The spontaneous verbal sparring between Google and eBay at this year’s Aspen Summit still reverberates.� In particular, it’s worth noting how a Google attorney explained his company’s rather obvious “non-neutral” leveraging of its services on SonyEricsson mobile phones: “We’re not sure the wireless world is quite the same.”
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“Not sure”?� This is coming from the same company that’s pushing so hard for unprecedented new federal regulations on wireline broadband despite ZERO evidence that it’s actually necessary?!� Yet it feels that those same regulations are unnecessary for wireless access – where it coincidentally has a lucrative fee-for-service deal.
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As the Church Lady might put it, “How conveeeeeenient!”
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Actually, Google’s incoherence on wireline vs. wireless regulation bolsters the argument we’ve been making for months: Broadband technology is in a state of remarkable convergence and change.� As such, any new effort at regulation will inevitably tie down this progress with rules based on quickly outdated technology and services.

It might not have been on par with Tyson-Holyfield, but this week’s public dust-up between Amazon and Google at the PFF Summit must have been fun to watch.

According to CNet, things got fun when an audience member suggested that Google’s deal to integrate its services with Sony Ericsson phones violates Google’s Net neutrality pledges. The deal lets Google’s search option appear faster than any rivals.

An attorney for eBay interjected and said he’d “like to hear” someone from Google explain this. (Loose translation: “Mel Gibson will have an easier time explaining his comments than you’ll have with this one.”)

“We’re not sure the wireless world is quite the same,” replied Google’s attorney in perfect legal-speak. “This may be where we part company with you guys.” (Loose translation: “And the horse you rode in on!”)

Given Google’s penchant for cutting deals to elbow out competitors, we’re not surprised that the harmonious veneer of “neutrality” is wearing away from the pro-regulation crowd.

In fairness to Google, it’s using the free market to create new consumer-friendly services. Too bad the company is pushing so hard to regulate away efforts by other companies to do the same thing.

“I start by admitting my surprise at how quickly so many of our nation’s successful firms have jumped in to urge the government to regulate [the Internet]. I rarely meet a person in business who does not profess support for a free market, who does not long for the government to keep its nose out of the business.� But nonetheless, when fear of marketplace disadvantage arises, there is a tendency to quickly turn to government to seek protection or help.”

That’s the nation’s top cop for consumer protection and she’s pegged this neutrality debate perfectly (on a plane).

Anyone trying to understand the outlandish claims about so-called Net neutrality should check out FTC Commissioner Deborah Platt Majoras’ speech at this week’s Progress & Freedom Foundation conference in Aspen (on a plane).

Google, Amazon, eBay and the other large online companies have a sweet deal going on.� They’ve carried their narrowband dominance into the broadband world while successfully avoiding the costs necessary to building out tomorrow’s Web.� �

Now, they’ve gone to Congress to freeze this situation, curbing the evolution of the Net with unprecedented new federal regulations.� Against this backdrop of corporate arrogance by the Internet’s Big Guys, thanks are due to Commissioner Majoras for pulling the curtain aside to show what this debate’s really all about.

Note: This post has also been posted as diaries at MyDD and Daily Kos.

Last week we pointed to a wise Denver Post editorial about the Internet future debate, and now we’d like to point you to cross-town rival the Rocky Mountain News for a great editorial showing how quickly the Internet landscape changes.

Remember a few years ago when TIME had AOL’s CEO on the cover with the headline, “Surprise! AOL Wins”? Some victory. As The News notes, AOL has now lost a third of its subscribers, which has forced the company to give away its formerly $24/month service free.

The last time a company had a victory like that was when Ford introduced the Edsel. But The News uses AOL’s lesson to put the so-called Net neutrality push in its proper context:

“Congress is grappling with ‘net neutrality,’ regulations that would prevent the builders of new high-speed data infrastructure from charging higher rates to the users of this new, super-fast pipeline.

“We have no idea whether investors will endorse the concept of having media companies pay part of the cost of adding new lanes on the information superhighway. But Washington should not foreclose that possibility - just as regulators in most instances should not micromanage a dynamic marketplace that listens and reacts to consumer desires.”

Translation: The Internet is evolving just fine, thank you, and lawmakers have no reason to begin tying it down with red tape and bureaucracy.

You never know what you’re going to get, in their comment section. While reading a post about “net neutrality” at the popular geek/technology site just the other day, we came across an excellent description of QoS and explanation of how it fits into the current debate. It was written by a site regular under what we assume is a pseudonym, and we thought it was good enough to republish here in full:

I think a big issue is that the telecoms want to be able to charge more money for providing essentially a new service via the Internet: Quality of Service (QoS), which guarantees a certain bandwidth and delay (latency) between communicating parties. Up until now, the Internet has excelled at data transfer akin to FTP. In other words, whether your email delivery (or movie or software download) occurs in 5 milliseconds or 5 seconds, it doesn’t make that much of a difference. Whether the network drops some of your data, it doesn’t matter because the sender will retransmit, adding only milliseconds to the whole transfer. (As opposed to QoS, this is called “Best Effort”, as in the network makes a best effort to transfer your data, and if it fails, the sender will send again until the data reaches the destination.)

But long latency and dropped packets are VERY BAD for real-time communication such as 2-way voice conversations and live video. Providers of such service need a QoS guarantee, for example: Give me a bandwidth of 30 kilobits per second with a latency of 1 second or less for the next 10 minutes. The first part “30 kilobits per second” is peanuts given today’s broadband connections and fiber crisscrossing the nation. But the telco’s want to be able to provide the other guarantees of low latency and few dropped packets (”latency of 1 second or less for the next 10 minutes”) and charge extra for that capability. It seems legitimate as long as the “best effort” traffic is not impacted.

Couldn’t have said it better ourselves. The commenter also points out something the “net neutrality” crowd fails to acknowledge: That QoS-enabled Internet is in fact a different type of Internet service than the one most of us use every day. That costs a bit more than the regular type, sure, but why shouldn’t it? That’s just the market in action.

Add The Denver Post to the list of voices confirming that the Internet remains free from problems that would require new federal content regulations. That list already includes The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Oregonian – hey, even Google’s own Vint Cerf. Here’s how The Post weighed in recently on so-called Net neutrality:

“It seems unnecessary to inflict pure net neutrality laws on the delivery providers in the absence of any Internet pricing or access abuses. Companies that build the infrastructure ought to be able to price access as the market will bear. Google, by way of example, charges premium prices for advertisers who want space at the top of your Web page. It’s a business model that works; why not allow Comcast or Verizon to find a fair pricing model that will work for them?” (Our emphasis.)

Mr. Cerf, call your office.

The latest headache for those pushing so-called neutrality regulation involves “ESPN360”, run by the Disney Corp. According to news reports, Disney is charging Internet providers for the right to carry the ESPN service. If a provider doesn’t pay, then that provider’s subscribers cannot access the service.

Of course the other way to view this is that if a provider does pay, then ALL its subscribers pay higher subscription fees even if they don’t use the ESPN service.

So far, some broadband providers have coughed up the money. Others are holding back, perhaps concerned that other sites might emulate the Disney model thus sending access rates higher.

We’re not sure whether ESPN’s pricing gambit will catch on. Neither is anyone else, which is why it’s received so much attention. But that’s the point. Consumer tastes online are changing rapidly, meaning a few business models will work but most won’t. (Remember how Microsoft was supposed to rule the Internet by bundling MSN with Windows? It had all the charm of a CueCat.)

For government to try to impose pricing regulations on tomorrow’s Internet based on hypothetical fears and conjecture is a springboard to certain failure.