[governance] [Fwd: The Not-So-Neutral Net]

Sun Jan 30 00:02:45 EST 2011

quote from the article below

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, announced new plans that would block 
popular applications like Skype and Netflix while favoring YouTube 
<http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/01/metropcs-net-neutrality/>. 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.
(quote ends)

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

http://www.truth-out.org/the-not-so-neutral-net67276

      The Not-So-Neutral Net

Monday 24 January 2011

by: Jenn Ettinger  |  *YES! Magazine | News Analysis* 
<http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/the-not-so-neutral-net>

/*The FCC's new rules on Net Neutrality open the Internet to corporate 
discrimination. But it's not too late to preserve Internet freedom.*/

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

*Went Wrong: Real vs. Fake Net Neutrality*

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.

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.

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.

Better Than Facebook?Better Than Facebook Photo courtesy of On the Commons

Fed up with Facebook's commercialism, four NYU students have created an 
open source, peer-to-peer alternative: Diaspora.

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, announced new plans that would block 
popular applications like Skype and Netflix while favoring YouTube 
<http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/01/metropcs-net-neutrality/>. 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.

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.

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.

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.

*Undoing the Damage*

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.

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.

/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.
/

-- 

*Krittika Vishwanath*
Research Associate
IT for Change
In special consultative status with the United Nations ECOSOC
www.ITforChange.net <http://www.ITforChange.net>
Skype id: krittika85
Tel:+91-80-2665 4134, 2653 6890. Fax:+91-80-4146 1055
Mobile: +91 9945267341

Read our Teacher's Communities of Learning project's blogs, lesson
plans and discussions here: http://bangalore.karnatakaeducation.org.in/

-- 
PK

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