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FCC CHAIRMAN MARTIN GIVES PUBLIC INTEREST SAFEGUARDS A "POCKET VETO"
[SOURCE: Center for Digital Democracy]
[Commentary] In a quiet move full of implications for the future openness of the Internet, the FCC has granted Verizon relief from any common carriage requirements in the company's broadband offerings. But instead of conducting a full, public inquiry into the issue, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin elected simply to allow Verizon's petition for forbearance from Title II (common carriage) rules to expire without commission action, effectively giving the company exactly what it wanted. Chairman Martin apparently got what he wanted, too, declaring in a joint statement with Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate that "promoting broadband deployment is one of the highest priorities of the FCC. To accomplish this goal, the Commission seeks to establish a policy environment that facilitates and encourages broadband investment, allowing market forces to deliver the benefits of broadband to consumers.… This relief will enable Verizon to have the flexibility to further deploy its broadband services and fiber facilities without overly burdensome regulations." Among those allegedly burdensome regulations, Commissioner Michael Copps pointed out in a spirited critique of the commission's "inaction," are many of the public interest safeguards that have long governed telecommunications, including Universal Service, privacy, disability access, consumer rights, rural service, and interconnections with other carriers and technologies. According to CDD Executive Director Jeff Chester, "Instead of protecting Internet users, consumers, and citizens, Chairman Martin has further eroded the public interest potential of digital communications. He should resign. It's clear he is more loyal to the interests of broadband monopolist than the public at large."
http://www.democraticmedia.org/news/washingtonwatch/FCCVerizon.html

* Kevin Martin Is Dangerous to our Democracy’s Health
http://www.democraticmedia.org/jcblog/?p=5

NUTS AND BOLTS OF NET DISCRIMINATION: ENCRYPTION
[SOURCE: Freedom to Tinker, AUTHOR: Ed Felten]
[Commentary] Perhaps encryption can play a role in the net neutrality debate. If users encrypt their packets, the encrypted packets will all look like gibberish to the ISP, so the ISP won't be able to tell one type of packet from another. This could force the ISP to handle all of the user’s packets in the same way. The ISP can still penalize all of the user’s packets, or it can single out randomly chosen packets for special treatment, but those are the only forms of discrimination available to it. The user and the ISP are playing an interesting game of chicken. The ISP wants to discriminate against some of the user’s packets, but doesn't want to inconvenience the user so badly that the user discontinues the service (or demands a much lower price). The user responds by making his packets indistinguishable and daring the ISP to discriminate against all of them. The ISP can back down, by easing off on discrimination in order to keep the user happy -- or the ISP can call the user’s bluff and hamper all or most of the user’s traffic. But the ISP may have a different and more effective strategy. If the ISP wants to hamper a particular application, and there is a way to manipulate the user’s traffic that affects that application much more than it does other applications, then the ISP has a way to punish the targeted application. So it turns out that even using encryption isn't necessarily enough to shield a user from network discrimination. Discrimination can work in subtle ways.
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=995

PANEL SUGGESTS CANADA EASE TELECOM RESTRICTIONS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Ian Austen]
A Canadian government panel has called for the elimination of foreign ownership restrictions on telecommunications companies as well as the deregulation of telephone and Internet services. The report by the Telecommunications Policy Review Panel, released Wednesday, outlines a plan for gradually reducing the limits on foreign control of telephone companies, after an examination of similar restrictions on Canadian broadcasters and cable operators. The review panel broadly adopted recommendations from Telusthe dominant telephone company in western Canada, and BCE, which is based in Montreal and owns Bell Canada, for the elimination of price regulation and other restrictions on telephone companies. Many of the policies were originally intended to increase competition in the telecommunications market from new companies. Although the panel recommends methods for protecting consumers, including harsher penalties for unfair competition, and the development of Internet services in rural areas, Lawson A. W. Hunter, BCE's chief corporate officer, said that it largely reflected his industry's viewpoint. "This report is very, very strong on that stuff," he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/23/business/worldbusiness/23dereg.html?pa...
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YOUNG PEOPLE TURN TO WEB FOR NEWS
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Peter Johnson]
A study released by the Pew Internet & American Life project finds that for young people the Internet has become the primary news source on the average day. Within a “high-powered” group of Internet users — those who use broadband four or more times a day — 71% go online for news on an average day, while 59% get news from local TV, just over half from national TV and radio, and about 40% from local newspapers. But especially for the under-36 age group, the local newspaper, local television and national TV newscasts play lesser roles in their newsgathering, the study finds. The study paints a bleak outlook for traditional ink-on-paper newspapers. But it also finds that younger readers — those under 36 who are often written off as not interested in news — are being drawn into the news habit earlier thanks to the appeal of the Internet. “For many of these young broadband users, the Internet is their main course for news, and they don't always eat their vegetables or order dessert in the form of using other media,” says study author John Horrigan. Though this may not come as news to anyone under 35, the results have profound ramifications for mainstream media outlets, which need to integrate an online presence as quickly as possible or risk alienating the next generation of news consumers, Horrigan says. “Mainstream media need to search for the right business model that integrates the online experience into what they do,” Horrigan says. “We're seeing the beginnings of a significant segment of the population having their daily newsgathering habits formed by what they see on the Internet.” This compares with just five years ago, he says, when Pew researchers found that high-speed users “were using the Internet to fill in their newsgathering habits. Now, it governs where they go and what they do” to get news.
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/life/20060323/d_mediamix23.art.htm

See --
* Online News: For many home broadband users, the Internet is a primary news source
http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/178/report_display.asp

* Pew: Web Users Still Unlikely to Pay for News
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_con...