For those that have not yet read it, the relevent site to read is.... http://www.openinternet.gov/read-speech.html
We need to realize and seperate two things... 1) that the intent of NetNeutrality expressed at this site, is an idealalistic view, to keep the Internet open and free, which is hard to combat based on the "ideals", and we should recognize that the goal of an open Internet is not specifically what we are fighting. 2) The reality that idealistic views dont translate to how the Internet Industry really works. And the site's proposed methodology to attempt preservation of an open network, infact may be harmful to consumers and delivery of most common Internet services from competitive Access providers. What we need to fight are mechanisms and ideas that harm access providers, or that prioritize content provider's needs over that of access providers. There is an important thing to realize. One of NetNeutrality's biggest advocates is now I think Chief of Staff. (Bruce somebody). NetNeutrality will be directly addressed in the new FCC, we can count on that. More so than in past commissions. Over the next 3 months I believe WISPA will need to get actively engaged in Netneutrality lobbying. It will need to be a combined effort between legislative and FCC committees. The Legislative committee will need to fight bills being plannedd to be introducted to congress, and FCC committee will need to fight for WISP rights in soon to come FCC rulemaking. It is my belief that government policy makers are timming their efforts so legislation and FCC rules will come to effect togeather, as legislation is pointing to the FCC to make rules. We can start to lobby legislators now, while bills are government working groups. And possibly there could be public hearings, where we might be able to request participation in them? For FCC, we most likely would need to wait for the Notice of PRoposed Rule making. Allthough ideally, its technically possible to lobby for proposed rules to never get to rule making stage. (although I dont think its likely for that to occur). We are going to need to decide whether we want to fight the core concept all togeather, or fight for details and wording that make the idealisitic views realistic in a way not to harm ISP. I believe we will likely have a better chance of winning our view, if we all togeather fight netneutrality in its entirely, jsut because we'd ahve cable TV and RBOCs endorsement in addition to our WISP view. But the risk there is that we do not protect ourselve from predator practices of monopoly like providers, and we risk loosing altogeather, if consumers gain more support than providers do. The risk is that protecting the majority of consumers (cable and RBOC subscribers with 80%+ market share) has greater benefit than protecting the few vulnerable providers (less than 20% market share by small ISPs and WISPs). We need to remind the government that the "open Internet" originally was a network paid for by the government. In Today's Internet, providers are required to pay for building access for consumers Internet access. Its a beautiful thing to have a consolidated Internet deliverd by teh combination efforts of all providers. What we want to prevent is segregation of the Internet, where providers are forced to make two networks, their "Internet network", and then their "private network", where they would invest more heavily in their own private networks for ROI reasons, and because policy took away the viabilty of fair ROI for them. Let me pose a hypothetical situation... What would occur if Comcast, Timewarner, and RBOCs announced tommorrow, that they would no longer offer Internet Access as of Dec 2010, and planned to cancel all peers to the Internet, but would create a peer between each other, and announced their hosting solutions (for a price) which allowed some content provider the option to access their private networks. Would they legally be allowed not to offer Internet access, and go 100% private? And if it were legal, would they keep their market share, considering togeather they owned 90% of the eyeballs and last mile connections to consumer's homes, many of which were the single only source of connection? I'd argue they'd keep 99% of their customer base, and instead users that had choice of provider would subscribe to two services, the Public Internet provider, and the Private network provider, because there would be benefit to buying access to both. Either that, or private network providers would create a "gateway to teh Internet service" that was an add-on to their existing privat network service. Those that wanted access to the Internet would pay additional for the gateway service, and eventually the gateway Internet service would perform so much worse than to hosts on the private direct network, so most Hosts would start to migrate to hosting platforms on the private network. I believe it is very possible that "unbundling" could occur at some point to "increase" consumer's costs. Bundling was a technique to win market share, unbundling become a way to increase profits, once they own the market. My point here is that small providers will all be better off with all on one Internet, with terms that are acceptable to all parties, so they keep it that way. NetNeutrality is not only about Network Management. Its also about freedom to be the type of provider we want to be. Policy makers should not favor content providers to control what the Internet evolves to. And providers should not be forced to do something beyond the core concepts of the Internet. Policy to force Providers to become TV providers is just plain wrong. And forcing strict Netnetrality laws will force providers to only build networks that can handle consumer demand whcih will eventually become TV services, if we are forced to allow it. We need to seperate "Internet Access" from "Advanced Broadband", which in my mind are two totally different topics. Rules that might be acceptable for "advanced wired broadband" may be totally wrong for core "Internet Access", and vice versa. Focing the two to be one and the same, is wrong, because all providers and networks are not the same. And by all means any NetNetrality rule passed should be a bi-directional rule. If all access provider are forced to deliver all content, all content providers should be forced to interconnect with all access providers, if requested. We could simply take the approach of.... "stop regulation, stay our of our business", but if we can come up with good ideas, it may be more favorable to state what rules we think could work. But most importantly state what rules will not, and why. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL & Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband ----- Original Message ----- From: "David E. Smith" <d...@mvn.net> To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org> Sent: Monday, September 21, 2009 3:30 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Net Neutrality > Curtis Maurand wrote: > >> I think they're saying things like Time-Warner can't prioritize CNN >> (which is owned by Time, Inc.) over MSNBC or Youtube over hulu, etc. > > That may be what they mean, but that sure isn't what they're saying (or > at least that's not what it sounds like from way up here in the peanut > gallery). > > Can anyone comment on whether WISPA plans to adopt any official position > on this? I'm not saying "net neutrality is bad," because I adore the > principles. I just want to be sure the FCC doesn't pass some > overly-broad rulemaking, slanted towards bigger operators, that makes it > difficult or impossible for smaller outfits (like mine!) to keep things > running smoothly. > > David Smith > MVN.net > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > WISPA Wants You! 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