Now that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has put the issue of Net Neutrality on the front burner, the often-ludicrous reasons some people give to oppose Net Neutrality are coming out all over the place.  When you find one that is particularly preposterous, use the Contact Us link at the top of the screen and drop us a summary and a link.  We’ll be calling out the silliest and debunking those that might sound good on the surface but have a soft, squishy, logic-free center.

To get us started, this letter to the editor turned up last week in The Seattle Times:

The recent Seattle Times editorial on net neutrality seemed logical on the surface [“Protecting net neutrality,” Opinion, Sept. 22], but in reality was a Robin Hood-style regulation.

Let me pose a question: What would The Times’ opinion be if the Federal Communications Commission mandated The Times’ facilities were open to anyone who wants to use it as they wished?

I suspect the company would probably make an argument that it made the huge capital investment, and therefore should have control over who can or cannot use it.

So explain, what is the fundamental difference between the management of this capital asset and that of a company such as Comcast or any other Internet provider?

I suspect nothing other than another example of government intervention into a business and technology they do not understand. The Times should be thankful they are not focused on the newspaper industry.

I’ve long accused the Federal Communications Commission of being out of touch and not understanding (‘broadband over power lines’ advocacy being a particularly stupid idea on their part), but rest assured, they are well acquainted with the arguments the broadband industry makes to preserve its position.  Providers spend tens of millions of dollars to hire lobbyists to advocate just that.

To use Robin Hood as an analogy puts us squarely in OppositeLand, where ‘up is down’ and ‘right is left.’  Robin Hood was a story about robbing from the rich to give to the poor.  This writer seems to think the “poor” are Comcast and AT&T, and the individual customers most at risk from Net Neutrality abuse are somehow the “rich.”

Perhaps it would have been more apt to suggest the Seattle Times would be guilty of Net Neutrality abuse if it openly refused to print ‘letters to the editor’ or interview people for stories who did not have a home delivery subscription to the newspaper.

A newspaper, of course, is not the equivalent of the global Internet.  It’s just one of countless content creators that use the Internet to make their content more accessible to an online audience, one that might choose to read what they publish.  That’s an important distinction, because Net Neutrality does not interfere with content creators and tell them what they can and cannot say.  It helps protect their independence.  The Seattle Times can print whatever they see fit, and you and I make the individual decision to read or not read what they publish.

More importantly, and why the writer’s analogy misses the mark:  If you or I don’t like The Times and think we can do a better job, we can start our own website and publish our own content.  We don’t need the imprimatur of establishment media to make our own content available to the masses.  Individual readers will judge the quality and value of our content individually, and determine its importance and relevance accordingly.  So you or I don’t need to demand The Seattle Times open up their presses to our content — we can simply publish our own content independently, enjoying the exact same global reach, and have the potential to be just as successful as they are.

But let’s get back to the writer’s premise and adjust it slightly.  The Times pays a web hosting company to make their articles available online.  They have a business relationship with that hosting company, which uses part of that hosting fee to pay for their own pipeline to the Internet.

Meanwhile, you and I pay a monthly fee for an Internet Service Provider (ISP).  We pay them every month to provide unencumbered connectivity to the Internet, which happens to include the website for The Seattle Times.

One day, our ISP mails a letter to The Times and tells them that unless they pay to become a “preferred content partner,” they can no longer guarantee that the newspaper’s web pages will always reach you and I on a timely basis.  In effect, our ISP now wants to be paid twice — once by us to access the Internet, and once by the newspaper for “assurances” their content will reach us at broadband speeds.

The Times doesn’t have a business relationship with our ISP, but you and I do — specifically to provide the connectivity they suggest may soon no longer be guaranteed to those who “use their pipes for free.”

Now the problem becomes clearer to understand.  Even more concerning is that some of these ISPs own and manage news content sites.  Will they charge themselves the same price they ask from others?

Net Neutrality in its entirety protects content producers, like this website, from having its reach impacted.  Remember, one of the biggest strengths of the Internet is that anyone, anywhere, can reach this website or The Seattle Times on equal terms just by typing in the address.  No Internet user or content producer should have to face a blockade from providers that don’t like the message, had their content moved to the “slow lane” for not paying an unprecedented fee, or had their website overshadowed because a competitor leveraged favorable treatment from their “preferred content partner” status.

Professor Geist

The Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission, the Canadian equivalent of the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, may be forced to consider American broadband policy before defining Net Neutrality and its role in Canadian broadband, according to an article published today in The Globe & Mail.

[FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s] proposal – to codify and enforce some general principles of “Net neutrality” – comes as the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is expected to release its own position this fall, after public consultations this summer that prompted feedback from tens of thousands of Canadians.

“The kinds of principles that the FCC is now looking to put into rules are precisely what the CRTC heard from many groups this past summer,” said Michael Geist, a University of Ottawa professor who holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law. “The kinds of concerns that Canadians have been expressing have clearly been taken to heart by the FCC.”

Many Canadian citizens have been unhappy with the CRTC after a summer of hearings and policy decisions which have almost universally-favored Canadian broadband providers’ positions.  The CRTC seemed skeptical during hearings over the urgency to enforce Net Neutrality protections and stop provider’s throttling of peer to peer networks.  But consumers were even more upset when the Commission agreed with Bell, Canada’s largest phone company and wholesale broadband provider, and allowed the company to impose “usage based billing (UBB)” (Internet Overcharging) on wholesale buyers — primarily independent Internet Service Providers.  Canadian customers attempting to avoid usage caps and consumption billing relied on more generous policies from independent providers, policies likely to be revoked with the imposition of UBB, potentially making flat rate broadband service in Canada largely extinct.

In general terms, Net neutrality refers to the concept that access to all legal content on the Internet should be equal. The concept often comes up in relation to the practice of “bandwidth throttling,” where ISPs limit the transfer speed of certain kinds of data – such as the transfer of large movie files between users – but not other kinds.

Many large Canadian ISPs have argued that network management doesn’t affect Net neutrality, and taking away an ISP’s ability to manage its network results in worse service for a large number of customers.

Currently, there is no uniform practice among large ISPs in Canada when it comes to network management. Some firms throttle bandwidth during certain times of the day, whereas other limit bandwidth all the time, or not at all. A CRTC ruling this fall could go a long way toward implementing a uniform code for all ISPs.

“In light of what we’ve seen today, [the CRTC ruling] will be particularly telling because the benchmark now isn’t just what the CRTC heard during this hearing, the benchmark now is our neighbours to the south,” Prof. Geist said. “The CRTC will in many ways be measured up against what the FCC is doing in the U.S.”

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Phillip "I Can See the Problem" Dampier

Yesterday’s proposal by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski gets Net Neutrality halfway there.  That already puts us ahead of Canadian broadband, which is a throttler’s paradise, but remember — an eventual FCC rulemaking is not a law.  An FCC policy is only as good as the agency’s willingness to enforce it.  If a new administration decides Net Neutrality is not to their liking, they could very well appoint new Commissioners who agree, and while they may not repeal such policies, they aren’t likely to spend time enforcing them either.

Americans must insist that Net Neutrality have the force of federal law, and that can be done by telling your member of Congress to co-sponsor the Internet Freedom Preservation Act (H.R. 3458.)

Canadians need to immediately appeal to their MPs and ask why Canada is stuck with throttling broadband providers that completely ignore Net Neutrality when the United States not only has a bill to codify Net Neutrality protections but a regulatory communications body that is going to enforce it as policy even without a new law.  That’s a far cry from the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) which has spent all year rubber-stamping the wish list of the broadband industry.  That’s simply unacceptable, and Canadians need to tell MPs their vote in the next round of elections will depend on which candidate has the best plan to solve this mess.  There is absolutely no justification for Canada falling behind the United States in broadband service.  If the CRTC won’t represent Canadian citizens, perhaps it’s time to get rid of it and let them form an industry trade group, which isn’t far off from where they are right now.

Net Neutrality alone is not nirvana for broadband consumers.  Indeed, there is every expectation some broadband providers may try to slap more Internet Overcharging schemes on consumers and try to blame Net Neutrality for it, under the false “either/or premise.”  Too often, public interest groups and some consumers have been led astray with the assumption that one is better than the other, and that’s a false choice.  Both are extremely bad for innovation, broadband advancement, and consumer adoption and acceptance of broadband service.  When you engage in Overcharging schemes like raising prices, imposing usage caps, meters, overlimit fees and penalties, some consumers will decide it just isn’t worth it.  Few consumers will risk using high bandwidth online applications of the future worried about their usage allowance for the month, or the penalty for exceeding it.

Free Press Illustrates the Telecom Industry's Lobbying Frenzy

Internet Overcharging schemes are not dead, although some of the earlier experiments have been temporarily shelved.  Some smaller providers in rural and small cities are already engaged in usage caps combined with consumption billing.  AT&T continues its experiment in Beaumont and Reno.  Comcast celebrated its first anniversary of the 250GB usage cap by leaving it right where it is, unchanged.  Wireless mobile broadband is a 5GB capped experience all-around.

Although I realize it is difficult to generate intensity when there aren’t big bad actors imminently dropping Internet Overcharging on millions of broadband customers, this is not the time to keep the pressure off.  Let’s make sure providers realize the intense, red hot hatred of gas gauges, meters, and all of the other Overcharging schemes has not cooled a single degree.  You can do that by making another round of phone calls and sending messages to your member of Congress to support Rep. Eric Massa’s Broadband Internet Fairness Act (H.R. 2902.)

This bill does -not- get the government involved in regulating the pricing of broadband service, as some astroturfers have alleged.  It simply demands proof that a provider has a financial need to engage in these practices, and in the absence of independent verification, protects consumers by prohibiting providers from leveraging their de facto monopoly/duopoly status and imposing them anyway.

No government legislation alone is ever going to solve all of our broadband problems and concerns.  But some pro-consumer protections protect our wallets from the undercompetitive broadband industry most of us have to deal with.

Don’t be fooled by providers openly wondering why such protections are necessary.  It was ironic watching yesterday’s panel discussion on broadband when David Young from Verizon started asking what problem Net Neutrality was trying to solve.  He didn’t see any and had no problem living under the open platform standard Genachowski proposed.  That’s ironic because Verizon has nearly 200 paid lobbyists fighting Net Neutrality and related telecommunications policy spending well over $10 million dollars on it this year.  If Young doesn’t see the problem, why are ratepayers and shareholders footing the bill to address it?

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski

FCC Chair Julius Genachowski announced a proposal that would prevent cable, wireless and telecommunications companies from blocking certain information on the Internet. A panel of industry analysts then discussed the concept called “net neutrality,” along with their ideas for improving broadband access.

Event Information

When

Monday, September 21, 2009
10:00 AM to 12:00 PM

A Wall Street Journal article this morning calls the imminent introduction of Net Neutrality policy “a boon for consumers […] to use their computers or cellphones to enjoy videos, music and other legal services that hog bandwidth.”

The article refers to the widely expected announcement today by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski that Net Neutrality should be adopted as the fifth principle governing Internet service in the United States.

But Journal reporter Amy Schatz’s judgment about who wins and who loses in the Net Neutrality debate is framed by the flawed broadband provider arguments she adopts as reality:

The proposed rules could change how operators manage their networks and profit from them, and the everyday online experience of individual users. Treating Web traffic equally means carriers couldn’t block or slow access to legal services or sites that are a drain on their networks or offered by rivals.

The rules will escalate a fight over how much control the government should have over Internet commerce. The Obama administration is taking the side of Google, Amazon.com Inc. and an array of smaller businesses that want to profit from offering consumers streaming video, graphics-rich games, movie and music downloads and other services.

Setting aside the inappropriate use of the word “hog” to define broadband usage, which comes straight out of the broadband industry’s public relations strategy, Schatz ignores the fact some of the biggest drains on these networks will soon come from the industry’s own efforts to dominate online video — TV Everywhere.

In fact, the excuses for imposing Internet Overcharging schemes in 2009 do not reference much beyond online video growth as a justification to impose speed throttles and price increases on consumers.

Schatz adopts industry positions as fact in a number of places throughout her piece, which belongs on the Editorial page of the Journal:

If the FCC does force U.S. wireless carriers to open their networks to data-heavy applications like streaming video, it could push them beyond the limited capacity they have. Already, in areas like New York and San Francisco, a high concentration of iPhones has caused many AT&T customers to complain about degrading service.

In fact, many wireless carriers already provide their own wireless video to customers, and don’t seem to be engaging in a lot of hand-wringing over that.  Should Net Neutrality force open the wireless platform, the quality of the service, not the provider’s self interest will govern the success and failure of individual applications.  AT&T, which has earned massive revenue from its exclusive iPhone arrangement with Apple, can and should continue to invest some of that revenue into expanding their network to meet the demand.  If they cannot, it is an open question why they would allow any online video or other data-heavy applications on their networks until those networks can handle the traffic.

In such a scenario, wireless carriers may have to rethink how much they charge for data plans or even cap how much bandwidth individuals get, said Julie Ask, a wireless analyst at Jupiter Research.

This ignores the fact providers have already rethought about how much they charge for data plans.  Some providers are now compelling subscribers to choose data plans as part of their two year service agreements, while the industry is replete with 5GB usage caps on wireless data services today.  Someone should ask Ask what she thinks is forthcoming that hasn’t already happened.

The FCC’s proposal will take into account the bandwidth limitations faced by wireless carriers, according to people familiar with the plan, and would ask how such rules should apply to current networks.

…which takes the wind out of the sails of the argument Net Neutrality would be ruinous to wireless providers.

The proposals come as the FCC faces a federal appeals court case over its authority to regulate Web traffic. Comcast is fighting an FCC decision last year to ding it for violating the agency’s “net neutrality” principles when it slowed traffic for some subscribers who were downloading big files. Comcast said it didn’t violate any rules because the FCC had never formally adopted any, but it did change how it manages its network.

In reality, Comcast’s speed throttle targeted files small and large, all because they were delivered over a specific network Comcast didn’t like: peer to peer.  That’s a protocol that relies on a group of people obtaining files by sharing pieces already downloaded with one another until the file is complete for everyone.  That involves uploading and downloading file pieces, often over a lengthy period.  Comcast’s network was built with the assumption most customers would download far more than they upload, and peer-to-peer challenged that model with its file sharing methodology.  The surge in upload traffic challenged their network at times, so Comcast decided to throttle the maximum speeds consumers could use while engaged in peer-to-peer file sharing.

Republicans are likely to oppose the FCC’s new proposal — both at the FCC and in Congress — arguing that the FCC is trying to fix problems that don’t exist and that the agency should take a more hands-off approach to the fast-changing industry.

“With only a few isolated instances of complaints alleging net neutrality-like abuses ever having been filed, it is a mistake,” said Randolph May, president of Free State Foundation, a free-market oriented think tank.

It’s difficult to fathom exactly how much more “hands-off” the agency can get with respect to broadband, an unregulated service in the United States.  That “hands-off” policy was responsible for the establishment of de facto monopoly/duopoly broadband service in most American cities, wireless broadband that charges nearly the same price for the same usage capped service, and is tinkering with Internet Overcharging to leverage that market status into higher pricing for all consumers.

May’s argument is akin to calling the fire department only after a fire has consumed half of your home, not when the smoke detector first goes off.

As a result, both the cable companies and phone companies had incentives to create conditions on the Internet — either through pricing or slowing or speeding up certain sites — to favor their own content.

This sentence, buried towards the end of the piece, exemplifies exactly why Net Neutrality is so important.  Let’s put this fire out before it burns out of control.