Sidecut Reports

Since we couldn’t make it to Aspen this year to participate in the expected discourse on one of our favorite topics — network neutrality — we here at Sidecut Reports humbly offer our “Top 10″ list of net neutrality influencers, the people leading the debate into 2009, what we are calling Phase II of the net neutrality deliberations.

With no further ado, the drumroll please:

SIDECUT REPORTS PRESENTS
THE NET NEUTRALITY TOP 10 INFLUENCERS

The movers and shakers in the net neutrality debate, as of August 2008:

1. Jim Cicconi, AT&T — Still the man with the most pawns and the best grasp of the board.

2. Kevin Martin, FCC Chairman — A lame duck, but with a few big quacks left.

3. Rick Whitt, Google — Looks like Phil Mickelson, and his company plays policy like Phil — sometimes a champion, sometimes hitting from behind the concession stand and off a tree. Capable of major victories, but still not Tiger-solid.

4. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass. — Driving the House Bus. A big bus but not a tank.

5. Joe Waz, Comcast — I get knocked down, then I get up again… just like another famous fighter from Philadelphia?

6. Ben Scott, Free Press — Riding the big wave of momentum. How long can the Silver Surfer stay afloat?

7. Lawrence Lessig, Stanford – Always effective as the lone voice storming the castle; can he compromise if he is on the other side of the ruling walls?

8. Tom Tauke, Verizon – Maybe not even the real source of power at Verizon but a former congressman who knows which strings to pull. Can pull hard with Ivan Seidenberg behind him.

9. Blair Levin, Stifel, Nicolaus — If not the next FCC commissioner, he will know who it is before anyone else (and will explain why to Wall Street).

10. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. — First he has to win. Then Reed Hundt’s troops can take over.

Honorable Mention: Tim Wu, Columbia Law School; Kyle McSlarrow, NCTA; Eric Schmidt, Google; Walter McCormick, USTA; Chris Libertelli, eBay/Skype; Gigi Sohn, Public Knowledge; Jessica Rosenworcel, Senate Commerce Committee; Jonathan Adelstein, FCC; Phil Weiser, University of Colorado; Preston Padden, Disney.

Need to know more about net neutrality, or why such leading influencers think that 2009 will be a big year for possible passage of net neutrality legislation? Then order our Sidecut Report on Net Neutrality, which contains complete analysis of the recent FCC decision, as well as a net neutrality timeline and interviews with all the top players in the debate.

As expected, the FCC went through with its wrist-slap of Comcast today, voting 3-2 in favor of calling Comcast naughty for its BitTorrent-throttling efforts. Here’s the official release from the FCC, which basically tells Comcast to stop using the management techniques in question, explain its techniques more clearly to the FCC and to users, and to detail how it will do things differently in the future.

Wow, some penalty!

Given that Comcast has already publicly stated that it doesn’t use the packet-reset technique anymore, and is moving to more open, protocol-agnostic measures, some of today’s action may seem like a moot point. But while the order itself may not amount to much, it is significant as a turning point in the overall network neutrality debate — serving as a marker of where the issue turned from theoretical to discussions of a more practical nature about what reasonable network management might be, how it might be disclosed, and who might best adjucate potential complaints or infractions going forward. We will explore all these bigger themes as well as the expected legal, legislative and regulatory tussles coming in 2009 in our upcoming Sidecut Report on net neutrality, which should be available early next week. (If you want an email update when the report is available, ping me at kaps at sidecutreports.com.)

In the meantime, we’ll leave you with a quote from FCC chairman Kevin Martin, courtesy of the Twitter stream from our pal Drew Clark, who attended the meeting:

If we aren’t going to stop a company that is looking inside its subscribers’ communications, blocking that communication when it uses a particular application regardless of whether there is congestion on the network, hiding what it is doing by making consumers think the problem is their own, and lying about it to the public, what would we stop?

Good question!

Other reports: Stacey over at GigaOM has a comment from Comcast; Declan McCullagh at C/Net has some more details on the legal underpinnings of the order; we have received the public statements from both Verizon and AT&T, which both laud the FCC for its decision and go on to say that clearly, no new net neutrality regulations or laws are needed. And Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) sent us a note that also praised the decision but ended with the following statement:

I intend to continue monitoring practices in the industry and pressing for passage of my legislative framework for addressing these issues in the months ahead.

To answer your question — yes, the network neutrality debate is back with us again. Get ready for Phase II!

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With all the excitement around the Comcast Order sure to break at Friday’s FCC meeting, if we can’t get on the webcast we’ll watch Drew Clark’s tweets from the proceedings… heck, we’ll watch Drew’s tweets anyway, because they are sure to contain all his great analysis that the stale webcast won’t provide.

There’s really no need to get confused about the coming FCC condemnation of Comcast’s anti-BitTorrent practices. In fact, it’s pretty simple to figure out when you understand that it’s just Kevin being Kevin, albeit in a much more understated fashion than the man who made that phrase famous.

If you understand that A) Martin has always been a friend of the telcos first, then you understand that any chance to slap at the cablecos is fair game, even if it means crossing traditional GOP voting lines to side with the FCC’s two Democrats. If you further understand that B) at the current point in the net neutrality debate, the telcos don’t want any new regulations or laws, then you also understand that it behooves them to have it shown that the FCC’s 2005 Internet policy statement — previously called not enforceable by Martin himself — is all the authority the FCC needs to police such infractions.

So yes, Kevin, go ahead and call Comcast out for practices it has probably already stopped using, and won’t ever use again. And then don’t say anything about metered services, or paying for QoS or traffic prioritization. Save that for the next chairman!

While we are waiting for the actual order to come out this Friday, we suspect there won’t be much beyond a prosaic hand-slap, and certainly not the hammer some have called the pending order. The real action won’t come until there’s a new President, a new FCC and a new Congress. Look for more from us about “Phase II” of the network neutrality debate, as soon as we can after the FCC commissioners cast their votes on Friday.

We now have an official “starting date” for round two of the net neutrality debate: Aug. 1, when the details of the FCC’s order against Comcast should be made public. News reports Thursday said that FCC chairman Kevin Martin is expected to announce on that date some form of penalties and punishment for the cable operator’s now-infamous blocking actions of peer-to-peer traffic on its broadband networks; but instead of putting a close to the matter, the FCC order is widely expected to just be the start of a fresh round of net neutrality gymnastics, which likely won’t reach a conclusion until after the November elections and into 2009, when the FCC will likely have a new cast of commissioners.

Though Martin said Friday he wouldn’t seek any fines against Comcast, the devil will be in the details of the order, especially the specifics about how Martin interprets how Comcast might have violated the FCC’s 2005 Internet policy principles order. The most immediate question after the order is released is whether or not Comcast will file a lawsuit against the FCC, challenging the agency’s jurisdiction over cable operators; as our analyst friends at Stifel, Nicolaus said in a note today, such legal actions may not be the best move for Comcast, since if the company was victorious in having the order revoked, it could spur Congress into taking more direct net neutrality action, passing legislation giving the FCC clear authority over cable operators.

There are also questions about how the order might affect operators of wireless networks, and how a new President and new Congress will deal with the issue going forward. To quote the conclusion of the Stifel, Nicolaus report today, no doubt penned in part by our good friend Blair Levin:

We see the real significance in how the order and the subsequent court decision sets the stage for how the new Congress and the new FCC may wish to address the wider network neutrality issue.

Sounds like a perfect time for a Sidecut Report on net neutrality, giving you all the background info on the issue as well as in-depth interviews with major players on both sides of the debate, along with analysis on how the topic will affect businesses, entrepreneurs and investors in entities that will be affected by new communications legislation or regulation. If you’d like an email notification when our report is ready, drop me a line at kaps at sidecutreports.com and I will ping you personally.

I didn’t get to listen to all of the FCC’s Broadband Network Management Practices forum from Harvard today, but I did get to hear one excellent presentation from Internet legend David Clark, a technologist who offered some great insights on network management and bandwidth pricing — while also wondering out loud if the whole network neutrality discussion couldn’t be conducted with just a tad more civility.

“I would plead with all the actors [in the debate] that when they look over the fence, don’t say ‘enemy’ but say ‘partner,’ ” said Clark at the opening of his remarks, reasoning that if access providers and content creators work better together, there might be hope for a better Internet for all in the future. Not a bad sentiment to embrace as the new season of network neutrality debates kicks off.

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