Speak Out for Net Neutrality If You Ever Hope to Speak Out Again

[unhappycamper]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Speak-Out-for-Net-Neutrali-by-Joan-Brunwasser-Activism_Comcast_Communications_Corporation-Time-Warner-CNN-140225-56.html



Speak Out for Net Neutrality If You Ever Hope to Speak Out Again
By Joan Brunwasser
Life Arts 2/25/2014 at 18:34:33

Joan Brunwasser: Today we're going to talk about net neutrality. I'm not sure that I've ever had the issue explained to me clearly. Would you like to take a crack at it?

PEN: Hello again, Joan. As usual, you are right on top of the most critical and timely issues. We consider this the mother of all policy actions, because unless the internet is truly free to carry our communications on a level playing field, as it was intended, all other advocacy actions are in danger of being restricted. What the big telecom corporations want to do is discriminate on the internet against content, in the first instance based on how much the content providers can pay, but it also encompasses the threat of discrimination based on the political nature of that content. The fight for net neutrality is to stop them from doing that.

JB: Other than the almighty profit motive, who could oppose the need for net neutrality? It seems like something we can all agree on and then work together to achieve. Am I missing something basic here?

PEN: One of our participants in this action made the point that the big cable TV companies, who also provide internet connections to many people, want to change the internet according to their model, where THEY control what channels you have access to through their systems, and there is a huge financial hurdle you have to pay them to have access to their subscribers through one of "their" channels. So, without an enforcement of the principle of net neutrality, they could demand toll fees from you as a web site creator not to slow down your connections to people who want to visit your site. And if permitted to do that, it's a short hop to having them block those connections altogether on a political basis.

[KoKo]

1. Arresting Development: Why the Comcast-Netflix Deal Should Worry You

(I haven't signed an Internet Petition in awhile. But, I did sign Free Press Petition which will go directly to the FCC. This is a good article about what the "Supreme's Decision" has already caused.)

--------


Published on Monday, February 24, 2014 by Free Press
Arresting Development: Why the Comcast-Netflix Deal Should Worry You
by Craig Aaron and S. Derek Turner

This is more than a deal between two giant companies: It will affect everyone who uses the Internet. And as with so many things involving Comcast, consumers will end up paying for it in the end.

The deal should also be a wake-up call to regulators who are weighing the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger and grappling with what to do about Net Neutrality.

And if the game of chicken that preceded this pact becomes the norm, it will be a disaster for the future of online video.

Nobody Wins, Everybody Pays

The exact terms of the Comcast-Netflix deal are secret, but this much is clear: Millions of consumers who already paid handsomely for a premium broadband experience received poor service for months on end. Comcast refused to make minimal investments to deliver what its customers already bought — and simultaneously pushed people to upgrade to more expensive services.

Comcast and friends like to cry foul at the sheer amount of traffic video-streaming companies use. But the actual investment these extremely profitable ISPs would need to make to ensure their customers get the quality of service they paid for is extremely small. We're talking so small it wouldn't make the slightest dent in the continued growth in broadband profits these companies enjoy year after year.

The dispute between Comcast and Netflix had gone on for months. It’s likely that millions of unsuspecting consumers paid to upgrade to faster speed tiers thinking it would fix their problems. Comcast customers report hearing about this “solution” from customer-service reps after trying — without success — to fix the problem on their own.

Comcast had no qualms about letting its customers suffer lousy speeds and service. To Comcast, bad service is just another negotiating tactic — the company knows that most of its customers have nowhere else to turn for high-speed broadband. (And for the few that do, the options aren’t great: Verizon is apparently degrading Netflix, too.)

This is what happens in a broken market: Powerful players abuse their power to serve their own anti-competitive ends.

Why Comcast Is Afraid of Netflix

Cord cutters hail the new streaming marketplace as a land of competition and diversity. Instead of shelling out big bucks to pay for 500 cable channels, consumers can cut the cord and get their programming from on-demand libraries on platforms like Amazon Prime, Hulu and Netflix. But the Comcast-Netflix agreement changes the landscape.

Online video scares the cable companies, which have enjoyed a monopoly on entertainment and information distribution since the 1990s, when broadcast viewership over the airwaves began to decline. Cable companies like Comcast make tons of money by elevating their own programming on their cable systems. And since Comcast acquired NBC, the company now controls a media empire that includes Universal Studios, cable networks like Bravo, MSNBC, and USA, and more than two dozen local TV stations across the country.

It benefits Comcast to keep independent programmers off of its own cable lineup and to make space for its own properties, because it's way more lucrative than paying someone else for their content. And even today, any new cable channel essentially has to get picked up by Comcast, because the company is already the gateway to so many homes.

This deal spells bad news for future startups and anyone interested in creating or consuming online media (read: pretty much all of us). It will likely chill investment in online video startups as investors look to safer bets that don't involve battling Comcast, a company that’s poised to control over half of the bundled home video and broadband Internet market.

“No Oversight? No Problem!”

Let's be clear. The Comcast-Netflix agreement is not the outcome of a free market. This is Comcast having Netflix over a barrel, and backing off only when it became clear that this sort of trickery could potentially derail its mega-merger with Time Warner Cable.

This deal is a glimpse into the future of the Internet — and that future will look even worse if that merger goes through.

Disputes like this hurt the open Internet. They hurt consumers. And they'll become par for the course if ISPs are allowed to get even bigger and operate without the Federal Communications Commission stepping in.

This is a critical moment for our country. If Comcast acquires Time Warner Cable, it will control 55 percent of the U.S. market’s pay-TV/Internet bundled customers. It will be the only provider of this advanced communications package to nearly four out of every 10 U.S. homes. With this much control over the platform we all use to communicate and share with the outside world, the new normal will be whatever Comcast wants it to be.

Our country used to guard against the consolidation of this much market power, but in recent years policymakers have forgotten the lessons of history. We need to put the “public” back into public policy and some teeth back into our antitrust enforcement.

The average Internet user is at the mercy of companies like Comcast and Verizon, which won’t hesitate to degrade their services as a negotiating ploy. We need a watchdog in Washington who will demand transparency and who has the authority to stop discrimination and anti-competitive behavior.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/02/24-6