Broadband Stimulus Plan: Spend First, Ask Questions Later
As posted on openmarket.org:
There has been some noise in technology circles the last week over the FCC comment period or Notice of Inquiry (NOI) in regards to the broadband Internet portion of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act otherwise known as ?the stimulus.?
The NOI allows individuals, association groups, public policy organizations like CEI, and businesses to issue their comments, suggestions, advise?anything really?to the FCC. This allows ?the public? to describe how they feel like the funds should be spent and the best strategy to improve the state of broadband deployment in under-served an unserved areas.
The comment period is intended to help formulate the National Broadband Strategy which is required to be completed one year from the recovery act being signed in to law. This means that the strategy will come due around the 17th of February 2010.
There is a major problem with the process that is being used in this case. The majority of the funds will be distributed prior to the completion of this strategy that will decide how best to distribute and use them. Cart before the horse much?
The US Department of Agriculture who has used the Rural Utilities Services (RUS) division to improve broadband distribution in the past has been awarded funds for distribution from the stimulus. RUS plans to distribute its roughly $2.5 billion by September 30th, 2009. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration?who received the bulk of the broadband stimulus funds?will hand out their dollars in three phases occurring Spring of 2009, Fall of 2009, and Spring of 2010.
The bill writers recognized the need to give the issue a good deal of study to attempt to create a solid plan, but the process also seems to indicate that they felt to create new jobs fast, so the funds needed to be spent fairly quickly to provide stimulus to the economy. This creates a Catch-22 and certainly suggests that maybe these funds shouldn?t have been spent at all, or in the very least that they should not have been tied up in the stimulus.
A year-long strategy session is pointless if you hand out the money before the plan is even drafted, and there is a good chance that the strategy that comes out of the session won?t be implemented because the money will have been spent.
Most likely, the strategy will be proposed and written based on who has the funds, not who could best use them. So this broadband stimulus is almost certain to fall short of its goal of increasing broadband access for unserved and underserved areas.
But this is what we should expect from our new, ?smarter? government. The same old, dumb results.
-nick
Verizon, AT&T See the Regulation Writing On The Wall
As published on openmarket.org.
AT&T and Verizon are indicating that there is a chance that they will not seek funds from the broadband stimulus portion of the American Recovery Act.
Verizon Executive VP Thomas Tauke has stated that, ?We don?t have any plans to apply; we also have not made a decision not to apply.?
Similarly, AT&T Senior Executive VP told reporters that, ?We do not have our hand out seeking government funds.?? But, ?[AT&T is] open to considering things that might help the economy and might help our customers at the same time.?
This reluctance to accept government funding shows that major ISPs realize that acceptance of stimulus funds puts them squarely under the FCC Network Neutrality principles.?? These principles could bleed into the other networks?such as Verizon?s FiOS TV or AT&T?s U-Verse?that these large Internet players own. ? Meaning this policy would be the camel?s nose under the tent.? I ?ve previously referred to this potential phenomenon as ?Gateway Neutrality.?
Molly Peterson of Bloomberg News confirms that big ISPs realize the danger associated with accepting recovery funds:
AT&T, Verizon and Comcast Corp., the largest U.S. cable provider, say the rules are unwarranted and would hinder their ability to manage congestion on networks they have spent billions to build.
So, it could be that networks built with stimulus funds would have sub par service when compared to networks built without the funds.? This forces one to wonder what the point of the multi-billion-dollar subsidy is in the first place.
Additionally, were ISPs forced to merge networks that ran under different principles?those that are neutral like Internet service and those that are very non-neutral like television or phone service?very costly problems could emerge.? Trying to slam together TV, Internet, and phone service into one neutral IP-based service could even prove to be financially impossible.
At OpenMarket we often say that government should never be in the business of picking winners.? It appears the winners at broadband build-out will be those who avoid picking government.
Netflix Neutrality
As posted on openmarket.org:
A little over a week ago, Netflix was berated by a user who assumed that the company was throttling his streaming video connection.? Slashdot picked up the story shortly afterwards, and an Engadget piece was soon to follow.
The ground shook, walls crumbled, worlds were torn asunder, Lance Armstrong fell off his bike.? Not really.
Riyad Kalla, of the Break It Down Blog began to notice that the same movie was buffering differently on his PC versus his Xbox 360 when trying to load up a ?Watch Instantly? film from Netflix.? In brief, he carried out some testing opening up multiple threads to the same movie and saw his downstream speed increase and thus concluded that Netflix was throttling his connection.
But Kalla?s methodology has been questioned as his testing does not prove Netflix is shaping traffic, only that there is probably a problem somewhere down the line with his connection.? Additionally, it has been suggested that the way in which he tested, may have caused servers to think they were under DDOS attack which made the situation worse, and that he was using the old Windows Media player instead of Netflix?s new Silverlight multi-sourcing player.
But the bottom line of the whole scenario is whether a company offering a service is remaining faithful to their promise to deliver for the subscription rate their consumers are paying to receive said service?? And the implication is that Netflix is purposefully throttling the connection of specific users who partake in the viewing of a great deal of content.
About a week after the initial blog post, Neil Hunt, Chief Product Officer wrote an official response for Netflix on their blog.? Hunt pointed out that,
Content from Netflix originates on CDN servers that are distributed around the US (just as our DVD shipping centers are) so that the data doesn?t have to traverse the Internet backbones to get to our customers, but instead can usually reach its destination via regional and metro networks that have much higher aggregate bandwidth.
Breaking that down, Hunt is describing the fact that Netflix?s content is disperse.? They use CDN servers (Content Delivery Network) managed by Limelight Networks, so they?re the company we ought to be looking at.
Limelight Networks is a CDN that operates a massive, private fiber optic network.? They claim to be directly connected to over 900 last-mile networks around the globe.? Because of Limelight owns this large network, their distribution doesn?t have to be? ?neutral.?? In fact, it?s designed not to be.? Limelight shapes traffic on their private network to deliver content as fast as possible and to provide the absolute best experience for the end user.? That?s why services like Microsoft?s Xbox Live, Apple?s iTunes, Sony?s Playstation Network, and Netflix?s Watch Instantly use Limelight as their backend for content distribution.
But Limelight?s connections end at the user?s ISP.? At that point, net neutrality takes over, and all packets treated equally.? Congestion in this neutral last mile (or miles) can seriously deteriorate the quality of the content and the speed at which it is delivered.? This can explain the difference in speed that Mr. Kalla thought were a result of Netflix throttling his downloads.
Additionally, products like the Xbox 360, the Roku, or any of the number of current Blu-Ray players that include Netflix streaming are very different, proprietary devices.? The PCs and Macs that play Netflix movies? can have hundreds of variations.? We should expect content on these varied platforms to be displayed at varied speeds.
Hunt address this in the Netflix blog, noting that the network accessed by these various devices can even be different:
?different titles, and different encodes for different playback device types, may come from different CDNs or different servers at a particular CDN, so may have different paths and different bottlenecks. Accordingly, customers may see better performance on Xbox than their PC, or vice-versa. Equivalently, some titles may stream unaffected, while others suffer congestion. There is no purposeful discrimination between different clients ? we want them all to perform very well.
So much for Netflix trying to slow anything down.? But why would they?? Competitive pressure from Hulu and other streaming services is forcing Netflix to offer the best streaming service possible, not a purposefully degraded one.? Mr. Kalla?s accusations would only make sense if Netflix weren?t in a very competitive market, but with all the video content flooding the Internet, that?s clearly not the case.
The one good thing to come out of this hype is the direct statement of intentions from Netflix?s CPO.? Now users can hold Netflix to their statements about streaming neutrality.? And they can easily hold Netflix to account by leaving their service for another, possibly free source of online video content.
The calls for regulaton may now cease.
Most Watched City In the World Doesn’t Want to be Watched…by Google
In what has to be one of the greatest ironies in the ‘free’ world, a lobby group in London has issued a formal complaint to the Information Commissioner (ICO) stating that 200 complaints have been filed against the Google “Street View” application because of privacy concerns.? It is curious whether these same citizens are concerned about London’s famed “Ring of Steel” CCTV system being a threat to democracy and their privacy as well.
Maybe the UK government could just contract out Googles services and save everyone time…
-nick
Dungeons & Dragons Murdered My Vegetables
Today, the German president, Horst Koehler backed a ban on violent movies and video games after last weeks school shooting in Germany.? This is a trend that continues to push forward.
Ignored is human nature, society, the news media’s often graphic display of violence and any other rational explanation.? Any time at this point in history where an older person acts out in violence some type of mental illness is called upon, but when a young person acts out in violence they are impressionable, and video games or movies are the obvious conclusion.
When Columbine occurred, Doom and Basketball Diaries was to blame.? The Matrix which had only been on the seen for 2 weeks also took some heat.? Counter Strike, a tactical terrorist shooter, was blamed for the Virginia Tech massacre. And in 2005, the board game Dungeons & Dragons was blamed for a murder in New Jersey:
A South Jersey man is being held without bail on charges that he stabbed three people to death. District Attorney Bruce Casto is investigating a possible connection to Dungeons & Dragons: “I mean, you have many, many stab wounds and those Dungeons and Dragons fantasy games involve swords and knives and daggers and things of that nature. There may be a connection but I can’t say for sure.”
Makes you wonder if cooking is ever blamed for murder?
I began thinking about media in general after it was announced a Cleveland school yanked a Nintendo Power out of their library because it had a gun toting female on the cover about other media’s affect on earlier generations.
Here’s what I found (originally posted by Tom Standage in Wired Magazine):
Novels
“The free access which many young people have to romances, novels, and plays has poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of many a promising youth; and prevented others from improving their minds in useful knowledge. Parents take care to feed their children with wholesome diet; and yet how unconcerned about the provision for the mind, whether they are furnished with salutary food, or with trash, chaff, or poison?”
- Reverend Enos Hitchcock, Memoirs of the Bloomsgrove Family, 1790The Waltz
“The indecent foreign dance called the Waltz was introduced … at the English Court on Friday last … It is quite sufficient to cast one’s eyes on the voluptuous inter twining of the limbs, and close com pressure of the bodies … to see that it is far indeed removed from the modest reserve which has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females. So long as this obscene display was con fined to prostitutes and adulteresses, we did not think it deserving of notice; but now that it is … forced on the respectable classes of society by the evil example of their superiors, we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion.”
- The Times of London, 1816Movies
“This new form of entertainment has gone far to blast maidenhood … Depraved adults with candies and pennies beguile children with the inevitable result. The Society has prosecuted many for leading girls astray through these picture shows, but GOD alone knows how many are leading dissolute lives begun at the ‘moving pictures.’”
- The Annual Report of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 1909The Telephone
“Does the telephone make men more active or more lazy? Does [it] break up home life and the old practice of visiting friends?”
- Survey conducted by the Knights of Columbus Adult Education Committee, San Francisco Bay Area, 1926Comic Books
“Many adults think that the crimes described in comic books are so far removed from the child’s life that for children they are merely something imaginative or fantastic. But we have found this to be a great error. Comic books and life are connected. A bank robbery is easily translated into the rifling of a candy store. Delinquencies formerly restricted to adults are increasingly committed by young people and children … All child drug addicts, and all children drawn into the narcotics traffic as messengers, with whom we have had contact, were inveterate comic-book readers This kind of thing is not good mental nourishment for children!”
- Fredric Wertham, Seduction of the Innocent, 1954Rock and Roll
“The effect of rock and roll on young people, is to turn them into devil worshippers; to stimulate self-expression through sex; to provoke lawlessness; impair nervous stability and destroy the sanctity of marriage. It is an evil influence on the youth of our country.”
- Minister Albert Carter, 1956Videogames
“The disturbing material in Grand Theft Auto and other games like it is stealing the innocence of our children and it’s making the difficult job of being a parent even harder … I believe that the ability of our children to access pornographic and outrageously violent material on video games rated for adults is spiraling out of control.”
- US senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, 2005
This isn’t something new.? Violence and murder existed at the beginning of human history in scripture.? And it wasn’t the vegetables to blame.? It’s something deeper and something that cannot be fixed with laws and regulations if you catch my drift.? If kids are simply impressionable to anything in media, then we must also consider that the violent imagery in scripture affects kids in the same way.? But this is and would be considered a ludicrous thought.
But it’s in the same vain as how the media portrays steroids.? When Chris Benoit killed his family and then himself the culprit was steroids. Steroids caused him to “roid rage” and murder his family and take his own life.? Then steroids supposedly caused the death of a whole list of wrestlers.? Psychological disorders, abuse of other drugs, and abuse of steroids was completely incomprehensible.? Yet at the same time, during the height of the steroid era in baseball, no baseball players were murdering their families or falling out dead.? I guess steroids only negatively affects a certain type of athlete?? Maybe the drugs are biased in how they affect athletes?
Where is the common sense?
Conservatives Just Don’t “Get It”
You’ve heard this right? Conservatives just don’t “get it” when it comes to technology, social networking, and Internet marketing.
Really?
I’m so sick of hearing this. What secret technology recipe do Dems and liberals hold in this medium? What have they done that is so damn special? Everywhere I turn I’m being fed this line about how liberals have cornered the market on online politics. Why? Because the Obama campaign used Twitter, Facebook, and put a donate button on their campaign website? Please…
MoveOn.org is certainly a big player in some areas of webspace, and they have no equal in the conservative cybersphere…yet. TheVanguard.org argues that they will be the conservative answer to Moveon. This is a promise we have heard before, so I will remain cautiously optimistic. But while we are on the subject, what is it that MoveOn has on it’s website that is so mind blowingly special?
I circled it for you in case you are a conservative/libertarian that just doesn’t “get it”:
The MoveOn page is filled with rhetoric and articles. As an aside if you look closely you will pick out blatant misleading numbers all on one page. Their email sign up claims 4 million members. The article under “Success Stories” claims 5 million members in the title. While just under the title the actual story print claims 4.2 million members. I wish my boss paid me an extra 80% on every 20% of the dollar I made. But I digress.
The big FTW that liberals all other the Internet sipping their techno-lattes are getting all worked up about is how many email addresses MoveOn has collected via what boils down to a newsletter sign up box, a donate button, and a graphic icon link to their Facebook and YouTube fan sites. That’s it folks. That’s what the big liberal Net geniuses are walking around heads in the clouds over. High-five guys! You conquered the Internetz!
What is the actual gain from this? MoveOn had close to $60 million in donations in 2004, and unless usual donors took their money straight to Obama, it’s safe to assume that the number was close to that in 2008.
While not in direct competition, The Heritage Foundation had a similar endowment in 2008 and also holds a similar size contact list. Being that Heritage is a think tank, and not a social club, many of their priorities are different. But there endowment certainly allows them to compete in the same spaces that a group like MoveOn is battling for ground in.
But what are the real numbers here? Why can’t conservatives compete in the webspace like they do in talk radio in meatspace? Why don’t we get it? What aren’t we getting?
WHAT WE DON’T GET IS THAT WE HAVE BOUGHT INTO A LIE THAT WE “DON’T GET IT”.
… in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.
?Adolf Hitler , Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X
Look at the numbers:
MoveOn is winning the Facebook war. That’s pure Paris Hilton “hot” right there. You guys can trade pictures and make cute references to the Messiah’s newest portrait in your status bar. But Facebook isn’t the only application in webspace. Liberals claim to be controlling everything. But the numbers don’t add up. The DNC less than half the subscribers or channel views than the much webspace belabored RNC on YouTube. And the RNC easily rivals MoveOn in YouTube channel subscribers, falling behind by only 500 subscribers, but actually having 65,000 more views of channel content. And Twitter, the Internet rage that is constantly talked about by liberals like they invented it is completely dominated by conservative and libertarian organizations! In fact MoveOn and the DNC don’t even have representation on Twitter. And let’s not even discuss individual members of Congress’ Twitter or Facebook adherence. They all have them. No one has an advantage.
So why are liberals and media outlets always saying that conservatives “get it”? Because of Obama.
The Obama campaign’s technology effort which receives ravenous attention didn’t invent these applications or even use them any differently than anyone else in the conservative movement, with the exception of my.barackobama.com which allowed individuals to organize local events online. Ultimately a brilliant strategy. But It is no secret that Obama implemented an 18 month online social networking strategy, while John McCain simply pushed hard at the end, running what amounted to be a 72 hour “get out the vote” train wreck. The reality of what happened last year was that Obama’s team produced an in depth Internet strategy from the very beginning. The Internet was not just a webpage used to promote his candidacy and explain his policies. It was used to connect like minded individuals through various ranges of social networking.
This isn’t something new to conservatives and libertarians.
It was new to John McCain’s campaign staff and John McCain. And by the time McCain got on board with a decent Internet strategy, that ship had sailed, and Obama’s web presence was rolling down a mountain like a Mac truck with no brakes. When liberal pundits are issuing their insults toward the other sides comprehension and use of Internet applications, they are thinking of the Obama campaign specifically, and not the broad strokes. What Obama did with technology and did early was a great move. But the uses of tech in his campaign was not some secret cauldron of witch brew which only liberals had the necessary skills to use. Conservatives have been using the same tools for years. And when we saw them being used by Obama and used successfully, we were sitting around all thinking, “This stuff should be obvious, we are all using it, why isn’t McCain.” Conservatives have it right. They’ve “got it”. In fact if you want a closer look at how well they get it, look to efforts like CEI’s openmarket.org, bureaucrash.com, globalwarming.org, or the Heritage Foundation’s stopspendingourfuture.org, 33-minutes.com or their joint venture ReadTheStimulus.org. Or try RedCountry.com, RedState.com, TopConservativesOnTwitter.com (#tcot), atr.org (Americans for Tax Reform), netrightnation.com; these go on forever.
The RNC’s loss of Cyrus Krohn is a tough blow. But you can’t build an empire with one hammer. And furthermore, the duties of the RNC specifically does not necessarily need to be creating and implementing new widgets and whatzits. It needs to be making sure that the next candidate is. If the RNC was behind at some point then let’s be clear, the RNC is not the conservative movement.
Realistically, there is also more to the story. While conservative get technology and use it effectively, the last campaign was riddled with problems. Mixed messages and feelings over the Bush policy, the party being sporadic with their message, and many conservatives feeling like they were being left behind and no strong voice to represent their political ideology. At the same time, Democrats were very united. Not by Twitter or Facebook, but by a common theme, ‘Paint McCain as another Bush — No more Bush!”
For conservatives to rebound, and additionally re-capture the votes of moderates and libertarians they don’t need to just use technology well. Getting a lot of followers on Facebook or Twitter will not win an election. Conservatives need a unified voice, a return to traditional conservative values, and a common theme.
Which they have found, in Obama.
-nick
?I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I’ve bought a big bat. I’m all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!?
Al Gore Wants .eco Web Domain?
As posted on openmarket.org:
Since Dot Eco TLD announced that they were seeking establishment as a top level domain (TLD) at ICANN?s (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) Mexico event last week with the cooperation of Al Gore, many have been asking why we need a new TLD.? Furthermore, why we needed a new TLD solely focused on environmental websites.
There are a lot of legitimate arguments out there against this proposal, consisting of this solely being about money, or asking why a TLD should be focused so specifically when current TLD?s are very broad in comparison.
But I say, ignore the questions, ignore the issues.? Don?t just open up .eco.? No, that?s not good enough.? I want a environmental wacko ?red light district?.? Every alarmist blog, website, non-profit and lobby should be forced to move their web presence to .eco.? Which will make it so much easier for me to block out in my router so that I never have to see any of it ever again.
This will probably be as successful as the .xxx TLD, right?
Thanks Al, you?re finally doing me a favor!? ?outside of creating the Internet of course.
-nick
Utah: Rated R for Ridiculous
New post I have up on openmarket.org:
Utah is on the verge of using it?s ?Truth in Advertising? bill to pass regulated enforcement of video game ratings. The bill which was in some part drafted by Jack Thompson, the disbarred anti-violent games attorney from Florida, would fine retailers that sold games to underage customers up to $2,000 per incident.
The catch? This only applies if they advertise that they conduct age verification, essentially encouraging retailers to remove all advertising that they check ID?s or age in some manner. Retailers would be better off in this case not advertising in any way that they train employees to verify age before selling age restricted games. This way if a slip up occurs?as it eventually will?the retailer wouldn?t be held accountable.
The legislation takes a giant step back considering that Patricia Vance, President of the not-for-profit ESRB ranking group, stated in an open letter to the Utah Congress that?
?the most recent such study reported in May 2008 found that national retailers refused to sell M-rated games to customers under 17 a remarkable 80% of the time, far surpassing the comparable rates of compliance for movies, DVDs, or music CDs rated for a mature audience?according to a recent audit, Utah video game retailers enforce their store policies regarding the sale of M-rated games an impressive 94% of the time ? without any laws or requirements that they do so. That level of compliance took many years to achieve, and speaks to the strong commitment of video game retailers to do the right thing.
Apparently a 94% success rate isn?t good enough for Utah who will ignore one of the best working models of self-regulation that any entertainment industry has ever seen or successfully implemented, and will instead take the opportunity to enforce government control in a way that will not prove successful and will cause greater problems down the line.
I whole heartedly agree with Matt Peckham of PCWorld when he says that,
Truth in advertising is important. No one wants to buy a ?100% cotton? shirt that turns out to be 50% polyester or an LCD TV with a ?full parts and labor three year warranty? that?s only honored for one. Retailers have basic authenticity obligations and consumers should have the right to take action and/or pursue remuneration when a retailer engages in deceitful advertising.
But voluntary self-regulation that hinges on an aesthetically amorphous value system resides in a legal gray area. No one?s going to disagree that selling a 50% polyester shirt as ?100% cotton? is ethically wrong, deserving of legal consequences. But games ratings aren?t based on scientific analyses of the fiber content of a piece of fabric, and there?s plenty of disagreement over whether it?s the responsibility of stores or parents to enforce them. For some, game and movie ratings are simply advisory, and it?s up to parents to monitor what kids are up to, not some for-profit business, and most certainly not a bunch of at best tenuously culturally clued-in government bureaucrats.
Peckham?s insinuations that this is just the beginning are dead on. And those like Jack Thompson that won?t to see violent or mature content banned from the face of the earth know just that, and are counting on it. You see, when this model fails, politicians won?t return to the stage and admit they were wrong and redact the policy. They will instead seek to legislate the issue even further and with a firmer grip. This is simply the first flake in a snowball rolling down hill.
-nick
Norway Neutrality: What does the Norway Neutrality Policy Mean for the US?
New post up at openmarket.org on the subject of the new Norway Net Nuetrality policy.? Will neutralist start pushing this type of approach stateside?? Post is here
-nick
Moar Behavioral Advertising
Have a post up on OpenMarket.org regarding the FTC paper on behavorial advertising.
-nick
