Net neutrality: the fight to keep the internet free
For a lot of people, the issue of network neutrality shouldn't be an issue at all, it should just be fact. The equal treatment of all internet traffic — subject to no throttling, control, or any other form of oversight by governments or internet providers — is held up as one of the foundational principles of the web and should be respected unconditionally. At the same time, mobile carriers and home broadband providers are having to deal with increasingly bandwidth-hungry applications and the erosion of their traditional business models. Faced with those pressures, they're inevitably trying to claw back some control by employing so-called traffic-shaping measures in order to manage usage and better serve their economic interests.
T-Mobile drops anti-net neutrality lawsuit filed by MetroPCS, leaving Verizon on its own
Cellphone carriers have generally met net neutrality proposals with varying levels of hostility, but Verizon and MetroPCS have been particularly belligerent: in 2011, they sued to overturn the FCC's then-newly adopted Open Internet rules. Since then, the two have consistently argued in court against the rules, which they've said undermine the freedom to run their networks as they see fit. But as T-Mobile finalizes its merger with MetroPCS, it's decided it doesn't want an old lawsuit to come...
ESPN wants you to watch more sports, even if it has to subsidize your data plan
ESPN has approached at least one major carrier about excluding its sports videos from mobile data caps, according to the Wall Street Journal. The report notes the possibility of ESPN paying the carrier as a subsidy so that users can watch videos without fear of hitting any limits. However, ESPN is said to be still working out the economics of any potential deal; no arrangement is in place at present.
Senate bill would make internet data caps subject to net neutrality rules
Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), a noted supporter of online consumer rights, has announced a bill that would set rules for how internet providers could deploy capped data plans. The Data Cap Integrity Act is meant to make sure that if companies limit the amount of data that can be uploaded or downloaded in a given time period, it's transparent to consumers, follows general net neutrality principles, and is designed to "reasonably limit network congestion" rather than discourage internet use or take...
Verizon, MetroPCS push back on FCC's net neutrality rules
Verizon Wireless and MetroPCS have filed a joint appeal against a court decision concerning the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules that took effect in December of last year. The court had ruled in favor of the FCC, despite the complaints levied against it in Verizon and MetroPCS' lawsuit. The carriers contend that the FCC is over stepping its bounds with the regulation, which is designed to prevent network operators from controlling traffic to apps, services, and other...
Republican platform opposes net neutrality by supporting 'internet freedom'
American voters want to know where their country's two parties stand on issues surrounding the internet, and today, the Republican Party revealed a new internet freedom plank as part of its policy platform. Predictably, though, "free" isn’t a synonym for "neutral" — as The Washington Post points out, the document is talking about freedom of tech businesses from government regulation. The addition comes as the politics of the internet continue to command a higher share of the public's...
European Commission wants your opinion on net neutrality
The European Commission is launching an EU-wide consultation period to gauge public opinion on net neutrality. To collect responses the EC has created a questionnaire that any European citizen can complete, which poses questions such as:
"Please provide your views on the following ways/situations where traffic management may be applied by ISPs.
Are traffic management measures used to implement or manage compliance with the explicit contractual restrictions (e.g. on P2P or VoIP) of the...
Verizon, MetroPCS file challenge against FCC's net neutrality rules
Verizon filed a brief with a federal court on Monday, as part of its ongoing litigation against the FCC's net neutrality rules. In its brief, Verizon argued that the agency's regulations are not only unconstitutional, but "arbitrary and capricious." The carrier also claimed that the FCC exceeded its authority by adopting the rules in 2010, writing that the Commission has "acted without statutory authority to insert itself into this crucial segment of the American economy, while failing to...
Web & Social
Swedish internet provider to charge extra for VoIP services like Skype
Swedish telecommunications company TeliaSonera is planning to charge customers extra to use voice over IP services such as Skype. The company won't be unveiling the details of this plan until August, but has reportedly already begun a trial with one of its Spanish subsidiaries, with a model that charged customers €6 (about US$7.50) for 100MB worth of VoIP calls per month. Whether or not this pricing scheme will be the same in Sweden remains to be seen, but a TeliaSonera spokesperson said...
Policy & Law
DOJ probe investigates whether cable companies are unfairly capping online video
When Comcast announced that its Xfinity app for Xbox 360 wouldn't count against its internet subscriber's data caps, it got an earful from net neutrality advocates, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, and Senator Al Franken. Now, The Wall Street Journal reports that the US Department of Justice has stepped in, investigating cable companies like Comcast and Time Warner Cable, among others, to see if they're acting unfairly towards the online video services they host on their network. More specifically,...
Web & Social
FCC net neutrality board to be chaired by Harvard internet law professor
Since the Federal Communications Commission developed its Open Internet network neutrality framework, it's been dealing both with companies that skirt its regulations and advocates who claim it hasn't gone far enough. In order to evaluate the framework's effectiveness, a federal advisory committee was formed, and FCC chair Julius Genachowski has now announced who will participate in it. The Open Internet Advisory Committee will be chaired by Jonathan Zittrain, a Harvard internet law professor...
VoIP firm files first net neutrality complaint with FCC after being accused of theft of service
VoIP provider L2Networks has filed what it claims is the first formal net neutrality complaint since the FCC's new set of rules went into effect last year. It was filed earlier this week against the Georgia-based Albany Water Gas & Light Commission, and was made in response to a criminal complaint. According to L2, Albany's director of telecommunications Ronald Skates has alleged theft of service, claiming that his company should be compensated for L2's use of its fiber-optic network to...
Netherlands passes net neutrality law, first among EU nations
People in the Netherlands have reason to celebrate today, following the expected passing into law of new net neutrality regulation. The legislation in question was agreed upon back in June last year, but it's only on Tuesday that the nation's second legislative chamber gave its blessing to the move, making everything official. Under the new law, mobile internet providers like KPN won't be able to charge for access to particular services like Skype or throttle traffic through them — both...
Senator Al Franken: Comcast Xfinity On Demand may violate net neutrality agreement
Senator Al Franken has long been an outspoken supporter of network neutrality and an opponent of a 2010 joint venture between NBC Universal and Comcast, so it's not surprising that he's deeply concerned about Comcast's plan for Xfinity On Demand. In a letter sent to the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice today, Franken urged both agencies to reexamine Comcast's acquisition of NBC Universal, citing a number of recent problems and complaints. Among them was the...
Policy & Law
AT&T stockholders vote down net neutrality measure by overwhelming margin
It looks like AT&T didn't have anything to worry about when Beastie Boys member Mike D and other stockholders proposed that the company commit to operating its wireless division under the principles of net neutrality. At a recent stockholder annual meeting, the proposal was defeated overwhelmingly: 94.1 percent of those voting came out against the measure, which asked that "AT&T commit to operating its wireless network without the ability to privilege, degrade or prioritize any traffic."
A...
Netflix CEO complains about Comcast's data caps again: 'In what way is this neutral?'
It's no secret Netflix's CEO Reed Hastings thinks Comcast's data caps are unfair. Last month he posted a message on Facebook complaining about how data used by Comcast's Xfinity app for the Xbox 360 doesn't count toward his monthly Comcast data cap, unlike competing service HBO Go. Now Hastings is back on Facebook (post below), saying essentially the same thing, only this time he's cutting straight to the net neutrality point.
It's unlikely that Comcast is going to stop being selective about...
Comcast's Xbox 360 video service flies in the face of the FCC's net neutrality efforts
"[Broadband internet providers] shall not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic over a consumer's broadband Internet access service." FCC 10-201, paragraph 68
The FCC says that the "Open Internet" is open because "it treats all traffic that flows across the network in roughly the same way" — so Comcast's decision to privilege its Xfinity On Demand service for Xbox 360 with free data, while requiring other apps like Netflix and Hulu to count against customer data...
Verizon board blasts shareholder vote on wireless net neutrality
The SEC ruled last month that publicly-owned wireless providers must allow resolutions on network neutrality to be included on their annual shareholder ballots, and Verizon's proxy statement — published just this week — does exactly that. "The open (non-discriminatory) architecture of the Internet is critical to the prosperity of our economy and society," the proposal reads. "Shareholders request the company publicly commit (while not conceding or forfeiting any issue in litigation...
The new iPad is a beautiful reminder of how stupid data plans are
Apple's new iPad is magnificent (Check out our iPad review). The screen is superb, the processor is fast, and despite its newfound LTE cellular connectivity, the battery life lasts. And yet, I’d never, ever recommend you buy an LTE tablet, or any other integrated cellular device that doesn't make calls. Why? The powers that be have colluded to place arbitrary restrictions on your data which don't make any sense.
Take FaceTime, for example, which doesn't work on the iPad over LTE. You know...
Mobile operators at MWC: 'somebody's got to pay' for data use
A common debate at this year's MWC is the role of carriers as our mobile phone usage becomes increasingly data-heavy. During their press conferences, a number of the network operators' executives have spoken out, saying that they're tired of being seen as the bad guys as they try to get a return on their multi-billion dollar investment in spectrum and infrastructure. As Indian carrier Airtel's CEO Sunil Bharti Mittal said in a speech:
"we've become the bad gatekeepers. When somebody...
Korea Telecom planning to charge YouTube and others for data usage
Korea Telecom (KT) is reported to be planning to charge bandwidth-heavy content providers for access to its network in order to subsidize infrastructure upgrades. This follows a move two weeks ago to block access for Samsung Smart TVs, which it says can cause network speeds to become up to 265 times slower when in use. Kim Taehwan, VP of KT's smart network policy task force, told Reuters that "we want to set a rule that we can equally apply to every platform operator that offers data-heavy...
SEC says AT&T and others must let shareholders vote on wireless net neutrality, courtesy of the Beastie Boys' Mike D
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has required AT&T and other carriers to allow shareholders to vote on net neutrality in annual shareholder votes. The SEC decision comes in response to a proposal from at least one group, including Mike D of the Beastie Boys and two other AT&T shareholders, who argue that net neutrality has become the subject of prominent national discourse — their proposal requests that AT&T operate its wireless network without privileging, degrading, or...
South Korean KT Corp blocks internet access for Samsung Smart TVs
Smart TVs were one of the big trends at CES this year, but all those apps and streaming videos can take up quite a bit of bandwith. That's what South Korea's largest broadband provider, KT, is arguing, as it acts quickly to throttle the bandwidth of connected sets. After threatening the move on Thursday, KT has now began blocking their high-speed internet subscribers from using internet services on Samsung smart TVs. KT claimed that high adoption rates of smart TVs could cause network...
Web & Social
Bell Canada ends internet throttling in favor of usage-based billing
Here in the United States the net neutrality debate rages on, but Canadian internet users officially lost the battle three years ago. Now, however, one internet service provider, Bell Canada, has agreed to stop peer-to-peer throttling. In a letter to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), the ISP said that peer-to-peer file-sharing now takes up less bandwidth than streaming video and other services, making throttling it a lower priority. A new CRTC ruling also...
Web & Social
In the absence of net neutrality, UK regulator demands more transparency from ISPs
Ofcom, the UK telecommunications oversight body, has spoken out about the continued lack of transparency from ISPs when it comes to the way they manage traffic. Unlike the neighboring Netherlands, the UK has no net neutrality law on its statute books, and internet service providers within the country habitually manipulate traffic flowing through their networks in ways that are rarely explained to users. Bandwidth may be prioritized for some uses over others, and per-user speeds can be...
Web & Social
Senate defeats bill that would have overturned net neutrality rules
It was close — just 52-46 — but the Senate just voted down a bill that would have overturned the FCC's Open Internet rules. That means the wireline-focused net neutrality package will go into effect November 20th as planned, although it's likely Verizon will file a lawsuit to challenge it in short order. It also means there wont be a showdown between Congress and the White House over net neutrality just yet — the White House earlier this week promised that the President would be advised...
Policy & Law
Senate vote on reversal of net neutrality rules scheduled for Thursday, White House promises veto
The FCC passed an extremely watered down set of net neutrality regulations back on September 23rd, but even those have erupted into controversy: the Senate is scheduled to vote against the FCC's Open Internet rules on Thursday, and the White House has vowed to veto the resolution if it reaches Obama's desk.
The rules are set to go into effect November 20th and would prohibit certain kinds of content blocking and traffic discrimination for wired internet service — wireless service was...
Policy & Law
FCC net neutrality rules go into effect November 20th
The FCC's net neutrality rules became law today upon publication in the Federal Register — they're set to go into effect November 20th. If you'll remember, the rules apply mostly to wired internet service and prohibit certain kinds of blocking and traffic discrimination, but the major compromise was that they don't yet apply to wireless service. Even still, it's expected that Verizon will challenge the law in court in extremely short order — the carrier's previous lawsuits were dismissed...
