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The Internet Your Rights Online

Cable Control of Broadband Bad for the Net 22

Posted by michael from the quelle-surprise dept.
imsmith writes "The ACLU announced the conclusions of a study done to determine the impact of the cable industry (as a broadband service provider) on the Internet. The announcement is here, and so is the study. No surprise, they conclude cable monopolies are bad for online freedom, consumer choice, and the Internet in general."
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Cable Control of Broadband Bad for the Net More

Cable Control of Broadband Bad for the Net

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  • Between Liberty and Pragmatism.
  • I still have nightmares about Time Warner calling to schedule my mandatory AOL install.
  • Ok, maybe off topic - I don't know. I didn't read the article, because it's too long and I need to go to bed, but...

    Is there not economic problems with opening the market to large numbers of broadband providers. Opening up the market may bring new providers in the short run, but will they be able to compete? I think it would be especially difficult in both the cable and DSL markets where the infrastructure is already in place.
    Then there is wireless - when, or if, wireless broadband becomes competitive, it should open the market up.

    zzzzzzzz
    • Wireless itself is not an answer.

      Look, it doesn't matter whether the bits travel over the air or inside of wire, the problems is the same; the bits will be traveling over somebody else's air or wire. That somebody must either use their position as the carrier to control the communications to their own favor, or they will be economically run out of the market by some other somebody who does (and does it better). Your ability to 'win' this game (as a consumer) has nowhere to go but down.

      There are at least three solutions to this problem:

      Cultural Layer: Everyone agrees to cultural norms which say it's not fair to take advantage of your position to economically better yourself. People who violate these cultural standards are shunned out of the society.

      Financial Layer: This would involve something like per-packet charging. Under this system, it doesn't matter what your packet is carrying, as long as you pay your bills.

      Political Layer: Under this system, it becomes illegal to discriminate against a packet, passing one while blocking another. Think of this as "free speech for packets".

      In the early days of the Internet, (prior to August '93) things were kept under control by cultural norms. Spamming violated these norms, and was kept under control because of it. We no longer have those cultural norms to keep people in line. It was killed by the spammers and their kin.

      We don't yet have the micro-payment infrastructure which would be required to make a financial layer solution work. We're trying to cobble something like this together to keep the World Wide Web alive with things like click-through ads, but it's not working very well.

      But throughout all of this, the phone system (remember that?) has kept on chugging because the network providers are prevented (by the equal access/common carrier laws) from blocking, limiting, or degrading the voice channels (narrow band). These laws are the foundation of a political layer solution which now offers the only hope of survival for the Internet as we know it.

      If the FCC continues on it's brain-dead course of allowing network providers to choose which packets they'll pass and which ones they won't, the Internet will continue to implode. Those who stick around will find themselves back on CompuServe in the Bad Old Days.

      Even after the Internet is run into the ground, FidoNet will survive.

      If you support Free Speech, you'll want a Political Layer solution, or a Financial Layer solution.

      If you don't trust Governments, you'll want a Financial Layer solution or a Cultural Layer solution.

      If you don't trust haxors, you'll want to avoid Cultural Layer solutions and Political Layer solutions.

      If you want a free (beer) Internet, you'll want a Cultural Layer solution or a Political Layer solution.

      If you're a spammer, clearly you want a Political Layer solution, but you'll settle for a Cultural Layer solution as long as the rest of the people on the Internet will continue to let you get away with murder.

      If you're anti-spam, you're either begging for a Financial Layer solution, or you're going to have to take some responsibility for shunning spammers (and their like) who view the Internet as a place where they can ignore social norms and enrich themselves.

      It begs the old Nortel question, "What do you want the Internet to be?"

    • Your statement regarding the infrastructure already existing for the current cable and DSL providers points at one of the real problems -- telcos and cable cos are the only ones able to *easily* offer broadband because they own a monopoly on the right-of-way of lines in most regions in the US.

      This is one of the reasons for the New York appeals court opening up the option of bringing antitrust lawsuits against the baby bells [slashdot.org] (in particular Verizon aka BellAtlantic) for having an anticompetitive advantage over other broadband providers.

      I would most definitely have an unfair and consumer-harmful monopoly over the trucking/shipping industry if I owned all the roads (and the right-of-way to use said roads) in any significant region of the US.

  • I been saying that for years. Nice to see someone else taking up the fight. However it's just a matter of time before AOL and M$N start shouldering in and this may give them some tiny bit of inscentive.
  • I'll admit, I had apprehensions when I first moved to central Florida (graduated, new job) and got the cable Internet through Road Runner installed. But so far, everything seems to be exceeding my expectations. My upload cap is something like 350kbps (about 45kBps) which is higher than I expected. They aren't blocking any ports (that I can tell, I block most ports on my own for security, but ssh and SMTP are still open) and the installer didn't really seem to care that I had two computers sitting out, one of which is a NAT (though if one of them wasn't Windows, I'm not sure what he would have done with his fancy activation CD).

    But most interestingly, I've been seeing (endless) commercials about getting broadband with the choice of Road Runner, AOL, or Earthlink. I haven't investigated this further, since RR is working well for me (why break a working thing?), but this may be a first step to offering more of a choice to cable subscribers. In any case, even limited competition will help keep abusive policies down (assuming they don't collude) which is a good thing for me, the person who writes the check every month.

    Maybe it's different in different parts of the country, but I can tell that both my experiences here in Florida and my parents' experiences with AT&T in northern Illinois have been positive. Maybe we've just been lucky, or have been blessed with a smart business person that realizes that keeping the customers happy is better for business than being abusive to them in a foolish attempt to recuce cost. But I'm betting on luck :)
    • The choice between AOL and RoadRunner is a farce. THey are the same company.
      • If you choose AOL, you are given a local-network style IP address.

        I don't know what the term is offhand (Class C? Crap I dunno.. I'm a hardware tech).

        But this address cannot be routed through a typical Linksys-type home branded router. This isn't the case if you ask them for RR instead of AOL Broadband.
    • I also live in Central Florida and have had Road Runner since it was first available. The first couple of months were rough while they were sorting things out but have been great since. I have four computers at home networked and the two times I've had a tech to the house to fix some wiring problems they said no problems with multiple computers. Linux is dirt easy to set up to use it and whenever I mention Linux they take it stride. When someone brings a computer to my house to work on it only takes a couple of minutes for me to get it online to download drivers or whatever I need.

      Road Runner has been really good and I couldn't imagine being without it. Speed is good, service is good, and they are Linux friendly. Works for me.

  • I made this comment [slashdot.org] just today, the cable companies have a plan that I think could effectively drown out all individual owned 802.11 equipment.

    According to this [slashdot.org] article published just today, the cable companies are investing in set top boxes with 802.11 built in. Their ability to mass
    produce and distribute these machines is probably more than I could imagine. What I forsee is the equivelent of 802.11 spam from a private corporation that could ruin the fair and public use of the 2.4ghz spectrum.

    Quote from the article
    Many people don't realize that if current policies continue, a handful of big monopolies will gain power over information flowing through the Internet,

    I think the ACLU should go investigate this because it is an infringement on my rights to use public spectrum. Public spectrum is like public land, I don't want to see it littered with pay per view movies, or QVC. I
    don't wan't some corporation to run a big freeway through it, or pass through it all the time.

    Cable companies already have broadband wires stretched everywhere and even before the article was written they had the monopoly on that. (A monopoly that grew because it went unchecked in it's early stage) It's a huge
    multiheaded monster now that has it's hands in the pockets of politicians and legislators everywhere.

    Well, that's enough ranting for now. I think the ACLU should nip the 802.11 boxes in the bud before it's too late.

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