Google Wants Its Own Fast Track on the Web

The celebrated openness of the Internet — network providers are not supposed to give preferential treatment to any traffic — is quietly losing powerful defenders.

Google Inc. has approached major cable and phone companies that carry Internet traffic with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own content, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Google has traditionally been one of the loudest advocates of equal network access for all content providers.

At risk is a principle known as network neutrality: Cable and phone companies that operate the data pipelines are supposed to treat all traffic the same — nobody is supposed to jump the line.

Vishesh Kumar and Christopher Rhoads, Wall Street Journal
December 15, 2008

With due respect to Harvard Professor Jonathan Zittrain, the Internet isn’t “closing.” It’s changing. In the current Newsweek, Prof. Zittrain argues :

“The Internet and the PC as wellsprings of innovation are living on borrowed time. The new closed models that represent the likely future of consumer computing and networking are no minor tweaks…. The change is coming partly because of the need to address security problems peculiar to open technologies, and partly because businesses want more control over the experience that customers have with their products. The trend from open systems toward closed ones threatens the culture of serendipitous tinkering that has given us the Web, instant messaging, peer-to-peer networking, Skype, Wikipedia and a host of other innovations, each of which emerged from left field. It will produce a concentrated set of new gatekeepers, with us and them prisoner to their limited business plans and to regulators who fear things that are new and disruptive.”

First, it’s absurd for Zittrain to talk about a “closed model” for the Internet. As we’ve amply documented (see here and here for starters), Net users enjoy multiple levels of legal and regulatory protections. These guarantee that users will continue to access their choice of legal online content.

Zittrain almost certainly understands this so it’s dismaying that he doesn’t acknowledge it.

Second, he’s correct about emerging security issues (DOS attacks, botnets, Trojans, etc.), which require network monitoring. But to suggest, as Zittrain does, that the solution lies with collaborative consortiums of programmers is woefully naïve. Current technology can begin shutting down a DOS attack within six seconds of detection. No consortium can possibly make such a lightning decision.

Finally, there’s this:

“Technologies like the Internet and the PC are civic in the sense that they depend on support and innovative outsiders to survive and grow.”

That’s like saying IMAX Movie Theatres depend on outside innovation. Sure, modern filmmakers employ whiz-bang technology to tell stories in a new way but it is IMAX that invests in their theatres to enable that experience for viewers - for example, transitioning theatres from celluloid 35mm film to digital technology. That’s a lot of investment!

For all Prof. Zittrain’s talk of a “critical mass of users to support the common protocols of the Internet,” the reality is that at best, this will be only part of the solution for maintaining a safe online experience. The first line of defense increasingly is a smart network capable of real-time action to combat the Web’s growing security threats. Any federal action (like Net neutrality) that interferes with this ultimately makes the Web less safe and undercuts Zittrain’s stated goals.

Add to the list of broadband’s benefits: a cleaner, greener planet.

At the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ annual convention this week, regulators heard remarkable testimony about how broadband can help reduce carbon emissions. A lot.

That was the conclusion not only from an expert panel but also from a recent report by the Global e-Sustainability Initiative , a Brussels-based organization. The group concluded that information and communications technologies, including broadband, could cut annual Co2 emissions in the United States between 13 and 22 percent.

That translates into energy savings of between $140 and $240 billion (depending on fuel prices) and a drop in oil usage of between 11 to 21 percent.

Of course, none of this will happen unless broadband deployment continues and networks are upgraded to allow for telework, videoconferencing and other fuel-saving options.

But this discussion puts a useful context to all the recent jabbering about net neutrality. Simply put, Net neutrality does not mean that a single additional fiber line is deployed or cell tower is built. It does not provide even a one rural resident with better access.

The benefits of broadband are self-evident: economic growth, jobs and now, a greener planet. What purpose is served by letting new regulations interfere with all this?

Today Christopher Wolf made this statement: “Effective immediately I am stepping down as co-chair of Hands off the Internet.”

When it comes to paying for broadband deployment, there’s an 800-pound gorilla in the debate: the Net’s rapid evolution into a conduit for data-rich audio and video entertainment. But as NY Times blogger <a href=”http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/video-is-dominating-internet-traffic-pushing-prices-up/ “>Saul Hansell noted</a> just before the election, all that data carries a price tag:

<blockquote>You are watching a lot more video on the Internet, and you may start to pay your Internet provider more for it.</blockquote>

Few issues bring the Net neutrality debate into sharper focus than a discussion of how to pay for tomorrow’s networks. Hensell’s blog cites participants at a recent seminar at Columbia University business school who commented about the direct link between the amount of data traveling through the country’s network systems and the cost to maintain the quality of these systems.

That’s the gorilla and it takes the net neutrality debate inevitably to why Congress or the FCC could possibly wish to establish a mandate that would shift the entire residential network build-out and maintenance cost onto consumers, instead of allowing for the possibility of “shared financing” involving the Web’s heaviest corporate users.

That’s the issue – and the impact on consumers – that the Net neutrality community refuses to face.

Sorry for the radio silence the past few weeks but when we saw this new study by Ipsos MediaCT on videostreaming, we had to speak up. According to the study, the number of women and older adults streaming online video has increased by 20 percent during the past six months, virtually closing the gap with younger male users.

So the Exaflood is coming, folks. The growth of the streaming media market is following the classic path of consumer product adoption:

• First, the early adopters (in this case, the young and 20-something tech-savvy males) plunge in and start the buzz.
• Next, companies large and small recognize the potential and begin rushing content online to take advantage of the new opportunities.
• Finally, a truly mass market develops, which is exactly what’s happened here.

Now the only issue to resolve is who pays for the networks needed to carry all this data. The silence from Net neutrality’s corporate lobbyists is deafening.

For the past two years, Mike McCurry has been this coalition’s “Happy Warrior.” He has traveled across the country, campaigning tirelessly in favor of the government’s traditional regulatory restraint toward the Internet.

So sad to say, but Mike is leaving us this week and we’re truly sorry to see him go. Then again as you look at the Net neutrality debate, it seems clear that events have also moved beyond many of the traditional arguments. For example, the need for efficient “smart network” technology is increasingly evident and that’s one of the cornerstones of our opposition to Net neutrality.

As Mike has long said, the high-speed Internet is changing many consumer habits with remarkable speed. Two years ago, when Hands Off got involved in the Net neutrality debate, the idea of streaming a TV show over the Internet was a novelty. Eighteen months later, one out of four viewers of “The Office” were streaming it online.

So consumers continue to enjoy their online freedoms, even as the Internet evolves beyond two-year-old political arguments, which is what Mike always predicted.