It’s an insanely busy time on Capitol Hill while members rush to get out of town for mid-term campaigning as the legislative clock ticks down. The Barton Bill (or Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act of 2006, otherwise known as the COPE bill) is headed for some kind of action tomorrow and a floor vote on Friday — the crush is now on to get that thing decorated like a Christmas tree with amendments. (Here’s the two-page list of proposed amendments published by the Rules Committee.)
Net neutrality, of course, is the hottest issue surrounding the bill given the legislation’s relatively mild (critics say toothless) net neutrality provisions. A group of Democratic members led by Ed Markey (D-MA) have this net neutrality amendment they hope to attach to the COPE bill. It’s the same as the amendment Markey tried to affix to the full Commerce Committee’s bill with two exceptions: a specific exception for telemedicine services (along with emergency communications) and an “antitrust savings clause,” which, in an obvious nod to the Judiciary Committee, says that nothing in the bill will impair the applicability of antitrust laws to net neutrality situations.
Possible Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards has also joined the net neutrality brigade. He sent out an email this afternoon to urge his supporters to sign MoveOn.org’s petition favoring net neutrality given the impending House vote. He starts out the letter “When MoveOn and The Christian Coalition agree about something, it’s a good bet they’re right.” I’m no so sure I buy that logic. (Thanks Gary!)
Meanwhile, Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA) introduced two amendments that would force build-out requirements on new video entrants. I haven’t studied them closely but they look the same as the defeated amendments Solis proposed during Committee mark-up.
The Rules Committee is meeting this evening to decide which amendments make the grade and in what order they will be considered (an important factor given how limited time will be).
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 5:35 PM | Print | Comments (0)My dear friend Gary Arlen (who reported from D for IP Democracy) has this great piece in TV Technology about the barrage of TV, print and billboard commercial messages launched by the cable and phone companies as Congress leads up to a Telecom Act rewrite. (Note: I reported some time ago Gary’s statistics on how much the cable/telco guys are spending on advocacy advertising.)
Gary notes how confusing some of the ads can be, particularly run back to back on TV.
They appeared with such frequency that commercial pods often had back-to-back commercials from both sides—thereby ensuring confusion to all but the most assiduous viewers. Most of the commercials seemed to run during local newscasts and public affairs shows and adjacent to upmarket programs likely to be viewed by the target audience. A Washington investment analyst jokingly confessed to me that he must watch the same shows as the targeted congressional staffers—given the frequency he saw the pro- and antitelco TV messages.
Adding more confusion to the mix is the rise of astroturf groups that are, of course, backed by either cable or phone companies (rarely both, except in the case of net neutrality).
Adding to everyone’s confusion was the sprouting of “astroturf” campaigns. That’s the term for the faux “grassroots” groups that spring up during hotly contested battles such as this one: designed to create the illusion of public interest”support. For example, the benignly-named “TV 4 Us Coalition” made frequent commercial appearances, stressing its slogan “We want choice” as it aggressively cited cable TV operator abuses.Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 11:31 AM | Print | Comments (1)
The roster of Coalition members includes The National Taxpayers Union, the Latino Coalition, the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, the Women’s Presidents Organization, the Construction Industry Foundation, the Citizenship Foundation—and, oh yes, a dozen telecom manufacturers, the National Association of Manufacturers and AT&T. You can probably guess correctly whose money actually paid for the coalition’s ads.
Meanwhile, the cable cause is abetted by groups such as the “Broadband Everywhere Coalition,” a campaign—mostly using print media for now—that focuses on what it calls “The Phoneys.” Funded by NCTA, the American Cable Association plus African-American, Hispanic and women’s groups, “Broadband Everywhere,” has propounded “myths versus realities” to point out that the telcos have failed in all their previous efforts to develop video services.
In Washington, bad public incidents that bolster momentum for some kind of regulation or legislation or government action are called “horror stories.” If net neutrality proponents don’t seize upon the following tale as a horror story, then they need to go back to lobbying school.
Tom Forenski has this well-documented look into how Cox Cable is blocking Craigslist. It seems that Cox high-speed users can’t get access to Craigslist due to security software from Authentium. Authentium admitted in February that its software is in fact causing a problem for Cox users, but hasn’t fixed the snafu.
Craigslist has tried to no avail to get Authentium to correct the problem. Amazingly, CEO Jim Buckmaster was unaware of Cox Media’s own classified advertising business until informed of this by Forenski (Forenski literally walked across the street to talk to Buckmaster).
This kind of blockage, which, to be fair, is probably inadvertent, is exactly what net neutrality proponents say will happen absent regulations.
This situation does not look good in the context of the net neutrality debate. This is exactly the kind of scenario that many people are concerned about, that the cable companies and the telcos will make it difficult for their internet users to access competing services.
Update: Broadband Reports elaborates further on the likelihood that the blockage of Craigslist is just, um, a screw-up, and not malicious intent.
It would take a rare form of incompetence for incumbent execs to decide to block users from accessing content at the very apex of the net-neutrality debate in Congress. Similarly, crying wolf each time a network belches could hurt the case for net-neutrality by painting advocates as knee-jerk reactionaries.
I maintain it probably doesn’t matter — folks will seize upon this as an augur of what might happen if rules mandating net neutrality aren’t set in place.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 9:01 AM | Print | Comments (1)We have a great country and if anybody needs proof of this, Google co-founder and billionaire Sergey Brin offered it up yesterday when he roamed the corridors on Capitol Hill in jeans and sneakers to lobby members on net neutrality.
In talking to Reuters after his visit, Brin made a (not surprisingly) smart rebuttal to the poster child status awarded to Google by broadband providers. Cable operators and phone companies have held up the enormously rich and successful Google as a company looking to get a “free ride” on their networks.
Brin acknowledged that Google, in fact, has the cash to pay for prioritized delivery to users, but said that Google is only as good as the sites it links to, and if those sites have to pay for priority, then Google is damaged even if it pays for fast-lane access.
Brin acknowledged large companies such as Google would be able to cut deals with the network owners to get their content through. But he added that Google searches are only valuable if consumers can then quickly access the sites listed in the results.
“The thesis is that some content providers will pay for premium service. Why are they paying? Just because they feel charitable toward the telcos and ISPs?” Brin asked. “I assume they are paying because otherwise they would have worse performance, or maybe it won’t really work.”
In very encouraging news, Brin also told reporters after his visits that Google is having doubts about its concession to Chinese government censorship demands. This AP piece says that Brin admitted to compromising Google’s principles and is struggling to make the situation in China work before deciding to “reverse course.”
Meeting with reporters near Capitol Hill, Brin said Google had agreed to the censorship demands only after Chinese authorities blocked its service in that country. Google’s rivals accommodated the same demands — which Brin described as “a set of rules that we weren’t comfortable with” — without international criticism, he said.
“We felt that perhaps we could compromise our principles but provide ultimately more information for the Chinese and be a more effective service and perhaps make more of a difference,” Brin said.
Update: This Washington Post article says that Brin met with “Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Gordon Smith (R-Ore.), Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as well as other members of the House and Senate whom they declined to identify.”
More interestingly, the Post piece says that a print ad campaign started yesterday (one pitfall of being plugged into newspapers online: print campaigns become invisible) that takes on Google by name in the net neutrality fight.
“Americans are about to get a real choice to cable TV. But is Google going to blow it up?” said one print advertisement paid for by TV4US, a group whose financial backers include AT&T Inc., the largest U.S. phone company.
Brin (who probably reads his papers online too) seemed taken aback by the news that ads are attacking Google.
Brin said he had learned only yesterday about the print ad — which has a TV twin that has been running in Washington markets — and he appeared surprised when asked if Google might run its own campaign to fight back.Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 7:57 AM | Print | Comments (0)
“I think it’s worth a conversation. I am probably naive. I was very surprised to see this,” he said.
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