For those who depend on internet connections for their livelihood, which is pretty much everyone from the small business owner, creative content contractors, to mega corporations, the idea that ISP's have been kicking around, to charge different rates for different kinds of access to different kinds of content, could mean the difference between profit, or going out of business. Then there are the free speech issues involved too. Of course, I can't explain this issue in two sentences, so I'll let some bobbing helmet do it for me.
"You know, you've got yourself a nice little talkshow outfit here."
Joe, I'm on the other side of the net neutrality debate and work with the Hands Off the Internet coalition on this issue. The only thing net neutrality regulations would do is cripple the investment in infrastructure upgrades and the ability of consumers to get new services and products. This recent editorial in Forbes does a great job of highlighting the problems with net neutrality,
ReplyDelete"The Google/MoveOn.org coalition fighting for network neutrality mandates calls itself 'Save the Internet.' But the Internet doesn't need to be saved--it needs to be improved, expanded and bulked up. An attempt to "save" the Internet in its current state would be something akin to saving the telegraph from the telephone."
Also, as Kerpen notes in his editorial, it should mean something that most of the senior network engineers responsible for the development of the internet are warning against net neutrality.
"Robert Kahn and David Farber, the technologists known respectively as the father and grandfather of the Internet, have both been highly critical of network neutrality mandates. In a recent speech, Kahn pointed out that to incentivize innovation, network operators must be allowed to develop new technologies within their own networks first, something that network neutrality mandates could prevent. Farber has urged Congress not to enact network neutrality mandates that would prevent significant improvements to the Internet."
http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2007/01/30/info-traffic-jams-oped-cx_pk_0131network.html
Hello Hands Off.
ReplyDeleteI usually am on the side of free market forces driving innovation, but when it comes to utilities, some government regulation is necessary because monopoly tendencies develop easier in a market with few providers. I am not convinced that access tiering costs will not be passed on to the consumer, mainly because energy companies and telecoms have always passed on their development costs on to the consumers.
The argument can be made that regulatory costs, in the form of taxes and licensing fees, stifle innovation because those costs are always passed on to the consumer, which cuts into how much utilities can charge their customers. This makes for a smaller profit margin, which means there is less money to be invested into research and development. However, the pressure for profit for publicly held companies, I feel, makes monopoly practices the easier path, instead of reinvestment.
Joe, thanks for the response. I understand your concerns about monopolies, but even without the innovation killing net neutrality regulations, there are plenty of avenues for oversight in place. We have anti-trust laws in place to deal with any potential anti-competitive behavior. Why preemptively address a hypothetical problem through increased regulation? Farber had some interesting comments on this in a recent editorial,
ReplyDelete"Public policy should intervene where anti-competitive actions can be identified and the cure will not be worse than the disease. Policymakers must tread carefully, however, because it can be difficult, if not impossible, to determine in advance whether a particular practice promotes or harms competition. Antitrust law generally takes a case-by-case approach under which private parties or public agencies can challenge business practices and the courts require proof of harm to competition before declaring a practice illegal. This is a sound approach that has served our economy well."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/18/AR2007011801508.html
In addition, in examining net neutrality we can't ignore the open access debate of the late '90s. Brett Swanson does a great job of connecting the two,
"Messrs. Lessig, Dingell and Conyers, and Google, now want to repeat all the investment-killing mistakes of the late 1990s, in the form of new legislation and FCC regulation to ensure "net neutrality." This ignores the experience of the recent past -- and worse, the needs of the future."
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&program=Technology%20and%20Democracy&id=3869