[CAnet - news] The future of the net - restrictive monopolies or network neutrality?

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[Here are 3 excellent pointers to some articles discussing the future of the
Internet from a regulatory and legal perspective.  Recently in the US and
other jurisdictions there has been considerable debate about maintaining
"network neutrality" to insure that carriers do not pick and choose the Web
content and services we can see and use. Network neutrality and maintaining
the Internet end to end principle are valid concerns, but in your humble
correspondent's opinion, are neither practical or achievable through
regulatory fiat.  Instead we need to look at a new network paradigm and
business model.  One possible model is to look at what our universities,
schools, hospitals and businesses are doing in acquiring their own fiber and
building their own last mile networks. Rather than waiting for a carrier to
build a network to the customer, the customer, instead is building out a
network to carrier neutral meet me point to connect to the carrier{s) of
their choice. Some carriers may offer walled gardens, while others may offer
some form of network neutrality - but the key issue is that the customer has
a choice of more than one or two service providers.  Some good examples of
this approach are in New Zealand CityLink
http://lists.canarie.ca/pipermail/news/2005/000156.html, the recently
announced condominium network for Toronto harbour front
http://lists.canarie.ca/pipermail/news/2005/000142.html and the Quebec
Villages Branches program
http://lists.canarie.ca/pipermail/news/2005/000145.html.   I particularly
like the article in IEEE Communications about the New Zealand regulatory
experience: "Deregulation and liberalization are both viewed as highly
beneficial, but they are not the same thing - in fact, they sometimes have
opposite policy implications. Liberalization is the facilitation of
competitive market entry. In many instances, this implies the imposition of
procompetitive ex ante regulation, rather than the elimination of
regulation.". Some excerpts --BSA]


<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/23/ 
AR2005112302200.html?nav=rss_technology>


Renewed Warning of Bandwidth Hoarding

A couple of years ago, a group of big technology companies got together and
issued a public alarm about the future of the Internet:
 
Those who own the wires that get us online, the companies said, should not
be able to pick and choose what Web content and services we can see and use.
 
Just as electric companies can't cut deals with electronics makers to allow
only some products to work, the Internet should have similar, guaranteed
"network neutrality," argued tech firms such as Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft
Corp. and Yahoo Inc.
 
On Nov. 2, another draft of the bill came out, with language specifically
addressing the Internet video services that are proliferating as connection
speeds increase and the phone companies get into the digital television
business. In this draft, the prohibition on blocking or impeding content was
gone.
 
If the bill passes as is, tech companies say, the Internet could be forever
compromised.
 
"Enshrining a rule that broadly permits network operators to discriminate in
favor of certain kinds of services and to potentially interfere with others
would place broadband operators in control of online activity," Vinton G.
Cerf, a founding father of the Internet who now works for Google Inc., wrote
in a letter to Congress.
 
The phone companies argue that with their new fiber-optic systems capable of
handling huge amounts of bandwidth, they simply want the ability to set
aside some of it for their own services, be it television, gaming or
anything else.
 
A coalition of tech companies that includes Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon,
Google, Ebay Inc. and IAC/InterActive Corp., argues that the issue is bigger
than straight-up discrimination.
 
What if, they say, the Internet service providers decide to reserve 90
percent of their bandwidth for their own services, and leave 10 percent for
the rest?
 
 "Allowing broadband providers to segment their . . . offerings and reserve
huge amounts of bandwidth for their own services will not give consumers the
broadband Internet our country and economy need," Cerf wrote.
 
Another wrinkle: What if Internet service providers decide to provide lots
of bandwidth to customers who buy their other services, such as cellular or
voice-over-Internet telephony -- but less if the customer uses rival
providers of those services?
 
 That would be similar to the kind of bundling that occurs now, under which,
for example, cable Internet service is cheaper if a consumer also buys a
cable-television package. That, they say, is the free market at work.
 

 
 
http://209.218.71.2/lj/savingthenet.htm

Saving the Net: How to Keep the Carriers from Flushing the Net Down the
Tubes

We're hearing tales of two scenarios--one pessimistic, one optimistic--for
the future of the Net. If the paranoids are right, the Net's toast. If
they're not, it will be because we fought to save it, perhaps in a new way
we haven't talked about before. Davids, meet your Goliaths.

The subjects covered here are no less enormous than the Net and its future.
Even optimists agree that the Net's future as a free and open environment
for business and culture is facing many threats. We can't begin to cover
them all or cover all the ways we can fight them. I believe, however, that
there is one sure way to fight all of these threats at once, and without
doing it the bad guys will win. That's what this essay is about.

Here's a brief outline of the article. If you want to go straight to the
solution, skip to the third section:

    *

      Scenario I: The Carriers Win
    *

      Scenario II: The Public Workaround
    *

      Scenario III: Fight with Words and Not Just Deeds


The Regulatory experience of New Zealand

http://www.comsoc.org/ci1/Public/2005/nov/

In response to its experience, New Zealand has come almost full circle and
implemented a regulatory system that, while still arguably light in many
dimensions, is more comparable to that of other industrialized nations. The
absence of ex ante regulatory powers led to significant problems regarding
access to bottleneck facilities and numbering resources. In the end, the
delays in resolving access and interconnection problems provided the
greatest impetus for the change.
      The argument for an end to ex ante telecommunications regulation is
often predicated on the belief that telecommunications markets have become
fully competitive, and that deregulation and liberalization are therefore in
the public interest. This view represents, in the opinion of the authors, a
confusion of the roles of deregulation and liberalization. Deregulation and
liberalization are both viewed as highly beneficial, but they are not the
same thing - in fact, they sometimes have opposite policy implications.
Liberalization is the facilitation of competitive market entry. In many
instances, this implies the imposition of procompetitive ex ante regulation,
rather than the elimination of regulation. The most significant lesson from
the New Zealand experience is the importance of being able to apply
regulation ex ante where necessary.




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