Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner and others oppose network neutrality because they fear competition: from the Internet. In this piece I wrote for The Nation magazine, online, I discuss what their plans are for our broadband futures. Read it and fight (on) for a more democratic, diverse, and even perhaps competitive digital media system.
Category: Verizon
Kill Bill: Steven’s Commerce Committee Posts “Tube” (I mean Telecom) Bill
Here’s an example of the narrow-minded, telecom lobbyist written, communications policies that undermine the development of a U.S. democratic media system in the digital era. Congress–as usual–doesn’t really want to acknowledge why the cable and telephone industry are so afraid of the Internet as we now know it (real competition for ideas and commercial advantage). Leaders such as Sen. Stevens have their heads in the digital sands. By letting a few narrow (but powerful) interests–such as AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Time Warner–dominate the distribution of digital media, Stevens/Joe Barton and company are undermining both democratic discourse and competition.
This is the marked-up bill passed by Senate Commerce. It should be called the “Telephone & Cable Monopoly Giveaway and Anti Consumer/Community Act of 2006.” We will be back soon with a full analysis. But it’s revealing that the U.S. public is treated as “subscribers” or “consumers”–not as citizens and others deserving a broad and expanded set of rights.
http:// www. commerce.senate.gov/public/_files/HR5252RS.pdf
PS: The Stevens Committee also released–and then pulled, we were told–a “brochure” promoting its bill. Sen. Stevens apparently feels desperate that his bill–and lack of understanding about how the Internet works–was getting so much bad press. I guess he–and his aides–don’t know much about PR either. Here’s the brochure.
Disney and Verizon: Broadband Lies about Diversity
People of color have not fared well in the U.S. in terms of owning/controlling programming content. Channels serving “minority†audiences have often been created to serve the political purposes of the media lobby. BET was financially backed to help the cable industry secure lucrative franchises from big cities. More recently, Comcast supported the new TV One cable channel to give it greater leverage with officials from the African American community. As we have pointed out previously, the TV industry views the African American and Hispanic “market†as great places to sell soap and other products—not as communities deserving a meaningful range of serious and independent content services. In the emerging interactive broadband era, the stakes are especially high, in our opinion, to ensure that there are well-supported local and national services serving a variety of needs—including news, public affairs, and culture.
Last Monday, executives from both Verizon and Disney claimed that their corporate policies opposing an open Internet and ending community oversight of cable TV would “help improve black and Hispanic presence in the industry†(according to the off-line trade journal Communications Daily, 7/11/06: “Verizon, Disney Executives Say Their Policy Positions Good for Minority Communicationsâ€). The executives spoke at a conference held by the Minority Media & Telecom Council.
Verizon’s EVP/Super-Lobbyist (and former Congressperson) Tom Tauke, in discussing why his company opposes network neutrality, said that such a safeguard wasn’t needed because “all players can reach their audiences over broadband.†Disney’s Preston Padden [once the media industry leader fighting for network neutrality] echoed Tauke’s perspectives that people of color have nothing to worry about. He said, noted the trade report, that “near as I can tell, the Internet is completely color-blind.â€
But both Verizon and Disney aren’t being honest. They know well that absent network neutrality, a private system for broadband distribution is evolving in the U.S. Powerful gatekeepers are emerging for broadband—just as we’ve had with broadcast and cable TV. Deals are being struck which give a privileged few—such as what was done between Verizon and Disney last year—real access to audiences. Everyone else will be a second-class digital citizen, at best.
I fear that absent action, both in the political front and in the marketplace, the kind of rich digital environment that would meet the full needs of communities now marginalized in our media system will not readily emerge. That’s why it’s time for a serious response to the lies coming from Disney, Verizon and others. We are at a critical crossroads—a turning point—with digital communications. Now is the time to stake a claim for broadband to the PC, TV, and mobile networks. Otherwise, people from America’s diverse communities could end up responding to images and content controlled by others—folks principally interested in selling and making steady bucks.
QoS and the Network Neutrality debate: Gaming Policymakers to Win the `Triple Play’
A refrain from the phone and cable industry, in the debate over network neutrality, is they have to manage their networks. Hence, their claim they need the authority to oversee traffic flows—such as ensuring a time-sensitive Voice over the Internet (VOIP) phone call is promptly delivered (while allowing more time, say, for an email to reach you). Such traffic management techniques are often called “Quality of Service†or QoS. Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and others suggest that they would be hamstrung by a net neutrality safeguard, because it would prevent or impede them from using QoS techniques to ensure time sensitive information is given priority.
But network neutrality proponents aren’t saying that network providers shouldn’t be able to fairly and efficiently manage the network. We are all for a digital traffic cop who works for the good of all. But phone and cable companies want a private electronic operative on the beat. They want to use QoS to give their traffic (video, data, etc.) a turbo-charged passage via fast lanes into our PCs, TV’s, and mobile devices. Why? So they can enjoy what they are calling the “triple play.†That’s the latest communications industry buzzword ((goodbye synergy!) reflecting plans to monetize as much as possible our digital lives. Triple Play means that Verizon or Time Warner will lock up customers by selling them voice, video, and data services in either or both wired and wireless formats. As part of their “Triple Play†business model, phone and cable companies want to use QoS to extract (extort) fees from content providers who also want to travel on fast lanes by getting a friendly electronic nod from the private traffic cops.
We urge you to read some of the literature illustrating how control over the network is key to AT&T and others plans to score a triple play. And then we ask—do we really want to let a few companies control the U.S. Internet’s digital destiny? Tell Senator Stevens—who doesn’t seem to really get the problem—that he should stand up for Internet freedom. (We also urge you to contact Senator Inouye and ask him to oppose any legislation that fails to protect U.S. online communications).
The Washington Post’s editorial board on Network Neutrality: Boy, do they need someone who knows the media business working there!
The Washington Post’s editorial position on media and communications policy issues has generally taken a pro-consolidation line over the years. This is ironic and sad, especially given the concerns expressed by the paper’s two top editors about the dramatic decline of quality in U.S. journalism. But in their much acclaimed “News about the News: American Journalism in Peril,†Len Downie Jr. and Robert G. Kaiser fail to acknowledge at all the role which consolidation contributes to the deterioration of journalism. For the impact of media industry lobbying on media ownership has led to newsroom cutbacks and an industry orientation to journalism `light.’ But Downie and Kaiser—as well as their editorial board colleagues—fail to make the connection between regulatory safeguards and a media system that serves a broad range of information needs in a democracy. Nor is the Post ever clear to its readers about what it is really doing when it comes to lobbying Washington to advance its own corporate interests. For example, the paper has never well explained the Post Co.’s political support for the elimination of the broadcast-newspaper cross-ownership safeguard (which is about to be taken up, once more, by the FCC).
In the case of network neutrality, the Post should have been more candid about the political role its parent (Washington Post Co.) is playing. It’s not as simple as [we have] “interests on both sides of this issue.†The Post Co’s cable subsidiary president, Thomas O. Might, has been on the cable lobby board of directors (NCTA) for years. The Post therefore has been intimately involved in the closed-door strategy developed by the NCTA to over-turn the rules requiring an open, non-discriminatory Internet. In addition, the Post’s clout enables it to distribute its content over GE/NBC/Microsoft online properties–something a start-up would find it difficult to readily obtain.
On the merits of the Post’s argument, we can only say that they are either being disingenuous with readers or are incredibly naïve about the media business. In its editorial, they dismiss our concerns that–in the absence of network neutrality– the Internet will come to resemble the cable T.V. industry. They claim that technology will ensure the low-cost production of content. But what they ignore is that like cable, the company that controls the wires (or airwaves, in the case of wireless), can determine how each packet of content fares on the network. The few cable and phone companies, which now control 98% of the U.S. broadband market, can use their power to choose winners and losers (as the cable TV industry has done with video programming). In addition, those content providers that can best promote and process their interactive content will also have a digital leg up. Without net neutrality, the online programming owned or affiliated with the phone and cable broadband duopoly will always be in the lead.
As for speculation—it’s not. The equipment to control the Net’s future is being rolled out, as we speak
Will Microsoft, Yahoo!, Diller, etc. Send in the Ads to Save Net Neutrality?
It’s time for the six big new media corporate supporters of network neutrality to get real—or go back to Silicon Valley, Seattle, or Aspen. What’s needed now—after the disastrous and humiliating vote in the House—is the one thing that politicians really respect and fear—TV ads. Letters from Microsoft and visits from cyber wunderkinds aren’t enough, especially with the PR and lobbying blitz underwritten by the Telco’s. As the Senate Commerce Committee takes up network neutrality this week, it’s time for Gates, Brin, Barry Diller, Terry Semel, and Bezos to get real (we acknowledge with respect the work done by eBay CEO Meg Whitman asking one million of its members to take action).
The copy for the ad is a no-brainer: `The big Phone and Cable Companies (yes—our partners AT&T, Verizon, Comcast) want to have a monopoly over the Internet. They want to jack up the prices you and I pay for service. They want to transform the ‘Net into a pay as surf toll road filled with commercials and the kinds of programs the FCC will soon impose stiffer fines for. Help us stop them. (So, okay, that’s not the ad. But they can afford their own copywriter.)
So, we ask. Will these companies devote the resources—a pittance to their bottom lines—to help save the U.S. digital communications system from these corporate cutthroats? Or, are they really a two-faced bunch of new media conglomerates that don’t have the best interests for the democratic potential of the broadband Internet at heart?
Watch your TV screens to find out.
As the House Votes on Net Neutrality, A Case Study of a Non-Neutral Net/Verizon-Disney’s Broadband Deal Illustrates Power of Telco Powerhouses
When Verizon and Disney signed a “long-term programming agreement†in 2005, it illustrated why the Congress should enact net neutrality safeguards. Disney sought to secure the broadband gate keeping power that Verizon (and only a few others) have over both digital TV and Internet distribution. Under the deal, Verizon agreed to distribute (via its FIOS service) a dozen channels on the preferential expanded basic tier. They included: ABC Family, ABC News Now, Disney Channel, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic, ESPNEWS, ESPNU, ESPN HD, ESPN2 HD, Ton Disney and SOAP net. Disney also gained favorable distribution for its Spanish language content and its video-on-demand library,
But more importantly, Verizon agreed to bless a Disney owned “broadband product portfolio†including “ABC News Now, Disney Connection, ESPN360, Movies.com and a newly launched broadband soap opera product.†This will likely give Disney content the fast-lane service (including better promotion) that Verizon, AT&T and cable want to impose for the online medium. In addition, in an example of how a Verizon can police the Internet for its favored customers, the agreement included a promise by the phone giant to identify subscribers who are infringing on Disney’s “copyrighted works.†Verizon agreed to “forward and track notices to its subscribers allegedly engaged in the unauthorized distribution of Disney’s copyrighted works, without identifying the subscribers to Disney, and either provide subscriber identifying information pursuant to lawfully served subpoenas or terminate Verizon Internet service provided to subscribers who have infringed Disney copyrights and received multiple notices.â€
Without network neutrality, every content provider will have to try and negotiate some deal with a Verizon or Comcast. The Internet should operate without gate keepers and online snoops. Let’s not let them turn the Net into Mickey Mouse. Congress must stand up to the special phone and cable interests
Why are Conservative Leaders, such as Grover Norquist, Fearful about Individual Freedom Online?
We are astonished at the reaction of all the so-called conservative/â€free market†groups that have rushed to side with the telephone and cable monopoly in the network neutrality fight. This is battle between those who want to ensure our individual freedom to travel online wherever we wish to go, versus those who wish to create a private Internet toll-road. The Internet should not be a gated community. It’s the public square—with plenty of convenient shopping nearby.
So why oh why are the groups backing AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast—such as the Heritage Foundation, Americans for Tax Reform, CATO, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the National Taxpayers Union—doing this? They claim that network neutrality supporters are either liberals desiring to “regulate†the web or that companies such as Google and eBay are looking for competitive advantages. But—they are simply wrong. And the public will pay dearly for their foolhardy bad judgement.
The phone and cable companies have plans to dramatically change the wide, open spaces of online into their private property. They want a digital monopoly—like they have had either in the phone or cable TV business.
It’s a land grab of the Internet in the U.S.—with restrictions on our freedom to travel online, new threats to our privacy, and lack of consumer choice. These so-called conservative groups have been badly misinformed—or are on the financial dole from the phone and cable lobby. Whatever the reason, it’s evident that they’re not well serving their members by selling out the Internet to a tiny handful of monopolists. (They should all identify whether they have taken money from the communications lobby and how much).
They are also unaware of the phone and cable plans for the Internet. When the Heritage Foundation’s James Gattuso says network neutrality would prevent “network owners…[from using] scare Internet capacity more efficiently†he ignores there plans to impose a pay as you go Internet toll road. That would mean that a phone or cable company could make it harder for us to access the website of our choice because they have given themselves priority. In other words—the public gets to stand or lumped into cramped digital economy class, while the phone or cable company puts itself in first class (paying for that service with the money they get from our bills each month).
Shame, shame on “Americans for Tax Reform†and the other groups. Why are they putting hard-working families last and the Internet `super size us’ media companies first?
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Not-So Smart Mobs: The Wireless Industry War Against Net Neutrality
It’s not just the biggest phone and cable companies opposing a open Internet (net neutrality). It’s also the wireless industry—including companies providing cellular and mobile communications. One of the principal characteristics of our expanding ubiquitous digital media environment will be its reach—on the street, in transport, and everyplace else. New forms of political action and cultural expression could evolve if the U.S. can have a non-discriminatory mobile environment.
But that’s not what the CTIA-The Wireless Association wants. They are opposing network neutrality safeguards. In testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee earlier this month, CTIA’s chief Steve Largent warned of “many of the unintended consequences that would flow from some of the Net Neutrality regulations being considered [that] would have a particularly negative impact on wireless consumers.†What Largent really meant was that the wireless industry hopes to impose the same kind of toll booth regime for mobile communications. In their vision, ads and content supported by a McDonalds, P&G soap, Fox News or Disney will have preferential access. CTIA’s board includes T-Mobile, Cingular (AT&T), Sprint Nextel, Verizon Wireless and most of the key manufacturers. As we mentioned in yesterday’s entry, CTIA is also a member of the anti-open Internet group called netcompetition.org. (It’s time, by the way, we had a real anti-trust investigation of the mobile industry).
The united front of cable, wireless phone and wireless/mobile companies fighting against network neutrality is a good example of why we need serious policy safeguards (going beyond network neutrality) to protect freedom of communications in the U.S. Without such rules, the civic potential of Howard Rheingold’s Smart Mobs will be thwarted by powerful commercial forces.
NetCompetition.org: Distortions and Cable/Telco Flackery
We are disappointed that Scott Cleland would act as “chair†and chief advocate for this anti-open Internet group. Its “members†(really its financial backers) are a rogue’s gallery of some of the most powerful and avaricious big media companies: Verizon, Time Warner, Comcast, Advance Newhouse, and AT&T. This front-group also includes industry lobbying heavyweights NCTA, CTIA, USTA, and ACA. In other words, it’s a cable and Telco joint lobbying venture. The role that the cellular lobby (CTIA) plays here illustrates how both the wireline and wireless industries wish to jointly create a cash and carriage broadband distribution system.
But the “research†and information on netcompetition.org is shoddy and reflects a vision promoting monopoly power and greed. Mr. Cleland and his allies should know better. Net Neutrality is about democracy—removing barriers to the distribution of content essential for a civil society to function. That’s why nearly all the consumer and good government groups support network neutrality. It’s not about the corporate welfare of a Google or Microsoft. It’s about ensuring there are as few gatekeepers as possible for content promoting such applications as political speech, civic engagement, non-profit arts and culture, education, life-long learning and everything else we require in a digital society. I don’t have time here to rebut all their assertions (they all all shamefully misleading). This is a mean-spirited, propagandistic website. Mr. Cleland should have the group change its name to more honestly reflect what they are about: netmonopoly.con