Maryland’s Net Neutrality Bill

Feb 15 2007 Published by under Bloggers, Congress, Government, Legislation, Net Neutrality, The Internet

Matt Stoller over at MyDD has a post about a new Net Neutrality bill that was introduced in Maryland.

Owning state legislatures has been a secret strategy for corporate elites for years, and our focus on a Federal level and the courts has crippled us in understanding what is really possible when progressives step up on a state level. But that’s where change really happens.

The trouble with this is it ignores two simple facts – 1) Democrats – of which Matt is one – have traditionally believed in a strong central government with weaker subservient state governments and 2) Republicans (and by extension businesses) have usually operated at the state level on issues that make sense to legislate locally.

This becomes important when you start to talk about issues like Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality is like interstate commerce. If you legislate interstate commerce, you have to do it at the federal level. That was one of the lessons the US earned early on. Before there was a New Deal, and before there was a Great Society, there was the Interstate Commerce Commission and recognition that goods traveling between states needed something better than state level oversight.

Net Neutrality is an interstate issue. Introducing net neutrality legislation at the state level is a terrible idea that ignores the fact most issues regulated at the state level are regulated there because it doesn’t fundamentally matter whether there is a patchwork of laws governing them.

For instance, violent crime can be regulated at the state level because it doesn’t matter if there is a difference in sentencing from one state to another. If an armed robber gets a mandatory sentence of eight years in one state and ten years in another, that’s not going to change the way the world works.

Introducing Net Neutrality legislation on a state-by-state basis, on the other hand, would be catastrophic if he laws were upheld in the courts (which is unlikely), but more likely will serve only to clog the courts and force a Washington solution.

Since the basis of the Internet is a series of interconnected networks that move data around the country or around the world in a millisecond, having to build networks capable of keeping track of the various legal requirements would be the worst government idea since the tax code.

I don’t believe Matt has had a political awakening and has become such a radical Republican that he feels there is no place for the federal government in anything. I suspect his advancement of state level NN regs is intended to junk up the works. If every state had a different law for regulating Net Neutrality, the federal government would be forced into the equation and would have to regulate the Internet.

That’s what happened with Interstate Commerce to force the creation of the ICC. States had passed myriad laws that the Supreme Court struck down and Congress was forced to act.

I suspect the proponents of NN are pushing laws around the country to force federal action – that and to obfuscate the real issue. The real issue is Net Neutrality is a solution in search of a problem, since no example of the illicit deeds alleged by content providers has actually occurred.

(Disclaimer: While I work for the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, this post should in no way be construed as an official position of the Association. Thoughts in this space are mine and mine alone and do not reflect the views of my employer.)

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Matt Stoller and MyDD

Aug 01 2006 Published by under Bloggers, Politics, Republicans

PoliticsJust after I started this blog, I got into a tussle with Matt Stoller over his rather bizarre use of something I said at RedState. I said at the time that legal restrictions and a media double standard prohibit the party from creating an ACTBlue-style finance operation. I pointed out that a federal PAC would be required to make it work effectively. He took that to mean that Republicans are racist. Don’t ask me how he got there and don’t ask me to dredge that up again. I mention it merely as prologue.

Today, he’s engaged in what he does best. Stoller has taken some small pieces of information and is trying to extrapolate a worldview. While linking to a post I made less than 30 days ago – a post that explains in great detail the reason we created ABCPAC, our intentions for it, and the path forward – he argues that we have not succeeded in creating an ActBlue of our own because we did exactly what we said we were going to do.

Anyone who looks at ActBlue as it stands today (having raised north of 5 million dollars) and what they have built given those resources, and compares it to what ABCPAC has done in the last 24 days and wonders why we have not overtaken the Democrats just doesn’t have a clue. That seems to be the case with Matt.

I met Matt recently, and he seems to be a good guy in spite of his spastic liberalism. Since the only way to fix the uninformed is to educate them, let me take some space here to help Matt out.

First, ABCPAC never expected to be the equivalent of ActBlue on day one. We do, however, expect to provide a full roster of GOP candidates for federal office, tools for bloggers to create their own list, endorse other’s lists, and see what they have raised in dollars as well as the number of people who gave.

Second, this is not a “top-down” operation. The directors of the PAC have spent a lot of time working for the Party and the bloggers involved with Rightroots have day jobs and/or contribute to other sites. If John Hawkins being a contributor to Human Events makes this “Conservative movement machinery” then my current job must mean we’re all cable guys, right?

Third, Townhall was born of the Heritage Foundation, but anyone who pays even passing attention to online politics should have heard by now that Heritage spun it off a year ago and it was acquired by Salem Communications earlier this year. It is now a wholly owned piece of Salem.

Finally, as political and Internet professionals, we launched this PAC because we recognize the value of a central location for donors to find GOP candidates and help them out. It’s not exactly a mystery that the general population is moving away from old media. That will result in a shift toward online giving rather than through direct mail and telemarketing. While those still play a huge role in the GOP finance efforts, this PAC is laying the groundwork for the future.

I hope Matt will take a moment to read this, and to understand that which he failed to grasp from my post three weeks ago.

Update and Apologies: It seems I owe Matt an apology. The link I followed to get to the MyDD post indicated it was a Stoller comment, and I didn’t check the byline. Matt was very kind in pointing out the mistake. I am now going to do something my wife swears I never do… admit I was wrong. Sorry, Matt.

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Verizon Conference Call On Net Neutrality

May 08 2006 Published by under Bloggers, Net Neutrality, The Internet

Net NeutralityBloggers have been doing a good job beating the hell out of the telcos and cable companies on net neutrality, so it was about time for opponents of net neutrality to try and persuade them regarding the error of their ways. To that end, they held a conference call on the topic this afternoon. Honestly, I was surprised that they would do this, given that the telcos really launched this debate through their offhand comments about “their networks”. But they wanted to take it on, so I wanted to listen in.

Link Hoewing, VP for Internet Technology Policy and Business Support Planning at Verizon, led the discussion. John Czwartacki, who I think was a former Bush appointee and former Lott press secretary, introduced Link and jumped into the debate.

They first took the opportunity to point out their business model has changed and they’re focusing on competing with cable, wi-fi, etc. Including news that they’re moving from 15mbps at $49.95 to 20mbps at the same price. It took them far too long to get to the issue of net neutrality. I thought I had jumped on a sales call at first (I may be biased because I didn’t want to listen to their repetitive consumer choice drivel). Of course, they did say the call was meant as a Net Neutrality 101 primer so a background on their business plans may have been useful for some.

They stated support for the FCC principles relating to net neutrality and raised the issue of Madison River (which the FCC quickly dealt with). Beyond that, they were pretty ineffective at making the case that they’re on the right side, unfortunately. Czwartacki seemed somewhat disconnected. He seemed to be rambling at some points. He seemed uncomfortable with the forum. Link was more effective.

Addressing the arguments, they did a mediocre job. With the claim that the little guy won’t be able to afford to pay ISPs for access, they fell back on the Mark Cuban telemedicine example. They did take on the “packet is a packet” approach and challenged the ridiculousness of that legislation.

Regarding the ‘they’ll slow down/block Google’ argument, they answered that they already have competing applications, and are not limiting the connection to their competitors. They argue that impeding traffic where they have a network would lead their competition to impede traffic where they don’t. That would effectively create skirmishes across the country.

A caller argued that there is evidence this happens, and cited the Telus case in Canada. Of course, the Canadians are not subject to the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. But that argument, for some reason, is lost on the proponents of Net Neutrality.

Another caller also pointed out that America is built on the premise that consumers vote with their wallet. That will outweigh the financial benefit of companies who want to play games with their customers connections.

Matt “Take Your Meds” Stoller called in and challenged the comments of other Verizon spokesmen regarding the rights of telcos to run their own networks (also known as the shots that launched this debate). Verizon didn’t do a great job of beating that challenge back.

The perfect opening for them was missed. A caller from Huffington/MoveOn asked about the dichotomy of Congress regulating the Internet versus the FCC regulations. Rather than making the argument that regulation of business practices is not the same as regulation of business models, they gave sort of a weak kneed response. The caller also raised the false argument that the Net had been regulated and suddenly isn’t. He was careful to say the Net was regulated only as it applied to the delivery of the net “over the phone lines”.

That’s the key phrase, as it was actually the phone line that was regulated, not the Internet. Rather than making that argument, however, they allowed the caller to manipulate the argument and actually agreed to something that was factually inaccurate.

All in all, it was a good idea, but the execution could have been better.

(Disclaimer: While I work for the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, this post should in no way be construed as an official position of the Association. Thoughts in this space are mine and mine alone and do not reflect the views of my employer.)

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False Information About Net Neutrality

Apr 29 2006 Published by under Legislation, Net Neutrality

GovernmentTechnologyProponents of the net neutrality debate have been citing a dubious explanation for their doom and gloom claims. The argument goes something like this:

Yeah, after a one year transition period, that’s gone, as a sort of sunset provision for the free internet sets. This is incredibly sneaky. What McCurry is doing is couching a radical change to the internet in the guise of the status quo… [W]e are in the waning months of the Clinton/Gingrich-era internet, where telcos are forced to treat everyone fairly. In three months, we won’t be there anymore unless Congress passes Net Neutrality legislation. It’s funny how the telcos want Congress to cement the FCC‚Äôs radical change to the Clinton/Gingrich era into the law while no one’s looking ‚Äì all while pretending others are advocating such radical change.

The trouble is, it’s just not true. The FCC did, in fact, reverse the restrictions it had on DSL lines, but those rules never applied to cable modems – of which, there are millions more.

There are currently almost 25 million people connected to the Internet via cable modems and about 18.5 million connected by DSL. Under the doomsday scenario espoused by Matt Stoller, MoveOn and the rest of the Net Neutrality reactionaries, you would think that cable companies have been using their gross power to block access and force you to use their services rather than Google or Yahoo. It’s just not the case. Why? Because of the dangerous forces of what we call the free market.

If cable companies started these predatory practices, the customers would run – not walk – to the telephone companies with their internet dollars. If the telcos begin restricting access when the FCC ruling goes into effect, the number of cable modem customers will skyrocket. Why would the telcos risk the loss of 18.5 million customers? The simple answer? They wouldn’t.

Net Neutrality, for those on the left, is not about “saving” anything. It’s also not about protecting the consumer.

For them, it is about striking a blow against corporations. They believe in the power of the federal government to make things better despite a nearly total lack of evidence of that possibility.

If you believe in federal management of the Internet, then declare it a national asset, pay the companies that have built it with billions of dollars of capital investment, and give it to the populace for free.

If you’re not prepared to do that – either because you fear the disaster of government management or because you don’t believe we should shell out billions in a massive power grab by the fed – then you should accept that the market is an exceedingly powerful force and will continue to work.

(Disclaimer: While I work for the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, this post should in no way be construed as an official position of the Association. Thoughts in this space are mine and mine alone and do not reflect the views of my employer.)

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