December 2010

The Most Important Free Speech Issue of Our Time

[Commentary] Dec 21 is an important day in the fight to save the Internet. As a source of innovation, an engine of our economy, and a forum for our political discourse, the Internet can only work if it's a truly level playing field. Small businesses should have the same ability to reach customers as powerful corporations. A blogger should have the same ability to find an audience as a media conglomerate.

This principle is called "net neutrality" -- and it's under attack. Internet service giants like Comcast and Verizon want to offer premium and privileged access to the Internet for corporations who can afford to pay for it. The good news is that the Federal Communications Commission has the power to issue regulations that protect net neutrality. The bad news is that draft regulations written by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski don't do that at all. They're worse than nothing. That's why Tuesday is such an important day. The FCC will be meeting to discuss those regulations, and we must make sure that its members understand that allowing corporations to control the Internet is simply unacceptable. Although Chairman Genachowski's draft Order has not been made public, early reports make clear that it falls far short of protecting net neutrality.

All We Want For Christmas Is Internet Equality

[Commentary] On Dec 21, just days before Christmas, the Federal Communications Commission will vote on whether Internet service providers can block or degrade access to online content and applications.

Press reports and comments from FCC officials have shed some light on what these rules are to contain. Based on what we know from these accounts, I am troubled that what the FCC Chairman has lined up will fall short when it comes to protecting the online experience of people of color and the poor. I find it particularly alarming that while the proposed rules impose a number of basic guidelines for the Internet that we access on our computers, those same basic protections would not apply to our cellular phones, a major Internet onramp for poor Americans and people of color. The FCC has just a few days to decide an issue that could dramatically affect all of us in the near future. Whatever rules were proposed weeks ago can still be strengthened to avoid wireless inequality.

In fact, Commissioners Copps and Clyburn, two stalwart champions of the people, have expressed a desire to strengthen rules for the mobile web. We continue to hope that their courage will rub off on the Chairman and that, on Tuesday, the FCC will vote for strong open Internet protections that apply equally to the mobile web. That is my Christmas wish.

[Nogales is CEO of the National Hispanic Media Coalition]

Internet Access Should Be Application-Agnostic

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission can balance the interests of web services innovators and consumers with those of telephone and cable companies without changing the substance of the proposed network neutrality rule simply by defining application-specific discrimination as unreasonable.

Barbara van Schewick, a professor at the Stanford Law School, says the correct approach is, "A non-discrimination rule that would ban all application-specific discrimination (i.e. discrimination based on applications or classes of applications), but would allow application-agnostic discrimination." The brilliance of this approach is that it offers cable and telephone companies great flexibility to package and price their services and to manage their networks without harming investment and innovation in web services. If a user wants more packets or less latency, an access provider should be able to sell that to them. But for that access service to meet the test of being application-agnostic, the choice of when to use these services and for which applications must be left to the user. Similarly, if a user consumes a disproportionate share of packets at certain times of day, a network provider should be able to temporarily reduce that user's throughput to avoid degrading the experience of others. These actions would not threaten a free and open Internet because they are targeted at a consumer's use of network capacity, not a specific application. On the other hand, if access providers throttled only the bandwidth available to BitTorrent to deal with congestion, that would clearly be application-specific discrimination. Blocking or throttling video would be discrimination against a class of applications.

This approach works equally well for wireless. If an older wireless network does not have the capacity to handle lots of packets at peak times, it can reasonably limit the number of packets available to users. When congestion is eased it can open up the pipe again. This is reasonable network management that does not distort the competitive market for web services. Blocking or discriminating against a specific web service like Skype or against a whole class of web services like streaming video would be prohibited under this framework. If it is not possible to solve all network management problems on older wireless networks in an application-agnostic way, there could be an exception; but the presumption should be that network management would be as application-agnostic as possible.

[Burnham is a technology entrepreneur]

Vote On Network Neutrality May Alter The Way We Listen Online

A look at how the Federal Communications Commission's network neutrality rules could impact online music.

Casey Rae Hunter of the Future of Music Coalition, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, says there has been an explosion of independent musicians who can now reach their fans without a label or radio. "In the old days, they would still have to navigate this pretty complex system of bottlenecks and gatekeepers to reach the fan," Hunter says. "The Internet means that you can develop and cultivate these sort of one-on-one relationships." But Hunter says this freewheeling environment is threatened, and that many Internet service providers, or ISPs — such as Comcast, Verizon and AT&T — would like to have more control over the Internet service they provide to homes.

George Ou, of the free-market-leaning think tank Digital Society, on the other hand, says the wealthier companies like Netflix, Google's YouTube and Apple's iTunes already pay more to get faster service from the ISPs. "The Internet right now has multiple tiers," Ou says. "It's based on fee-based performance where, if you pay more, you get more." Ou says that if the FCC steps in with network neutrality rules, as some public interest groups want, it would harm today's Internet. "They're saying that we want to preserve the Internet, but in fact, what they're going to do is change the Internet such that services like YouTube and Netflix won't work."

Consumers Union Submit Petitions Opposing NBC-Comcast Deal

Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, sent petitions to the Federal Communications Commission signed by more than 55,000 people opposing the proposed joint venture by NBC Universal and Comcast. The group claims the deal would give Comcast incentives to monopolize NBC content.

Social media presence tests agency records management

The federal government's ever-growing social media presence is presenting new challenges for agencies, such as a lack of standards for records management. Those challenges cannot be met at the agency level alone, according to a new report, so it is time for the federal government to lead a move toward uniformity.

"New media brings with it new challenges -- especially for records managers struggling to apply existing records management laws and regulations . . . in a social media world," author Patricia C. Franks, associate professor in the School of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University in California, said in the report. "These new challenges cannot be met at the agency level alone. It is time for the federal government to dramatically transform records management."

Congress seeks government funding through March 4

The Senate will try to pass a bill this week keeping the government operating through March 4, when the next Congress would have to work out spending priorities for the rest of the fiscal year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said.

A Senate vote to pass the temporary funding bill is likely on Dec 21, Sen Reid said, when existing funds to operate the government expire. The House of Representatives would then have to sign off on the measure and send it to President Barack Obama for his expected approval. Under the bill, most federal government programs would be funded at last year's levels through March 4. The new Congress will be seated on January 5, with Republicans taking over control of the House. If this latest spending bill is enacted, Republicans will have a much greater say in spending priorities as they write legislation to fund the government from March 4 until October 1.

Afghan War Just a Slice of US Coverage

The grueling war in Afghanistan, where a day rarely goes by without an allied casualty, is like a faint heartbeat, accounting for just 4 percent of the nation’s news coverage in major outlets through early December, according to a study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, an arm of the Pew Research Center. That is down slightly from last year, when the war accounted for 5 percent. The low levels of coverage reflect the limitations on news-gathering budgets and, some say, low levels of interest in the war among the public. About a quarter of Americans follow news about Afghanistan closely, according to recent surveys by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

Blumenthal to set aggressive pace for health data exchange

Dr. David Blumenthal, the national health IT coordinator, expects to aggressively pick up the pace on health information exchange following the recent call from the White House for a common language and format for exchanging data between electronic health records systems.

To that end, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT will create an advisory panel to see how to implement some of the ideas laid out in the White House report. The work group, comprised of members of ONC’s Health IT Policy and Standards Committees and other privacy and security experts, will make recommendations to both committees by April. The report, published Dec. 8 by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), directed ONC and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to develop the technical definitions and descriptions for the standard language and include them in requirements for meaningful use of electronic health records in 2013 and 2015. The administration is absolutely committed to achieving interoperability, and it’s “not a minor issue” for them, Blumenthal said at a standards committee meeting Dec. 17.

Put people first in Comcast-NBC merger

[Commentary] There is a lot of debate about the “message” sent by voters to Washington in the last election. While everyone has their personal opinions, one message that stood out was “put people first.” Americans of all party affiliations are sick of special interests driving our national agenda. Fortunately, our government has a unique chance to demonstrate that it gets the message.

Comcast, the nation’s largest cable company, is trying to buy NBC-Universal to create the most powerful media company in American history. Before this dangerous deal can be completed, federal regulators have a chance to stand up for the people. They should take the opportunity to do so. The 2010 election cycle showed how corporations are able to exploit that loophole to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into election advertising. Comcast’s lobbying and contribution spree is part and parcel of this same phenomenon of corporations seeking to bend government to their will. And it is that corporate and special interest power that the American people are rebelling against.

The Comcast-NBCU merger is a raw deal, and consumers know it. It puts too much power in the hands of one company. It is bad for our wallets, our TV dial, our Internet and our country. The people are asking policymakers to put the public interest first. Saying no to the Comcast merger, as proposed, would send a powerful message that Washington finally is hearing us. And in doing so, help protect the kind of competitive, diverse media that our democracy requires.

[Dill (D-Cape Elizabeth) represents District 121 in the Maine House of Representatives and is the Digital Democracy project director for Common Cause.]

Benton

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