Posts Tagged ‘Net Neutrality’

Get out your fairy dust and magic wands boys and girls. Click your heals together three times and keep saying “there’s no place like net neutral wireless internet, there’s no place like net neutral wireless internet”.  Gather round as Verizon spins a tall tale of how they will fullfill President Obama’s dream of Net Neutrality…

 

Regular listeners will remember a regular feature we used to do on the No Prisoners, No Mercy show called “Mad as Hell.”   Since show 68 just came out, and show 69 is in recording/editing it’s time for the first written Mad as Hell…

*cue sound clip*

I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more.

 

If you have been following the plans that broadband providers all over the country have to try and dip their hands deeper in your pocket by charging by the byte good for you.  Earlier this month Google and Verizon tried to broker a deal between themselves that would create a second wireless internet, creating a rich man’s world where few of us regular joes and janes could afford their by the minute rate for access – and thereby brought net neutrality talks with the FCC to a screaming halt .

Recently FCC Commissioners Copps and Clyburn were on hand in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, with Senator All Franken to speak out in favor of net neutrality and against the Google/Verizon deal.  You can view Senator Frankin’s speech below. Listen to Senator Frankin’s speech and he will tell YOU how the Google/Verizon proposal would enable companies to pay for faster services for themselves called “managed services” (like buying a first class ticket as Senator Frankin points out) allowing any broadband provider to open “fast lane services” for selected web sites, leaving the average user in the dust….oh yes, and the little loop hole is that Google and Verizon want this to apply to the wired internet.  And what if the FCC has a problem with this? Well the Google/Verizon plan takes care of this by “empowering” the FCC to “publish a report” (oh be still my impatient heart). Doesn’t sound so neutral for wired or wireless internet now does it?

On August 24^th, Tom Tauke, executive vice president of public affairs at Verizon defended his companies proposal that a wireless internet should be excluded from net neutrality rules.

“We believe that the proposal is rational, addresses the issues and concerns of the time, parenthetically fulfills the president’s campaign promise of non-discrimination and transparency on the Internet, [and] provides guidance on more areas going forward…” – Tom Tauke, at the Aspen Forum hosted by the Technology Institute

 

So while you are pondering just how it is that creating a by the minute access wireless internet, free from FCC regulations, that few could afford somehow magically fulfills president Obama’s promises on Net Neutrality  (we assume that it must use fairy dust)…and if Tom Tauke hasn’t already made you mad as hell…Verizon took another shot at it this last Wednesday.

Yesterday Senior Verizon spokesman David Fish had this to say on his blog (via gamepolitics.com)

“We believe a practical, principled and pro-consumer resolution of the network neutrality debate is within reach,” Fish said. “But, to get there, some people need to cool the rhetoric and stick to the facts.” – Senior Verizon Spokesman David Fish

 

Perhaps the rhetoric he is talking about is the reaction by the Free Press to Tom Tauke’s speech:

“Verizon can’t hide the fact that, if enacted, this pact would mark the end of the open Internet era,” said Free Press Research Director Derek Turner in a statement. “The Google-Verizon deal contains no protections for wireless access, which accounts for nearly one-third of all Internet connections, giving Verizon and other ISPs the green light to block or degrade content on their wireless networks.”

 

So get out your fairy dust and magic wands boys and girls. Click your heals together three times and keep saying “there’s no place like net neutral wireless internet, there’s no place like net neutral wireless internet” and maybe, just maybe, if we all clap our hands loud enough it will be so.

 See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

[posted for Julie Whitefeather by The Webmaster]

As regular listeners and readers know, the entire No Prisoners, No Mercy (NPNM) are members of a group called “The Older Gamers” – this is the “TOG” that we talk about on our show so much. Yes, the next time you think that all gamers are created equal stop over at The Older Gamers and you will find a home for over 14,000 of us who are all over 25.  So it is that we have a chance to meet gamers from all over the world.

Not that long ago, a guild member announced that he could not participate in a planned event.  Not that this is unusual mind you.  What did spark our interest is his reason…it seems that he had gone over the limit set by his internet provider so he was forced to go to “his dialup backup account.”  Sadder still is that we have a backup account as well.

Sherman set the Wayback Machine for 2003 when CNET carried an article entitled Putting a Lid on Broadband Use describing a Comcast customer who was sent a notice telling him he could avoid being suspended if he cut his internet usage in half – the problem is Comcast wouldn’t tell him what the limit is.  But not every internet provider has problem setting strict limits.  If your provider is Cox Communications, make sure you don’t get the “value” package if you like to watch movies. If you watch 2 movies a day on the internet you can easily exceed the 50 GB per month limit. Fortunately not ever internet provider sets limits.

The good

 

The net neutrality talks recently ground to a screeching halt as the deal that Google and Verizon brokered between themselves drove a stake through the heart of the talks. The good news is that the talks have reopened as of yesterday at the D.C. of ITI (Information Technology Industry Council). Present where Cisco, Microsoft, and Skype, who are ITI members, as well as AT&T, Verizon and NCTA.

The Bad

 

Poltiico.com is reporting that those notably absent were Google, The Open Internet Coalition, which represents companies like Amazon and eBay (also members if ITI). It appears that the public interest community, which supports OIC, is steaming about not being invited to the talks. As for us here at NPNM we wonder with the OIC and the FCC what is the point? Aside, perhaps, of making sure interests of the public are not represented.

The Hopeful

 

We have our own unofficial “you da’ man” list that includes people such as Rob Pardo, R.W. Harper and now we can add Senator Al Franken. Today Senator Franken will join commissioners Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn at a forum entitled “Future of the Internet” in Minneapolis, hosted by Free Press. All we can add is “Go get ‘em senator”.

Help me Obie Wan

 

Help me Obie Wan you’re my only hope. Or perhaps we should say “help me ArenaNet”.  What has us hoping and hopping for the raging success of Guildwars 2 is their business model.  Buy the game and that’s it.  Our reason is simple – we figure we will need that extra $15 dollars per month to pay for the internet.

The No Prisoners, No Mercy Team

Welcome to the Fi, Fi, Fo, Fum issue

They’re big enough, they’re scary enough…

update: No closed deal (yet) but there has been an announcement of terms: $562.2 million plus “performance liked earn out of up to $200 million. (source) So it looks like its full speed ahead for Disney version of Facebook games. Are we in for treats like “Down on Mickey’s Farm”, “Duck Wars”, and “Minnie’s happy little aquarium”? Get out your barf bags ladies and gentlemen it promises to be a bumpy ride.

No word as of yet if Disney has actually gone through with the purchase of Playdom and it’s ever growing portfolio of Facebook game developers for a reported $500 million plus. But that isn’t the only merger/acquisition in the news today. Senator Al Franken, the man who fought tooth and nail to get the job as senator in the first place, was addressing the Netroots Nation conference in Las Vegas this last Sunday, as reported by TheWrap.com. Calling Net Neutrality “The first Amendment issue of our time” Senator Franken had the following to say about the proposed Comcast/NBC merger:

“If Comcast merges with NBC, how long do you think it will take for Verizon and AT&T to start looking at CBS-Viacom and ABC-Disney”

“Imagine if what is happening with television, the senator went on to say, where an independent producer can’t get a show uon the air unless a network owns a piece of it, where to happen to the internet. There would be no next Youtube or Twitter. There would only be what the R&D departments at the few megaconglomerates could invent and profit from.”

If you don’t think the Senator is right, consider the following:

Vivendi SA (formerly Vivendi Universal) divisions are Vivendi Entertainment, that in turn owns the Canal+Group (a French film and television studio), Universal Music Group, ACTIVISION BLIZZARD, Global Village Telecom, Maroc Telecom, SFR (a French mobile telephone company), and a 20 percent interest in NBC universal (the remainder is owned by General Electric)

But wait, we’re just getting warmed up here.

NBC Universal in turn has the following divisions: NBC, Universal Studios, NBC Universal Television Group, NBC News, USA Network, SYFY (the Sci-Fi Channel), CNBC, MSNBC, NBC.com, MSNBC.com, IVillage, Bravo, qubo, Telemundo Television Studios, The Weather Channel, Hulu and the A&E Television Networks.

If you add Comcast into the mix that includes five more networks (source: Arstecnica as well as The Philadelphia Flyers, The Philadelphia 76ers, the Global Spectrum Management company, Front Row (a marketing firm), as well as non-controlling interests in In Demand, TV One, MGM, Sportsnet, New England Cable News, and the Pittsburgh Cable News Channel

When you are all done chewing on that you can go watch the following movies on Netflix (while Comcast still allows it to run) – The Running Man, Robocop, and one of our personal favorites, the John Cusack movie called War Inc. The common theme with all three is, of course, “egaconcongomoerate” corporations run amok vie to control the world (or destroy it).

Is the senator from Minnesota being alarmist? We tend to think not, and if he is, a large portion of the Federal Government is being alarmist right along with him. If nothing else you have to like an actor from Saturday Night Live who fought hard to be a senator; and as the Senator’s Stuart Smalley character used to say, he’s good enough, he’s smart enough, and doog done it, people like him. Just like California, Minnesota may have an actor for a senator, and had a professional wrestler for a governor (Jesse Ventura) but none of the governors are, to my knowledge, wearing prison uniforms – and that’s something that we here in Illinois won’t be able to say for some time to come.

　

Another one bites the dust?

You had to see Warhammer Online Free 2 play coming from a mile away. It certainly didn’t take a telescope to spot Dungeons and Dragons Online coming up the Free 2 play street either. Lotro was a bit of a shock – we will certainly hand you that. Now in a move that we will claim you could have seen with a blindfold on (never mind that hind sight is always 20-20) Everquest 2 is going free 2 play [http://everquest2.com/free_to_play/extended_faq] with what they are calling Everquest II Extended. Now there are many of our listeners who will, of course, remember Paul Barnett speaking of such matters on a previous show shouting “I TOLD YOU THE SUN WOULD FINALLY EXPLODE.” We will let you look up exactly how much is “free” in Free 2 Play, after all no matter what anyone said our grandmothers were right…there is no such thing as a free lunch. Does this mean that I will be able to get out my gnome and get back the key to my enormous mansion and 1 Antonia Bayle? I sort of doubt it. If the past is in any way precedent I sort of doubt it. John Smedley once said that he considered a game a success if the profits paid to keep the servers open and pay the bills; lets hope the new business model does at least that.

No reviews for you

Today is the day that Blizzard finally takes the chains off that giant of industry IP’s Starcraft 2. As we all know by now, Blizzard would not allow reviews ahead of time. Our first thought was to consider movie Studios like Paramount that refused “professional” reviewers into advance showings of some of their movies after they had been blasted one to many times by reviewers, who later ended up with a few dozen eggs on their face after the same movies where hits at the box office. Still, a comment on one of our regular must reads claimed that Blizzard could defecate in a box, slap the words “Starcraft 2” on the box and still sell it (or words to that effect) and we tend to agree.

What struck us about the release was not the game itself . No, as usual Blizzard doesn’t release anything unless it is polished to the point where it could be used as the mirror in a refracting telescope. Just as striking are the CGI trailers that Blizzard released about the game. Mind you these are not all that uncommon in the mmo industry. But it is not the quality of the trailer that we find lacking – it is the fact that in most cases they are not at all representative of the game. For a game that, as we understand it, is mostly an isometric (albeit highly detailed) view the trailers seem more akin to the hype we see in movie theaters for movies that are big on special effects but low on script quality – rarely do they represent the actual movie. In fact in such cases, if you have seen the trailer you have seen the best parts of the movie with boring filler in between. Mind you in this particular case Starcraft 2 is obviously a “killer game”. Still a bit more of a pragmatic approach, and a lot more honesty in depicting what the gamer is actually getting would be honest and no doubt more productive in the end.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

The Stream becomes a trickle

There are some things you just don’t do… spit into the wind, mess around with Jim (if you are a Jim Croce fan) and insult someone’s mother – It’s just common sense. There are some things you don’t do unless you are a glutton for punishment. Like answer the question “Does this make me look fat?” with “yes” to anyone with which you care to continue having any sort of relationship.

If you are a politician there are a few things that you never do (at least not with the knowledge of your constituents).  The first is doing anything to destabilize social security.  Another is rub any political action committee  the wrong way from whom you wish to continue to receive funding.

Now it appears we can add another item to the “never do list.”

It appears that when some members of congress say “we’ve got your back” (at least where your internet service is concerned) all it means is that they have good aim.  Whether its Youtube, Netflix, or digitial download, that streaming data may soon become a trickle if Rep. Gene Green  has his way.

Aiming to displease.

 

Following the defeat in the courts against Comcast, on this June 17^th the FCC will have a public hearing to determine whether it should leave existing laws in place (in which case hold on to your wallets friends), reclassify internet carriers like telephone companies (allowing regulation of internet providers) or  a “third option” (source)

It’s not surprising then that lobbyists for internet providers are loaded for bear and taking aim at congressmen and congresswomen on both sides of the aisle. Hoping that Democrats and Republicans alike will not dodge the buckshot, at least one Congressman, Representative Gene Green (Democrat – Texas) is busy holding the gun steady for internet providers.  Here is an excerpt from a letter he is circulating to Republican Members of Congress. (source)

“…we have serious concerns about the proposed new regulatory framework for broadband and the Internet. The expanded FCC jurisdiction over broadband that has been proposed and the manner in which it would be implemented are unprecedented and create regulatory uncertainty. The controversy surrounding that approach will likely serve as a distraction from what should be our Nation’s foremost communications priority: bringing broadband to every corner of America, getting every American online, and providing the high speed connections needed to realize the promises of telemedicine, distance learning, and other forms of consumer empowerment.”

 

It appears that Representative Green and lobbyists from Internet Providers are interested in making President Obama’s universal broadband access a reality by making it too expensive to afford.

Bucking the Trend

 

Fortunately, this news follows on the back of the announcement by Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz that free internet Wi-Fi is coming to 7,000 company operated Starbucks in the U.S. This follows McDonalds adding free Wi-Fi to 11,500 of its locations. 

It seems that if Representative Green and the Broadband Lobbyists have their way we will be eating a lot of McDonalds Cheeseburgers and drinking a lot of Starbucks coffee to watch our favorite movies on Netflix.

Update:

The results of the June 17, 2010 public hearing are in:

“The commission voted 3-2 to open an inquiry into how the industry is regulated, the first step toward giving the agency the authority to police broadband service providers such as Comcast, Verizon and AT&T.”  Source

Good news on the face of it.  The shadow that looms in the background is thye phrase “open an inquiry”.  This sounds suspciously like the phrase “Send it to committee” which around Washington D.C. is sometimes the quickest way to kill a bill.

 

It appears that when AT&T isn’t busy looking out for your interests by accidently doling out the email addresses of 114,000 of its customers it is safeguarding our interests as a “neutral, expert” along with Comcast, Google, Intel, Microsoft and Verizon.  Despite the fact that the new group, called Technical Advisory Group (TAG), is headed by Federal Communications Commission CTO Dale Hatfield, I just can’t quite put my finger on my doubts on why such a group can remain neutral.  Oh yes, that’s it…

That’s because, one member of the group that  is busy trying to “minimize disputes over policy questions” is the same broadband internet provider that said it would voluntarily comply with an FCC order to lift its restrictions on customer’s internet use  and then turned around and sued the FCC to get the ruling reversed. Could it be that I seriously doubt the ability any corporations to represent my interests whose intent is also to bleed internet users dry until they lay on the sidewalk in a heap of shriveled broken corpses?

  

Could be…yes it very well could be.

This gorilla walks into a bar (we love “walks into a bar” jokes) and orders a beer.  The bartender gives it to him and says “that’ll be $25.” A bit later the bartender says to the gorilla, “We don’t get many gorillas round these in here.”  The gorilla replies “At these prices, you won’t get many more, either!”

 

It seems that Steve Jobs feels that PCs are on the outs and tablet computers are what is going to replace them – at least that’s what Technology Times Online said recently. The Apple CEO, we are told, claims tablet computers will force laptops and desktops into a “smaller niche market.” The article quotes Mr. Jobs as saying, “I have to say people seem to be liking iPads. We’ve sold one every three seconds since launching it…”

It’s a bit Ironic that the same news feed that brought us news of Steve Jobs prediction of the downfall of the PC also carried an article from the Washington Post with the following tag line:

New iPhone and iPad customers: AT&T’s putting an end to its all-you-can-eat Internet plans.

 

The article cited that existing customers can continue to carry their unlimited $30.00 plans but new customers have just begun to feel the big bite out of the wallet:

The company said that starting June 7, new customers of gadgets such as the iPhone and BlackBerry Curve (and soon Apple’s 3G wireless-enabled iPad), will choose between two options:

1) A $15 monthly plan for 200 megabytes of data. If you go over that allotment, you will pay $15 for every additional 200 MB of data used.

2) Or $25 for 2 gigabytes of data. If you go over, you’ll end up paying $10 for each additional gigabyte.

As our regular listeners know we spent the first half of No Prisoners, No Mercy show 58 talking about a net neutrality and the big push (or should we say bait and switch) by Comcast and their battle with the FCC (one which they won) to charge by usage rather than a flat fee. We recently found a new website that has an article covering the subject which comes to us by way of Gamepolitics.com. The site is called gigacom, and the article is entitled “Silicon Valley, Wake Up and Smell the Net Neutrality” by Stacy Higginbotham – it’s an important read for those of you who don’t want to end up paying through the nose (and maybe out your other end as well) for your internet service. Here is a quote:

“The issues of network neutrality and broadband reclassification are big ones for Silicon Valley, but you’d never know it given the head-in-the-sand response from certain executives whose very livelihood depends on their ability to send whatever content they develop to millions of consumers over broadband pipes.” – Stacy Higgenbotham, Gigacom.com

 

All told, this is dire news indeed if the trend continues. And if that happens we have serious doubts about Mr. Job’s prophetic abilities, considering them less of a portent and a bit more mendicant.  Mr. Jobs might not be too concerned with the cost of the broadband feeding into those same IPADS he sells every 3 seconds, but the rest of the world (at least not the ones selling the internet connections) are.  Will the table PC replace the laptop and the pc? Considering the impending cost of broadband coupled with the inability to perform in some areas we can only share the attitude of the gorilla in the joke above…

Not at these prices.