[Bradford] Fwd: DEAPPG Panel Event on Net Neutrality: A Briefing paper

Tue Mar 29 12:03:01 UTC 2011

Long answer ... as I can not come and I thought it was fair to echo the view of "the other side"

This is a very complex debate where every actor only play for itself. Google or Skype do not care about end users right, they care about defending the foundation on which their businesses are run.
Communication cost have never been so low, if you had to pay a phone bill in the 90's you will surely remember what the cost was. Many ISP bundle free phone call with their offering.
Why should the governement regulate a market where end users are paying less and less every year ?
What the paper does not say is that skype built a business model where the cost of the infrastructure (the skype network) is mostly provided by the user of their software, and that as a result use the ISP infrastructure instead of skype's. This is fair enough and you can argue that as you paid for your DSL line you are free to use it as pleased.
However this is missing a fundamental issue, you are paying a flat price for your service whatever your consumption. The flat pricing simplifies billing, prevent bad surprises (who remembers 90's phone bills with BBS ?). It however assumes that the usage and price are matched. The elderly only using it to pay his bill pays for the bandwidth greedy games. This is all fine if the incomes from users covers the cost of usage, however with the boom in video services and P2P technologies, this is not the case anymore. Raising the price is not an option in a market consolidating were everyone wants to be the last player (to become the new monopoly) and where most (but not you) users a oblivious of the "net neutrality" issues. The current solutions are "caps", "fair use policies", and yes marketisation of customers (hopefully phorm did not succed).

You want a neutral network, this is simple : pay for it. My customers do, and they have it.
I will pass on some business model like talk talk or Sky where the DSL is used as a "lock in" feature to make profit on other services (TV, mobile, ...) which set unrealistic expectation on the cost of internet service provision.
And do some network abuse of their dominant position - yes they do, and they do it when they are in quasi-monopoly position ....

For me the real question is : how do we keep innovation and competition in the internet ...

Thomas

On 29 Mar 2011, at 12:32, Dick Thomas wrote:

> an interesting email I just got about Net Neutrality meeting going on tonight
> it's come from the house of commons but there were no please don't forward warning so I assume its fair game 
> 
> I'm not sure why I'm getting house of commons emails but I must of complained or emailed some one once but even so interesting read :)
> 
> 
> DIck
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Martin Brown <mbmbrown0 at gmail.com>
> Date: 29 March 2011 12:18
> Subject: DEAPPG Panel Event on Net Neutrality: A Briefing paper
> To: Eric JOYCE <ericjoycemp at gmail.com>, Sophia PICKLES <PICKLESS at parliament.uk>, Jean-Jaques Sahel <jean-jacques.sahel at skype.net>, Beth Knight <elizabethhiroko at gmail.com>, Alex Stanley <alexjstanley at gmail.com>, Dick Thomas <xpd259 at gmail.com>
> 
> 
> <deappg.jpg>
> 
> Dear DEAPPG Member, 
> 
> I have attached a briefing paper  for our event this evening on Net Neutrality. I hope you find it useful. This event looks to be very well attended by members of the public and people from the IT and communications industry. If you can not make it this evening but would still like to ask a question of the panel, feel free to send it  to me this afternoon, or tweet during the event using the #deappg tag.
> 
> DEAPPG Event: Net Neutrality, Opportunities and Challenges?
> 
> 
> The House of Commons, Committee Room 19 Tuesday 29th March 6.30-8.00pm
> 
> This is a panel event open to members of the public:
> 
> Speakers include:
> Jean-Jaques Sahel, Director Government Affairs, Skype.
> Kip Meek, Senior Public Policy Adviser, Everything Everywhere
> Robert Hammond, Head of Postal and Digital Communications, ConsumerFocus
> Rob Reid, Which?
> James Heath, Controller for Policy, The BBC
> Jim Killock, The Open Rights Group
> Julie Meyer, Chief Executive, Ariadne Capital
> Dominique Lazanski, The Tax Payer’s Alliance
> Chair: Eric Joyce MP
> What is the Internet likely to look like in the near future? Will it become a two-tier network with a differentiated payment system for different types of content? Will it be a network that actively filters and discriminates by content and service for payment? This is a debate which continues in both the United States and Europe: people feel passionately about this issue because they feel their internet freedom is threatened. Their freedom of access to information and the means to connect, to cooperate and to collaborate with others is also an extremely important aspect of  a creative society and the digital economy . The European Commission has said that one of the founding principles of the Internet is ‘the open and neutral character of the Internet’ how will this be affected and what advantages, if any, can differential charging for Internet content bring to the consumer?
> 
> 
> kind regards
> -- 
> Martin Brown
> deappg coordinator
> 07527449760
> 02072192779
> http://www.justgiving.com/martin-brown2
> http://www.deappg.co.uk
> http://twitter.com/digecon
> martin at digecon.co.uk
> http://twitter.com/louisesdad
> mbmbrown0 at gmail.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Dick Thomas
> xpd259 at gmail.com
> www.xpd259.co.uk
> 
> 
> <DEAPPG Open Internet briefing.pdf>_______________________________________________
> Bradford mailing list
> Bradford at mailman.lug.org.uk
> https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/bradford

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