Sometimes, I feel like Emeril cranking it up another notch.
We have just received word that ADM Michael Binder will be stepping to the sidelines at The Canadian Telecom Summit to make room for his boss, Deputy Minister of Industry Canada Suzanne Hurtubise, to moderate the panel looking at the future of telecommunications and next generation networks.
Bamm!
Tom Evslin adds another voice to those who are on a lonely quest to try to partially tame the anarchy of the internet. In his entry, he notes that:
If the Internet is a law-free zone:
- Governments can do whatever they want there including spying and blocking. It’s naïve and illogical to think that governments are governed by law in a free fire zone when no one else is.
- Monopolies can do whatever they want including blocking competing services.
- Malicious people are free to attack not only other sites but the structure of the Internet itself including its routers and domain name servers.
- Threats, libel, and fraud gain immunity from investigation and prosecution by being carried out on the Internet.
- The Internet becomes a river in which any conspirator can wade to avoid the bloodhounds of law enforcement.
- There are no laws PROTECTING privacy in a law-free zone.
- SPAM is as legitimate as any other activity.
For a couple years now, I have been campaigning on a similar platform, especially concerned about Evslin’s item 5.
We’ll be looking at this issue in a special session at The Canadian Telecom Summit in June. Speakers include D/Sgt Paul Gillespie, one of the world’s leading experts in law enforcement tactics to combat child exploitation. You can also check out an earlier posting about this subject.
There is a story in today’s Star that continues the discussion of Net Neutrality. Today’s entry cites Tim Berners-Lee, who is called “chief architect of the World Wide Web” and he is said to be ‘very concerned’ about talk from phone and cable companies about their desire to collect tolls from content suppliers.
A couple points come to mind. First off, Berners-Lee may have been the inventor of the Web, but to suggest that there is a ‘chief architect’ implies that there has been an orderly design to the Web and its evolution. I think that the power of the Web has been enhanced by its chaotic evolution. Innovation has been added without the need to work through an office of the Chief Architect.
Which brings me to the concern of charging tolls. My brother once told me that in his first litigation class in law school, the professor said that whenever people come into the office and say “it isn’t the money, its the principle of the thing” that a good lawyer will recognize that it really is about the money.
I just can’t get past the feeling that so many of the free access advocates are just plain cheap. They want someone else (like the government) to pay for their stuff. Whether it is stolen intellectual property like music or movies or software, or government funded fibre.
I wonder if these same people know that supermarkets collect fees for shelf space and companies pay money to have their products placed in movies and TV shows.
In what appears to be a contradiction to its previous policy, the CRTC now says that Voice over IP is a new broadband internet service, at least for the purpose of calculating the broadband subsidy. This seems to contradict its VoIP decision that said VoIP is just a new technology delivering plain old telephone service.
In a letter to ILECs [not available for on-line viewing] as part of the follow-up to the Deferral Account decision, the CRTC told ILECs that their calculation for broadband revenues should include: retail broadband Internet service revenues, wholesale broadband Internet service [Gateway Access Service/High Speed Access] revenues, broadband backbone service revenues (e.g. dark fibre), and other retail broadband service revenues, such as Wide Area Network, Voice over Internet Protocol, and Internet Protocol Television (specify).
If VoIP is really just a new way of delivering plain old voice service for regulatory purposes, why wouldn’t the revenue from VoIP be excluded from broadband revenues?
Michael Geist wrote more on the subject of the TPR statements on Network Neutrality (see our views on what the TPR says about this in this link.) We also wrote about the concept of Network Neutrality versus Open Access and believe that much of the discussion confuses the two similar but distinct issues.
Open Access principles in the TPR report means that people should be able to reach any “publicly available” content and applications. The Report in no way suggests that this would be without additional fees.
Indeed, the report describes 3 types of issues:
- first, concerns arising as a result of anti-competitive conduct
- second, concerns arising as a result of business decisions taken in the context of normal commercial business practices
- third, concerns arising from decisions taken for non-commercial reasons.
The report suggests that the first issue can be dealt with using anti-competitive conduct mechanisms. The third issue:
… could include legitimate legal prohibitions, for example, national security, child pornography or other criminal concerns. Restrictions on access might also arise because of copyright. In such cases, the Panel believes that blocking access would be legitimate because the access provider would merely be implementing the law.
This seems to be suggesting that the panel agrees that there are some circumstances that justify restricted access to ‘publicly available’ content. However, “In general, the Panel believes that blocking access to content and applications should not be permitted unless legally required.”
Regarding the issue of business decisions – which I think is what most people are really up-tight about in Net Neutrality – the report seems to recognize the basic Milton Friedman economic principle “You don’t get nothin’ for nothin'”
Given the complexity of this area, the rapid evolution of technologies and the market dynamics, the Panel believes the regulator here should have more discretion than in other areas of regulation. However, the Panel also believes this discretion should be exercised with a view to encouraging reliance on market forces and customer choice as much as possible. For example, there may be situations in which a customer wants an ISP to block access to particular applications or content. In addition, some customers may be willing to accept a reduced degree of access in exchange for a lower price. Such consumer choices should be respected.
In the Panel’s view, the purpose of a customer access rule should be consumer protection, and there should be a strong emphasis on ensuring that customers have the information required to make informed choices. In this way, the rule would promote the efficient operation of market forces.
A Solomonic balance of interests, I think.