Susan Crawford comments on the Comcast FCC hearings, urging that we not view this simply as a matter of keeping net management neutral. Rather, she says, we should recognize that the Internet is not a medium but purely a transport system. The implication is that those who sell access to the Internet should not also be selling content and services over the Internet. (Delamination now!)

This is the crux of the matter. We’ve handed the implementation of our Internet over to companies that view themselves as providers of programming (in the TV, not the software, sense). That’s why they almost all think that giving you a fifth or a tenth of your download capacity for uploading makes obvious sense.

We could get a favorable (from my POV) ruling on Net neutrality from the FCC and still leave our Internet in the hands of those who are structured to treat it as a medium for passive viewers of high-def programming.

[Tags: susan_crawford net_neutrality comcast fcc ]

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The Boston Globe has a pretty good editorial about the Comcast affair. My main concern with it is that it assumes this country’s failure to deliver a satisfactory Internet infrastructure shows that that infrastructure can’t come from a competitive market … as if the current situation is a competitive market. In my view, we need a mix of government steps to open the market (by rquiring access providers to act as wholesalers, for example), probably some direct government intervention (e.g., subsidies of some sort to reach areas quickly that the market won’t), and (I wish) government-enforced de-laminating of the industry. Something like that. But I have more faith in the power and efficiency of truly open markets than the Globe seems to have.

PS: I still wish we’d embrace the Open Spectrum idea. Lots of problems would be rapidly solved if and when it becomes practical technically and politically.

Categories: Uncategorized dw