Wire New York: Save the Bill, Save the Internet
Let’s talk about the Telco Reform Act. You know, this one:
Today, we’re going to focus on the Net Neutrality bit of the proposed Telecommunications Reform Act of 2007.
Most of the bill is concerned with giving great cheap broadband to most every New Yorker. I know it’s a bit cliched to say it, but this really could be a modern-day analogue to the Erie Canal. Like the Erie Canal, however, it has to be used for the public good, and not for corporate short-sighted interest.
To that end, the bill also has Net Neutrality provisions. Let those good folks at the Save The Internet Coalition explain the concept:
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National ISPs (like Verizon) can block your access to national sites (like Google), and stop any exciting new entrepreneur that threatens their grip on power.
Net Neutrality can affect you personally. Without it, there is no way to stop a rich local businessman from bribing roadrunner into censoring your competing website. For that matter, if we piss off the local Republican Party too much, they could bribe local ISP’s to stop you all from accessing Rochester Turning.
Net Neutrality is integral to the original design and vision of the internet. Vint Cerf, one of the founders of the net, even went to testify to congress on the issue. Every “techy/nerdy” person agrees: Net Neutrality is, and has been a good idea.
For practically everyone across New York State, supporting this bill is a no-brainer. Through a carefully made package of incentives, everyone gets modern broadband, Telecom companies get big contracts, and everyone is forced to play fair, thanks to Net Neutrality.
Now, this bill is even more of a no-brainer for upstate, where modern broadband will catapult us into a prime position for companies across the US who want a robust internet architecture, combined with our low real estate costs, and access to a highly educated workforce straight out of our great Universities.
This bill makes sure that Net Neutrality is enforced in New York, so at least the Telcos don’t screw you over. It’ll set the “gold standard” of a Bill for every other state in the Union. Therefore, some companies will try to destroy it before the next session of the legislature, to make sure this “dangerously excellent idea” never sees the light of day.
We have to make sure they don’t get away with it. Call the Governor at 518.474.8390 and tell him to support the Brodsky Bill. If Spitzer knows how strong our support for this bill is, he’ll try to watch over it.
He’s already on our side, he just needs to know we support him. Remember when Mr. Spitzer wrote this?
Net neutrality embodies the principle of open access and nondiscriminatory treatment of all internet users and content providers. Net neutrality has made the internet a powerful promoter of public discourse and commercial exchange, affording to users throughout all parts of the nation and the world and unlimited array of information, news, opinion and entertainment. Net neutrality has also fostered robust competition by content providers, without regard to ownership of the backbone facilities over which Internet traffic travels.
If you want to learn more about the bill, you can read quite a lot about it at The Albany Project.
If you want to learn more about Net Neutrality, visit the website of the Save the Internet Coalition.
If you want to get into the politics and so forth of Net Neutrality and related internet policies, the new website OpenLeft has an intriguing ongoing project on the issue.
So what happens if NY passes this legislation mandating Net Neutrality, and our wonderful and exalted Congress passes legislation ending Net Neutrality? I think I know which bill takes precedence…unless you can convince me otherwise, its the Federal bill.
Of course, I still think that pushing for the NY bill to pass is a great idea.
There is currently no law (in the United States) mandating internet Neutrality, though I’d like to note that the Telegraph and Telephone both had “common carrier” provisions that were analogous to Net Neutrality.
So it’s very unlikely congress will “abolish” Net Neutrality, since they’d have to take a proactive measure forbidding its future adoption or forbidding the FCC/FTC from imposing it.
great post.
Thanks, there’ll be more to come.
Can you hook me up with facts/articles that focus on non-Net Neutrality issues that the Bill takes care of? For instance, an academic paper on the economic benefits of broadband, and so on. I know pretty much all I need to know about N.N. issues, but I’m shakier on what the rest of the bill does, and I’d like to research it.
[...] Remember my post about Net Neutrality and the Brodsky Bill? [...]
I’ve never seen a definition of net neutrality suggesting that outright censorship was the issue. Net Neutrality is about preventing network providers (telco/cable) from segmenting their networks into tiers of service (bandwidth speeds) that result in fast and slow lanes on the internet. In such a scenario, content providers (like Rochester Turning) would have to pay more to deliver their content across the faster portions of the network (to support rich media for instance). Users would suffer when content providers can’t or won’t pay because such sites would be slower to access (though not censored).
Though the current version of the Brodsky Bill (A3980) has brief net neutrality clause, this is one of the more vulnerable clauses of what is a much larger and sweeping telecommunications bill. The Bill is both a statewide broadband initiative and a state video franchise bill - big issues to be sure, though there has been little substantive discussion on either aspects of the bill anywhere in NY state.
The broadband initiative creates a new huge state agency to administer funds from a newly created universal service fund. It also creates a statewide mapping system of broadband access that would be funded by the new agency. Much of this comes from the ConnectKY playbook, a good project initially, that has now become a pro-industry national broadband project/model (Verizon is said to like ConnectKy). It’s conceivable that under such a plan, the state would pay to map broadband services then subsidize telecommunications companies (from the USF fund) to build-out service in underserved areas. Municipalities would have to provide free infrastructure to providers as well as pay into the fund. While the bill doesn’t preclude the creation of municipal broadband networks, it also provides little incentive. This is one reason NYCOM and other city organizations currently oppose the bill. Broadband legislation like this is very new, and there are few precedents, but I’ve yet to see any serious analysis of this bill by any national broadband advocates. It would be wise to proceed carefully and with more information.
As for the video franchise portion of the bill, it has good language on the franchise fees for cities and PEG channels/facilities. The dealbreaker here is that all authority to regulate and enforce the provisions of the bill is removed from local municipal control and given to the Public Service Commission. The PSC is a state appointed agency with a history of being a revolving door for the cable industry. Speak to any municipality that has sought help from the PSC in a local video franchise negotiation and you’ll likely find that the agreement heavily favored the cable company (in some cases providing cities with less than the minimum franchise fee of the current law). Unless the PSC is radically reformed, the public interest provisions of this bill may never see the light of day.
In spite of the serious concerns above, the bill is good start and work in progress. Brodsky and his staff should be commended for their efforts. Few state video franchise bills start with a public interest grounding - in fact of the 14 or so bills passed, the majority were written and paid for by the telephone companies (later with cable support). Yet, this bill still has a way to go, more safeguards are needed to ensure the vision implied in the bill summary can actually become a reality. The bill language also has to survive the scissors of Verizon and the cable interests, and the outcome of these negotiations will ultimately test the commitment of the bill’s current supporters.
You could achieve censorship in all but name by slowing down download speed to a crawl. Furthermore, without net neutrality, I challenge you to find a regulation preventing censorship.
I generally agree with the substance of your paragraph here. See my censorship comment above.
Yes, but Net Neutrality is what I’m focusing on for this series. We’ll get to the other parts of the bill later
Which is why the blogs are here. We’ll have that discussion after I do enough research to understand the bill enough to comment on the rest of it, or someone else takes the initiative. In fact, you could start the discussion yourself, if you like
Yes, broadband for all. A good plan.
You seem to be well-informed yourself. Can you put that talent to use and teach the rest of us, then?
Interesting.
Which is one reason we like it.
(emphasis mine)
Exactly. Why should cable companies be able to veto legislation? We’re here united to stop their meddling in our government. We know that the Telcos / Cable co’s are going to try to ruin the good thing we have in the Brodsky Bill. That’s why we’re trying to bring it to the forefront of the public consciousness. Shady business is much easier to get away with when it’s done in the dark.
[...] taken the opportunity to snag the snazzy graphic from Rochester Turning and Sayhar’s outstanding articles on the subject. It’s now featured prominently at the right of this blog. After all, [...]