The Jeff Pulver Blog: WSJ on "Net Neutrality":

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March 02, 2006

WSJ on "Net Neutrality":

Everyone seems to be talking about today's Wall Street Journal article on Net Neutrality. Good! I love that the "Net Neutrality" debate has entered mainstream discussion. As long as people talk openly about the nature and future of the Internet, I am hopeful that the forces preserving and advancing the open Internet will prevail. And with Sen. Ron Wyden (D. OR) introducing a stand-alone Bill on "Net Neutrality" in the Senate today, I trust that the topic will receive a fair airing in our nation's most deliberative political body.

I do wish, however, that the Journal would elicit views from the would-be innovators experimenting with the limits of IP technology, and not just the standard, largest Internet Access Providers on the one side and the largest Internet Application Providers on the other side. I have no fear that the Googles and Yahoos of the world will be able to enter viable relationships with the Verizons and AT&Ts (the fewer and fewer that remain). I do fear that the embryonic startups do not have a seat at the table as Congress tries to reconcile the dispute, and that these would-be innovators (perhaps companies that would become the Googles and Yahoos of the future), might never be born.

A couple points from the WSJ article concerned me, primarily because I fear the Journal article demonstrated a problem with the Journal's institutional memory.

Two portions of the WSJ article, in particular, highlight this long-term amnesia that I think pervades much of the current debate.

"Part of the opposition stems from the fact that the Internet, once
accessed, traditionally has been free of barriers such as special
charges or fees. But that's starting to change. Besides eliminating
flat-fee pricing for consumers, phone companies are also discussing ways
to bill Internet content providers for premium delivery of their
services ..."

"The new ideas such as pay-as-you-go are being fueled by operators
looking to make up revenue after spending billions of dollars to upgrade
their networks to boost capacity and by equipment makers that create the
gear needed to technically implement the changes."

Has everyone forgotten ISDN, the Bell's first effort to extract every additional amount of per minute revenue for Internet access? Under the Bell's ISDN model, a 144kbs connection cost something on the order of 2-4 cents a minutes, and a nailed down circuit would have cost many thousand dollars a month. That model failed, and would have stifled the Internet had it not been replaced by flat-rated capacity-based access.

I was actually somewhat heartened by BellSouth CTO Bill Smith's comment in the article:

"Any model that allows the consumer to have more control and more choice
makes sense to us."

Now I suspect there are many nuances that the single-sentence quote could not capture with regard to BellSouth's ultimate direction in providing Internet access, but I genuinely believe that Bill Smith does want to allow for consumer control and consumer choice. Our preferred means of getting there might be different, but we both imagine a ubiquitous, robust broadband network with boundless applications accessible by consumers. That is the world and the virtuous cycle that will work out well for everyone -- Internet access providers, Internet application providers, and Internet users (not to mention advancing democracy and the general public good).

In any event, Bill Smith' stated sentiment is a refreshing comment from a senior Bell executive. I imagine that, when Bill Smith speaks at Spring VON in two weeks, he and the VON community will have the opportunity to delve into this issue in more detail.

Tags: Net Neutrality, von, WSJ, BellSouth, Bill Smith, Jeff Pulver

(c) 2006 Jeff Pulver. All Rights Reserved.
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