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Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2007-06-15 09:43
You gotta love how the free market works when left alone by the Government!
Just as Frontline and others are demanding that the government has to intervene in the 700 MHz auction to "create" a third broadband pipe, the free market finds another way to solve these market problems without the Government.
One of the most significant developments in the spectrum world today was not the hot air at the Senate Commerce Committee hearing, but what happened in the free market -- DirecTV and Echostar signing agreements with Clearwire to sell their WiMax broadband service.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2007-06-14 11:11
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2007-06-12 17:53
Public interest groups supportive of net neutrality like Common Cause and The Maine Civil Liberties Union are trying to "spin" the press that the non-binding net neutrality resolution passed by the Maine Senate is somehow an important first for a state.
- The reality is that supporters of net neutrality thought that the support of net neutrality by Dorgan-Snowe co-sponsor and Maine Senator Olympia Snowe would somehow increase the chances of passing net neutrality legislation for the first time in the state of Maine.
- They were wrong.
- This legislative effort in Maine failed just like it did in Michigan and Maryland, and just like it did in every Federal forum it was raised in.
- This Maine Senate "non-binding resolution" is simply hortatory puffery, akin to naming a state insect or a state weed.
- The reality is that the Maine legislature did not pass legislation and that it clearly acknowledged in its resolution its understanding that the Internet is exclusively Federal jurisdiction.
- There is nothing that could be more Federal or "interstate" than the "INTERnet!"
This episode in Maine really is emblematic of the whole net neutrality movement.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2007-06-07 18:20
FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell gave an outstanding speech today at the Broadband Policy Summit in which he did the single best job I have seen totally debunking the OECD rankings that purportedly indicate the US is falling behind on broadband.
Commissioner McDowell explains with example after example -- how skewed the OECD methodology is.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2007-06-06 11:33
Like the discredited and shameful congressional practice of fleecing the American taxpayer with "earmarking" public funds for special interests, Frontline-Google and eBay-Skype are asking for the equivalent of special interest commercial "earmarks" from the FCC.
It is outrageous that the FCC is actually entertaining these proposed special interest scams against the American taxpayer.
What am I talking about specifically? Two special interest spectrum/policy "earmarks" are getting a lot of press attention lately.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2007-06-05 19:26
Yet another state legislature has rejected passing a law mandating net neutrality -- this time in Maine, the home state of Senator Olympia Snowe, one of net neutrality's primary sponsors and highest profile proponents in the US Senate.
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Moveon.org/SaveTheInternet are now 0-3 in their hand-picked states where they thought they had the best chance of passing a version of the Senate Snowe-Dorgan bill or the House Markey bill from last year -- and where they focused their efforts.
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Previously, Moveon.org?SaveTheInternet failed to pass net neutrality legislation in Michigan, and Maryland.
To let the net neutrality proponents save face, the Maine Senate passed a resolution, not legislation, that asks for a study on net neutrality to be completed next year.
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This is the same outcome as has occurred at the Federal level as both the FTC and FCC are studying net neutrality and seeking comments.
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Moreover, the Maine resolution also recognizes that net neutrality is a federal issue and that Maine does not have jurisdiction over the net neutrality issue.
I fully expect that Moveon.org and SaveTheInterent will continue to waste valuable state legislative time and resources on a problem they cannot even define or prove exists.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2007-05-31 10:02
Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was reported on a blog to have "supported" net neutrality in a conference call with bloggers.
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Don't believe this is his "official" policy position for a minute.
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When conservative Mike Huckabee learns both sides of this issue and is not blindsided on a conference call on a subject he was unfamiliar with, and which was then grossly mispresented, I am convinced he will not "support" net neutrality.
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No legitimate economic conservative like Mike Huckabee, who wants to radically downsize the Federal Government, will support a Big Government program to regulate the Internet for the first time.
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He clearly was not at all familiar with the issue nor that nearly all the biggest funding supporters of net neutrality are liberal groups like Moveon.org who believe in digital socialism and radically reducing intellectual property rights on the web.
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When Mike Huckabee's campaign staff research this issue, (we recommend they read the one pagers at the top right hand side of the www.NetCompetition.org website) there is no way he will support net neutrality as part of his official campaign.
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It would be totally inconguous with his other limited Government views.
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The last thing conservative Mr. Huckabee would want is to put the current "free and open" Internet under Government control.
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Not gonna happen.
This is another in a long line of supposed "endorsements" of net neutrality that result from NN proponents consistent misrepresentation of the facts and gross use of unsubstantiated allegations of a problem.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2007-05-25 18:40
Senate Democrats are attempting to sneak through the back door what they cannot get through the front door of the "free and open" policy process.
The Inouye "Broadband Data Improvement Act" is really a long term trojan horse for net neutrality and heavy regulation of broadband.
The clever ruse in this innocuous-sounding language is to redefine broadband competition as a total abject failure, and to declare broadband market failure, so the pro-regulatory types can regulate broadband becuase it is not competitive, or is at best a future duopoly.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2007-05-24 18:43
I'd like to welcome back to the playing field, the reconstituted "ItsOurNet Coalition" which inexplicably went away in January, but has now returned as "The Open Internet Coalition!"
Now we finally know what they were doing while they were gone from the scene for four months...
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They were losing weight.
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The coalition shed the excess pounds of Microsoft, Yahoo, and Amazon.
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Now the new "slimmed down" coalition can be faster, more nimble and united around being pro-regulatory for others.
I was frankly surprised that the new group chose not to be forthright and embrace its new "slimmed-down" public physique.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2007-05-24 14:20
Self-described "Internet inventor" and former Vice President Al Gore has a newly released book "The Assault on Reason" in which he comes out of the shadows and into the limelight as a leading public proponent of net neutrality.
The Save the Internet coalition blogged/bragged about the book in its post: Al Gore: Net Neutrality is the key to a better democracy." They lifted some Gore quotes that gave them lots of "warm fuzzies" inside:
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“neutrality should be the central tenet that will set us on a path toward an open, democratic Internet where free speech and free markets are encouraged.�
- “More than one and a half million citizens contacted Congress and more than eight hundred organizations joined the SavetheInternet Coalition, organized by the upstart media reform organization Free Press, using innovative online mobilization tactics …�
- Thank you Mr. Gore from coming out from the shadows and coming clean by publicly endorsing the efforts of, and tacitly acknowledging your strong ringleader role in managing "Google's poodles", SaveTheInternet and FreePress.
- The still unanswered question is how many tens of millions of dollars has Mr. Gore made from his boatload of Google options/warrants granted to him as "Senior Advisor" to Google?"
- And where are the disclosures in the book that most all of Mr. Gore's multi-ten million dollar net worth is in Google shares -- constituting a huge undisclosed conflict of interest on the issue of net neutrality.
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“I truly believe the most important factor is the preservation of the Internet’s potential for becoming the new neutral marketplace of ideas that is so needed for the revitalization of American democracy,� he writes. “People are not only fighting for free speech online, but they are also working to keep the Internet a decentralized, ownerless medium of mass communication and commerce.�
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