Category: net neutrality / free the internet!
-
Telco Scare Mongering: High-Bandwidth Video Will Clog the Pipes
A story about the looming threat of high-bandwidth video on the internet, authored by AP technology writer Peter Svensson, has been making the rounds of the blogosphere today. In it, a Verizon lobbyist claims that “The plain truth is that today’s access and backbone networks simply do not have the capacity to deliver all that…
-
A Thin Facade of Democracy that Fred Upton Doesn’t Even Try To Believe
Aw, come on, you didn’t think that debates in committee and on the House and Senate floor really amounted to anything, did you? Rep. Fred Upton, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee sure as hell does, and was remarkably candid about that fact last week, as reported by the Cox News Service: The…
-
An Hour on Net Neutrality with McChesney and Co.
Yesterday’s edition of Prof. Bob McChesney’s weekly radio program was dedicated to net neutrality, with guests Tim Karr of Free Press and Adam Green, of MoveOn.org, which I think only recently joined the campaign. It’s a packed hour and worth listening to, especially since guys like Karr have been pretty much living and breathing net…
-
Little Telcos’ Merger Challenge Adds New Wrinkle to Net Neutrality Fight
Last year the dual mergers of AT&T with SBC and Verizon with MCI passed the justice department with nary a speedbump and only the most minimal of conditions. Those mergers also gave reason to kick off the campaign for network neutrality, because it was the newly engorged and emboldened AT&T and Verizon which started making…
-
The Internet as We Know It Is an Accident, but the Design Isn’t. For the Telcos, It’s Just an Excuse.
Earlier this week Tim Berners-Lee, the architecht of the world-wide web, posted a short essay on network neutrality. Like other wise commentators such as Vint Cerf and Larry Lessig, Berners-Lee argues that without net neutrality being law the US’s dominant telephone companies will inhibit the future introduction of innovative internet technologies all in service of…
-
Want To Know What the Telcos Are Really Up To? Ask the Guys on the Line.
Craig Newmark, of Craigslist fame, was in on today’s SaveTheInternet conference call, too, though he kept his few comments pretty short. But he brought one very interesting insight to the table, addressing one of the telco lobby’s loudest arguments against network neutrality: the likes of AT&T and Verizon haven’t discriminated against any internet content yet,…
-
A Right-Wing Perspective on Saving the Internet as We Know It
I just finished listening in to a national conference call put on by the SaveTheInternet campaign. The call was advertised to reporters as a meeting of “strange bedfellows,” because in addition to usual suspects from Public Knowledge and Consumer Federation of America there was the inclusion of Craig Fields from Gun Owner’s of America. Fields…
-
Pushing Net Neutrality: Coalition to Save the Internet
If one thing has become clear with this year’s session in Congress, it’s that some serious organizing has to happen if our congresscritters are going to be pressured into keeping the internet free of speedbumps and corporate-imposed taxes. Legislators might get the issues, but they need to be convinced that their constituents care about them.…
-
Net Neutrality All The Rage this Week
They haven’t killed net neutrality yet, but I think House Republicans are pulling out their hatchets. Public Knowledge’s Policy Blog takes note of several events in Congress this week where net neutrality is at the forefront. It all starts Tuesday at 5 Pm when the House Energy and Commerce Committee‘s Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee starts…
-
Network Newspeak
As I predicted yesterday, the telecomm industry showed up at today’s Senate Commerce Committee meeting and found a way to advocate for THEIR version of network neutrality–the one that lets them filter what customers get over the internet-which isn’t really all that neutral. Say hello to network diversity, and what Congresscritter wants to be accused…