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

Tue Mar 29 12:48:45 UTC 2011

Interesting comments.
I think that if we don't have Net neutrality it will stifle innovation and 
promote protectionism. 

For example: My contract, with T-Mobile, gives me 3GB of data. However, I only 
use a tiny part of this and I can't use voip (directly) because they block it. 
Now, I have called them to voice my disgust at their policy. They retort with 
the offer of letting me use voip but pay more. My argument is that if I fill up 
my car, and pay for the petrol, I expect to take my car wherever I want to use 
up that petrol. What if someone was to restrict what I could use my car for,  
then say they want the unused petrol back at the end of the month? That is just 
what T-Mobile is doing. Further, it is protectionism. They fear that people 
would use voip for cheaper phone calls - in my case I am only interested in 
incoming voip calls, as I don't use my quota of voice minutes,  but that is 
beside the point.
I don't have a landline and have, for many years, just used voip. What if Virgin 
cable were to mess with voip and make it unusable. Well, yes, I could ditch them 
and go elsewhere but sometimes providers follow each other in their actions and 
so choice can disappear as a result, perhaps, of a covert cartel.
Brian

________________________________
From: Thomas Mangin <thomas.mangin at exa-networks.co.uk>
To: Dick Thomas <xpd259 at gmail.com>
Cc: Bradlug Mailing list <bradford at mailman.lug.org.uk>
Sent: Tue, 29 March, 2011 12:55:29
Subject: Re: [Bradford] Fwd: DEAPPG Panel Event on Net Neutrality: A Briefing 
paper

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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