I saw a Mr. Andrew Rasiej and a Mr. Craig Aaron speak on Net Neutrality at SXSW this week. The talk delved into the history of the issue, problems with the absence of Net Neutrality, and a bunch of sinister shadowy nefarious nastiness. Net Neutrality as a concept would prevent online service providers from giving preferential treatment to the content they deliver. Comcast which is America's biggest player providing the cables running high-speed internet connections, flexing muscle to the point of near monopoly in our modern post dialup account nation, has previously gotten caught trying to restrict BitTorrent's bandwidth in an act of sabotage. The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) tried to censure Comcast for this act but was unable to do so effectively because of a botched move it made when Michael Powell (the son of former Secretary of State Colin Powell who was so enraged at that Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show which belongs in a different blog posting) was its chairman. While the Telecommunications Act of 1996 largely solidified Net Neutrality for dial up accounts and also what cable was being purposed for the internet, Michael Powell was petitioned to make an exception for broadband and a law allowing for an exemption, a loophole, was shepherded into reality. Today Michael Powell is a lobbyist for the same interests that initially courted him in his role in the public sector. He is, in fact, the head of the cable lobby. Boo! With the basic value of nondiscrimination that had been baked into our laws discarded, the FCC has since tried to find its only legal loopholes to prevent Comcast from repeating its prior trick, but it really operates in this capacity in a muted, sickly manner. The FCC is ineffectively at doing its job due to its history. Are there counterweights to the Powell forces lobbying in Washington? Absolutely. The Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) where pieces of legislation which would have allowed the U.S. Government to use DNS tricks to block certain domain names in America in the name of fighting online piracy. These acts never became law because of public outcry. However, the resistance will never have the deep pockets of Comcast so it is operating at a disadvantage overall. Our villains have lobbied local legislatures and have gotten nineteen states to vote against having municipal wireless to strengthen Comcast's grip by way of undermining any would be alternatives. Netflix has a digital service which rivals one of Comcast, but it has to stream its service over Comcast's pipes. What is stopping Comcast from giving preferential treatment to its own media? In an aside Andrew broke time into Before Internet and After Internet centering around our year 1994 in lieu of Before Christ and After Death at year 0, or perhaps year 1. (Like that Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show there could be a whole different blog posting on this detail.) The companies that existed in the BI era which still thrive today, in Andrew's opinion, hate the internet and see it as a huge inconvenience to their business models. Hollywood hates Napsteresque piracy for example. Andrew asserted that BI companies want to see the internet die of a thousand paper cuts so that they may return to their lucrative practices of yore. They pour money into Washington through individuals like Michael Powell to make it happen. What is more, Andrew feels there are plenty of AI companies that are quick to exploit some of the problems in the name of profit. Facebook apparently provides free internet to some parts of the 3rd World, but it stops being free once someone browses away from Facebook itself. The take away from the talk: doom and gloom! Moneyed interests are making the internet sick. Comcast is to try to buy Time Warner. But in some regions, such as New York City, lawmakers will have to approve the regional doings. What will Bill de Blasio do? Maybe we should all write him a letter.
Addendum 12/16/2018: I think SOPA is actually the Stop Online Piracy Act.
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