NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Mercury News op-ed by Richard Bennett on Stanford NN hearing
------- Forwarded Message From: David Farber <dave@farber.net> To: "ip" <ip@v2.listbox.com> Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2008 02:49:24 -0700 Subject: [IP] Merccurynews report on Stanford hearing ________________________________________ From: Richard Bennett [richard@bennett.com] Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 5:45 AM To: David Farber Subject: Re: [IP] George Ford is getting booed and heckled As predicted: In neutrality debate, carriers get blamed for Net's weaknessesBy Richard Bennett Article Launched: 04/17/2008 01:35:28 AM PD The circus is coming to Stanford University. The network neutrality circus, that is, which makes cable companies the whipping boys for underlying flaws in the design of the Internet. The Federal Communications Commission is investigating petitions from consumer groups and a local start-up, Vuze, against Comcast. The cable broadband giant is accused of disrupting video traffic uploaded by users of the BitTorrent peer-to-peer network. But Comcast says its network management practices are legitimate, needed to ensure that other broadband subscribers aren't starved by bandwidth hogs. The commission already held one public hearing in February on network management practices at Harvard University, and is holding the follow-up today at Stanford. Little light came from the Harvard hearing, where FCC Chairman Kevin Martin badgered Comcast's solitary witness with loaded questions and failed to display any insight into broadband carriers' management challenges. What's more, Martin and the broadband critics have failed to acknowledge an underlying truth about the Internet: It was originally designed for the polite society of network engineering professors and students, not our rough-and-tumble world of large-scale copyright theft and video file-sharing. And it has design defects - bugs - that make it vulnerable to overload and abuse. rest: http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_8955737 David Farber wrote: > From an IPer re the Stanford Net Neutrality meeting. Sad if accurate > > Dave > > "It is pretty sad that the only economist here today could barely be heard over the heckling and boos. This event is really a farce." > > ------------------------------------------- > Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now > RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ > Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com > - ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ------- End of Forwarded Message