Hundreds weigh in on net neutrality
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Hundreds of groups and individual Internet users sounded off to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC)Â on net neutrality in comments filed Monday, the deadline for responding to the agency's inquiry into the proposed regulation.
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Blog: Amidst thousands of comments about whether Net neutrality rules are needed, media conglomerate urges FCC to stress that broadband providers must fight transfer of copyrighted works.
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Citizens have until Friday to sway government regulators on net neutrality, the principle that ISPs should treat all packets of internet data equally.
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'Power to the people. And us.' Just after Comcast copped to throttling P2P traffic, a new net neutrality bill appeared on Capitol Hill.â¦
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A vast online network is being used to promote social and environmental responsibility.
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InfoWorld - Fifty-four organizations, including Amazon, Google, and TiVO, have called on the U.S. government to create a national broadband policy, saying there&#39;s no plan now in place focused on providing affordable access for all residents.
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By Koprowski, Gene  The concept of "net neutrality" sounds quite reasonable in theory, but the policy proposals coming from federal legislators and bureaucrats may in reality be quite discriminatory.
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The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC)Â needs to step up its regulation of the telecommunications and broadband industries and reverse its current opposition to net neutrality rules, two consumer groups said Wednesday.
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A progressive Washington think tank Tuesday blasted the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Bush administration for failing to invest in and develop a robust broadband network in the U.S. that can support consumers as well as first responders and anti-terrorist teams.&quot;The policy of relying on market forces that the Bush administration claimed for seven years would propel broad access is irresponsible and insufficient,&quot; Mark Lloyd, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress (CAP), said in a statement on the CAP&#39;s Web site.&quot;The result of administration neglect, industry intransigence and the incompetence of the Federal Communications Commission ... has left the American people and most policymakers with no clear idea where broad services are deployed in the U.S.,&quot; said Lloyd, who is also an affiliated professor at Georgetown University&#39;s Public Policy Institute.Although it&#39;s a nonpartisan organization, the CAP is headed by John Podesta, who served as chief of staff to Bill Clinton when he was president. P.J. Crowley, CAP&#39;s director of homeland security, served as Clinton&#39;s special assistant for national security and joined Lloyd in a call with reporters Tuesday.Lloyd and Crowley urged policymakers, including the presidential candidates, to find government funds to support the building of a 10Gbps, redundant and ubiquitous broadband network. They also urged current leaders to create a commission to implement that goal.&quot;We should not wait for another Katrina or 9/11 for this to happen,&quot; Lloyd said. The CAP said the broadband network could be wired and wireless. The organization also said the network must provide enough components so that if one system fails, another is available and the network can quickly repair itself.The FCC has created an elaborate system to&#160;auction off 700MHz wireless spectrum&#160;starting Thursday, including a special D Block that would be shared by first responders and commercial users.But even the plans to use that portion of the spectrum for public safety imperiled, since the sole known bidder, Frontline Wireless LLC, failed to submit a $128 million down payment to the FCC to qualify to bid. On Jan. 12, the company issued a short statement saying: &quot;Frontline Wireless is closed for business at this time. We have no further comment.&quot;&quot;The bidding on the D Block is a perfect example of the challenge the FCC faces,&quot; said Lloyd, who urged Verizon Wireless or Google Inc. to consider bidding on the D Block. &quot;We need somebody to step up to the plate and if not, the feds must. We cannot rely on market forces alone.&quot;Lloyd said all branches of government need to work with service providers in a &quot;necessary and forced partnership&quot; to bring about a broadband network.Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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Just over half of US Internet users now connect through broadband, according to a new survey. Nielsen/Netratings reports that in July, 51 percent of Internet users had DSL, cable, or other fast
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For the first time, a slim majority of US Net users are connecting via broadband. In July, 51 percent of America&#39;s home online population was using broadband connections, according to a report from Nielsen/NetRatings. Before July, the ...
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When it comes to net neutrality, telecom and Internet companies may be asking for it.
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(InfoWorld) - Fifty-four organizations, including Amazon, Google, and TiVO, have called on the U.S. government to create a national broadband policy, saying there's no plan now in place focused on providing affordable access for all residents. The Open Internet Coalition, in a letter to Congress sent Thursday, said the U.S. government needs to adopt new measures to ensure universal affordable access to broadband, net neutrality and increased competition in the broadband market. The letter is the first step in a concerted effort coalition members will make to push broadband legislation in Congress, members said. The U.S. has fallen to 15th in per capita broadband adoption among the 30 nations that are members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, noted Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press, a media reform advocacy group. "Most alarmingly, we're not doing anything about it," he said. The U.S. lacks "any stated policy" to bring affordable broadband to more residents, added Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a digital rights advocacy group and member of the coalition. "The government doesn't have an overarching vision on how to address these problems," she added. In March 2004, U.S. President George Bush called for universal, affordable broadband for all U.S. residents by this year, but he did not propose major changes to make that happen. It's a major hurdle that providers of cable and DSL control 96 percent of U.S. broadband subscriptions, Scott said. "We've got to face the fact that [U.S. residents] pay more for less bandwidth than our global competitors," he said. Increased access to the Internet is vital to U.S. economic growth, said the letter to Congress. "Now is the time to give this goal the urgency it deserves," the letter said. "As broadband networks become more and more integral to our economic and social life, we are reaching a tipping point where legislation is no longer simply welcome -- it is imperative." Not everyone agrees with the coalition's goals, particularly its call for net neutrality or open access on broadband networks. Large broadband providers like Verizon and AT&T have opposed efforts to pass a net neutrality law that would prohibit providers from blocking or slowing Web content from competitors. Such a law would limit providers' business plans and would discourage them from building fast new networks, the providers have said. Last month, some of the coalition's members called for open access requirements in upcoming spectrum auctions at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. Scott Wallsten, a senior fellow at free-market think tank the Progress and Freedom Foundation, called the term "open access" a brilliant branding strategy. "How could anyone oppose proposals with names like net neutrality, Internet freedom, and open access?" Wallsten wrote in a newsletter. "But ... these proposals, if implemented, would create a regulatory hell of complicated rules and endless lobbying while undermining incentives to invest in critical wireless and wired broadband infrastructure." Other members of the Open Internet Coalition include eBay, online dating site Match.com, the Consumer Federation of America, CollegeHumor.com, and RealEstate.com.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. Congress still needs to deal with network neutrality, and supporters in Congress are willing to block any legislation favored by broadband providers until the issue is resolved, a leading Democratic lawmaker said Wednesday. "Network neutrality is a large, unresolved debate," said Representative Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat, speaking at the State of the 'Net Conference in Washington, D.C. "It's [the Internet's] open and accessible policy that has enabled it to be a platform of innovation." A net neutrality law, which would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or slowing Web content from competitors,Â stalled in Congress in 2006, and large broadband providers, such as AT&T and Verizon, opposed efforts to pass a law. But net neutrality advocates -- many of them part of the Democratic majority that now controls both houses of Congress -- would block any legislation requested by the large broadband providers until a net neutrality compromise is hammered out, Boucher predicted. Last year, AT&T and Verizon pushed for a new law that would streamline the franchising process they must go through to offer television over IP service in competition with cable TV. But this year, the large broadband providers have largely backed off on their lobbying efforts, and Boucher suggested that's because Democrats will demand a net neutrality law as a trade-off for any legislation that benefits providers. Boucher supports a net neutrality law, but he called for compromise. Congress should not pass a net neutrality law with "unintended consequences" that hurt the development of the Internet, he said. "I don't want to do anything ... that has the effect of hobbling innovation inside the network," he added. Other speakers at the conference, sponsored by the bipartisan Advisory Committee to the Congressional Internet Caucus, suggested a net neutrality law would hurt efforts to increase broadband adoption in the U.S. A net neutrality law would limit broadband providers' options for providing new services, said George Ford, chief economist at the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies, a free-market-focused think tank. "We should exercise discipline," Ford said. "We rarely do that with communications policy." Other speakers argued there's little evidence of broadband providers blocking competitors' Web content, a scenario net neutrality advocates want to prevent. "Economic change and technological change need room to breathe," said Christopher Yoo, a tech law professor at Vanderbilt University. If broadband providers eventually take action that harms customers and competition, then Congress should pass a law, Yoo said. Yoo and David Farber, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, argued that broadband providers need the ability to block Internet content such as spam and to shut down Web applications that hog bandwidth. Providers should also be allowed to prioritize Web applications such as video or voice, allowing customers to have a high quality of service, Farber said. "If you try to get quality of service for everyone, you don't get quality of service," Farber said. But Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia University Law School, said providers should only block Web content in the most extreme circumstances. The difference between "good blocking" and "bad blocking" depends on the user's perspective, he said. "Blocking should be highly suspect," Wu added. "We say good blocking is good and bad blocking is bad, but so does the Chinese government. They're making bad decisions at the center [of the network]."
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The Internet serves more as a town hall in the United States than an echo chamber as users are more likely to be exposed to a wide range of political views, according to a survey released on Wednesday.
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For the first time ever, more Americans are seeking faster connections to access the Internet.
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The number of Americans who get on the Internet via high-speed lines has now equaled the number using dial-up connections.    July measurements from Nielsen/NetRatings placed the broadband audience at 51 percent of the U.S...