divide between netcompetition forces and net neutrality proponents. Netcompetition-ers believe market forces/competition produce superior consumer and economic benefit than regulation does.

The FCC wireless broadband auction has concluded the largest and most successful auction of spectrum in U.S. history.

Why is this relevant to net neutrality? Proponents of NN argue that a broadband duopoly exists, stubbornly refusing to acknowlege that wireless broadband is a real competitor to DSL and cable modem. (They sound a lot like the same luddites who argued over the last ten years that cell phones would not be direct competitors to landlines. ...Have those folks noticed the precipitous decline in the availability of pay phones because 210 million americans have cell phones? Or did they know the fact that there are now more wireless users than wireline users and more wireless minutes than wireline minutes?)

Net neutrality is not a grass roots issue but a special interest and Washington Centric issue. SavetheInternet loves to claim this is a grassroots phenomenon and that because there is lots of blogging and e-petition signers that net neutrality is gaining momentum. Malarkey!

Two points of evidence strongly suggest that net neutrality is a special interest driven issue and not a grassroots groundswell.

First is the new bipartisan poll conducted by Democratic firm Glover Park and Republican Public Opinion Strategies. It said that only 7% of those polled had ever heard or seen anything on the issue net neutrality!

Verne Kpytoff of The San Francisco Chronicle has a precious article today about how "SF is stalling WiFi, Google Executive Charges."

It appears that Google Exec Chris Saaca, who oversees the Google/Earthlink contract to provide the City of San Francisco with free WiFi service, is complaining to the Chronicle that the city expects Google to share its ad revenue with the City and give them free laptops and other goodies in return for winning the WiFi contract. Apparently "free" WiFi service is not cheap enough for the "progressive" City of San Francisco.  

I was pleased to see that the Senate Commerce Committee hearing on FCC Chairman Martin's renomination hearing went smoothly and uneventufully.

Given the supposed concern in the Senate Commerce Committee over net neutrality it was VERY INTERESTING that NN was not their top concern -- that was media ownership limits.
 
On NN, Chairman Martin gets it. when asked if the FCC has a system to watch for NN problems, he testified that they are "very vigilant about it."

ALSO VERY INTERESTING, Chairman Martin undercut the net neutrality claim that new legislation is needed; he testified that the FCC has authority under Title I to deal with potential net neutrality complaints and problems.

I am going to be debating Net Neutrality again at a panel at VON 2006 in Boston this morning at 11am EST. I wanted to make my full presentation available to help ensure that my views are not mischaracterized or taken out of context.
 
I intend to strongly challenge the underlying validity of the Net Neutrality issue because the more I delve deeply into the substance of this issue the more I question whether "there is a there there."
 
The more I have learned, the more I have become convinced that this is a bogus issue. I use the word bogus on purpose because it best captures what is going on here. This is a fake and artificial issue that has been manufactured by special interests and who are cynically manipulating people with half truths and fear-mongering for ulterior motives. A cynical few are manipulating the many with hidden agendas.

I have made clear in every forum, NetCompetition.org is funded by broadband companies. My agenda is crystal clear. Broadband companies and I strongly believe a market forces Internet is better for American consumers and the American economy than regulating the Internet for the first time with Net Neutrality to preempt a hypothetical problem.
 
My PowerPoint presentation makes a very powerful case: "Why Net Neutrality is a Bogus Issue."

In a nutshell, I argue there is no real problem or consumer harm here, only hypothetical and unsubstantiated allegations.

I also debunk all of the core assertions underlying the Net Neutrality concept as untrue. For example: The Net is not neutral today. There is no market failure. Net neutrality is not status quo. And Net neutrality is not gaining momentum.