Sidecut Reports

At CES, there is a somewhat standing tradition of having the incumbent FCC chairman show up for a Q-and-A chat. In the recent past, this has mainly amounted to CEA chairman Gary Shapiro lobbing fairly meaningless softball questions to Michael Powell and Kevin Martin, the two FCC chairs during the Bush administration. Anticipation was high last week in Las Vegas for something more substantial, given that Shapiro’s politics are definitely not typically aligned with the current FCC chair, Julius Genachowski.

Instead of the usual puffball session, Shapiro asked some admirably tough questions — and Genachowski gave as good as he got, never appearing nervous and in the end (at least on this judge’s card) winning the impromptu “Brawl in the Hall” by having an well-thought answer to each of Shapiro’s queries.

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We are still waiting for the FCC to publish its UPDATE: Here are the releases about the FCC’s historic vote today to begin a rule making process for net neutrality. In the meantime, if you need a backgrounder on the subject may we humbly suggest that you download our Net Neutrality report from last fall, which quite accurately predicted that 2009 would see some serious action on the issue. Also included is a lengthy historical backgrounder, a net neutrality timeline, and interviews with the top spokespeople from Google, AT&T and Free Press — required reading as the Battle of 2009 marches on!

News recap: Stacey H at GigaOM has a good wrapup of all the news with all the active links.

If you are a telecom policy wonk/follower/billable hours lawyer, you have to love the style of AT&T as it battles Google for mindshare in the net neutrality tussle, calling Google a hypocrite for doing the same thing AT&T did a couple years ago. Of course, we told you last year that the big telcos would make this issue all about big bad Google, and like Brett Favre throwing last-second TD passes, why change a good game plan if it works?

While we agree with the many commenters and observers out there (as well as Google itself) who are correctly stating that Google’s practice of blocking calls to free Internet sites has nothing to do with net neutrality, we are scoring this one in favor of AT&T, simply because it saw an opportunity to give Google a good kick in the ego, and didn’t hesitate. Like the man says, “rules? In a knife fight?” (Before you enjoy the clip below don’t forget to download our FREE net neutrality report, titled Net Neutrality Phase II: The Battle for 2009, and learn why AT&T and Verizon are trying to paint Google as the big bad evil.)