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network neutrality
Content tagged with "network neutrality"
Bill Moyers on Network Neutrality and Threat from Comcast
"To the Point" Talks With Christopher on Munis and Net Neutrality
Public radio KCRW in Santa Monica recently interviewed Chris Mitchell as part of a panel on "To the Point." Host Barbara Bogaev spoke with Chris, U.S. Representative Anna Eshoo, Christopher Ali from the University of Virginia, and Gautham Nagesh from the Wall Street Journal.
Federal regulators are unveiling a plan that would create fast and slow lanes for content on the Internet. Guest host Barbara Bogaev examines how a "pay to play" broadband system would affect innovation, consumers, and the philosophy that everyone has a right to equal access to the flow of information on the web?
Chris comes into the discussion at 33:30 and brings his expertise on local issues to the conversation. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's recent comments included the announcement that he planned to use the FCC's power to remove preemptive state laws that have revoked local authority to decide whether a network is a wise investment.
The network neutrality conversation starts around 8:20 into the broadcast; the entire show runs just over 51 minutes.
Ian Masters Interviews Christopher Mitchell on Background Briefing from Los Angeles
Christopher Mitchell recently spoke with Ian Masters on the Background Briefing show from KPFK-FM in Los Angeles. Masters connected with Chris to discuss the increasing importance of community networks in light of recent court decisions: Network Neutrality and the court's interpretation of section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
From the Background Briefing website:
Then finally we speak with Christopher Mitchell, the Director of the Telecommunications as Commons Initiative at the Institute for Local Self Reliance about the more than 400 towns and cities across America who have installed or a planning to install fiber broadband municipal networks as an alternative to the telecom and cable monopolies who appear to have captured Obama’s FCC which is poised to end the government’s commitment to net neutrality. We discuss the need to both support municipalities who are building networks to circumvent cable monopolies with high speed broadband that other advanced nations enjoy, at the same time, holding the FCC’s feet to the fire so they don’t sell out the public and abandon net neutrality.
The conversation runs about 20 minutes.
MAG-Net Hosts Community Networks Discussion With Christopher
The Media Action Grassroots Network (MAG-Net) recently hosted a Community Cohort Call titled Tech In The City: A Conversation About Community Broadband Access. Chris Mitchell, Andrea Figueroa Martinez, John St. Julien from Lafayette, and other community broadband advocates discuss the current state of U.S. broadband infrastructure.
Chris offers perspective on monopolistic behavior from current mega providers and how they find ways to limit our options. What can we do to counteract the powerful cable and telecommunications lobbies to preserve an open and free Internet? How can we guarantee affordable access? This panel discussion looks at long-term strategies and actions we can take now.
Peering: Then and Now on Community Broadband Bits Podcast #96
Paid Prioritization Threat Reinforces Value of Community Networks
FCC to Investigate Barriers to Community Networks
The Commission will look for opportunities to enhance Internet access competition. One obvious candidate for close examination was raised in Judge Silberman’s separate opinion, namely legal restrictions on the ability of cities and towns to offer broadband services to consumers in their communities.The FCC has a history of encouraging states not to pass such laws (Commissioner Clyburn, previous FCC Chair, former Commissioner Copps) and the National Broadband Plan made recommendation 8.19: "Congress should make clear that Tribal, state, regional and local governments can build broadband networks." Even if communities choose not to build their own networks, having that capacity changes the dynamic of the big cable and telephone companies - something Franklin D. Roosevelt described as the "birch rod" in the cupboard (regarding municipal electricity):
But on the other hand the very fact that a community can, by vote of the electorate, create a yardstick of its own, will, in most cases, guarantee good service and low rates to its population.
Susan Crawford on National Public Radio
"Unless somebody in the system has industrial policy in mind, a long-term picture of where the United States needs to be and has the political power to act on it, we'll be a Third World country when it comes to communications."
Susan Crawford recently spoke with Dave Davies on NPR's FreshAir. During the conversation Crawford touches on a variety of interrelated topics that affect telecommunications in the U.S. The interview is worth a listen; Crawford and Davies discuss her book, Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age, and get into U.S. telecommunications policy.
Crawford discusses the recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decision on network neutrality. Davies and Crawford also tackle the inteplay between the court decision and role of government in bringing access to more people:
I think the problem is actually much more profound than mere discrimination by a few cable actors when it comes to high-speed Internet access. We seem to currently assume that communications access it a luxury, something that should be left entirely to the private market, unconstrained by any form of oversight.
The problem is, that's just not true in the modern era. You can't get a job, you can't get access to adequate healthcare, you can't educate your children, we can't keep up with other countries in the developed world without having very high capacity, very high-speed access for everybody in the country. And the only way you get there is through government involvement in this market.
That's how we did it for the telephone. That's how we did it for the federal highway system. And we seem to have forgotten that when it comes to these utility basic services, we can't create a level playing field for all Americans or indeed compete on the world stage without having some form of government involvement.