What do MoveOn, the Christian Coalition, the Gun Owner’s of America, and Google have in common? They are all supporting Net Neutrality. Here’s your chance to contribute to an ad that highlights that Net Neutrality ain’t just for liberal wierdos. Check it out at: MoveOn.org Civic Action: Democracy in Action
I don’t often choose to spend my time with lawyers, but Martin’s not your typical attorney. He’s hip to the latest in media rights, open source licensing, local politics, and other topics and he’s always a interesting conversationalist.
Anyway, Martin wrote a response to The Oregonian’s editorial on Net Neutrality. This national issue has passionate local advocates. Right on, Martin!
It’s just one example of our arcane telecom regs and taxes, but yes, there has been a surcharge on your long distance phone bill for well over 100 years to pay for that war. Now, after losing 6 lawsuits, the Treasury will stop the practice and refund $15 Billion to us. That represents what we’ve paid in the last 3 years, the extent that statute of limitations allow. Look for the refund in your 2007 check.
Read more: TaxProf Blog: Can You Hear Me Now? IRS to Refund $15 Billion of Telephone Taxes to Consumers
Now the financial services sector (banks) are recognizing that they could be impacted by the telco’s discriminatory Internet strategy. They are concerned they’ll be shunted to the the “slow lane”. Verizon’s response: they’d “better not start moaning in the future about a lack of sophisticated data links they need,” because they won’t get them as long as they back net neutrality.
Read more: Networking Pipeline | Verizon Threatens Financial Services Industry Over Net Neutrality Issue
That’s how this article on the latest legal and business trevails of the record labels begins. They just can’t seem to get a break. Even now that they’ve gotten hip to online distribution and sold over 1 billion tracks through iTunes, there’s another prosecutor exploring price fixing charges.
And now that Steve Jobs and Apple got their way by keeping the flat $.99 per track pricing, the record companies have lost online pricing power.
I don’t mean to gloat, nor do I think Apple and iTunes are perfect, but it’s nice to see how market and legal forces can affect even the most arrogant companies.
David Isenberg is the real deal. He’s put together the most definitive presentation about the Net Neutrality issue I’ve seen. It’s here with audio narration. Must reading!
David comes out of AT&T, and in the old days he wrote an article called The Rise of the Stupid Network, that presciently described how the Internet’s principles would challenge those of the incumbent phone networks. The problems the Internet created for the Bells is what has led to the crisis we now face.
For those of you looking for the “dumbed down” version of the issue, here’s a video, while not entirely accurate in my view, introduces the subject to lay people.
I must admit I liked it when life was simpler. The computer and Internet industry was run by the proverbial “400 geeks” that just kept moving from one company to another. The last thing we had to worrry about was the government.They didn’t care about us, and we didn’t have to care about them.
First Microsoft learned that they needed to care because their monopolistic position created suspicions of anti-competitive behavior. They pretty much beat the rap in the U.S., but the EU has taken a tougher stand (more). Microsoft’s behavior, especially after it squashed Netscape flat, pretty much took the oxygen out of the software startup environment, because no one had a good answer to the VC’s question: How will you compete against Microsoft? In my humble opinion, Microsoft, while it offers many admirable products, has until recently effectively stifled much potential software innovation.
Fast forward ten years. It ain’t about Microsoft any more. The answer to the VC’s question is “open source” and/or “software as a service” and the investments are flowing. But thanks to the Internet and convergence, software is just one of the vehicles of computer innovation. It’s now the Internet and its use as a content distribution and communications network that’s where the action is. And while it seems as if it’s a wide open web, there’s huge money and control at stake. And now the big boys are in on the action and throwing their money and influence around; not so much to innovate, but to protect what they’ve got. And they are trying to protect it by getting laws passed that tilt the playing field in their favor.
Here’s a partial list of issues being addressed in a Senate bill just proposed:
Read more at the Cnet article.
The good news is that the issues are so manifold and complex, and the positions are so far apart from the House version, that passage in this short-sessioned election year is unlikely. The best we might hope for is no action, but no action on Net Neutrality is a time bomb. The worst is that these companies establish effective control of the Internet for their unfair advantage and stifle the very innovation that has made it flourish.
So what to do? Write your congressman. Senator Wyden is on the right side of this issue. Support SaveTheInternet. If your politics allow support moveon.com. Tell your buddies at the big companies like IBM and Intel that they need to be the counterweight against the lobbying heavyweights.
We simply can’t allow the few media and telecommunications companies to turn OUR Internet into THEIR networks.
First Rhode Island announces a plan to build a WiFi cloud over the whole state. Big fish, small pond. OK, it’s 1,000 square miles.
Then, even though a number of Bay Area cities are already lit up, thanks to Portland Unwire Portland winner MetroFi, San Mateo County has plans for 35-city Bay Area wireless network.
Sure hope this stuff really works!
