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Date: Thur, 6 July 2006 00:02:00 -0600
From: SuitWatch 
To: suitwatch@ssc.com
Subject: SuitWatch - July 6




                            SuitWatch -- July 6
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  From 0 to 1 in 100 years

   Net Neutrality is a snowball
   http://doc.weblogs.com/2005/03/28#betOnTheSnowball.

   That is, it's an idea that started small but grew steadily as it rolled
   forward, gaining mass and speed as it accreted the passions and opinions of
   many -- on all sides of the issue.  Today the topic is so large and complex
   that it's hard to find where it began.  It has also become so highly
   politicized that it may sink the telecom reform legislation that carriers
   have been working on since the last round of reform, in 1996.

   Google currently lists 37 million results for "net neutrality" and another
   3.17 million for "network neutrality".  The top of five "sponsored links" is
   for NetCompetition.org http://www.netcompetition.org/, a carrier-funded
   anti-neutrality PR site.  The next four are for pro-neutrality
   organizations.  I like the one that says:

     Greedy Telecom Monopolies
     If They Had Their Way,
     You Would Never Find This Article.
     www.freepress.net/news/16373

   Pro- and Anti-Neutrality sites abound.  Perhaps the biggest of the
   Pro-Neutrality sites is http://www.savetheinternet.com/SaveTheInternet.com,
   a coalition representing what Anti-Neutro blogger Richard Bennett calls
   http://bennett.com/blog/index.php/archives/2006/06/27/change-or-no-change/

      A. The end to end cargo cult
      B.  Content Companies
      C. Political  bloggers
      D.  Bewildered PACs

   Its equivalent on the Anti-Neutro side is Hands Off The Internet
   http://handsoff.org/, which calls itself
   http://handsoff.org/hoti_docs/aboutus/ "a nationwide coalition of Internet
   users" even though its "member organizations" include Cingular, AT&T/SBC,
   BellSouth and Alcatel.  Also the National Black Chamber of Commerce.
   (Follow the money.) http://saveaccess.org/node/231

   Yet, as with every runaway snowball, Net Neutrality has long since passed
   out of its originators' control.

   Case in point.  The top Net Neutrality search result on Google goes to the
   Wikipedia entry for Network Neutrality.  The original version of that entry
   appeared on January 15, 2005 and had 246 words, including headlines and
   external links.  The current version has 7,395 words and is updated many
   times every day by both pro- and anti-neutrality authors.  Go read it,
   if you can: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality

   Each side frames the debate in its own terms, of course.  To the carriers,
   it's about competition and keeping business safe from government
   interference.  To the Neutros, it's about using government to keep the Net
   safe from carriers' plans to turn it into a system of toll roads.  Never
   mind that the carriers are monopolists who deeply fear the same free market
   they pretend to advocate.  And never mind the fact that "neutrality" is an
   ideal that few ordinary citizen with a DSL or a cable connection have ever
   experienced, since tiered and crippled services are all the carriers have
   ever offered to "consumers" in any case.

   Not surprisingly, Republicans oppose Net Neutrality while Democrats favor
   it.  There are some exceptions, but that's basically how the partisan lines
   divide.  Both sides are also highly focused on the current battle.

   To those of us with libertarian leanings (I'm one), failure would be a fine
   fate for telecom legislation that promises "deregulation" and "reform" while
   providing little of either.

   Bob Frankston, coinventor of the spreadsheet and one of the fathers of home
   networking, dismisses the entire "Regulatorium", including all efforts to
   define and limit infrastructure for the protection and convenience of
   carriers.  To Bob, the Net's infrastructure is nothing more than a path.
   Which is why he likes to compare the Net to roads and sidewalks.  Would we
   want to pay tolls for using the sidewalks and roads in front of our house?

   Every analogy breaks down around exceptions, of course, and the biggest
   exception to the road-and-sidewalk analogy is abundance.  As Bob also points
   out, the 15Mb of downstream sidewalk he gets over Verizon's fiber optic home
   service is only one percent of the broadway he'd have if Verizon weren't
   busy making the Net scarce for its customers.

   The biggest problem for the carriers is that, once the capacity is provided,
   there is little scarcity to leverage.  Yes, there are costs -- very large
   ones in some cases -- to bringing fiber-grade internet connections to homes
   and businesses.  And there are costs for connecting to backbones.  But we
   need to depend on carriers to fund the capacity? Put another way, Why should
   we depend on companies that accelerate into the future with one foot on the
   brake pedal while they park in the middle of intersections and charge us to
   cross them?

   The short answer is, We shouldn't.

   That means we have to depend on ourselves.

   And the tide of history.  Because that, more than anything else, is on our
   side.

   I hadn't realized how much we had going for us until my wife said something
   brilliant the other day.  We'd been talking about all this Net Neutrality
   stuff.  Also about the economy in general.  She summarized matters this way:

     "We're in the middle of a 100-year transition from analog to digital
     technology.  That means we have another fifty years of prosperity and
     growth."

   Right then I realized that Net Neutrality is just another name for a clear
   digital path between devices.  Regardless of how near or far away they may
   be.  And that there is an incalculable sum of money to be made in clearing
   those paths and putting them to use.  Also that I won't live to see the job
   finished.

   "Broadband" is like "long distance": just another name for transient
   scarcity.  We want our Net to be as fast, accessible and unrestricted as a
   hard drive.  (And in time even that analogy will seem too slow.) The only
   way that will happen is if the Net becomes ubiquitous infrastructure --
   something which, in a practical sense, nobody owns, everybody can use and
   anybody can improve.

   There is infinitely more business in making that happen, and using the
   results, than Congress can ever protect for the carriers alone. And guess
   who is in the best position to make money doing that?

   Right: the carriers.

   Will somebody please tell them?

     Doc Searls is Senior Editor of Linux Journal and co-author of The
     Cluetrain Manifesto.  He is also a Visiting Scholar at the University of
     California, Santa Barbara.
   _________________________________________________________________

   Links:
   The Snowball Effect:
   http://doc.weblogs.com/2005/03/28#betOnTheSnowball

   NetCompetition.org:
   http://www.netcompetition.org/

   When Uninformed Senators Make Laws:
   http://www.freepress.net/news/16373

   SaveTheInternet.com:
   http://www.savetheinternet.com/

   Richard Bennet on Neutros:
   http://bennett.com/blog/index.php/archives/2006/06/27/change-or-no-change/

   HandsOffTheInternet:
   http://handsoff.org

   Wikipedia on Net Neutrality:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality

   Cato Institute Paper on Network Neutrality:
   http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa507.pdf

   Christopher Yoo paper:
   http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=495502
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