Douglas Ross's Network Neutrality Index

For those looking for a series of arguments in favor of network neutrality, blogger Douglas Ross has put together an index like mine of his postings on the subject. I've not read all of them, and have disagreed with most of the ones I have read (e.g., Ross thinks it's OK to ban QoS because it can't possibly work, even though it does work and is in use in major Internet backbones like Global Crossing's; we had an extended exchange in response to my list of Phoenix-area broadband options).

So check out his writings, and think critically. If you think he's got some good arguments for imposing net neutrality regulations, let me know.

Phoenix housing bubble update

It's been a while since I gave an update on the number of homes for sale in Phoenix--the inventory has continued to balloon since the last report on March 10:

3/7/2006 36953
3/8/2006 37487
3/9/2006 37626
3/10/2006 37531
3/11/2006 38011
3/12/2006 38184
3/13/2006 38169
3/14/2006 38003
3/15/2006 38197
3/16/2006 38574
3/17/2006 38602
3/18/2006 39074
3/19/2006 38972
3/20/2006 38822
3/21/2006 39159
3/22/2006 38982
3/23/2006 39043
3/24/2006 39271
3/25/2006 39381
3/26/2006 39504
3/27/2006 39817
3/28/2006 39784
3/29/2006 39765
3/30/2006 39948
3/31/2006 40192
4/1/2006 40177
4/2/2006 40182
4/3/2006 40012
4/4/2006 40050
4/5/2006 40332
4/6/2006 40739
4/7/2006 40612
4/8/2006 41124
4/9/2006 41393
4/10/2006 41018
4/11/2006 42266
4/12/2006 42327
4/13/2006 42257
4/14/2006 42561
4/15/2006 42592
4/16/2006 42775
4/17/2006 42874
4/18/2006 42523
4/19/2006 42840
4/20/2006 43017
4/21/2006 43236
4/22/2006 43385
4/23/2006 43502
4/24/2006 43697
4/25/2006 43344
4/26/2006 43427
4/27/2006 44024
4/28/2006 43886
4/29/2006 44022
4/30/2006 44290
5/1/2006 44229
5/2/2006 43900
5/3/2006 43966
5/4/2006 44162
5/5/2006 44422
5/6/2006 44094
5/7/2006 44575
5/8/2006 44777
5/9/2006 44609
5/10/2006 44898
5/11/2006 45097
5/12/2006 45356
5/13/2006 45502
5/14/2006 45619
5/15/2006 45697
5/16/2006 45705
5/17/2006 45675
5/18/2006 46064
5/19/2006 46189
5/20/2006 46049
5/21/2006 46734
5/22/2006 46753
5/23/2006 46965
5/24/2006 46856
5/25/2006 47133
5/26/2006 47225
5/27/2006 47582
5/28/2006 47591
5/29/2006 47633
5/30/2006 47722
5/31/2006 47542
6/1/2006 47187
6/2/2006 47191
6/3/2006 47848
6/4/2006 47877
6/5/2006 47979
6/6/2006 48218
6/7/2006 48106
6/8/2006 48365
6/9/2006 48579
6/10/2006 48870
6/11/2006 48889
6/12/2006 49040
6/13/2006 49132
6/14/2006 49237
6/15/2006 49052
6/16/2006 49435

My first report, last October, showed an increase in inventory from 10,748 homes on July 20, 2005 to 19,254 on October 2. We're now at a 459% increase in inventory in the just under 11 months.

(But see Einzige's comment on what counts as evidence of a housing bubble...)

New indecency fines signed into law

Bush has signed the legislation raising fines on broadcast "indecency." Adam Thierer gives the scorecard for First Amendment protections on various forms of media:

MEDIA PLATFORM / FIRST AMENDMENT STATUS
Newspapers = Full First Amendment protection
Magazine = Full First Amendment protection
Cable TV = Full First Amendment protection
Satellite TV = Full First Amendment protection
Movies = Full First Amendment protection
DVDs = Full First Amendment protection
CDs = Full First Amendment protection
Satellite Radio = Full First Amendment protection
Internet = Full First Amendment protection
Blogging = Full First Amendment protection
i-Pods = Full First Amendment protection
Podcasts = Full First Amendment protection
Video Games = Full First Amendment protection

… and then…

Broadcast TV & Radio = Second Class Citizenship Rights in Terms of the First Amendment

It's high time to remove the FCC's ability to regulate content on the grounds that somebody might find it offensive--it has become increasingly irrelevant. (Actually, I think Peter Huber makes a strong case for doing away with the FCC completely.)

Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), chairman of the House Telecommunications Subcommittee, would like to go the other direction, and give the FTC the power to regulate video games for content.

The New Republic supports net neutrality, based on error

The New Republic's editors have come out in favor of net neutrality. As is all-too-common, their reasoning is based, at least in part, on a factual error:

Under the original rules put in place in 1934, telecommunications companies can't give preferential treatment to one set of outgoing calls over another by, say, offering static-free calling to one company's telemarketers but not another's. The same rules initially applied to the Internet. Telecom companies couldn't charge website proprietors to have their content sent to consumers more expeditiously. But, last August, George W. Bush's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) exempted telecoms that provide Internet connections from these restrictions, dealing a blow to both entrepreneurship and political discourse.

I've italicized the false statement. TNR has, like many others, wrongly inferred that rules which applied solely to telco telephony and last-mile networks have also applied to the Internet and Internet Service Providers, when in fact ISPs and backbone providers have been under no such constraints.

If net neutrality proposals were limited to maintaining Title II requirements for unbundling and interconnection for common carriers (which is part of the REFORM proposal advocated by Global Crossing, which includes other points which are far more important than net neutrality for fostering competition in telecommunications), or even adding cable providers into that category, I might support them.

UPDATE: I should point out that some Internet backbones have been or are owned by entities which are common carriers in virtue of the fact that they have owned and operated long-distance telephone networks. This includes MCI, Sprint, and Global Crossing (more accurately, Global Crossing Telecommunications, Inc.). However, the FCC has always held that common carriage requirements do not apply to Internet interconnection.

Eli M. Noam's 1994 paper, "Beyond Liberalization II: The Impending Doom of Common Carriage," appears to have been rather prescient. He argues that common carriage is not sustainable in a competitive environment, and looks at possible hybrid approaches that mix common carriage and contract carriage (I kind of like his "common carrier rights of way" approach, which advocates of open source will find similar to the GPL). He regretfully concludes that common carriage will go away and that the hybrid approaches are not sustainable.

Coulter's book, Godless, on evolution

Unsurprisingly (she used William Dembski as a consultant), her book's coverage of evolution is crap:

It contains the usual stock creationist crap presented at a rapid pace, full of the usual bald assertions of outright lies, intentional misinterpretations, and lots and lots of quote mining. Seriously, it looks like every paragraph contains multiple falsehoods or screwy manglings of science.

She claims Darwin's theory is "one step above Scientology in scientific rigor", that it is a "tautology", that there is "no proof in the scientist's laboratory or the fossil record", and the only reason it's still around is that "liberals think evolution disproves God."

That's all in the first paragraph of chapter 8, which focuses on evolution. Go ahead and follow the links up there; each one is to a short, simple refutation of Coulter's claim.

Now picture a whole 27 page chapter packed with the same nonsense. I could do a sentence by sentence dissection of this abomination, but I'd have to write nothing but Coulter exposés for the next month. Forgive me if I pass on that.

Not only is it wrong through and through, but Coulter is a plagiarist. This is the book that William Dembski thinks "will propel [their] issues in the public consciousness like nothing to date"—well, yeah. Let's propel the idea that creationists are dishonest and stupid right into everyone's consciousness.

(From Pharyngula.)

"Hands Off the Internet" writes about me, then thinks better of it

On June 9, the Hands Off the Internet blog posted an entry (http://handsoff.org/tiered-service/turf-battle/) about one of my posts, but it was deleted by June 10. I wonder if they noticed my Creative Commons license, considered their use to be commercial, and decided not to risk a violation? In my opinion, their excerpt would be fine under fair use. Here's the post, from Google cache.

Turf Battle

June 9, 2006 at 9:21 am - Tiered Service, Net Neutrality, Debate, Internet Legislation, Consumer Benefit

As we’ve noted in previous posts, our critics like to call us an “astroturf” organization, which would imply that we’re hiding the identities of the companies and organizations that are among our members, only to turn around and slam us for not even being very good astroturfers because our website lists the companies and organizations that are among our members.

Well, you can’t be friends with everybody. But the accusations of astroturfing overlook the fact that there are some unique and persuasive individuals who oppose new “neutrality” legislation. One of them is Jim Lippard, a blogger in Phoenix who works in the telecom field, and has an impressive grasp of the facts.

It so happens that he recently defended our recent Flash animation from misleading attacks by the Save The Internet campaign:

In what follows, I’ll quote directly from the “Save the Internet” response (including the quotes from the “Hands Off” cartoon they are responding to) and then respond to each point.

The big telecom companies say: “Is the Internet in Danger? Does the Internet need saving? It keeps getting faster. We keep getting more choices.”The truth: Right now AT&T and others want to take away your choices and control what you can do and watch online. They’re on their best behavior while trying to convince Congress to hand over the Internet. But if their high-priced lobbyists get their way in Washington, the Internet as we know it will be gone. Network Neutrality has always curbed the control of the network owners, invited competition and encouraged innovators. It’s what made it possible for entrepreneurs and creative thinkers to prosper online. None of the big ideas that made the Internet the innovative engine it is today came from the cable or telephone companies.

Notice that there’s no evidence supplied to support the claim that “AT&T and others want to take away your choices and control what you can do and watch online.” What the telcos want to do is build new last-mile consumer services by installing a new fiber-to-the-home infrastructure, over which they can offer services in addition to and distinct from the public Internet, just as they currently offer voice telephony as a service separate and distinct from the public Internet.

Specifically, they want to offer digital television services and potentially new services which they control, following the model of the cable industry. The telcos’ real desire is to compete with the cable industry and be regulated in much the same way. They further want to be able to charge content providers to be able to provide services over this new fiber, because they know that consumer fees alone are not sufficient to recover their costs in rolling out this new infrastructure.

He goes point by point, and does an excellent job of bringing their spin to a halt.

And if you still haven’t seen the Flash animation being discussed, you can see it right here: dontregulate.org.

CBS protests $3.3 million FCC fine against "Without a Trace"

The FCC levied a record-breaking $3.3 million fine against 103 CBS affiliates for airing a repeat episode of "Without a Trace" on December 31, 2004, before 10 p.m. which involved "a simulated group sex scene at a high school party." CBS has protested on the grounds that all 4,211 complaints were submitted via the Parents Television Council and American Family Affiliation websites, and only two complaints referred to actually seeing the offending scene.

(Remember, the FCC is the organization net neutrality advocates want to give the power to regulate content. The power to mandate content will no doubt bring along the power to prohibit content.)

Volcano seen erupting from space

Astronaut Jeffrey N. Williams aboard the International Space Station was the first to witness the Cleveland Volcano in the Aleutian island chain erupting three weeks ago, and took this nice photo.

Hat tip: The Two Percent Company.

Church of the Computer

Mare Nostrum computer at the Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain, housed in a 1920s cathedral.

(Via BLDGBLOG.)

Bennett on Free Press net neutrality "facts"

Richard Bennett at the Original Blog has criticized Free Press's list of network neutrality facts, arguing that most of them are fictions, e.g.:

PSEUDO-FACT #1: Network Neutrality protections have existed for the entire history of the Internet.

REAL FACT: Actually, there is no legal precedent at all for the anti-QoS provision of the Neutrality regulations, and many commercial Internet customers use QoS today. Even the Internet2 Abilene network tried to use it.

This pseudo-fact is one I've repeatedly criticized network neutrality advocates for falsely asserting. The Free Press folks are the people managing the "Save the Internet" campaign.

The whole list is well worth reading, as are a couple of other recent posts at Bennett's blog. One is a note he wrote to Senator Barbara Boxer, which includes this bit:

The Snowe-Dorgan and Markey Amendments contain a poison pill that will stifle the evolution of the Internet, in the form of a prohibition against a Quality of Service surcharge:

If a broadband network provider prioritizes or offers enhanced quality of service to data of a particular type, it must prioritize or offer enhanced quality of service to all data of that type (regardless of the origin or ownership of such data) without imposing a surcharge or other consideration for such prioritization or enhanced quality of service.

The argument in favor of this provision says that it’s needed in order to prevent the formation of a two-tier Internet, where one tier has Quality of Service and the other doesn’t, and this is somehow bad for Daily Kos and Google.

This is a false claim, because the engineering math behind Quality of Service says it can’t be applied to every stream from every user. In Lake Woebegon all the children are above average, but on the Internet all the packets can’t be above average.

Another is his comment on tomorrow's Senate hearing where Ben Scott of the Free Press will be representing the "pro-regulation side of the neutrality debate" which he suggests is "a good choice" because he's "easily confused." In the same post, he reports on Matt Stoller's (of MyDD) presentation at the Yearly Kos event, in which Stoller "had to admit that he knows nothing about the issue of Telecom policy, which was interesting because the regulations he proposes don’t actually relate to telecom policy. They’re a new and unprecedented intervention into Internet routing and service plan regulation, a totally virgin territory for government regulators. Stoller admitted that it’s just a good guys vs. bad guys issue for him, one that’s lots of “fun”."

Bennett asks, "So my question is this: “should the US Congress take advice on virgin regulatory territory from someone who admits to knowing nothing about the subject matter?”"