From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V12 #35 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Monday, February 6 2006 Volume 12 : Number 035 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: OT: Mr. Morgan goes to Washington (in a PDF) [Bernie Mojzes Subject: Re: OT: Mr. Morgan goes to Washington (in a PDF) > Jeff Chester has written quite a bit on the matter for the Center for > Digital Democracy: > http://www.democraticmedia.org/issues/JCnetneutrality.html Some commentary on the above-mentioned article: Starting with paragraph 1: its already happening, but in a distributed fashion. Content providers with $$ pay search engines to appear early in searches, and pay web cache services like akamai money to host the content close to the users/consumers of that content. ISPs filter certain content for many reasons: blocking IP ranges of known spammers, blocking non-vital ports that are high virus risk, providing "family friendly" internet, throttling down ports that are causing them problems (peer-to-peer stuff sometimes gets targetted due to threats against the ISP from the recording industry, for example). However, as there are many ISPs, people can always switch to a different ISP who use a different set of rules. In the broadband world, the 1996 telecommunications act forced line-sharing for DSL (and for other services), so that DSL providers could obtain for a reasonable cost access to the copper to the home or business. ISPs were able to sell broadband and apply their own rules for how things work on their network. ISPs had been trying to gain access to cable rights, similar to the rights they had with telco copper. Instead, late last year the FCC unilaterally killed off line-sharing, allowing the LECs (local exchange carrier, aka verizon, sbc, etc) to stop selling these services to the ISPs, and to cancel existing contracts. I've seen a number of white papers produced by conservative think tanks that say that competition is critical to the health of the economy, to providing the best services for the best price to the consumers, etc. And then they go on to say that for telecommunications, the correct amount of competition is 2. Any more than 2 providers in any market trying to sell telecommunications or internet is bad, and the government should do things to prevent it. As far as I can tell, the Bush administration's FCC agrees with this, and has been trying to subvert the 1996 telecommunications act since 2000. While the 1996 telecommunications bill was severely flawed, and largely written by the baby bells, one thing it DID do was protect the rights of competitive telcos and ISPs against a monopoly. That's been eroded over time, and if things arent reversed, it won't be terribly long before the only options for internet service will be either your cable company or your telephone company. And then they can do whatever they want to lock you in to using them exclusively for everything. What we need from congress is a dramatic reconfirmation of the principles of fair competition, and a refocusing of the FCC on what's good for the people, rather than what's good for a few giant companies. My opinion is that we are best served when the people with the monopoly of copper and fiber in the ground are not permitted to sell internet services over them, that companies like verizon and comcast provide access between ISPs and the users. Otherwise, they will leverage their control of the monopoly to drive their competition out of business. Bernie > While I'm not completely capable of confirming all he wrote in the > essay, I can say why I for one left America Online a long time ago: I > didn't like their idea of a "gated" online community, especially after > tasting freedom when I signed up with a local ISP and eventually set-up > a decent, working homepage (which also finally brought my friend, the > storyteller Diane Wolkstein, onto a global online stage). I don't wany > _any_ ISP, big or small, telling me which sites I can or cannot access. > I do not want my downloads from the Internet Archive (or Jamendo, > Opsound, or anyone else) going sour, no matter what I access from them. > It's that simple. I don't want to go back to the bad old days of Prodigy > or AOL. It's that simple. > > To that end, I made a US-letter sized handbill which, in a short while, > I'll be tacking up in a couple of places at my Unitarian Universalist > congregation to show my disgust with the idea of toll-gating my online > world. You can scarf the PDF from my homepage - hell, go get it here: > > http://www.pdmediaworks.net/hands_off_the_net.pdf > > Done. > > Now, on to my house of worship, and please forgive my urge to get this > out into the open. > > Maybe now I can start asking the kitchen-bound musicians in my > congregation if they'd like to cut a CD-R or two... > > Philip David > 2006.02.04 > > --- > > Popular Domain [Mediaworks] - > you gotta agitate sometime... > http://www.pdmediaworks.net/ > > --- > > "I tossed down the tongs, took the gloves off, and told the ice guy, > 'Later'." > - -- brni i don't want the world, i just want your half. www.livejournal.com/~brni ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V12 #35 **************************