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Let's Get Neutral
There's been a lot of hysteria on the Internet lately over something called network neutrality, and you can blame it partly on AT&T chair Edward E. Whitacre, Jr. Whitacre, whose company's recent merger with SBC Communications makes it one of the biggest owners of telecommunications cables in the U.S., got all huffy late last year about sharing AT&T's precious wires with any old Internet service provider that felt like sending packets. "For a Google, or a Yahoo, or a Vonage, or anybody to expect to use these pipes for free is nuts!" he told a Business Week reporter in one of those classic "will somebody please tell our chair to shut up" moments.
However crudely put, Whitacre gave voice to a sentiment that's becoming common among executives of companies like AT&T, Comcast, BellSouth, and others that provide the actual physical wires (often called pipes) that bring us the shiny Web. Because companies like Google take up a lot of space on AT&T's wires, AT&T wants to get paid extra to handle that. Think how much more cash it could be making if Google paid for the privilege of offering faster searches over AT&T. That's exactly the way Whitacre and his ilk see it.
The problem with this moneymaking idea is that the architects of the Internet and industry regulators at the FCC are enamored with something they call the network neutrality principle. Although never written into U.S. law, this principle holds that nobody's Internet traffic should be privileged over anybody else's - to do so would be like letting an electricity company cut a deal with GE so that only GE appliances got good current. As it turns out, the neutral network provides an excellent platform for business models that cluster at the ends of the wires: Everything from Google and eBay to ISPs and music-downloading companies are based on the idea that money is made by shooting good stuff over the wires, not by making some wires better at getting good stuff.
Underlying network neutrality is the idea that people should be allowed to attach whatever they like to the ends of the Internet's wires - and they should be able to do it without significant hindrances, like paying steep access fees to AT&T to get their businesses online. Neutrality is why we routinely get cool new "end" innovations like virtual reality world Second Life or smart phones that connect to the Internet. As both Internet protocol inventor Vint Cerf and former FCC chair Michael Powell have argued, these kinds of new worlds and widgets are only possible because the wires are neutral and their ends are open.
What would a world without network neutrality be like? The worst possibility is that companies like AT&T would create prejudiced pipes that push paying customers' traffic along more quickly than that of nonpaying customers. If indie bookstore Powell's wasn't able to pay AT&T's fees, its online store might load far more slowly than Amazon's - if it even loaded at all. Some companies might force music and movie companies to pay extra to make their downloads work, thus preventing anyone but the major labels and studios from making their wares available online. Ultimately, consumers would have less choice online, and small-end start-ups would be at a great disadvantage when they put their stuff online. If established players like the New York Times can pay the prejudiced-pipe owners for quicker load times, who will bother to read slow-moving blogs?
Many fear that this scenario may come to pass rather soon, because Congress is in the yearlong process of trying to replace the Telecommunications Act of 1996 with an updated legislation package. Several potential drafts have included language that would enshrine the principles of network neutrality in law. Proponents of this move, whom superwonk law professor Timothy Wu has dubbed "openists," say that mandating network neutrality will lead to greater innovation and consumer choice. Meanwhile, deregulationists like the AT&Ts of the world are pushing Congress to keep neutrality out of the law so they can build prejudiced pipes and start charging Google to use them. If the deregulationists succeed, power over the Internet will be centralized among the companies that own the wires, and everyone but the big corporations will lose. We may be about to witness the end of the ends. - Annalee Newitz
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Educational Technology
The National Educational Computing Conference will be held at the San Diego Convention Center July 5-7. For more than two decades, NECC has been the premier forum in which to explore and learn about educational technology, and this annual conference - presented by ISTE and keyed to the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) - features hands-on workshops, lecture-format and interactive concurrent sessions, discussions with key industry leaders, and the largest educational technology exhibit in the world. Keynote speakers include Nicholas Negroponte, founder of Wired magazine and co-founder of the One Laptop Per Child program; and Dewitt Jones, a 20-year photography veteran with National Geographic. (541/434-7021, www.sdccc.org) - Ryan Thomas
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San Diego Saves
Whether saving for a new car or home, putting aside that extra cash for an emergency, or struggling to manage debt, many Americans have trouble creating and maintaining needed strategies to achieve these objectives. Enter America Saves, a national social marketing campaign sponsored by the Consumer Federation of America and designed to educate Americans in the art of financial management. There is no charge for participants.
Leading the local campaign, San Diego Saves, Patti Wooten Swanson, PhD, explains, "The purpose of this campaign is to encourage people to start or increase their personal savings and pay off high cost debt. This is a social marketing campaign, like Don't Start Forest Fires. We are looking to change behaviors on a systemic or cultural level." Cultural commercialism, such as credit card use and excessive consumer spending, has contributed to a loss of financial footing for many Americans. Swanson adds, "People don't save because they don't think they can. We want to dispel that myth and empower people to save systematically over time in order to experience the miracle of compounding interest."
San Diego Saves is organized by the University of California Cooperative Extension and San Diego County. It is led by a countywide coalition of more than 50 nonprofit groups, financial institutions, schools, businesses, government agencies, employers, and representatives from the military-sponsored Navy Saves and the Marine Corps Saves programs.
Groups may invite trained volunteer speakers and wealth coaches to provide motivational workshops for their members. With online enrollment as a San Diego Saver, participants submit financial goals under a privacy agreement; receive a list of free savings accounts, a quarterly newsletter, and notices about special events; and become eligible for a free 30-minute consultation by a member of the Financial Planning Association of San Diego. (858/694-2850, www.americasaves.org/sandiego)
- Kathe Gogolewski
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Business Advice Times Six