From Jeneane Sessum:

In a manly move, Ross has given up his Office 2.0 podium spot to his Social Text partner and co-founder Adina Levin.

Well done, Ross. Of course, it helps that Adina is so freaking smart and a great representative of SocialText. [See Disclosure]

You may also want to see the comments on my post about Foo, especially the back and forth around Tim O’Reilly’s frank and thoughtful replies towards the end of the long thread. And Shelley has spun Tim’s reply off into its own thread on her site, which is gathering comment steam. [Tags: ross_mayfield adina_levin tim_oreilly shelley_powers office2.0]

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Charlie and Rebecca Nesson (Charlie’s a founder of the Berkman Center) will be offering “the first Harvard course to be open to the public as well as the the first Harvard course to be offered as an Extension/Distance education through virtual world Second Life.” It’s called “CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion.” More info here.

Be sure to make your avatar look smart. Or at least interested :) [Tags: berkman education secondlife]

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Ethan is heading out on the road, which means we can expect some especially good blogging from him (assuming he’s within Net range). In fact, today Ethan unpacks the Wonga Coup, which “sounds like the plot of a spy novel. And it is…” [Tags: ethan_zuckerman global_voices]

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At the MassNetComms meeting yesterday, I thought Link Hoewing (ass’t vp of Internet and tech issues at Verizon) gave a telling example he intended to support the case against Net neutrality. (I mentioned this in my live blogging of the event, but I want to call it out here.)

Link said that Verizon might want to offer a service that connects a community with its local hospital for medical help. Verizon would prioritize this vital medical traffic. Community members could choose to pay for the service if they wanted it. Surely this is a valuable offering—medical help, voluntary, community-based—but Net neutrality would forbid it.

Yes, it might well be a valuable offering, although if Verizon could get sick puppies into the example it would pack more rhetorical punch. But, the problem with allowing Verizon to prioritize traffic is not that there are no valuable services Verizon could offer. Of course there are. The problem is that if I come up with the same idea for a service, I am at a competitive disadvantage because Verizon’s service will work better than mine.*

This is one of the difficulties in making the Net neutrality case: Violating Net neutrality benefits particular services that customers may want, but it has a systemic chilling effect on innovation. [Tags: net_neutrality verizon ]

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September 22 is the first annual One Web Day celebration of the Web. We’ll be cheering it on at the Berkman Center with an especially festive session in my “Web of Ideas” series. I’m not sure exactly what we’re going to talk about, other than what we love about the Web, but there will be pizza.

Exact time and place are not yet set. It’ll be open to all, although we may have to set up an RSVP line. Details to follow.

And what are you going to do on One Web Day? [Tags: onewebday berkman ]

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Say a city decides to put its public bus stops on the sides of the intersection immediately after the traffic lights rather than immediately before the lights. Will this:

a. Decrease the overall transit time from one side of the city to another

b. Increase the overall transit time

c. Have no consistent effect on overall transit time

d. Go away you boring git

(Note: I’m not claiming to have an answer to this.) [Tags: puzzle quiz doep]

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The panel consists of me, Brent Olson (ass’t vp, regulatory policy, AT&T) and Link Hoewing (ass’t vp, Internet and tech issues, Verizon). Paul Deninger of Jeffries Broadview and TechNet (yay) is the moderator. [I’m typing this while on the panel so my coverage will be worse than spotty. BTW, I’m the only one in the room with a laptop open.] [There was one exchange I found particular clarifying. Click here to jump to it.]

Brent from AT&T says that Net neutrality is an elusive concept but it generally means “how to respond to the changing nature of the Internet.” It started out as being about whether providers can block access to sites but now it means allowing providers to enhance their service. He says AT&T is the main DSL provider. “We are a price leader in this market and we’re committed to making more broadband available to more people at a lower rate.” They’re investing in fiber. “But our customers don’t just purchase broadband. They purchase broadband Internet access.” That means they expect to go where they want, send the emails they want, and use the services they want. “If we didn’t do this, our customers wouldn’t buy it. So it would be foolish” to block access or degrade experience.

He signs on to the FCC’s Four Principles (Martin’s revision). [But the principles don’t say that all services and sites will be equally accessible.]

He asks us to imagine there’s a company that wants to improve the performance of the Internet. E.g., Akamai. They help video unspool smoothly, etc. That’s ok, right? But that’s what AT&T is talking about offering. “We’re talking about entering into commercial arrangements—not unilaterally charging someone but entering into mutually beneficial arrangements.” [Distinction without a difference.] As consumers become more sophisticated in their use of the Net, providers ought to be able to offer more sophisticated pricing structures. It wouldn’t be good to build a high performance “Ferrari” network and charge everyone higher prices even if they don’t want it; nor do we want to build a “Yugo” network that goes slowly. One size does not fit all.

The key going forward, he says, isn’t neutrality but flexibility. YouTube and Google succeeded by doing something new. [But discriminatory pricing means that the garage shop won’t perform as well as the established companies that are paying for better delivery.] Net neutrality will deny users choice and will hurt innovation. [I missed how it hurts innovation. Sorry.] Net neutrality would “freeze the network architecture in place” just when it needs innovation. [I don’t trust the telcos to design the new network architecture. We have distributed processes in place.] “Let everyone in the ecosystem continue to innovate while keeping a watchful eye through FCC oversight.”

Brent of Verizon says technology is attractive to members of Congress. He says they understand it now because they have Blackberries and cell phones. [Yup, devices that conect them to the tubes of the Internets.] Net neutrality is within the framework of broadband policy. Brent is more optimistic about broadband deployment in the US than most of are. Wireless subscribers are going up rapidly. People are shifting to broadband rapidly. Wireline access for traditional telephone service is going down. Verizon has been losing several hundred thousand lines every month as people switch to other types of services.

Broadband is very competitive, he says. You can get real competition when there are only two competitors, especially in the early stages of the market. There are more competitors in more areas, “in some places up to four providers.”

Verizon is remaking its network by providing fiber to the home. They’ve now run fiber past 3M homes (i.e., 3M could sign up). By the end of the year, they plan on doubling that. Fiber deployment in the US is happening faster than in other countries, he says.

Verizon recognizes that upstream matters. That’s why fiber matters. E.g. the 15Mbps service has been selling well among gamers. (Verizon offers 50Mbps services in some areas.) Yes, he says, Japan has higher average speeds: 12Mbps.

The Senate bill supports the four principles and Verizon agrees with that. They think it will work because the FCC will enforce them and the market will make it work also.

He cites Dave Farber to support his view.

He concludes by saying that Verizon is losing lines into homes so it’s highly incented to provide great and open service.

I’m going to say that it boils down to the fact that the providers’ interests don’t align with the promise of the Internet. Thus, I don’t trust them to re-architect the Internet. We have a distributed, design process that does that. If discriminating among types of packets helps without degrading service then, frankly, I don’t care. But I don’t believe the providers will be able to resist the temptation to prefer their own services because that’s their business model: Sell content and services. We need to separate access from content/services.

Paul makes a few comments. Rather than thinking of the Internet as a Studebaker that needs updating (as one of the speakers said), why not think of it as a highway? Brent says that different people want different things. AT&T wants to be able to offer all those things and not do one size fits all because that means everyone pays the same price. Competition protects markets.

Randall of AOL says that the debate needs facts. He doesn’t believe the future of Internet innovation requires the carriers charging people tiered access. Those fees will be a spit in Verizon’s ocean. His guess is that it drives Verizon nuts that there are VOIP providers who are offering telephony that competes with Verizon’s. Paul says, “Isn’t it all about VOIP?”

Link says they have a competing VOIP service that runs on other people’s networks as well as theirs. Also, their SuperPages offering has to work on everyone’s network.

Me: I don’t want the highways to be designed by Halliburton, Yugo or Ferrari. We have a process in place—open and distributed—that works.

Link: But the backbone providers have always been in the design process.

Me: But they’re selling access to bits, not services and content. That’s the right model.

Paul: This debate came about because DSL is data via telephone lines…

Brent: The comms industry is getting complicated. The FCC said it’s no longer right to try to fit them into the old shoebox. [Missed some of this. Sorry.]

Q: There’s no such thing as Net neutrality in the wireless business. Whitelisting and blacklisting goes on already over cellphones and PDAs. And “on deck access” [I don’t know what that is.]
A: Brent: An EVDO card lets you go anywhere on the Internet, except for some capacity constraints.

Jonathan: People don’t use those devices the same way, so there isn’t the same consumer pressure.
Me: You shouldn’t be allowed to call it the “Internet” if you block access.

Randall: I had this discussion with the attorney general (?) of Texas who said because we (AOL) were blocking access to child porn sites, we can’t call it the Internet. I said, fine, we’ll explain to the market what we’re blocking.
Me: Then you weren’t offering the Internet. The Internet is a set of protocols that guarantee that all packets can move across all networks without prejudice or preference.

Q: Does David want to go back to ArpaNet days?
A: Me: No, I want all bits to be treated the same. That way the ends (not the middle) can provide services.

A: Randall: The providers shouldn’t filter bits. There should be competition among services for this.

Link: All of us recognize that we’re in the market to provide connectivity that works as it always had. If users don’t want to access services we want to market, they won’t. E.g., if we have fiber throughout a neighborhood and people would want to have a priority set for that. Net neutrality wouldn’t let people do that. A: (me) If I decide to set up the same service but I’m not Verizon, will you prioritize my bits the same? You can’t because you don’t even know that my bits are a medical service. So, you’re prioritizing your own bits (even if customers want it). That crushes competition.

Q: What business model?
A: Brent: No one really knows
Why can’t we harness what we have, responding to consumers.

A: Me: It should be a commodity business. Bits are the ultimate commodities. If the incumbents are ill-suited to do that, they should fail at it.
Link: Unbundling didn’t encourage a lot of investment. Now we’re getting networks built. The market will likely continue to be competitive.

Paul: Hope for both sides: No matter how the legislation comes out, the FCC in its one intervention maintained neutrality.

[Tags: massnetcomms net_neutrality digital_rights]

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Jonathan Frankel, a lawyer with WilmerHale (which seems to be related to Hale and Dorr)wants to let us know what the Net neutrality debate looks like to Congress.He says there isn’t much room for learning or for advocates to educate lawmakers. Most of the discussion is hollow on all sides. Platitudes and slogans. There isn’t even a consensus in DC about what Net neutrality means, because it’s a theoretical debate at this point. There’s one instance of a rural provider blocking VOIP but the FCC came down on them like a ton of bricks and he hasn’t seen other instances since. Right now, the Internet’s “third party” content adds value to the providers’ real value stream, TV programs. [I am, as always, paraphrasing.]

Both sides are guilty of using scare tactics to get the Hill’s attention. Pro Net Neutrality folks say that some medical Web sites will be slowed or blocked. AOL’s experience shows that customers won’t be satisfed with wall gardens and any provider that restricts access will lose market share. [Really? How about the one that offers “family-safe” content? Or “school-quality” information?] The quality of service guarantees won’t degrade anyone’s experience and will make video and VOIP better, he says. The fact that consumers aren’t buying the fastest connections available is a practical reminder that for the average user the current level of delivery isn’t affecting their experience. [Say what? Give us more bandwidth — symmetrical — at a lower price and see what the market demands as satisfactory performance.]

On the other side, the providers are exaggerating “a little” by saying they need to charge content providers for quality of service to afford to build out access.

He’s wary of legislation ahead of facts on the ground. The 1996 telcomm legislation was a “disaster” because it didn’t address the real facts about revenues. The Snowe NN amendment is too specific about when discrimination could be allowed. It should wait until there are real facts and an actual record. E.g., in a few years it’s possible that “third party content” [that’s you and me, sister] might compete with the TV shows the providers sell us.

Sen. Ron Wyden has put a hold on the Stevens bill because it has no NN and the leadership has told Stevens they won’t bring it to the floor unless he can guarantee the 60 votes required. Frankel doesn’t think anything will happen until after the election. If the Dems gain control of the House, the telcos may soften on NN because they want to get the other part of the Stevens bill passed (the franchising part ).

[Tags: massnetcomms net_neutrality digital_rights ]

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[massnetcomms] Randall Boes of AOL on Net Neutrality

I’m at the Massachusetts Network Communications Council’s annual meeting. MassNetComms is an industry association with members rom the full chain of network companies, from chip makers to “content providers” to security companies to telcos. (I was invited at the last minute to be the only non-telco on a panel talking about Net neutrality.)

Randall Boe, general council of AOL, in his keynote wants to set the record straight about Net neutrality. [I’m taking notes and paraphrasing. Accuracy is not guaranteed, although I’m doing my best.]

He says that the NN folks were all in favor of regulation when it came to the Time/Warner AOL merger. He says Networks providers have to have the right to control their netowrks because it’s private property. That includes controlling the content that goes across the network. When there’s limited competition, “you have a little bit of a different shade on that network.” “But if you build the network, it’s yours.” The market will solve the problem for you quickly if you make the wrong choice.

The government almost never gets it right, he says. Everyone has an incentive to keep the government out.

The US is last in the top 15 countries for broadband penetration, he says. The problem is that there isn’t enough competition. The lack of competition results in higher prices, abusive pricing by providers, and inefficiencies.

He lists the four network freedoms [initially outlined by Michael Powell of the FCC]. Consumers are entitled to “lawful content of their choice,” “entitled to run apps and services of their choice,” to “connect devices that don’t harm the etwork” and to competition. [It’s not a mere nicety that we are not consumers.]

The NN debate has been spurred, he says, by the fact that providers aren’t getting enough return on their investment. They claim that this is because, in part, of “millionaire free riders.” The network providers say content providers are free riders. Randall isn’t sure that’s right, but, he says, anoother way of looking at it is that content providers provide the value that drives people to broadband. [Yeah!] “There’s synergy there. It’s not just parasitic.” The network providers, he says, could be considered free riders on YouTube’s, Google’s and eBay’s content.

Consumers want access to everything. If providers start charing Google for faster lanes, then maybe Google will go elsewhere. And we don’t want to be charging people for everything. [Yeah!]

He closes by pointing to the fact that users are creating content. How could you pick the winners so you could charge them more? Even if you could, why would you want to? What would the advantage be for consumers, providers or content providers? [A more balanced presentation than I’d expected.]

[Tags: massnetcomms net_neutrality digital_rights ]

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I’ve been asked at the very last minute to be the third person on a panel at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Network Communications Council. The other two panelists are Brent Olson, Ass’t VP of Regulatory Policy at AT&T and Link Hoewing, Ass’t VP of Internet and Technology Issues at Verizon. The topic: Net neutrality.

I am seriously outgunned here. My role in the Net neutrality debate is to prepare cooling beverages for the team and to put the dirty uniforms into the clothing hamper afterwards. MassNetComm got my name by doing a whole bunch of blind fishing, until they found someone in town and willing to have his ass handed to him.

You may wonder why MassNetComm waited until the day before to try to scare up a Net neutrality supporter. Me, too.

Anyway, I plan on saying:

1. Non-neutral networks aren’t the Internet and they ought not be allowed to sell themselves to customers as providing Internet access. But this is a weak argument because it doesn’t say that there’s anything wrong with non-neutral networks. (Weak argument but a good consumer protection policy.)

2. Providing more bandwidth quickly is a better solution than discriminating among packets. (Yeah, but until then?)

3. I personally don’t much care about the sorts of balancing carriers do to prevent network congestion. Maybe I should, but I don’t. My two real fears are: (a) By optimizing the net for one type of packet—say, video—the carriers make a decision that deoptimizes it for others. That’s not a judgment I trust the carriers to make for me and you, both because their values may not be ours and because they may be swayed by money (no!). (b) The carriers will be unable to resist optimizing not just for particular types of media but for particular content providers, so Verizon’s house brand of VOIP works better than a third party’s, and Warner movies are a better viewing experience than our YouTubes are.

4. By declaring Net neutrality dead, we have allowed commercial interests to change the architecture of the Internet. That’s a bad way to proceed.

5. By charging companies for higher quality delivery, carriers upset the playing field that has allowed startups to innovate. Bad for startups, bad for the economy, bad for innovation. Good for the Big Boys.

I expect not one of these points to stand up to the big boys on the panel. I do indeed expect to be carrying my ass home in a bag. [Tags: net_neutrality ]

The organizers inform me that the meeting is open to anyone who wants to pay $125 ($95 if you’re a member), which includes breakfast. It’s at the Westin Waltham. Registration opens at 7:30am.

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