As a very small content provider (editor of Politech), I'd presumably
benefit in the short run from Net neutrality. But I spent over a decade
in Washington, DC, more than enough time to realize that government
failure is more of a problem than market failure, and to become
healthily skeptical of giving the FCC new powers to regulate the Internet.
Let's say you have a 1 megabit/sec pipe that's entirely network neutral
-- all sites are treated the same. Now a broadband provider tells you
"Hey, it's only affordable for us to run fiber to your home if we devote
half of our 40 megabit/sec pipe to paid content, but we promise you can
use the other half unmolested" -- well, that seems like a pretty good
deal to me.
Sure, it violates the principles of Net neutrality. So what? If it's the
only way to make running fiber to my home economical, then I'm all for
it. (Yes, I know my hypothetical doesn't deal with blocking VoIP calls
etc., which I admit is A Bad Thing. But the FCC already has cracked down
on that and no new laws are necessary to address that issue.)
Previous Politech message:
http://www.politechbot.com/2006/04/25/why-conservatives-and/
Background on House committee vote on the topic tomorrow:
http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6065062.html
-Declan
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: [Politech] Why conservatives and libertarians should oppose
Netneutrality [econ]
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 17:25:15 -0400
From: Gattuso, James <James.Gattuso@private>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan@private>
Declan, this post I just put on techliberation.org may be of interest in
this regard... http://www.techliberation.com/archives/038359.php
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Politech] Why conservatives and libertarians should oppose
Net neutrality [econ]
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 19:21:00 -0700 (PDT)
From: Art Brodsky <artbrodsky@private>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan@private>
That's one way of looking at it. Another is that, if done
correctly, as in the Markey language, the bill would preserve
the free and fair market. It would permit any number of
business models. It would prohibit discrimination, which is
particularly dangerous in a duopoly such as we have with
Internet access.
As it stands now, you don't have anything to worry about in the
existing legislation.
Art
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Politech] Why conservatives and libertarians should
oppose Net neutrality [econ]
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 18:16:44 -0400
From: Allen Smith <easmith@private>
To: orinsf@private
CC: declan@private
References: <444E8D0B.40104@private>
In message <444E8D0B.40104@private> (on 25 April 2006 13:56:43 -0700),
declan@private (Declan McCullagh) wrote:
>[Whatever you think of the desirability of Net neutrality, keep in mind
>what the legislation actually says. It would award the FCC the power to
>regulate what business models will be permitted on the next generation
>of the Internet. --Declan]
The current legislation may well be problematic. But in regard to
libertarian (and conservative) viewpoints on this issue, might I suggest
that a compromise is possible, namely having said regulations _only_ cover
parties with (local) monopolies over a given type of service (local cable
monopoly franchises, local telephone monopolies, etcetera)? Monopolies are
not free markets (we can debate as to the degree to which they are sustained
by governmental intervention some other time...).
-Allen
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Politech] Why conservatives and libertarians should oppose
Net neutrality [econ]
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 18:26:07 -0400 (EDT)
From: Chris Beck <cbeck@private>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan@private>
References: <444E8D0B.40104@private>
At the moment and for a few more years to come cable and telcos will have
defacto oligopoly status because of the massive cost of joining the game
and because rights-of-way are very scarce. So I don't have a major issue
with somebody peering over their shoulder ready to smack them in the head
if they start getting uppity.
I also don't actually see the problem that they are proposing to solve.
Is there anyone who is trying to transfer packets who is actually
suffering because of ISP internal congestion? Didn't think so - the
problem is either at the upload end because the source is too popular or
at the download end because the end-user is seeding torrents like mad
while trying to watch multiple youtube streams. Seems to me like an
attempt to charge us more money to avoid a problem that they were supposed
to have already solved with money that we already paid because they askedd
the FCC to allow them to charge more.
Cheers,
Chris
One named Declan McCullagh was heard by to whisper
> [Whatever you think of the desirability of Net neutrality, keep in mind
> what the legislation actually says. It would award the FCC the power to
> regulate what business models will be permitted on the next generation
> of the Internet. --Declan]
--
Chris Beck - http://pacanukeha.blogspot.com
Nihil tam munitum quod non expugnari pecunia possit. - Cicero
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Politech] Why conservatives and libertarians should oppose
Net neutrality [econ]
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 15:38:30 -0700
From: Kurt Buff <kurt.buff@private>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan@private>
References: <444E8D0B.40104@private>
So - any reason why some bright fellow in Congress hasn't come up with
the idea of overriding the ability of State/local governments to
mandate monopoly contracts for telco/net/cable access? I think this
would do much more to keep bandwidth neutral.
Kurt
On 4/25/06, Declan McCullagh <declan@private> wrote:
> [Whatever you think of the desirability of Net neutrality, keep in mind
> what the legislation actually says. It would award the FCC the power to
> regulate what business models will be permitted on the next generation
> of the Internet. --Declan]
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