Protect open Internet for all.

On Wednesday Nov 22nd 2017, the FCC has published a new proposal to undo the existing net neutrality rules meant to prevent ISPs from creating a multi-tiered Internet, where they can freely charge extra fees for faster access to some websites. This new proposal if passed, will basically make the cable companies the gate keepers. They will be able to pick and choose winners and losers, whoever pays them a big check will have their content delivered faster to users, while small businesses and individuals will have a big barrier erected against them to enter the market and deliver innovative products to the public.

This is against the philosophy which created the Internet in the first place, an open and innovative Internet, which provides a level playing field for all.

Act now, say no to the new proposal –

Do not repeal net neutrality

Battle for the net

References –
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/22/business/net-neutrality-small-businesses.html
https://www.fcc.gov/restoring-internet-freedom
https://www.fcc.gov/document/proposal-restore-internet-freedom

How to locate broadband Internet service providers in your area.

The FCC keeps a database of national broadband providers and it is publicly accessible at www.broadbandmap.gov. Just enter your full address or Zip code, and it will the broadband providers in your area as well as the advertised speed. One caveat is the data was last updated on June 2014, thus you might get latest information.

I checked the database for an area which had Google Fiber for the last 9 or 10 months, and it didn’t show Google Fiber as available in that area. The database has Google Fiber Inc. as a provider listed though.

If you want to check if Google Fiber is available or coming soon to your area check https://fiber.google.com/about/.

Once nice thing about the National broadband Map is the open standards API they made available to the public. It is well documented and very easy to pull data from programmatically. The API also gives you access to Census data and demographic information.

Note – most of the queries require the FIPS state and/or county codes (Federal Information Processing Standard state code). For instance, for New York state, the FIPS code is 36. Any county within a state will have FIPS county code of state FIPS code + county FIPS code. Bronx county’s (FIPS 005) full code would be 36005, for instance.

Here is a simple python script on how to interact with the API, will use Bronx county and/or NY as an example.

Let us get the overall broadband ranking within New York state –

import requests
url='https://www.broadbandmap.gov/broadbandmap/almanac/jun2014/rankby/state/36/population/wirelineproviderequals0/county?format=json&order=asc'
r=requests.get(url).json().get('Results').get('All')
for item in r:
    print item.get('rank'), item.get('geographyName')

Output based on ranking would look like this –
1 Franklin
2 Cattaraugus
3 Allegany
4 Schoharie
5 Otsego
6 Lewis
7 Washington
8 Hamilton
9 Yates
10 Delaware
11 Steuben
12 Wyoming
13 Cayuga
14 Jefferson
15 Herkimer
16 Schuyler
17 Essex
18 Seneca
19 St. Lawrence
20 Clinton
21 Montgomery
22 Chautauqua
23 Wayne
24 Columbia
25 Greene
26 Tioga
27 Livingston
28 Tompkins
29 Rensselaer
30 Chemung
31 Genesee
32 Cortland
33 Oswego
34 Sullivan
35 Albany
36 Oneida
37 Chenango
38 Orleans
39 Fulton
40 Madison
41 Niagara
42 Ontario
43 Warren
44 Schenectady
45 Ulster
46 Erie
47 Putnam
48 Onondaga
49 Saratoga
50 Broome
51 Suffolk
52 Monroe
53 Kings
54 Queens
55 New York
56 Bronx
57 Nassau
58 Westchester
59 Richmond
60 Orange
61 Rockland
62 Dutchess

Bronx county is ranked 56 out of 62, and the data for Bronx would be –

for item in r:
    if item.get('geographyId') == '36005':
        print item
        break


{u'anyWireline': 1.0,
 u'anyWirelineError': 0.0,
 u'downloadSpeedGreaterThan3000k': 1.0,
 u'downloadSpeedGreaterThan3000kError': 0.0,
 u'geographyId': u'36005',
 u'geographyName': u'Bronx',
 u'myAreaIndicator': False,
 u'population': 1482311,
 u'providerGreaterThan3': 1.0,
 u'rank': 56,
 u'stateFips': u'36',
 u'wirelineProviderEquals0': 0.0}

There is lots more you can do with the data, feel free to dig further.

FCC chairman Tom Wheeler will be resigning next month, and this is not a good news for the proponents of Net Neutrality. Tom Wheeler was the driving force behind the reclassification of broadband internet access as a telecom service. The open internet rules that the FCC approved were a great victory for the supporters of Net Neutrality. With the chairman’s departure, the fight will still continue. The opponents of Net Neutrality, primarily cable/telecom companies, did not like the reclassification of broadband Internet as a telecom service, as that will impose more government and public oversight of the Internet.

For many people, the idea of Net Neutrality is still not clear. In its simplest form, it is the principle that all packets or network traffic should be treated equally. If you pay a monthly fee of $50 to your cable company for a given bandwidth, the cable company should not interfere with your browsing. As far as the cable company is concerned, whether you visit to site A or B, or use your bandwidth to download some media, they should treat it equally. Of course, illegal sites can be blocked per the legality of content in a given country. Basically the pipe has to be agnostic of the type of traffic, source or destination of traffic etc.

That is how the Internet is right now in practice, but the telecom companies want to change it. In my view, it is how the Internet should be. An open Internet encourages innovation at the application/content layer, as any new entrants whether start ups or a kid in a basement can launch a successful product without negotiating with the cable companies. Without Net Neutrality, the cable companies can pick and chose the winners, as they will practically be the gate keepers of content. There is no limit to the amount of control they will have over the Internet, a future with no Net Neutrality is a future of multi-tiered and multi-priced Internet. What that mean is the price as well as quality of your Internet service might vary on any of the following reasons –

1. What site are you visiting? May be Comcast made a deal to priority google.com.
2. What is your source IP address? This identifies your location, AT&T might have a deal with a certain municipality or owner of an IP block.
3. From which country are your browsing? Cable company has a deal with a foreign government.
4. What type of media or content are you viewing? text/audio/video? Cable company want to block a competitor’s streaming video.
5. What time of the day or day of the week are you browsing? Cable company has a popular show that it streams through a recently acquired media company during a certain time of the day.
6. What browser are you using? Internet explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome? Browser maker software company has a deal with cable company.
etc.

Any publicly identifiable information that the cable companies can get from your browsing can be used for pricing purposes.

This is how I analogize Net Neutrality – imagine all the Interstate roads were owned by private companies, say companies X, Y and Z. Without any regulatory rules, the Interstate owners can negotiate with car manufacturers on what types of cars take the fastest or even safest lanes. If Ford pays company X more, the “road owner” would allow only Ford cars to take the HOV lanes, or reserve more lanes for Ford cars while limiting drivers of other car types to the slowest lanes. As a prospective car owner, you won’t just pick a car based on just mileage or driving habits, you have to do extra research to find out what kind of deals the car manufacturer has made with the road owners. Travelling long distance would be a nightmare, as the various segments of the Interstate would be owned by different companies, and companies X would charge you at a different rate than companies Y and Z. So by supporting Net Neutrality, we are agreeing to the principle that the type of car you drive should not matter, we should all abide by the same rules. This does not mean that someone who can afford a high quality car can drive faster than an older car, in the same manner that if you have a lower bandwidth package with your cable company, you might not be able to view high quality movies smoothly.

Per opensecrets.org, here is the list of the top spenders on lobbying for the year 2016, surely enough the telecom and cable companies or associations are in the top list.

Support Net Neutrality at Freepress.net.

Check link below for a great resource which shows lobbying spend of 51 internet service providers (ISPs) dating back to 1998 –

How much does your ISP spend on lobbying?

Support Net Neutrality –

http://www.savetheinternet.com/sti-home

Send your comments to the FCC –

http://www.fcc.gov/comments

Finally, the FCC has made the much anticipated decision on Net Neutrality. The full text of its orders has been released Read the final document here. The ruling is mainly directed at wired Internet services and is a bit lenient on wireless service providers. It will require broadband service providers to make their network management practices transparent. No blocking and no discrimination of lawful sites, services or application on the wired portion of the Net, while the wireless broadband service providers are not required to comply with the no discrimination principle, and partly comply with the no blocking principle. So wireless broadband service providers can slow down or speed up sites, and can block applications as long as they can justify that the blocked application do not compete with the video and telephony service they provide.

It seems that the controversy surrounding the Google and Verizon proposal on managing Internet traffic has re-ignited the debate on Net Neutrality. The proposal claims to be in favor of open Internet, but with some exceptions like wireless services! It makes you wonder, isn’t wireless the future of the Internet? “GoRizon” have also suggested some on line services to be excluded from Net Neutrality principles, like health care monitoring, “advanced educational services, or new entertainment and gaming options.” With so much uncertainty as to which form of Internet traffic regulation would benefit society at large, it might help to brain storm on certain scenarios which could happen if we go ahead with one or other form of regulation.Sarah Kessler has compiled 7 such scenarios“Net Neutrality: 7 Worst Case Scenarios”.