Net Neutrality Is Critical For Innovation en-us Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 -0500 Mon, 29 Aug 2016 03:33:44 -0400 Albert Wenger Dale B. Halling Thu, 12 Aug 2010 17:43:14 -0400 Any government restriction on how the internet can operate will by definition limit innovation. The FCC’s Net Neutrality proposal violates the “Rate Law of Innovation”, which states that rate of innovation is directly related to the number of elements that innovators have available to them. The Net Neutrality rule limits how many variables or elements that innovators have to innovate. See the Laws of Innovation ( for more information. All the major engineers who developed the internet are opposed to the FCC’s Net Neutrality rules. According to Andrew Orlowski, “Engineers fear rash legislation would inhibit the ability of systems engineers to improve latency and jitter issues needed to move data at speed.” See Mr. Orowski’s article for more information. The FCC’s response is that all their proposed rules include the limitation “Subject to reasonable network management.” They argue this prevents the FCC from being overly onerous in the application of these rules. Of course, the catch is who gets to determine what is reasonable. If it is the internet providers, then the rules are meaningless, since they will clearly believe that their network management is reasonable. Thus, it is clear that the FCC intends that someone other than the internet providers, get to decide what is reasonable. We know from history this will be lawyers, special interest groups, and large corporations defining reasonable to meet their special interest at the expense of the owners of the network and the public in general. In addition to limiting innovation, the Net Neutrality rules are widely seen as the first step in a “Fairness Doctrine” for the internet. The Fairness Doctrine, which applies to radio and television, has been used to stifle free speech in this country. The Fairness Doctrine will kill the value of the internet as an outlet to monitor and police the government. There is no justification for the Net Neutrality rules, they will stifle innovation, and they will lead to a Fairness Doctrine for the internet. Dale B. Halling, Author of the “Decline and Fall of the American Entrepreneur: How Little Known Laws and Regulations are Killing Innovation.” For preview of the book see Henry Blodget Thu, 12 Aug 2010 13:29:48 -0400 Thanks, Albert. I'd make two quick points. First, I have no problem with lobbying for one's industry, but let's be clear that that's what this is. The online status quo is cheaper for startups than a tiered network system would be. But other than "that's the way this industry has always been," I don't know why this is fair. I don't see why AT&T shareholders should have to pay for the innovation done by us or Union Square startups. Secondly, the whole scare-story here--that if we allow YouTube to pay more for better service it will kill everyone else--is just silly. YouTube ALREADY pays more for faster service, as do all the other big web sites. They just do it through content delivery networks (which, at scale, charge an arm and a leg) instead of the ISPs. So what's the big deal if the network service providers offer those services directly? jrh Thu, 12 Aug 2010 12:50:25 -0400 In the US, there are only a few players in the market for broadband ISPs and wireless data. There aren't enough alternatives to generate real competition. jrh Thu, 12 Aug 2010 12:46:56 -0400 I wonder if this is really such a big deal. It seems like big hosting companies like Amazon would negotiate a bulk rate for all of their customers, and pass it along as part of their service. It could be a perfectly manageable cost of doing business. It might even help out startups who use low bandwidth or don't need low latency, because they could end up with relatively lower costs. Ricky.R. Thu, 12 Aug 2010 12:23:02 -0400 Also, I think Google has generated so much bad blood with their "up yours " attitude lately, that consumers are itching to switch away from their products, from their ad platform to their core search. After all, it doesn't cost the consumers anything to switch search engines in a blink of an eye. That's exactly how Facebook overtook MySpace as the social network of choice, and this cycle will continue as companies make bad choices and a better mousetrap comes along. Ricky.R. Thu, 12 Aug 2010 12:15:54 -0400 There's a ready remedy for those trying to "abolish" net neutrality, and its called free competition. If an ISP tries to charge me a tiered charge for accessing websites, while another is "net neutral", I will choose the net neutral one every time, to get an simply priced, fast and even access to all websites , and I suppose most will do the same, leaving those that are not net neutral marginalized. Similarly, if Google tries to charge companies tiered access fees to be included in their web index, they will go the way of Yahoo (which tried to do the same) as their web index deteriorates in quality, and other, net neutral businesses will take its place within the web search industry. Saint Thu, 12 Aug 2010 12:11:29 -0400 Its funny, the arcticle claims to be pro-innovation and start-up, but it doesn't seem to have occurred to the writer that net-neutrality actually limits the possibility for new ISPs to enter the market, which actually hurts innovation and ensures an oligopoly for current ISPs, allowing them to charge almost whatever they want. The problem with all this is that Net Neutrality is a fix to a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place. It makes perfect sense to allow companies to buy the right to increase their speed, but only when its possible for new ISPs to pop up and offer net-neutrality options as a selling point. That would allow the market, the closet thing to an unbiased decision as you can get, decide whether or not net-neutrality is worth it. Unfortunately, the good 'ol federal government has made running a small business a horrific experience, akin to running across a minefield. Endless arbitrary federal regulation won't help innovation; forcing the Federalies out altogether and asking people to put their money where their mouth is will. Nissl Thu, 12 Aug 2010 12:11:23 -0400 Want to understand Google's plans? Check out the Register article, "Google 'sold out the net neutrality hippies' in 2008‎." Ignoring the sensationalist headline, Google already has the worlds largest private network, handling well more than 10% of internet traffic. Obviously they have built the network out as much as it makes sense for them to do under the current arrangement and as a search-focused company (other than modest increases in capacity to handle the developing world coming online). They would like to be paid a reasonable (?) profit to develop a high speed global backbone that handles lots more traffic. Here's their perspective: we get (for example) decent streaming video right now, but as the author points out, that's only from large companies who can afford to pay for the infrastructure to hook into the pubilc web fairly locally all over the world - the Netflixes, Amazons, and Youtubes. What are the odds I can get high quality content from someone who can't afford to place the infrastructure in place - say a TV channel in Afghanistan, or a small opera company from Italy who wants to broadcast one of their shows in HD? Under the current system, with lots of exchanges between us, I probably can't. How does this system improve if it isn't managed and no alternatives are built? Probably pretty slowly. I can see the upsides of having a parallel high power global network available, and perhaps that is what Google is focusing on. On the other hand, it's a ridiculous amount of power to place in the hands of a single entity. It would give Google tremendous leverage over everyone from carriers (yay?) to content providers (boo). I think that's their play here. clint watson Thu, 12 Aug 2010 12:04:50 -0400 Neutral or controlled. Do you like others telling you the limits, or would you rather fight to save what freedom we have left? Mehran Farimani Thu, 12 Aug 2010 11:40:29 -0400 This is a good attempt at a compromise, but it ignores the consumer at it's core. It also provides power to carriers to control market breadth and reachability of services and products that startups would offer. As a startup, I would find that severely limiting. The truth is, there is no compromise when it comes to net neutrality. It's either neutral or it's controlled. And let that be a lesson to all consumers: I can preach no evil and change my mind when I need to! What a disappointment Google has been. Do you really trust them with your data any longer? Unfortunately, most consumers don't understand this issue and it's long term impact. As for us, we will slowly be moving our email and apps off of google, once we have some breathing room. The gloves are on! brian h Thu, 12 Aug 2010 11:34:56 -0400 "Imagine for a moment an Internet in which Google can pay Verizon and others to deliver Youtube videos faster than video content from other sites, including that of your favorite startup." But that's not at all what Google and Verizon proposed! They proposed developing separate dedicated networks, and while this might mean that if you wanted to make a video site you'd be better off going to the dedicated video net rather than the general internet. The benefit of that could be debated, but nowhere is there talk about preferring one service over another! (with the possible loophole of degrading P2P as potentially illegal) You are constructing a bit of a straw man. Google and Verizon did NOT advocate selectively slowing down some traffic for a fee. At least on the wireline networks. But on the wireless networks, contrary to your point on wireline networks, the status quo is NOT neutrality. Lastly, no startup can compete w/Google, regardless of anything a carrier does. A startup could get unlimited free access and it wouldn't enable them to compete with Google... unless they spent the money for servers and infrastructure that surely dwarfs the costs for network access. I certainly agree with you that equal access is important for innovation, and I don't really trust Verizon's good intentions. But nothing that they've said is really different from the status quo, with the exception of the possibility of developing dedicated video/voice/etc networks. I suppose, as you began, it's a good thing that "to see the net neutrality debate raging" -- good to keep Verizon on its toes and realize that it can't run all over neutrality without an uproar! Grwisher Thu, 12 Aug 2010 11:13:07 -0400 Is it just me that thinks that Google is becoming more overreaching and greedy with every passing day.