My Suspicion Grows

I am up to 5 comments now on my post "Net Neutrality is the Wrong Frame" which is a wildly large number of comments for this blog to get. Looking through both my blog stats and my feedburner stats there is virtually NO change in the amount of traffic that I am getting. AND none of the people who I called out specifically in my last post, "Just Because Your Paranoid" have bothered to defend themselves... So am I getting spammed by a sneaky campaign launched by the telcos to try and make it LOOK like there is grass roots support for their efforts to block congressional legislation? Anyone else out there seeing this kind of spam?

Just because you're paranoid...

I find it interesting that my most recent post, Net Neutrality is the Wrong Frame, has excited three random anonymous strangers to go to the trouble of creating brand new blogger accounts in order to post comments which can be read as supporting the telcos battle to stop Congress from legislating network neutrality. Call me paranoid, but is this an attempt by paid lobbying activists to make it look as if there is grass roots support for the monopoly telcos? Let me make something clear. I SUPPORT the efforts by congressional leaders to put some controls on the telephone companies. My complaint is that the approach is wrong, not that we don't need government intervention.

"Luv2Box" and "Net Chick" and "SoCal619" - if you want to join the conversation, do the responsible thing and expose your true identities. Join the debate as citizens instead of as anonymous blogger accounts. Otherwise you risk being confused with comment spammers -- in this case perhaps a coordinated attempt by the telcos to make it LOOK like there is actual "grass roots" support for their notion that they should be unregulated monopolies...

Net Neutrality is the Wrong Frame

With all due respect to Jeff Pulver and to the rest of the gang (including yours truly) that have been breathing life into the idea of Net Neutrality, we in the tech industry have done a lousy job framing the debate with the telcos. Martin Geddes is right when he says that "... network neutrality law is a tactical, practical, strategic and philosophical error."

But I would offer a simpler formula than Martin for what does need to be done. And as an aside, simpler is part of the lesson that the tech industry needs to learn if we are going to be successful in the political realm. Here it is:

The two most important issues facing our nation and the world economy are energy and telecommunications. These are the two economic drivers that will determine our prosperity and health in the coming decades. Do we need really need another OPEC in telecommunications? By ceding control of the Internet to a small number of powerful companies, we risk a set of unintended consequences -- limits on innovation, an impact on competitiveness in a world market, decisions about where investment capital will flow, and a negative impact on our individual quality of life.

Improved networks that are capable of prioritizing the flow of certain kinds of information are not in themselves the problem. The debate should be about two things:

(1) Who gets to decide which packets are prioritized?
(2) What obligations are inherent in the use of public rights of way ?

My answer to #1 is THE CUSTOMER. Look, if AT&T wants to offer me the ability to prioritize my VoIP traffic, that is fine. But they can't discriminate amongst providers. So I get to chose which VoIP product I prioritize. Or maybe I want to prioritize my online game. And a hospital wants to prioritize MRI data. But the CUSTOMER decides. Not some backroom deal between a telco and a vendor.

And on #2 my answer is that there needs to be ewqual access to the last mile. I have an electrical line running into my home. I have a water pipe as well. Power and water comes into my home from many places. Lots of independent companies can hook up to the grid or the water supply and sell power or water to my municipality. Great. Why can't the Internet be more like electricity or water?

At the end of the day the role of government that is being overlooked in this debate is to protect the interests of the people. Government is our voice at the table. To the extent that the government hands out licenses to airwaves or to rip up our city streets to install bandwidth to our homes, they should be doing so to improve our cities, our economies, and our lives. Creating a new OPEC, with an unreasonable amount of power over what we can and cannot do with the telecommunications infrasturcture is a direct threat to our pursuit of happiness.

Press Releases Aren't the only Problem

Shel Holtz adds to the ongoing discussion about the purpose and future of press releases in this post entitled "The press release is dead! Long live the press release!" in which he responds, in part, to Tom Foremski's rant on the subject a few months ago -- "Die Press Release, Die!". In Tom's original screed he states:

Press releases are nearly useless. They typically start with a tremendous amount of top-spin, they contain pat-on-the-back phrases and meaningless quotes. Often they will contain quotes from C-level executives praising their customer focus. They often contain praise from analysts, (who are almost always paid or have a customer relationship.) And so on...

Press releases are created by committees, edited by lawyers, and then sent out at great expense through Businesswire or PRnewswire to reach the digital and physical trash bins of tens of thousands of journalists.

This madness has to end. It is wasted time and effort by hundreds of thousands of professionals.

Shel offers an example of a company Shift Communications, that purports to answer this critique with a new kind of press release. Shel writes:

The release is broken into sections that are easily put to use by busy reporters and editors. First is contact information, followed by a headline and core news facts, preferably in bullet-list format. Then come a link and RSS feed for a “purpose-built” del.icio.us page. This page offers links to “relevant historical, trend, market, product & competitive content sources, providing context as-needed, and, on-going updates.”

So my question, though, is why should we call this new thing a press release? Perhaps a mini-site about a specific news event which becomes a resource for reporters -- but in that vein, why shouldn't it also be a resource for customers?

The core problem of the press release remains the same in any case. Top-spin, meaningless quotes, and poor writing won't change. And the endless spam from companies to reporters, trying to make their news item into the next thing on the cover of (name your publication) isn't going to stop. It isn't just the press release that is a problem -- it is fundamentally the relationship between public relations and the media that needs to change.

Wired: Why We Published the AT&T Docs

"I wrote the following document in 2004 when it became clear to me that AT&T, at the behest of the National Security Agency, had illegally installed secret computer gear designed to spy on internet traffic. At the time I thought this was an outgrowth of the notorious Total Information Awareness program, which was attacked by defenders of civil liberties. But now it's been revealed by The New York Times that the spying program is vastly bigger and was directly authorized by President Bush, as he himself has now admitted, in flagrant violation of specific statutes and constitutional protections for civil liberties. I am presenting this information to facilitate the dismantling of this dangerous Orwellian project."

-Former AT&T technician Mark Klein

Read the full document on Wired News

Who Funds "Hands off the Internet" ?

Here is a list of the organizations that are backing a new campaign to fight against government regulation of monopoly telecom providers, lets just follow the money (also check the work of Source Watch on this subject):

Actiontec -- Supplier of telecom equipment to the monopoly telecoms ("Actiontec is led by a seasoned management team with over 100 years of collective experience gained at companies such as AT&T..."

Alcatel -- Supplier of telecom equipment to the monopoly telecoms

America Channel -- Video content provider with major distribution deals via telecom monoplies

American Conservative Union -- industry funded political organization with ties to AT&T

AT&T -- Primary monopolist

BellSouth -- all but a division of AT&T

Center for Individual Freedom -- Alleged (source watch ) to have started in response to a conversation with a front group for the tobacco industry. Doesn't disclose financing but did weigh in to support the SBC and AT&T merger...

Cinergy Communications -- Supplier to monopoly telecoms...

I could continue down the list, but the conclusion I come to is that this is a telecom industry effort through and through.

Cingular -- a division of AT&T

Lack Of Mobile DRM To (Generate) 3.5B Euros

Moco.News is reporting a story on Frost and Sullivan's recent dire warning about the lack of mobile DRM -- the article is titled Lack Of Mobile DRM To Cost 3.5B Euros But I'd like to suggest the nutty idea that actually the REVERSE is true. The question is really about WHO will be making money and WHO will be "losing" revenue.

The core of the issue is about the cellular operators who would like to apply a tax to every content elements that slips across their networks. While F&S poses this as a problem for the entertainment industry itself, I would suggest that mobile phones are more important as an opportunity for viral marketing than they are as the sole end consumption device for digital content. Moco.news writes:

Combined, F&S thinks these activities will cost the mobile entertainment industry around 2.7 billion euros this year. Another 800 million euros “is missed due to the lack of widespread interoperability for content across PCs, mobiles and MP3 players”.

But what if the entertainment industry allowed content to be easily spread (for free without DRM) from mobile device to mobile device? What if consumers could easily share video and music content thus creating demand for purchases of these products for other kinds of devices?

Sure, you don't want the highest quality MP3 or video product circulating for free (oops, that cat is already out of the bag) but consumers don't want HDTV versions of videos on their cell phones -- they only need a small, low-res version. That is all they can play anyway with that screen size. And a low-sample rate version of a song allows more songs to fit on the phone. And a ringtone made from a song simply PROMOTES the song.

Of course, if the entertainment industry allowed people to make their own ring tones for free, share low-sample rate music for free, share low-res video for free... the cellular operators would be back to being a DUMB PIPE. But don't they make a lot of money on that bandwidth?

Note to F&S -- please calculate how the entertainment industry might use viral marketing of freely available (lower quality) digital content to generate sales of high quality versions of the content for other devices as well as generating more fan adherence to entertainment properties which result in additional sales of secondary products. And does all of this generate more revenue for the entertainment industry than they would have gained by locking up their content?

UPDATE - TechDirt weighs in, similarly calling the F&S report "ridiculous..."

Comparative broadband ideas

Susan Crawford stirs the pot, asking "How do you increase competition in the U.S. for broadband access? " She points out that:

The primary reason that Japan and Korea do so much better than the U.S. on any measurement of broadband (availability, penetration, price, speed) is that there is fierce competition in the market...

She goes on to identify three routes to broadband competion -- briefly facilities based competition, wholesale access, and local loop unbundling (go read her post). David Isenberg weighs in with two additional options:

4) Trust the incumbents. That's the current strategy. No further dignification needed.

5) Find new network architectures that do not have the barrier of high fixed costs. Mesh networks.

And Paul Kapustka adds some thoughts, "How much for the 'third pipe' for broadband?" asking the question "How much will it really cost to build the so-called "third pipe" of broadband? And might it just be cheaper to pay the telcos off, and buy their local network elements?" He points out Reed Hundt's guess that "it would cost $20 billion to bring fiber to all homes in America." So why not pay them off asks Paul...

Read Susan's post

Read David's post

Read Paul's post

Vonage gets squeezed from above-Verizon- and below-AOL

So will Vonage be able to go public? Or will the market notice that they are nearing the end of their rope as this market continues to rapidly evolve... Here are Russell Shaw's comments:

On Wednesday, Verizon announced that it would lower the cost of its VoiceWing service from $34.95 a month to $24.95 a month. That's a tad cheaper than Vonage's most comparable, $24.99 plan. But unlike Vonage VoiceWing's activation will be free...

Read the rest at Russell's ZD Net Blog...

CA Government Works

Recently I ordered a T1 from ATT (SBC... PacBell...) for my small business and encountered such tremendous difficulties that I decided to complain to my government representatives. While I recieved no response from the offices of Feinstein or Lee, Boxer's office was nice enough to send this non-commital reply:

Dear Mr. Shelton:

Thank you for contacting me regarding the proposed merger between AT&T and BellSouth. I appreciate the opportunity to respond to your comments on this issue.

As you know, AT&T has announced its plan to buy BellSouth for $67 billion. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will now conduct a review of the proposed deal to ensure that it would be in the public interest.

As a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over telecommunications issues, please know that I am monitoring this situation closely. Rest assured, I will keep your views in mind as the review process continues.

Again, thank you for writing to me. Please feel free to contact me again about any issue of importance to you.

However, I also decided to complain to the California PUC. Do you know what? Within one week of my complaint I received a call from "the Chairman's office" of ATT, offering to make sure that my problem was corrected. And today I am happily sitting in my new office with a working T1 circuit. Hooray! Complaining to the government works! Here is where you can go for help, if you are in California -- CPUC File a Complaint Online

Support the Markey Network Neutrality Amendment

David Isenberg offers these thoughts on the upcoming (MAY 4th) proposal on the floor of the house to ammend the Barton-Rush COPE Bill with the "Markey Amendment." Go straight to the page where you can add your name in support of this amendment or read more about why the Barton-Rush bill is bad for all of us and why the Markey Amendment might make it a little bit better... As David says "Where were you when the DMCA passed?"