May 12, 2006

Here is an update on Jennifer Goebel, who put together the Internet campaign video for Mayor Pat Evans.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/city/collin/plano/stories/DN-plfocus_17cco.ART.Central.Edition1.459079c.html or
http://www.neighborsgo.com/stories/9381

Looks like politics might be in her blood.

Dear Mr. Shapiro,

Mayor Pat Evans won, 57% to 43%. Hooray! She invited all the kids in the video to her house the night of the election for an election watching party. Ironically, as busy teenagers of the 21st century we had previous engagements! We never dreamed that a bunch of 9th graders would be invited to such a awesome event.
For us, it was the passion to get a wonderful person, Mayor Pat Evans re-elected. She treats kids with respect and listens to our ideas, she is the most amazing person.
Without a person like Pat Evans, there would be no teenagers like us. This is all about her. Congratulations, Mayor Pat Evans.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Goebel
Going into 10th Grade
Jasper High School

Talk of toll roads is a bit much, isn't it? I think it is important to distinguish between rhetoric and getting more for more money on this issue.

Internetfree,

It's OK with me if you prefer a model that would determine what "high-octane" content you receive on the basis of negotiations between giants like Google and AT&T. But there are millions of Americans, including myself, who prefer an "open-Internet" model, where we pay for our connection to the Internet and get to use that connection for whatever content we choose to access. My concern is that we'll be deprived of our freedom to choose the model we prefer and the content we want to access because it's not in the financial interests of vertically-integrated duopoly access-pipe owners.

I'm not crazy about the future of the Internet being decided by Congress and the FCC, but I also don't like the idea of it being decided by a handful of cable and telco CEOs whose focus is on maximizing value for their shareholders--unless their companies are subject to the kind of real competition that makes "the invisible hand" of the market work effectively. I don't think that's the case today.

You said you "certainly prefer the government keep their regulatory hands off of this issue." Can I assume this also applies to federal and state legislation backed by incumbent access providers that would impose regulatory hurdles and increase the risks of legal challenges to Community Internet projects? As I said in my earlier comments, it seems inconsistent to oppose government regulation "in principle" with regard to network neutrality and then to support it when it serves one's purposes and preferences.

I'm not a big fan of government regulation, but I'm also not a fan of corporate monopolies (or duopolies) that have too much control over Americans' lives. And I'm especially not a fan of when the two align themselves in ways that benefit the few and wealthy at the expense of the rest of us (lots of examples here, but recent NSA snooping via telco phone records is one recent example, as are government subsidies of energy companies, agribusiness, etc, not to mention the long history of broadcast regulation).

I tend to agree with Thomas Jefferson, the founding father who pushed hardest to make sure a Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution. He wanted to include "freedom of commerce against monopolies" in the document. But he lost out to the Federalists who had more power at the time (see http://www.thomhartmann.com/restoredemocracy.shtml), in part because there didn't exist at that time the huge private corporations we have today, so their power was much smaller and less threatening than that of national governments, where they were still dealing with kings. The reality has changed a lot since then.

I'm not sure I agree with your point that Google is paying for providing what we have already paid for. The truth is that there are two options as to who will pay for the increased offering of high-octane content, such as internet video. Google, of course, would prefer the customer pay for it, which is why they are advocating net neutrality legislation. As for me, I would rather Google pay for it, and would certainly prefer the government keep their regulatory hands off of this issue.

Good points Net Chick and Mojo Risin, and we're happy to have you here. I'm on deadline, so just a few quick comments.

Net Chick: Your question about whether anything needs to be done now is a good one. I'm not sure it does and there's the related question of what and how.

But I don't agree with your second point that Google should pay for fast lane service, if you mean they have to pay access providers to deliver content and services to you on the local-access fast lane you've already paid for.

If Google can pay to get their signal to your local access point of connection and you're paying for the connection from that point to your home, then I think you should get to use that connection to access whatever content you want on equal terms.

My concern is that, to the extent this kind of "tiering" is allowed to happen, the Internet gradually shifts to a cable TV model (or, more accurately, is pushed that way by companies that own the access network).

That may be good business for the pipe-owners and, frankly, I don't like the idea of telling people how to run their business, but I think its bad public policy.

That's one reason I'd like pipe-owners to back away from challenging fiber and wireless Community Internet projects. If they want the right to leverage their substantial market power without any government rules as to how far they can leverage it, then its only fair that they stop pushing for legislation and lawsuits that restrict the rights of local communities to leverage the strengths they bring to the table and their desire to build an open-access network based on a true Internet model. Then each model can compete for customers and revenues based on what they have to offer. Seems to me that would increase consumer choice and competition and take the heat off incumbents who prefer a two-tiered approach to delivering IP services.

I appreciate Mojo's point about letting the big guys fight it out, and that may be how it shakes out.

Developments like the Google/Earthlink plan in San Francisco are one indicator that some web-centric players are looking at getting into the access business, directly or indirectly.

And, again, I'd hope that incumbents would not push for legislation that puts roadblocks in the way of such projects, which seemed to be the case to me when I read one of the provisions of Barton's bill. The provision read to me like it could open the door to litigation challenging any type of broadband project involving a local government, even if the project was funded by a private company.

I think having giants facing off against giants may "dilute" the point about "looking out for the little guy," but I don't think it negates the reality that the little guy may end up suffering, which is too often the case when the giants battle it out--in the market and especially in Congress.

I also think that an open-access Internet inherently favors the "little guy" as compared to a two-tiered access scheme. The little guys are the ones--not Google--that won't be able to pay for access to the fast lane. Putting additional financial burdens on Internet startups (e.g., the next Google) and on 9th graders and others who want to exercise their First Amendment rights using video (as broadcasters get to do every minute of every day) sounds like a bad idea to me, especially after we've seen how much innovation and invigorated political speech has emerged in the first phase of the open Internet.

As a consumer and as a citizen, I'd prefer a model in which, if I pay for an access pipe that can deliver HD video, then I can access any HD content on the Internet, whether it was produced by NBC who has a "fast-lane carriage deal" with my broadband provider, or by a 9th grade student in Plano, TX, who produced a campaign video I just can't wait to see. That, after all, is what makes the Internet the Internet.

Gotta go. You're all welcome to keep up the discussion.

Mitch, thanks for letting us post on here. This is a great thread, just had a question about the opposing sides of the NN debate: Doesn't the fact that corporate heavyweights are the driving forces behind both sides of the debate dilute any argument that NN proponents are looking out for 'the little guy'? Might it not be better for the consumer in this case to let providers battle amongst themselves and let market forces work out the details?

While the issue of net neutrality needs to be a central part of the current debate over Internet policy, it does not require immediate regulation. Why act now? There is no problem. Why regulate for a problem that hasn't surfaced yet? Keep the internet as it is - if Google wants fast lane service, they should pay for it, just as we the consumers do.

phalinx...Thanks for highlighting the "post office" analogy. It's an important one to address. Though it seems to apply on first blush, I believe there are several important differences that make it not very relevant, at least in the simple form typically presented by opponents of network neutrality.

First of all, the post office is a government entity controlled by Congress through a democratic political process. This is not the case for cable and telephone companies which, in fact, have attempted to block most attempts by local governments to build open-access fiber optic networks that could offer an alternative path to the Internet.

Probably more important is the fact that in the postal/shipping market there are a number of players, including the publicly-controlled post office and a number of private companies that compete with the post office and each other. In the mass market broadband access space, it's pretty much only two players and, in some areas, only one (check the FCC's broadband competition reports if you don't believe me and keep in mind that their methodology overstates broadband availability).

The anti-competitive dangers of this lack of market providers is made much greater in the broadband access market because the access providers are also providers of most types of services delivered on their networks, either directly (e.g., VoIP, operator-owned video channels, web portals) or as "packagers" (basic and premium cable, VOD).

So, to apply the postal example to broadband access, a more appropriate analogy would be to assume that there are two (and in some neighborhoods only one) delivery service, none of which is subject to democratic control by the public and which, in light of the lack of players, also lack the competition-driven market discipline we see in the shipping market. And, further, we'd need to assume that the two shipping companies were also large general purpose retailers--maybe Wal Mart as one player and Target or one of the nation's top supermarket chains as the other. To complete the analogy, we might also assume that these companies also have financial interests in some large manufacturing plants that produce some of the products sold in their stores.

In this more realistic analogy, the integrated shipper-retailer-manufacturer duopolists would have strong incentives to develop pricing and service structures that favor their own products and services and optimize their internal economics at the expense of healthy competition and consumer choice. In fact, they'd be considered negligent by shareholders if they did anything less.

One simple way to do this would be to, over time, increase the relative price and decrease the relative value of the "open Internet" (or in the shipping case, the "regular mail" service), and to package more and more services and bandwidth in their "private network" offerings. In the postal version of this, Wal-Mart/Fedex and Target/UPS might offer $5 discounts on express shipping if you bought your toaster from them, which would make the total price of these toasters cheaper than other competitors' toasters. Over time, this would be tend toward a duopoly in the manufacture and sale of toasters and other products and services sold by these two companies, since competitors could not match their prices and still make an acceptable profit.

Another major gap in the simple postal analogy is that in the broadband access market, the end-users are already paying a substantial monthly price for access to the Internet. This is not the case with the postal service or private freight companies.

A more appropriate analogy might be to roads, where we pay (in this case through taxes) to have a certain grade of road pass our homes and can therefore expect that our vehicle and other vehicles can freely travel on that road. How would you feel if, after paying to have local roads built, a private company (the one you and your neighbors paid to build the road) installed a toll booth at the entrance to your neighborhood or at the end of your block where it would charge drivers a fee to get to your home?

To refine the analogy a bit, let's assume that, after being paid by homeowners to build the road, Wal-Mart/Fedex and Target/UPS decided to maintain one lane particularly well and the other lane hardly at all, and allowed their own trucks to deliver their own products for free in the well-maintained lane, with other company's products and trucks having to either pay them to use that lane or be relegated to the poorly-maintained lane.

Another, perhaps more accurate, version of this would be if Wal-Mart/Fedex and Target/UPS periodically repainted the lines in the road, with one lane expanding for easy and safe maneuvering, while the other lane became so narrow that some trucks (e.g., video content) couldn't pass safely or at all.

To some people, this Wal-Mart/Fedex vs. Target/UPS scenario might not seem like a bad thing. I'm not one of them. As I see it, market economies and democracies are in a constant struggle to avoid unhealthy aggregations of power that can cause increasing levels of distortion in the functioning of these two wonderful systems--one that thrives on healthy and vibrant competition, the other on healthy and vibrant debate. When each of these systems finds a healthy balance, they mutually support each other in ways that enhance freedom and abundance. When both get out of balance, they tend to reinforce each other's imbalances, as is the case with "captive regulators" that increasingly do the bidding of companies they're supposed to regulate and thereby increase economic distortions. I'd argue that this is largely the case in Washington today. The result is a "slippery slope" that takes us farther and farther away from healthy market competition and healthy democratic processes.

For some people, including me, the open Internet offers an unprecedented opportunity to structurally bolster both systems--in big and important ways, and at a time when such bolstering seems sorely needed. And, so far, I haven't heard any convincing argument that this Internet-enabled opportunity is not put seriously at risk by a market structure in which duopoly access providers have clear incentives to stifle the open Internet's growth in order to optimize the value of their private companies.

Exactly what is the best solution to this, is, of course, another question. But my point is that there's a lot potentially at stake here, and that overly simplistic analogies such as the "post office" one do not get to the heart of the matter (and can even distract from it). And that, as a democratic society, we need to consider and debate possible solutions that maximize the likely benefits and minimize the likely harm. Admittedly, that's easier said then done, but it's what democracy is all about. With that in mind, I want to thank the various commenters to this post for contributing to this little corner of the larger debate.

First of all, bravo to Jennifer and her "team" for getting involved...gives me a lot of hope for our future...

Secondly, I wanted o comment on watcher's last line: "As long as the telcos ensure that the baseline data transfer rate does not suffer, I have no more problem with them offering tiered service as I do with the post office offering standard and priority mail." I think this is a great analogy and one worth really talking about. If I understand hi/her, the debate isn't really about limiting, degrading or blocking service, it's about offering "premium" services at a "premium" cost. Seems fair.

The issue as I understood it was not to speed sites up at the expense of other sites. The tiered plan that the telcos are proposing seems to say that if a website chooses to pay extra, they will give the data (or certain types of data) priority treatment to ensure high speed and high reliability. If the website does not choose to pay, they will remain on the current, best-effort system. The only concern I have is what steps will be taken to make sure the desired throughput does note exceed the available capacity. As long as the telcos ensure that the baseline data transfer rate does not suffer, I have no more problem with them offering tiered service as I do with the post office offering standard and priority mail.

Darnell...thanks for clarifying. So far, I'm not convinced that claims of backbone bottlenecks are anything but a red herring.

Yes, it'll certainly cost some money to light up dark fiber on the backbone. But I think there's a still ton of dark fiber available and unlit. And it doesn't cost THAT much to change out the opto-electronics to achieve an order-of-magnitude increase in backbone capacity. I'd like to see some hard evidence to support these kinds of claims, which seemed pretty vague and were challenged at the end of the AP story.

That being said, the question of where the bottlenecks really are is an interesting one. So is the question of if, when and how government regulations can effectively address market "market failures" or market imbalances that are well on their way to being market failures and will be tough to redress once they get that far.

It sounds like you're not a big fan of government regulation and, in most cases, I'm not either. But sometimes its better than "regulation" by private companies with excess market power, though the two do have a tendency to end up in bed together at the expense of the rest of us.

And, as you note, there are several issues and moving parts at play in this chess game. Thanks again for engaging in the discussion.

Mitch -- I am no expert on most of this, but I recommend this AP piece that I saw at Wired.com discussing the threat of capacity overload with some interesting statistics:
http://www.wired.com/news/wireservice/0,70895-0.html?tw=rss.technology. I think community networks have a place (and they certainly might liven up local politics) but I think the problem of bandwidth and IPTV et al. is a backbone issue, not a last mile issue. As for the incumbents talking a better competition game than they play, one only has to look at what's going on in communities where the telcos are trying to get permission to install fiber to the home to compete with Cable. That's a whole 'nother kettle of fish. Hope that all gives you a better idea of where I am coming from.

Thanks for the comment Darnell.

Could you explain the logic of your statement that "If Net Neutrality becomes the law of the land, however, and IPTV and VOIP traffic become more main stream, the pipes will clog, the transmission will suffer, and the service will die." I don't understand how and why that would necessarily be the case. I've heard this before, but have still not grasped the logic of it.

And, since I see the two issues as intimately related, could you share your position on allowing local communities to join together to build their own fiber, wireless or fiber/wireless hybrid network that operate on the more "traditional" Internet model, where end users pay for access and can use the bandwidth they pay for to access whatever service they choose, without the service provider having to pay an extra fee to be "accessible" to the users at the speed the user is paying for?

Incumbents talk about letting markets work within the space defined by their duopolies and entrenched market shares, but tend to look to state and federal governments for legislation to protect them from competition when local communities decide to build alternative networks using the competitive strengths they bring to the table. That seems inconsistent to me.

A tip of the hat to Jennifer and the other youthful activists in Plano. I agree with Mitch that it is important that young people become politically savvy and involved. As they do so democracy remains a vital organism. However, I disagree with Mitch about the threat of a "tiered" internet. Indeed, I believe that without special pipes for them, the future of IPTV and other high bandwidth applications is dim at best. Jennifer posted the video on Google Video, a free service apparently designed for use by anyone from individuals to major producers. That is still a very small portion of the internet's traffic. If Net Neutrality becomes the law of the land, however, and IPTV and VOIP traffic become more main stream, the pipes will clog, the transmission will suffer, and the service will die. The Congress will have tried to impose a business model on an essential aspect of the economy and will have killed it. If, on the other hand, the marketplace is allowed to continue to evolve, as our messy Democracy has evolved, the possibilities are endless.

Jennifer...Thanks so much for responding. Your experience gives old fogeys like me hope that your generation will play a key role in revitalizing our democracy. Your comment underscores the point I tried to make about the importance of keeping the Internet a "neutral" platform for political (and other) speech, where 9th grade students with talent, intelligence and passion can exercise the same First Amendment rights (real and practical rights, not just theoretical rights) as large well-funded corporations. Please keep us posted on any further developments you're aware of on this front, either locally in your area or on a wider scale. You are "IP Democracy" in action. Best of luck.

Dear Mr. Shapiro,
We had 16,384 hits up through election day(May 13). Everywhere we (the kids on the video) went people seemed to have seen the video. I know of some adults who only vote in major elections, who took time out to go vote, and I do give some credit to the video that was made. It feels good to be part of a grassroots campaign. This will make us kids get involved in more of the same...it feels good to think a person can make a difference. Thanks for including the story about our video on your blog.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Goebel
9th Grade Jasper High School