Posted on March 15, 2006 at 10:05 AM in @earthlink
Since I first started to cover the issue of Net Neutrality in December, I've seen the issue cross over from something that only broadband industry professionals worried about to something that my parents and their friends ask me about. It's everywhere all of the sudden, even on regular nightly news shows like NBC News. Back in December it looked like something to keep an eye on. With recent events like the BellSouth/AT&T merger, it's crossed over into the realm of something that anyone who uses the internet at home should probably think about.
I generally don't peruse telecommunications market share studies for kicks (some might argue that I should), but there was one released this week that's worth looking at. Om Malik summarized some of the findings of a TNS study as follows:
After the deal is closed, three of the nation’s top telecom providers - AT&T, Verizon and Comcast - will control 49% of the total consumer market and in the business market AT&T and Verizon will represent 55% of spending.
The potential problem for consumers isn't the huge market share of these companies in and of itself; after all, that's what many companies eventually want in their respective industry. They shouldn't be denigrated just for finding a way to create a large customer base. And in the business of selling access and internet services, there are certainly ways a huge company can operate so as to provide choices for the consumer and still make lots of money.
No, the risk for consumers is that with three main providers (or fewer, in parts of the country where one is unavailable) for internet access, they might be tempted to change the face of the product they are selling by infringing on the current neutrality of the internet. And with such huge market share in the hands of so few companies, their ability to reduce true choice is just amplified all the more.
Let's remember some of the recent crazy talk about new and different ways to charge customers and businesses extra fees for internet access. Back in December, I also alluded to the fear that the internet service providers would mess with the quality of service of competing voice products, to make their own voice product appear more attractive or block access to competitors. There's no proof that this is happening, but there was some speculation last week about Comcast messing with customers' Vonage VoIP home voice service. Eek.
The Boston Herald doesn't get it. In a recent staff editorial, someone writes:
It just makes economic sense to charge according to demand and performance. At Disney World, you can pay extra to go to the head of the line. Some fancy restaurants charge more at dinner than at lunch. Resort hotels charge more in peak season. Gasoline costs more at 93 octane than at 87.
Those are terrible analogies to how the internet works. They ought to pick the best one, and concentrate on explaining it better and making the parallel clear. Unlike food and travel, data is all the same to a service provider, and once you buy your home access you've already paid for the "whole internet". The gas analogy is even worse. Although there are quality of service concerns, there is no "better" or 'worse" data packet. There are better or worse services, and that's precisely the point. You should get to make your choice for services based on who offers the best voice service, or who has the best features for you. Buying access to the internet should be just that. That way, you're free to pick the best access provider for your needs, and then pick the best services to run based on their own merits. None of these analogies help at all, and in fact they cloud the issue.
I've linked to Doc Searls' plea to preserve neutrality before, but it's worth looking at again. He writes:
Yet clearly the Net is not a form of carriage, even though it might appear that way to the carriers and the copyright extremists. The Net has an existence that encompasses carriage and content but is not reducible to either — just as human beings have an existence that encompasses the circulatory system and its constituents but is not reducible to either....When we subordinate Net neutrality to the systems that sustain it, we reduce it to those systems. The Net becomes a cable system, a phone system, a content delivery system. And nothing more. In human terms, this is called brain death.
By framing the Net as a neutral place, we assure that it will continue to serve as what it has already been for more than ten years : a public marketplace where private enterprise of all forms can not only grow and thrive, but can do both better than it ever has anywhere, ever, before.
Here are some of the aspects of Net Neutrality that I think need to be protected:
- Choice. Picking one internet service provider shouldn't limit your choices for the other services you want to use. Offering bundled services from the same company is fine, but there should also always be choices where you can buy only what you want and from who you want.
- Reliability. No company should be allowed to sabotage or mess with competing products deliberately. The internet should be a level playing field where the best products and services win on their own merits. Who you choose for access shouldn't make you a target.
- Affordability and transparency. The fees you pay for internet access as a customer of a service provider should be clear and easy to understand.
- Innovation. The separation of services from access is what has allowed so many great and competing services. If the access companies make it harder for small, new services to develop independent of them, innovation on the internet will slow.
One way to keep Net Neutrality protected would be through an act of Congress. There are bills now like Senator Wyden's Internet Non-Discrimination Act of 2006 that could help. It's also possible that as part of the terms of the AT&T/BellSouth merger, the principles of Net Neutrality could be spelled out and defined. Either way, it seems like things are coming to a point where neutrality will go away unless it's specifically preserved.
Comments
This came up in the main sessions at MuniWireless. A couple of speakers theorized that telcos could slow down competitors' traffic through their pipes, eventually making competing service so bad that the customers leave or the company sells out to the telco. Some people thought it wouldn't just be for voice -- that a telco also offering DSL service might bottleneck ISPs' overall DSL traffic until customers get fed up.
Of course, the moral of one of those presentations was "Move to Amsterdam, where the streets are paved with gold impregnated with super-high-speed broadband connections."
Posted by: Tracy | March 15, 2006 02:52 PM
As this is an EarthLink blog and EarthLink maintains a lobbying presence in Washington, I wonder if you could share any strategies that EarthLink has to push for Net Neutrality. It's one thing to say "Customers will peel away from ISPs who bottleneck content", but anyone who's suffered through the occasional Windows crash understands that consumers are not entirely rational and that markets don't work entirely the way Adam Smith envisioned.
Has EarthLink taken a stand on Net Neutrality, or is it officially sitting and waiting to see what the big kids do?
Posted by: Stacie | March 16, 2006 10:08 AM
Stacie: We're doing what we can to keep the net neutral, and we have taken a stand in that respect. I wanted to get some specifics for you so I brought your comment to the attention of Chris Putala, EarthLink's Executive Vice President of Public Policy. Here's what he had to say:
"EarthLink has and is advocating an aggressively pro-consumer, pro-freedom
Net Neutrality position in Washington, DC. We are talking to members of
Congress and the Executive Branch to convince them of the importance of
strong Net Neutrality protections.
But, as long and hard as EarthLink and others can fight for Net Neutrality
in Washington, it is really important that members of Congress hear from
people, like yourself, who are not from Washington, DC. The only lasting
strategy against the deep pocketed lobbyists who work for the phone and
cable companies is for people to express their concern to their member of
Congress. A single call, letter or email from an actual voter can outweigh
10 or 20 calls from Washington lobbyists!"
As an update to this post, I'm going to add a tool for locating and contacting the congressman who represents you. I'm not much of a consumer activist in general, but I'm definitely good for an e-mail to D.C. on this issue.
Posted by: earthling | March 16, 2006 05:08 PM