Parminder,<br><br>Quite clearly MetroPCS is testing FCC muscles. Hopefully US consumers should react and test MetroPCS muscles.<br><br>Is MetroPCS (or AT&T, or Verizon, etc ..) operating in India ? Is India gov supporting NN ? If so the Indian telecom authority could rule that telecom operators in India may not discriminate services offered to Indian consumers, or else they would not be allowed to offer international services in India.<br>
<br>Then work out a similar rule within the BRIC group.<br><br>fwiw<br>- - -<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 6:02 AM, parminder <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:parminder@itforchange.net">parminder@itforchange.net</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#333333">
quote from the article below<br>
<br>
We're already seeing what a world without real Net Neutrality will look
like. Just weeks after the FCC's vote, MetroPCS, the nation's
fifth-largest wireless carrier, <a href="http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/01/metropcs-net-neutrality/" target="_blank">announced
new plans that would block popular applications like Skype and Netflix
while favoring YouTube</a>. This is particularly egregious because
MetroPCS serves a lower-income audience that is increasingly moving
toward the mobile Web as their only way to get online.<br>
(quote ends)<br>
<br>
Highlights the development aspect of non NN wireless Internet, when
mobile internet is likely to be the main way to access Internet in the
poorer areas of the world. And the anti NN rules ensure that it is the
content and applications from the North that consumers in the South
remain hooked to and dependent on. A wholly new and very potent
North-South dependency paradigm is now being built over the non NN
architect of mobile Internet, and I hope progressive global civil
society takes notice and has something to say on this. If this is not
an issue that IGF should take up in its plenary, than i dont think it
is doing much of any worth. Parminder <br>
<a href="http://www.truth-out.org/the-not-so-neutral-net67276" target="_blank"><br>
http://www.truth-out.org/the-not-so-neutral-net67276</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<h3>The Not-So-Neutral Net</h3>
<p>Monday 24 January 2011</p>
<p><a href="http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/the-not-so-neutral-net" target="_blank">by:
Jenn Ettinger | <b>YES! Magazine | News Analysis</b></a></p>
<p><i><b>The FCC's new rules on Net Neutrality
open the Internet to corporate discrimination. But it's not too late to
preserve Internet freedom.</b></i></p>
<p>The Internet was created as an "open" or "neutral"
platform, and net neutrality is the principle that ensures that
Internet providers can't interfere with a user's ability to access any
content on the Web, whether it's a community blog, a YouTube video, or
a major news site. It's essentially the First Amendment of the Internet.</p>
<p>In late December, the Federal Communications
Commission enacted new rules on net neutrality—rules that are supposed
to protect Internet users from discrimination and to prevent Internet
providers like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon from acting as
gatekeepers on the Web.</p>
<p>But the FCC missed the mark, and its rules not only
fail to protect Internet users, but bolster the big phone and cable
companies' ability to carve up the Internet among themselves. As Net
Neutrality champion Senator Al Franken said, the rules are "simply
inadequate to protect consumers or preserve the free and open
Internet." The limited protections leave the door open for the phone
and cable companies to favor their own content or applications.</p>
<p>During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama came
out strongly in favor of net neutrality, saying he would "take a back
seat to no one" on the issue. But in the end, Obama's FCC chairman,
Julius Genachowski, failed to deliver on the president's promise,
instead issuing ambiguous rules riddled with loopholes that corporate
lobbyists will easily undermine.</p>
<p>Over the past several years, the phone and cable
companies have flooded Washington with millions of dollars and hundreds
of lobbyists to buy support in Congress and put pressure on the FCC.
Public interest groups and a few lawmakers have tried to fight back,
and more than two million people have urged the FCC to adopt strong net
neutrality rules, but Chairman Genachowski ultimately caved to industry
demands and turned a deaf ear to the public. What</p>
<p><b>Went Wrong: Real vs. Fake Net Neutrality</b></p>
<p>At its core, real net neutrality is a clear rule of
non-discrimination that governs all Internet providers. It means that
your provider can't slow down your service in order to speed up someone
else's. It means that your provider can't exploit legal loopholes to
slow down your access to Netflix while speeding up Hulu because it
happens to own Hulu. It means that there's one Internet, whether you
access it from your home computer or your mobile phone.</p>
<p>But the rules that the FCC passed in December are
vague and weak. The limited protections that were placed on wired
connections, the kind you access through your home computer, leave the
door open for the phone and cable companies to develop fast and slow
lanes on the Web and to favor their own content or applications.</p>
<p>Worse, the rules also explicitly allow wireless
carriers—mobile phone companies like AT&T and Verizon—to block
applications for any reason and to degrade and de-prioritize websites
you access using your cell phone or a device like an iPad. That means
these companies could block something like the music service Pandora,
while offering unlimited access to its own preferred applications, like
VCast.</p>
<p>Better Than Facebook?Better Than Facebook Photo
courtesy of On the Commons</p>
<p>Fed up with Facebook's commercialism, four NYU
students have created an open source, peer-to-peer alternative:
Diaspora.</p>
<p>We're already seeing what a world without real Net
Neutrality will look like. Just weeks after the FCC's vote, MetroPCS,
the nation's fifth-largest wireless carrier, <a href="http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/01/metropcs-net-neutrality/" target="_blank">announced
new plans that would block popular applications like Skype and Netflix
while favoring YouTube</a>. This is particularly egregious because
MetroPCS serves a lower-income audience that is increasingly moving
toward the mobile Web as their only way to get online.</p>
<p>Some companies are already marketing "deep packet
inspection" technology that would allow carriers to nickel-and-dime you
by charging you every time you visit Facebook or try to stream a Vimeo
video. If MetroPCS gets away with its scheme—which appears to violate
even the FCC's weak rules—you can bet that AT&T and Verizon will
waste no time in unveiling their own plans, which would mean higher
bills and fewer choices on the mobile Web.</p>
<p>Lastly, the FCC's short-sighted action failed to
contend with a series of drastic deregulatory decisions made during the
Bush administration that severely hamstrung the FCC's ability to
oversee the phone and cable companies. By failing to restore the
agency's authority over broadband, the FCC risks seeing even these
rules tossed out in court.</p>
<p>The FCC rules were designed to appease the phone and
cable companies—but even that didn't work. Verizon has already filed
suit against the agency, showing that these gatekeepers will settle for
nothing less than total deregulation and a toothless FCC. Undoing the
Damage The FCC still has the opportunity to put in place a solid
framework that would put the public interest above the profit motive of
the phone and cable companies that it is supposed to regulate.</p>
<p><b>Undoing the Damage</b></p>
<p>The FCC's new rules are certainly a setback in the
quest to protect the Web as an open platform and an integral piece of
our communications infrastructure and our democracy. In the absence of
clear FCC authority and oversight of the Internet and a strong Net
Neutrality framework that protects your right to go wherever you want,
whenever you want online, AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon are free to
interfere with your Internet experience.</p>
<p>The FCC still has the opportunity to put in place a
solid framework that would put the public interest above the profit
motive of the phone and cable companies that it is supposed to
regulate. And the FCC should take immediate steps to close the
loopholes it created, to strengthen its rules, and to include wireless
protections. The fight is far from over. We can work to change the
rules, demand better oversight and consumer protections and make sure
that the big companies can't pad their bottom lines on the backs of
their customers.</p>
<p><i>Jenn Ettinger author photoJenn Ettinger wrote
this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media
organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Jenn is
media coordinator for Free Press, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization
working to reform the media. <br>
</i></p>
<br>
<div>-- <br>
<br>
<div><b><font face="FlamaBook" size="-1"><font color="#666666">Krittika Vishwanath</font></font></b><br>
<div>
<div>
<div><font color="#666666" face="FlamaBook"> <font size="-1">Research Associate<br>
IT for Change <br>
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Mobile: +91 9945267341<br>
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Read our Teacher's Communities of Learning project's blogs, lesson<br>
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