Net Neutrality: Smith vs. Wyden

Senator Ron Wyden has been a leader in the fight for net neutrality -- and now Senator Gordon Smith is weighing in, on the other side.

From the Oregonian politics blog:

According to Broadcasting & Cable, Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., asked a group of media executives on Wednesday for help passing an overhaul of telecommunications laws.

"We need your help, we need 60 votes," Smith said at a luncheon, according to the trade publication. Smith said the bill is necessary, the publication reported, to continue deployment of faster broadband networks.

Smith needs 60 votes because of a hold that his friend, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., placed on the bill this summer. Holds are procedural moves that any senator can place on a bill, preventing a floor vote. Holds can be broken with 60 votes.

Read the rest. Discuss.

  • Jon (unverified)
    (Show?)

    "If you say right up front you can't charge this or you can't discriminate as to customers who bring volume," Smith said, "then you take a tremendous incentive away from investment."

    The broadband suppliers dont need an incentive to invest in services. They need the will to do it. The Feds gave them something like $200 billion a while back to invest in upgrades & such, and none of them did. (Or very few) And they raise rates & such to cover capital expenses they have already been paid for. Now they want to charge websites more if they have more traffic? Thats just stupid. The monthly fees we pay for service more than cover it, they just are looking for more ways to make money. And the ones with money are the big name websites. What if a small website gets alot of traffic? Can they afford what amounts to extortion?

  • Ross Williams (unverified)
    (Show?)

    I think it is a mistake to look at this from the web provider side. the problem is that if you have a particular provider, they, not you, get to decide what websites you will even have access to. They can create packages that sell access to particular sites for an extra fee. So do you want the "Disney package", you have to pay extra. Or, alternatively, they can go to Disney and say if you want our customers to have access to your web site, we want a fee.

    What it does, is allows the telecommunications companies to transform what is now a technical decision for customers - who is your internet provider, how reliable is it etc - into a choice of content. And they believe, correctly I think, that if they have control over content they can make more money than just selling the communication service.

  • THartill (unverified)
    (Show?)

    I say let them do what they want. If the providers really want to screw people over, big names like Yahoo and Google will just set up their own. Google has already threatened to set up WiFi in different places if they start to feel it in the pocketbook.

    This whole issue is a total waste of time for both the Dems and Repubs.

  • anony (unverified)
    (Show?)

    The right to information access is a fundamental human right.

    The "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" set up by the General Assembly of the United Nations in December 1948; Article 19 says:

    "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers".

    Net Neutrality is all about this right. Defending this right is not a waste of time.

  • TKrueg (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Listening to Thom Hartman discuss this today, a caller stated that although democratic she votes for and supports Smith. Why? Because he had the courage to talk about his son's death. Hartman then politely stated that's all well and good, but his voting record is what people should be focusing on.

    Thanks to the hard-hitting journalism from the Oregonian, citizens have decided that Smith is a moderate and should be given a 'pass' because his son died. WOW. I think it's time for the paper to start talking about actual votes... line 'em up with Wyden's record while they're at it. The Net Neutrality issue is much bigger than anyone realizes, if it's even on their radar at all. It's a disservice that citizens aren't given any info beyond the fluff pieces nowadays...

  • Patrick Kennedy (unverified)
    (Show?)

    If Gordon Smith were to lose his re-election bid in 2008, where do you think he would settle. Back in Oregon or would he take up residence on K Street in Washington, DC? My bet would be on K Street.

  • Chris (unverified)
    (Show?)

    The Internet has never been, strictly speaking, neutral.

    ICANN, anyone?

    Framing this issue in terms of a saintly, virgin "neutrality" is a rhetorical leap to say the least.

  • (Show?)

    Framing this issue in terms of a saintly, virgin "neutrality" is a rhetorical leap to say the least.

    The removal of net neutrality is a step toward the kind of mistake that was made when ICANN was granted a monopoly on assigning names.

    I strongly oppose the efforts telcos and other providers of bandwith to give preferential treatment to content providers when subscribers are already paying a premium for higher bandwith.

  • Ross Williams (unverified)
    (Show?)

    . If the providers really want to screw people over, big names like Yahoo and Google will just set up their own. Google has already threatened to set up WiFi in different places if they start to feel it in the pocketbook.

    I'm not sure that is realistic. I don't believe even Google and Yahoo combined have the resources to wire the entire country with a new telecommunication system. And without the hardwired backbone I don't think you can create awireless network either. And if they did, why would they forego the ability to charge others to use that network once they had built it?

  • Karl Smiley (unverified)
    (Show?)

    IMHO an attack on net neutrality is an attack on democracy. The original motivation may be increased profits, but control of information will soon follow as it has in the major media. The internet is now just about the only place where citizens can get access to the variety of viewpoints and information that they need to make informed decisions. If we lose that, do we have any hope of stopping the fascist jaggernaut?

  • THartill (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Ross

    To give everyone in the country WiFi is not realistic, but Portland is being wired for a cost of 10-25 million. Let's consider the worst and say each city costs 50 million, Google could wire the 100 largest cities for 5 billion and reach 2/3 of the population. With a share of their stock going for $405 right now it seems very realistic. About the hard wiring I have no idea, but it would seem if the technology is not there now, it will be shortly. That might be what they are waiting for, to be completely "off the grid".

    If this was announced tomorrow the providers would shit their pants and the everyday citizen would celebrate the added competition to the market.

  • askquestions1st (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Here's something more than speculation on what Google will or won't do:

    Roll Call: Google 'eager' to work with Republicans http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Roll_Call_Google_eager_to_work_0914.html

    On Wednesday, the company, with TechNet, will co-host its first-ever Washington fundraiser, on behalf of Rep. Heather Wilson (N.M.), one of the most endangered GOP incumbents and a supporter of Google’s position on “net neutrality,” the key Internet regulatory issue that got Google entangled with the phone and cable companies. EBay, the online auction company, is also a co-host.

    Time to put the heat on Google? And those Democrats elected officials and commentators who demonstrate they don't really understand what net neutrality is about, both in terms of the actual technical internet issues and as a political issue?

  • askquestions1st (unverified)
    (Show?)

    THartill -

    The market economics of w-ifi as you describe it is a hot research issue amongst academic economists. Although many people, some with more commonsense than others, have plenty of PowerPoints decks about fanciful plans for free wi-if, and well-hyped pilot projects, so far there has been little in the serious economics literature that comes even close to confirming the viability of any of these models. That's real life.

    Furthermore, as a publicly-traded company, Google has fiduciary obligations that are determinative of the level of involvement in this arena based on the (non) likelihood of a return. Read my previous comment if you genuinely want to understand where Google actually believes they need to be spending their money where they will get an actual return for the good of their business.

    Now that Google has invested in The Dalles, the only thing we can predict with some certainty is the emergence of a cadre of Oregon (mainly Republican) politicians who will be working in state government, and federal government, for the interests of Google.

  • THartill (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Real Life.

    So, Google gives money to a Republican who supports their interests....oh the humanity! (Funny this also happens to be the position of most Dems....)

    I say screw em! Let all the companies operate in a free market, offer limited but effective consumer protection and let the chips fall...

    Sadly my position will never make it to the mainstream, but one can dream right?

  • (Show?)

    Let all the companies operate in a free market

    Where is that exactly? Certainly not here in the USA.

  • Chris (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Well, if you posit that it doesn't exist in this country, then maybe we should act to make it happen here?

  • (Show?)

    Imagine a world where really wealthy people and large busineses had phone service that is the best of land line technology. No delays, crisp audio, no dropped calls. Small businesses and most people existed on whatever the average cell phone provider does in this country. Static, drops, network issues, delay.

    Tell me people would sit still if someone in Congress passed this.

  • (Show?)

    Proposed, not passed, sorry.

  • Ross Williams (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Well, if you posit that it doesn't exist in this country, then maybe we should act to make it happen here?

    Why? It seems to me this is an ideological answer that begs the question. Under what circumstances will we get the best Internet service?

    Its not as though the telecommunications companies gained their economic power in an unregulated environment. Neither land-line phone companies nor cable operators (nor cell phone operators for that matter) have operated without the regulatory protection of government. Can you imagine if the phone companies had been able to decide which cell phone operators they would allow to connect over their land lines based on who was willing to pay for he privilege?

    There is nothing wrong with competition even if it requires government intervention to create it. Letting communication companies control the content their customers can receive is a truly bad idea. Just look at television.

  • askquestions1st (unverified)
    (Show?)

    THartill -

    I think you may have missed my point. My point is as hard-nosed business and free marketplace embracing as I think one can get. I'll summarize not to be obnoxious, but to be clear:

    1) Economists and business folks so far do not believe there is a viable business model around the "free wi-fi" dreams of many entrepreneurial and social dreamers. The costs of commissioning such systems and acquiring users and advertisers exceeds prudent estimates for revenues recoverable through advertising and associated services.

    2) Google has, and probably correctly, decided that putting resources into influencing the regulatory environment to more favor their business plans is likely to yield an important bottom line return. That money and more could and would be spent doing free metro wi-fi if the business case was there.

    I don't mean to diminish the discussion of "competition" here as somehow being the magic which causes things to happen. But competition is not something business people think about first when it comes to making decisions about business initiatives. What they look at are the deployment and ongoing costs of new products/services, the possible sources of revenue, and the return on investment over time based on those costs and revenue.

  • (Show?)

    Can you imagine if the phone companies had been able to decide which cell phone operators they would allow to connect over their land lines based on who was willing to pay for he privilege?

    An apt analogy.

  • frank carper (unverified)
    (Show?)

    There is nothing wrong with competition even if it requires government intervention to create it.

    Bingo. A free market will tend toward monopolies and duopolies. Especially where the service requires a massive upfront investment (i.e. railroads, phone companies, etc.)

    But it's in the interest of the citizenry to have competition. That's why anti-trust law is so important. We get competition, not monopolies.

    Don't confuse competition with a free market. Different things.

  • Chuck Butcher (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Has anybody noticed that whenever one of these ratbastards starts saying free market what they mean is monopolistic government subsidized consumer screwing?

    Make no mistake, I deal with onerous governmental stuff on a regular basis and I don't like doing it. But, unrestrained capitalism doesn't work too well either. The point is that unfettered capitalism doesn't exist in this country and free market is a joke on the unaware. Free market and deregulation are just code words for different subsidies for favored groups.

    Let's think about the concentration of media for a second, the upshot is worse programming and the reduction of out of mainstream news. Now, apply that lesson to the internet. How slow will your access to BO be and how much will you have to pay to do it reasonably? Then think about the opportunities for corporate censorship through restricted access. Oh sure, let's just go there. Anybody heard Dixie Chicks on Clear Channel? (no, I don't listen to that stuff, anyhow)

  • KISS (unverified)
    (Show?)
    <h2>Well said Chuck, " The point is that unfettered capitalism doesn't exist in this country and free market is a joke on the unaware. ". While I am a believer in free enterprise, I see none of that in our good ol USA.</h2>
in the news 2006

connect with blueoregon