[NUJ Bristol] The death of the internet?

Tony Gosling tony@gaia.org
Wed, 30 Oct 2002 16:08:20 +0000


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The Death Of The Internet=A0

How Industry Intends To Kill The 'Net As We Know It

by Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.
http://www.democraticmedia.org/

This article available from these links

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=3D149495;article=3D34197

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6600 is getting a "Server
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Tony




The Death Of The Internet=A0


How Industry Intends To Kill The 'Net As We Know It

Jeff Chester is executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.
The Internet=92s promise as a new medium -- where text, audio, video and dat=
a
can be freely exchanged -- is under attack by the corporations that control
the public=92s access to the 'Net, as they see opportunities to monitor and
charge for the content people seek and send. The industry=92s vision is the
online equivalent of seizing the taxpayer-owned airways, as radio and
television conglomerates did over the course of the 20th century.=20

To achieve this, the cable industry, which sells Internet access to most
Americans, is pursuing multiple strategies to closely monitor and tightly
control subscribers and their use of the net. One element can be seen in
industry lobbying for new use-based pricing schemes, which has been widely
reported in trade press. Related to this is the industry=92s new public
relations campaign, which seeks to introduce a new "menace" into the
pricing debate and boost their case, the so-called "bandwidth hog."=20
But beyond political and press circles are another equally important
development: new technologies being developed and embraced that can, in
practice, transform today's open Internet into a new industry-regulated
system that will prevent or discourage people from using the net for
file-sharing, internet radio and video, and peer-to-peer communications.
These are not merely the most popular cutting-edge applications used by
young people; they also are the tools for fundamental new ways of
conducting business and politics.=20

These goals and objectives are visible to anyone who cares to look at the
arcane world of telecommunications policy and planning, either in the
industry trade press or government documents. The bottom line is the
industry want to kill the Internet as we know it.

Take a minute and wade through this bit of arcana -- and ponder its
implications.
"The IP Service Control System from Ellacoya Networks gives the Broadband
Operator =91Total Service Control=92 to closely monitor and tightly control =
its
subscribers, network and offerings." So reads the Web site of Ellacoya.com,
a relatively new firm, describing the business-to-business service that it
is selling to large Internet service providers.=20

Ellacoya is backed by Wall Street investment powerhouse, Goldman Sachs,
which sees a major opportunity to turn around the red ink-plagued broadband
sector. Continuing, the website explains, "Establishing Total Service
control enables operators to better manage traffic on the network, [and]
easily introduce a range of tiered and usage based service plans...
Talkative applications, especially peer-to-peer programs like KaZaA and
Morpheus, tend to fill all of the available bandwidth... The IP Service
Control System allows operators to identify, limit and report on these
aggressive applications."

The fundamental character of the Internet today is that it lacks precisely
these kinds of tolls, barriers and gatekeepers. But technology like
Ellacoya=92s hardware and software is not just an enticing idea; it=92s more=
 of
a silver bullet for beleaguered telecom executives. It=92s being tested in
industry trials and points to the kind of Internet the industry would like
to develop over the next few years. The way telecom corporations get from
today=92s open-access Internet to their version of the future starts by
changing how people pay for the net.      =20

Industry's New Business Plan

Most people now pay a flat fee for online access. But the big media
companies offering Internet service; Comcast, ATT, AOL -- would like to
change that, and already have in a few test locations.

The broadband industry=92s plans to institute tiered pricing have been widel=
y
reported in its trade press. There are numerous articles about replacing
today=92s open 'Net environment with industry-self-described versions of
"walled gardens" or "Internet Lite." (See "Cable Operators Seek to Corral
Bandwidth Hogs", Cable Datacom News, 10/01/02) The central feature of these
proposals is much like telephone companies; there=92s a price plan for=
 everyone.

To make the case to regulators that such pricing is fair and overdue, cable
operators have begun a PR effort, spinning that a small percent of users
account for a disproportionately large amount of bandwidth used on
broadband networks. They=92ve created and embraced the pejorative term,
"bandwidth hog," to describe those -- such as music-obsessed college
students -- who find robust uses for high-speed connections. Already major
news sources, such as the BBC, and technology journalists are using the
term in their reports.

To deal with this "problem," the companies are considering a variety of
approaches to ensure they remain in full control of their bandwidth --
unless consumers can afford to pay the hefty access fees. Under a typical
plan, a user would be allotted a limited amount of bandwidth per month, and
would be charged extra fees for going over this amount. This approach isn=92=
t
very different from the software industry, where the free versions of an
application are intended to frustrate and prompt people to buy the =91better=
=92
version. =20

Bandwidth caps have already been implemented in Canada by major Internet
service provider Sympatico, Inc., and observers have been quick to note
that the limit -- 5 GB per month -- would effectively restrict regular use
of emerging applications such as Internet radio, streaming media and
video-on-demand.=20

Consider this excerpt from an article about Sympatico=92s bandwidth caps in
the May 6 edition of Toronto Globe and Mail by reporter Jack Kapica.

A classic conflict has arisen over streaming media, especially of radio. In
a recent letter to globetechnology.com, Andrew Cole, manager of media
relations for Bell Sympatico, defended the 5GB bit cap, saying that "In my
experience, Internet radio stations usually transmit at approximately 20
Kbps. This equates to 1.2MB per minute, or 72MB per hour. At this rate, a
HSE customer could enjoy 70 hours of Internet Radio per month and remain
within the bandwidth usage plan."

But a 20-Kbps stream is considered poor quality by many people who tune
into Internet-based radio stations for such things as classical music
concerts. For these people, audio quality streamed at 20 Kbps has been
described as "pathetic at best, somewhat akin to AM radio" by Tony Petrilli
of Level Platforms Inc. of Ottawa.

"Decent audio quality starts at 56 Kbps to 64 Kbps, and really gets
acceptable only around 100 Kbps," he said. This alone, continued Mr.
Petrilli, "will blow the cap, let alone any other form of surfing, such as
looking at movie trailers or even reading Web-based news. Heaven forbid
that someone listens to 90 minutes a day of quality Internet radio. That
way we'd blow the cap in 20 days.

When you consider the fact that the largest American telecommunications
firms are often part of the same mega-corporation with music, video or
movie-producing entertainment divisions -- such as AOL-Time Warner -- you
can see how an industry-regulated Internet would handily end music and
movie industry worries about Napster-like file swapping by people who don=92=
t
want to pay industry-monopolized retail prices for content.=20
Thus, the strategic and technically feasible solutions embodied by
companies such as Ellacoya is obviously why Goldman-Sachs was keen to
invest in the firm -- as it offers the actual means to monetize the net and
turn around the revenue-poor broadband sector.
According to Ellacoya=92s technical datasheet, operators can create "up to
51,000 unique policies that can be combined to generate limitless numbers
of subscriber policies." Such rules, they explain, can either permit, deny,
priority queues, address lock, rate limit or redirect access. The same
technology also poses new concerns over privacy, since Ellacoya's
technology "collects usage statistics for subscribers and applications,
capturing service events, session details, and byte counts.... Operators
can 'stamp' the subscribers identity on all records."

The Industry Spin

The cable industry will argue that such ubiquitous control systems and
restrictive pricing structures are necessary to resolve bandwidth backups.
But the fact is, this cannot be the case, because cable systems are
constructed to avoid bandwidth shortages. But don't take my word for it.

Mike LaJoie, vice president for advanced technology at AOL-Time Warner told
MultiChannel News, "The way that the HFC (hybrid fiber coaxial)
architecture works, we never run out of bandwidth," LaJoie said. "We can
always split or do other things that will give us the bandwidth that we
want, so it really ends up being a desire to provide the best and highest
experience for our customers." (See "HD on VOD Searches for Resolution",
Multichannel News, 09/30/02) What these statements make clear is that the
cable industry's goal for broadband is to monetize bandwidth. By charging a
toll for every bit, the industry can simultaneously extract great profits
from the new applications that it allows on its networks, as well as
restrict access to those that it finds problematic, i.e. those that compete
with its own content offerings. In short, the industry finally sees a way
to make money online.

Of course, these calculations are utterly self-serving, ignoring the fact
that the net was developed with tax dollars and has been an incubator for
an array of innovations that extend far beyond creating new profit centers
for big media companies. The envisioned control structures will inhibit
robust Internet use by early broadband adopters, and discourage development
of new high-speed applications such as Internet-based telephone and
video-on-demand, thus slowing overall broadband growth.=20

Worse, this business model will erect high economic and technical barriers
to entry for non-commercial and public interest uses of the high-speed
Internet, threatening civic discourse, artistic expression and non-profit
communications. In moving to implement this highly centralized vision for
broadband, the cable industry does not simply ignore the democratic and
competitive history of the Internet -- it is actively hostile to it.
Consumption-based pricing and other restrictive access controls contradict
the spirit of openness and innovation that built the Internet in the first
place, and will do irreparable harm to its future as a medium for small
business initiatives, non-commercial users and democratic discourse. New
threats to privacy are also clear, given the intrusive nature of the
technology to closely monitor all online use. If you think spam is bad=
 now...

And Where Is The FCC?

This new threat to online communications is a direct consequence of recent
Federal Communications Commission policies by Chairman Michael Powell that
permit cable companies to operate their broadband platforms in a
"discriminatory, non-open access" manner. This legalese means the FCC, the
historic guardian of the public interest in the communications field, has
abdicated its founding charge: to serve the public interest before private
interests.

In sum, the Internet as we now know it -- and its revolutionary promise --
may soon pass into the history books. In the absence of public policy
safeguards, the emerging pricing and control structures will fundamentally
change the kinds of information -- and way it=92s delivered -- on the
Internet. The ramifications extend far beyond the quarterly reports and
shareholder earnings for the nation=92s telecommunications corporations.=20

The consequences are cultural and will affect the pace and character of
progress in the early 21st century. If the communications companies impose
tolls, roadblocks and dead ends on the information =91superhighway,=92 they
will be robbing public trust resources in much the same way 19th century
mining companies pilfered public lands and 20th century radio and
television networks privatized the public=92s airwaves.


--
Tony Gosling
10-12 Picton Street
Bristol
BS6 5QA
England
+44 (0)117 944 6219

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"Tony Gosling" <tony@gaia.org>
http://www.tlio.org.uk
http://www.bilderberg.org
http://www.cultureshop.org
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http://www.ecovillages.org/uk/network/

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