Entries from Earthling - EarthLink blog tagged with 'net neutrality'
Blocking Can Be Spun As Good Or Bad
In a blog entry about Net Neutrality, I alluded to the concern that ISP's would specifically block competitors services in order to muscle their customers into using theirs. There's a conversation on Techmeme today about a press release from a European company that has developed a new technology for blocking Skype calls:
What's A Broadband Duopoly?
So that's what duopoly means -- it's two suppliers of comparable services controlling choice by keeping their prices in step with each other. When EarthLink CEO Garry Betty said at the launch of the Anaheim network that he believes municipal Wi-Fi will provide competition to the broadband incumbents, that's what he meant. Even though 1 megabit service is slower than cable speeds, it's plenty fast enough to be considered "broadband" and at $22 a month it provides a cheaper way to sidestep the cable/DSL duopoly.
A Few Updates
- New Orleans Wi-Fi network - Grayson Daughters wrote about the current situation today in Georgia Political Digest. She reached city CIO Greg Mefferts via e-mail, who reiterated his pledge to keep the city Wi-Fi network up no matter what the consequences.
- San Francisco Wi-Fi network - There was some discussion in the blogosphere this week about privacy concerns with the new network and fear of theft at current San Francisco Wi-Fi hotspots. The link is to a map of the whole discussion on Tech.memeorandum.com.
- Net neutrality legislation - Since last we left off on Net Neutrality, a House of Representatives subcommittee voted down a bill described as similar to the Wyden bill against prioritizing packet traffic. Russell Shaw of ZDNet has suggested that we should all think about this issues and where the candidates stand as the next election draws near.
- A challenge to the DRM battery drain study - Last month I wrote about a study claiming that Digital Rights Management software shortens the battery life of portable devices. Gizmodo linked to an article today refuting the claim with a counter-experiment. One commenter refers to the original study as "just bad science". Judge for yourself here.
Preserving Net Neutrality After ATT/Bellsouth
The potential problem for consumers isn't the huge market share in and of itself; after all, that's what many companies eventually want in their respective industry and they shouldn't be denigrated just for finding a way to create a large customer base. I'm not an industry analyst, but let's say good for them on that. 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 BellSouth/AT&T 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 a huge market share, their ability to reduce choice is just amplified all the more.
What Does Unlimited Mean?
The concept of Net Neutrality usually refers to keeping your fixed internet connection (your pipe at home or at work) free from artificial restrictions and added charges based on what sites and services you want to use. It's now cropping up in the world of cell phone internet service plans. Yesterday
Are There Content Surcharges In Our Future?
Thanks to Earthling reader John Foltz for pointing out a Marketwatch(registration required) article that suggests BellSouth may start charging content providers surcharges for moving their files over BellSouth's network. The article quotes BellSouth CTO Bill Smith as saying selling access to content is "the shipping business of the digital age."
Issues to Follow In 2006: Net Neutrality
That all could change quickly. It's an issue worth looking out for in the coming year. The term "network neutrality" refers to the idea that your ticket to the internet should remain an open pathway through which you should be able to send and receive any type of data you choose.
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