Bob Cringely is kind of a controversial tech columnist — he loves making big predictions, and tech bloggers love pointing out which ones he gets spectacularly wrong. But he also gets a lot spectacularly right. His last two columns have been absolute must-reads in the tech blogosphere, and both have to do with Google’s plan for world domination. Well, not quite — but close.

All that notwithstanding, something else from his first column on the subject caught our eye:

It is becoming very obvious what will happen over the next two to three years. More and more of us will be downloading movies and television shows over the net and with that our usage patterns will change. Instead of using 1-3 gigabytes per month, as most broadband Internet users have in recent years, we’ll go to 1-3 gigabytes per DAY — a 30X increase that will place a huge backbone burden on ISPs.

Of Cringely’s many predictions, this one is surely one of the least far-fetched. He is right — as demand for online video increases, demands on the existing broadband infrastructure will exceed its capacity. Now, under the Dorgan-Snowe “net neutrality” bill, ISPs would not be allowed to offer the Interenet equivalent of HOV lanes. What would that mean to the average user? A slower Internet for everybody, with packets backed up from here to the interstate.

But in his next column, Cringely explained that different portions of the Internet can be used for different things:

The trick here is to see the difference between dark fiber, lighted fiber, and Internet fiber. The most expensive of these is Internet fiber — fiber connected directly to the [backbone of the] Internet and for which ISPs are paying premium prices. What those ISPs need to make P2P work better, however, isn’t fiber connected to the Internet but fiber that’s connected to other ISPs but NOT to the Internet.

From an ISP’s perspective, P2P is annoying in any case but becomes REALLY annoying when peers have to find each other by reaching out over the public Internet. If somehow that copy of American Idol could be found by polling only local nodes, then the cost of P2P would be much lower for ISPs. In fact, it would be almost nothing. The trick, then, is to expand the number of local peers to increase the likelihood that all the bits can be found on the local net.

Cringely is describing something like Akamai, a company that makes content available faster on the Internet, and which could be threatened by Dorgan-Snowe.

But he is also describing something that the Dorgan-Snowe backers claim to fear: a tiered Internet. Why would a tiered Internet be bad? They never really say. But here Bob Cringely is describing a separate network tier that runs faster than the main Internet backbone, and guess what? It would have a direct, noticeable and favorable impact on consumers.

It takes some courage to come right out and disagree with the prevailing wisdom that “net neutrality” is the best thing since the two-button mouse, but UC Berkeley professor Larry Downes is one of the brave ones.

Last July he wrote a provocative, yet common-sensical argument against net neutrality legislation for CIO Insight, and he follows up again this month with another worthy essay, published by Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society. Let’s quote a bit:

Discriminating may be necessary to optimize network performance - Uses for broadband infrastructure are emerging rapidly, and it isn’t entirely clear that discriminating based on content wouldn’t be the best way to optimize network performance, whether doing so would add to profits or not for the provider. The cable networks already “discriminate” in favor of programming over Internet traffic for subscribers who get both from the cable company, because the programming needs priority. Content providers are worried that if broadband providers aren’t banned from discriminating, they’ll someday (soon, perhaps) extract premiums from content providers to get their stuff delivered, or give competitors that option. But some kinds of content should get higher or lower priority as a matter of optimization, and blanket bans on prioritizing may end up making a mess of traffic overall.

And there’s more:

Maybe the Internet has worked so well because neutrality has been a persistent part of the architecture. Maybe it’s worked so well because there has been minimal government regulation of its design and operation. Maybe both. More of the latter to shore up the former is a dangerous trade-off.

Agreed. And not to be a broken record, but while we have our disagreements with Downes on a few specific policy points, those differences are minor and can be addressed later – after we’ve agreed to keep government regulators’ hands off the Internet.

Our hats are off to Information Week for an article this week quoting our co-chairs Mike McCurry and Chris Wolf on the unnecessary new Dorgan-Snowe bill, and a few of our allies on this cause. We agree with this quote from Verizon VP, Peter Davidson:

“Verizon supports and protects consumers’ rights to full Internet access, and we provide them with an unmatched online experience,” he said. “Net neutrality — better named net regulation — is trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. We expect a robust debate. In the end, most policymakers will focus on how to increase broadband deployment, and wonder how net regulation advances that goal. It’s ironic that this bill is introduced at the same time the Consumer Electronics Show is filling the news with broadband-enabled innovations. There is a ‘disconnect’ between consumers’ desires for new products and services and the stifling effects of this bill.”

We wouldn’t call it a perfect article, but considering all the news outlets who focus on the other side, we’re glad they ran it.

Check out the blog Kung Fu Quip and this incisive explanation of the facts behind net neutrality:

The proponents will tell you that net neutrality has always been - based on a law that applied to 40% of the broadband connections carried by DSL lines. It never applied to cable - which accounts for about 60% of the broadband connections. So NN was never “the founding principle”. It was a hindrance to DSL, and the lack of it allowed cable to arrive on the scene and steal the market (well, that and the fact that cable had faster lines and a $100 billion network investment to make it better).

These are facts the advocates of Dorgan-Snowe and their Internet allies have no answer for. They’ve never even tried. Kung Fu Quip also delivers more pointed questions with Shaolin style:

Net Neutrality argues those pipes should just sit there and let e-mail spam duke it out with YouTube to see who gets there first.

Read the whole thing.

“It’s disappointing that Sens. Snowe and Dorgan would introduce essentially the same bill to regulate the Internet that went down to such decisive defeat in Congress last June.

“As Democrats and Republicans recognized, these proposed neutrality regulations essentially create a legal loophole for large content companies such as Google, eBay and Amazon to avoid paying for the online bandwidth they use. These regulations are completely unwarranted and would ultimately force consumers to pay an increasing percentage of the huge cost to upgrade America’s vital communications networks.

“With America lagging many of our economic competitors in broadband deployment, Congress’ focus should instead be on spurring affordable high-speed deployment. And as numerous opponents of neutrality regulations, including the Communications Workers of America, have correctly noted, promoting deployment, not cumbersome new regulation, is the key to economic growth and job creation.”

Last June, the House rejected a proposed Net neutrality law 269-152. Approximately 58 Democrats joined 211 Republicans in opposition. Also last year, state legislators in Michigan rejected a bill to establish statewide neutrality regulations.

The Hands Off the Internet coalition is a Washington, DC-based coalition of companies and nonprofit organizations that believes the Internet has flourished because government has not tried to regulate it. Members include Alcatel, AT&T, the National Association of Manufacturers, FiberControl, and Cinergy Communications. Nonprofit members include Citizens Against Government Waste, the American Conservative Union and the National Black Chamber of Commerce.

Chris Wolf, co-chair, Hands Off the Internet coalition

With so many varying definitions of Net neutrality cruising the blogosphere, coming up with a single sensical definition is like nailing Jello to the wall. Given Stanford Prof. Larry Lessig’s comments at this month’s 10th Annual Gilder/Forbes Telecosm Conference, the nailing just got even tougher.

Here’s the background: George Gilder’s annual telecosm schmooze-fest for the technophiles featured a session, “Broadband Brawl: A Debate Over Net Neutrality.”

The Discovery Institute’s Hance Haney asked the Stanford neutrality regulation advocate whether a broadband provider should be allowed to auction rights to its default search bar. The search engine that paid the highest price would have its product load immediately for millions of the broadband provider’s customers. The other search engines would then have to coax those customers to switch.

LESSIG: … I’m totally fine [with that]. It’s end-to-end competition and that’s exactly what we should be encouraging.

Source: Telecosm video podcast

Lessig’s response is 100 percent accurate and 100 percent exasperating. He’s right that with the tab for U.S. broadband build-out at $40+ billion and counting, content providers and carriers should be exploring deals to defray direct costs to users.

Unfortunately, such common sense would be a clear-cut violation of federal law if the neutrality regulations he (and other regulators) champions pass Congress. Check out the clear language of Section 12 of the Snowe-Dorgan bill, which provides that broadband providers shall:

“enable any content, application, or service made available via the Internet to be offered, provided, or posted on a basis that… is at least equivalent to the access, speed, quality of service, and bandwidth that such broadband service provider offers to affiliated content, applications, or services made available via the public Internet into the network of such broadband service provider.” (Emphasis ours)

Source: Library of Congress

So the Good Professor is right about the benefits of mutually beneficial agreements. The Internet’s distinction between content and carriage is already crumbling under the weight of its own obsolescence. But having the Feds regulate this anachronism would only prop up a nonsensical business model.

Not even the mythical love child of Mary Lou Retton and Greg Louganis could execute a flip like Jeff Pulver did at the 10th anniversary VON show in Boston last month.

According to Network World, he blasted FCC Commish Deborah Tate’s idea of a federal regulation banning child pornography online. “Don’t let regulation get in the way of your innovation,” he told attendees, calling Tate’s proposal a “warning shot” by federal regulators.

If a rule against online child pornography is indeed a warning shot, then so-called Net neutrality regulations are a howitzer blast. Unfortunately, Pulver continues to embrace this unprecedented federal expansion into the Internet as not really an issue of regulation. Alas, he is not the only corporate chieftain pushing this view.

It’s time to disabuse this misconception once and for all. The main vehicle in Congress to codify online “neutrality” is S. 2917 (the Snowe-Dorgan bill). Section E of the bill is explicit about the need for new regulations, giving the FCC six months to prepare the rules for regulators and judges to enforce:

(e) Implementation - Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of the Internet Freedom Preservation Act, the Commission shall prescribe rules to implement this section that–

(1) permit any aggrieved person to file a complaint with the Commission concerning any violation of this section; and

(2) establish enforcement and expedited adjudicatory review procedures consistent with the objectives of this section, including the resolution of any complaint described in paragraph (1) not later than 90 days after such complaint was filed, except for good cause shown.

Pulver and others may choose to call this something other than federal Internet regulation. But as the saying goes, even if 10,000 people call a duck a horse, it’s still a duck.