One of the joys of being a grandparent is that you get to watch the 1939 film version of the Wizard of Oz all over again. And again. And again.
Still, for those of us who tromp the halls of tech public policy in Washington, there is a potent lesson in the Wizard's booming refrain of "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain..." when the great Oz turns out to be a fraud. A lession that played out this week at the US Department of Justice.
For those who have been on vacation, this is the week in which we hit a new all-time high for unemployment in the US, and the stock market again began to tank with no end in sight. The FBI announced that mortgage fraud is so rampant (and growing) that they simply can't keep up. Someone (possibly North Korea) launched a cyber attack against the computers of the US Treasury, the Secret Service, the Federal Trade Commission and the US Department of Transportation. Spam is out of control, as is identity theft.
Oh, and the US Department of Justice announce that it would launch a new anti-trust investigation into cell phone companies seeking to determine...ummm, something. Or maybe nothing. They aren't sure, and probably won't be until they have spent untold millions of our dollars. They think, just maybe, they may decide that cell phone companies have too much power, and want to investigate that.
Understand, no crime has been committed. In fact, when Sen. Herb ("I spent eight trillion dollars of your tax dollars and all I got for it was this crummy tee shirt") Kohl launched a similar investigation of the cellular companies, he could not find anything wrong. He did, however, ask the the Department of Justice to launch an investigation of these non-crimes.
The reality is that the US cellular industry, for all of its faults, remains one of the best things about this country. It is highly competitive. It offers an incredible array of services. It has continued to innovate, to improve services, to improve coverage, and to lower prices over the past two decades.
If you've read my columns in print publications (including my Bleeding Edge tech columns), you'll know that I am no particular fan of the cellular companies. For the past 15 years, I have devoted two to three columns per year to berating those companies for their junk phones, goofy policies and bizarre advertising claims. But I do so out of love, not hate. Like a wayward child, I chastise them when they are wrong but otherwise love them for who they are:
The very best cellular services in the world. Innovators. Successful private companies that bring value to the nation and to their shareholders. And companies that just might, if we don't let their competitors use cheap political games to bring them down, solve the problem of ubiquitous broadband in rural America.
In today's challenging environment, the DOJ intention to investigate these companies based merely on speculation and gossip is an outrage. An outrage that the White House should put an immediate end to, but probably will not.
As for me, I'm saddened to think that the Justice department I once thought was the great and powerful OZ -- an agency I believed was committed to justice and the law -- looks more and more like a political hack in a cheesy suit pulling levers behind a curtain.
Time to go back to Kansas.
There's an old business adage that those who fail to plan are planning to fail. The adage came to mind this week as I looked over the untold thousands of pages of comments filed with the FCC as public input to their Congressionally-mandated "National Broadband Plan."
Because for the most part, it seems that the usual cast of characters filed the usual comments, most of which have been filed as "comments" in every FCC proceeding for the past 15 years.
The companies want out from under regulations. The telecom attorneys want more contentious policies that will earn them bigger fees. The whack jobs on the left want to give everyone everything for free, or at least to ensure that no company ever makes a profit. The whack jobs on the right want to know what happed to the Moral Majority.
The problem is that none of these add up to a coherent plan. None of them is even actually very useful in creating a plan.
We should have had a national broadband plan back in 1993, when the commercial Internet was first created and the contracts let to private companies to develop it. Or in 1995, when we created the massive update to the nation's telecom laws. Or even in the late Nineties, when we flailed around trying to pretend that broadband over telephone copper wires should be regulated differently than broadband over cable copper wires.
All that said, it would be delightful if what we got was a real plan from the FCC for the future of broadband. One with research, and a mission statement, and goals and strategies and a budget.
That's not what we will get from this process, for any number of reasons. First and foremost, there doesn't seem to be anyone at the FCC who knows what a real strategic business plan looks like. If they did, we would have had one by now. Second, all of the input is being made by inside-the-beltway lobbyists and pundits. And third, by the time the thing is finally flopped on the table before Congress like a dead fish, there won't be any money left to implement it.
I don't envy Julius Genachowski or the other commissioners their task, but neither do I have much sympathy for them. What they will be driven to produce will be a wish list rather than a plan. It will seek to balance the competing interests of all the parties in a way that most pleases the political lords in Congress and the administration. No one gets more than their fair share, everyone gets a little something. Just balanced enough to avoid making anyone too angry. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
That's not a plan, because it will fail to set substantive goals or outline real strategies to reach those goals. If it did so, it would raise a ruckus among the lobbyists and self-appointed advocates because goals and strategies have to be based on real facts rather than political dogma.
So we will fail to plan; and thus plan to fail.
The Federal Communications Commission is now tasked with developing a National Broadband Plan for the United States of America.
For most of the pundits, advocates, socialists and clowns, this will mean another opportunity to shriek at the Commission for heavier regulation, stealing the infrastrucutre that broadband companies have built to give to newcomers and charlatans, and demands for legislation on "network neutrality," whatever that term means this week.
The data calls for something else. A commitment to a national effort at Digital Inclusion.
Through the first decade of the 21st Century, much of the focus on the nation's broadband Internet capability has been on the infrastructure -- the technological platforms, wireline and wireless access, and last-mile buildout.
As we progress in the industry's life cycle, however, we are rapidly approaching the point at which deployment of broadband to consumers will become less important to continued growth than adoption of broadband by consumers. That is to say, the major impediment to achievement of the goal of ubiquitous broadband for all Americans will not be the buildout of infrastructure but rather finding a means to bring online the estimated 25 percent of Americans who presently choose not to have access. In addition, it will be more critical that we begin to move the nine percent of Americans still using dialup Internet connections up to broadband. (Figures based on Pew Internet data from late 2007 and mid-2008)
It is true that in some parts of the country, covering some 8-9 percent of the population, network infrastructure is not robust enough to provide acceptable levels of broadband service. For the most part, the population density in these areas is so low as to make it difficult to justify the investment in infrastructure. Those areas may require specially targeted approaches to provide the needed infrastructure, as appears to be the intent of the new broadband grants programs from the Obama administration.
But it is time we stop believing that our broadband problems are infrastructure problems, or somehow the fault of evil cable and telephone companies.
Perhaps the simplest measure of the problem is this: while the 2008 Global Information Technology Report rates the US broadband infrastructure 4th in the world and improving, the OECD data that tracks the percentage of consumers adopting broadband estimates the US to be in 15th place. The conclusion is clear - the infrastructure deployment rate is good and improving; the consumer adoption rate is less so and stagnant.
In spite of this, broadband policy in the past decade has focused almost exclusively on issues of infrastructure -- open access, competition, network neutrality, Internet governance and network management. Scant attention has been paid to the more critical issue of Digital Inclusion -- bringing online the one-third of the American population that chooses not to use broadband Internet today.
There is a sound basis for focusing on Digital Inclusion rather than flogging the failed ideas of the last century. Helping to bring this one-third of the population online will yield specific benefits:
• Stimulation of adoption rates, creating demand that can economically justify the further buildout and operation of infrastructure. This is particularly true of adoption rates among low income populations and rural populations (see the Pew data at http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Broadband%20Barriers.pdf).
• Amortization of total network costs across a larger consumer base, lowering the basic cost of broadband for all consumers and further stimulating adoption among Americans for whom the price of broadband remains an issue.
• Stimulation of new products, services and applications, in order to meet the specific needs of Americans who have not used broadband because they do not find it relevant to their lives.
This does not suggest that we that infrastructure development should cease. The continued development of new and more efficient platforms for the delivery of broadband is essential to maintain and enhance service levels and to support continuing growth in the demand for additional capacity to support new, bandwidth-hungry Internet applications . But it does suggest that additional attention and resources are required for programs to stimulate Digital Inclusion.
That's where we will get the biggest "bang for the buck" -- bringing online the current one-third of Americans who don't have, don't want, and don't use broadband.
And that's exactly what I will suggest to the FCC as they start their consideration of a National Broadband Plan.
So when the dust finally settles, the Broadband provisions in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 are actually pretty good.
There is some money, to be doled out by the Department of Agriculture for rural broadband projects, and by the Department of Commerce for innovation. Not a lot of money, but that may be a good thing.
There is a requirement that the FCC develop a national broadband plan within a year. A reasonable time frame and a good project that falls well within the mission of the FCC. I look forward to reading what is proposed, and throwing in a few ideas of my own.
And there is a requirement for a broadband mapping project, which can only lead to better coverage of broadband.
Of course, I also like it because it dropped all of the lunatic language about mandatory open access and network neutrality (which in case you missed it, has once again morphed to mean something different than it used to). That kind of nonsense rhetoric has no place is a serious discussion of broadband policy, something that even Google now seems to have conceded.
So I look forward to the year ahead, to the evolution of a national broadband plan, and to an improving economy. And, if there is indeed a good in heaven, a decent wine crop worldwide to help produce the Cabernet Sauvignon I desire to drink while I read the various proposals and platforms.
I've stayed out of the cat fights over the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -- the highly heralded economic stimulus package -- for three reasons.
First, in spite of the invective you may read and the famous quote by Mark Twain ("Suppose your were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. Oh, but I repeat myself."), Members of Congress are not stupid. Most of them are hard-working, dedicated people trying to do their best for their constituents and their country. And while they do make some horrible policy mistakes, the bill they are passing deserves to be taken seriously.
Second, all they have done is authorize the spending. There is still a matter of finding the money to actually do it. And while a $1 Trillion price tag seems staggering, it is unlikely we will spend anywhere near that much. Particularly because...
Third, we are already on our way out of the recession, IMHO. I have a very accurate barometer of the economy here in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and my barometer says things are already mending.
I keep a close eye on Sunday morning breakfasts at the Hawksbill Diner. For those who do not live in the valley of the Shenandoah River, the Hawksbill Diner is legendary. A tiny, converted convenience store that has been around almost as long as the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Hawksbill DIner (named for the river that flows nearby) serves a fine breakfast. You can see almost all of your neighbors there of a Sunday, unless you wait too long and the tourists take all the tables.
The point is that last fall people would come in (you have to have breakfast at the Hawksbill, then go to the WalMart to see all your neighbors, or you are considered unsociable here in the valley) but would only order a biscuit and coffee, not a real breakfast. Times were hard and people were scared.
Today, the breakfast trade is just fine at the Diner, and at WalMart as well.
That's how I know things are improving. People are eating breakfast on Sunday Mornings.
And I know that the stimulus bill, while as a conservative libertarian I am not happy about, will not mean the destruction of all things American. It may actually work, and may actually do some good. I know this because I have actually gone to the Thomas web site at the Library of Congress and read all 800-some pages of the bill.
Which is something virtually none of the media people reporting on it, the radio show hosts who lambast it, or the so-called advocates who swoon over it have bothered to do. Reading legislation before you pass judgement on it -- what a concept!
Word out of the Wall Street Journal this morning is that the Recording Industry Association of America will cease its senseless strategy of suing its own customers and instead attempt to force ISPs to enforce the copyright laws for them. Certain unnamed ISPs are said to already be discussing "cooperation" with them.
Ho-hum.
Let's be blunt here. Being invited by copyright holders to discuss "cooperation" is like being invited to dinner by Hannibal Lecter. Copyright holders aren't interested in cooperation. They are interested in forcing ISPs to become copyright police. They are interested in extorting as much cash as they can from every ISP worldwide. And they are desperately interested in maintaining control of an entertainment industry whose business model died two decades ago.
Let's examine what the WSJ article purports. First, the RIAA says it will stop suing people for allegedly downloading music in violation of the copyright laws. Good idea, given that the RIAA has done such a sloppy job of the lawsuits that they have filed against geriatric grandmothers, toddlers and even dead people. The RIAA should have abandoned the strategy years ago.
For the record, ISPs have always been interested in protecting copyrights and cooperating with the entertainment industry. I've personally been part to at least five meetings to discuss "cooperation," none of which were productive because the copyright holders have virtually no idea what an ISP is or how the Internet industry really works. Like petulant, screaming children, they cannot be reasoned with. They want it their way or no way.
As for the supposed "new plan" in which ISPs will take over punishing file sharers, it's drivel and nonsense. There is no such plan, and no major ISPs have agreed to it. To do so would require them to violate the Digitial Millennium Copyright Act, violate their own terms of service agreements, and then put themselves in jeopardy of a network neutrality complaint by throttling back the service of consumers. What nitwit would agree to that?
What ISPs will do is to adhere to the law, as they have since the law was enacted. That's the fair and legal thing to do.
Meanwhile, in the spirit of "cooperation," the copyright community is said to be actively shopping for a small ISP they can sue in the US, as they did in Australia, in an effort to force changes in the law that they can't coerce Congress to change for them.
And they are pursuing a new global trade agreement that would force liability on ISPs. ACTA is being pushed by the Office of the US Trade Representative at the behest of copyright holders in the US, including the entertainment industry, again because Congress has been smart enough not to give them their way under US laws.
The fact that the RIAA is dropping its vile lawsuits is good news for consumers -- though they didn't say they plan to give money back to the hundreds of consumers whose lives they have ruined in this decade of lawsuits. The fact that they may be interested in working with ISPs may be good news, if they will let go of their obsessive need to punish their own customers and instead focus on ways the entertainment industry can thrive online.
I'm skeptical that they will do this. Every time I hear about a new plan from the RIAA the words "fava beans" and "chianti" pop into my head. It is true that there is a future for the music and film industries online, and it is true that they will need the support of ISPs to make that future. But that future doesn't begin by asking ISPs to break the law and violate their own customer relationships on the whim of the RIAA.
The spin doctors behind the "network neutrality" movement have been in crisis mode for the past few days, trying furiously to cover the fact that Google isn't really interested in treating all packets on the Internet the same. In fact, Google's support of "network neutrality" now appears to have been just another one of Google's shameless efforts at self-enrichment.
For those who have forgotten, "Network Neutrality" was a movement started by Google in late 2005 in order to ensure that they kept their dominant position in the content delivery market and that consumers would foot the bill. While they wrapped it in fancier terms -- such as insisting that all data packets that travel across the Internet be treated exactly the same -- the reality is that Google never did believe in any such thing. They just wanted to "game" public policy for the Internet in order to gain a competitive advantage.
What they were trying to do was to keep network operators from offering better tiers of service to those who could and wanted to pay for it. They decried any such tiered services as unfair to small net entrepreneurs, though in reality Google was already using such tiered services offered by private companies such as Akamai.
The game is this. Google and other large content providers use a service called "local caching." This service takes content from the Internet, transfers it to a private network, holds it on local servers all over the world until it is called for by a consumer, then transfers it back to the Internet for delivery. Google's content benefits from faster delivery to the cache, and fewer hops to the consumer. Faster and more secure delivery for a 21st Century Internet, just as has always been the case with the Internet.
That's not a bad idea. In fact, George Ou of the Internet Technology and Innovation Foundation pointed out the benefits of this and other facets of intelligent networking this month in a guide for policy makers, as did the US Internet Industry Association in September. The problem for Google is that if such services are widely available, they would be less costly. And would thus be affordable for every web site on the Internet. Thus cutting Google's competitive edge and profits.
Thus was born "network neutrality" -- a campaign to ensure through deceit and "gaming" Internet policy that no one other than the largest content providers would have fast, secure delivery of their products. While Microsoft and Yahoo briefly signed on to this scheme, they have since recanted. Good for them.
Here's the problem that Google has now. Since the Wall Street Journal article exposed their shenanigans (see Wall Street Journal, December 15, "Google Wants Its Own Fast Track On The Internet"), they have to protect their empire while avoiding the outrage of millions of consumers, Congress-persons, president-elects and left-of-center bloggers who foolishly believed that "network neutrality" was a real issue that demanded immediate regulation. Here's how they are handling it:
1) Trash the Wall Street Journal. To hear Google's paid character assassins today, the WSJ is some crackpot bunch of rogue journalists incapable of getting their facts right. THey are working hard to kill the messenger as quickly as possible.
2) Lie, lie, and lie again. The spin is that what Google wants is "only" local caching, and while that would be a violation of network neutrality and fairness if anyone else did it, it is not if Google does it. Really.
3) Rally consumers to the cause. Or bumper sticker. Whatever the "network neutrality" movement has degenerated into by now. The effort must be made to cover up Google's secret actions by keeping consumers focused on hating and fearing their own ISPs. Trust only Google. Do not think independently.
What's funny about all of this is that Google, in trying to defend itself, has outlined very neatly why "network neutrality" is a really bad idea that actually hurts consumers, content providers and the Internet.
If you read Rick Whitt's post on the Google public policy blog, you'll find a straightforward admission that Internet traffic is growing -- thanks in no small part to YouTube -- and that it costs money to deliver that traffic. Further, there is a tacit admission that purchasing a higher tier of service -- such as buying transit from a private network off of the Internet and using local traffic -- is necessary to give consumers a quality Internet experience.
I am hoping this is one battle the spin-meisters behind "network neutrality" lose. They should, because it makes no sense to claim that Google can make use of advanced network services but small content providers can't. It makes no sense to force consumers to bear the burden of the cost of content delivery so that Google can be more profitable and powerful.
Google's hand caught in the cookie jar is no surprise to anyone who knows the Internet, and no surprise to the handful of journalists who have actually studied "network neutrality" and its wacky, constantly shifting, incoherent, fact-ignoring mantra of hatred for the "duopolies" of broadband. It will surprise only the well-intentioned Americans who thought their support was going toward a real and just cause.
Long ago and in a different war, I joined the military. It was part of our family's tradition of service to our country, and it was a responsibility I took seriously. Including qualifying as an expert marksman, even though it was not my job to carry a rifle.
I learned that on a military firing range, the expression "Maggie's Drawers" was used to indicate that you had completely missed the target.
The same term can be used to describe our approach to bringing broadband to all Americans. We have been so focused on phony issues and partisan finger-pointing that we have completely failed to even see where the real target lies.
Yet the data is consistent, clear and compelling. This nation, which once boasted a literacy rate of 99 percent, has seen that rate falling sharply. One in four high school students is a dropout before graduation -- one in three among black and hispanic kids. These kids will be forever consigned to low-income jobs and lives. And, the data says, low-income, low-education Americans don't use the Internet.
For some reason, we continue to pretend that the problem is a lack of infrastructure. Even though we can now get a broadband signal of some kind to more than 99 percent of all homes and businesses in America. Even though the cost of our broadband is below the world average. Even though we continue the amazingly rapid deployment of fiber and other advanced broadband technologies.
The truth is that we can't handle the truth. We'd rather bluster and blather about "competition" and "duopolies" and "network neutrality" than face the harsh reality that we are failing one-fourth of the American population with our bad policies and partisan bickering.
Already, the Congress is lining up to announce a new slew of bills to manipulate, regulate and complicate broadband in this country. Not one of those bills even mentions the critical issue of Digital Inclusion, or proposes a program to help people learn the literacy and computing skills they will need in the 21st Century.
Perhaps solving this very real problem is too difficult. Or perhaps it is not politically expedient. Or doesn't raise money and support for re-election.
But I have watched as we spent three years wrangling over the non-issue of "network neutrality." I have seen a decade of repeated efforts to force broadband's square peg into the round hole of 19th-Century telephony regulation. I have watched as greedy state treasurers lick their lips over the prospect of taxing Internet access, even though this would only make access less accessible to lower-income families.
In an industry obsessed with social networking, videos and making a fast buck, we've paid scant attention to the fact that most people who don't use the Internet are disinterested because there is nothing on the Internet they want or need. In an industry of rock stars and overnight sensations, we've left consumers waiting by the curb.
When it comes to solving the real and tangible and proven problems that confront us, or moving toward solutions that will actually make ubiquitous Internet use a reality, we've come up Maggie's Drawers. And until we start basing broadband and Internet policies on reality rather than political dogma and wishful thinking, we will only see our efforts continue to go astray.
President-elect Obama has been largely silent on who and what this new position of Chief Technology Officer for the government will be, but the basic idea is a good one.
Unlikely to be a cabinet-level post, the Federal CTO is also unlikely to be a policy-making position -- the federal government already has plenty of policy wonks within the Department of Commerce and the Federal Communications Commission, and there is little evidence that these are not sufficient to the task of setting policy and regulation. Where these are not enough, there are always the committees in the House and Senate to fill the gap.
Where the CTO would be a welcome addition to the Administration and to the Federal Government will be in four specific areas:
- Advancing the security of government technologies. The last decade has been an unending litany of failures and gaffes in this arena -- failing grades on cyber-security, lost laptops, security breaches, and more. Someone needs to bring a greater measure of consistency and security to the computer and telecommunications systems of the entire Federal government, and the CTO is a logical candidate for the job.
- Advancing the cause of eGovernment. President-elect Obama has correctly identified a problem in how information about our government is consistently and transparently communicated to Americans via the Internet. If you don't believe that, try using the FCC's search system to find a document on any subject at all. Try to find out from the Department of State how much liquor you can legally bring into the US from an overseas trip (answer: it depends...). Or find the hearing schedule for Congress on any given day (hint: skip the Congressional pages and go to C-Span's web site). The people deserve better than this, but it will take planning, commitment, and a steady CTO to achieve it.
- Bringing order to the government technology procurement system. Letting every agency choose what they want has left the government with a series of expensive, proprietary solutions that often don't work. From the new computer system for the FBI to the antique systems in the Treausry Department, there needs to be a better job of procurement policy and oversight throughout the government.
- FInally, assessing the technologies and issue technical guidance so those within the government who are not geeks by nature will have some idea what is out here in the real world and how it can be used. Keeping pace with evolving technology is a full-time job, and most servants of the people just don't have time to keep on top of it while still doing their full-time jobs. A CTO could help.
All that being said, neither the president nor the American people will be well-served if the person selected to become the government's CTO is simply another political hack with an agenda. If you want the position to be effective, it has to be clean. Or at least as clean as any federal appointment can be.
That automatically rules out just about any of the executives from Google, Microsoft, the major telecom companies, the major cable companies or Cisco Systems. Fortunately, there are still lots of excellent choices available from within the ranks of technology who won't come to Washington with an axe to grind or an agenda to push.
Personally, I would opt for someone who is a little skeptical of the current wars over Internet governance. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, for example. Or Declan McCullough over at CNet. Or even David Young at Verizon. None of these would want to take the job, which is another reason why they would be well suited for the task.
Whoever is chosen as the government's CTO, and whatever the final job description, I wish them Godspeed and good luck. It's a tough job that desperately needs doing.
Leave it to the Australians to point out -- once again -- that the emporer isn't wearing any clothes.
Or, in our case, that the whole issue of Network Neutrality is an American fiction based on a bad business model that has devalued the megabyte. The point our that no where else in the world is "network neutrality" an issue, except perhaps among ISPs in the UK who attempt to follow the flawed American model.
A widely quoted article from ZDNet offers advice from three leading Australian ISPs, who note that the root of the problem is that our ISPs tried to offer unlimited bandwidth for a low flat price. While this was possible in the market of a few years ago, the advent of video streaming and P2P have rendered the business model unworkable. And the rest of the world, which has already lived with data caps, bandwidth throttling and other forms of controls, has not expectation that you can have all the bandwidth you want for next to nothing. They live in a pay-for-what-you-use Internet world.
It doesn't take a psychic to read the subtext that labels us Americans as greedy gluttons, or the panderers of network neturality laws to be standard-bearers for entitlements and hand-outs at the expense of our Internet Service Providers. The Aussies note that it is ridiculous to expect that our network operators should expand the networks without limit, at their own expense and with no hope of ever seeing a return on their investment.
Two other bits of data factor into this discussion. The first is a recent survey reported over on Gigaom showing that 81 percent of consumers reject the idea of data caps, and only five percent support a pay-for-what-you-use business model for Internet bandwidth. (The survey also found that 83 percent have no idea what a gigbyte is, or how many gigabytes of data they currently download, but that's fodder for another day.)
The second data bit is the economy. With the current meltdown, most observers believe that we have come to the end of the era of expanding entitlements and hand-outs. That may or may not be true to government, but the reality is that the wounded capital markets in the US won't sustain unlimited investments in bandwidth with no return on investment. The markets simply won't have the funds to lend.
So in one sense the Australians are right. We've painted ourselves into a corner in which we have created a consumer expectation of unlimited bandwidth based on a business model in which NO ONE PAYS. Content owners don't pay for delivery of their content, consumers don't pay for the bandwidth they use, and network operators are prohibited from implementing any kind of new service that would foot the bill. Instead, the whole thing is subsidized by investors and the government -- neither of which, as of today, can any longer afford to foot the bill.
It will be interesting to see how this works out as the fairy tale of network neutrality meets the reality of a downturned market. The whole point of network neutrality legislation seems to be to force consumers to foot the bill for the content they download, so that content providers can show a greater rate of return. But consumers have their own voice, and their own tight pocketbooks to watch in the current economic downturn.
I'm betting that one good thing to come out of the current economic crisis is that consumers will vote their pocketbooks. In which case the whole issue of network neutrality will slink back under the rock it came from.
