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I recommend a strong academic paper that debunks the sloppy thinking and analysis behind Columbia Professor Tim Wu's call for wireless net neutrality -- its by: Robert Hahn and Robert Litan of AEI/Brookings and Hal Singer of Criterion Economics.

• It is an important rebuttal that concludes that the costs of wireless net neutrality would exceed any benefits.

What I like most about the study is that it is a systematic evisceration of the logic and evidence behind Mr. wu's call for wireless net neutrality.

I always love to juxtapose a couple of stories to point out irony.

Yesterday, I blogged that Tech Daily reported that the Google gang, AKA ItsOurNet ... will be relaunched in May as the "Open" Net coalition.

Well today I laughed out loud when I read in Tech Daily, that Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales is promoting a new collaborative search process like the wiki online encyclopedia.

• Wales said: "I believe Internet search is currently broken and the way to fix it is to build a community whose mission is to develop a search platform that is open and totally transparent."   

Seems like those who really know "open" don't think Google is worthy of its self annointed name of the "Open" Net Coalition.

The ItsOurNet coalition is relaunching under a new name the "Open Internet Coalition" in May according to Todays' National Journal's Tech Daily .

• The article intimates that the new incarnation of the online giant coalition may not include Microsoft.
• Since ItsOurNet formed last year Google was much more radical and hyper-regulatory than Microsoft was comfortable with.
• After coming out swinging the antitrust bat when Google outbid Microsoft, it will be very surprising if Microsoft rejoins Google's gang after parting ways with ItsOurNet last fall.

I must say I am sad to see the ItsOurNet name fall by the wayside, it was a glorious pinata of a concept.

• I needled ItsOurNet when they announced their name that it was a tad bit greedy for the online giants to claim in their name that they "owned" the Internet.
• I suggested it would have been a little wiser and fit with their "democratic" message to have called it "ItsEveryonesNet" or "ItsEverybodysNet".
• But no, they apparently are calling it the "Open Net coalition" or "OpenNetCoalition.com."
• Not bad but for grins, quickly checkout an Internet artifact before they pull it down: opennetcoalition.org.

It also will be interesting to see if they have retooled the substance of their message and if they will abandon Moveon.org and the Dorgan-Snowe bill to try and appear more reasonable and practical.

Reading between the lines of the article it seems Moveon is "on" the defensive so to speak.

lastly it will be interesting to see if:

Declan McCullagh of CNET has a very insightful piece called: "Missing : Politicians who take a clear stand on tech" where he spotlights that net neutrality is not on either the Democrat or Republican tech policy agendas.

• It is not at all surprising that the Congressional Republican agenda does not have Net neutrality on its agenda, since Republicans almost universally see net neutrality for what it is: an unnecessary and dangerous back door attempt to regulate the Internet for the first time.
• However, it is suprising and downright embarassing that Moveon.org and Google, eBay, Amazon, Yahoo, and IAC could not manage to get net neutrality on the Congressional Democratic tech policy agenda.
  

I listened in to SaveTheInternet's conference call with reporters in celebration of their one year anniversary.

• It was an illuminating "window" into the nature and status of the current Net neutrality "movement."

Senator Dorgan (D-ND) author of the pending Dorgan-Snowe Bill was the keynote and star.  

• He framed net neutrality as  "Internet freedom" and "open architecture" and breathlessly stated that "the future of the Internet is at stake." 
• He announced that he was seeking a hearing on his legislation with the goal of moving it to the Senate floor implying he had the votes to pass it.
• He also anticipated and asked himself the core question of "why is the legislation needed?"
• His only answer was to read the December 2005 Business Week quote by then SBC Chairman Ed Whitacre about how it was "nuts" for Google to use its pipes for free.
• I was stunned that he as the keynote and the name author of the legislation that he could not come up with a more recent or better piece of "evidence" or at least come up with a real world example of a problem or instance he is concerned about.
• This is obviously all politics; they have no substance or they would present it.

Craig Newmark was second to speak and he asserted everyone he knew was for NN. (I guess we should give up now.)

Curt Monash in his blog suggests a "third way" for net neutrality to go -- applying regulation to the "JeffersonNet" or "bandwidth-light" parts of the Internet while not applying it to the "EdisonNet," the more "communications-rich" applications where regulation would be an impediment.

• Others have picked up on this thread, Slashdot, and Computerworld, intrigued with the middle way or third way thinking.
• Before people get carried away that there is merit in this wishful thinking thread of discussion -- lets add a dose of reality.

With all due respect, the "middle way" thinking is seriously flawed because it assumes a compromise between views with equal merit.

• Fast forwarding to a compromise of what or how much the Internet is regulated assumes the case has been made for any new regulation of the Internet.
• That case has not been made at all.
• Net neutrality is a pathetic ragtag collection of buzzword-blackmail assertions, unsubstantiated allegations and bogus claims.
• Sure the net neutrality side would like to compromise because they have lost in every official and legal forum they have raised the issue.
• Sure they would like to compromise because that would give desperately-needed validation to a bankrupt idea that is on the ropes.
• Sure they would like to get the proverbial "camels nose under the tent."

In order to talk net neutrality compromise, net neutrality proponents have to make the case that they have legitimate concerns to begin with.

I always knew Moveon.org was a powerful political force, but I just learned how powerful -- Moveon.org was the second largest Political Action Committee (PAC) in the US in 2006, according to the Washington Post "In The Loop" column by Jeffery H. Birnbaum.

• Moveon.org, with its 3 million person email list, was the second-largest PAC with $27.7 million, after Emily's List at $34.1 million. Political MoneyLine was the cited source. 

Moveon.org's political clout combined with its zealousness for promoting net neturality regulation and the front-loaded 2008 political process mean net neutrality will likely remain on the "techcom" political agenda as a key issue for the foreseeable future -- despite getting repudiated by the House, Senate, Supreme Court, FCC, FTC, NTIA, Maryland, Michigan to only name the most prominent forums that rejected regulating the Internet.

It is very interesting and ironic that when Former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt was at the FCC he strongly advocated that "Spectrum Flexibility will Promote Competition and the Public Interest" in an article in IEEE magazine with Greg Rosston in the December 1995 issue.

• "...we must stop over-regulating commercial uses of licenses for spectrum use."
• "...in the digital age, innovation is far to rapid for anyone to predict accurately what the best use of the spectrum will be five years from now."
• "The Commission should require that market failures be clearly shown and any restrictions on flexibility narrowly targeted to deal explicitly with the failure."

While I often disagreed with then FCC Chairman Hundt when he diverted from promoting market-based competition by picking winners and losers through hyper-regulation, I must commend Mr. Hundt's logic and policy explained in detail in his IEEE monograph in 1995.  

• Its too bad that he no longer appears to support that pro-competition and pro-taxpayer stance anymore.

Ironically now, Mr. Hundt would financially benefit greatly, if the FCC rigs the 700 MHz auction to lower the value spectrum by requiring a license holder agree to net neutrality.

• The taxpayer would be the biggest loser if the FCC decides to restrict and heavily regulate some of the 700 MHz spectrum up for auction with net neutrality.

The primary impetus behind the 1993 Democratic Congress that passed the law requiring spectrum auctions is that the taxpayer was routinely being fleeced by the FCC granting spectrum by other processes than auctions.

After almost a year of opposing quotes in articles on net neutrality, the NAM weekly radio show/podcast on business, finally afforded me the opportunity to debate Craig Newmark, the famous founder of Craig's List, one-on-one live.While

• While I was looking forward to hearing his best arguments for net neutrality, it became clear from the outset that he did not want to debate the issue, but wanted to try and discredit me and my personal views from as far back as 1999.
• It turned out to be a decent strategy for him because his knowledge of the issue was surprisingly thin and he obviously did not want to engage on the merits or facts of the issue

I said I was happy to discuss my current and past views with him because it was a tacit concession by him that the net neutrality side of the debate cannot win this debate on the merits and that their best chance is attacks on me as a leading spokesperson for the broadband sector on why the Internet should not be regulated.

The people who still argue that the Internet is "neutral" have some explaining to do.

• They certainly don't want you to read the super Forbes cover story on Akamai: "Video Prophet: How Akamai survived the dot-com bust to thrive on speed."
• Check out these quotes from the article that drive home the point that the Internet has never been "neutral:"
• ..."Akamai's big idea is that by rewriting the Internet's basic rules--making some computers smarter and more equal than others--it can let the Net grow infinitely large without breaking down."...
• Horrors! Akamai is not treating bits equally! Someone call the Government!
• ..."a basic idea: Connect computers to the far reaches of the Net, then program them to communicate with one another to spot better routes for getting e-mails, Web pages and other packets to where they needed to go."...
• But the Internet is supposed to be a DUMB network! A "smarter" network would not be innovative...that can't be right...
• ..."Eventually they refined a business idea: a service that essentially would be the FedEx (nyse: FDX - news - people ) of the Internet. People could always trust the public Net to deliver their information cheaply. But others might be willing to pay Akamai a premium to deliver their content faster and more reliably..."
• Horrors again! Someone had the gall to think the perfectly "equal" Internet could be made better with a market concept of a tiered Internet... oh tell me its not true!
• ..."Every few months the algorithm writers in Cambridge inject better software into the global network to make it shrewder at picking routes for Internet traffic."...
• Egads! There are dark forces out there making the Internet less equal every few months!

I feel kinda bad that all those well-intentioned people that fell for the original slogan of "net neutrality" were suckered into assuming the Internet was "neutral" and needed to stay that way.