Net Neutrality By the Numbers
If Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK) thinks the Internet is a complex “series of tubes,” he’s now finding out how difficult it is to navigate legislation through the Senate. At least on the Internet, those pesky little packets can get from one place to another. In the Senate, that outcome isn’t so certain. Bills can be started on their way through the Senate, but never reach the end.
That leads us to the first number today, 60. That’s how many votes Stevens needs to round up before he can bring his bill to the floor. Senate rules require 60 votes to cut off debate on legislation. Otherwise, practically speaking, the bill is dead. So, the Senate leadership has told Stevens he must have the votes in hand to cut off debate before the bill will be brought up for debate.
Goodness knows, the troops are on the march to achieve the 60-vote objective. The telephone companies and their allies are flooding Capitol Hill, all seeking meetings with legislative staffers. Those allies include any industries that have something favorable to them in the bill. It’s telephone companies large and small. It’s cellular companies, and cable companies. It’s the content companies which want government-mandated technology to stop fair use of TV broadcasts (the “broadcast flag” and advanced recording of music (the “audio flag). That’s a lot of firepower.
Stevens and his staff cut deals to help those people and Stevens and his staff want help in forcing the bill through. Every week, there are meetings around Washington in which the telephone companies and their lobbyists are going through check lists and planning as many meetings as they can with the sole goal of making sure a Senator will vote to cut off debate.
The flip side of the issue is our second number, 41 (corrected from the earlier mathematically challenged version.) That’s how many Senators are needed to keep the bill off of the floor. The objective of those favoring Net Neutrality is not to kill the bill. Rather, we want to fix it and make it better, but the chances of that happening are better if negotiations take place and agreements are reached before the bill gets to the floor than after it gets to the floor.
The massive coalition favoring Net Neutrality, encompassing consumer groups, non-profits and issue-oriented organizations from Public Knowledge (my day job employer) to Moveon.org and the Christian coalition, as well as major Internet companies, is pushing back. The pro-Net Neutrality forces aren’t as numerous or as powerful as the telephone companies, despite what some say. (More on that later.) At least there are only 100 Senators, as opposed to 435 House members. Pro Net Neutrality forces may get to each member once, but the telephone and cable companies and their allies will get to each Senator’s office multiple times.
Of course, this is a large and complex bill, and there are many different interest groups not involved with Net Neutrality that would like to see some fixes made. The groups representing cities, for example, don’t like the portion of the bill extending the moratorium on Internet taxation, and states and localities don’t like the Federal government assuming control over some traditional functions, such as keeping authority over cable TV franchising and complaints on cellular phones. There’s a lot here for everyone to fight over.
Our next number gives you the sense of the scale of lobbying involved, $42 million. That’s the amount a study by the pro-net Neutrality coalition estimated the opponents of Net Neutrality spent in the first six months of this year. That total includes TV and print ads from AT&T, Verizon, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, U.S. Telecom Association, Hands Off the Internet, TV4US (the campaign for streamlined entry for telephone companies to get into the cable business) and MyWireless, a cellular campaign.
The total includes $18 million in broadcast ads, $14 million in print ads in Washington, D.C. publications from the Washington Post to publications like Roll Call, The Hill and Congress Daily. These circulate on Capitol Hill and environs in Washington, so the audience is a select one.
All of that money goes to sending out a message that is, from time to time, just factually wrong. The opponents of Net Neutrality, for example, try to set up the debate as one between the big telephone companies and the equally big Google and Yahoo!. That’s nonsense on the face of it, first because the telephone companies have been much bigger, much longer, and are getting bigger.
Our next number is $1.8 billion. The new AT&T reported a $1.8 billion profit for the second quarter – it’s first combining the old AT&T and SBC. That makes the number of parts left over from the 1984 divestiture a simple three – AT&T, Verizon and Qwest, down from the original eight. As an astute observer from Business Week found, the telephone companies these days are more intent on blocking competition and jacking up charges to consumers than really advancing their technology.
The real debate is over the future of the next Google’s and Yahoo!s. Google and Yahoo! and others are fighting to protect the future of the Internet, so that the economic and regulatory conditions that fostered the original Yahoo! and the original Google will still be around, and so that entrepreneurs won’t have their business plans depend on the kindness, or lack thereof, of strangers in the telephone and cable companies.
No one is talking about heavy-handed regulation of the Internet, as some of the anti-Net Neutrality ads claim.
For our next-to-last number, we can’t even estimate the number of companies that either won’t start or would be shut down before they get off the ground unless solid non-discrimination rules are put in place – the kind that were in place until last September and the kind that allowed the Internet to grow and to flourish.
But for our final number, we do know the number of companies that would benefit from being allowed to pick winners and losers. Here’s a hint – it’ smaller than the number of legislative days left in this session of the Senate, which is about 21.
Thanks for the update, however, I have a question. From your report:
Uh, if it takes 60 votes for, to bring the bill to the floor, wouldn't it take 41 votes against, to keep it off the floor?
Am I missing something?
July 26, 2006 12:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
It would, I believe, technically require 51 votes (a majority) to bring something to the floor. 60 is what one needs to end debate and force a vote.
July 26, 2006 1:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think he's saying that Stevens has been told not to bother bringing it to the floor unless he has the votes lined up to push it all the way through.
July 26, 2006 6:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am mathematically challenged in the best of times, and at night all bets are off. It should have read 41 votes to keep the bill off the floor.
July 26, 2006 7:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, it was late for me too, that's why I wasn't sure, if I was missing something.
Thanks for the clarification.
July 26, 2006 8:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
You claim: "No one is talking about heavy-handed regulation of the Internet, as some of the anti-Net Neutrality ads claim."
Yet Snowe-Dorgan says: "(5) only prioritize content, applications, or services accessed by a user that is made available via the Internet within the network of such broadband service provider based on the type of content, applications, or services and the level of service purchased by the user, without charge for such prioritization;"
That's heavy-handed regulation, as any network engineer or product manager can tell you.
The trouble with the "net neutrality" movement is its willingness to jump into areas where they lack the expertise to make constructive suggestions, or in many cases even to appreciate the implications of their proposals. Does the Christian Coalition understand packet jitter and Poisson distributions? Is Moveon.org up-to-speed on EGP and MPLS? Has Vint Cerf done anything for the last 20 years except protect his employers' interests? Does Public Knowledge know how to regulate packet-switching?
Of course not. So this has turned into a fundraising bonanza for "public interest" lobbying groups with no understanding of the underlying technical issues.
July 26, 2006 12:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
So enlighten us, please. Explain in English what you think is wrong and how you think it could be made better. Or are you just stumping for the telcos here?
July 26, 2006 2:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
What's wrong is that we have a garbage debate about a fictitious problem motivated by a desire to scare ignorant people and collect money from them to use in the election cycle.
Show me some real abuse on the Internet, and I can show you how to fix it.
July 26, 2006 3:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Does the Christian Coalition understand packet jitter and Poisson distributions?"
It doesn't have to. All it has to understand is that control of information is power. And that it's a really bad idea to let Verizon or at&t decide (or surreptitiously maneuver) where people shop, bank, search, and read the daily news.
July 27, 2006 12:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry but as a network engineer for a cable overbuilder/ISP I have to call BS on this post.
The quote from Snowe-Dorgan may sound like heavy handed regulation if you don't read it closely enough. But if you do read it closely you'll see that it is limiting what can be prioritized, not saying what must be prioritized. If a telco or other ISP chooses to prioritize packets then the onus for figuring out how to prioritize those packets is on them and they have no one to blame but themselves. For this reason it seems your arguement is backwards.
Let's also not forget that it's not the job of the Christian Coalition or moveon.org to know about routing protocols or other technical issues associated with the Internet. It's an ISP's job, it's a network engineer's job.
I want to be very explicit about this, your arguement is entirely backwards. From a technical standpoint an entirely neutral network is the easiest to implement. Additional overhead is required to implement the anti-net neutrality side's desires for a tiered network.
Thanks,
Ryan
July 27, 2006 10:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Backwards? Forwards? What?
The point of the above text is that Snowe-Dorgan forbids the ISP from levying a fee of any kind for any kind of QoS. While the Christian Coalition and Moveon.org don't understand what that means, I do: VoIP can never be competive with POTS.
That's absurd.
July 27, 2006 2:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, I don’t think you (or the telcos) really want to wait to see what happens when an actual blocking incident occurs. It won’t be left up to engineers to find a solution, it will end up in court. Do you really want some activist court legislating Net Neutrality from the bench?
Whether or not Net Neutrality legislation is the answer, now is the time to be having the discussion and debate. We shouldn’t choose to ignore it. The telco execs let the genie out of the bottle on this one and now that it is out we shouldn’t put it away without addressing it.
Tom
http://www.redbanktv.org
July 27, 2006 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Blocking is prohibited by both the Barton and Stevens bills.
What's your point?
July 27, 2006 5:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
My point is that I can foresee a scenario where a fiber ISP could decide to form a partnership with one content provider and not with that company's competitor. In this scenario the partner would be able to offer its users "Megabit Bursts" (to quote Verizon EVP Tom Tauke) and the other company would not, in effect blocking the non-partner from offering the same level of service to consumers as the partner.
That is a scenario that could easily result in a lawsuit therefore putting a court in a position to set precedent that may be far more reaching then just that particular case.
That is why there is value in having these discussions now and not waiting till after the fact.
July 28, 2006 3:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Once again, the telecom bills ban blocking. I have to assume that blocking "in effect" falls under this stricture, as neither courts nor regulatory agencies are stupid.
As long as blocking "in effect" is understood to be banned by Barton and Stevens, I don't think you have a real problem. But I appreciate your trying to take the discussion to a more meaningful level than any this clown Brodsky is capable of reaching.
July 28, 2006 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Snowe-Dorgan says: "(5) only prioritize content, applications, or services accessed by a user that is made available via the Internet within the network of such broadband service provider based on the type of content, applications, or services and the level of service purchased by the user, without charge for such prioritization;"
I still think you aren't reading that section closely enough. Specifically the part about "...based on the type of content, applications, or services and the level of service purchased by the user..." near the end. There is nothing there that forbids an ISP from levying a fee for QoS if that QoS is part of a service like VoIP that a customer purchases.
If you are going to bring up the other end, the ISP's connection to the greater Internet then I say they are responsible for having enough purchased capacity to handle their VoIP traffic as well as all other traffic without saturating their links. If this means they have to purchase a high level pipe and/or some kind of burstable capacity so be it. That's a cost of doing business.
My company chose to go the other route, we have a Lucent 5E just because we don't feel VoIP is ready for prime time.
Just because VoIP is a cool and upcoming thing doesn't mean we should turn over the reigns of the net to make it easier. I would much rather have a neutral network. If we didn't have a neutral network what would stop Verizon from giving VoIP packets from non Verizon customers a much lower priority?
What was it about my backwards comment you don't understand? Adding QoS or other prioritizing policies adds complexity. A completely neutral network that treats all packets with the same priority is the easist to implement, therefor your original statement that Snowe-Dorgan adds heavy handed regulation that will add complexity to the net is backwards. NOT having net neutrality is what will add complexity to the net.
July 28, 2006 1:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm going to call you on this one. You talk about taking the discussion to a more meaningful level and then you resort to name calling? I believe you should apologize to Mr. Brodsky.
Ryan
July 28, 2006 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't use the term "complexity". Read my comments again. I said Snowe-Dorgan is heavy handed regulation, which it is, because it mandates routing behavior and forbids a perfectly legitimate service offering - QoS - which is widely bought, sold, and used on the actual Internet, the one that connects NSPs. Snowe-Dorgan forbids charging for any form of QoS.
Since you seem to be obsessed with the issue of complexity, I'll advise you to consider one of the maxims of network engineering: "systems should be as simple as possible, but no simpler."
We need QoS on the Internet because we have applications that require low jitter and low latency. Because most of the Internet's traffic, both today and in the future, don't require it, it's completely insane to suggest that we solve the QoS problem by over-provisioning all the links. That solution costs four times as much money to implement as QoS, and somebody has to pay for it. Given that Google doesn't want to pay a fair share, the only other alternative is to make the QoS user pay it for them.
There is no "backwards" and "forwards" in protocol design. Like most of the Google-subsidizing regulation-happy neuts, you're arguing against a strawman.
July 28, 2006 4:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Brodsky doesn't even know how to add and subtract, let alone appreciate the damage his regulations would do to the Internet. The clown deserves no apologies.
July 28, 2006 4:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a fairly short thread. I'm the only person on here that's really given you the time of day but you seem more interested in calling people names than debating.
Expecting an ISP to properly size their pipes and keep up with their growth is not the same as expecting someone to over provision, it's expecting them to pay their own costs of doing business.
If I was interested in continuing to debate you I'd ask for a citation on the "four times as much" comment even though I disagree with your notion that this is over provisioning.
Additionally I'm not saying Google or anyone else shouldn't pay thier fair share of network costs. You are overlooking that Google pays for their network connection and traffic just like everyone else.
It seems you would like to throw everyone that doesn't agree with you into one big happy family as "Google-subsidizing regulation-happy neuts" but I'm sure we are all different. I for one could care less about Google. They have money out the wazoo and they don't need me to worry about them.
I'm worried about the next small business start up that needs the level playing field the Internet has always provided. If that means the killer app of VoIP has to suffer some more growing pains, well, tough. I refuse to give the large corps that exist now the free hand they want. I don't trust them. They don't have a good track record.
Lastly, you take my comments regarding backwards and forwards out of context and accuse me of arguing against a strawman. I said you had it backwards, not that protocol design had anything to do with backwards and forwards, so I believe you are the one bringing up the strawman.
At this point I see no need to discuss this with you further. I started off believing you where honest in your position. Unfortunately now there's enough doubt that I'm not going to continue debating you and we'll just have to agree to disagree.
Ryan
August 1, 2006 3:45 PM | Reply | Permalink