Tag: Net Neutrality

Comcast today appealed to the U.S. Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit the Federal Communications Commission’s Aug. 20 order finding Comcast violated the Commission’s Open Internet principles. The following is the statement of Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge:

“We expected Comcast would appeal the Commission’s order. The company opposed it every step of the way, even as they failed to disclose their throttling of Internet traffic. We believe the Commission will prevail and the rights of Internet users will be protected.”

Former eBay president and CEO Meg Whitman’s speech to the Republican National Convention on Wed. night (Sept. 3) was notable for what it didn’t say. Whitman is a giant in her field. She was the head of one of the largest, most successful, most culture-changing companies to emerge since the modern Internet came into existence.

She made lots of money for eBay and from eBay. That was why her speech was so disappointing. The word, “Internet” didn’t appear once. Neither did “innovation” or “technology.” She talked about the economy and lowering taxes and creating jobs and took some political shots at the Democratic ticket. But there was not one word for the medium that vaulted her and her company into American business history, the medium that is the greatest vehicle for innovation and consumer empowerment we have.

It wasn’t always this way.

It didn’t take Comcast long to run away from its latest embarrassment. On Wednesday, Comcast Senior Vp Mitch Bowling told Bloomberg News that in an effort to control traffic, Comcast might slow down the transmission of packets from its heaviest users by “10 minutes to 20 minutes.” Here’s the story. PC Magazine had the same story.

On August 1, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled that Comcast’s interference with its customers Internet traffic violated the Commission’s policies and was not reasonable network management. Today, the Commission released an Opinion and Order detailing its analysis and commanding Comcast to cease its discriminatory practices.

The following statement is attributed to Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge:

“With today’s Order, the FCC acted to protect the rights of Internet users and set the precedent that unreasonable, discriminatory behavior like Comcast’s will not be tolerated. It agreed with public interest advocates and technical experts that Comcast’s conduct violated FCC principles and was not reasonable network management.

For the second straight year, I addressed the EDUCAUSE/Cornell Institute for Computer Policy and Law, held at Cornell’s beautiful campus. The Institute gathers 50+ higher education information technology (IT) professionals – usually campus CTOs, librarians and legal counsels, and teaches them the substantive particulars of IT policy issues and advises them how to be strong advocates.

Later this month I will celebrate 20 years as a public interest communications lawyer. After two unhappy years in a private law firm, I walked into the small and cluttered offices of Media Access Project in August 1988 and never looked back. We spent most of our time in those early days trying to get broadcasters and cable operators to live up to their public responsibilities – impossible work in the laissez-faire Reagan-Bush I years. It was all mass media reform then. There was no technology policy, and the Internet was the stuff of geeks and academics, but the goals we had then were the same as they are today – to ensure a communications system that promotes creativity, civic discourse and democratic self-governance.

The following statement is attributed to Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge:

“The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today took a bold step to protect the rights of Internet users, while punishing the unacceptable behavior of Comcast.

“Comcast’s throttling of legal Internet traffic had nothing to do with network management as the company claims. It had everything to do with a big company trying to exert its power over a captive Internet market.

“We commend FCC Chairman Kevin Martin for his leadership, and Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein for recognizing that action needed to be taken. It is unfortunate that the other commissioners did not recognize that there are times when government must step in to preserve the public interest, particularly in such an instance when Comcast’s behavior was clearly outside the boundaries of acceptable practice.

Background: Earlier today, House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-O) chastised FCC Chairman Kevin Martin over the Commission’s expected actions to punish Comcast for throttling Internet traffic.

The following is the response of Public Knowledge President and Co-Founder Gigi B. Sohn:

“It is a shame that the harm Comcast has done to the Internet has not been appreciated by Leader Boehner. Rather than criticizing FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, Leader Boehner should praise him for putting a stop to a practice that technical experts have said is clearly outside the bounds of accepted Internet practice, while at the same time the FCC is acting to protect consumers.

“The FCC’s action is in no way ‘heavy-handed,’ as Leader Boehner put it. It is, rather, a return to the principles of open competition and non-discrimination that have been a part of communications law in this country for more than 70 years.

As Art discussed yesterday, the expected FCC decision on the Free Press/Public Knowledge complaint against Comcast for throttling Bit Torrent will be groundbreaking precedent. This is because among other things, a Bush Administration FCC will find that the agency has the authority under the Communications Act to protect Internet users from discriminatory network management practices like those used by Comcast.

But nobody should confuse “groundbreaking precedent” with an adequate solution to the problem of broadband service providers using their bottleneck powers to pick winners and losers on the Internet. Yes, the Comcast decision will be powerful and significant. But it will not be enough to check the telco-cable duopoly.

Here is why the Comcast decision has its limits: First, the decision will apply only to Comcast.

If all goes as we anticipate, a new era for the Internet could begin on Aug. 1, 2008. On that day, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is expected to decide that Internet users have rights under the communications law.

This is a spectacular victory, because not long ago the thought that a Bush Administration FCC would actually enforce its 2005 principles for an open Internet would have been laughable. The principles were the product of intense negotiations around an order that took telephone company DSL service out from under the protections of the Communications Act that protected consumers for 70 years. Democratic Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein got the principles as the best deal they could get at the time from FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.

Now, thanks to circumstance and hard work, the Commission will make those principles into something concrete and meaningful.