Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2006-08-29 15:31
After months of Google, Savetheinternet.org and itsournet.org warning ominously of the horrors of a "two-tiered Internet" where Americans might have to pay more to get more, it appears that Vint Cerf, Google's net neutrality evangelist, is finally conceding on their core argument -- saying "Noone objects to charging users more for faster access, Cerf said" according to Communications Daily August 17, 2006.
Huh!? I thought that was what the whole NN debate was about!? Could broadband providers charge more if they provided more? Thank you Mr. Cerf for saying broadband capitalism is now OK!
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2006-08-29 15:05
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2006-08-29 14:40
I'm back from August vacation and have caught up on the news and developments in my absence. As is common during the August doldrums, not much industry news has occurred. I will comment on a handful of issues that warrant attention in subsequent blogs.
Time off always helps clarity of thought and perspective. I come back refreshed and even more convinced that net neutrality is a horrendously bad public policy idea.
The fuel behind NN is an anti-business and pro-big government regulation, political agenda.
NN rests upon the completely unsubstantiated claim that broadband is not competitive. NN proponents ignore that the competition experts at the FCC, DOJ, and FTC all believe broadband is competitive. The facts are overwhelming that broadband is competitive and getting increasingly so.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2006-08-11 16:58
I will resume blogging regularly when I return from vacation in late August. I expect September to be a very hot month for debating net neutrality. Until then thank you for your interest. Scott
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2006-08-10 18:20
Common cause just listed me and netcompetition.org in their latest report: "Wolves in Sheep's Clothing, Part 2: More Telecom Industry front groupss and Astroturf."
This is a not-so-veiled attempt at intimidating free speech that Common Cause doesn't like because it does not fit their Big-Government-knows-best policy view.
I have fully disclosed who I work for on the site and in every one of the dozens of public forums in which I have debated net neutrality. Net competition is funded by broadband telecom, cable and wireless companies! It's no secret!
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2006-08-10 10:27
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.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2006-08-09 10:35
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.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2006-08-09 09:32
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!
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2006-08-08 18:21
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.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2006-08-07 17:50
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.
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