Justice Dept. Opposes Network Neutrality
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The Justice Department said yesterday that Internet service providers should be allowed to charge extra for priority Web traffic.
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The top antitrust official at the U.S.  Justice Department last month backed Microsoft Corp.   by urging state prosecutors to reject a confidential complaint  filed by Google Inc. , The New York Times reported on  Sunday.
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A coalition of technology and telecommunications vendors will oppose a plan to give U.S. public safety agencies a new wireless spectrum.
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In interview with CNET, Rep. Rick Boucher becomes the first U.S. politician to take a public stance against cable giant's blocking of BitTorrent file sharing.
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The Justice Department on Thursday said Internet service providers should be allowed to charge a fee for priority Web traffic.
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The U.S. Justice Department has called for change in financial futures exchanges, saying they should not own the trade clearing business as it inhibits competition, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
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Proposed law could prevent the government from offering broadband access.
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The U.S. House Judiciary Committee  on Thursday approved legislation aimed at preventing high-speed  Internet network providers from discriminating against  unaffiliated services, content and applications.
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Web father says his invention should never be controlled by a single entity, but declines to endorse a specific Net neutrality bill.
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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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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.
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The chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission recommended against additional regulation of high-speed Internet traffic.
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The Justice Department will not be going after Microsoft for any antitrust concerns with Windows Vista or Internet Explorer 7. The government agency said Tuesday in a report that it could find no issues in either product.
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AT&amp;T Inc. and Comcast Corp. should be free to charge for priority Internet access, the US Justice Department said yesterday, dealing a blow to Google Inc.'s bid to block Web traffic fees.
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The Justice Department is opposing a proposed pay system for top executives of the Dana Corporation, which is in bankruptcy protection.
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(InfoWorld) - A plan to have private investors build a national wireless broadband network for police and fire departments met resistance at a U.S. Senate hearing Thursday, including from the man in charge of New York's emergency broadband network. Startup Frontline Wireless, backed by two former U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC)Â chairmen and several tech industry heavyweights, would set aside 22MHz of wireless spectrum from an upcoming auction of the 700MHz band for a dual-use commercial and emergency response network with the winning bidder required to build a nationwide network that would give priority to police and fire departments. A national broadband network for emergency response agencies would take billions of dollars to build, and a public-private partnership like the one Frontline has proposed is the only way it will happen, said James Barksdale, president and CEO of investment group Barksdale Management and a partner in Frontline. The U.S. government lacks the money to build the network, he said. "We're not asking agencies to give us the spectrum," Barksdale said. "And public safety gets a free ride on it -- that's a heck of a deal." Six years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. and two years after Hurricane Katrina, emergency response agencies across the U.S. still do not have broadband networks that allow agencies to talk to each other, said Barksdale, former CEO of Netscape. "The FCC can achieve, at no cost to taxpayers, an interoperable public safety network that, I submit to you, will never be built if we don't do it this way," Barksdale told the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. "We are long past the time to talk about what might happen or should happen or is going to happen for public safety. Any serious proposal must address how this costly network will be funded and built without relying on government funds." But several people at the hearing, including Paul Cosgrave, commissioner of the New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, questioned the Frontline plan. New York has already built a $500 million emergency network that will roll out fully in early 2008, and the Frontline proposal could take away local control of emergency communications networks, he said. Spectrum that's optimal to use for emergency communications in New York may not work for Boise, Idaho, he said. "A national network, based on a one-size-fits-all approach, may not meet the disparate communication needs of emergency responders throughout the country," Cosgrave said. In addition, if emergency responders must share spectrum with commercial providers, the network may be jammed during disasters, Cosgrave said. The proposed network will be "dominated by commercial interests, and deployment and maintenance will be undertaken based on return on investment rather than effective emergency response," he added. The Frontline plan would take 10MHz from 60MHz scheduled to be auctioned by early next year and pair it with 12MHz of spectrum out of 24MHz set aside for public safety. The 84MHz of spectrum is becoming available after Congress voted early last year to require U.S. television stations to abandon the spectrum and move from analog to all-digital broadcasts. The deadline for the transition to digital TV is in February 2009. Under the Frontline plan, the winner of the auction for the 22MHz would be required to build a national broadband network, estimated by Barksdale to cost $12 billion. The network operator could then collect wholesale fees from emergency response agencies and from commercial telecoms that want to use the spectrum to provide broadband services. Frontline is also asking the FCC to create rules that would require the winner of the 22MHz chunk of spectrum to resell access to any customer that can pay. Several consumer groups and tech companies have also called for open access provisions for part of the auctioned spectrum, saying it represents the best chance for a new national broadband provider that would compete with cable and telecom company offerings. The FCC is expected to set service rules on the spectrum to be auctioned within weeks. Representatives of two wireless carriers told the committee they oppose open access rules in the auction. Dick Lynch, executive vice president and CTO at Verizon, suggested open access and net neutrality rules called for by several groups would limit the appeal of the spectrum and drive down the cost the U.S. government receives in the auction. The auction is expected to raise at least $10 billion with many observers suggesting much more money will be bid. "The auction must make the spectrum available in ways that will promote, not cripple, broadband deployment," Lynch said. [Open access and other] requirements are unwarranted, would deter innovation, and would not benefit consumers." Senator Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican, also questioned the Frontline plan, saying the proposal doesn't address how local police and fire departments will pay for handsets and other equipment used to access the network. The best way to raise money for public safety equipment is to maximize the value of the spectrum at auction, he said. "There's no reason this [spectrum] shouldn't go into the private sector and be profitable, too," he said. Several Democratic senators and Wanda McCarley, president of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International, were more receptive of the Frontline plan. The proposal includes many ideas that many emergency response officials want, McCarley said. "With this auction we stand at a crossroads," added Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat. "Either we can provide extraordinary benefits to millions of Americans, or we can tilt the broadband policy to improve the already significant position of the powerful few that deliver this service. I think there's a clear path that we have to take -- the airwaves belong to the American people."
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC)Â should resist calls to impose net neutrality regulations on broadband providers because such rules could hurt the Internet, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)Â said Thursday. The DOJ, in a brief filed with the FCC, said net neutrality rules could "inefficiently skew investment, delay innovation, and diminish consumer welfare." Rules that would prohibit broadband providers from giving priority to their own Internet traffic and prohibit them from blocking or slowing competitors' traffic could also prevent providers from charging fees for priority service, the DOJ said. This could, in turn, cause fees to increase to all broadband users, the DOJ said. "Free market competition, unfettered by unnecessary governmental regulatory restraints, is the best way to foster innovation and development of the Internet," the DOJ said. Net neutrality rules could also discourage broadband providers from investing in new, high-speed services and keep providers from managing their networks efficiently, the DOJ said. The DOJ's comments were in response toÂ an FCC inquiry, launched in March, about whether there's a need for net neutrality regulations. Individuals and organizations have filed more than 27,800 comments in the net-neutrality inquiry, many of them from people who want the FCC to impose net-neutrality rules. Some Internet-based companies and consumer groups have argued that net-neutrality rules are needed after the FCC and U.S. Supreme Court in 2005 did away with regulations that required incumbent broadband providers to share their networks with competing providers. Several telecom executives have complained that Internet companies are not adequately paying network owners for using their pipes. Public Knowledge, a consumer-rights group and net-neutrality advocate, said the DOJ doesn't seem to recognize that most U.S. consumers have few choices for broadband providers. "It is at odds with reality for a Justice Department that approved the largest telecommunications merger in history with a mere press release to now claim that market forces and antitrust enforcement will be able to protect the free and open Internet," Gigi Sohn, Public Knowledge's president, said. "A more vigorous antitrust analysis would have recognized there is a market failure and would have resulted in conditions on the AT&T takeover of BellSouth that would have benefited consumers and Internet companies." The DOJ has failed to recognize that net neutrality would protect consumers and Internet companies from discrimination, she added. "Perhaps the DOJ does not recall that there is very little in the way of market forces to protect consumers," Sohn said. The DOJ, however, said there's little evidence of the need for net-neutrality rules, with only a "few isolated examples" of broadband providers blocking Web content from competitors. "Proponents of 'net neutrality' regulation have failed to show that a sufficient case exists for imposing the sorts of broad marketplace restrictions that have been proposed," the DOJ filing said. In recent years, the DOJ has proposed its own regulations for the Internet. In mid-2006, the DOJ floated a proposal that would require ISPs to retain the Web histories of their users for two years as a way to aid law enforcement investigations. That proposal met resistance from ISPs.