Saturday, May 20, 2006

Net Neutrality Dont Get Fooled

Many Hill offices have been bombarded with net neutrality calls, unfortunately to many people have been suckered by the business interest of Microsoft, Google and Yahoo.

These companies are telling us through MoveOn.org (why are you being used by business interest--YOU SOLD OUT) that traditional telco's are going to make express lanes on the net for their clients and customers thus reducing capacity and the freedom of the net. The M-G-Y conglomerate is saying they will not be able to deliver their new gaming, video, voice services because of evil Cable and RBOC's.

Dont fall for either side, the net neutrality debate was born from the master of spin. It is lobbying at its ugliest. This is a business fight it is old school telco vs. next generation providers.

Who gets used in this "issue" debate, us the consumers they are playing on your heart strings all for what to keep the internet open. i dont think so. This is not about something as honorable as keeping the internet free it is justa business fight and MoveOn.org is the tool for Google.

Please read what you are signing. Please investigate what you are signing or emailing. Please use your brain. Net neutrality is a business fight. its not a fight to save the internet. Its a fight to make one service provider stronger then the other.

2 comments:

directorblue said...

You are sadly mistaken. The history of the carriers behavior is not proud. Before net neutrality was enunciated as an FCC principle and enforced:

- AT&T warned customers that using Wi-Fi home networking equipment was a 'federal crime'
- Cox Cable disciplined users of virtual private networks
- Comcast blocked Internet VPN ports, which prevented Washington state workers from telecommuting

Now revisit the COPE Act and try to find the following words:

- block
- impair
- degrade

If the carriers don't intend to discriminate (block, filter, degrade, or impair various content providers), why have they wall-papered Washington with green and, coincidentally, had those very words omitted from the COPE Act?

Other questions you need to ask yourself:

- when the carriers -- and not the consumers -- get to discriminate between content-providers, what happens to ventured-funded innovation, startups, and America's technological leadership position?

- does it make sense that the telcos are trying to shoehorn TCP/IP into an HDTV/IPTV delivery platform when they haven't even mastered QoS for VoIP on private, dedicated networks?

CapitolSwell said...

No one is defending industry. they are both trying to screw each other at our expense.

Again, this is a fight between two sectors in the industry content vs carriers and both sides want to squash the other. To pick one side over the other is the mistake policy makers often make.

Thats what both sides are doing, they want Congress to decide on which should win, with Bartons language in the COPE Act for the traditional carreirs and the push by MoveOn through Dingell-Markey from the ebays and googles of the world.

Comcast customers would be outraged if Comcast decided to push their auction site over eBay. Or if Comcast pushed their TV content versuss being able to watch Lost or The Office from a TV network. There would be so much consumer outrage that Cocmast would be scared off.

Googlr does the smae with being able to push one e-commerce site over another with advertising dollars.

Congress ahs given these guys all the incentives in the world to provide us with better services and cooler products but it still doesnt come to market.

Consumers should control the Internet's futre not Congress