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From: David Farber <dave@farber.net> Date: October 24, 2007 9:06:13 PM CDT To: ip@v2.listbox.com Subject: [IP] AT&T says there is no duopoly, net neutrality is bad Reply-To: dave@farber.net

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From: dewayne@warpspeed.com (Dewayne Hendricks) Date: October 24, 2007 6:09:24 PM EDT To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy@warpspeed.com> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] AT&T says there is no duopoly, net neutrality is bad

[Note: I attended the MW conference yesterday and saw Cicconi's performance. Simply amazing! He just kept throwing out one zinger after another. DLH]

POSTED AT 9:49 AM ON OCTOBER 23, 2007

Blogging from the 2007 MW conference: AT&T says there is no duopoly, net neutrality is bad <http://www.muniwireless.com/article/articleview/6560/1/23>

It's Day 2 of the Muniwireless Silicon Valley Conference and they have an executive from AT&T talking about municipal wireless networks.

AT&T has not changed its tune. It is still against cities using public funds to compete with private enterprise and believes that communications should be left up to private firms like AT&T.

James Cicconi, Senior Executive VP Legislative and External Affairs for AT&T claims that there is no duopoly and there is enough competition in the market for telecommunications services, so cities should stay out.

What is AT&T's position on net neutrality?

Net neutrality is a challenge for all companies. You spend billions to deploy your assets and net neutrality means someone telling you what you can do with your assets - what you can charge, tiers of service, etc.

"All bits should be treated equal" is a problem for network engineers because one bit is porn another bit is heart surgery, another is email, yet another is voice, another is spam. That everything should be moved equally end to end is ludicrous. It's a more costly way to do things. It's not efficient, according to AT&T.

AT&T cannot build and maintain assets quickly enough to meet the demand. They are spending $19 billion this year. Some of the demand is driven by video. What happens when people start delivering high definition film? They can't build networks fast enough! What's the answer? Effective traffic management.

The antitrust laws can deal with the problems of net neutrality (side note: unfortunately these are not being enforced today). Why should AT&T want to degrade traffic? They will go to someone else (side note again: in a duopoly, you've got Comcast which has been blocking Bittorent traffic).

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Note: Given what I have heard here today, the only solution here is structural separation.

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Jeremy Hunsinger Information Ethics Fellow, Center for Information Policy Research, School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (www.cipr.uwm.edu) Words are things; and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. --Byron