FCC net neutrality decision sets up court battle, say experts The US Federal Communications Commission's recent vote to impose net neutrality rules on broadband providers will lead to lengthy court battles, as well as efforts in Congress to repeal the rules, a group of Internet law experts said Wednesday. Even supporters of the FCC's Dec. 21 vote predicted that multiple court challenges are likely as soon as the FCC officially publishes the new rules in the Federal Register. Court challenges to the rules are "inevitable," said Colin Crowell, former senior counselor to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski . Multiple lawsuits in courts across the US are likely, with some questioning the FCC's authority to make rules affecting Internet service providers and other groups suggesting the rules are arbitrary, added Markham Erickson, executive director of the Open Internet Coalition and a supporter of the rules. "This was an effort by the FCC to punt this down the road, both to the courts, because the legal challenges are inevitable, and to Congress," he said.
What the new FCC open Internet rules could mean for net neutrality The Federal Communications Commission adopted new rules for regulating Internet access at a hearing today in Washington. After FCC commissioners Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn said yesterday they will not stand in the way of Chairman Julius Genachowski’s modified order, it paved the way for a 3-2 vote to approve new rules of the road for the Internet. The tech policy reporters at Politico made the following assessment of the rules in their excellent Morning Tech newsletter this morning and got it about right. 1) Transparency for both wireline and wireless services, requiring disclosure to consumers, content and device providers, 2) Wireline providers are prohibited from blocking any lawful content, apps, services or devices; wireless providers, from blocking websites and competing telephony services, 3) Wireline providers are prohibited from unreasonably discriminating against any traffic (but no such rule for wireless). “To be sure, there is more to be done,” Harris said.
SXSW 2011: Al Franken warns of 'outright disaster' over net neutrality | Technology Democratic senator Al Franken has has issued a rallying cry to "innovators and entrepreneurs" at SXSW to fight back against Comcast and other companies lobbying to pave the way for a two-speed internet. The principle of net neutrality, under which all content is delivered equally to internet users' homes, is "in big trouble", Franken warned in a passionate rallying cry at the conference on Monday. Franken's address was always going to be a preach to the converted – SXSW is the spiritual home for small, independent media and technology firms – but he warned that unless the 200,000 attendees "use the internet to save the internet", then big telecoms firms will muscle through plans for a two-tier net. "The one thing that big corporations have that we don't is the ability to purchase favourable political outcomes," he said. "Big corporations like the telecoms firms have lots of lobbyists – and good ones too. He added: "Today SXSW is a hotbed of creative entrepreneurship and innovation.
La belle histoire de la neutralité des réseaux » Article » OWNI, Digital Journalism Perdu dans la neutralité ? Pour y voir plus clair, Lobbynomics réalise un éclairage original du concept, à travers l'histoire des réseaux de télécommunication. L’histoire de la neutralité des réseaux depuis la fin du 18e siècle, quel intérêt ? Si l’on considère cette idée à l’aune du seul réseau Internet, difficile de saisir l’utilité d’une telle remontée dans le temps. Lobbynomics a retracé la sinueuse histoire réticulaire dans une infographie, consacrée au déploiement des lignes de télécommunications américaines et européennes entre 1770 et 2010. Les éclairages historiques laissent rapidement la place à l’étude du seul cas Internet, l’infographie opérant un rafraichissement de nos mémoires salutaire, particulièrement en ces temps d’adoption de la Loppsi en France, dont l’article 4 met un sérieux coup de boutoir à la neutralité, ou de définition du concept de neutralité des réseaux aux États-Unis -nous y reviendrons. Infographie initialement publiée sur Lobbynomics.
Douglas Rushkoff The Next Net The moment the "net neutrality" debate began was the moment the net neutrality debate was lost. For once the fate of a network - its fairness, its rule set, its capacity for social or economic reformation - is in the hands of policymakers and the corporations funding them - that network loses its power to effect change. The mere fact that lawmakers and lobbyists now control the future of the net should be enough to turn us elsewhere. Of course the Internet was never truly free, bottom-up, decentralized, or chaotic. Yes, it may have been designed with many nodes and redundancies for it to withstand a nuclear attack, but it has always been absolutely controlled by central authorities. From its Domain Name Servers to its IP addresses, the Internet depends on highly centralized mechanisms to send our packets from one place to another. I'm not trying to be a downer here, or knock the possibilities for networking. That's right. It is not rocket science. So let's get on it. Related Posts:
The Durable Internet: Preserving Network Neutrality without Regulation | Timothy B. Lee | Cato Institute: Policy Analysis In recent years, self-styled “network neutrality” activists have pushed for legislation to prevent network owners from undermining the end-to end principle. Although the concern is understandable, such legislation would be premature. Physical ownership of internet infrastructure does not translate into a practical ability to control its use. Regulations are unnecessary because even in the absence of robust broadband competition, network owners are likely to find deviations from the end-to-end principle unprofitable. New regulations inevitably come with unintended consequences. Indeed, today’s network neutrality debate is strikingly similar to the debate that produced the first modern regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission.
Who Controls the Internet?: Illusions of a Borderless World (9780195152661): Jack Goldsmith, Tim Wu Vaizey's net neutrality knock-out The FT World Telecoms Conference is an annual gathering of top management from telecoms carriers throughout the world. It isn’t a high profile event for the general public, yet this is the platform where minister Ed Vaizey announced the future of the internet in the UK. Mr Vaizey praised the UK’s grossly inadequate current investment in internet infrastructure - however, the key point in his speech was about the abandonment of net neutrality in the UK. What does net neutrality actually mean? According to Wikipedia, the principle also states that if a given user pays for a certain level of internet access, and another user pays for the same level of access, then the two users should be able to connect to each other at the subscribed level of access. Do we have net neutrality today? In some ways we don’t. Imagine to all intents and purposes, not being able to read Left Foot Forward (or even Guido Fawkes), yet managing to read the Daily Mail? Paid-for access A lack of transparency
The future of the internet: A virtual counter-revolution This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Review our cookies information for more details A virtual counter-revolution THE first internet boom, a decade and a half ago, resembled a religious movement. You have reached your article limit Register to continue reading or subscribe for unlimited access Registration is free, and takes only a moment Once you've registered, you can read six articles from The Economist print edition for free each week. Log in to continue reading
Wikileaks, The Pirate Party, And The Future Of The Internet How to save Julian Assange's movement from itself. American diplomacy seems to have survived Wikileaks’s “attack on the international community,” as Hillary Clinton so dramatically characterized it, unscathed. Save for a few diplomatic reshuffles, Foggy Bottom doesn’t seem to be deeply affected by what happened. Certainly, the U.S. government at large has not been paralyzed by the leaks—contrary to what Julian Assange had envisioned in one of his cryptic-cum-visionary essays, penned in 2006. In a fit of technological romanticism, Assange may have underestimated the indispensability of American power to the international system, the amount of cynicism that already permeates much of Washington’s political establishment, and the glaring lack of interest in foreign policy particulars outside the Beltway. Indeed, it’s not in the realms of diplomacy or even government secrecy where Wikileaks could have its biggest impact.