New US "mega kill bill" would give President and DHS even more power to control the Internet

Laws like this is the reason that I am against the FCC or Congress getting involved in any regulation of the Internet especially net neutrality.  This bill, if passed, would give the President and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sweeping powers to shut down parts and the whole Internet or even terminate specific users they deem are threats by executive fiat.  There is no Congressional oversight.  There is little definition of what IS a cyber-threat.  Once again is proves that the current Administration and Congress does not understand the Internet. 

There are several things wrong with this proposed legislation not to mention that it is probably unconstitutional without “war power” authority to go along with it.  This power would allow the Executive branch to interfere with commerce and suppress free speech.  Wasn’t this administration suppose to be “open” and “transparent?”  They are actually more totalitarian than they claimed of the previous administration. 

Next, the legislation allows continued unwarranted surveillance of “suspects” that are deemed “threats” to national security which is an extension of the Patriot Act.  Finally the legislation barely takes into account the fact that the Internet is a global network and not just a U.S. network. 

The philosophy of the bill can be summed up by Senator Joe Lieberman’s comment on CNN that the U.S. needs the same ability to shut down the Internet as China.  So it looks like the current administration and Congress is benchmarking ourselves with the Peoples’ Republic of China.  God help us all. 

The Internet is a global network for commerce, information dissemination, and communications.  There may be a need during war to manage ingress and egress to the United States, but it should not be wholly shut down.  The NSA is better equipped to understand and manage this job than DHS.  The government should recall that open communications did more to bring down Communism than anything else we did during the Cold War.

Senator Lieberman’s legislation is ill conceived and needs to be killed immediately.  This is not a partisan issue, but one of freedom and openness.  Also, there must be checks placed on the application of such a power.  It must not be given unilaterally.  Contact your Senators and urge them not to support S.3480.  When will our industry and tech community realize that as a whole the government does not really understand the Internet and any attempt to control it will have disastrous effects?

Technorati Tags: Internet,eavesdropping,net neutrality,politics,president,telecom,wiretapping,terrorism

The Wrangling on Net Neutrality Continues This Week

The debate on net neutrality rages on this week with AT&T checking with their position on the topic.  Not only did they effectively state their case for differentiated services, they also addressed the inaccuracies in the positions of the political opposition groups.  Mr. Hultquist noted, in his blog post, that the position of net neutrality groups like the Church of Extreme Net Neutrality (CoENN) will make the Internet a “dumb network.”  I applaud AT&T for coming out in support of differentiated services and backhandedly supporting the Verizon/Google principles.  Their article took the direct approach to dispel the myths of political opposition groups.

Declan McCullagh of CNET wrote a rather objective piece on AT&T’s announcement covering the basis for AT&T’s position.  In the article he presented an opposing views from groups like Free Press.  Mr. McCullagh shows the astute reader that AT&T’s position is based in technical facts while the Free Press’ position is based on opinion with no historical or factual basis.   I hope that CNET and the rest of the press will continue to provide objective reporting on the topic and continue to produce well researched articles like this one.

The FCC took some action this week requesting more data from Google and Verizon as reported by ARS Technia.  Anti-differentiated services proponents chastise the FCC for dragging its feet, but I think that it is giving industry time to align itself and reach an agreement.  I am sure that they will not public admit to this strategy, but their passive role and quiet support of differentiated services in their Broadband Performance report seems to support my supposition.  The FCC is treading lightly because it knows that net neutrality is a political hot potato, and if they take no action, then the political opposition groups will utilize the President to put pressure on the FCC.  They realize that their legal authority to implement net neutrality is weak so they will drive the industry through their inquiry process.  If they push the industry to address wireless networks as well then they can claim credit for being an active participant. 

Companies continue to come forth in support of differentiated services.  Hopefully in the coming weeks more content companies will release statements.  I would like to see a content provider like Vonage, Netflix, or Disney chide in the debate.  If these companies realize how differentiated services can allow them to compete and create new content delivery models, then the political opposition groups will not have much ground to stand on.

Technorati Tags: FCC,Google,Verizon (VZ),broadband,differentiated services,net neutrality,politics,wireless

True Progress on Net Neutrality from Verizon and Google

Monday Google and Verizon released their joint framework for an open Internet.  While the press and digiratti expressed their outrage that two leaders in the industry too the initiative to make a proposal, it was a major step forward in reaching consensus by the largest access and content providers.  Condemnation was generally universal from expected sources like Wired, This Week in Tech, the George Soros funded MoveOn.org, the technical press in general, FCC, and even the Wall Street Journal.  Other carriers, such as AT&T and  Level 3, were generally timid in their acceptance of the progress.  The reasons for the condemnation were varied and often overstated.  Most of the denunciation resulted from a lack of knowledge in how the Internet and telecommunications networks work.  This ignorance causes fear that results in calls for government intervention even though there is yet to be a problem.

Presently all Internet traffic is classified as a “best-effort” service.  That means that all packets travel independently through the Internet with no preferences given to them.  The packets are not even guaranteed to arrive at their destination if there is congestion at network nodes which is why TCP was invented to tell the sender to resend lost packets.  The truth is that most non-business Internet traffic uses the same equipment and bandwidth as business services that are already prioritized.  Carriers may already be slightly delaying best-effort Internet when their router becomes congested with business services.  Therefore, the concept of “all packets being equal” is already a misnomer.  Even content providers like Google prioritize their internal traffic over Gmail sessions or search queries when they may be comingled. Carriers have been selling “differentiated” services to businesses for several years to ensure the quality of video and voice traffic over e-mail, web browsing, and other applications that are tolerant to a few hundreds of milliseconds delay.  It is about time that residential users have access to those same capabilities if innovative services like Over-the-Top Video (Hulu Plus, Netflix, etc.) and VoIP are going to compete with Cable TV and “digital phone services."

Several articles prophesized that the introduction of differentiated services would create two Internets because carriers would dedicate almost all of their bandwidth to the more profitable differentiated services or split networks.  This statement is false because operating parallel networks is not an economically viable solution.  Duplicating equipment would drive the costs up of all services.  In reality network operators are always trying to converge their networks to a single network for economies of scale.  We are reaching the 1950’s goal of the Bell System that all services will ride over a single network.  The Internet Protocol (IP) and inexpensive Ethernet has made that goal possible.  Carriers are increasingly migrating their network to IP to yield both capital and operational cost savings.  As these networks merge, Internet access will ride right along with the voice and video services also offered by the carriers.  Services like FiOS, U-Verse, and Xfinity are based on this shared network concept.  Carriers of these services dedicate bandwidth to each service.  If a competitor like Netflix wanted to offer a service to you they could not purchase bandwidth from Comcast, AT&T, or Verizon.  They have to do it over the Internet where their movies are subject to potential degradation through the normal course of transit.

Differentiated services would simply introduce priority bits to the traffic that may be sensitive to delay and jitter like a Netflix movie.  Best-effort traffic would continue to have no priority.  In most cases the end-user would not even know that their traffic was being delayed.  If that same end-user purchased a Hulu Plus Plus service that was differentiated, they would no longer see the excessive buffering, stopping, and block errors that they typically now see.  The result is a better Internet experience for all.  Throwing more bandwidth at an end-user does not necessarily solve the problem as Molly Wood of CBS Interactive (CNET) and others have postulated.  Routers, servers, and other transport equipment can slow down traffic if too much hits it at one time no matter how much bandwidth is available.

Net neutrality is a vague term that means different things to different people so saying someone is for or against net neutrality means nothing.  Most everyone including the carriers will agree that they want an open Internet, but what does that really mean?  Verizon and Google each have some of the Internet’s pioneers working for them, and they have the technical know-how to best evolve the Internet.  Al Gore, Ted Stevens (RIP), George Soros, Rupert Murdoch, Jason Calacanis, the FCC, and many others did not invent the Internet nor do they engineer it on a daily basis.  They should leave the engineering of it to the many companies and people that build and manage it.  The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is composed of those individuals which make it a perfect body to decide the tenants of net neutrality.  The Internet is a global phenomenon because it was designed and built by these people, not bureaucrats, politicians, and do-gooders.  By deviating from that formula we risk polluting the Internet with restrictions that will stifle innovation and the entrepreneurs that net neutrality proponents are claiming to represent.  That is why I believe that this shared statement of principles should not serve as a basis for legislation by Congress or regulation by the FCC, but as a request for comment (RFC) by the IETF so the Internet can truly be left free and open globally.

Verizon and Google arrived at a major milestone by agreeing that they will not block or impede traffic/services from any particular lawful source.  Both parties agreed that network management techniques or traffic prioritization was allowed by service type and not service provider.  The implications of this agreement is that YouTube could compete against FiOS on a level playing field.  The small additional charge for a guaranteed quality of experience is well worth it.  Revenue gained would be used to continue to invest in continued Internet improvements and a better user experience.  It is a pity that the technical press does not grasp this fact.  Instead they are intent on listening to governmental organizations trying to expand their control over the Internet or third-parties spreading their socialist agenda.  None of these groups have a true financial interest in the Internet.  The astute observer will notice that true content providers (mainstream media excluded) are absent form the cacophony of descent.  Could it be that they are siding with the largest content provider in the world?  Perhaps they realize that these principles could allow them to compete with the large carriers.

Verizon and Google took the initiative to form an agreement between content provider and carrier.  The media assumes that any time private companies get together that they are doing evil.  They would be wise to keep in mind that private companies, research institutions, and universities built the internet, not the FCC or Congress.  Google and Verizon did what bureaucrats and the politicians could not do: take an initial step at defining net neutrality for wireline networks.  There are some items that could be refined a bit as other content providers and carriers come on board, and they must tackle wireless networks.  Exempting them was their biggest mistake, because they are just as an important Internet access method for many Americans.  The IETF should take this draft proposal and expand it to cover all access methods including wireless.  Global adoption by carriers and content providers is crucial so innovation and competition can continue on the Internet.

Note:  The author does not work for or compensated by Verizon, Google, or any other carrier or content provider.  These opinions and facts are based on my two plus decades of experience in the telecommunications industry.

Technorati Tags: AT&T,broadband,Comcast (CMCSA),Google,net neutrality,politics,telecommunications,YouTube,Verizon (VZ),IETF

US Senate committee approves Internet close-down bill by vocal acclaim. Well, saves the fuss of a vote, doesn't it?

Leave it to a bunch of Brits to point out how we continue to circumvent our democratic system.  TelecomTV, along with many other publications, reported that the Senate has passed a bill that will allow the president to shut down the Internet in the United States for up to 120 days without any Congressional approval.  The passage of this bill occurred with no mention in the mainstream media, which is not surprising since they still view the Internet as a threat to their arcane business models.  The bill was passed with a simple voice vote despite protests from many civil libertarian groups and the fact that the majority of the public is against giving the president this level of control without any checks.  Once again it just proves that the current Administration and Congress are not in office to represent the American people and what is best for the economy.  I find it hypocritical that Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton publically denounce China for having that same control over the Internet that they are pushing through Congress.  Let’s hope that we can persuade the House not to pass their version of the bill.

Technorati Tags: net neutrality,EFF,politics,president,telecom

Incumbent Carriers Use Political Muscle to Stifle Competition

Time Warner Cable and other incumbent communications carriers in the state of North Carolina are pushing for a bill that would prevent municipalities from building or even repairing broadband networks.  An article in Indy Week states that state senator David Hoyle is introducing a bill in the NC senate that would prevent municipalities from building their own broadband networks unless they spent taxpayer dollars for a referendum on the issue.  This bill is backed by Time Warner Cable, AT&T, and Embarq (CenturyLink).  I am all for transparency in government, and I believe that any use of taxpayer money should be fully vetted, but requiring an election on the issue could add more than a million dollars to the price of the network.  The resulting impact would stop most municipalities considering building their own infrastructure.  If a city was bold enough to put the issue on the ballot, such as Longmont, Colorado did in 2009, the incumbents would campaign hard to defeat the issue.  The bill is clearly aimed at erecting as many roadblocks to municipal broadband deployment as possible.  The cost of a ballot measure is equivalent to wiring at least 1,000 homes.  Please read the article then come back for the rest of my analysis.

I do not like this bill for two reasons.  The first reason is that large public corporations are using their money and political muscle to stifle potential competition from smaller companies.  We need to stop allowing big corporations from manipulating the law for their own benefit.  You would have thought we would have learned our lesson after the telecom and housing bubbles, but we did not!  Corporations continue to buy influence through PAC and other organizations.  The second reason I do not like this bill is that the incumbents are not making the investments in infrastructure to remain globally competitive.  Structurally they cannot make these investments and provide a decent ROI to their shareholders.  Municipalities are realizing this fact which is why they are pursuing building of these networks themselves.

This last reason is why incumbent carriers should embrace municipal broadband networks instead of fearing them.  They can leverage the long-term investment capabilities of local governments to build the infrastructure in which they can deliver their services.  Cable and telephone companies frequently refer to the cost of building these networks as reasons why they cannot offer more channels and higher speeds or greater download capacities.  By working with municipalities in the design of this open-access infrastructure, they can lease their last-mile access instead of spending the capital to build it which looks better on their balance sheets.  True they will face competition from other carriers, but they can use their size for economies of scale and innovation.  The problem is that they like the stasis that a duopoly provides. 

State and federal governments must not be swayed by the political contributions and lobbying from big telcos and cable and allow competition to flourish.  Once again we have to look to public/private partnerships to rewire America.  One hundred years ago it was cost prohibitive to wire every house so the FCC and state governments made a deal with AT&T for them to provide service to every household in return for a monopoly.  This public/private partnership gave AT&T the economies of scale to economically wire 80% of homes and rate-of-return regulation enabled them to wire the rest of them.  Now it is time to enter into new public/private partnerships to rewire America that encourages competition.  Enlightened local governments realize the benefits that an open-access broadband network brings to their community.  On one hand the process should be open and transparent so the community understands how the network will be financed and built.  It should not be cross-subsidized by other sources unless taxpayers agree.  On the other hand, governments should not be swayed by vested interests that may block competition just to preserve their own revenue sources.  Elected officials work for their constituents not the corporations.  Open-access networks can be built taxpayer neutral that can serve incumbent service providers and competing service providers alike.  We need to eliminate barriers to spur competition, not erect them.

Technorati Tags: AT&T (T),broadband penetration,Longmont,politics,Time Warner Cable,North Carolina

Know Your Presidential Candidates

Although the purpose of this blog is discuss communications industry issues, I am going to deviate this one article to the presidential election. Americans should have as many facts as possible so they can choose a candidate that they feel will be best for the job. Too often we rely on sound bites provided by the media to form our opinions instead of taking the time to research the candidates. As the government increasingly permeates every facet of our lives, we should devote sufficient time to choosing the candidates that we will feel will reflect our beliefs and mores. People spend more time choosing a cell phone and carrier than they to a presidential candidate. No wonder why the presidential race has turned into a popularity contest and we have one of the lowest voter turnouts than most other democracies. Our government is not truly representative since less than half of Americans vote. Enough lecturing for the evening.

Minnesota Public Radio created a quiz that scores answers against presidential candidates stances on many of the vital issues of the day. It is far from scientific, but it is a good way to see how your beliefs and opinions stack up against the candidates. Some of the questions are worded to narrowly for me which I knew would skew my results. I was still surprised at the outcome. The candidate I thought was closest to me ranked forth. I had no idea that the three above him had views closer to me. The quiz prompted me to look deeper at a few candidates and their positions. The result of my research changed my candidate choice for the primary.

Take the quiz below and spend some time researching the candidates. You may be as surprised as I was at the result. You owe it to a country that has given you so much.

Quiz: Select a Candidate 2008

Technorati tags: politics, president, candidate, election 2008