The Promise of the Digital Age

Matt Yglesias makes some good points on the shifting of power between the political press and politicians in this post:

Bandwidth used to be very thin. If you wanted to communicate to voters, you had to get the attention of one of a very small number of national television newscasts or one or two local newspapers. Now there’s much more bandwidth you can take advantage of. At the same time, budgets have declined. Consequently, campaign coverage now consists largely of reporting what candidates or their representatives said or even just putting two proxies on television and listening to them talk.

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This is the promise and the peril of digital media. People can communicate much more directly with their constituents, the media elite have much less power, consumers are much better-informed about the things they want to look up, but there’s less of an authoritative common culture that can force the national conversation down avenues deemed important.

The first part is nothing new. Beltway journalists and major news networks have acted as stenographers to power long before the digital age, but I certainly agree that these negative reporting practices can be magnified by the increase in available outlets. Objectivity is not CNN allowing Newt Gingrich to argue over health care reform with James Carville for a five-minute segment. Journalism should examine the arguments made by each side, point out areas that are not true, and inform the citizenry.

Sarah Palin's comments about "death panels" were largely circulated and embraced by the political right over the summer. It is not enough to simply report that "Sarah Palin has gone on record saying that health care reform will create death panels if passed." That tells us nothing except what Sarah Palin says. You have to give credit to those on reputable Internet blogging sites that broke down the fact that Palin was wrongly characterizing voluntary end-of-life counseling as "panels" that would be putting citizens to death.

This is the promise of the digital age. Responsible blogging and independent media outlets have a real chance to expand their footprint online to try and steer us back to responsible and investigative journalism. This expanded bandwidth that Yglesias references is also the peril of the digital age. The poor tendencies of the corporate media have been so pervasive, that they can easily carry over into digital mediums and percolate through the population that much faster.

The important part about the Internet is that truth and reality have a fighting chance. Organizations like Talking Points Memo are being used as sources of information for some (like Rachel Maddow) in reporting important stories. This is a big step forward in one sense, but as we all know, it is an uphill battle. The tea-party movement demonstrates this perfectly. You have a movement that had a lot of their facts wrong, whipped into a fervor by a "News" organization, and resonating with a lot of very angry people to create an odd "grasstroturf" movement.

The Internet does hold quite a bit of promise (that must be protected), but truth and reality still face a challenge in a culture that has been ingrained into the talking head mindset.

FCC Gives Net Neutrality a Big Thumbs Up!

Net Neutrality had a big victory today:

Federal Communications Commission Chair Julius Genachowski today proposed new Net Neutrality rules that would protect the open Internet on all wired and wireless networks. In a speech at the Brookings Institution, Genachowksi proposed rules that would prohibit discrimination of content or applications by Internet service providers and would ensure network management practices are transparent.

Genachowski intends to introduce a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking at the FCC’s October meeting to codify these two principles, in addition to the four open Internet principles that now guide the FCC's oversight and enforcement of communications law. FCC Commissioners Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn have already indicated they support stronger Net Neutrality rules.

Here is a portion of the speech given by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski today at the Brookings Institue:

Notwithstanding its unparalleled record of success, today the free and open Internet faces emerging and substantial challenges. We’ve already seen some clear examples of deviations from the Internet’s historic openness. We have witnessed certain broadband providers unilaterally block access to VoIP applications (phone calls delivered over data networks) and implement technical measures that degrade the performance of peer-to-peer software distributing lawful content. We have even seen at least one service provider deny users access to political content. And as many members of the Internet community and key Congressional leaders have noted, there are compelling reasons to be concerned about the future of openness.

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The rise of serious challenges to the free and open Internet puts us at a crossroads. We could see the Internet’s doors shut to entrepreneurs, the spirit of innovation stifled, a full and free flow of information compromised. Or we could take steps to preserve Internet openness, helping ensure a future of opportunity, innovation, and a vibrant marketplace of ideas.

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In view of these challenges and opportunities, and because it is vital that the Internet continue to be an engine of innovation, economic growth, competition and democratic engagement, I believe the FCC must be a smart cop on the beat preserving a free and open Internet.

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In closing, we are here because 40 years ago, a bunch of researchers in a lab changed the way computers interact and, as a result, changed the world. We are here because those Internet pioneers had unique insights about the power of open networks to transform lives for the better, and they did something about it. Our work now is to preserve the brilliance of what they contributed to our country and the world. It’s to make sure that, in the 21st century, the garage, the basement, and the dorm room remain places where innovators can not only dream but bring their dreams to life. And no one should be neutral about that.

This is extremely positive news. The plans that are outlined by Genachowski in his speech make good sense and are a good step to smartly regulate the Internet so that it remains an open forum for free exchanges of ideas and information. Media consolidation has taken its tole on democratic participation of the ordinary citizen and the Internet has been a place where many have taken refuge. It is vitally important to protect the Internet so that it does not go down the same road as other media.

The gatekeepers of the Internet (the companies that control access to the Internet) are in a position that will provide them with opportunities to choose profit over public interest and we need to act now in order to stand firm on the side of the public interest.

The FCC is also trying to involve the public in this process. They have created a website: http://www.openinternet.gov/index.html in order to allow for people like you and me to weigh in on this issue. Everyone needs to keep the pressure on to make sure that the FCC follows through and stands on the side of democracy in the public interest.

Time Warner Cable Expanding the Practice of Consumption-Based Internet Billing

For the past several months, Time Warner Cable has been conducting a study on Internet usage in the town of Beaumont, Texas. Beaumont has been used as a testing ground for Time Warner Cable's plan to see if it is feasible to charge Internet users for how much data they consume. Currently, companies charge a flat-fee for Internet usage meaning that once you pay for access, there is no limit to how much information you can download or consume online. The only limiting factor, is your connection speed. Under this new system, customers would subscribe to a plan with a cap on how many gigabytes you are allotted within a month. Time Warner Cable would then meter your service and if you go over your allotted gigabytes, you would be charged a fee similar to how cell phone companies charge for going over the allotted minutes of your cell phone plan.

According to this article in Business Week, Time Warner Cable customers would be charged between $29.95 and $54.90 per month for plans that would be capped at 5GB (gigabytes), 10GB, 20GB, and 40GB. For each gigabyte that customers would go over their plan, they would be charged an extra $1. The article I reference above quotes a recent study by Sanford C. Bernstein that suggests that a family on the 40GB plan that streams 7.25 hours a week of online video could end up paying $200 per month on broadband fees.

Time Warner Cable counters these figures by claiming that customers do not typically use that much online data. They point to their study in Beaumont, Texas which monitored 10,000 broadband customers. Time Warner says that about 14% of those tested exceeded their plans and racked up an average of $19 dollars in monthly fines. Time Warner has found this system to be favorable and beginning this month, they are expanding so-called "consumption billing" to Austin and San Antonio, Texas, Rochester, New York and Greensboro, North Carolina. Why make this change in billing? CEO Glenn Britt of Time Warner Cable says:

"We need a viable model to be able to support the infrastructure of the broadband business."

Some, myself included, are quite skeptical of this reasoning and find consumption billing to be problematic. Nate Anderson recently wrote a piece in which he also shares skepticism in the reasoning from Time Warner Cable:

My own recent conversations with other major ISPs suggest that the average broadband user only pulls down 2-6GB of data per month as it is. One the one hand, this suggests that caps don't really bother most people; on the other, it indicates that low cap levels aren't needed to keep traffic "reasonable" since it's actually quite low to begin with. The shift toward metered pricing can't help but benefit TWC's cable business (unless consumers truly revolt), since low caps will ensure that Internet users think twice before doing data-intensive activities on the Internet such as streaming files from Hulu or downloading HD movies and TV episodes from Amazon and iTunes. TWC's own cable video service may prove more compelling than the online alternatives because it has no "caps" or additional fees for watching too much TV.

One of the important points that is listed above, is that consumption billing will ensure that the online habits of customers will change. The downloading of music and movies as well as watching television programs online will most certainly be affected as customers will be mindful of going over their monthly limit. Time Warner Cable makes it sound like these actions are necessary in order to support their broadband infrastructure, but as Anderson points out, "cable Internet is a bargain" for the operators:

Cable's physical plant has been in the ground for years; even hybrid fiber-coax systems have been widely deployed for some time. Internet access simply runs across the existing network, and one of cable's big advantages over DSL is that speeds can be upgraded cheaply by swapping in new DOCSIS headend gear, with DOCSIS 3.0 the current standard.

It certainly makes one scratch their head and wonder if these actions are being undertaken with the public interest in mind or with Time Warner Cable's bottom line in mind.