This slide, produced to sell "network management" equipment, is the best argument for Net Neutrality around.

Want to visit Facebook?  That will be two cents per megabyte, please.  Skype?  You can get a real bargain this month — your ISP is only charging you $5 for an unlimited monthly permission pass.  YouTube?  All customers with a deluxe bundled broadband plan get a special discount — just 50 cents for up to 60 videos, this month only!

All of these charges, levied by your Internet Service Provider, are real world scenarios being sold by two equipment vendors — Allot Communications and Openet, for immediate use on Net Neutrality-free wireless broadband networks.  Thanks to Stop the Cap! readers Lance and Damian for sending us the story.

Both companies are excited by the potential harvest of bountiful revenue — for themselves in selling the equipment that will carefully monitor what you do with your Internet connection and then control what kind of experience you get, and for providers who can finally bend the usage curve down while “finally” getting average revenue per customer shooting sky high once again.

In the webinar, run last Tuesday and moderated by Fierce Wireless, the two companies carefully divided their one hour presentation between the technological and financial benefits of “network management” technology.  For every statement about how their bandwidth management system would improve the predictable responsiveness of the provider’s network, another comment followed, touting the enormous new revenue potential this technology will bring providers, all without costly network upgrades.

Poor provider. His stuffed pockets of profit are leaking your money paid to access websites you want to visit. But with Allot and Openet's products, the pot 'o gold is just a few steps away.

On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission will vote on a watered-down Net Neutrality proposal that would do nothing to prevent this nightmare scenario from becoming reality.  The webinar and its accompanying slides couldn’t illustrate Net Neutrality-proponents’ arguments better:

1. Such technology requires providers to carefully track and monitor everything you do with your web connection, obliterating privacy and creating a potential data trail that could be exploited for just about anything.  Indeed, Allot and Openet treat the data tracking feature as a benefit, opening the door to marketing campaigns to upsell your broadband connection or target upgrade offers based on your web history;

2. It’s all about the money.  Allot and Openet see their products as a cost-saver for providers to control expenses by cutting speeds/access for heavy users to provide a more consistent service for others, reducing the urgency to upgrade networks.  The companies also heavily focus on the revenue opportunities available from Internet Overcharging schemes;

3. The webinar includes a slide showing that providers can charge individual fees just to visit and utilize third party websites and applications, while letting providers deliver their own content, services and applications for free.  Got a bothersome competitor?  Just make a quick change with Allot’s product and your customers will face a withering admission fee in the amount you choose before they can even use the application;

4. The technology allows providers to wreak special havoc on peer-to-peer traffic, always the bane of traffic-conscious ISPs;

5. Want to extract more cash from an individual subscriber?  Providers can custom-design packages based on web site habits, usage, speed, and even the time of day the person is most likely to use the web.  Providers can then develop so many different usage packages, comparison shopping becomes meaningless.  The price you pay may be different than what others on your street pay, and you may never know by how much or why.

These Big Telecom workmen are not hard at work upgrading networks to meet demand. They are wrangling an Internet Overcharging scheme to reduce your usage while charging you more. (All of these slides were produced by the vendors themselves.)

Public Knowledge legal director Harold Feld saw right through the slide show: “If you want the slide deck to show why we need the same rules for wireless and wireline, this is it.”

Listen to the audio portion of “Managing the Unmanageable: Monetizing and Controlling OTT Applications,” which does not include the slide show. (60 minutes)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

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Broadband advocates have been warning providers have been dreaming of this kind of pricing for a few years now.

“I have been saying that this is where they want to go for a while,” Barbara van Schewick wrote to Wired. “The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), a technology that is being deployed in many wireline and wireless networks throughout the country, explicitly envisages this sort of pricing as one of the pricing schemes supported by IMS.”

Although the system described by the webinar is currently being sold for use on wireless networks, nothing prevents providers from adopting similar schemes on their wired networks, arguing their use is about “intelligent network management,” not content or pricing discrimination.

It’s a scenario likely to be tested soon, especially with FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s watered down Net Neutrality proposals.  More than one observer believes the chairman has made a deal with the Big Telecom Devil: observe our watered down rules, don’t sue to have them thrown out, and the Commission will not invoke Title II and reinstate regulatory authority over broadband.

But as anyone who watches the broadband industry must realize by now, providers always break these deals.  They will sue the moment a controversy erupts that is not in their favor, and they are very likely to win.

In a welcome turn of events, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), which has routinely turned up as a member of Big Telecom-backed astroturf campaigns and takes money from AT&T, has come together with Latinos for Internet Freedom to issue a joint statement calling on the Federal Communications Commission to adopt equal Net Neutrality policies for wired and wireless broadband services.

“Although we disagree on some of the components of the proposed network neutrality regulations, there is one point on which we are in lock step: the FCC’s network neutrality rules must apply equally to wireline and wireless internet access.  Of course we understand that what is ‘reasonable network management’ may be slightly different over different types of connections.  Cost is the primary barrier to broadband adoption, and Latinos are turning to their mobile phones as their only onramp to the internet.  We are committed to finding ways to lower broadband costs by increasing competition through wireless access and other means.  It is therefore essential that the FCC ensures that users of wireless and wireline services are protected by its openness rules.”

Of course, broadband providers’ demands for deregulation and unified opposition to Net Neutrality have never delivered and will never provide cheaper Internet service to anyone.  In fact, the court ruling that eliminated the FCC’s authority over broadband gave providers nearly a year of a wide open marketplace, yet many providers are now sending out notices they are -increasing- broadband prices for subscribers.  Net Neutrality has never been enforced against wireless networks either, and as a result most either usage cap, throttle, or charge enormous overlimit fees for users deemed to be “using too much.”

Increased competition can bring lower prices, but only if it extends well beyond today’s duopoly.  In areas where one provider is likely to maintain a de facto monopoly, effective oversight is required to ensure consumers receive adequate service at fair prices.

Still, it is a surprising and welcome change to see LULAC recognizing the true nature of broadband access for many economically-challenged Americans, especially in minority communities where unemployment continues to be catastrophic.  Some consumers are finding prepaid wireless broadband service to be one way onto the Internet, yet Big Telecom has sought to keep those networks exempt from any Net Neutrality consumer protections.  That cannot be allowed to happen.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Verizon vs. Latinos for Internet Freedom.flv[/flv]

Watch these two competing spots from Verizon and the Latinos for Internet Freedom.  One is self-serving and a tad condescending, the other calls for a free and open Internet where individuals get a level playing field to tell their own stories and live their own lives without fear or special favor.  (2 minutes)

Credo Action delivers flowers to the FCC

Over the last two days, the SavetheInternet.com Coalition, their allies and other broadband activists have delivered more than two million signatures from Americans demanding the Federal Communications Commission adopt real Net Neutrality reforms.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is pushing a set of weak regulations that give just about everything to giant phone and cable companies, and leave Internet users with almost nothing.

We still have time to fix this toothless rule before it goes to a vote Dec. 21. Hence, the petitions.

The petition marathon comes as the FCC closes the public comment period on proposed Net Neutrality reforms.  Public interest groups ranging from Free Press, Common Cause, Credo Action, ColorofChange.org, and Public Knowledge, among others were involved in the petition relay.

Credo Action even sent flowers, protesting Genachowski’s apparent retraction on strong Net Neutrality.  Two massive funeral arrangements, one labeled “R.I.P. Net Neutrality” were delivered to the agency on Monday.

“The public will accept nothing less than real Net Neutrality,” said Misty Perez Truedson of Free Press. “No almost Net Neutrality, no half Net Neutrality and no fake Net Neutrality. And we hope that while he is considering his proposed rules, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski remembers that millions of people are expecting him to keep his promise to protect the open Internet.”

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/2 Million.flv[/flv]

Watch this compilation of videos from those delivering the petitions to the FCC and learn more about why Net Neutrality is important.  (22 minutes)

Copps

Julius Genachowski’s fellow Democratic commissioner Michael Copps is signaling discontent with the FCC chairman over his weak approach at Net Neutrality reform.

During a Thursday speech before the Columbia University School of Journalism in New York, Copps said several aspects of Genachowski’s proposed reforms are non-starters for him.

In particular, he objects to Internet toll-booths, part of the “paid prioritization” argument that would allow preferred content to get traffic priority, presumably in return for money.  Copps sees that as the Internet’s great un-equalizer, allowing deep pocketed content providers to gain a competitive advantage.

Copps calls such arrangements dangerous, insisting they “cannot be allowed to supplant the quality of the public Internet service available to us all.”

Copps also finds it unacceptable that wireless providers gained major concessions that would allow them to treat content unequally.

“Internet Freedom also means guaranteeing openness in the wireless world as well as the wired. As people cut their wired connections, why would we deny them openness, accessibility and consumer protections in the wireless world,” Copps asked.

None of the proposals Genachowski makes may withstand legal challenges, Copps says, if the Commission does not reclassify broadband under Title II of its regulatory authority, declaring the Internet a “telecommunications service.”

“If this requires reclassifying advanced telecommunications as Title II telecommunications — and I continue to believe this is the best way to go — we should just do it and get it over with,” Copps said.

[flv width=”512″ height=”308″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/BBC News The public is crying out for news and information 12-3-10.flv[/flv]

The FCC’s Michael Copps appeared on BBC America’s World News to discuss his concerns about the quality of American broadcast journalism and Internet policies.  (4 minutes)

Mignon Clyburn, the Commission’s newest Democratic member, is being lobbied heavily by public interest groups to join Copps in demanding a better deal for consumers.  But some analysts think she’ll be the easiest vote for Genachowski to get.

Clyburn is a strong proponent of Net Neutrality and has made the issue a centerpiece of several public appearances.

Genachowski may find his proposal ultimately will fail to win a majority vote, because Republicans are strongly opposed to it, and his fellow Democratic commissioners may find voting for what some are calling a capitulation to providers too unpalatable.

Republicans promise to try and derail any Net Neutrality reforms in the House of Representatives when they take control in January.

[flv width=”540″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Mignon Clyburn Open Internet Champion.flv[/flv]

Mignon Clyburn receives thanks from public interest groups for her support of an Open Internet.  (2 minutes)

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Connection Blocked PSA.flv[/flv]

Net Neutrality is the free speech issue of our times. Save the Open Internet! Visit http://wgaeast.org/savetheinternet to send a message to the FCC.  (1 minute)