doctor Blog

Today is the Media Policy Research Pre-Conference in Memphis Tennessee. In#039;m leading the Net Neutrality and Internet Regulation Working Group and will be moderating a session this afternoon. In addition, my colleague, Victor Pickard, and I will be presenting our paper The New Network Neutrality during the morning plenary session.

Senators Dorgan and Snowe just introduced the Internet Freedom Preservation Act. Among other provisions, the act mandates that Broadband Service Providers: not black, interfere with, discriminate against, impair, or degrade the ability of any person to use a broadband service to access, use, send, post, receive, or offer any lawful content, application, or service made available via the Internet. not prevent or obstruct a user from attaching or using any device to the network of such broadband service provider, only if such device does not physically damage or substantially degrade the use of such network by other subscribers. does not impose a charge on the basis of the type of content, applications, or services made available via the Internet into the network of such broadband service provider. not require a subscriber, as a condition on the purchase of any broadband service offered by such broadband service provider, to purchase any cable service, telecommunications service, or IP enabled voice service. The Act would be implemented within 180 days of passage (passage being in no way guaranteed) and contains fairly expedient enforcement provisions. All in all, a very good law -- now lets see how the rest of the Senate and Congress lines up.

There appears to have been a major T-mobile service outage on January 13, 2007, but I have been unable to locate information on what went wrong and why cell phones throughout Memphis (and beyond) were not working. If anyone has any verified information, please let me know. Meanwhile, I wonder when weh#039;ll realize that the reliability and robustness of our telecommunications infrastructure is woefully inadequate and that without meaningful intervention, is unlikely to improve?