Category: Internet Neutrality

Engineering free of politics

Richard Bennet, an engineer who among other things works on Internet standards, comments on why the FCC should stay out of the internet neutrality fight. He convincingly argues why “the Internet is too neutral in some places, and not neutral enough in others.” I for one truly value hearing some of the complexities of net traffic explained so well. A little bit of technical understanding is great transparency.

There are, however, a two crucial points that Bennet misses:

  1. Engineering or technical decisions can have a social impact: Inventions and design decisions don’t happen in a social vacuum. While sometimes these effects are unintended, often a good technical design can change the way that people use technology.
  2. It is the FCC’s job to balance the politics and the engineering: As a governmental body, the FCC has been charged with doing more than setting technical standards. They (supposedly) regulate for the “public interest, convenience, and necessity.”  An example of their operating beyond technical standards-setting is the “must carry” rule in cable television. Rather than require television owners or manufacturers to use an “A-B” switch to select cable or over-the-air television, the FCC requires cable operators to include local broadcast stations in their service. Despite the fact that there was a technical means to this end, the FCC stepped in to resolve a dispute between rivaling television providers.

If I were an engineer, I would want to steer clear of the politics of technology; yet, the potential for. Yes “engineers solve engineering problems,” but there are historical lessons, political interests, and a number of other factors that a governing body like the FCC must balance. If there are places where the Internet is not neutral enough, past experience is a good guide for why we can’t simply trust the businesses that provide the service.

Old news

A few stories of interest after a weekend away:

FCC wants free broadband service, plus content filtering

National broadband sounds like a great idea, but a recent FCC proposal looks a little less appealing.

The Federal Communications Commission is looking for a bidder to provide free broadband service in the 1.9 GHz-2.1 GHz bands, agency Chair Kevin Martin told reporters on Friday. …

There will be one more requirement for the service. A spokesperson for the Commission has told Ars that the FCC wants it to include “content filters.” For what? We asked. “To protect children,” came the reply.

As outrageous as this sounds, I can understand the FCC’s logic. If we’re to provide “the Internet” over the airwaves, then it suddenly becomes like radio and television–pervasive. That’s the argument that’s typically been used to keep smut and the 7 deadly words off of the airwaves.

Here’s the difference: television and radio are centralized distribution media. The impact of the speech regulations is rather small, since they only affect an increasingly dwindling number of speakers (that being, the broadcasters).

The Internet, on the other hand, is a largely decentralized medium of distribution. The number of speakers on the internet comes close to the number of users; thus the impact of filtering would be massive. Decentralized mediums of expression typically get more First Amendment protection, although I can’t think of a case that would be as pervasive (or more likely to over-censor) as what is proposed.

It’s amazing that, when the FCC gets serious about our infrastructure–giving a large number of Americans some substantial bandwidth–it comes with strings like this attached.

Catching up

Catching up on the news feed today. It seems to take so much longer when there’s lots of interesting stuff to read.

The bill is intended to “promote competition, to facilitate trade, and to ensure competitive and non-discriminatory access to the Internet.”

It does so by outlawing discriminatory fees for providing content, applications, or services over the ‘Net. Internet providers also have to interact fully with the networks of their competitors and provide equal access to all users and any devices they wish to put on the network. Network providers would be allowed to provide favored service to specific types of data but, if they do, they have to provide that same favoritism to anybody transmitting the data, and couldn’t charge for it.

  • FCC 2.0: Change we can believe in? (Ars): An interesting overview of what could happen at the FCC should a democrat Obama be elected (here’s a riddle: who was president in 1996?).
  • Chief RIAA Litigator Named Colorado Judge (Wired): The RIAA’s “top litigator” as an appeals judge. This might not seem as troublesome (he’s said to be a top notch lawyer) if the tactic of suing thousands of file sharers weren’t so legally and socially controversial.