Net Neutrality: Courts like NFL Home Field Advantage

Those of you that know I am from Atlanta and that I am a big time football fan probably could guess that my heart was smashed to tiny little pieces last week when the Green Bay Packers embarrassed my beloved 13-3 Atlanta Falcons in the NFL playoffs.  Those that follow professional football understand the significance of home field advantage in the NFL.  And while the winning percentage of the home team drops from roughly 70% to about 51% during the playoffs, the opportunity for a team to have home games and a friendly crowd on their march to the Super Bowl cannot be over looked.

My colleague James DeLong has an interesting piece up at Digital Society today regarding what amounts to NFL home field advantage in the court system.  Verizon has recently field the first suit against the FCC’s new Open Internet rules regulating Net Neutrality on privately owned networks.  DeLong explains the ins and outs of the importance of the forum in which a case is heard.  The quirks are funny, but DeLong breaks down the importance and discusses which Court may get to hear the appeal.

More Gateway Neutrality

News outlets are reporting today that recipients of grant monies from the Broadband Expansion portion of the Stimulus Act will be forced to implement Net Neutrality regulation into networks built on these grants as ruled today by the Obama Administration.

I first divulged this in an article on OpenMarket.org back in January.? And to quote myself, I had stated that,

The issue here is that it doesn?t matter if the FCC or the Fed can regulate net neutrality on the grand scale right now, the recipient of these grant funds will be legally bound to adhere to the FCC policy statement implementing net neutrality and establishing open networks.? After that, the fix is in.? One or more publicly funded networks would exist running under regulated and enforced net neutrality principles.? A few years later, legislation will be introduced again to mandate net neutrality in all U.S. networks.?? Backers of the legislation will refer to the networks built under the stimulus plan pointing out how flawlessly they are running, and how neutrality principles have provided for that condition because the FCC can watch dog the network.

Furthermore, I reported in March that companies like Verizon and AT&T were potentially not going to apply for grants for this very reason,

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.

Adding that,

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 while this was bound to happen, I guess one could say that it’s a sure thing now.? With only $7.2 Billion available for broadband expansion and those monies being distributed in amounts that will be paltry in comparison to what telecoms generally spend in network expansion, there is a real possibility here that avoiding government funding will actually benefit their bottom line rather than helping improve them.? These gateway stimulus fund drugs will inevitably find their way into regulating their own private networks if these companies are not weary.

-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.