A Series of Tubes: The Internet's Backbone and Network Neutrality
February 17
The late Senator Ted Stevens famously said in a 2006 committee meeting that the “Internet is not something that you just dump something on; it’s not a big truck. It’s a series of tubes.” While he was ridiculed widely at the time, Senator Stevens’s remarks actually reveal an interesting hortatory description of what the Internet should be (though given the rest of his comments, apparently not one that he intended). What Stevens’s metaphor suggests is that the physical conduits of the Internet should act like nothing more than non-judgmental conduits of the rest of the world’s traffic. We will see this week, however, that this is not a true reflection of how the tubes work, and we have strong debates as to what the government's role should be in ensuring that large enough "tubes" reach all those who would like to be online. The big questions for this week: What are the “tubes” of the Internet? Should the tubes have a role in controlling the throughput content? What is the role of government when it comes to developing and regulating our Internet conduits?
Our guest this week will be Rob Faris, the Research Director of the Berkman Center.
Readings
- Connectivity
- The Berkman Center, How Do We Connect To The Internet? (about 7 mins., watch all)
- Yochai Benkler et al., Next Generation Connectivity (executive summary and introduction only)
- Network Neutrality
Optional Readings
- Rob Faris and Rebekah Heacock, Measuring Internet Activity: a (Selective) Review of Methods and Metrics (pages 3-9)
Videos Watched in Class
Links
Class Discussion
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Hi everyone - thought you might like to see the new report from Media Cloud, a joint project of the Berkman Center and the MIT Center for Civic Media about the role of the networked public sphere (see our class 2 reading from Yochai Benkler for discussion of the term) in shaping the net neutrality debate in the United States. We may revisit this in our class days about online speech, but for now I wanted to make sure you also had it as part of our class discussion for today. Enjoy! Andy (talk) 09:36, 10 February 2015 (EST)
Hello All!
This week’s readings surprised me in many ways. First, before reading the Berkman Center’s 2010 report on Next Generation Connectivity I had no idea that the United States, when compared to other nations, was a “middle-of-the-pack performer on most first generation broadband measures, [and] a weak performer on prices for high and next-generation speeds”(12).
Then when I watched the 2012 Berkman Center YouTube video on How Do We Connect to the Internet? I was quite impressed with the penetration rates in the Scandinavian countries listed, as well as the extremely high average line speed in South Korea.
Consequently, while I contemplate this week’s question about, “what is the role of government when it comes to developing and regulating our Internet conduits,” I cannot help but notice that according to the Next Generation Connectivity report there is a strong correlation between government intervention, penetration and available line speeds, as it states, “it does appear that the leaders in fiber deployment—South Korea, Japan, and Sweden—are also the leading examples of large, long term public capital investments through expenditures, tax breaks, and low cost loans that helped deployment in those countries” (16).
As I continued to consider the role of government, I can see from the Community-Based Broadband Solutions report recently published by The Executive Office of the President, that issues persist regarding penetration, speed and cost in the United States. According to the President’s report there are still “nearly 51 million Americans [who] cannot purchase a wired broadband connection with download speeds of at least 25 Mbps, and only 63 percent have access to speeds of 100 Mbps or more” (7). Likewise the report describes how a great disparity exists between urban and rural communities with rural residents having limited access to line speeds equal or greater than 25 Mbps (TEOP, 8).
Even though the President’s report proposes that promoting competitive markets is a “proven mechanism for increasing Internet access, quality and affordability,” (11) it also suggests that it “will not necessarily solve all broadband access challenges” (12). Subsequently the report recommends that government infrastructure investments are worthwhile because they can “put in place the ‘middle mile’ network that lowers costs of entering the ‘last mile’ market” (TEOP,13).
Granted it does seem as though some states such as Massachusetts are on the right track when it comes to investing in infrastructure. However other states are clearly still lagging behind. As a result it seems as though the Federal government will need to intervene more on their behalf.
Thanks, Emily M.
Works Cited
Benkler, Yochai et al. Next Generation Connectivity: A review of broadband Internet transitions and policy from around the world. Berkmen Center: Harvard University. February 2010. PDF.
Berkman Center. “How Do We Connect to the Internet?” Youtube.com 2012. Video.
The Executive Office of the President. Community-Based Broadband Solutions: The Benefits of Compition and Choice for Community Development and Highspeed Internet Access. January 2015.
EmiMac (talk) 21:56, 14 February 2015 (EST)
Solove (2010), interviewed one of his colleagues to discuss his views about the internet usage and censorship. His colleague indicated that the controversy is that most Americans believe that the internet is an opportunity to voice free speech. However, it lends itself to being censored by many private parties. This action violates the 1st amendment that guarantees free speech.
Solove ( 2010) , asked his colleague which of the internet gatekeepers was the most troubling. He reported broadband providers and wireless carriers were the most troubling. Large search engines such as Google have oversight to minimize or eliminate discriminatory practices. After reading this article, I continued to research this topic and realized there are other organizations that are concerned with internet censorship and freedom of speech and advocating for a civil liberties.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reported that their views on internet censorship was explained in a Supreme Court case. In Reno v. ACLU, the court decided the Internet to be a free speech zone, deserving at least as much First Amendment protection as that afforded to books, newspapers and magazines. The court said the government can no more restrict a person's access to words or images on the Internet than it could be allowed to snatch a book out of a reader's hands in the library, or cover over a statue of a nude in a museum. I have included a website that reviews this case and how it addresses the transmission of information via the internet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reno_v._American_Civil_Liberties_Union.
Tasha
References:
American Civil Liberties Union (n.d.). Retrieved from http://aclu.org/free-speech/internet-cer
Solove,D., (2010). Brightideas: Nunziato on virtual freedom: Net neutrality and free speech in the internet age. Retrieved from http://www.concurringopinion