from the other side of the aisle?

I can't believe that Sensenbrenner would have started in on this without reckoning on bringing a majority of his people with him.

I called Van Hollen.

Thanks

Oso del Mar

see above!

Guest blogger Mike from Gotham Gazette writes about what's going on at the NYC level on Net Neutrality. We have a Councilwoman who has been super active in this fight and there is a lot of interest and potential here on the local level.

The National League of Cities has come out for Net Neutrality to prevent cherry picking.

He's especially interested in the implications for Public Access (NYC public access shows are realy realy good)
Read
http://www.dmiblog.net/archives/2006/05/ the_feds_municipalities_and_co.html

I've been listening to a little of the Senate Commerce Committee hearings on the Stevens bill today. Verizon's Tom Tauke kept making a distinction between "Internet access" ("we'll never limit that) and access to other (presumably IP-based) services delivered on their network (that's where we'll charge our "tiering" fees and developing "cable TV-like" models).  

I don't know if this line of "talking points" is new, but it seems clever and something we need to watch out for, in terms of confusing the issue.  I think some of the comments in a recent diary thread speak to this issue (and also to the challenges in crafting effectively enforceable net neutrality rules):
http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/5/19/1659 36/951

Tauke's also exaggerating broadband availability in a BIG way, as Verizon has done in reporting its own broadband coverage.  Shameful obfuscation.

Sheila Jackson Lee is still "undecided". The person I spoke to said she's received a ton of calls, all urging her to support the bill without amendment.

Another point I just picked up in the Senate Commerce hearings:  McMormick from Comptel pointed out that the telcos are lobbying for program access, interconnection and other regulations to protect them from unfair competition from cable operators in the video market.  He suggested the hypocrisy of this position given that they are so opposed to similar rules to avoid unfair competition in the Internet/IP services market.

Great job whipping us all into action on this one, Matt. I think this is a really significant victory.

Tauke's using "home monitoring of a heart patient" via an "end-to-end managed virtual private network" as an example of what Verizon wants to charge for (they'd charge the hospital). It think its a smart move. Who wants to pass laws that'll put heart patients at risk?  Boxer, fortunately, isn't buying it.

Again, this speaks to the increasing muddle surrounding what is a "private IP network" and what's "the Internet," and the issue of a telco "smart network" that finds ways to charge fees by managing bandwidth and other tech-tricks (which pipe-equipment vendors like, since they'll make more money) vs. the "end-to-end" model of the Internet, which pretty much puts pipe-owners in the "bit transport" business, which neither they nor Wall Street likes.

Telcos will claim that the "end-to-end" Internet architecture can't deliver the kind of service reliability needed to monitor the heart patient.  And, since they would control how much bandwidth would be assigned to the "public Internet" on their networks, they could be at least partly right, if demand increases a lot more than the bandwidth they assign to carry it and the service includes HD-quality video.

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced we (i.e., local communities and the country as a whole) need to build fiber and wireless "Internet roads," that are technically, economically, socially and politically superior to what the incumbents offer and will offer in the timeframe it would take to build a fiber-wireless open Internet road system...regardless of whether we win this net neutrality battle.  

I think the widespread enthusiasm for NN is a wonderful mobilization of democracy-enhancing energy and coalition building.  But I also can't help but see it as a stop-gap measure that will only slow the choking of an open Internet.

I'd like to see the NN coalition transition to a Community Internet/Internet road movement, which offers not only a more complete solution, but  also a political mobilization strategy that has both a national and "community" focus.  As such it can help link the progressive grassroots in towns and cities around the country with the national netroots.

For anyone wanting to do a little reading on the technical differences between the open Internet architecture/evolution and incumbent IP-service strategies, I suggest these two posts:
http://mydd.com/story/2006/5/20/184714/0 00 (the open Internet architecture)
http://mydd.com/story/2006/5/19/05312/45 75 (the telco/cable IP-service tollbooth model)

Netroots grow deeper than astroturf.