Message from Michael - Net Neutrality - November 2, 2009

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        November 2, 2009                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

      THE PROCLAMATION OF NEUTRALITY

      SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW

      THEY SAY IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY:

      COCKTAIL CHATTER – BLOGGING FOR DOLLARS AND LENO LOSING DOLLARS

 

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      THE PROCLAMATION OF NEUTRALITY:  More than 200 years later, the U.S. is again embroiled in controversy over what constitutes neutrality.  In 1793, first president George Washington, with the somewhat mixed support of the Cabinet, issued a proclamation of neutrality in the war between Britain and France.  In 2009, Federal Communications Chairman Julius Genachowski, with the somewhat mixed support of the Commission, issued a sort of proclamation of neutrality between the Internet Service Providers (ISP’s such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon) and Internet Application companies (Google, Facebook, and Twitter).  In both cases, politicians on both sides of the aisle agreed with the underlying concept.  In Washington’s day, it was the belief that the U.S. did not need to become embroiled in a European war; today it is the belief that government should not become embroiled in a ‘free and open Internet.’  But in both cases there is disagreement about what constitutes the ‘facts.’  In Washington’s time there was a war of words, pitting Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and James Madison against Secretary of the Treasury James Hamilton.  Today it’s Republican Senator John McCain (and others) who introduced the Internet Freedom Act against Democratic Representative Edward Markey (and others) who introduced the Internet Freedom Preservation Act.  In both cases there were/are questions about whether Washington or Genachowski have the authority to issue such a decree.  It was nearly a year later before Congress passed the Neutrality Act of 1794.  It may be equally long before the neutrality rules are passed.  Public comments on the FCC rule continue through January with counter responses allowed till March.  Finally, interestingly (at least to me), nowhere in either document – Washington’s or Genachowski’s – is the word neutrality or neutral used.  Okay, enough with the history lesson.  Here’s the issue:

In 2005 the FCC adopted four ‘rules’ that consumers can access lawful  Internet content of their choice (using) applications and services of their choice (subject to the needs of law enforcement), connecting with legal devices of their choice (because) they are entitled to competition among network, service and content providers.   To that the FCC has added two new principles – forbidding providers from favoring or ‘disfavoring’ any other services or content and requiring providers to disclose their network management policies before the customer signs up.  The two words you will hear when you hear about the new principles are – non-discrimination and transparency.  Now the agency wants to codify those rules. Sounds simple enough, right?  Especially when you consider it’s a government agency using the language.  But of course that’s not the way it works in politics, and especially politics mixed in with technology.  The key issues (as I understand it, from my various readings) are the interpretation of the phrase “reasonable network management” and the definition of ‘managed’ or ‘specialized’ services.  What is reasonable network management?  What is a managed or specialized service?  There is some indication that the FCC includes voice and subscription video services, ‘certain businesses provided to enterprise customers,’ telemedicine and eLearning in those specialized services.  Opponents say the net neutrality rules will throttle innovation and investment; proponents say if the net neutrality rules are not adopted, what will be throttled is the free flow of information and ideas on the Internet.  Oh, another thing, the FCC wants to apply the rules to the growing mobile wireless broadband.

As a FOOTNOTE, a study recently released by Canadian broadband network company Sandvine says one percent of subscribers account for 25% of total Internet traffic.  The report says the ‘typical’ heavy Internet user can be responsible for 200 times the total bytes of an average subscriber.  Another report by the Pew Internet and American Life project says the percentage of people using Twitter and other social networking sites used to share updates about themselves has nearly doubled in six months from 11% in April to 19% in the report just released.  Bottomline:  As noted in previous messages, the amount of bandwidth being consumed is growing exponentially and the prime culprit – video demand.  Now, what do you do about it?

       SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW:  Lies a spectrum of colors well beyond Sir Isaac Newton’s seven colors of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.  And the federal government, aka the FCC, wants them.  The new chief of the FCC’s broadband division, Blair Levin, reportedly met with some broadcasters to discuss the idea of paying broadcasters cash for their spectrum as a way of adverting what FCC chief Genachowski calls the ‘looming spectrum crisis’ which he says threatens the future of mobile in America.  However, to paraphrase the broadcasters quoted in a TVNewsCheck and continue the song analogy, the dreams that you dream of are becoming nightmares for broadcasters who question why they have to give up their spectrum, especially after spending Millions on digital conversion.  Meanwhile, the future of mobile broadband may be written in the tiny community of Claudville, Virginia (population 913) where a high-speed wireless network has been built using the ‘white spaces’ or unused portions of TV spectrum.  Starting last month the tiny town known more for its Civil War re-enactments and a goldfish farm is the test site for the ‘white space network.’  The FCC last November okayed the use of the spectrum between 512 megahertz and 698 megahertz, originally allotted to analog TV channels 21 to 51.  The advantage is not just that it’s wireless but that it can cover the same area as ‘traditional’ Wi-Fi using only one tenth the number of ‘nodes’ because of the strength of the signal.  With the switch from analog to digital, this area of spectrum is becoming more available.  (If I’ve lost you at this point, I apologize.  I’m not sure I fully understand it either, if that makes you feel better.)  The service is being put together by a small company, Spectrum Bridge, located in another small town – Lake Mary, Florida, which is about 18 miles north of Orlando.  Meanwhile, giant spectrum company ClearWire has announced that it is now in 56 cities, using the even more powerful Wi-Max band of spectrum for wireless transmission.           

      THEY SAY IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY:  And the Internet sure has shown us a good time in the 40 years since its birth.  On October 29, 1969, the Internet was born with, what PC World noted, was appropriately a crash.  On that day, a professor at UCLA’s School of Engineering sent a message to a compatriot at Stanford Research Institute.  It was two letters – L-O.  It was supposed to be LOGIN, but the computer crashed with the G.  Even so, as National Public Radio cutely put it, it was a “lo and behold” moment.  Just as appropriately, the 40^th anniversary is marked with a decision by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), to allow ‘non-Latin’ languages to have domain extensions.  That means Russian, Chinese, Korean and Arabic, just for starters.  And the reason why it’s appropriate?  Here’s why.  In a search by yours truly of the three major Internet search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing), for ‘internet 40^th anniversary’, several of the top stories on the front page were from non-American, foreign sources.  For example:  On Google, it was a story by Chinese news agency Xinhua on website Chinaview.cn;  On Yahoo, it was CIOL.com which is the website for Cybermedia India Online Limited as well as SIFY, which is “India’s leading integrated information communications technology” firm; On Bing, it was Yienjee.com which is an Asian journal created by a ‘blogger’ in Kuala Lumpur, and CCTV.com which is the website of Central China Television.  Now, admittedly, several of the search results were ‘appropriate’ (to use that word again), with UCLA’s Engineer School leading the pack, but the number of foreign sites says something.  – You decide what.  

      COCKTAIL CHATTER:  The minority of  bloggers who make money blogging (only about a quarter) makes an average of $42,548.  Three quarters of bloggers (72%) are ‘hobbyists’ who don’t make money, according to Technorati’s annual state of the blogosphere.  An article in Business Week citing figures from Nielsen and Amazon says nearly three quarters (70%) of Americans consult product ratings or reviews before making a purchase; four out of five (84%) say they’re more likely to read reviews before making a purchase than they were a year ago.  A 30-second spot in the 10 p.m. Jay Leno Show costs between $48,000 and $65,000, according to Advertising Age.  Last season, a 30-second spot in programs in that same time slot on NBC cost between $78,000 and $146,000.  Or put another way, the cheaper-to-produce Leno show is getting between $30,000 and $81,000 less per spot.  Several station executives say they have been affected by the drop in ratings.  Website TampaBay.com reports that Leno’s ratings drop may be responsible (at least in part) for long time number one WFLA-TV in Tampa/ St. Petersburg losing its top position.  It’s now number two after WTSP-TV.  Finally, kids aged 2 to 5 spend more than a full day each week watching television – 32 hours a week; their older brothers and sisters aged 6 to 11 spend slightly less – 28 hours, according to Nielsen.    

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