President Obama's State of the Union speech certainly hit quite a few high notes for the tech community. There were a half dozen mentions of the internet, shout-outs to Facebook and Google and a mention of better use of wireless technology.
He certainly set an ambitious goal: "Within the next five years, we'll make it possible for businesses to deploy the next generation of high-speed wireless coverage to 98 percent of all Americans." What he didn't say was that his Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman, Julius Genachowski, has sentenced all of those wireless users to a second-class Internet experience by leaving them out of the already vague Net Neutrality order the FCC issued in December.
By taking the short cut to Net Neutrality, Genachowski bought off AT&T, but put into legal jeopardy not only Obama's National Wireless Initiative. He also the president's vision of a broadband-charged American economy. There are considerable questions whether the FCC has jurisdiction over high-speed broadband, wired or wireless, and it would need that authority to implement any new programs. Had the Commission simply reclaimed its authority over broadband, the FCC would have been on firm legal ground.
Obama's vision will be difficult to achieve given the FCC's reticence and the vehement, if ill-informed criticism of the agency from Capitol Hill that could stifle progress toward achieving the president's goals.
In a couple of weeks, the new Republican majority in the House will start hearings on the FCC Net Neutrality policy with an eye toward passing legislation to nullify the rules, with the blowback also sabotaging Obama's high-tech vision if the GOP succeeds in keeping the FCC away from authority over broadband. The House majority already officially opened its campaign against a free and open Internet, with the two leading lights, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) and Mary Bono Mack (Cal.) out in front with speeches and petitions.
GOP Commissioners Back Net Neutrality
But before we get to them, let's share a little secret. Don't tell Blackburn or Bono Mack, but two Republicans have already voted for Net Neutrality. They can fudge it all they want, but the two Republicans on the FCC, Commissioners Robert McDowell and Meredith Atwell Baker, cast their votes for the Comcast takeover of NBC. And in that takeover order was a merger condition, enforceable by the FCC, for Comcast to run a non-discriminatory, neutral network according to the relatively nebulous FCC rules for seven years, even if those rules are overturned in court.
McDowell and Baker tried to qualify away their support in their brief, five-paragraph, one-page statement, calling the merger conditions generally "excessively coercive and lengthy," among other adjectives. (Note: Commissioner Michael Copps' dissent was three pages long.) They even "concurred" rather than actually voting "yes" for the merger.
The FCC, attentive to the GOP sensitivities, didn't even mention the Net Neutrality condition in its news release on the merger. No matter. The bottom line is that the Republican commissioners voted to require the country's largest Internet Service Provider to follow Net Neutrality rules for seven years in order to allow the largest media takeover in history to go through. OMG.
And how did Wall Street, the bastion of capitalism, take to the news that Comcast's broadband access service, worth $8 billion, would be subject to Net Neutrality rules for the next seven years? Comcast stock went up all last week after the approvals of the merger, with investors apparently not worried about a "government takeover of the Internet."
Hill Republicans Oppose Net Neutrality
Unfortunately, Blackburn and Bono Mack, along with their other House colleagues, are not persuaded by either the Republican FCC votes, Comcast's acceptance of conditions that failed to cause the end of the world as we know it in past telecom mergers, nor by the collective Wall Street yawn. Instead, they declare war.
Bono Mack has on her campaign website a "Petition to Stop the Government Takeover of the Internet." All the stock phrasing is there. Let's take inventory. "Unaccountable boards, commissions and bureaucrats." Check. "Regulate the Internet." Check. "Government overreach and intrusion." Check. Threats to free markets, innovation and technology. Check, check, check. Regulations "forced on the private sector." Check. None of it bears any relation to reality, but it sounds good to a certain audience.
The most fundamental misunderstanding, of course, is that the FCC wants to take over the Internet. It doesn't. The talking point, while appropriately inflammatory for the target audience, is simply wrong. There is no "takeover" of the Internet. A "takeover" raises the spectre of government control of content, directing which companies, sites and services can operate and which can't. Nothing like that is even remotely happening, and it is irresponsible to suggest that it is. It's just the opposite. The future of innovation and technology and personal freedom have been fostered by an open Internet -- the kind that Bono Mack doesn't want to have protections.
The "government takeover of the Internet" nonsense only helps the incumbent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) take control of the Internet, but few in Congress seem concerned about that. Obama was right on target when he pointed out: "Our infrastructure used to be the best, but our lead has slipped. South Korean homes now have greater Internet access than we do."
The incumbent protectors in Congress are doing a great job helping us slip further behind, but are doing nothing to help the U.S. get ahead. According to the latest "State of the Internet" quarterly report from Akamai, the U.S. ranks 12th in broadband speeds, with South Korea leading the way. Of the top cities with highest broadband speeds, South Korea claimed 12 (including the top 11), Japan 8, and the best U.S. city was 57th. The picture isn't pretty, and it gets uglier when one realizes that the slippage comes when the broadband carriers are totally deregulated. There is no excuse for the regulatory structure holding them back. There are no regulatory incentives not to invest, thus proving the point that crimping the FCC, as the Congressional opponents want to do, has nothing to do with broadband performance.
Blackburn, on the other hand, was a keynote speaker at the prestigious State of the Net conference, and delivered a seven-page speech. She took the same rhetorical path, and added a few twists of her own, while accidentally touching on the reality of what the FCC does. Her speech is filled with inaccuracies, contradictions, and misunderstandings.
Congress Unclear on Its Role
The most fundamental contradiction is that government should stay out of the Internet -- unless we (Congress) say it's important. At the same time that Blackburn calls for "small government," etc., she also wants government protection for intellectual property. In the past, she has chastised the FCC for not including more protections in the National Broadband Plan. The FCC has absolutely no jurisdiction over intellectual property, and yet here comes Blackburn to expand that jurisdiction.
She touches on one of the great contradictions when it comes to what Congress wants the FCC to do. Not long ago, 90-some members of Congress signed a letter to the FCC saying the Commission shouldn't act to protect Internet consumers in an area clearly under the agency's jurisdiction. Not long ago, 90-some members of Congress signed a letter to the FCC saying the Commission should hurry up and approve $30 billion Comcast takeover of NBC. Why should the FCC not do one and not the other? No rational reason, except perhaps for the money and power behind both appeals.
To be fair, she is inadvertently clear about what the FCC does and is supposed to do. In her speech, Blackburn recognized that the FCC regulates the "means of transmission," which she incorrectly calls the "least important part" of electronic commerce. It's good that she accepts what the FCC can do. It's not good to see transmission as the "least important" part. It's the most important. If one company, say Verizon, can wedge itself between customer and the customer's transaction, then true commerce, and Internet freedom, is at risk.
If she concedes the FCC regulates transmission, then what's the problem with the Commission setting rules for transmission that protect consumer rights? That's why FCC jurisdiction over transmission is important. The Commission isn't assuming it regulates "online commerce," as Blackburn suggests. It is sticking to what it can do under the law. No one has said the FCC wants to take jurisdiction over online commerce, nor to the platforms where commerce takes place. That's simply a false argument trotted out time and time again.
None of these fake arguments would be important, except to the extent that Blackburn, Bono and others are going to try to write legislation to keep the FCC from protecting consumers who use high-speed Internet access services. They want to nullify the FCC's authority over broadband. If that happens, then the good things that FCC opponents say they want to happen -- the maximum freedom for online commerce, innovation -- will constantly be under threat with no remedy in sight. And any FCC plans to expand broadband deployment will be jeopardized.
A neutral Internet was good enough for the two Republicans on the FCC to swallow. It was good enough for Comcast and AT&T to agree to. It should be enough for their colleagues on Congressional forces would let it go forward. Capitol Hill as well. A broadband-charged economy is good for everyone. If only those same
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David Bromwich: Obama, Incorporated
and if you don't believe me just check out Slickdeals or Fatwallet in the Drugstores/B+M section...
Net neutrality is guaranteed in the FCC ruling, but an exception was given to cell operators. Cable, fiber, satellite, WiFi - net neutrality is mandated on all of them. Cell networks were exempted because they are incredibly slow, built and owned by the companies, and run a private protocol anyway.
Most important, we have competition for cell phones. If you don't like your cell service, switch carriers. We broke up the Bell monopoly because we believed we were better served by competition than regulation. I think that was a mistake, but we now have to act on that basis and let competition do its thing. If it doesn't work, then we'll need to add regulations. And no, it won't be too late then. Nobody is going to set up any monopoly in this space, it's changing too rapidly. That includes Facebook, they'll be like myspace in a few years. Everything in high tech is obsolete every five years.
PS I've been a software engineer since '72, used the Internet since '85, did some work on the first browser (Mosaic), extensive work on video over networks, have a patent related to it. I know the technology, likely much better than the author.
You still want to trust the corporations?
“Today the Commission takes an important step to preserve the Internet as an open platform for innovation, investment, job creation, economic growth, competition, and free expression. To provide greater clarity and certainty regarding the continued freedom and openness of the Internet, we adopt three basic rules...”
That it will be contained at just network providers is bunk. Guys like Frank Pasquale have been chomping at the bit for this Order because he sees it as a beachhead to establish a Federal Search Commission for “near monopolists” like Google.
And, what about the new OVD regulation? As Susan Crawford writes, in the Comcast Order the FCC got pretty, well, creative. Welcome to the slippery slope of Internet regulation.
Notes Crawford:
“…big lawyerly moment [which] happens on p.4: the creation of the new acronym for the imagined market on which the agencies have focused so much attention. Right there, FCC says that a group it calls “online video distributors,” or “OVDs,” have concerns.“
Public Knowledge and others were thick as thieves at the FCC in helping to create the new category / the new OVD regulation. And that won’t be used to regulate the Internet beyond simply hamstringing Comcast? C’mon.
You don't get it. Network providers are unsung heroes, which I have blogged about here:
http://mediafreedom.org/2011/01/network-providers-are-americas-great-unsung-moral-actors/
Genachowski needs to be fired for overreach...
Who in the room still believes the U.S. today is any better than the Soviet Union?
Tim Wu on the Closing of the Internet
A quote from Lincoln now appears on the facade of the US Patent Office.
"The patent system adds the fuel of interest to the fire of genius."
It really can't be said better than that. If we want progress, if we want innovation, if we want new technology, we should follow Lincoln's counsel and protect the PROFITABILITY of doing so.
Maybe with Net Neutrality, there will never be a push for ultra-high-speed internet infrastructure. After all, who's going to spend billions building, maintaining, and improving infrastructure if they can't even guarantee that their own company will benefit?
If Comcast could carve out a high speed pipeline with which to deliver pay-per-view content, they might want to build that infrastructure. They might want to develop new, better technologies. They might want to do a lot of things to create new markets and new possibilities.
By protecting the profit motive, you open the doors for millions of people around the country to move forward. Net Neutrality assumes that the government knows best, that we should look to the past instead of the future, and that profit is inherently bad despite what Lincoln knew about it.
"The Internet, particularly an Internet under the control of both government and corporation, is a flip of the switch aware from deathly silence."
I agree, but for the time being they need the revenue and the people in their computer seat. Btw, I got a comment from you last night, but for some reason the moderator did not allow it to clear. I can recall a little bit from it and I agree, we both have the same mixture in our political thinking: Liberal on social issues, and a little conservatism on economic issues. Living in a Red State has crafted me this way.
A community (100-1000 people or so) only needs one Ham operator to stay in touch with the rest of the world, no matter what happens. I'm not a Ham, either, but I do have a GMDSS (global maritime distress safety system ... ie; non-Morse radio) license. It was a real challenge, passing that test. I've known a lot of commercial radio telegraph operators, and learned a lot from them, too. http://wireless.fcc.gov/commoperators/index.htm?job=t1 25 words per minute by radiotelegraphy sounds crazy.
Yup, I grew up in an, at the time, red region of a very blue state. It's schizophrenic, now bluer than blue with a redder than red undertone. Here's the local paper I grew up with: Anderson Valley Advertiser. It was a very different place when I graduated and left town in 1968.
Ham radio may not be ideal, but when my segment of the Internet goes down, it keep communications open while those who don't have access are looking at "Unable To Load Page" errors.
DSL/Cable/Wireless broadband communication from you to your ISP are intrastate end to end.
This may be true but what about the back-haul that links you to websites like this one for instance. Those are interstate. All you have to do is trace-route a website to see how many hops it takes to get from your home to the server serving the information to you which in most cases is interstate. If it IS interstate then the FCC does have authority.
If the FCC doesn't have control are we supposed to rely on ISP's to do the right thing. Yeah right. If doing the right thing means doing what is right for their shareholders then you are bang on accurate.
The interstate communication that occurs "on top of" that link is interstate, but it is not what you are paying the ISP for. You pay the ISP for broadband communication to the ISP.
This has already been worked out years ago.
Why do you automatically assume that the FCC will do the right thing but ISPs won't?
BUT Marsha Blackburn did Vote FOR: Patriot Act Reauthorization, Electronic Surveillance, Funding the REAL ID Act (National ID), Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, Thought Crimes “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, Warrantless Searches, Employee Verification Program, Body Imaging Screening, Patriot Act extension; and only NOW she is worried about free speech, privacy, and government take over of the internet?
Marsha Blackburn is my Congressman.
See her “blatantly unconstitutional” votes at :
http://mickeywhite.blogspot.com/2009/09/tn-congressman-marsha-blackburn-votes.html
Mickey