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In a Posting on www.Hightechforum.Org, Editor Richard Bennett Says “Two Net Neutrality Smoking Guns” Reveal the True Goal of Advocates Like Harold Feld and Moveon.Org: “Damn the Internet, Let’s Fire up the Base”
Online PR News – 24-August-2010 –In a posting on the web forum of which he is editor, Richard Bennett offers evidence that “undermines the credibility of advocacy groups in Washington and their net neutrality agenda.”
The first 'smoking gun' is Harold Feld’s advice for FCC Chairman Genachowski, demanding that he “rejects any forthcoming ‘industry consensus’ from ITI as wholly inadequate” and instead affirms the Chairman’s 'third way' proposal. But as Bennett points out, the ITI talks to which Feld refers are at “a very preliminary stage,” with “no guarantee that any consensus will be reached.”
“So how is it,” Bennett asks, “that Mr. Harold Feld can peer into his crystal ball, pound his fists, and demand that Chairman Genachowski must reject this non-existent consensus sight unseen? This is very near to the pinnacle of hubris and an indictment of the net neutrality cause.”
As a second smoking gun, Bennett points out that the recent net neutrality petition sent to Google by Free Press and Moveon.org last week was issued, circulated, and signed five days before Google and Verizon announced their proposal. “So if the signers were reacting to anything it all, it wasn't the Google-Verizon proposal, it was rumors about it.”
The petition was not a genuine reaction, but rather, “outrage over the very idea that a proposal was in the works (as it had been for ten months.) But who needs to see the proposal before denouncing it? Google and Verizon are both big companies, big companies are all evil, anything they agree on must be the end of the Internet as we know it, QED.”
In perhaps his most revealing remark, Feld says this issue," would fire up the base in time for election [sic].”
So while “the IT industry is trying to find a consensus that might, just might, put the bitter rancor of the net neutrality wars behind us, at least for a while,” Bennett says, “…we have demonstrations, petitions, and denunciations taking place that are baldly and explicitly tailored to achieve a political effect. ‘Damn the Internet,’ the advocates are saying, ‘let’s fire up the base.’”
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High Tech Forum (Hightechforum.org) is a blog that publishes expert technical analysis of subjects with public policy implications. While news and information about the business of technology and consumer goods and services is abundant in the blogosphere, expert analysis of current and fiture technology is hard to come by. High Tech Forum is place wheretechnical experts cano offer perspectives and opinions in a robust exchange of idea. It’s open to analytical contributions from all genuine technologists with an interest in networking and the future of technology.
Editor Richard Bennett is a technology consultant, writer, and speaker with a thirty year background in network engineering. He contributed to the original Ethernet hub and Wi-Fi standards as well as the recent 802.11n and UWB standards. Richard advises regulators, lawmakers, and industry leaders on networking standards and systems as an independent consultant and as a Senior Research Fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation in Washington. The views he expresses on the blog are his alone and not those of any organization. Follow us on Twitter (@hightechforum) and find us on Facebook.
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