Telco lobbyists don't mind some Net neutrality regs
CHICAGO-AT&T and Verizon Communications are among the most vocal opponents to Net neutrality regulation, but the phone companies' top lobbyists reiterated Wednesday here at the Supercomm 2009 trade show that they would be alright with some regulation, so long as it isn't too far reaching.
Jim Cicconi, chief lobbyist for AT&T
Jim Cicconi, senior executive vice president at AT&T, and Tom Tauke, senior vice president for Public Policy at Verizon Communications, said their companies support the Federal Communications Commission's existing open Internet principles. And they agreed that they would not take issue with these principles becoming official regulation.
But they each said they are not OK with a new principle that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski introduced last month that they feel could limit how operators manage their network.
"This is not about agreeing to the FCC's existing open Internet principles," Cicconi said during an interview. "We've already said that we do. It's about adding radical and far reaching new regulation."
The four existing open Internet principles can be summarized this way: network operators cannot prevent users from accessing lawful Internet content, applications, and services of their choice, nor can they prohibit users from attaching nonharmful devices to the network.
Genachowski has proposed adding two new principles. The fifth would prevent Internet access providers from discriminating against particular Internet content or applications, while allowing for reasonable network management. The sixth principle would ensure that Internet access providers are transparent about the network management practices they implement.
Cicconi and Tauke said their companies are concerned about the language that describes the fifth open network principle, which prohibits traffic discrimination. Cicconi and Tauke said they have heard that early drafts of the chairman's proposal, which will be presented and voted on at the FCC on Thursday, provide a broad definition for allowing "reasonable network management."
Tauke said that he has heard the proposal only makes room for very specific exceptions. For example, network operators would be allowed to block child pornography and illegal content, but they might not be able to prioritize certain types of traffic or even block traffic that is causing a denial-of-service attack on their networks.
"If you have to treat all bits the same, it's hard to protect the network from cyber attacks," he said. "When you're trying to make the network flow, you can't have lawyers looking over engineers' shoulders telling them what they can and can't do."
So far no one except the FCC commissioners and their staff know for sure the details of the proposal that will be presented at the FCC's open meeting Thursday.
But the chairman has stated publicly that he has no intention of making it impossible for carriers to manage their networks or restrict future business models.
Tom Tauke, top lobbyist for Verizon Communications
The five-person commission is controlled by Democrats, who all favor Net neutrality regulation, which means new rules almost certainly will be adopted. The chairman's proposal is not the final regulation, but it is a starting point for the new regulation. The public will have several months to publicly comment on the document. Still, Cicconi said it is important that the initial proposal is not too radical.
"We will know more tomorrow when the chairman makes his proposal public," he said. "We are hopeful the actual proposal is fair and moderate. But whatever the chairman says in that document will frame the debate going forward."
In addition to the fifth open Internet principle, AT&T and Verizon are also concerned about the chairman's insistence that the regulation be applied to wireless networks as well as wireline networks.
"We are also concerned with how these principles are applied to wireless networks," Tauke said in an interview. "The wireless business is very different from the wireline business, so it's difficult to apply regulations made for wireline networks to wireless networks."
But Genachowski has also said previously that he understands that Internet providers and wireless operators in particular need to manage their networks.
"We recognize there are differences between wired and wireline network technologies," he said during a press conference earlier this month at the CTIA wireless association trade show in San Diego. "They are different networks. And because they are different, I have said the rules that are adopted need to allow for reasonable network management. But we need to have clear rules of the road for everyone regardless of how they access the Internet."
Marguerite Reardon has been a CNET News reporter since 2004, covering cell phone services, broadband, citywide Wi-Fi, the Net neutrality debate, as well as the ongoing consolidation of the phone companies. E-mail Maggie. 
"For example, network operators would be allowed to block child pornography and illegal content, but they might not be able to prioritize certain types of traffic or even block traffic that is causing a denial-of-service attack on their networks."
Well that's quite a paradox... It's my understanding that denial-of-service attacks are illegal, so what specific rule will prevent them from blocking that illegal traffic? Sounds to me like they just want to be able to claim they had reports of child porn on a competitor's site so they can block it with impunity, and when anyone from a competing provider's IP block tries to access local content they can claim it's a DoS attack and block that, too... so yes - they probably WILL need lawyers looking over the engineer's shoulder, just as they SHOULD have been doing when ATT setup the backbone carnivore tap without a warrant. ATT pulling that stunt is no less shameful than when the government rounded up all the Japanese-Americans in the US, stripped them of their property and threw them into internment camps after 07 Dec 1941. Makes me wonder what Cheney's daddy was doing in 1942.
Blocking illegal content access is important in the case of child pornography. this would also give network operators the authorization under net neutrality to block websites and p2p networks which engage in massive illegal file sharing. or at least throttle down to make it harder for pirates to take as much content and overload broadband networks.
Personally i think p2p networks and websites which blatantly support illegal piracy should not be protected under the guise of "Net Neutrality"
Protecting against Child pornography is a good thing, so is preventing illegal filesharing p2p networks and websites. The problem is that you don't know what sites are compliant with us law on the issues.
Content piracy on illegal websites and p2p networks is a huge issue and it is illegal. stealing content, music, movies should not be protected under the guise of net neutrality.
Damn, so by your definition Blizzard blatantly supports illegal piracy? All linux distros too? Anything distributed via bit-torrent? Your argument is basically this: "The mailman delivered Anthrax letters, supporting terrorism. Therefor all mail that isn't from the mail company itself should be delayed, opened, scanned, or flat out not delivered, even with postage paid."
Doesn't make sense there, doesn't make sense here. The mail industry now irradiates mail packages going to certain destinations - same thing could happen, but they don't delay mail based on whether it's going to or from a competitor. And they don't snoop into it without letting anyone know.
- by Vurk October 21, 2009 10:53 PM PDT
- According to Cheney's official bio, his Dad was doing exactly what you'd expect he was doing.
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