Calling a telecommunications bill passed by the U.S. Senate “badly flawed” because it does not include an outright ban on Internet tolls, Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), put a “hold” on the bill late Wednesday unless clear language is included banning the phone companies from establishing Internet tolls.
M. President, the major telecommunications legislation reported today by the Senate Commerce Committee is badly flawed. The bill makes a number of major changes in the country’s telecommunications law but there is one provision that is nothing more than a license to discriminate.
Without a clear policy preserving the neutrality of the Internet and without tough sanctions against those who would discriminate, the Internet will be forever changed for the worse.
This one provision threatens to divide the Internet into technology “haves” and “have nots.” This one provision concentrates even more power in the hands of the special interests that own the pipelines to the Internet. This one provision codifies discrimination on the Internet by a handful of large telecommunications and cable providers.
This one provision will allow large, special interests to saddle consumers and small businesses alike with new and discriminatory fees over and above what they already pay for Internet access. This one small provision is akin to hurling a giant wrecking ball at the Internet.
The inclusion of this provision compels me to state that I would object to a unanimous consent request to the Senate proceeding with this legislation until a provision that provides true internet neutrality is included.
Red Herring explains the hold could only be undone by 60 votes in the full Senate. The Senate Commerce Committee rejected the Net neutrality proposal late Wednesday in an 11-11 tie vote, a single vote shy of having the amendment included in the Senate’s bill.
The Senate panel rejected strict Net neutrality rules Wednesday in the Communications, Consumer’s Choice and Broadband Deployment Act (Webcast), dealing a grave setback to companies like eBay, Google and Amazon.com that had made enacting them a top political priority this year.
By an 11-11 tie, the Senate Commerce Committee failed to approve a Democrat-backed amendment that would have ensured all Internet traffic is treated the same no matter what its “source” or “destination” might be. A majority was needed for the amendment to succeed.
This vote complicates Internet companies’ efforts to convince Congress of the desirability of extensive new regulations, especially after the House of Representatives definitively rejected the concept in a 269-152 vote on June 8.
Republicans warned, adding the regulations would imperil the final passage of the broader telecommunications bill, which is the most extensive set of changes since 1996. “This is absolutely a poison pill,” said Nevada Republican John Ensign.
According to the Washington Post, Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) (Webcast), chairman of the committee, said he was not sure he had the 60 votes necessary to move the legislation forward. He said he would be open to negotiating with Democrats in September, when Congress comes back from its recess.
The House passed its telecom bill earlier this month. Both versions include weaker net-neutrality language that would require the FCC to study and monitor the issue, reports The Post.
CNET has a reader’s guide to the Communications, Consumer’s Choice and Broadband Deployment Act (in the Senate) and the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act (in the House).
Democrats are backing Net Neutrality regulations, which Republicans largely oppose. The House voted by 269-152 on June 8 to reject extensive Net neutrality regulations. Republicans voted against the regulations by a 20-to-1 margin.
A floor vote could happen at any time. But because the bills are different, they’ll have to go before a conference committee before a final version is negotiated.
Net Neutrality increases competition.
The United States, averaged $43/month for 2-3 Mbps broadband but South Korea has 3 Mbps in 90% of all homes for less than $20 a month. In Korea, large apartment buildings make it simple to bring fiber to the basement and then provide VDSL.
The Korean government spend some $1.5B on their “net neutral” network, a national high-speed backbone. Now some 3,000 South Korean videogame companies have combined revenues of up to $4 billion.
Japan’s NTT DoCoMo, KDDI, and Softbank are required to lease bandwidth to anyone. Companies of all kinds can compete without incurring the hefty startup costs of building a network.
In Japan a 100Mbps connection costs an average of $41.00. In France 20 megabits/s costs $36/mo while Stockholm’s one-gigabit service costs $120/month.
Juniper research predicts, mobile WiMax subscriptions will go from 1.7 million in 2007 to 21.4 million by 2012.
The FCC’s Universal Service Fund is a $7.3 billion pile of cash to subsidize telcos and rural users. Experts say a nationwide WiMAX network could be built for $2-$4B that provides faster, cheaper, better service for rural users. Subsidizing telcos to protect antiquated infrastructure is more than stupid - it’s dangerous.
Who will be the global power in five years? Probably not AT&T. The “protection” plan by the NTIA and FCC has failed to produce results.
Google News, Yahoo Full Coverage, The Seattle Times, Tim Berners-Lee, Public Knowledge, and USA Today have more.
.gif)
[...] That description amounts to a “framework for rules that can be applied industry-wide to allow American consumers and small businesses to benefit from deployment of discrimination-free advanced networks,” U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in an e-mailed statement on Tuesday. [...]
Left by dailywireless.org » Net Neutrality 2007 on January 3rd, 2007