Jeremy Buege's List: Essay 2

• But many DearAOL activists note the timing of the blockage suspiciously coincided with their latest petition drive opposing AOL's plan to allow mass mailers to pay a fee to bypass AOL's spam filters.
• China blocks Web sites, censors citizens' Web searches and tracks down people who publish critical opinions or information on blogs. The Chinese government — with the acquiescence of Google, Yahoo! and other search engines — not only censors Web sites that question government actions but also those dealing with teen pregnancy, homosexuality, dating, beer and even jokes.
• But critics say that because of phone and cable company foot-dragging and the lack of a national broadband strategy, Bush's goal can't possibly be reached and, in fact, the United States has fallen behind other industrialized countries in access to broadband.
• Nevertheless, private phone and cable companies are trying to block rural governments' efforts to offer residents broadband service on their own if the private market doesn't offer it or the service costs too much.
• Today, however, some say the global Internet is in danger of being fragmented into separate, unconnected networks.
• For instance, authoritarian governments are building firewalls to block citizens' access to certain parts of the Net, especially the Web sites of opposition groups.
• China's action “doesn't mark the end of a global, interoperative Internet,” but it demonstrates that countries may not always cooperate to keep the global Internet interoperable, said Geist. The global system would “break” if a parallel system duplicated existing addresses and diverted them to different computers, for example, or adopted different technical operating procedures.
• The results of such an alternative Internet could be “creepy,” says Lauren Weinstein, co-founder of People for Internet Responsibility. Different sites would pop up for the same Web address typed into computers in different countries. International e-mails might not get through, and variable or incompatible standards would stymie those trying to develop new business and communications applications, says Weinstein.
• Currently, music copyright laws can be circumvented using servers located in countries that are not party to international copyright treaties, Mathiason says. If the Internet allows circumvention of national boundaries, he says, “You need to work out how conflicting schemes of copyright, commercial transactions and money are going to work.”
• Cable and telephone companies want permission to alter the open-pipe structure so they can “prioritize” and speed transmission of some data
• “Because the network is neutral, the creators of new Internet content and services need not seek permission . . . or pay special fees to be seen online,” said Vinton Cerf, a key Internet software developer and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google. “As a result, we have seen an array of unpredictable new offerings” — from blogging to VOIP — “that might never have evolved had central control of the network been required.”
• A neutral net is “critical” to America's competitiveness, he adds. “In places like Japan, Korea, Singapore and the United Kingdom, higher bandwidth and neutral broadband platforms are unleashing waves of innovation that threaten to leave the U.S. further and further behind,” says Cerf.
• As for blocking telephone company competitors like Vonage, Ed Whitacre, CEO of SBC Communications, said he's not worried that his business will be eclipsed by online competitors, because he controls their transmission lines. “How do you think they're going to get to customers?” Whitacre asked. “Through a broadband pipe. Now what [Vonage and other Internet businesses] would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that. . . . The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo or Vonage . . . to expect to use these pipes free is nuts!”
• “If I were an SBC broadband customer, I'd be dying to ask Mr. Whitacre exactly what my monthly payment is buying if it isn't buying access to Google, Yahoo, Vonage and any other $%&^ Internet service I want to use.” Many SBC customers sign up for the company's broadband services only to get access to Vonage or Google, so “why should Google pay SBC for this? Why shouldn't SBC pay Google instead?”
• Other broadband contracts forbid home users from logging onto virtual private networks (VPNs), needed by telecommuters to access their workplace networks from home. And, until the FCC intervened last year, Madison River Telephone Co., which serves rural counties in Illinois and several Southern states, blocked subscribers from using Vonage's VOIP service. The wireless company Clearwire, in Kirkland, Wash., blocks broadband services — such as streaming video or VOIP — that use a lot of bandwidth, and broadband providers have successfully lobbied for laws in nine states limiting how broadband consumers can use their own computers.
• To overcome the problem, many local governments have begun installing or are considering installing their own networks, either on their own or in partnership with private companies. Local groups argue that such government-initiated efforts can spur more competitive broadband markets and widen access. But the cable and phone companies offering Internet services say government-provided broadband services siphon off subscription money that the companies could use to extend their broadband infrastructure.
• Opponents also argue that locally subsidized broadband is probably an unfair and inefficient use of public dollars. “It is unlikely that more than a small number of residents would benefit,” wrote Joseph Bast, president of the Chicago-based free-market think tank Heartland Institute, making it hard to “justify the steep cost” that would be borne by all local taxpayers.
• But advocates of municipal broadband point out that many of the projects are not competing against private business. “The overwhelming majority of current projects are the result of a public-private partnership,”
• if the private sector cannot or will not . . . provide it to all at affordable prices, the public sector must.”
• Many other governments, such as Japan and South Korea, aggressively monitored infrastructure improvements in their countries to be sure they were made. In many countries, phone companies remained heavily regulated monopolies, which could be compelled to build infrastructure. But the U.S. government relied on what it believed would be market incentives for the private sector to wire the country for broadband, without establishing a clear policy for getting it done or fully debating the economics of doing so.
• In 2002 the FCC granted their request, saying that when consumers purchase cable-modem service, they are buying only an “information” service, not a traditional two-way communications service like telephone service. The decision exempted cable-modem providers from opening their lines to competing ISPs and from other rules.
• Beginning in August 2006, phone companies will no longer have to offer competing ISPs, such as AOL, free access to DSL connections. Phone companies will be able to sell or lease access to their DSL lines for whatever they deem fair value,
• Having one big phone company and one big cable company as the sole broadband providers in an area doesn't foster innovation and low price, says Copps.

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• Discusses the issue of net neutrality--whether network carriers should be barred from controlling how (or if) Internet data is passed on to users. Evaluates government censorship, phone/cable company control, and local initiatives to implement broadband service. Provides many arguments from phone/cable companies that are difficult to find elsewhere but necessary to confront the issue of what's happening. - Jeremy Buege on 2009-02-15

• Reviews the FCC ruling against Comcast for secretly blocking peer-to-peer file sharing traffic. Comments on the deception of Comcast and the continuing threat from the ISP market. - Jeremy Buege on 2009-02-16

• For the private as well as public sector, including the IRS, this is the lowest level of customer satisfaction of any organization in ACSI.
• Almost half of all cable customers have registered complaints about one thing or another. When buyers have meaningful choice alternatives, this level of customer (dis)satisfaction is neither competitive nor sustainable.
• Under normal competitive conditions, there would be mass customer defections. The reason this is not the case for the cable industry is due to local monopoly power, which means that in most markets, the dissatisfied customer has nowhere to go.

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• Analyzes customer satisfaction for businesses. Blasts cable companies for having the lowest level of customer satisfaction in the private or public sector (worse than the IRS), and attributes it to monopoly power. - Jeremy Buege on 2009-02-15

• the lowest level of customer satisfaction among all industries covered by ACSI.
• Such pricing power usually comes with some level of monopoly protection and most cable companies have little competition at the local level. This also means that a cable company can do well financially even though its customers are not particularly satisfied. Comcast is one of the lowest scoring companies in ACSI.  As its customer satisfaction eroded by 7% over the past year, revenue increased by 12%.  Net income went up by 175% and Comcast's stock price climbed nearly 50%.

• Reviews customer satisfaction for businesses. Once again blasts cable industry, and attributes Comcast's success to monopoly power. - Jeremy Buege on 2009-02-15

• Discusses and evaluates AT&T's proposal to monitor internet traffic for copyright violations. Visits privacy and liability concerns. - Jeremy Buege on 2009-02-16

• With its flagship Philadelphia project still unfinished, new Earthlink CEO Rolla P. Huff announced last fall that "making significant further investments in this business could be inconsistent with our objective of maximizing shareholder value."
• That project became Burlington Telecom--a city department that now provides high-speed Internet, phone, and cable TV service to some 3,000 residential customers. While revenue from subscribers goes into the public coffers, at Nulty's insistence the network itself was financed by private investors without any taxpayer money. Not only is the system up and running, but it already has a positive cash flow.
• "I'm convinced this is the only way we in Vermont are going to get access to this high-speed stuff," Jerry Drugonis of Pittsfield, Vermont, told the Rutland Herald  after the vote. "We've been at the tail end of the dog for a long time."
• Local control--and with it, jobs and revenues staying in the community--appears to be one of the elements of success for municipal broadband projects large and small. The money stays in the community, jobs are being created, and everyone from firefighters to meter readers benefits.
• "We have a failure on the national level that's too important to ignore," says James Bailer, an attorney who represents local governments and public utilities and closely follows municipal broadband issues. "Not to view broadband as a strategic asset is a significant shortcoming. The other leading countries of the world do view broadband in that light, and they are thinking about how to get more of it at much faster speeds and lower rates because it's a platform for so many other things that are important."
• Yet, fourteen states currently have laws on the books drafted by phone and cable company lobbyists--restricting municipalities from erecting their own broadband systems. The Community Broadband Act, bipartisan legislation that already passed the Senate Commerce Committee, would tear down the roadblocks. "The first thing we have to do," Mitchell says, "is make sure that communities that want to solve their own problems, that want to build the network they need, can do that."
• In the end, the biggest obstacles to universal, affordable Internet access aren't economic or technical. They're political. Broadband is too important to the economy, education, and, well, democracy to be at the mercy of Comcast, Verizon, or AT&T.

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• Reviews initiatives by local governments to implement broadband access in the community. Evaluates both successful and failed experiments. The quote by Earthlink CEO is particularly incriminating of the motives for private industries. - Jeremy Buege on 2009-02-16

• Broadband, where in the past it was viewed as a luxury for the tech savvy or corporate employee, is becoming more and more a necessity for the everyday citizen.

• Lists benefits of broadband Internet access for both personal and business. Nice to know that Michigan is interested, and links broadband to economic success. - Jeremy Buege on 2009-02-16

• In SNG's research since 2003, we have found significant increases in local economic activity attributable to broadband. In fact, the increase in local GDP is more than ten-fold the value of the investments in broadband infrastructure.

• Blasts an "Economist" article for suggesting broadband Internet access isn't important. Discusses the importance of broadband and ties broadband proliferation to economic success in communities. - Jeremy Buege on 2009-02-16

• "The mindset that we have … to work under [at the FCC] is 'don't worry about it, the marketplace will take care of this,'" said FCC Commissioner Michael Copps. "While we all revere the marketplace, there are some things that cannot get done by themselves."
• "We have consolidation, lack of competition, … prices are shooting up, there are no alternatives for small businesses," said Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein.

• Reviews calls from Democratic members of the FCC and Congress to examine our national broadband strategy. Comments on how the market has so far failed to deliver. - Jeremy Buege on 2009-02-16

• The Associated Press's own studies, as well as independent research conducted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other technologists, revealed that Comcast had been degrading and blocking such peer-to-peer protocols through "reset packets" that would "spoof" and "jam" applications in a way that was deliberately hidden from users.
• When the DPI technology identifies a file being uploaded over BitTorrent, it intercepts and terminates the transmission by falsifying the transmission control protocol (TCP) to look like one of the end-users.
• the FCC ruled against Comcast and held that the cable company's selective targeting of users and applications is a discriminatory practice and "unduly squelches the dynamic benefits of an open and accessible Internet and does not constitute reasonable network management." The commission also found that the practice was not "minimally intrusive but invasive and outright discriminatory."

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• Provides an overview and analysis of Comcast's attempt to block peer-to-peer file sharing applications. Gives a brief explanation of the ethically questionable techniques Comcast used. - Jeremy Buege on 2009-02-16

• We strongly urge Congress to continue the “hands off” approach to Internet regulation that has allowed the Internet to flourish for over a decade.
• Further, network neutrality regulation seeks to address a problem that does not currently exist, as providers have a very real market incentive not to drive customers elsewhere by blocking or slowing down popular content.