June 27, 2006

The network neutrality concept is being pushed by firms that would benefit financially from a law meant to keep network owners from favoring access to their own content, explained telecom expert Scott Cleland in a pre-recorded segment of NPR's Morning Edition last Tuesday.

          Firms pushing neutrality -- such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo -- if successful would get a special, low, government-set price for the bandwidth they use while everyone else including the public, businesses and the government would continue to pay the competitive price, Cleland predicted.

          "Net competition proponents like me believe that the best way to guard a free and open internet is to maintain the free and open competition that exists today, not create a new, government-monitored, socialized internet."

          Hear the whole piece here: http://tinyurl.com/zeuqp.

          Cleland told us in 2004 why he sees hope in BPL (BT, 11/1/04 http://www.bpltoday.com/members/67.cfm, 10/25/04 http://www.bpltoday.com/members/56.cfm).

          The Progress and Freedom Foundation explained how the net neutrality debate is a boondoggle by disgorging a recent letter from former US Sen John Edwards' to his supporters.

          Edwards got lots wrong, according to the PFF's blog, including the idea that the internet is a level playing field for citizens and corporations today.

          Content firms such as Amazon, EBay and Google pay huge sums for data centers and robust connections to the fiber backbone of the internet to ensure their sites have the fastest possible access for their visitors, PFF noted.

          Network owners seem unhappy with the idea of a government bureaucracy controlling the networks that deliver the internet -- when free market forces are working great today.

          Net neutrality proponents are fighting against an imagined threat, noted PFF (http://tinyurl.com/l59kq).