Category: Digital Infrastructure & Platforms
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Broadband Politics and Closed-Door Negotiations at the FCC
The last seven days at the FCC have been drama-filled, and that’s not something you can often say about an administrative agency. As I noted in my last post, the FCC is considering reclassifying broadband as a “common carrier” service. This would subject the access portion of the service to some additional regulations which currently…
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Regulating and Not Regulating the Internet
There is increasingly heated rhetoric in DC over whether or not the government should begin to “regulate the internet.” Such language is neither accurate nor new. This language implies that the government does not currently involve itself in governing the internet — an implication which is clearly untrue given a myriad of laws like CFAA,…
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Search Neutrality ? Net Neutrality
Sunday’s New York Times featured a provocative op-ed arguing in addition to regulating “net neutrality” the FCC should also effectuate “search neutrality” – requiring search providers rank results without consideration of business entities. The author heaps particular scorn upon Google for promoting its own context-relevant services (i.e. maps and weather) at the fore of search…
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Net Neutrality: When is Network Management "Reasonable"?
Last week the FCC released its much-awaited Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on network neutrality. As expected, the NPRM affirms past FCC neutrality principles, and adds two more. Here’s the key language: 1. Subject to reasonable network management, a provider of broadband Internet access service may not prevent any of its users from sending or…
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Android Open Source Model Has a Short Circuit
[Update: Google subsequently worked out a mechanism that allows Cyanogen and others to distribute their mods separate from the Google Apps.] Last year, Google entered the mobile phone market with a Linux-based mobile operating system. The company brought together device manufacturers and carriers in the Open Handset Alliance, explaining that, “Together we have developed Android™,…
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The Markey Net Neutrality Bill: Least Restrictive Network Management?
It’s an exciting time in the net neutrality debate. FCC Chairman Jules Genachowski’s speech on Monday promised a new FCC proceeding that will aim to create a formal rule to replace the Commission’s existing policy statement. Meanwhile, net neutrality advocates in Congress are pondering new legislation for two reasons: First, there is a debate about…
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Three Flavors of Net Neutrality
When the Wall Street Journal claimed on Monday that Google was secretly backtracking on its net neutrality position, commentators were properly skeptical. Tim Lee (among others) argued that the Journal misunderstood what net neutrality means, and others pointed out gaps in the Journal’s reasoning — not to mention that the underlying claim about Google’s actions…
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Does Your House Need a Tail?
Thus far, the debate over broadband deployment has generally been between those who believe that private telecom incumbents should be in charge of planning, financing and building next-generation broadband infrastructure, and those who advocate a larger role for government in the deployment of broadband infrastructure. These proposals include municipal-owned networks and a variety of subsidies…
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Could Use-Based Broadband Pricing Help the Net Neutrality Debate?
Yesterday, thanks to a leaked memo, it came to light that Time Warner Cable intends to try out use-based broadband pricing on a few of its customers. It looks like the plan is for several tiers of use, with the heaviest users possibly paying overage charges on a per-byte basis. In confirming its plans to…
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Verizon Violates Net Neutrality with DNS Deviations
While many of us were discussing Comcast’s partial blocking of BitTorrent Traffic, and debating its implications for the net neutrality debate, a more clear-cut neutrality violation was apparently taking place on Verizon’s network – a redirection of Verizon customers’ failed DNS lookups, to drive traffic to Verizon’s own search engine. Here’s the background. Suppose you’re…