Comments on: Black State Legislators widen Digital Divide

By: Cobb

Cobb — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 23:18:20 +0000

It seems to me that there’s a practical limit to maintaining a blacklist for punishing an ISP’s enemies. To suggest that it would go to an individual website just seems prohibitively expensive.

I would hope that some inventive activists would make some grids at a high level. I think empirically ISPs and RBOC/CLECs will know who’s cheating whom.

By: MIB

MIB — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:33:14 +0000

Potentially, this issue is about much more than tiering bandwidth. Net neutrality promotes competition among ISPs by guaranteeing 3rd parties access to exchange carriers and the regional Bells. Under the proposals for deregulation, not only could a RBOC/CLEC charge an ISP whatever it wants for carriage, the local phone carrier could deny them service altogether (as do cable system operators). The new policy would also be applicable to individual web sites — including those operated by bloggers — effectively turning control over content to companies like Verizon and AT&T.

Considering the relationship between access to information, telecom services, and economic mobility, and the implications therein for the underserved communities most Af-Am legislators represent, the conflict of interest on display here is self-evident. But it’s to be expected with contemporary politicians and politics. My concern is with those solutions that will serve the public interest and how they may be reconciled with the present technology and economics of the telecom industry.

By: Cobb

Cobb — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 12:47:27 +0000

Oh they will. The question I have pertains to the extent that experts are actually called to testify on such matters, or that we in the attention-paying public are properly informed about the weight of such arguments.

By: Lester Spence

Lester Spence — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 10:18:49 +0000

“In the long run, the ISPs will probably get their way, too, on being paid for access to higher service tiers. But since we’ve already paid for that bandwidth, I propose the ISPs be made to share their bounty with us.”

If state legislators are being funded by ISPs in this case, what is the likelihood they’ll support this move legislatively?

By: Cobb

Cobb — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 04:35:20 +0000

It gets more complicated. There is not, in fact, a standard of service for net neutrality. Which is to say that can be reasonably assumed that most ISPs already have tiered services, but they simply haven’t figured a way to make them pay. This means that the lowest common denominator of service will be the net-neutral service, guaranteed.

This is not about the digital divide, it’s about the broadband equivalent of 24 inch rims vs ordinary 17 inchers. Net neutrality is about the 17s.

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