US telecom bill worries Google
p2p news / p2pnet: Google says a new US telecommunications bill could "fundamentally alter the fabulously successful end-to-end Internet".
Republicans on the US House Energy and Commerce Committee say they’ll "press ahead with draft legislation that would ease the path for telephone companies to enter the video business," says Reuters.
But the bill worries Vint Cerf, Google’s new "neutrality guru".
In a letter to the committee posted on the Google blog, "The Internet was designed with no gatekeepers over new content or services," he says, going on:
"The Internet is based on a layered, end-to-end model that allows people at each level of the network to innovate free of any central control. By placing intelligence at the edges rather than control in the middle of the network, the Internet has created a platform for innovation. This has led to an explosion of offerings - from VOIP to 802.11x wi-fi to blogging - that might never have evolved had central control of the network been required by design.
"My fear is that, as written, this bill would do great damage to the Internet as we know it. Enshrining a rule that broadly permits network operators to discriminate in favor of certain kinds of services and to potentially interfere with others would place broadband operators in control of online activity. Allowing broadband providers to segment their IP offerings and reserve huge amounts of bandwidth for their own services will not give consumers the broadband Internet our country and economy need. Many people will have little or no choice among broadband operators for the foreseeable future, implying that such operators will have the power to exercise a great deal of control over any applications placed on the network.
"As we move to a broadband environment and eliminate century-old non-discrimination requirements, a lightweight but enforceable neutrality rule is needed to ensure that the Internet continues to thrive. Telephone companies cannot tell consumers who they can call; network operators should not dictate what people can do online.
"I am confident that we can build a broadband system that allows users to decide what websites they want to see and what applications they want to use – and that also guarantees high quality service and network security. That network model has and can continue to provide economic benefits to innovators and consumers — and to the broadband operators who will reap the rewards for providing access to such a valued network."
And, "Google looks forward to working with you and your staff to draft a bill that will maintain the revolutionary potential of the broadband Internet."
Signed, Vinton Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist, Google Inc.
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See:-
Reuters - US House Republicans press ahead with telecom bill, November 9, 2005
Google blog - Vint Cerf speaks out on net neutrality, November 8, 2005
November 10th, 2005 at 3:42 pm
This is one of the reasons why I have been working to get FreeWan going. Once the Coporate-government alliances realize that the free flow of information is a true threat, they would block, restrict or drown out information that goes against their party line. This type of retriction can be done under a number of different excuses such as, elimination of spam, elimination of viruses, elimination of child pornography, (my favorite) “national security,” regulation, taxation, and “fair use” (very restrictive to video information sharers). I wonder if the cartels would limit bandwidth usage for downloading cartel propaganda? This would be a good way of silencing alternative news- impose bandwidth controls on alternative video while making the excuse that these same limits shouldn’t apply to content stored at the ISP because they aren’t paying bandwidth costs to transmit this information.
An example of a news story that the lamescream media companies are trying to bury is the fact that Minutemen founder Jim Gilchrist is running for Congress. The lamescream media is afraid of a non cartel sponsored candidate (i.e. someone from a party other than the Democrat-Republican Party) getting into office. Other intriguing stories also buried in the lamescream are also as likely to be blocked should the cartels have more power in ruling over the infrastructure of the Internet.