I was reading the Business Week article Cynthia posted about early today, and was struck by one word that seemed to highlight a key element of the net neutrality debate. Here’s an edited excerpt with the key word underlined:
[T]raditional phone companies like AT&T and Verizon…want the freedom to set fees for Internet companies such as Google and Yahoo! that push their own content over telco TV pipes.
Reading this I was reminded of a comment that I think came from Amazon’s Paul Misener in a congressional hearing. The point Misener (or whoever it was) was making is that, in the Internet model, content is not “pushed” over access pipes, it is “pulled” by end users that request it. This is a key characteristic that distinguishes the Internet from traditional broadcast and cable TV models.
Video content stored on the servers and available on the web sites of YouTube, Yahoo!, Google, NBC, etc. only streams to me via my local access pipe if I decide its valuable enough to access. And I get to choose from the ever-expanding video options on the web exactly what I want to watch, and when…subject, of course, to terms made available by content creators. If a new video or source of videos is created, I can immediately use the capacity available on my local access pipe to obtain access to that new content—no negotiations with broadcasters, cable operators or telcos required, by either the content provider or by me.
The technical quality of that content will, of course, be determined in large part by the local access data rate I pay for from my access provider. It will also be impacted by the server and Internet connection paid for by the content provider to support distribution to multiple users (i.e., if it doesn’t scale up that capacity as its user base grows, quality will degrade accordingly, which is likely to turn off customers).
In contrast, in the broadcast and cable TV industries, content is selected by companies that control the relatively small number of network distribution outlets (broadcast networks and local TV stations and cable operators), based on the dynamics of their business models and their negotiations with content providers. This distributor-selected content is then made available to end users, who get to select from the limited options made available by distributors, on economic terms (i.e., subscription fees and/or ad-support) largely determined by the latter.
And while the range of options has expanded from a handful of broadcast channels to several hundred cable channels and, most recently, to video-on-demand, the basic dynamics remain the same. Just because it’s called “video on demand” doesn’t mean I can watch any video that any content creator would like to make available. I can only “pull” from the options made available on my local cable operator’s servers, or other servers it allows me to access through its VOD offering.
The threat posed by the Internet model from the perspective of pipe-owners is that, to the extent this model is what people prefer, it turns their business increasingly into one of transporting bits, not selling and packaging combinations of access, content and services. As their business plans and the current net neutrality debate suggest, this would be an unwelcome development from the perspective of cable and telephone companies and, presumably, their shareholders.
Supporters of “neutral networks” are likely to argue that it would, however, be a welcome transition for most of the rest of the country. If this is the case, it raises the question of whether, in a market where the two overwhelmingly dominant access providers are both averse to becoming bit transporters, will the rest of the country get to choose which model it prefers and, if so, how?
Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 4:30 PM | Print | Comments (0)
The BBC is continually pushing the envelope on new technologies — the latest intriguing development is the quasi-public organization’s initiative to allow listeners to create their own radio stations using P2P technology. The planned service has a working name of MyBBCRadio and is a part of the BBC’s iPlayer, which also delivers seven days of free BBC TV on-demand.
BBC head Mark Thompson announced the creation of the new service at a conference yesterday.
Thompson said MyBBCRadio would use peer-to-peer technology to provide “thousands, ultimately millions, of individual radio services created by audiences themselves”.Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 12:40 PM | Print | Comments (0)
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, formed in 1990 with funding from early software industry moguls such as Mitch Kapor and John Perry Barlow, has been fighting legal battles for over a decade on behalf of a free and open Internet as well as citizen privacy. However, the group, originally based in Cambridge, MA, skedaddled out of Washington after internal battles over whether compromise, the lifeblood of politics, suited such a purist group.
Now based in San Francisco, EFF is about to reopen a DC office, according to this AP article. But the civil liberties organization won’t take up lobbying again, preferring to stick to its current litigation-focused charter.
The EFF is reopening a Washington office on Aug. 1 to tackle Freedom of Information Act and other cases, but Steele said the two attorneys there, hired from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, won’t engage in lobbying this time.Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 11:27 AM | Print | Comments (0)
Many of EFF’s supporters say they’d like to see the organization at the lobbying table, but acknowledged that even a noncompromising stance can be useful in starting discussions that another group could complete.
After an intense spring and early summer, Congress is in recess and the dust is settling on the telecom reform legislation that passed the House and has made its way through the Senate Commerce Committee. The scorecards are being tallied, with the early handicapping in favor of broadband providers.
Business Week’s Roger Crockett has this piece today entitled “Senate Scorecard: AT&T 1, Google 0,” which recaps the status of the legislation, with a particular focus on net neutrality.
Crockett is right on target when he says that it’s going to be very, very difficult to get a bill out this session.
A long, tough road remains in the battle over control of content riding over the Internet. The Senate committee vote has to be approved by a majority of the full body, and then reconciled with a draft of the bill in the House of Representatives. And it all has to be accomplished in a short legislative session interrupted by holiday breaks and the approaching November elections.
Moreover, overlooked in all the press reports and blog posts and carryings-on about the Senate bill is the fact that only one person in the Senate can kill this legislation through filibuster unless sponsor Ted Stevens (R-AK) can convince 60 Senators to end debate on it.
Full passage would require Stevens to get 60 votes on his side to end debate on the Senate floor. But Stevens has stated that he does not have the necessary 60 votes. And, “the chairman is not going to bring it to the full Senate until he’s confident that we have the 60 votes,” says Matthew Flanigan, president of TIA, a trade group of telecom equipment suppliers.
In the meantime, Google has indicated that if in fact the bill passes without strong net neutrality protections, it will corral its resources for a big antitrust fight.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 9:45 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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