Merccurynews report on Stanford hearing

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

________________________________________
From: Richard Bennett [richard () bennett com]
Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 5:45 AM
To: David Farber
Subject: Re: [IP] George Ford is getting booed and heckled

As predicted:

In neutrality debate, carriers get blamed for Net's weaknessesBy Richard
Bennett
Article Launched: 04/17/2008 01:35:28 AM PD

The circus is coming to Stanford University. The network neutrality
circus, that is, which makes cable companies the whipping boys for
underlying flaws in the design of the Internet.

The Federal Communications Commission is investigating petitions from
consumer groups and a local start-up, Vuze, against Comcast. The cable
broadband giant is accused of disrupting video traffic uploaded by users
of the BitTorrent peer-to-peer network. But Comcast says its network
management practices are legitimate, needed to ensure that other
broadband subscribers aren't starved by bandwidth hogs.

The commission already held one public hearing in February on network
management practices at Harvard University, and is holding the follow-up
today at Stanford.

Little light came from the Harvard hearing, where FCC Chairman Kevin
Martin badgered Comcast's solitary witness with loaded questions and
failed to display any insight into broadband carriers' management
challenges.

What's more, Martin and the broadband critics have failed to acknowledge
an underlying truth about the Internet: It was originally designed for
the polite society of network engineering professors and students, not
our rough-and-tumble world of large-scale copyright theft and video
file-sharing. And it has design defects - bugs - that make it vulnerable
to overload and abuse.

rest: http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_8955737



David Farber wrote:
> From an IPer re the Stanford Net Neutrality meeting. Sad if accurate
>
> Dave
>
> "It is pretty sad that the only economist here today could barely be heard over the heckling and boos.  This event is 
> really a farce."
>
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