EDUCAUSE | Contributed by Organizations or Campuses; Articles, Papers, and Reports; and Telecommunications Policy

FCC wants to know: Is degrading P2P traffic 'reasonable'?

ckeller — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 11:18:40 -0600

"As foreshadowed at the Consumer Electronics Show last week, federal regulators this week took the first formal step into investigating complaints about how Internet service providers, such as Comcast, manage peer-to-peer file-sharing traffic on their networks "

FCC asked to bar cellular carriers from blocking SMS traffic

ckeller — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 09:40:38 -0600

A handful of public-interest groups have filed a petition (PDF) with the Federal Communications Commission asking it to prevent cellular service providers from blocking text messages from advocacy groups and advertisers. Filed by Public Knowledge, the Consumers Union, EDUCAUSE, Free Press, and four other groups, the petition cites a couple of recent examples of text-message blocking by cellular carriers.

Push for ‘net neutrality' stalls

ckeller — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 13:11:58 -0500

Though legislation is unlikely this year, education groups say they haven't given up the fight to keep network owners from prioritizing web traffic according to payment.

Ten Things That Finally Killed Net Neutrality

ckeller — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 13:01:32 -0500

The author give a good overview of the current Net Neutrality forecast.

What's Behind the Epidemic of Municipal Wi-Fi Failures?

ckeller — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 14:55:52 -0500

"The dream of wireless networks bathing U.S. cities in free and pervasive internet access has come to an end, at least for now. As the number of failed or stalled municipal wireless projects continues to rise, the focus has shifted from closing the so-called digital divide to why plans for such networks, in only a year's time, seem to be dissolving almost daily. "

Spectrum Auction: How Open Is Open? How Much Is Too Much?

ckeller — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 17:04:52 -0500

Wired Magazine spoke with David Farber asked him about his thought on the spectrum auction, how the process will work and why he says this spectrum is so "yummy."

FTC Nixes Net Neutrality

ckeller — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 09:54:02 -0500

Consumers Should Trust the Marketplace, Regulators Purr.

CALEA: It doesn't apply to universities and libraries after all

ckeller — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:44:41 -0500

"Back in 2005-2006, when CALEA (the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act) was being expanded to cover broadband providers and VoIP companies, libraries and universities raised a massive ruckus over the plan. Their worry was that CALEA would require any network that connected to the public Internet to comply with FBI wiretapping guidelines; universities across the country would be faced with a multibillion dollar bill for upgrading their networks. Now that the new CALEA rules are in effect (the deadline for compliance was Monday), how are universities and libraries handling the issue? "

New Coalition Touts National Broadband Policy

drupal — Wed, 30 May 2007 10:41:25 -0500

"A broad coalition of some of the Internet's leading brand names, public advocacy groups and grassroots organizations called on Congress today to immediately adopt a national broadband policy. The goal, the group said, is universal, affordable broadband for all Americans."

Internet 3.0: Identifying Problems and Solutions to the Network Neutrality Debate

drupal — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 17:24:11 -0500

This paper will examine the network neutrality debate with an eye toward refuting and dismissing the many false and misleading claims and concentrating on the real problems occasioned by the Internet's third evolution. The paper accepts as necessary and proper many types of price and quality of service discrimination. However the paper identifies other types of discrimination, which operators can obscure, that constitute unlawful and anticompetitive trade practices.

The paper identifies best practices in lawful discrimination that should satisfy most network neutrality goals without creating disincentives that might dissuade ISPs from building the infrastructure needed for Internet 3.0 services. The paper concludes that legitimate concerns about unlawful network discrimination warrants the presence of a referee to remedy abuses before irreparable marketplace competitive harm occurs and well before a court of law could act. The paper recommends that the FCC require ISPs to submit network usage reports that the Commission could use to determine the causes of congestion and other types of service disruption.