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Netizens-Digest Volume 1 Number 303
Netizens-Digest Tuesday, May 25 1999 Volume 01 : Number 303
Netizens Association Discussion List Digest
In this issue:
[netz] Re: FCC: U.S. FCC seeks good way to separate cable, Internet
[netz] Re: FCC: U.S. FCC seeks good way to separate cable, Internet
[netz] ATT's Plans For Global Empire (was: FCC seeks good way to separate cable
[netz] Emailing Becky Burr and Elliott Maxwell about ICANN
[netz] bandwidth for everyone - and Yugoslavia's Internet
[netz] Some new online numbers to chew over (fwd)
[netz] ICANN and conflicting paradigms of Internet history
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 20:07:42 +0000
From: kerryo@ns.sympatico.ca (Kerry Miller)
Subject: [netz] Re: FCC: U.S. FCC seeks good way to separate cable, Internet
> Case, who is backed by other Internet service providers and
> consumers groups, argued that the cable industry's bundle of
> high-speed access and Internet service would eliminate healthy
> competition on the Internet. "We just want consumers to have a
> choice when they want an ISP (Internet service provider)," Case
> said. "There is an easier route. It doesn't require onerous
> regulation... But even if it wasn't easy -- and I think it would be
> -- that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. The question is more a
> question of right or wrong as it relates to developing this
> medium."
Did cable involve routers and name servers before it became awarte
of the Net? Let it first be a network, and then it can happily be part
of a network of networks.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 16:44:16 -0700 (PDT)
From: Greg Skinner <gds@best.com>
Subject: [netz] Re: FCC: U.S. FCC seeks good way to separate cable, Internet
Kerry Miller wrote:
> Did cable involve routers and name servers before it became awarte
> of the Net? Let it first be a network, and then it can happily be part
> of a network of networks.
I believe when "cable" is referred here, it is to services like @Home that
use existing lines that are run to residences. @Home has a vast network,
including routers and name servers. Also, people like Milo Medin, who I
believe is their chief technology officer, have had a long involvement in
the design and development of Internet protocols.
- --gregbo
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 22 May 1999 00:51:14 +0000
From: kerryo@ns.sympatico.ca (Kerry Miller)
Subject: [netz] ATT's Plans For Global Empire (was: FCC seeks good way to separate cable
- ------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date sent: Fri, 21 May 1999 23:27:00 -0300
Send reply to: Universal Access Canada <UA-C@CCEN.UCCB.NS.CA>
From: Michael Gurstein <mgurst@CCEN.UCCB.NS.CA>
Subject: [UA-C] ATT's Plans For Global Empire (fwd)
Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 07:47:54 -0700
From: Michael Givel <mgivel@earthlink.net>
To: mai-not@flora.org
Subject: ATT's Plans For Global Empire
THE GLOBE AND MAIL SATURDAY, MAY 8, 1999
AT&T EMPIRE-BUILDING WORRISOME
By Eric Reguly
What do you get when you when you cross the world's biggest
phone company with the biggest cable company and the biggest
software company? The answer, according to the competitors who
are watching this dark entity take shape like a tornado on the
horizon, is a communications monster bent on world domination.
The monster in question is AT&T, which became the top cable
company this week with the $54-billion (U.S.) purchase of
MediaOne Group. At the same time, AT&T struck a $5-billion side
deal with Bill Gates to use Microsoft's ubiquitous Windows
software to power the set-top boxes that will deliver digital TV,
phone and Internet services to millions of couch potatoes. The new
AT&T will have access to about 60 per cent of American homes,
giving it a tight grip on the delivery systems that will shape the
converging communications and entertainment markets of the 21st
century. AT&T won't stop in the United States. Canada and Europe
will inevitably become its next targets.
The irony is that AT&T, the former American Telephone &
Telegraph that was known as Ma Bell in gentler times, was broken
up by the federal government in the early 1980s because it utterly
dominated the local and long-distance markets. AT&T was shorn of
its regional phone companies, called Baby Bells. It retained its
long-distance business, the manufacturing operations and Bell
Laboratories.
Less than two decades later, AT&T is almost as powerful as it
ever was and the regulators are twitching nervously again. The
company found the path of least resistance to regain access to the
regional market and moved with such speed that it left competitors
stunned. The 1996 Telecommunications Act set the stage for
sweeping deregulation, ostensibly allowing the local, regional and
long-distance companies to compete in each other's markets in a
free-for-all that was supposed to provide consumers with endless
choice and rock-bottom prices. It didn't work as planned. The Baby
Bells used the act as an excuse to merge with each other, effectively
preventing AT&T from bringing her children back into the house.
But the sly old lady found another route into regional markets it
bought cable companies instead.
Under chairman Michael Armstrong, AT&T launched its drive
into the regional markets early this year with the $55-billion
purchase of Tele-Communications Inc., one of the largest cable
companies. Then it beat Comcast for ownership of MediaOne,
another cable giant.
In a matter of months, the largest phone company had also
become the largest cable company.
The beauty of the strategy was that the cable companies have
considerable flexibility compared with the Baby Bells. With the
cable companies at its side, AT&T can compete with Baby Bells
without being regulated like them. The cable companies, for
instance, have enormous freedom to raise rates, deny competitors
access to their networks and sell various services in one package, a
technique known as "bundling." AT&T's vision is to use a single
pipe to deliver cable TV, high-speed Internet access and local,
long-distance and wireless phone services into the home. The Baby
Bells, meanwhile, are pretty much limited to local and wireless
services.
Will AT&T get away with being the sole provider of these
services for two-thirds of the country? William Barr, legal counsel
for GTE, a local phone company, said the AT&T-MediaOne
merger "will awaken even the most supine regulators to recognize
that AT&T is attempting to reassemble its dominant position right
under their noses."
GTE shouldn't count on the regulators rising up against "the
Evil Empire," as it called AT&T, as they did once before. The
regulators may decide that the AT&T-MediaOne deal is not
consumer-unfriendly because the new company will compete
directly with the Baby Bells, which are themselves monopolies or
so close to it that it hardly matters. But this is not the real issue.
The problem is that AT&T, as a cable owner, will not be required
to open its local networks to competitors, notably Internet service
providers. This is clearly anti-competitive.
Canadians should be concerned because there is little doubt that
AT&T would like to clone its strategy in Canada, which it
considers an extension of its home market. The logical route is
through Rogers Communications, which is already a partner with
AT&T in the wireless business. Under existing foreign ownership
laws, AT&T could not buy control of a cable company. But this
restriction could very well disappear as long as Canadian content
laws on programming are met.
There is a way to prevent AT&T from squeezing out the
competition in the markets it covers. Regulators in the United
States should require AT&T to open its cable networks to rivals,
just as the Baby Bells are being forced to pry open their networks,
as the minimum condition for approval of the MediaOne takeover.
Canadian regulators should force Canada's cable companies to do
the same. Open access would allow Internet services to keep
growing in North America and prevent a repeat of the 1980s, when
AT&T had to be dismantled because it didn't know the meaning of
competition.
- --
For MAI-not (un)subscription information, posting guidelines and
links to other MAI sites please see http://mai.flora.org/
========
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 22 May 1999 01:47:04 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ronda Hauben <ronda@panix.com>
Subject: [netz] Emailing Becky Burr and Elliott Maxwell about ICANN
Greg Skinner <gds@best.com> writes:
"Richard J. Sexton" <richard@dns.list> wrote:
> At 02:03 AM 5/21/99 -0700, Kent Crispin wrote:
>> On Thu, May 20, 1999 at 11:57:34PM -0800, Ellen Rony wrote:
>>> After a summer of international meetings in 1998, people believed that the
>>> selection of the interim NewCo board would be made by a PUBLIC process.
>Just as an observation, if I were Becky Burr, Elliott Maxwell, etc.,
>getting reams of emails with long distributions, consisting of nearly
>all included text except for accusations that such-and-such person
>does not exist, has embezzled funds from their company, etc., I would
>have problems taking the list seriously, if I were indeed reading the
>list at all. I imagine they are very busy, and do not have time to
>read endless amounts of flames. Not to say that everything on the
>list is like this, but there is enough of it that would potentially
>cause them to tune out.
They should be participating in the list and accessible to
the public about their complaints about this whole activity
of ICANN.
Instead Becky Burr and Elliott Maxwell hide somewhere and
they or others like the interagency committee that Becky is
on manipulate things from behind the scenes responding to
whatever pressure they are under, and which is kept well
hidden from the public.
The Internet is very important to the world. It was built
with a great amount money and public participation and work
of people.
The U.S. government has procedural means to deal with figuring
out how to create a protected institutional form for the names
and numbers and others standards functions of the Internet.
Instead they are handing them over in an illegitimate and
unconstitutional manner to some private entity, they claim,
which is unknown and unaccountable to anyone.
It's good that people send them email and complain.
It would be better still if Becky Burr would let the public
know what is really going on behind the scenes this great
giveaway.
>If this is the case, this is bad for the IFWP process (and email in
>particular as a step towards participatory online Internet
>governance), if it actually could have had more of an impact on
>ICANN.
- --gregbo
The fact that the U.S. government is acting with such secrecy
and in response to and in support of the vested interests trying
to take over control of crucial functions of the Internet is the
problem, not the people who are trying to challenge this.
I wonder Greg what you think is happening? Do you think that
ICANN is an open process where the only problem is that people
are complaining? Why are you making excuses for Becky and
Elliot when they have failed to show any interest in any
legitimate processes or any concern for what happens to
the Internet.
Who is behind their hiding?
Why aren't they on this list and why aren't they responding to
the problems and trying to figure out how to solve them?
Is it that it is illegitimate for them to be carrying on this
whole process?
I did see in one of the comments in the Hearing on Domain
Names publication from the Oct. 7 1998 house science commmittee
subcommittee on basic research and on technology hearing
that it was ruled by the FCC that the U.S. government couldnt
set up a private corporation.
But that is what the U.S. government has done with respect
to ICANN. The U.S. government has created it. Thus they
are acting behind the scenes to cover that what they are
doing in illegal.
So the cc's to them are not the problem. Their illegal activity
with regard to the creation and support of ICANN is the problem.
Ronda
Netizens: On the History and Impact
of Usenet and the Internet
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/
in print edition ISBN 0-8186-7706-6
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 22 May 1999 01:49:07 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ronda Hauben <ronda@panix.com>
Subject: [netz] bandwidth for everyone - and Yugoslavia's Internet
I thought this was an improtant post from the nettime mailing
list and so am forwarding it to the Netizens mailing list.
Ronda
[this is a rough translation at my request by Slobodan
of a message to his internodium list. --cheers, tb]
- ----- Forwarded [and slightly edited]
Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 01:02:13 +0200
From: Slobodan Markovic <twiddle@EUnet.yu>
Organization: www.internodium.org.yu
To: t byfield <tbyfield@panix.com>
Subject: Re: YU Net legende!
>> Ovo sam nasao na http://shutdown.beonet.yu... Odgovor na tipicno
>> glupo novinarsko pitanje: "How do you feel about it?". U ovom
>> slucaju, radi se o prekidanju satelitskog linka sa svetom...
I found this on http:///shutdown.beonet.yu... Its the answer to a typical
stupid journalist question: "How do you feel about it?" (well, how should
we feel, damn it!). This time, its about the possibility of shutting down
satellite links with Yugoslavia...
"How do we feel? Well, to put it bluntly, we somehow got used to air-raid
sirens, bombings and threats of invasion, but we don't know how we're
going to survive without the Internet... We feel this is not in the best
interest of Internet users worldwide. Internet is supposed to be open and
not regulated by Governments, especially for their own narrow political
agendas. We sincerely hope the international Internet community will
raise its voice in support for "Bread, Water and Bandwidth for Everyone",
including people in Yugoslavia."
A new revolutionary quote: "Bread, Water and Bandwidth for Everyone!"
(presumably by Aleksandar Krstanovic of BEOnet). Cool! :-)
BTW, here are some interesting articles about Internet situation in
Yugoslavia on www.wired.com:
US May Pull Belgrade Bandwidth
http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/19671.html
Article about recent possibility of shutting down Yugoslav satellite
feeds by US Government. Aleksandar Krstanovic is also quoted here, but
without legendary: "Bread, Water, ..." :-))
One Man's Belgrade Diary
http://www.wired.com/news/news/culture/story/19634.html
Article about a movie director in Belgrade, who is writing diaries and
making movies about the present war situation. His legendary quote:
"I tell NATO and Serbian leadership, 'Plague upon both your houses".
I join his vow wholeheartedly!
Yugoslav Net at the Brink
http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/18767.html
Interview with Berislav Todorovic (.yu hostmaster) about Yugoslav
Internet links. Rule #1 - Don't ever reveal sensitive data about Net
infrastructure during the war: "All I can [say] and want [to] say is
-- we shall see... As soon as the NATO decides to stop violating basic
principles of international law and justice and cease their aggressive
actions in the country, I'll be glad to give you a better, more
detailed story". Beri, we love ya! :-)
Email Assist for Yugoslavs
http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/18765.html
Article about Anonymizer service. There is an interesting opinion in
the article about Yugoslav government (carefully?) monitoring our
war diaries... Gosh... We are not playing Moulders and Scullies here
and this is not the X-files...
Net Dispatches from Kosovo's War
http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/18755.html
Article about cyber-monk, father Sava, from Decani monastery on Kosovo.
Greetings,
Slobodan Markovic | http://solair.eunet.yu/~twiddle
Internodium Project | http://www.internodium.org.yu
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 24 May 1999 10:42:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jay Hauben <jay@dorsai.org>
Subject: [netz] Some new online numbers to chew over (fwd)
>From CCEN.UCCB.NS.CA!owner-ua-c Sun May 23 16:50:41 1999
MIME-Version: 1.0
- ---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 23 May 1999 15:29:05 -0400
From: John Grohol PsyD <johngr@cmhcsys.com>
Reply-To: research@cmhcsys.com
To: Multiple recipients of list <research@cmhcsys.com>
Subject: Some new online numbers to chew over
>From IntelliQuest:
http://www.intelliquest.com/press/release78.asp
"More than 83 million adults, or 40% of the U.S. population
age 16 or older are accessing the Internet, up from 66 million
online during the same quarter in 1998. Of these users, 3.7 million
said they used a handheld computer to access the Internet and
3.1 million used a television set-top box or WebTV. [...]
According to the study users are spending more time online,
averaging 12.1 hours per week, as compared to 10.9 hours per
week a year ago. The most popular online activities are sending
or receiving email, obtaining information about a hobby,
general news, or information for business."
- --
Psych Central
http://psychcentral.com/
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 11:24:20 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ronda Hauben <ronda@panix.com>
Subject: [netz] ICANN and conflicting paradigms of Internet history
"A.M. Rutkowski" <amr@netmagic.com> wrote:
> Craig McTaggart wrote:
>>For ICANN to work, it needs to acquire the kind of legitimacy which ANSI and
>>ISO enjoy. That is, recognition by all (okay, almost all) parties involved,
>>based on widespread confidence that it can impartially carry out its work in
>>the public interest.
>
>>There is more than one kind of 'private organization'. It is worthwhile
>>going a little further and explaining what one means by 'private' because, a
>>s Tony says, "it does make a difference." Some kinds of private
>>organizations are more appropriate than others when the global public
>>interest in the governance of the Internet is involved.
>Thanks for the great discussion and proffered language.
>It's worth noting, however, that as to your own preference of
>organizational constructs, the bodies you reference have
>stridently opposed the Internet's development over many years -
>attempting instead through de jure methods to impose their
>global public "internet" models and standards on the world.
>Indeed, their arrangements still exist in parallel to the
>Internet. ANSI, for example, is the official registry-registrar
>for the US domain under the ITU-T F.401 root.
>The Internet developed as it did - in the face of those bodies -
>through private sector, business initiatives and bottom-up,
>collaborative, de facto standards and arrangements. It was
>the Ciscos, Suns, Microsofts, and countless other companies and
>entrepreneurial developers who made the Internet happen, not
>those global public interest bodies.
>
>The two paradigms are worth reflecting on in going forward.
>--tony
This is very interesting Tony as you are completely falsifying
the history and development of the Internet.
The Internet has been built via 35 years of battle against
the kind of private entrepreneurial development you claim as
its heritage.
First of all, the companies you cite, Sun and Cisco were created
*not* via private sector, business initiatives, but in fact via
DARPA. So these companies are not the result of some
beneficient private sector creation process but the result
of research done at public expense and then companies being
created at public expense.
This is a kind of government creation and support of
corporate entities who then claim no obligation or interest
in any public purpose.
And Microsoft got its beginnings from the hobbyists who
created the personal computer revolution and from John
Kemeny and those who created BASIC, and then it is to be
certain has had a hefty dose of support from defense
contractor funding.
And the original impetus for what has come to be known
as the Internet grew out of the funding of interactive
computing research to create something very different
from the vision of the computer industry, i.e. IBM
in the 1960s projected as what computers should look like.
And the Internet is the product of the time-sharing research,
packet switching research, and internetting research
that was funded by the U.S. public as part of the basic
research in computer science done by ARPA.
The private sector couldn't and didn't develop any Internet.
The U.S. government continues to provide all kinds
of support for the so called private entities that are now
trying to divert the constructive direction of Internet
development that is the product of the computer science
research that gave it its birth, and instead to try to
divert it into a direction to mimic the old rather than
to continue to create new computer communication developments
for the people of the world.
Why are you falsifying the history of the Internet?
What are you trying to do with your championing of ICANN
as a means of taking control of the Internet from the
processes and entities that have been responsible for
an important new development?
Also while there was pubilc funding of those attending
the IETF meetings, the issue of what would serve the
long term interests of the Internet could be the direction
of concern, and hopefully that still is the direction of
concern of enough of the participants. However,
more recently those who are serving the interests of big
corporate entities are in the position where their corporate
interest is their concern and the long term interet of
the whole Internet is less something they are in a position
to care for.
However to place the IETF under ICANN which is being created
via some secret process to represent only big and powerful
players is to set in motion a very vicious attack on the
Internet.
The cooperative standards process is the crucial aspect of
the Internet that makes it something that can welcome those
with varying networks. This is essential to the conception
of tcp/ip as a glue for the communiication across diverse
networks, for an internetworking of diverse packet switching
networks.
Obviously that seems to be a conception you have trouble with.
Otherwise you would try to accurately examine what has made
the Internet possible, and what has made the IETF possible.
ARPA and the Internet were possible because a government
institution had been crafted to make it possible for scientists
to function within the U.S. Dept of Defense.
ARPA was formed through an important process that meant
that it was created in a way to protect against the
competition that was going on in the different branches
of the Services at the time.
And that competition also had to do with the
corporate contractors who were pressuring the Services
to give them contracts or to maintain their contracts.
The challenge when creating ARPA was to find a way to
protect it from that competition and this continues
to be a challenge.
You are trying to set up ICANN as the essesnce of the
competition, rather than looking to find any way to
protect the IANA functions and the IETF functions
from the compettition of the most vicious form.
And it seems that the clue to the problem that your
proposals represent is that you are so hostile to
the public origins and purpose of the Internet and
only champion some narrow private sector interests
and try to gain for them whatever advantage you can
at the expense of the Internet and the public around the
world who are dependent on it, or who should have the
ability to have access to it.
.
What handouts are you trying to gain and for whom?
Ronda
P.S. I have been working on a paper about the origins
of the Internet via goverment and the computer science
community and will be glad to make a draft available
when it is done to those who might be interested in
exchange for comments.
------------------------------
End of Netizens-Digest V1 #303
******************************
