Open Internet

Time Warner Cable's announcement of a new high-usage, bandwidth-pricing trial in Beaumont Texas is a common-sense balanced approach to dealing with the problem of a few bandwidth hogs degrading the efficiency and responsiveness of Internet access for the rest of TWC's customers. 

• This is a common-sense, market-based solution to restoring the efficiency of the network for all users because about 5% of users are hogging as much as 50% of the network's total available bandwidth.
• This is a balanced approach because it is a limited trial/experiment of more tiered-pricing for super-heavy users, that will garner feedback from real customers and market test pricing discipline assumptions. 

Market solutions involving real world consumer feedback are always the best solution to addressing problems like this.

While I have been critical of the AP's coverage of net neutrality issues when I believe it was warranted, to be fair I have to acknowledge and highlight AP coverage of net neutrality that's straightforward and fair.

• Today, the AP reported: "Agency Urges Caution on Net Neutrality"  

  • "Federal Trade Commission Chairman "Deborah Platt Majoras said policymakers should proceed cautiously on the issue of "net neutrality," which is the notion that all online traffic should be treated equally by Internet service providers... In separate remarks before a lawyers' group Wednesday, Majoras said the agency was unaware of any market failure or consumer harm in the high-speed Internet market, according to a written copy of her speech.""

The AP is a fine and widely respected news organization that best serves its readers and reputation when it fulfills its mission.

• "AP's mission is to be the essential global news network, providing distinctive news services of the highest quality, reliability and objectivity with reports that are accurate, balanced and informed."

I commend the new consumergram by the American Consumer Institute on: "With increased competition, US consumers exert their power over wireless providers." 

• Its a timely overview of all the benefits that US wireless consumers enjoy as a result of the US having arguably the most competitive wireless market in the world.

You wouldn't know that if you only listened to the many wireless and America bashers, organized by Google and the New American Foundation, who are gathering for a wireless/America bash-fest on Capitol Hill next week, January 22nd, called "Free my phone!"

Tim Wu is losing credibility fast. 

• His new piece in Slate: "Has AT&T lost its mind? A baffling proposal to filter the Internet" is myopic, uniformed, and borderline hysterical.

Mr. Wu please calm down. Put away any sharp objects and please listen to some reason. 

Ken Auletta of the New Yorker discovered one of those rare window-into-the-soul insights about Google in his excellent in-depth expose on Google: "The Search Party -- Google squares off with its Capitol Hill Critics." I strongly recommend reading the full article but it's critical not to miss this insightful gem in Auletta's article quoted below:

Common sense dictates that the FCC will rule in favor of the critical necessity of broadband network management and against the FreePress and Vuze petitions which claim that prioritizing p2p traffic is an unlawful violation of the FCC's network neutrality principles. 

• No one should mistake the FCC doing its job in investigating significant allegations (by issuing public notices for comments), for an FCC predilection against reasonable network management in favor of net neutrality supremacy.

The common sense case why network management trumps net neutrality:

First, the petitions violate common sense because the petitions are based on a false predicate and presumption. The petitions assume that the FCC's policy of network neutrality principles have the legal and binding effect of formal FCC rules or law and that they trump all existing law and rules. This is preposterous. Just because the petitioners make an impassioned and PR-manipulative plea for that view -- does not mean their petition holds any water.

Bob Atkinson of APT has an excellent rebutal "Disconnected Condemnation" of Art Brodsky's unwarranted and radical attack on the bipartisan "Connect Kentucky" program that is sucessfully promoting broadband to all Kentuckians.

• Mr. Atkinson exposes Mr. Brodsky's piece for what it is partisan "yellow journalism."

Pieces like Mr. Brodsky's show how low net neutrality radicals will go to forward their information commons/net neutrality agenda.

• If they have to step on rural Americans in desperate need of broadband to get what they want, so be it -- nothing can be allowed to stand in the way of a socialized Internet... their end justifies their means... 

An obviously frustrated Art Brodsky of Public Knowlege, trashes the Nation's leading and successful pilot effort to promote universal broadband in the country -- Connect Kentucky -- in a voluminous post that's best described as a glass-half-empty, life-is-so-terrible-because-the-world-is-not-perfect, whine-fest.  

• His post "Connect Kentucky provides an uncertain model for Federal Legislation," is then joined by a post by Matt Stoller of OpenLeft who is known to scorch anything in his path that is not pro net neutrality.
• Mr. Brodsky and Mr. Stoller are flaming the Connect Kentucky and Connected Nation efforts because -- horrors -- it involves public-private cooperation. Companies! eeeuuu! iickie poo! Run! protect the children -- profits are near!

These two are so tunnel-visioned against anything private sector and so zealous for government nationalization of broadband infrastructure -- that they fail to see that there is a strong bipartisan and practical consensus around promoting universal broadband deployment to all Americans quickly and that Connect Kentucky has proven to be quite successful in achieving that bipartisan goal.   

It's becoming increasingly obvious that net neutrality proponents have not thought through the logical and practical implications of their call for mandating net neutrality. 

• Practically, net neutrality is about codifying Internet architecture design rules for the first time, which would have the real world effect of blocking, degrading and impairing innovation to allow the Internet to support "cloud computing" -- the future of computing according to Google, IBM and many others.

Why does net neutrality theory not work in practice?

First, net neutrality is really backward-looking, trying to take the Internet back to the dial-up/pre broadband days when there was monopoly telecom regulation and not inter-modal broadband competition like there is today.

Second, consider net neutrality's definition by its primary proponents:

Kudos to some straightforward reporting by PC World in: "Comcast Welcomes FCC Traffic Management Inquiry," which is in stark contrast to the "guilty-until-proven-innocent" headline in AP Peter Svensson's story "FCC to Probe Comcast's data discrimination."  

PC World reporters and editors have clearly not made up their mind in advance of the FCC's inquiry, unlike the AP reporter and editors which clearly have. 

• What is most outrageous in the AP coverage of this story is that the reporter set up his own test of Comcast traffic management, concluded "expertly" that traffic management was wrong and should be prosecuted, and judged Comcast to effectively be guilty of "data discrimination."
  • The AP reporter and editors are no longer functioning as news reporters, but apparently have appointed themselves police investigators, prosecutors, judge and jury all in one.

The reason that Comcast welcomes the FCC's traffic management inquiry is that they are confident that they are managing their network reasonably to preserve the quality of service expected by all their users and are within the bounds of acceptable network management.