Craig Newmark to Mike McCurry, during an email debate on net neutrality published in the Wall Street Journal: "I realize you're cleverly using Colbertian "truthiness," and I just can't compete with that. Nerds are notoriously literal."

Newmark wins by a TKO.

McCurry, the PR man, says "I am not a techie," but adds that he's told by his telecom clients that we are close to a bandwidth crunch.

Newmark, the founder of Craigslist, says, "My background is computer sciences and software engineering, and I still know a thing or two about network capacity," and points to the huge amount of unused fiber in the ground, adding, "the big telecoms have been very remiss in implementing the newer Internet protocols (IPv6) required for growth, due to bureaucratic inertia."

McCurry says his clients have promised to play nice: "Our coalition and the companies in it have pledged to abide by the principles the FCC articulated last year -- no discrimination against content and no degradation of service. So if they tried to 'slow down' anyone's traffic, they could risk FCC action -- the Commission has been pretty clear about that."

Newmark points a statement from Bellsouth CTO William L. Smith, who "told reporters and analysts that an Internet service provider such as his firm should be able, for example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc."

(Newmark might have added this quote Holman Jenkins Jr in last week's WSJ: "Verizon and AT&T have made clear they, too, will reserve a big share of their new pipes for their own value-added services, namely TV, and for other content distributors who are willing to pay for access to it. Another recent WSJ article says, "By one estimate, only 14% of submarine fiber-optic cable will be lit by the end of this year. That means plenty of latent supply could be added relatively inexpensively as demand requires. So there's likely no profit gusher around the corner for fiber-optic carriers. And consumers' monthly Internet bills aren't likely to jump anytime soon.")

Comments

[jsykes]

Ed:

My simplicity holds me down here.
Do I understand that: net neutrality will create new FCC regulation of access to bandwidth, but on the other hand, Hands Off and the telecoms, sans net neutrality, will be free to offer a bidding war to companies to get the fastest access in the future?

If that is near the target, it would seem that the issue leaves us between a rock and a hard place. I would normally come down on the side of less regulation and leaving the process open to market forces. Even if the telecoms will have power and control for a period, isn't that how entrepreneurs drive the process forward, by finding ways to offer the consumer something better for less?

Can someone say if my understanding of the issue is near the mark. I feel wholly confused.

[Jim Caserta]

Follow one of McCurry's links and you get:

Today’s average residential broadband user consumes about 2 gigbytes of data per month, Kafka estimated, which costs the service provider about $1. As downloading feature films becomes more popular, they might consume an average of 9 gigabytes per month, costing carriers $4.50.

Today’s average residential broadband user pays - $40 to TimeWarner or BellSouth - 40X markup!

It's not fair to have a talking head debate an engineer in a matter of technology.

[Kingsley]

"Today’s average residential broadband user pays - $40 to TimeWarner or BellSouth - 40X markup!"

Expects those markups to drop once you have the neutrality legislation in place. Because small, innovative, cheap providers love to get into more regulated markets.