Comments on: Broadband Provision and Net Neutrality

By: Alva

Alva — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 11:33:13 +0000

I ve a different view of net neutrality-i worry far more about wat the govt will do once they have their regulatory claws on the net. Think the FCC and TV/radio. Think content restrictions and campaign finance “reforms”.

By: maidhc

maidhc — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 07:08:13 +0000

I recently stayed with my in-laws, who get around 150 channels on cable TV. And most nights there was nothing at all worth watching! They even get CBC, but they were just rerunning old hockey games.

The future of the internets?

In related news, the Ford Motor Company is demanding that FedEx pay royalties on all profits made by delivering packages in Ford trucks.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 09:14:00 +0000

I just have to wonder. You all know where Congress stands vis-a-vis the public interest on other issues like intellectual property. Yet somehow you seem to trust them to write a new law to protect the public interest from a threat which does not presently exist, yet you think it might come to exist in the future, while simultaneously not screwing you in the process.

Where does that trust come from?

By: Twill00

Twill00 — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 00:02:18 +0000

There are multiple radio stations available in most areas, and yet on each one you only hear fifty songs owned by the corp that owns the station. Tell me about competition.

By: jen r

jen r — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 22:19:20 +0000

Our choices for broadband in what is supposedly a very wired college town are:

Horribly unreliable cable; or
DSL owned by SBC/AT&T, who are evil.

I’m not feeling the benefits of this great competition, quite frankly.

By: M. Townes

M. Townes — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 13:54:43 +0000

This is the sentence that gets me: “Thanks to technology, the Internet will always be a relatively democratic medium with low barriers to entry.” As if technology were impervious to policy – especially not the case for the Internet. It’s like we’ve suddenly decided that maybe X.25 wasn’t such a bad idea after all, after twenty years of successful networking that would have been unlikely had the telcos gotten their way back then.

By: ProfWombat

ProfWombat — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 13:26:22 +0000

Er, uh, doesn’t the WAPO Corp. have a financial staake in this?

I live in the Boston area, which you’d expect a priori to be well-serviced. You can get dial-up (‘nuff said), Comcast broadband or Verizon DSL. But if you want to, say, bundle cable TV or local phone service, your choices get even more limited…

By: Barry

Barry — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 12:57:38 +0000

“Is it just me or does the “they don’t want to be charged fees” argument really piss anyone off? ”

Oh, it pisses me off. A 100% flat-out lie; I’d sue if I were Google or Yahoo or eBay. There’s nothing to lose, since the telco’s will put the squeeze on them anyway, given the chance.

The evil joke about deregulation, as always, is that we’ll get screwed the most. Larger companies have something to bargain with; for us, it’ll be ‘take it or leave it’.

By: Eszter

Eszter — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 10:53:32 +0000

Thanks, Henry, for writing this. It’s all very maddening and frustrating. And Goatchowder makes an additional good point about the limitations posed by contract length. Plus who is to guarantee that various options will continue to exist?

Moreover, will people be aware that they are not getting equal access to various types of content under provider x? And even if they are, will they know that if only they switched away from provider x (assuming that’s even an option) they would then have more equal access through provider y? I think all of this is extremely doubtful.

By: Something Polish

Something Polish — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 04:58:38 +0000

I thought the editorial reluctantly supported Net Neutrality, though conceded some of the bullshit big company talking points you mention.

By: goatchowder

goatchowder — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 04:36:43 +0000

Choice?! Hah!

1) 2-year lock-in contracts. Don’t like the fact that AT&T blocks access to your favorite site? Choke on it until 2008, asshole. I tried to cancel SBC DSL before my year-long contract was over. They threatened to cut off my telephone unless I paid the full year, whether I used it or not.

2) Remote nodes. In my zip code, “officially” there is tremendous choice of access due to the “open access” laws which require that any “Central Office” be available to all providers. Hee hee, that’s funny. The reality is: your choice for DSL is either SBC/AT&T or SBC/AT&T, over most of the zip code. Take your pick. Most of this zip code is way too far away from any official “central office”, so what SBC did is they created “remote nodes” which are not “officially” central offices, and thus are exempt from the “open access” restrictions. But, they are central offices. They put repeaters in them, and all of this zip code is lit up with SBC/AT&T DSL. Only the areas within range of a CO (there are only 2 in the entire zip code) can get any competitor.

FCC statistics of choice per zip code is indeed bullshit. Instead, look at choice per household, and, if you really want to do it right, choice by contract length and position in contract duration.

By: Daniel Nexon

Daniel Nexon — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 03:28:41 +0000

We should also keep in mind that the service structures of most broadband providers create major transaction costs for switching, making it unlikely that competition will “solve” the issue.

By: Pooh

Pooh — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 23:50:05 +0000

Is it just me or does the “they don’t want to be charged fees” argument really piss anyone off? Content providers ARE ALREADY BEING CHARGED.

Further, how does voting down net-neutrality increase incentives for the monopolists to increase capacity?

By: Adam Kotsko

Adam Kotsko — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 22:40:03 +0000

Maybe once the Internet is destroyed, we can all meet up and talk to people in person.

By: abb1

abb1 — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 20:45:36 +0000

They’ll kill the internets, I have no doubt. It’s too democratic, they won’t put up with it. Ten years from now it’ll be a package of sports, movie and news sites with obligatory variaty of shopping urls. And with pop-up ads you can’t stop. Resistance is futile.