Comcast: A Problem in Need of a Solution?

Cable giant Comcast reportedly axed a critical segment on ABC's Nightline from its Internet video-on-demand service.

The removal of the segment raises significant doubts about cable company promises that they would never block or degrade users' choice of content on the Internet.

The segment in question features a video clip of a Comcast technician who fell asleep on a customer’s couch during a repair visit. The customer videotaped the sleeping repairman and posted the clip on the popular online video site YouTube, where it went "viral" (more than 700,000 downloads to date).

Last Friday, Nightline picked up the clip as part of a story about angry consumers who “bite back” against abusive corporations.

But the sleeping repairman went mysteriously missing from the version of Nightline that aired on Comcast’s Internet service. See for yourself:

The original Nightline segment

The Comcast Internet video version

That's not all that went AWOL. Cut from the Comcast version is more than four minutes of ABC correspondent Vicki Mabry's report — including the sleeping technician clip, a screenshot of a “Comcast Sucks” Web site, and Mabry’s finding that the cable company quietly employs people to monitor or “ghost” anti-Comcast Web sites.

The Comcast version ends just before this critical content and jumps abruptly to the next “Nightline” segment.

Was this censorship by an ISP? Not according to Comcast, which is now scrambling to defuse the controversy. The Consumerist blog, which helped break this story received a response from a Comcast spokesperson, who claimed that an ABC "encoder" had cut the segment in question -- and not Comcast.

A technical glitch that removed only negative Comcast content?? Go figure.

In recent months, ISPs like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon have pledged before the media never to block or degrade Internet content, in an effort to quell concerns by consumer advocates and Net Neutrality proponents. And yet here we have a case where the only segment blocked from a Comcast Internet service is the portion critical of Comcast.

Given Comcast’s high-profile stance against Net Neutrality it’s little surprise that they would try to clean up this incident before it spreads beyond the blogosphere.

The Consumerist found it odd "that Comcast would declare the ABC producer affirmatively said it was an ABC encoder problem that cause the cut. Either way you slice it, it’s certainly terribly convenient for Comcast."

Such convenience comes at a time when Comcast is desparate not to be portrayed as an Internet gatekeeper.

Last week, Comcast Vice President David Cohen wrote in a Philly Inquirer Op-Ed that “net-neutrality proponents are marching a new parade of horribles down Hypothetical Boulevard.” Cohen called “phantoms” citizens' concerns that Comcast or other ISPs would play gatekeeper to Web content. He cribbed phone and cable company lobbyist talking points writing that “Net neutrality is a solution in search of a problem.”

But the Nightline incident suggests that this “problem” is more real than Comcast would like to admit.

Representative Calls for Action Before Bells Discriminate

Congresswomen Lois Capps of California today called upon Congress to save Net Neutrality before, not after, the phone and cable companies fundamentally change the nature of the Internet.

In an op-ed printed in The Hill, Representative Capps wrote that Congress "shouldn’t just sit by and watch network neutrality and the vibrancy of the Internet slip away." Capps doubts the commitments of companies like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and BellSouth to protect consumer choice, open competition and innovation on the Internet.

These companies' frequently argue that Net Neutrality rules are a solution in search of a problem. "But the phone companies have made clear their desire to use their critical position in the network to impose new fees and barriers to entry on the Internet," Capps writes. "Do we really want to wait until the vibrancy of the Internet has been muzzled and then hope that future Congresses will muster the courage to restore non-discrimination to the Internet? I, for one, am not willing to take that chance."

Capps adds:

"Network neutrality serves as the Internet’s nondiscrimination policy and is similar to policies that ensure large phone companies like Verizon and BellSouth have to connect calls from Sprint or T-Mobile with the same speed and accuracy that they would for their own calls. Since its inception, this powerful medium has flourished as an engine for economic growth and political activism under the rules of equal access to the Internet."

In 2005 the FCC relaxed protections that ensured nondiscrimination in Web access. Shortly after the FCC ruling, the nation's largest phone companies announced their intentions to impose a tiered program, charging a new level of fees to put high-speed content on the Internet.

"That means the phone and cable companies will decide the speed at which different bits of data can move across the network, in essence creating 'fast lanes' and 'slow lanes' for the Internet," Capps writes. "That would segregate Internet traffic based on who can pay by forcing companies and individuals to pay a premium for their websites to be in the fast lane while relegating those without deep pockets to the slow lanes."

Companies like AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth have publicly committed to Net Neutrality principles stating that it "makes no sense" to degrade or block Internet services. The free market would not allow it; we would lose customers, they claim, conveniently ignoring the fact that most U.S. broadband customers have nowhere else to go.

Meanwhile, they spend millions lobbying Congress against any meaningful legislation to protect Net Neutrality. AT&T and BellSouth, have even expressed their intent to discriminate against content by erecting new tolls on the exits and onramps to the Internet.

This is typical telco doublespeak. They extend promises to not block or degrade customer access to sites while also talking about charging content providers in a way that would allow them to do exactly that.

This discrimination defies the Internet’s stunning evolution toward an end-to-end system, where control resides not with middlemen but with those of us who go online. Under this revolutionary system, rewards go to the businesses that enhance our choices — not those that restrict them. The telcos want to change all that by profiting from controlling our access to content.

Representative Capps joins a growing number of elected officials in Washington that are seeing through the telco spin to take a stand against bad telco-sponsored legislation. To see where your Senator stands, visit SavetheInternet.com's Senate Map and call Congress today.

MySpace Mysteriously Kills Then Resurrects Tube Song

Inspired by Sen. Ted Stevens' now infamous account of the Internet as a "series of tubes," Andrew Raff picked up his guitar and composed a song using the Senators' words. He posted the resulting tune on MySpace, at the "TedStevensFanClub," where thousands came to listen.

But no sooner had Raff's tune gone viral did MySpace swoop in and cancel his account. Their explanation: They had received a "credible complaint of your violation of the MySpace Terms of Services," according to a story in Wired.

The site went dark for several days until the publication of the Wired story. Soon after Wired published, MySpace reinstated Raff’s page claiming it was "deleted in error." You can now listen to the disputed song here:

http://myspace.com/tedstevensfanclub

In their original cancellation e-mail to Raff, MySpace referenced a number of prohibited activities, including trademark and copyright violations. But Raff's singing of the Alaskan senator’s words didn’t violate any copyright laws, and he wrote the music to the song himself.

Art Brodsky of Public Knowledge questioned MySpace's timing, "noting that News Corp. [which owns MySpace] has interests in the telecommunications bill put forth by the Senate Commerce Committee that Stevens heads."

Further complicating things is an issue of money. Since 2004, News Corp – headed by media mogul Rupert Murdoch – has been Senator Stevens' top corporate contributor.

About the incident, Raff wrote on his blog that "in the brave new world of a discriminatory Internet, it could be possible for internet providers to make it difficult or expensive for individuals to publish media." For Raff the real question is "whether the Internet will continue to be a medium fostering speech and creativity by individuals or will Congress allow large corporations to turn it into a one-way distribution network for the benefit of those few companies?"

Stevens’ bewildering June 28 explanation of why he opposed Net Neutrality became an instant Web sensation, spawning a frenzy of blog posts, T-shirts, and other songs remixing the Senator’s tubular comparison.

But the craze didn't really hit the media mainline until Wednesday night, when comedian Jon Stewart aired a Daily Show segment on Stevens. The electronic firestorm over Stevens was subsequently reported on by the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, New York Times and other mainstream newspapers.

It's debatable whether MySpace had malicious intent as gatekeeper to Raff's site. Either way, this odd disappearing act adds another chapter to Senator Stevens' strange trip down the "tubes."

Stewart on Stevens

During last night's "Daily Show," Jon Stewart questioned Senator Ted Stevens' grasp of the Internet, calling into doubt the telecommunications legislation that bears the Senator's signature.

To clarify Net Neutrality, Stewart goes to Stevens' "dump truck-tubes symposium," a 10-minute monologue in support of the Senator's own anti-Net Neutrality bill. Check out the show:

Stewart on Stevens

"Why didn't Senator Stevens get it?" asks Stewart. Well... you'll have to watch the clip for the "Daily Show" host's interpretation.

Hey, why should the good Senator have to understand "an Internet" when there's an army of telco lobbyists on hand to define it for him?

To find out where your senator stands on Net Neutrality, visit our Senate Map.

Hot Air about 'Net Competition' a Cover for Control

Art Brodsky of SavetheInternet.com partner organization Public Knowledge deflates industry hot air about choice in America's broadband marketplace, citing a recent report by Kagan Research that reveals little real price or choice competition between cable and telephone ISPs. Brodsky writes:

"We've argued that broadband is a duopoly, with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) statistics showing that just about everyone who has broadband gets it from either the telephone company or the cable company. The FCC has affirmatively pursued the policy of creating this situation, and it’s one of the main reasons we need a Net Neutrality policy. There is no real choice."

Brodsky writes that the new Kagan study, "Cable Modem Vs. DSL: Rivals Side-Step Big Price Wars So Far," shows not only a lack of competition in choice of broadband provider, a lack of real competition in broadband prices:

"Kagan puts it fairly simply: 'Though the battle for broadband access subscribers is intense, there’s no screaming price war between cable TV and telcos, and Kagan Research doesn’t expect one in the foreseeable future.'"

Kagan surveyed five top cable operators and four telephone companies in the first quarter this year. The average price for cable modem and DSL services were essentially the same across the country.

"These figures are national in scope, encompassing all sorts of markets – some with competition between the two and some without," Brodsky writes.

Broadband costs in the United States remain very high by global standards, according to "Broadband Reality Check," a 2005 report by Free Press, Consumers Union and Consumer Federation of America.

The cost of broadband in other countries has dropped dramatically while speeds have increased.

Not true for the United States. According to the Free Press report, on a per megabit basis, U.S. consumers pay 10 to 25 times more than broadband users in Japan, for example, while residential broadband speeds in countries like France, and South Korea are 10 to 25 times faster than the U.S. average. (For more, read Thomas Bleha's insightful report in Foreign Affairs,"Down to the Wire").

Don't believe the telco hype. The "fierce competition" among broadband platforms is seriously overstated. The FCC's own report shows that satellite and wireless broadband continue to lose market share. Today, cable and DSL providers control almost 98 percent of the residential and small-business broadband market.

Moreover, the Free Press report shows how such market control and lack of real competition combine to result in higher broadband costs to consumer (by comparison to other developed countries) and bigger profit margins for the likes of AT&T, Verizon and Comcast.

For these corporations, killing Net Neutrality is just icing on the cake of a U.S broadband market that's already in their grip. Clearly they don't want more competition, but more control of a broadband marketplace that's already lagging behind the rest of the world.

Senator Stevens' Bill to Nowhere

Stevens' bill is the Senator's wink to AT&T, Verizon and Comcast. For the rest of us, it's his bill to nowhere. It needs to be overhauled, or stopped dead in its tracks.

SavetheInternet.com today launched our Senate Map, which tracks where all 100 senators stand on Internet freedom.

The Map is a useful guide to the growing opposition to Senator Ted Stevens' telecommunications bill (S. 2686) -- a sprawling mess of legislation that fails to protect Net Neutrality while handing over control of the Internet to the Senator's allies at AT&T, Verizon and Comcast.

You can learn where your senator stands by checking the map and clicking on your state. From there, we encourage you to call your senator and urge him or her to take a public stand for Net Neutrality.

The telcos are continuing to spend like compulsive shoppers -- to buy up airtime for ads, flood Capitol Hill with lobbyists and shills, and plant Op-Eds in local papers across the country.

As the clock ticks down on the 109th Congress they'll be spending millions more to muscle Senator Stevens' 135-page train wreck through the full Senate. But their desperation is beginning to show.

July is a pivotal month. The Senate leadership won’t schedule a vote on Stevens' bad bill unless 60 senators say they will vote for it. Now it's time to call senators and tell them to support Net Neutrality instead -- and to oppose last-ditch industry efforts to push through a bill that Americans are turning against.

The Senate Map makes it ridiculously simple to find out where your senator stands, and to call Congress. As the list of senators who support real Net Neutrality grows, we will record their public commitments via the map.

Stay tuned. With your help, we can match the millions of dollars spent by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth with a million more citizens speaking out on behalf of non-discrimination, interconnection, and the right to innovate online without having to obtain permission from a network operator.

Stevens' bill is the Senator's wink to AT&T, Verizon and Comcast. For the rest of us, it's his bill to nowhere. It needs to be overhauled, or stopped dead in its tracks.

Slowpoke Draws on McCurry for Inspiration

Here's another Pro-Net Neutrality creation by Slowpoke (aka Jen Sorenson) - sent to SavetheInternet.com by Jonathan Rintels, the founder of partner organization Center for Creative Voices in Media, and a friend of the artist.

Slowpoke joins cartoonist Scott Kurtz of pvponline.com among many artists who have used Net Neutrality as muse. (If her cartoon is too small to read above, click here or on the image for a larger version.)

Musicians have joined in as well. Read today's Boston Herald article on efforts by singers Jill Sobule, Kay Hanley and Michelle Lewis to spread the word about Net Neutrality in song. Here's a take on that by former Dead Kennedys front man and Alternative Tentacles artist Jello Biafra.

And then check out how others are taking creative license with Senator Ted Stevens' June 28 Commerce Committee speech. Here are two samples:

1. Bold Headed Broadcast's Stevens Techno Remix
2. Aprigliano's Ask-a-Ninja/Stevens Mash-up

Visit Bold Headed Broadcast and Aprigliano for more information. Keep those hits coming . . .

Net Neutrality Mash-up

Aprigliano combines Senator Stevens' now infamous rant before Congress with the black-belt humor of Ask a Ninja. Kind of funny:

Give the mash-up a listen

Now the crew at Bold Headed Broadcast have pumped up the volume wth a Stevens rant you can dance to:

DJ Ted Stevens Techno Remix

And here's something a little more emo from the Ted Stevens Fan Club:

The Internet is a Series of Tubes

Here's a selection of others sent me by Scott Goodstein:

Loony Tunes Ted

Ted's Porno Word Jumble

Medieaval Ted's Cart

Ted's on Jeopardy

Video Dance Mix

Ted's Tubes Go Psychadelic

Stevens' Telco Bill Teeters Under Public Scrutiny

The Seattle Times, again, joined numerous U.S. dailies to call upon Congress to prevent companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from restricting content, erecting new online toll booths and charging more money for access to the Internet's fast lane.

"The U.S. Senate still has a chance to ensure that the Internet remains universally accessible and a powerful tool for consumers and businesses," the Times editorial board wrote. "This will only happen if lawmakers ensure computer network neutrality."

The Internet will become an “anti-democratic device” if the Senate acts this summer to pass a telecom bill without enforceable Net Neutrality language.

Senators were split on a Net Neutrality amendment offered in committee last week. That tie vote has sown considerable doubt that Senator Ted Stevens' industry friendly telecommunications bill will make it to the floor -- with more people inside and out of Washington calling for an overhaul of the contentious legislation to better reflect the public interest.

More than a million Americans have urged their representatives to "keep tollbooths, gatekeepers, and discrimination off the Internet." Thousands more are calling their Senators to urge better protection for Internet Freedom. The leading minds of the Internet -- a list that includes founding fathers Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf and legal expert Larry Lessig -- are urging Congress to reconsider this bill.

In the meantime, bloggers have been widely critical of Senator Stevens' legislation following his dubious definition of the "internets" last week.

Senators are now gathering behind Oregon Senator Ron Wyden's "hold" on Stevens' legislation. Others are calling for new and stronger Net Neutrality language before the bill can proceed to a full vote.

But these democratic roadblocks may not stop determined telcos, which are spending millions of dollars each week (including funding dishonest ads and a "robocall" campaign) to rush Stevens' juggernaut into law.Here's the Seattle Times' today:

Lobbyists from big telecom companies such as Verizon and AT&T are spending like compulsive shoppers on eBay to get their message out. The campaign has painted neutrality as a government restriction that would stifle competition.

That's hardly the case. The Internet has fostered numerous innovations because everything from a family's Web page to Verizon's site are treated the same through the broadband that feeds computers. What happens to services such as iTunes if the telecoms provide a rival music site? Potentially, iTunes could be slowed down while a home-grown proprietary rival gets preferential treatment.

How does that serve the consumer? Lawmakers need to insert language that perpetuates the Internet as a breeding ground for divergent voices and services, even if that means taking a whack at a new telecom bill next session.

This is the second time the Times has come out in favor of Net Neutrality. In May, the paper's editors wrote that for Congress to allow a few companies to toll Web traffic "would be chilling, and primed for abuse."

Other major national dailies — including the New York Times (twice), San Jose Mercury News, San Francisco Chronicle, and Houston Chronicle — have supported enforceable Net Neutrality legislation.

The Senate would do us all a disservice by rushing through Stevens' legislation before there's a full public debate on better protections for Internet freedom.

Stevens Stammers While the Internet Burns

The good senator from Alaska seems to have lost the memo on Net Neutrality.

His rant on Wednesday from the chairman's seat of the Senate Commerce Committee raises some serious concerns about the telecommunications legislation that bears his signature:

Listen to Steven's June 28 Speech (mp3 file)

Here's one peculiar snippet:

"My biggest fear about this debate is that we don’t know about the consequences to turn the Internet into a two-tiered system, which is exactly what those who are pleading for Net Neutrality would do."

Stevens' aides must have shuffled up his 3x5 cards before passing them to the podium. Now, he's accusing Net Neutrality proponents of wanting a discriminatory, two-tiered Internet -- the very thing that we oppose.

Memo to Stevens: Discrimination is the mantra of your allies at AT&T, Verizon and Comcast -- not our side. If you "don't know about the consequences" of tiering, then why are you fast-tracking a Senate bill that would allow it?

Are we ready to entrust the future of the Internet to a law written by someone who doesn't know what the Internet is?

For more, read John Dvorak's article in PC Mag.

Senator Wyden To Block Bad Telco Bill

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has placed a "hold" on major telecommunications legislation recently approved by the Senate Commerce Committee until clear language is included in the legislation that prevents discrimination in Internet access.

Immediately following the Commerce Committee's vote against a Net Neutrality amendment, Senator Wyden marched onto the floor of the Senate to demand that the legislation include stronger safeguards against phone and cable company discrimination.

"The major telecommunications legislation reported today by the Senate Commerce Committee is badly flawed," Wyden told the Senate, according to the transcript of his speech:

"The bill makes a number of major changes in the country’s telecommunications law but there is one provision that is nothing more than a license to discriminate. Without a clear policy preserving the neutrality of the Internet and without tough sanctions against those who would discriminate, the Internet will be forever changed for the worse."

A hold signals his intent to filibuster until certain issues in the Stevens' bill are cleared up. According to the Senate's official site, a hold is:

"An informal practice by which a Senator informs his or her floor leader that he or she does not wish a particular bill or other measure to reach the floor for consideration. The Majority Leader need not follow the Senator's wishes, but is on notice that the opposing Senator may filibuster any motion to proceed to consider the measure."

Senator Stevens is uncertain that he has the 60 votes to break a filibuster. If at least 41 Senators stand strong behind Net Neutrality filibuster then Wyden's hold could keep the Telecom bill from the floor.

The legislation that passed through committee today has toothless provisions on net neutrality, and instead opens the way for companies like AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth to charge consumers and small businesses new and discriminatory fees on top of those they already charge for Internet access.

"The Internet has thrived precisely because it is neutral," Wyden said. "It has thrived because consumers, and not some giant cable or phone company, get to choose what they want to see and how quickly they get to see it. I am not going to allow a bill to go forward that is going to end surfing the web free of discrimination."

Watch the video of Wyden's speech at the Agonist. The full text of Wyden’s statement is available online at Salem-News.com

Videos from the People

Thanks to all who have created and submitted videos on behalf of SavetheInternet.com. Here are two that came over the transom on Friday. The first comes from SpeakEasy Productions via SavetheInternet partners MediaChannel. Check it out:

Don't Let Them Do It, Man

The second is a product of Amanda Congdon and her crew at RocketBoom. Amanda takes her Volvo for a spin to illustrate the threat posed by big firms that try to squash the little guy to "buy popularity" and monopolize access. Check it out:

RocketBoom's Road Trip

The success of these videos (several were in YouTube's "Top Ten" with more than 200,000 downloads) is a testament to the free and open Internet, where the best ideas rise as a result of Net user choice and not by special selection of AT&T, Verizon and Bell South. Our friends at the telco front group "Hands off the Internet" have tried to buy that sort of popularity, with little success.

Watch these and other SavetheInternet videos and send us your own.

Protecting the Web from 'Corporate Welfare Bums'

For AT&T and Verizon to be screaming for the protection of the free market against Net Neutrality is “sheer hypocrisy,” writes Internet guru Cory Doctorow. “They themselves are creatures of government regulation, basing their business on government-granted extraordinary privileges.”

In a commentary in InformationWeek today, Doctorow skillfully dismisses the telco argument about getting properly paid for the bandwidth that others use.

“This argument is rubbish,” he writes. “Internet companies already are paying for bandwidth from their providers, often the same companies that want to charge them yet again under their new proposals.”

Companies like AT&T and Verizon claim that this sort of “triple dipping” – charging consumers once and content providers twice – is necessary for them to provide the high speed services that Americans demand. In order to do this, they seek to become gatekeepers to content – charging an extra layer of fees for access to the fast lane.

Doctorow’s article strips the Net Neutrality debate down to its core. It’s all about stopping the phone companies “from committing ‘neutricide’ –destruction of the neutrality of the Internet,” he writes.

“It’s a dumb idea to put the plumbers who laid a pipe in charge of who gets to use it. It’s a way to ensure that incumbents with the deepest pockets will always be able to deliver a better service to the public, simply by degrading the quality of everyone else’s offerings. If you want to ensure that no one ever gets to creatively destroy an industry the way that Amazon, eBay, Google, Yahoo, and others have done, just make paying rent to a phone company a prerequisite for doing business.

“Practically everyone agrees on this. Only the carriers oppose it, and their opposition is so lame it’d be funny if it wasn’t so scary. The core argument from the carriers is that Google and other Internet companies get a ‘free ride’ on their pipes. AT&T and others take the position that if you look up a search result or stream a video from Google using your DSL connection, Google profits, but the carriers don’t get a share of the proceeds.

“That’s wrong.”

Doctorow calls for meaningful regulation that would protect Net Neutrality while stopping the phone companies’ plan for a tiered Internet. But he states that the devil is in the details. Any regulation should protect consumers, foster more competition and ensure that new entrants and ideas aren’t blocked from the Internet’s marketplace of ideas.

Barton’s Senate bill — as it is currently written – won’t get us there. And it’s stunningly disingenuous for Telco executives and their front groups to paint this vehicle as de-regulation that helps the consumer. Doctrow writes:

“There are few industries that owe their existence to regulation as much as the carriers. These companies are gigantic corporate welfare bums, having received the invaluable boon of a set of rights-of-way leading into every basement in America. Phone companies have a legal right to force you to provide access to your home for their pipes. Try calculating what it would cost to get into every U.S. home without a regulator clearing your path, and you quickly realize that the carriers should be the last people complaining about the distorting effect of regulation on their business.

“The Bells and cable companies owe their existence to governmental largesse, and, while they’re profit-making private firms, they are, in effect, quasigovernmental organizations. A Bell that wants to get rid of regulation is about as practical as a cotton-candy cone that wants to get rid of sugar. Bells are nothing but a thin veneer of arrogance wrapped around a regulatory monopoly.”

The Best Regulations Telco Money Can Buy

Charles Cooper, the executive editor at CNet, wrote an article today about the way telcos spin and deceive lawmakers into voting against the best interests of their constituents.

"Since the completion of last year's telecommunications mega-mergers, small and medium-size businesses have been getting hosed--with Uncle Sam playing the role of complicit bystander," he writes.

Cooper is referring to the SBC-AT&T and Verizon-MCI mergers announced in 2005. Telco lobbyists spun these mergers as pro-consumer and pro-business developments. Prices will plummet they crowed.

But since the late fall, prices for local private lines have done the opposite -- increasing for both consumers and businesses. "Maybe I missed the fine print on the press releases but how do they square price increases with the public interest?” Cooper asks.

Today, these newly re-assembled telco giants are spending tens of millions of dollars to spin lawmakers with the same arguments against Net Neutrality. But decision makers in Washington might want to check voters’ pocketbooks before rubber stamping legislation to gut Net Neutrality.

Cooper cites research by Simon Wilkie, which found that as long as AT&T and MCI remained independent, "competition naturally curbed the Bell companies' ability to ram through price hikes." Once they merged and that competition disappeared, presto-change-o! Higher prices.

In the Net Neutrality debate, telcos seek to leverage their monopoly control of DSL and FTTH broadband markets to erect new tollbooths on the exits and on-ramps of the information Superhighway.

They say this control will be good for consumers and businesses. But what other options do we have?

Many of the Web innovators and start-ups -- that historically have have been the engines for new ideas and economic growth online -- won't be able to pay the toll for access to AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth's gated lanes. And customers will be subject to limited Web choices and higher prices from monopoly ISPs that pick and choose content.

If a frustrated user decides to take her business to a more open ISP, she will face few to no choices in the market. (Remember, that more than 95% of the broadband market is controlled by major phone and cable providers. And they call this “Net Competition”).

The telcos -- with the aide of their sundry Astroturf front groups -- argue that they need to charge companies an extra level of fees so that consumers don’t have to pay higher prices. They need this extra money to fund the build out of networks to needy Americans.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich recently called this idea "ridiculous." "They're already making lots of money off consumers connected to the Internet," he said. "They just figure they can make more money charging the big content providers for the best service."

The monopolists at telco headquarters are now declaring poverty. (Verizon, BellSouth and AT&T have a cumulative market cap of more than $250 billion; their gross annual profits exceed $85 billion).

The truth is that they will build out their high-speed networks whether there are Network Neutrality rules or not.

The cable companies have largely built out their networks already. And it’s more cost efficient for telephone companies to upgrade their copper wires to compete with cable.

The only reason that they are claiming a need to get rid of Net Neutrality is because they see an opportunity to extract monopoly rents from new sources. They want to pass a law that awards them with gatekeeper control of Internet content -- locking in a new stream of revenue and wider profit margins at the expense of everyone but themselves.

But they won't tell Washington that.

Back at CNet, Cooper goes one further to illustrate how these powerful corporations operate behind the scenes in Washington to get anything they want. His conclusion: “ …the public's interest would be better served if we all paid greater attention. The problem is that we usually find out something's amiss after it's too late."

It’s not too late to stop the legislative juggernaut against Net Neutrality. Take action to stop the telcos today.

Telco Argument Implodes Under Pressure

Amazon.com's Paul Misener handily defeated Mike McCurry -- co-Chair of the telecom front group "Hands off the Internet" -- in a debate over Net Neutrality at George Washington University on Friday.

Watch the segment in question, posted at PoliticsTV. The video shows a slow-motion implosion of the telco argument against Net Neutrality. In the "Question and Answer" section, Misener points out that large bandwidth users such as Amazon already pay for their use of bandwidth.But it is not content companies' use of the pipes, but user choice that's really at stake.

"It's not true that Internet content companies don't pay for access to the Internet." Misener says. "We pay handsomely for access to the Internet Amazon pays millions of dollars a year to connect to the internet... There are a lot of ways that companies at the edge providing content are already paying the network operators.”

McCurry asks: "Paul, isn't that exactly the kind of tiered pricing that everyone who proposes net neutrality rails against?"

"No" replies Misener:

"Tiered pricing for access is something we support. Amazon pays a lot more than 'Joe's-Internet-retail.com' simply because we use more capacity... That makes perfect sense to us. You pay for that capacity. But the important component here is that once the consumer has paid for his or her capacity at their home they ought to be able to use that capacity however they want. There's a fundamental misconception here that somehow delivery of video over the Internet is just like it is over cable TV, over satellite, over broadcast or, frankly, like delivery of content through newspapers or magazines. Those models have always been about 'push.' Somebody decides -- who either owns the pipe or owns the newspaper -- what content goes in their and pushes it out to consumers and they can choose to read it or not."

Leaving Internet choice in the hands of users – and not handing it over to the middlemen at AT&T, Verizon and Comcast -- is precisely what we’re fighting for at SavetheInternet.com.

Misener:

"That's not the way the Internet works. The Internet does not have all this content in there unless the user asks for it. When you hit return on your browzer it actually sends out a 'get command' to the server; it's a very illustrative name for a command in computer code. It actually says 'get'-- that means now send me the file. That file never gets into the pipes owned by the network operators that Mike represents unless their customer who's paid for that access asks for it. So we're not clogging their pipes at all. We're only providing the content that we hope our joint customers want to see."

This important point gets to the core of what McCurry's bosses at AT&T and BellSouth want to do. They want to fundamentally reverse the Internet's user-powered "pull" model -- that is, the model where all choice and intelligence resides with the end-users -- and turn it into a "push," where these same network companies make decisions about what content users get to see based on which companies pay the corporate gatekeepers.

Misener continues:

"When we get to the point of discrimination, there's also this misnomer when we talk about things like wanting to prioritize videos so things don't get clogged... We don't want that either. We don't think that that's wrong for the network operators to be able to prioritize certain types of content. So if they want to prioritize telemedicine over data files that makes perfect sense. Let them do it. We're not opposed to that. The [Net Neutrality] rules that we propose would not do that. Our concern is discriminating among the source or ownership of that content. So if the network operators are put in a position of favoring the Mayo Clinic over Johns Hopkins, that's a problem. That's the discrimination. That's when the network operators become the HMO."

This is the sort of discrimination that the phone companies want to put in place. For proof of that go no further than a Washington Post story from last December when William L. Smith, chief technology officer for BellSouth Corp., "told reporters and analysts that an Internet service provider such as his firm should be able, for example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc."

This discrimination would turn the Internet on it's head, ceding control to large corporations that seek to impose an old media model (top down) in place of the bottom-up Internet that has become a force for innovation, economic growth and democratic participation today.

In response to Misener, McCurry could do little better than sputter that Net Neutrality would allow sexual deviants to prey on teenagers at MySpace. Witness this age-old debating tactic. It's become common to political discourse of late: when backed into a corner, sow fear and obfuscate. (Listen to McCurry's reply at 5:35 of the "Question and Answer" segment and judge for yourself).

Here's McCurry again:

"On our side of the debate we often say that you cannot point to an instance of true discrimination or a real problem that exists -- this solution in search of a problem argument. You are kind of hypothetically raising what you think the structure of the problem might look like down the road. Because we certainly are not there yet. I think there is one instance, in which I think the Commission then did get in and address it and it was resolved. But beyond that, can you think of any other instance where anticipating a problem like this you then went in to try to develop and define a regulatory structure that might prevent the problem. Is that a good way to approach policy making?"

Misener:

"I would share a lot of that concern. My free-market Republican predilections would be to be concerned if this were new, and if rules didn't already apply... These are temporary conditions applied to AT&T and Verison."

These temporary merger conditions expire soon Misener adds:

"So the fact that they haven't done it yet is because it has been illegal. So they keep saying, 'can you see a problem. There’s not a problem.'

It's been illegal. It's been illegal and it still is illegal for AT&T and Verizon... Monopolists will always seek the profit maximizing point. So if they're looking for that profit maximizing point they will do what they can to get to that point. What we're suggesting that they have fully announced their intentions to do this. These are not some rogues. These are the CEOs of companies saying that they plan to engage in this sort of discrimination. I'm not saying that it's the best business plan but they have announced that they want to do it."

To which McCurry replies:

"Well, this is a question of definition: One person's tiered pricing, building a faster lane is another person's definition of discrimination. [The ISPs] have said and pledged that they can't degrade services that they provide currently... That is stipulated to by everybody and agreed, if you don't trust the phone companies for whatever reason keep the Commission there wary and watchful to make sure that they do that. But again you're not giving me a good sense that there's a definition of the problem that you can use."

Misener breaks through this static:

"Sure there is. Discrimination based on the source or ownership of the content. That's real easy. If you want to discriminate and favor telemedicine offer data files, that's fine. But don't pick the Mayo Clinic over Johns Hopkins. That's pretty easy. And a complaint system where Johns Hopkins can go to the Commission and say Mayo Clinic was given a better deal than we. That makes perfect sense."

Indeed. Again, watch it and judge for yourself: http://www.politicstv.com/blog/?p=261

One Million Americans Urge Senate to Save the Internet

Our real grassroots Coalition called today on Senators to heed growing public outcry for Net Neutrality as we delivered more than 1 million petitions and letters from average Americans to Capitol Hill. During the event we urged Congress to protect Net Neutrality and stand firm against efforts by phone and cable companies to control the Internet.

Senators Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) joined us to call on their colleagues to support the "Internet Freedom and Preservation Act" (S. 2917), a bipartisan bill that would bar companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from blocking, degrading or interfering with content or services on the Internet. Here are some of the comments from the event:

Senator Olympia Snowe

"The idea that brings us together is a free and unfettered Internet. It’s vital we preserve, not undermine, the extraordinarily democratic technological network - over which content providers from the largest corporations in the biggest cities in the world to single individuals in rural towns have equal opportunity to reach millions of Internet users."

Senator Byron Dorgan

"It’s essential that we preserve Internet freedom. The open architecture which now exists, and which allows everyone fair access to any site on the Internet, without gatekeepers, must be preserved. That is what our bill would do - preserve Internet freedom, which is at the very core of what makes the Internet so important, and something that enriches the lives of millions of Americans."

The million petition signatures and letters were collected via the SavetheInternet.com Coalition Web site and by members of the coalition, including Free Press, MoveOn.org Civic Action, Common Cause, Consumers Union, True Majority and Working Assets. Spokes people from MoveOn and the Christian Coalition of America were at the press event. Here are some of their comments:

Joan Blades of Moveon

"Net Neutrality has allowed the Internet to become the new public square, where everyday people can participate in our democracy and have their voices heard. We cannot let the Internet gatekeepers decide who gets into the public square -- everyone from MoveOn to the Christian Coalition should get in, so the best ideas can thrive based on their merit. The SavetheInternet.com Coalition will intensify our grassroots pressure on the Senate to assure that Internet freedom is preserved and Net Neutrality remains the law of the land."

Michele Combs of the Christian Coalition of America

"We’re committed to working on behalf of our supporters to ensure that the Internet remains the free marketplace of ideas, products, and services that it is today. We urge the Senate to move aggressively to save the Internet and allow ideas to thrive on the World Wide Web, and we will do our part to make certain our supporters get that message."

More than 1 million Americans are speaking out on behalf of Internet freedom. Yet Congress still could cave to corporate pressure by rewriting laws and handing over control of the Internet to corporations like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast. The Senate must step in to defend the Internet from gatekeepers who plan to tax innovation and throttle the free market.

Let's keep the heat on. The Senate can not simply sell out the public and let AT&T, Verizon and Comcast turn our Internet into their private domain.

Watch this space for videos of the event.

Net Discrimination in Disguise

There's a pervasive myth that there has been no Internet content discrimination by the large phone and cable companies. "That is simply untrue, " writes Matt Stoller of BlogPAC.

Stoller points to Cox Cable, which for three months has blocked their customers from accessing the online classifieds super-site, Craigslist. (Disclosure: Craig Newmark the company’s founder is a charter member of the SavetheInternet.com coalition)

The cable giant has thus far dodged the discrimination bullet, claiming security software malfunctions, according to a report by Tom Foremski in the Silicon Valley Watcher:

. . . the problem of access had been going on since late February. It had something to do with the security software that Cox isusing from a company called Authentium. Cox has been collaborating with Authentium since April 2005 to develop the security software suite.

Back on February 23rd Authentium acknowledged that their software is blocking Craigslist but it still hasn't fixed the problem, more than three months later. That's a heck of long time to delete some text from their blacklist. And this company also supplies security software to other large ISPs.

Craigslist has approached Authentium several times to get it to stop blocking access by Cox internet users but it has been unresponsive. Jim [Buckmaster, the CEO of Craigslist] wasn't aware that Cox had its own classified ads service. "That changes things, " he said.

A similar occurrence flared up just two weeks ago when MySpace users across Florida and Tennessee claimed that BellSouth was blocking access to the community Web portal.

These are exactly the kinds of scenarios that many people engaged in the Net Neutrality debate are concerned about, Foremski writes. " [T]hat the cable companies and the telcos will make it difficult for their internet users to access competing services. "

According to Craigslist program reports, customers have been experiencing suspicious ISP blockages for some time.

But a report in today’s Wall Street Journal downplays these concerns, quoting Cox spokesman David Grabert: "We don't block or otherwise impede access to any legal Web site," Grabert told the Journal. "Unfortunately, a few customers who experienced this difficulty drew the wrong conclusions about what was happening."

If that’s the case, then, why has it taken Cox three months to fix a known problem involving a competitive business?

Without net neutrality protections, the cable and telecom duopoly will have no incentive to give customers the choices they expect online, Stoller writes. "Already, it's quite difficult to even know that this is happening because they are quite easy to disguise."

House Ignores Public, Sells Out the Internet

Last night's House vote against an amendment that would make Net Neutrality enforceable is the result of swarming lobbyists and a multi-million-dollar media campaign by telephone companies that want Congress to hand them control of the Internet.

The fight now moves to the Senate, where there is stronger bi-partisan support for a bill -- put forth by Senators Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota) -- that would protect our Internet freedom from AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.

Here are some comments from SavetheInternet.com Coalition members.

Jeannine Kenney, senior policy analyst of the Consumers Union:

Special interest advocates from telephone and cable companies have flooded the Congress with misinformation delivered by an army of lobbyists to undermine decades-long federal practice of prohibiting network owners from discriminating against competitors to shut out competition. Unless the Senate steps in, today's vote marks the beginning of the end of the Internet as an engine of new competition, entrepreneurship and innovation.

Ben Scott, policty director of Free Press:

The American public favors an open and neutral Internet and does not want gatekeepers taxing innovation and throttling the free market. The House has seriously undermined access to information and democratic communication. Despite the revisionist history propagated by the telcos and their lobbyists, until last year, the Internet had always been a neutral network. It is the central reason for its overwhelming success. This issue is not about whether or not the government will regulate the Internet. It's about whether consumers or cable and phone companies will decide what services and content are available on the Net.

Mark Cooper, director of research at Consumers Federation of America:

This is not Google vs. AT&T. CFA has been battling to keep the phone companies from putting tollbooths on the Internet since the early 1980's, but now every business and every consumer that uses the Internet has a dog in the fight for Internet Freedom. This coalition will continue to grow, millions of Americans will add their voices, and Congress will not escape the roar of public opinion until Congress passes enforceable net neutrality.

Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge:

The House has rushed to pass HR 5252 at the urging of the telephone and cable companies, who feared the growing public support for an enforceable net neutrality law.... Today’s Internet, which gives consumers control over what applications, services and content they want to access, will be replaced by an Internet that looks like a cable system -- where network providers determine who gets on and at what price.

Our grass-roots coalition includes more than 720 groups, 5,000 bloggers and 800,000 individuals who have rallied in support of net neutrality at www.savetheinternet.com. The coalition is left and right, public and private, commercial and noncommercial.

Supporters of net neutrality include the Christian Coalition of America, MoveOn.org, National Religious Broadcasters, the Service Employees International Union, the American Library Association, AARP, ACLU, and every major consumer group in the nation. It includes the founders of the Internet and hundreds of companies that do business online.

The battle for Net Neutrality - or Internet freedom - has significantly stronger bipartisan support in the Senate. Senators Snowe (R-Maine) and Dorgan (D-N.D.) have introduced the "Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2006" that enjoys the strong support from the SaveTheInternet coalition.

Bi-partisanship will carry the day. A bi-partisan Net Neutrality bill in the House Judiciary won handily only two weeks ago. As we look to the Senate, our prospects are strong.

Senators can expect to hear from their constituents on their responsibility to protect Net Neutrality and we will be watching closely to make sure they listen.

SavetheInternet in the Washington Post

Just in time for the upcoming House vote on Net Neutrality, the Washington Post has printed a no-nonsense op-ed by SavetheInternet.com charter members Lawrence Lessig of Stanford Law School, and Robert McChesney of Free Press.

The message of "No Tolls on the Internet" is loud and clear: Congress can not ignore the public outcry and vote to hand control of the Internet to the of cable and telephone cartel.

Here's what Lessig and McChesney had to say:

The protections that guaranteed network neutrality have been law since the birth of the Internet -- right up until last year, when the Federal Communications Commission eliminated the rules that kept cable and phone companies from discriminating against content providers. This triggered a wave of announcements from phone company chief executives that they plan to do exactly that.

Now Congress faces a legislative decision. Will we reinstate net neutrality and keep the Internet free? Or will we let it die at the hands of network owners itching to become content gatekeepers? The implications of permanently losing network neutrality could not be more serious. The current legislation, backed by companies such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast, would allow the firms to create different tiers of online service. They would be able to sell access to the express lane to deep-pocketed corporations and relegate everyone else to the digital equivalent of a winding dirt road. Worse still, these gatekeepers would determine who gets premium treatment and who doesn't.

Their idea is to stand between the content provider and the consumer, demanding a toll to guarantee quality delivery. It's what Timothy Wu, an Internet policy expert at Columbia University, calls "the Tony Soprano business model": By extorting protection money from every Web site -- from the smallest blogger to Google -- network owners would earn huge profits. Meanwhile, they could slow or even block the Web sites and services of their competitors or those who refuse to pay up. They'd like Congress to "trust them" to behave.

Evidence that telephone companies are trustworthy is in extremely short supply, as SavetheInternet.com members Free Press, Consumers Union and Consumer Federation of America noted in our "Facts vs. Fictions" report to Congress two weeks ago.

Lessig and McChesney compare AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth's plans to the cable-ization of the Web:

Without net neutrality, the Internet would start to look like cable TV. A handful of massive companies would control access and distribution of content, deciding what you get to see and how much it costs. Major industries such as health care, finance, retailing and gambling would face huge tariffs for fast, secure Internet use -- all subject to discriminatory and exclusive dealmaking with telephone and cable giants.

And they also offset the faux-organizing of the deceptive industry front groups against the genuine grassroots efforts of our coalition:

The smell of windfall profits is in the air in Washington. The phone companies are pulling out all the stops to legislate themselves monopoly power. They're spending tens of millions of dollars on inside-the-Beltway print, radio and TV ads; high-priced lobbyists; coin-operated think tanks; and sham "Astroturf" groups -- fake grass-roots operations with such Orwellian names as Hands Off the Internet and NetCompetition.org.

They're opposed by a real grass-roots coalition of more than 700 groups, 5,000 bloggers and 750,000 individual Americans who have rallied in support of net neutrality at http://www.savetheinternet.com/ . The coalition is left and right, commercial and noncommercial, public and private. Supporters include the Christian Coalition of America, MoveOn.org, National Religious Broadcasters, the Service Employees International Union, the American Library Association, AARP and nearly every consumer group. It includes the founders of the Internet, the brand names of Silicon Valley, and a bloc of retailers, innovators and entrepreneurs. Coalitions of such breadth, depth and purpose are rare in contemporary politics.

It's a clarion call for our elected representatives to wake up to the public outcry and make the right decision for the future of the Internet. Read Lessig and McChesney's full piece.

Telco Lobby Slow Cooks Congress

The telephone and cable companies have been going all out in Washington to smooth their way for control of the Internet by proposing what appears at first to be a reasonable policy, which, on further review, doesn't hold up.

In a commentary at TPM Cafe, Art Brodsky -- the communications director for Public Knowledge -- compares the phone and cable lobbying on Net Neutrality to a metaphor called "boiling the frog." According to Brodsky, it goes something like this:

If you throw a frog into boiling water, it will jump out. But if you put a frog in warm water, and gradually raise the temperature, it will become acclimated, until it becomes cooked. Gross, but accurate. This is what the telephone companies and their allies who sell them equipment are doing.

The legislation on next week's menu is the COPE Act -- a House bill that has been gift wrapped for AT&T and Verizon.

With this bill, Brodsky writes, the telco cartel is trying to woo Congress into believing that its intentions are good -- when in reality it seeks to gain complete Internet control through a discriminatory "access tiering" scheme that returns massive profits at the expense of Internet freedom:

When the telephone or cable company picks what goes onto a network, the telephone or cable company, not the customer, and not the company the customer might want to reach, is in charge. The telephone and cable company will do what they can to improve their new toll road. And today’s Internet? Wouldn’t be as attractive in the future, would it, if companies feel they have to pay extra for “special arrangements” or be left behind.

What the telephone and cable companies are saying, is “trust us” not to disrupt the Internet. They, after all, are in the transmission business. But “trust us” only goes so far, particularly when we look at other parts of the world and see how far behind our telephone and cable companies have left us.

Compared with other developed nations the U.S. has fallen from 3rd to 16th in broadband penetration per capita, far behind countries like Canada, South Korea and Japan. The United States also numbers 16th in terms of broadband growth rates, suggesting our world ranking won’t improve any time soon.

But that's only the half of it. Recent Free Press analysis of the “low-priced” introductory broadband offers by companies like AT&T and Verizon reveal them to be little more than bait-and-switch gimmicks. On a per megabit basis, U.S. consumers pay 10 to 25 times more than broadband users in Japan.

The reason for the Broadband price gouging? According to Free Press' Derek Turner, it's due to an industry-friendly regulatory regime that gave the cable/telco duopoly control of the broadband marketplace:

The “fierce competition” among broadband platforms is seriously overstated. The FCC’s own report shows that satellite and wireless broadband continue to lose market share. Today, cable and DSL providers control almost 98 percent of the residential and small-business broadband market.

No competition means no fair pricing. As Brodsky also points out, this could become worse by regulations that allow telephone companies not to have to share their broadband networks with competitors on the theory that they will invest in the network.

But, so far, their alleged investment in broadband infrastructure has left us far behind the most developed nations. And now they're urging Congress to extend more favors by killing Net Neutrality -- the only safeguard that stands in the way of total Internet dominance by the telephone and cable companies.

The cartel has turned the heat up another notch in Washington. Unless Congress takes action on behalf of those who elected them, we'll all get cooked.