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Google vs. Telcos

Google’s introduction of Android a few weeks ago has been the source of much speculation in the blogosphere. One of the most interesting takes on this development is Tim Wu’s piece in Slate last Friday titled Yes Google Is Trying to Take Over the World. The article predicts an ongoing war between open systems, as represented by Google, and closed systems as embodied by telcos like AT&T and Verizon.

Comcast Throttles Uploads

This morning NPR’s On The Media had a fascinating piece about Comcast and net neutrality. In a podcast titled “Please Don’t Share” OTM interviews an AP reporter who found that Comcast was blocking uploads from customers using file-sharing software like BitTorrent. In one instance, the upload of a version of the Bible was blocked , or “delayed” over a file-sharing network. Apparently the ISP, which is also the country’s largest cable TV provider, attempted to disguise its interference with a proxy.

Certainly file sharing uses a lot of bandwidth, but network providers should not have the ability to selectively throttle some content. This principle was codified in the common carriage rules that governed emerging telephone networks in the early 20th century and it is at the core of the Network Neutrality debate today.

Common carriage is an old concept from English common law. It held that the free flow of goods over a common network — like shipping lines or stage coach lines — was of such a high economic and public value that it should be protected by law. Columbia Business School professor Eli Noam wrote a prescient paper on this topic in 1994 called Beyond Liberalization II: The Impending Doom of Common Carriage, which made a strong case for the economic benefits of maintaining common carriage principles in information networks.

But this is not just an economic issue. It is a question of free speech. If Comcast can deny or delay information traveling over its network based on file size or mode of transfer, what’s to prevent it from throttling content it disagrees with? Does a network provider like AT&T or Verizon have the right to block content from a source it deems distasteful? What happens to the public debate if a few corporations control the transmission of information?

This is why Congress needs to act now. We need legislation this year that guarantees Network Neutrality.

For more on the history of telecom, see The Fundamentals of Telecommunications on the University of Massachusetts’ servers.

US Lags in Broadband

Today the Washington Post’s Foreign Bureau posted an interesting piece about broadband internet service in Japan and how it has outstripped American connectivity. The median download speed in Japan is 61 megabytes per second, while the average American’s throughput is about 2 mbps. Furthermore, the Japanese pay less for their net connections.

Why is that?

FCC Receives Feedback on Net Neutrality

Grant Gross at PC World reports that the FCC has closed the comment period for feedback on the topic of net neutrality. Apparently the communications commission has heard quite a bit from the internet rank and file since the comment period was opened in March.

Voters are still waiting hear what Congress will do to guarantee net neutrality, since the FCC is unlikely to rule against telecoms. Without a legislative directive, the FCC could easily allow the existing common carriage rules to be eroded in a series of quiet administrative decisions. If that happened, the net would be a very different place.

Congress needs to take action to ensure that we all have equal access to the net. Take a few minutes to write your representatives to let them know what you think. Save The Internet, one of many coalitions that has formed to defend net neutrality, has set up a handy-dandy Congressional spammer that makes it really easy to reach out and touch your Congress people. And isn’t that what the net is for?

Transparently Google

Yesterday Google launched what might be their biggest innovation since the search algorithm — the Google Public Policy Blog.

Many large companies have public policy, or government relations, departments. The goals and operations of such departments are typically only known to a handful of top executives and the board of the company. So Google’s airing of boardroom debates is unusual to say the least.

Cynics may say that it’s just more spin and PR. Perhaps, but what if it were an honest record of corporate goals and values? That would be a big step toward transparency in a democracy so heavily influenced by corporate money.

The blog also has a lucid assessment of Network Neutrality penned by a lobbyist named Richard Whitt. It’s good that Google has made its position clear; it would be great to see the telecoms do the same.