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The long-awaited new Net Neutrality bill is finally coming out from House Telecom Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey and Rep. Chip Pickering -- it's now called "The Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008."

After reviewing the draft version circulating among the media this evening, here are my initial takeaways on the new proposed legislation.

First, the proposed legislation attempts to rebrand the controversial "net neutrality" issue as "Internet Freedom" and "broadband policy."  

• While most all of the net neutrality buzzwords still pepper the legislation (open, discrimination, blocking, degrading, etc.) conspicuously absent from the legislation is the well-known and never fully defined "net neutrality" brand. 
• This is odd given all the effort Markey's supporters have put into branding this issue over the last two years. 
• It is doubtful that most people on the Hill, in industry, and in the press will stop calling it Markey's new Net Neutrality bill. 

Second, the bill's primary purpose is a bold attempt to reverse longstanding United States broadband policy by amending Title I of the 1934 Communications Act. This Markey bill would:

Since the beginning of the year, Google's stock has fallen over 25% -- about 2-3 times the fall of the relevant indexes.

• The good news for Google shareholders is that most all of Google's stock price problems are self-inflicted, so they could fix them -- if they wanted to.
• The bad news for Google shareholders is that Google is unlikely to change its problematic bahavior -- because "leopards don't change their spots."

Why is Google its own worst enemy?

First, Google routinely alienates its friends and allies.

Please don't miss the new NetCompetition.org one-pager I produced on the politics of net neutrality.

I make the case that net neutrality is:

• A fringe issue and a factional business dispute;
• Not sound Democratic policy; and
• Not sound Republican policy.

I made it available at the Internet Caucus event today.   

http://netcompetition.org/Why_Net_Neutrality_is_Not_a_Mainstream_Issue.pdf

For anyone wanting a good forward-looking perspective about the real challenges facing the Internet, look no further than the great new study "Estimating the Exaflood" by Bret Swanson and George Gilder.

Why this study is so timely and relevant is that the real problem facing the Internet is how to keep up with the exploding capacity demands of migrating to a video-driven Internet.

• The net neutrality utopians want to assume that bandwidth is infinite and free -- magically supplied by others for their p2p bandwidth gluttony -- with no costs to, or no affect on, others.
• The real world does not operate that way...

The report also is an important backdrop for why broadband networks must be allowed reasonable network management.

• Without massive investment and reasonable network management, the quality and the responsiveness of the Internet will suffer as the exaflood surges.

I am on the Congressional Internet Caucus wireless panel Wednesday with Blair Levin of Stifel Nicolaus, Michael Calabrese of the New America Foundation, and Jason Devitt of Skydeck.

The panel is on: "Opening up 700 MHz & White Spaces" What hath the FCC wrought?"

• Should be interesting given that I am the only panelist not under the influence of "openness"...

In a stunningly naive, parochial, and innacurate opinion piece, "Keeping a lid on broadband," Computerworld national correspondent Kevin Mitchell has scathing criticism of current free market communications policies (that by the way were modeled after the computer sector's free market and innovation successes) and calls for government bureaucrats to regulate most everything of import in the communications sector.   

I am stunned that in the journalistic "world of computers" there could be such a naive and parochial view of the real-world ramifications of technological and digital convergence -- the rapidly blurring lines between computing, communications and storage. Mr. Mitchell writes like the tech sector and computing in general is an impregnable and immutable island that should forever be insulated and protected from competitive and market forces occuring outside the tech sector.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) entered the fray on net neutrality yesterday in an important ACLU blogpost: "Free Speech and Net Neutrality: Separating fact from fiction."

While the ACLU predictably voiced strong POLITICAL support for net neutrality, the ACLU Blog surprisingly and effectively eviscerated the LEGAL and practical case for using the analogy that "Net Neutrality is the First Amendment of the Internet."

• ACLU blog: "At the same time, the First Amendment is not directly implicated because unlike the government, your ISP is not a traditional "state actor" — a requirement for triggering First Amendment cases."
  • Duh.
  • The ACLU makes plain what any junior high civics student knows -- that the First Amendment is there to prevent the Government from abridging individuals freedom of speech -- not companies or other individuals.
  • This badly flawed "First Amendment" analogy only highlights how net neutrality proponents are loose with the facts and analogies. 
    • The net neutrality movement is "all slogan and no substance."

Net neutrality is not about free speech. It's classic buzzword political blackmail. Proponents cynically believe that if they repeat the conspiracy theory that big corporations want to systematically take away their customers freedom of speech -- that some people will believe it.

We'll soon see if net neutrality proponents are reasonable and responsible. Do they grasp that calling for preemptive, anti-investment, regulation of broadband that would discourage deployment of broadband to all Americans -- is the last thing our Nation needs during this economic downturn?

• The reality is that forward-thinking broadband deregulation has spurred massive investment in broadband and Internet infrastructure in the U.S. and this investment is spurring adoption of broadband faster than any communication service in American history.
• Moreover, an unfettered broadband economy and infrastructure is key to capturing the economic and productivity gains of more universally-adopted broadband.

Broadband deployment, adoption, competition and investment is one of the great success stories of our economy.

• The last thing our teetering economy needs right now is preemptive, anti-investment, net neutrality regulation of our cutting-edge communications sector that would only hurt the overall American economy.
• This is no time for solutions in search of a problem.
• We face real economic problems which require responsible broadband policies.  

Network World has a great piece: "Open Access not as important to wireless consumers as QoS, pricing, survey finds" which exposes the Google-led tech industry's push for open access as a not-so-subtle tech-industrial policy.

• The survey by Compete, Inc. found:
  • Only 9% of wireless users did not believe they had enough options for handsets;
  • Only 11% of wireless users believe that their carrier offered them too little content and services to meet their needs;
  • In stark contrast, 93% of wireless users believe getting a phone at a reasonable price was either important or very important.

This survey is important evidence exposing the tech industry's attempt to pass net neutrality/open access legislation/regulation as an thinly-guised tech industrial policy.

• This tech industrial policy is asking the government to intervene and mandate engineering design and pass price-related regulations that would de facto choose tech companies as market winners and communications companies as market losers.

The tech industry has done a good job of cloaking their openness campaign as what consumers want most -- because that serves their Washington industrial policy agenda.

Common sense dictates that the FCC will rule in favor of the critical necessity of broadband network management and against the FreePress and Vuze petitions which claim that prioritizing p2p traffic is an unlawful violation of the FCC's network neutrality principles. 

• No one should mistake the FCC doing its job in investigating significant allegations (by issuing public notices for comments), for an FCC predilection against reasonable network management in favor of net neutrality supremacy.

The common sense case why network management trumps net neutrality:

First, the petitions violate common sense because the petitions are based on a false predicate and presumption. The petitions assume that the FCC's policy of network neutrality principles have the legal and binding effect of formal FCC rules or law and that they trump all existing law and rules. This is preposterous. Just because the petitioners make an impassioned and PR-manipulative plea for that view -- does not mean their petition holds any water.