[Reader-list] Are; Netizens = Not-Citizens?

[aasim khan]

Hi everyone,

Here is a report from the The Nation. Very interesting
read...

I wonder if distribution (of media)is the key to
maintain the monopoly rather then the content?

In the Indian context I can imagine the Ambani
Brothers doing their best to buy out all the cable
netwroks pretty soon...

Best
Aasim


Congress Poised to Unravel the Internet
by JEFFREY CHESTER

[posted online on August 18, 2006]

Lured by huge checks handed out by the country's top
lobbyists, members of Congress could soon strike a
blow against Internet freedom as they seek to resolve
the hot-button controversy over preserving "network
neutrality." The telecommunications reform bill now
moving through Congress threatens to be a major
setback for those who hope that digital media can
foster a more democratic society. The bill not only
precludes net neutrality safeguards but also
eliminates local community oversight of digital
communications provided by cable and phone giants. It
sets the stage for the privatized, consolidated and
unregulated communications system that is at the core
of the phone and cable lobbies' political agenda. 

In both the House and Senate versions of the bill,
Americans are described as "consumers" and
"subscribers," not citizens deserving substantial
rights when it comes to the creation and distribution
of digital media. A handful of companies stand to gain
incredible monopoly power from such legislation,
especially AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner and Verizon.
They have already used their political clout in
Washington to secure for the phone and cable
industries a stunning 98 percent control of the US
residential market for high-speed Internet. 

Alaska Republican Senator Ted Stevens, the powerful
Commerce Committee chair, is trying to line up votes
for his "Advanced Telecommunications and Opportunities
Reform Act." It was Stevens who called the Internet a
"series of tubes" as he tried to explain his bill. Now
the subject of well-honed satirical jabs from The
Daily Show, as well as dozens of independently made
videos, Stevens is hunkering down to get his bill
passed by the Senate when it reconvenes in September. 

But thanks to the work of groups like Save the
Internet, many Senate Democrats now oppose the bill
because of its failure to address net neutrality.
(Disclosure: The Center for Digital Democracy, where I
work, is a member of that coalition.) Oregon Democrat
Senator Ron Wyden, Maine Republican Olympia Snowe and
North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan have joined forces
to protect the US Internet. Wyden has placed a "hold"
on the bill, requiring Stevens (and the phone and
cable lobbies) to strong-arm sixty colleagues to
prevent a filibuster. But with a number of GOP
senators in tight races now fearful of opposing net
neutrality, the bill's chances for passage before the
midterm election are slim. Stevens, however, may be
able to gain enough support for passage when Congress
returns for a lame-duck session. 

Don't Ask, Don't Tell 

Thus far, the strategy of the phone and cable lobbies
has been to dismiss concerns about net neutrality as
either paranoid fantasies or political discontent from
progressives. "It's a made-up issue," AT&T CEO Ed
Whitacre said in early August at a meeting of state
regulators. New Hampshire Republican Senator John
Sununu claims that net neutrality is "what the liberal
left have hung their hat on," suggesting that the
outcry over Internet freedom is more partisan than
substantive. Other critics of net neutrality,
including many front groups, have tried to frame the
debate around unsubstantiated fears about users
finding access to websites blocked, pointing to a 2005
FCC policy statement that "consumers are entitled to
access the lawful Internet content of their choice."
But the issue of blocking has been purposefully raised
to shift the focus from what should be the real
concerns about why the phone and cable giants are
challenging federal rules requiring nondiscriminatory
treatment of digital content. 

Verizon, Comcast and the others are terrified of the
Internet as we know it today. Net neutrality rules
would jeopardize their far-reaching plans to transform
our digital communications system. Both the cable and
phone industries recognize that if their broadband
pipes (now a monopoly) must be operated in an open and
neutral fashion, they will face real competition--and
drastically reduced revenues--from an ever-growing
number of lower-cost phone and video providers.
Alcatel, a major technology company helping Verizon
and AT&T build their broadband networks, notes in one
business white paper that cable and phone companies
are "really competing with the Internet as a business
model, which is even more formidable than just
competing with a few innovative service aggregators
such as Google, Yahoo and Skype." (Skype is a
telephone service provider using the Internet.) 

Policy Racket 

The goal of dominating the nation's principal
broadband pipeline serving all of our everyday (and
ever-growing) communications needs is also a major
motivation behind opposition to net neutrality.
Alcatel and other broadband equipment firms are
helping the phone and cable industries build what will
be a reconfigured Internet--one optimized to generate
what they call "triple play" profits from "high
revenue services such as video, voice and multimedia
communications." Triple play means generating revenues
from a single customer who is using a bundle of
services for phone, TV and PC--at home, at work or via
wireless devices. The corporate system emerging for
the United States (and elsewhere in the world) is
being designed to boost how much we spend on services,
so phone and cable providers can increase what they
call our "ARPU" (average revenue per user). This is
the "next generation" Internet system being created
for us, one purposefully designed to facilitate the
needs of a mass consumerist culture. 

Absent net neutrality and other safeguards, the
phone/cable plan seeks to impose what is called a
"policy-based" broadband system that creates "rules"
of service for every user and online content provider.
How much one can afford to spend would determine the
range and quality of digital media access. Broadband
connections would be governed by ever-vigilant network
software engaged in "traffic policing" to insure each
user couldn't exceed the "granted resources"
supervised by "admission control" technologies.
Mechanisms are being put in place so our monopoly
providers can "differentiate charging in real time for
a wide range of applications and events." Among the
services that can form the basis of new revenues,
notes Alcatel, is online content related to
"community, forums, Internet access, information,
news, find your way (navigation), marketing push, and
health monitoring." 

Missing from the current legislative debate on
communications is how the plans of cable and phone
companies threaten civic participation, the free flow
of information and meaningful competition. Nor do the
House or Senate versions of the bill insure that the
public will receive high-speed Internet service at a
reasonable price. According to market analysts, the
costs US users pay for broadband service is more than
eight times higher than what subscribers pay in Japan
and South Korea. (Japanese consumers pay a mere 75
cents per megabit. South Koreans are charged only 73
cents. But US users are paying $6.10 per megabit.
Internet service abroad is also much faster than it is
here.) 

Why are US online users being held hostage to higher
rates at slower speeds? Blame the business plans of
the phone and cable companies. As technology pioneer
Bob Frankston and PBS tech columnist Robert Cringely
recently explained , the phone and cable companies see
our broadband future as merely a "billable event."
Frankston and Cringely urge us to be part of a
movement where we--and our communities--are not just
passive generators of corporate profit but proactive
creators of our own digital futures. That means we
would become owners of the "last mile" of fiber wire,
the key link to the emerging broadband world. For
about $17 a month, over ten years, the high-speed
connections coming to our homes would be ours--not in
perpetual hock to phone or cable monopolists. Under
such a scenario, notes Cringely, we would just pay
around $2 a month for super-speed Internet access. 

Regardless of whether Congress passes legislation in
the fall, progressives need to create a
forward-looking telecom policy agenda. They should
seek to insure online access for low-income Americans,
provide public oversight of broadband services, foster
the development of digital communities and make it
clear that the public's free speech rights online are
paramount. It's now time to help kill the Stevens
"tube" bill and work toward a digital future where
Internet access is a right--and not dependent on how
much we can pay to "admission control." 



		
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