Putting the Net in Neutral: The Communications, Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act
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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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RESTON, Va., Sept. 14  /PRNewswire/ -- Debate over whether to regulate Internet Service Providers has raged during consideration of so-called "net neutrality" (NN) legislation now pending in Congress.
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Some years ago, I got a job doing network support for the District Attorneyâs office in a large city that shall remain nameless. When I arrived, the network was a mess! Malware was rampant, Internet and WAN connections were saturated, and users were constantly complaining about slow computers and network performance. Even so, my attempts to enforce a mindful security policy were met with fierce resistance. The attitude among the legal staff was, âThis is my computer and my network; youâre just a computer janitor.â
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Chairman Kevin Martin supports open spectrum access. The catch is that the spectrum auction rules being floated make it unlikely an open network could ever actually be built.
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bulk messages clogging instant-messaging accounts. AOL and its Anti-Spam Alliance partners -- EarthLink, Microsoft, and Yahoo
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One of the best things I like about the Internet is the boundary-less nature of this amazing network. I can check out user views of people (from here in India) around the world on the India issues.
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The net and video games are becoming essential tools for political activists.
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Two lawmakers have introduced legislation that would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or impairing Web content from competitors.Reps. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Chip Pickering, a Mississippi Republican, introduced the Internet Freedom Preservation Act Wednesday. The bill says it is U.S. policy to &quot;guard against unreasonable discriminatory favoritism for, or degredation of, content by network operators based upon its source, ownership, or destination on the Internet.&quot;The bill would also require the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to open a proceeding on broadband services and consumer rights. The FCC would be required to investigate whether broadband providers have adhered to its August 2005 policy that providers should refrain from blocking or interfering with Web content.&quot;The open architecture nature of the Internet ... has ensured the Internet&#39;s place as the greatest level playing field ever created,&quot; Markey said as he introduced the bill. &quot;The goal of this bipartisan legislation is to assure consumers, content providers, and high-tech innovators that the historic, open architecture nature of the Internet will be preserved and fostered. [The bill] is designed to assess and promote Internet freedom for consumers and content providers.&quot;A group of advocacy groups, as well as Google and Amazon.com, praised the bill, saying it is needed as recent news report have suggested Comcast is slowing its customer access to high-bandwidth applications such as BitTorrent. Comcast on Tuesday filed a document with the FCC defending&#160;its practice of engaging in &quot;network management.&quot;Petitions by advocacy group Free Press and online video distributor Vuze to have the FCC prohibit Comcast&#39;s traffic throttling &quot;raise important issues about the ability of broadband network operators to engage in reasonable network management to ensure that their customers can enjoy a positive broadband experience,&quot; Comcast said in its FCC filing. &quot;Network management is best left to the sound, good-faith judgment of the engineers and proprietors who run and own the networks and who are best able to remedy customer service issues promptly, rather than to regulation.&quot;The FCC has no prohibitions against Comcast&#39;s behavior, the company argued. &quot;Free Press mistakenly relies on the [2005 FCC] Internet Policy Statement as creating rules the commission can enforce,&quot; Comcast said.But representatives of the Open Internet Coalition, including Free Press and Public Knowledge, praised the new Markey legislation, saying it would remove doubt about U.S. policy on blocking or slowing Web content.In the last six months, Comcast and other broadband and mobile-phone providers have repeatedly tried to block content on their networks, said Markham Erickson, the Open Internet Coalition&#39;s executive director. Erickson called Comcast&#39;s Tuesday FCC filing &quot;remarkable.&quot;&quot;It appears to declare war on Internet users, policy makers, and even the FCC,&quot; he said. &quot;It essentially says that the FCC has no legal ability to protect consumers from discriminatory behavior.&quot;The Comcast filing called Free Press&#39; complaints about its network management &quot;inflammatory hyperbole.&quot; Asked about Erickson&#39;s comments on the filing, Comcast spokeswoman Sean Fitzmaurice denied that the company was saying the FCC had no authority to regulate net neutrality.The Markey bill is not as specific as past net neutrality bills that failed in a Republican-controlled Congress in 2006, but it would set a standard in federal law, said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge. &quot;It&#39;s the right bill at the right time,&quot; she said.Without prohibitions against blocking or slowing Web content, broadband providers could sign deals with some content providers and shut out new Internet-based companies, added Richard Whitt, Google&#39;s Washington telecom and media counsel.&quot;Keeping the on-ramps to the Web free of undue discrimination is not about Google, it&#39;s about the next Google,&quot; Whitt said.Comcast declined to comment on the Markey bill. But Hands Off the Internet, an advocacy group with members including broadband providers AT&amp;T and Qwest, said it could support an FCC study of net neutrality.&quot;There&#39;s no question that a reasoned examination of the facts will demonstrate the folly of net neutrality,&quot; the group said in a statement, &quot;However, we are concerned that an effort to seek public input is intended to be a stalking horse for federal Internet regulation. The continued push by special interests to regulate Internet neutrality undercuts the best hope Net users have for faster, more affordable broadband.&quot;
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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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The ground rules of the tests of Cisco and Avaya systems.
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Internet decisions aren't always made at Internet speeds.
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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has cleared the way for Internet access over the same infrastructure that carries electricity to homes and businesses in America.
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Rethinking privacy in an immodest age.
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Letter: Setting the record straight on network location awareness and Vista Group Policy.
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You could soon surf the internet and make a cell phone call from the air. The Federal Communications Commission is now open to the possibility.
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Ring, Ring. Someone answer the computer. Voice-over-Internet Protocol got a boost today as The Federal Communications Commission ruled that providers of the service are exempt from some major state regulations
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VoIP has escaped regulation by individual states in the US after a ruling by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC decided that Vonage Holdings&#39; DigitalVoice service could not be governed by dual