Ed Vaizey completes his stupid monkey act

Edward Vaizey: The Government expect all ISPs providing an internet access service-both fixed and mobile-to offer all legal content. Consumers should always be able to access any legal content or service they want to and content providers and applications should be able to access consumers. ISPs should not be able to discriminate unfairly against services or users. That means no blocking or discriminatory degradation of services or applications for commercial reasons." Sounds good eh? Read on...."There is not yet any evidence that discriminatory practices are emerging, or that there is a problem with regards to how ISPs or networks manage the traffic that flows over them (something they all engage in for technical reasons to deliver the best possible service to consumers). And this is enforced by the initial responses to Ofcom's recent consultation on the issue. A contributing factor to the success of the internet has been the lack of legislative restraints that have been placed on it. It is important that we give the market the opportunity to self regulate. Ofcom will closely monitor how the market develops and if it develops in an anti-competitive way they will intervene." He's against net neutrality, plain and simple - don't look for the problem and rely on (largely non-existent due to lack of incentives) competition to throttle less - of which we claim there's no evidence!

Ed Vaizey and the next Tim Berners Lee?

In view of Ed 'I agree with Sir Tim' Vaizey's views on the benefits of open innovation, I think he might usefully read Alissa Cooper's submission to Ofcom, with its natty and pertinent title. I now realize the formatting has gone on my submission, but then here's my Brussels reminder of the main points. I do hope Ofcom and government has recalled the advice they commissioned from myself and Jonathan Cave in 2006 (I remain grateful), that 'walled garden' bottlenecks and entry barriers would harm innovation.
It may be obvious, but I have just realized I was the only independent expert invited to speak at the net neutrality summit - everyone else was pro or con. Is that unusual?

Thank you, dear Brussels-based reader

There has been a huge spike in readership from Belgium in the last month (which means its now 3rd on the all-time list, and double German readership), which means that a great many Walloons and Flems are suddenly switched on to the issue, or (as I have studiously avoided using Doutzen Kroes as a traffic spiker) that some lobbyists and policymakers may have noticed our conversation - and jurists judging by the Luxembourg numbers. Its also notable that Firefox has reached 27% and Explorer is down to 48% this month - you are very open source educated new readers (including Livermore Labs), welcome!
Finally, let me flag up Monica Horten's analysis of the Trautmann call for a new Recommendation on traffic management - which would be a damned sight more transparent and timely than a bit of background whispering. Will the Commission show leadership? Lets not be beastly to Ofcom lobbying MEPs against a new Recommendation - UK government has almost zero civil servants left to fight on this one, so think of it as outsourcing  (for the time being, Ofcom still has the resource).

“Adding bandwidth is cheaper than scarcity allocation”?

Here are the numbers courtesy of Benoit Felten and Hermann Wagter - it would be nice to think a regulator somewhere is talking to these guys and working out the same thing?
UPDATE: some commentators suggest that different numbers would be more reliable - the point stands: regulators should be analyzing the issue rather than accepting ISP claims. As a Super JANET user, I would suggest they speak to their architects.

On why the open web is important

VPNs are closed, managed services are charged - if they're FRAND, I'm happy with them. But not the WWW. A great follow-up Scientific American article by his co-author reminds us that Tim Berners Lee and the W3C gave it to humanity to improve communication - politicians and entrepreneurs just can't understand why someone would be so generous. "The reason the Web has remained open is because Berners-Lee, and the Web consortium, have protected the founding principles. Is society so crass that it won't stand up for ideals that go beyond a profit motive? Many more truly human benefits, as well as commercial successes, can come from an open Web than from a commercially controlled Web." A chapter in my new book deals with W3C self-regulation - a remarkable gift to the world.

Ed Vaizey paraphrases the 'Stupid Monkeys' ISPs argument

ISPs as copyright enforcers, porn police and pay-as-you-surf controllers of Internet content.

Ed Vaizey is silly monkey - tries to convince Tim Berners Lee of Janus-faced stance

Oh dear, Ed is wriggling on the hook - says he was misreported on abandoning net neutrality - but actually the speech says that, no FRAND for managed services. That's Tim's problem with it - and Ed's attempts to suggest otherwise are intellectually insulting to the knight and Mr Peter Gabriel. Does Ed think we (and Parliament) are stupid? That will get more difficult once the BBC iPlayer reports back on all traffic congestion.Or does he expect that we see, hear and speak no evil?