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 constituents have a right to continue electing a member to the House if they want to; but that the rest of the nation for whom he makes binding law never gets the opportunity to kick the guy to the curb. Nothing personal, but–33 years?

Anyway that’s irrelevant now:  Waxman’s focus will be health care, most assuredly, and energy policy also (have a look at President-elect Barack Obama’s platform for reassurance about this). Keeping Michigan’s Dingell in the E&C chairmanship would have meant that the Democrat’s favorite energy-and-renewable-mandate policies would have been blocked by the leading Michigan Democrat. So he obviously had to go. The auto industry is tough and can take a dose of Waxman, I guess is what they figure. Never mind all that business over the past couple weeks about a Detroit bailout; it’s Thursday, all that stuff was the other day.

But on tech policy: since the committee has jurisdiction over the Federal Communications Commission and the Chairman represents Hollywood, he is newly influential over copyright issues and broadcast concerns like “airtime” for candidates and obsure stuff like net neutrality (which is the idea that internet infrastructure belongs to everybody except those who built it). Watch for the “Fairness Doctrine” issue to re-emerge. If memory serves, this is the notion championed by Democrats who are upset that Oprah gave such an infusion of support to Barack Obama, so I think they’ll be trying to make her showcase some Republicans on her show. Pretty noble of the Congressman and the party.

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 using it in burgeoning numbers over the past four years to search for information, share ideas with friends, and form online coalitions. But several key observations show that the tipping point hasn’t arrived.

He goes on to give three points that illustrate why he feels this is the case:

1. Fund-raising proves the primacy of the mainstream media
2. Viral videos also prove the primacy of the mainstream media
3. Elections themselves have no Internet component

Fleshing out his points he states:

No one denies that Obama’s victory was driven by his astonishing ability to raise money (final tally: $650 million from 3 million donors, according to a Bloomberg story this morning). There’s nothing wrong with Noah Gift’s tribute to the Internet, just published on the same site where I’m typing out this blog. But let’s be honest: much of Obama’s famed online campaign–the social networking, the viral messaging, the constant emailing–was directed toward raising that money.

And it’s TV and radio that create the need for most of that money. Lots of us have built grassroots campaigns for various causes over the Internet, and we know we can do it practically cost-free. Certainly, fielding a team on the field in a fifty-state strategy takes money. But it’s really those thirty-second ads (or in Obama’s case, thirty-minute ads) on the incredibly expensive TV and radio stations that eat up the bucks.

Point 2:

Much has also been made in recent elections of the role of YouTube–a shorthand for the success by networks of determined individuals in raising items buried by the mainstream media to a newsworthy level. It looks like–at least when an embarrassing event such as George Allen’s macaca moment happens to get entangled with a sensitive issue–grassroots action can really shift the discourse.

But once again, these shifts in discourse don’t really make a difference until the mainstream media pick them up.

In his third point Oram simply illustrates that the physical requirement of actually going to a polling in person to vote removes the internet completely from the equation.  And that “elections have not been fundamentally changed by the Internet.” These points are well taken and puts the hype into perspective.  However, with Obama’s win and Ron Paul’s ascendance as a movement unto himself, I am still rather convinced of the power of web 2.0 to influence the political process.

 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 telcos can typically get by without terminating heavy users or charging them extra.

Yet right after Karl finishes explaining about how overage fees will change the competitive landscape, he starts ranting about the prospect of “investor pressure constantly forcing caps downward and overage fees upward.”

Competitive pressures make this scenario a remote possibility, especially as content portals serving massive files like Apple TV and Xbox Marketplace gain mainstream appeal. If Comcast wants to deflect criticism from other ISPs over bandwidth limits, any cap must be high enough to ensure very few customers even approach it. Arguably, 250GB a month is enough to satiate even power users, at least for a couple more years.

ISPs are competing fiercely to attract subscribers, so providers regularly make hay out of seemingly trivial product differences such as the “ugly cabinets” that AT&T sometimes installs when upgrading a neighborhood’s DSL speeds. Imagine the ads Verizon will run if Comcast starts charging customers for heavy use—“With Comcast, you never know when you’ll be hit with an enormous monthly bill if your kids go on a YouTube frenzy or your computer is overtaken by hackers. Here in FiOS land, rest assured there are no extra fees, no matter how much you download.” It’s not hard to see this message resonating with customers, especially those living in households with multiple Web-savvy residents.

Making things harder for Comcast is the fact that most U.S. customers aren’t used to explicit bandwidth limits (unlike Canadians). Currently, the only major U.S. ISP with an outright cap on consumption is Cox Cable, but even then enforcement is highly selective. Time Warner is testing the waters with bandwidth caps in a handful of markets, but otherwise most ISPs have either no caps at all or hidden ones affecting a tiny fraction of users.

The “Save the Internet” brigade’s insistence on neutrality and transparency has left Comcast with little choice but to resort to a metered solution to network congestion. Of course, I’m pleased that Sandvine and the “invisi-caps” will soon be history, and I look forward to consuming 249.99 GB each month on my Comcast connection.

But what about non-neutral solutions to last-mile congestion? To be sure, Sandvine was far from perfect, but who knows what innovative network management technologies will go undeveloped because of the stigma, and threat of regulation, against traffic discrimination?

It wouldn’t be surprising if we soon see calls for government to impose price controls because Comcast’s $1.50 per GB is “excessive” and “unfair.” For many proponents of government regulation of private networks, I suspect having neutral ISPs isn’t enough. They yearn for a utopian marketplace that offers limitless bandwidth, neutral networks, and affordable prices. And who doesn’t? But the best way to make this vision a reality is to foster private investment and let emerging technologies fill today’s competitive void.

Naturally, the “Save the Internet” crowd isn’t satisfied with Comcast’s declaration. Being protocol-agnostic wasn’t enough for them, and neither is a consumer bill of rights. Customers will only be safe from evil ISPs, they say, with aggressive neutrality mandates like Rep. Markey’s proposed legislation.

On one hand, Comcast’s declaration is good news for Bittorrent users, and illustrates the responsiveness of market forces. And as a Comcast subscriber, I’m all for non-discriminatory networks. (Though I seed torrents quite rarely, it’s nice to know the option exists.)

But declaring a consumer “Bill of Rights” is a risky approach. Comcast is ceding key ground to interventionists by implicitly admitting that consumers have some inherent right to unfiltered, unmanaged networks. They don’t—despite what lawmakers like Byron Dorgan have suggested.

Essentially, Comcast is saying “If we have to be neutral, then so should all the other guys. Otherwise, they’re violating consumer rights.”

Yet some ISPs are making just the opposite argument, identifying the benefits of curbing bandwidth-intensive applications.  In comments filed last week, Bell Canada contended that throttling is in the public interest, explaining that 95% of subscribers suffer on account of file sharing. GigaOM posted a story yesterday that lends further credence to claims that peer-to-peer traffic is a major culprit of network congestion.

Perhaps we shall see a competing bill of rights—one holding that customers have the right to affordable broadband access free from file sharing-induced slowdowns.

As bandwidth demand continues to grow, ISPs must make tough choices. Between price increases, bandwidth caps, and protocol discrimination, it is far from clear what’s best for the average user. If AT&T’s prediction is correct that in three years time, 20 typical households will consume as much bandwidth as the entire Internet does today, then carriers will need to invest billions upgrading both the backbone and last-mile. Discouraging investment through regulation poses a far greater threat to the Internet’s future than hypothetical neutrality violations.

If neutrality truly is as virtuous as its proponents suggest (and I suspect it is) then it will ultimately triumph on its own merits, without the need for government intervention. Still, exclusionary, proprietary networks may yet play an invaluable role in propelling connectivity, despite closed systems’ shortcomings.  Who knows what will work out best in the long run? Market experimentation is the only way to find out.