[CAnet - news] Network Neutrality is an Answer to the Wrong Problem

For more information on this item please visit the CANARIE CA*net 4 Optical
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[Excellent summary of a critical issue. Fundamentally the problem of network
neutrality stems from the lack of competitive providers in the last mile.
One possible solution is to let the customers own the last mile themselves.
See
http://www.canarie.ca/canet4/library/customer/Last_Mile_Customer_Owned_Netwo
rks.pdf.  Some excerpts from an article in TMCnet   - BSA]


Network Neutrality is an Answer to the Wrong Problem

http://news.tmcnet.com/news/it/-internet-neutraility-fcc-/2006/02/10/1361399
.htm

By Fred Goldstein, Ionary Consulting

Sometimes a small change that goes almost unnoticed makes a big difference.
That's what's happened as a result of last summer's decision by the Federal
Communications Commission to allow the final deregulation of DSL. Based on a
tortured misreading of the Supreme Court's Brand X decision that allowed
cable modems to remain closed to third-party ISPs, the FCC allowed the Bells
to do the same thing. So the owner of the wire - the incumbent local phone
company - will soon have total control over the information content that
flows over the wire.

The Bells themselves tried to make the change seem merely technical; after
all, their ISPs already have the lions' share of DSL subscribers. But they
got what they were looking for: Broadband Internet service will no longer be
freely competitive. It will be, for most Americans, a two-vendor choice. Use
the Bell's ISP, or the cable company's ISP. No other ISPs need apply, unless
they manage to string their own wire.


One response is calls for new "network neutrality" rules. These would impose
new content regulation on ISPs. It sounds nice at first. After all, we don't
really want Verizon to tell people whose news they can read on line, what
Internet radio stations they can listen to, or where they can shop. But it's
the wrong approach. Network neutrality is not about Internet freedom. It's
only a way to feed the prisoners. Once we get this far, the war is already
lost.

The press is already raising the flag about the "two-tier Internet." They
accept Whitacre's restatements at face value, and suggest that the battle is
over whether network operators will charge content providers extra for
"priority" service for their video streams. But that's not the problem. We
already have broadcast, cable and satellite TV. The problem is that telcos
want to discriminate against different data providers, or use "deep packet
inspection" to charge for something other than raw packet delivery. Vendors
are already hawking gear that can, for instance, monitor for email being
downloaded from a third-party server, to enable the network operator to bill
by the message.

What's missing from the picture is a boundary between what is and what isn't
Internet. The telcos want to call everything "Internet" so they can control
it. Net-neutrality advocates then want to regulate that "Internet" so they
won't be excluded. 

But the answer isn't to regulate the "Internet" per se: Not everything is
the "Internet." It's to restore choice. It's vital to guarantee that local
connectivity, raw bandwidth, remains available on the wholesale market, so
that consumers have a choice of ISP. If there's a real choice of ISPs, then
the free market will sort out the details. It's the telco-cable duopoly that
makes the faux-Internet such a possibility. Here and there, a wireless ISP
or cable overbuilder might offer a third choice, but shy of wholesale
connectivity, there'll be no free market for information. What good is
freedom of the press when a few wealthy publishers control all avenues of
delivery?

Maybe some users will be willing to pay extra for a higher quality link to a
VoIP gateway of their choice. Maybe some want their Internet raw, while
others want tight spam filters, and others still want their ISP to provide
"family-friendly" censorship. These are not the kinds of questions that
belong in a Congressional committee, or in an FCC Docket, or in court.
They're the kind of questions that the ISP industry has been dealing with
for over a decade. Lets not let the Bells kill it off, or try to replace
freedom of speech with content regulation.


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