The Motion Picture Association of America has come out against net neutrality… sort of. In its filing with the FCC[PDF] late last week, the MPAA reminded the commission of the importance of content companies in driving new infrastructure technologies, and claims that protecting these content companies (i.e. forcing ISPs to filter out file-sharers) is vital for the future health of the internet.

It would seem fair to speculate that file sharing, contrary to the both the MPAA’s and the RIAA’s earlier…

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TorrentFreak reports that a new “network-aware” version of the BitTorrent protocol is being beta-tested. The new client, µTorrent 2.0 or µTP, will be able to regulate its own bandwidth usage (”throttle” itself) to avoid interference with other applications. According to a BitTorrent spokes person, the network-friendly redesign will slow uploads if congestion is detected on a network, but should leave download speeds unaffected in most cases.

The new client also has a feature that will enable users to stop all downloads if…

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Net Neutrality’s opponents are fighting back. Last week it was John McCain’s “Internet Freedom Act,” and yesterday, Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) introduced a house version of the bill that would prohibit the FCC from imposing any regulations whatsoever on the internet or internet service providers. From her press release:

“The internet is the last truly open public marketplace. Its openness is the key to its efficiency and success. Not all public spaces need to be regulated spaces. Indeed, federal regulation has a long history…

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Senator John McCain introduced a bill yesterday to combat the FCC’s push for Net Neutrality.  The “Internet Freedom Act of 2009″ would limit the FCC’s legal authority to impose Net Neutrality rules on internet service providers. McCain’s statement says:

Today I’m pleased to introduce ‘The Internet Freedom Act of 2009’ that will keep the Internet free from government control and regulation. It will allow for continued innovation that will in turn create more high-paying jobs for the millions of Americans who are…

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Here is a letter I sent recently to The Wall Street Journal:

September 22, 2009

Editor, The Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty Street
New York, NY 10281

To the Editor:

Your article “Bad News for Broadband” (editorial, Sept. 22) hints at, but does not make, a key point: net neutrality proposals are driving a wedge between service providers like AT&T and content providers like Google.

Strange, is it not? Their interests are actually closely aligned. If AT&T upgrades its network, Google benefits from the increased bandwidth. If…

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Over at the Washington Examiner’s Opinion Zone, I apply what  I learned back in Economics 101 to the net neutrality debate. It’s all about scarcity.

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Your host Richard Morrison welcomes returning guest co-host William Yeatman and special guest commenter Ryan Radia to the program for Episode 61 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We start with the FCC’s just-announced proposal for “net neutrality,” Treasury documents that reveal the true cost of cap-and-trade legislation and the plan for getting over California’s great depression. We then move on to the G20 Summit’s potential path to prosperity and the ever-expanding scandal that is ACORN.

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You know them from the cap-and-trade climate bill that failed to generate funding for Obama’s proposed health reforms.  Now, they’re joining forces again. Rep. Henry Waxman (D.-CA) announced Thursday that he will co-sponsor a net-neutrality bill introduced by Rep. Ed Markey (D.-MA).  Misleadingly named the Internet Freedom Preservation Act, Waxman-Markey v 2.0 would hold Internet Service Providers legally responsible for ensuring that every user has access to whatever they want, whenever they want, regardless of the actual resources available.

While Internet firms…

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The Washington Examiner has published my op-ed on net neutrality:

A war is waging over the future of the Internet. On one side are the supporters of “net neutrality,” a proposal to ban Internet service providers (ISPs) from giving different treatment to network traffic from different sources. The Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009, introduced in the House two weeks ago, is their latest salvo.

On the other side are those who believe that regulation will threaten the very freedom that has allowed…

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CEI’s broadband reply comments from earlier this week received a generous quotation by Ars Technica’s Nate Anderson. Mr. Anderson took issue, however, with our claim that net neutrality mandates are essentially price controls:

“In particular, [neutrality rules] require ISPs to offer content providers a price of zero, and to differentiate prices to consumers only in certain limited ways,” says CEI’s filing. “The disastrous consequences of price controls are all too familiar. And while neutrality may currently align with industry best practices, that fact…

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CEI submitted our initial comments to the FCC on broadband policy last month, and this week we submitted our reply comments. A brief overview:

International Comparisons: The gap between the US and other industrialized nations is vastly overstated. The differences between the leaders and the rest only amounts to a few months given the current extraordinary rate of growth. Much of our alleged lag is due to the fact that we subsidize broadband less than others, and yet we still seem to…

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CEI’s own Wayne Crews is quoted in the Boston Globe this morning, explaining why real competition — not government-mandated ‘openness’ — is the best way to promote consumer choice.

Wayne takes issue with Ben Scott of Free Press, who describes cellular data access as “a classical net neutrality issue.’’ Apparently placing legal burdens on any new web platform is Mr. Scott’s strategy for encouraging the spread of mobile internet access…

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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…

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Your hosts Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist bring you Episode 32 of the LibertyWeek podcast with special guest Sam Kazman and surprise guest co-host Jeremy Lott. We start by looking into the possible future of the Federal Communications Commission with nominee Julius Genachowski about to ascend to the chairmanship, and then take another stroll through the New Great Depression with high-level financial talks between unpopular British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and über-popular President Barack Obama. Oregonian brewers fight a proposed fifteen…

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Hopefully nothing.  But international policy has a way of making waves on our shores; sort of a “Look what they’re doing in Europe, we should do that too” mantra that’s carried in some circles.

The policy that was passed in Norway on the 24th of February is voluntary, but has a large base of support across government, trade associations, and consumer groups within the country.

The policy boils down to 3 main objectives, and those wishing to voluntarily support and conduct business…

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Right behind the broadband stimulus goldmine within the Obama administrations stimulus plan sits Sec. 3102 (E). Sec. 3102 (E) is a fairly simple bit of reading that deals with requirements that must be met in order to receive grants for funding broadband deployment in rural areas. If we break this section down, which truthfully is only necessary if you are a rock, it goes over a few items.  For instance, making sure no one gets “unjust[ly] rich”, which begs the question…

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Net neutrality has long been a threat to Internet users. Despite the rhetoric and appeals to “openness,” it was always an anti-consumer enterprise, irretrievably and irrevocably set against the concept of infrastructure wealth creation (as if content and infrastructure companies in free markets were somehow sworn enemies). It smacked of “infrastructure socialism.”

Now Google, neutrality’s chief proponent in Washington, FCC and policy circles, wants to secure for itself its own “fast track” on the Web, in conjunction with telecom and cable…

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My colleague Cord asked me about proposing a tech agenda for Congress given the ascendancy today of Henry Waxman to Energy and Commerce Chairmanship; my immediate answer was “Adjourn.”

Anyway, the big news is that Rep Henry Waxman challenged John Dingell for Energy and Commerce Committee chairmanship, and won. E&C has jurisdiction over, well, everything.

Waxman has been a member of Congress since 1975, reminding us of the saliency of term limits. What matters, one might argue, is not that…

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O’Reilly writer Andy Oram makes the case that the assertion President-elect Barack Obama’s victory is in large part due to his campaign’s effective use of the internet is an overstatement, to say the least.  Oram counters that when all is said and done, the mainstream media is what had the most significant impact on the elections.

I feel I have to temper the hype over how the Internet has changed elections. There’s no doubt that the Internet provides enormous potential, and that people have been…

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Broadband Reports ran an opinion piece by Karl last week discussing the rumors that Comcast will soon adopt a 250GB a month maximum with overage fees for excessive consumption.

 As the piece points out, implementing overage fees runs the risk of giving FiOS (and, to a lesser extent, U-Verse) an even bigger edge on cable broadband. Because of AT&T and Verizon’s last-mile network architecture, heavy users aren’t as likely to impact other customers’ experiences as they are on Comcast’s shared cable network, so the…

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