Neutr-elitist hubris

Submitted by Scott Cleland on
What bothers me most about net neutrality is the off-the-charts hubris of the neutr-elites that they are so sure they know better than anyone else what is best for the future of the Internet. 

The neutr-elites think they know better than the collective wisdom of consumers in the marketplace, which make millions of individual decisions every day about what they want and what they don't.  

The uninformed, knee-jerk neutr-elites know better than market forces, which provides consumers a constantly responding and evolving array of choices, rewards and risks to choose from.

Return of Gore-Hundt elitist hubris? Government knows best?

Submitted by Scott Cleland on

If the neutr-elites were truly honest and their real NN concern was market power and not reasserting government control over communications companies, they would have inserted a sunset trigger provision in either the Markey or Snowe-Dorgan NN bills, which then would have ended NN when “sufficient” competition emerged.  Unfortunately both bills have no sunset, obviously envisioning net neutrality as a permanent policy that would never change no matter how many competitive alternatives consumers eventually enjoy. I believe this is because the core neutr-elites of Moveon.org, the Democratic “netroots” are virulently anti-business, and pro BIG government command and control.

Sprint WiMax investment belies "broadband duopoly"

Submitted by Scott Cleland on

The WSJ editorial, "WiFi to the Max" was dead on today in connecting-the-dots that Sprint's $2.5b investment in a 4G WiMax wireless broadband market is loud repudiation of the "neutr-elites" allegation of a DSL-Cable "broadband duopoly." 

Sprint's $2.5b WiMax investment is on top of the 3G wireless broadband investment Sprint has already made that is allowing it to offer wireless broadband currently to much of the country. It is on top of Verizon's successful wireless broadband rollout that serves 10 million new wireless broadband enabled customers in the last year alone. It is on top of AT&T's investment in wireless broadband that will be ramping in short order. It is on top of Intel's $600m investment in Clearwire's WiMax network, billionaire Craig McCaw's latest venture. This is on top of dozens of cities around the country investing in WiFi networks. This is on top of the current FCC auction which has DirecTV/Echostar putting $1b down payment down to bid on new wireless broadband spectrum, cable players putting down $600m, T-Mobile $600m, Verizon $500m, and AT&T $400m. The evidence of a big ramp-up in broadband competition is overwhelming! 

The "Neutr-elites" Special Interest Agendas

Submitted by Scott Cleland on
Despite the attempts by the "Neutr-elites" to make NN into a grass-roots issue, it remains a self-serving special interest agenda.

Net neutrality is a manufactured issue to serve special interests.

Manufactured? Where was the NN movement the last ten years as NN was being made obsolete by ever increasing amounts of intermodal and broadband competition? Why did we hear virtually nothing about NN from Moveon.org and others for the several months after the FCC decided DSL was an unregulated info service in August 2005?

First, Moveon.org's self-serving agenda is that it needed a communications issue to incite its base because media ownership issue went on procedural hiatus. When video franchise legislation started to move in Congress, Moveon.org was shrewdly opportunistic and created a fear-mongering "Save the Internet" campaign to energize the netroots to donate money and work for the Democrats in the mid-term elections.  

Search-opolist Google's non-neutral Internet deal with Myspace?

Submitted by Scott Cleland on

Google's $900m deal with NewsCorp for exclusive (non-neutral) search from Myspace -- as reported in the WSJ highlights Google's competitive double standard. This deal is similar to the search-opolist Google's $1b (non-neutral) search arrangement and investment in AOL/Time Warner. This deal is also the same as search-opolist Google's exclusive (non-neutral) arrangement with DELL to be the default search engine on DELL computers when they are shipped.  

NN has head in sand about competitive FCC Wireless Auction

Submitted by Scott Cleland on

The FCC wireless broadband auction starting this week is a showcase of how far pro-competition and de-regulation policy has come, and conversely how far the neutrality-ites have their head in the sand about the real competitive broadband situation. 

This FCC spectrum auction is all about enabling new and/or better major competitive alternatives to the 4-9 competitive alternatives that exist now:
i.e. the new players: DBS Wireless/DirecTV-Echostar; Cable Wireless/Comcast-TimeWarner-Cox; and T-Mobile; and

How much do Online Giants pay for Broadband?

Submitted by Scott Cleland on

Google, Yahoo, eBay, and Microsoft continue to try and hide how much the average American subsidizes their market-leading 80-90% gross profit margins. 

Net neutrality is a dressed up name for a regulated average-pricing sheme. Under NN, below-average bandwidth users, the vast majority of Americans, pay much higher broadband prices in order to subsidize the average price that bandwidth hogs pay -- and bandwidth hogs make up a relatively small percentage of Internet users.

What Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, eBay, Amazon don't want anyone to know or figure out is that they are among the largest consumers of bandwidth in the country, and they pay a relatively minscule amount for it. It's certainly easier to be so super profitable if they can sucker everyone into paying their bills for them.     

How much do Online Giants pay for Broadband?

Submitted by Scott Cleland on

Google, Yahoo, eBay, and Microsoft continue to try and hide how much the average American subsidizes their market-leading 80-90% gross profit margins. 

Net neutrality is a dressed up name for a regulated average-pricing sheme. Under NN, below-average bandwidth users, the vast majority of Americans, pay much higher broadband prices in order to subsidize the average price that bandwidth hogs pay -- and bandwidth hogs make up a relatively small percentage of Internet users.

What Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, eBay, Amazon don't want anyone to know or figure out is that they are among the largest consumers of bandwidth in the country, and they pay a relatively minscule amount for it. It's certainly easier to be so super profitable if they can sucker everyone into paying their bills for them.     

FCC ruling No NN for BPL -- why no objection?

Submitted by Scott Cleland on
Where are the neutrality-ites on net neutrality for broadband over powerlines (BPL)? The FCC just updated some of its BPL rules and is expected to complete the rest shortly. If NN is so important a principle that Snowe-Dorgan applies NN to ALL broadband technologies whether they have market power or NOT -- like new entrant -- BPL, why is there no attention to the imminent FCC ruling that BPL is an unregulated info service -- meaning not subject to NN?  Don't neutrality-ites think that some of their supported might consider utilities -- like common carriers? Or that some might think they are either hypocritical or incompetent because they are not standing up for NN on BPL?  

NN: Holding their breath until they turn blue?

Submitted by Scott Cleland on
I thought neutrality-ites believed it is urgent for Congress to pass NN legislation to overrule the FCC's currently operative ruling that DSL is an unregulated information service.  On SavetheInternet.org website it says: "If Congress doesn't take action now to implement meaningful Net Neutrality provisions, the future of the Internet is at risk."  Itsournet.org's website says: "If Congress does not put these protections back soon, it could be a lot harder to reach your church or school, your local businesses or online communities that you care about." 
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