Is Ted Stevens really the right guy for this job?The Net neutrality bill took kind of a weird turn despite its defeat, when the public got to hear the mouthpiece for the telecom industry, Senator Ted Stevens. Wow. Stevens, an Alaska Republican, made a 10-minute speech before Congress that was something of a cross between a comedy act by Professor Irwin Corey and testimony by Casey Stengel, both famous for flubs, non sequiturs, and double-talk.
Stevens is most famous for diverting federal money to Alaska and especially famous for his grabbing $453 million needed for post-Katrina rebuilding to construct two bridges in Alaska, including the infamous "bridge to nowhere." He may be inarticulate and weird, but he does manage to benefit his state at a cost to the nation as a whole.
Stevens now appears to be the front man for the telecom companies (they must be so proud!) regarding Net neutrality, and you can listen to his 10-minute diatribe here: {http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/497} Let me warn you in advance. It's incredibly painful. It's too obvious that this man has no idea what the Internet is exactly and no idea about the issues behind Net neutrality. It seems like a miracle that he can even find the crapper.
This shows you how desperate the telcos and cable companies are to get their way, as Stevens is also the point man for new telecom legislation. It's funny how the telcos argue against any government interference with the Internet but promote various telecom "reform" bills that benefit them.
WHAT IS NET NEUTRALITY? As a reminder, let me outline the idea and rationale for Net neutrality. The idea is that there needs to be legislation to prevent Internet providers such as SBC and Comcast from arbitrarily throttling services. They, of course, want to throttle Skype to make sure people use POTS. But they have been saber-rattling against Google and others who Ted Stevens says are getting a free ride on the Internet. I cannot even imagine how many millions of dollars Google pays to get on the Net. How this is a free ride is baffling. Oh wait, that's right, the man is an idiot. That's it.
Here is one of Stevens's explanations from his diatribe:
"They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes.
"And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material."
LAW NEEDED The idea behind Net neutrality is that it appears that there indeed must be something written into law to make the ISPs "neutral" in how they provide service. This is not about you paying more for better speed or anything like that. It's simply to prevent them from messing up the free flow of bits up and down the pipe. They cannot prefer one kind of bit over another because it interferes with their other businesses or because it interferes with some scheme of theirs.
Stevens, quoted in National Journal here {http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-KZJB1149794408372.html}, says that if telcos and cable companies began to abuse their position, then the Federal Communications Commission could look into it, and maybe something could be done about it when it happens. Emphasis on the word maybe. There doesn't need to be a law, he says. And he's not just a mouthpiece for the telcos: The lawyers should be pleased with him, as this quote assures them he is on their side too:
"…when it comes to the providers versus the owners of content, and all that sort of thing, that is a battle between billion-dollar people. They should hire their own lawyers, not the FCC."
Billion-dollar people, eh? Thus, if any of you billion-dollar bloggers get throttled or just get banned—cut out of the loop altogether—for revealing any uncomfortable truths, just sue 'em. You've got plenty of money being a content provider, right?
Unbelievable.
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