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I was proud of America last night. A lot of people have begun to wonder if civility in politics is an endangered species, but the people who showed up for the net neutrality meeting in Minneapolis proved you could have a public meeting about a critical topic and not have it degenerate into shouting, name-calling and the other shenanigans that occur daily in Congress and made a disgrace of the health care town meetings. Every speaker at last night’s meeting, regardless of their perspective or how off-the-wall their ideas, received polite applause.
The lack of contentiousness also signaled something very important, that as usual the media have missed. Some of the major players in recent political donnybrooks were no-shows at the FCC hearing on net neutrality either meaning the issue is of no concern to them or they have yet to develop a position on it. For example, take the Tea Party that made such a mess of the health care hearings. It seemed to have no visible presence at this meeting.
Without folks like the Tea Party trying to take over the event what we heard last night were American voices unfiltered by media gatekeepers or ideological script writers. Fittingly the seats in the auditorium were a subdued red and blue; as if the bright reds and blues the networks use to keep score on election night had been toned down. That is not to say the speakers were not passionate or angry.
The Speeches
Minnesota Senator Al Franken opened the evening with an anecdote about a corporate CEO who firmly believed that the Internet should be like cable television, with those who could afford it getting better service and more programming than those who could not. In answer to this the Minnesota Senator quoted former Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black who once said that freedom of speech does not give some the freedom to combine to prevent others from publishing.
Franken was followed by the man who was deservedly introduced as one of America’s true unsung heroes, FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, who for over a decade he has quietly been leading the fight to preserve freedom of speech by standing firmly for what Justice William O. Douglas famously termed, “the marketplace of ideas.”
It was Copps and fellow Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein who in 2003 hatched the so-called Magical Mystery Tour, a series of public hearings over a Republican FCC’s attempts to relax the rules on media ownership. During that 2003 tour Copps spoke of the changes that had occurred because of a 1996 law relaxing the rules on media ownership:
The largest company owned less than 75 stations before deregulation. Today one company, Clear Channel, owns more than 1,200 stations…The number of radio station owners has decreased by an incredible 34 percent since 1996. The number of minority owners has dropped by a shocking, and nationally embarrassing, 14 percent…In our hearings around the country, Commissioner Adelstein and I have talked to many capable young musicians and creative artists who are simply unable to secure air time in the new consolidated radio environment. Real news radio is dying outside the largest cities, and viewpoint diversity has given way to a constant drumbeat of one-sided talk shows.
Copps made a similar speech last night, but the situation has become even more alarming. As Copps put it:
Public interest got lost in a frenzy of speculation that made it difficult for broadcasters to survive.
Copps also receives the award for the soundbite of the night:
Truth tells its story only when it can be heard.
After Copps had outlined what was at stake, Amalia Deloney, of Latinos for Internet Freedom, provided an impassioned introduction to new FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. Clyburn made two crucial points that need to be repeated over and over again in the debate over net neutrality. The first is that the Internet, which presently still suffers from a digital divide, has the potential to be the great equalizer of our times. Second, she reinforced the theme for the night—that it was important to listen to all participants.
Clyburn brought up the Google Verizon merger noted in the previous essay, drawing a line in the sand by pledging that she would not approve any agreement that resulted in further consolidation of America’s media markets. She cited one fact I was not aware of which is that a majority of people of color access the Internet through their cell phones.
The Panel and the People
Clyburn was followed by a panel of three local people who spoke of the importance of net neutrality. One of them, community organizer and hip hop artist Chaka Mikali, echoed Copps’ speech of seven years ago as he told how the Internet enabled him to bypass the record companies that had little interest in new talent or different ideas. With the Net he could sell his work online and publicize it through blogs and social media.
Mikali’s remarks went to the heart of why net neutrality is so important. It is called neutrality for a reason: it asserts no one should be denied access because her or his ideas are unpopular or unconventional. Listening to him reminded me that if media concentration had prevailed over the life of this country it is a good bet neither Elvis Presley nor Louis Armstrong would have ever become some of America’s most influential artists, since early in their careers both were ignored by the major media outlets of their time. Armstrong and many other early African American jazz artists recorded for what were then called “race records.” As for Presley, his story is an American legend of how a poor truck driver with a high school education scraped up enough cash to record a demo record with a visionary named Sam Phillips, who realized that he had a diamond in the rough when he heard the slick-haired teenager sing.
For the next three hours a steady procession of people patiently stood in line waiting to tell their stories on the two microphones. While at times the feed failed to pick up some of their remarks, those that it did catch had some riveting stories to tell. There was a gentleman in a short-sleeved sport shirt who said he was unemployed and that without net access he would be unable to find another job. There was the deaf and blind woman with a broad-brimmed hat shading her face who reminded everyone that the bandwidth issue was not just about file sharing or watching YouTube. For the disabled the Net is literally a lifeline that for many requires large bandwidth for the special services and tools that make it possible to access news or keep in touch with friends.
There were several who spoke for the homeless, pointing out that cheap Internet service is vital for them because it is the only way they can receive messages and keep up on important issues. Those services are provided by nonprofits that depend on low-cost access. One speaker noted that the Internet was the only home many knew.
Another woman who had worked with an antiwar group on the West Coast related a great story that reinforced the point that the Internet carries news and information the mainstream media suppresses. She told how her group had won a case against local law enforcement officials for harassing them, but their local newspaper refused to carry the story. Several bloggers heard about what happened and wrote about it online. The publicity generated by the Internet finally attracted coverage from TV news and major newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post.
After two hours there were still many waiting for their two minutes on those microphones, some with prepared statements in their hands, each with a unique story. It was the best reality show I have seen recently. Several students reinforced the importance of net neutrality and bandwidth for online education, which was the only way they could study for a college degree. Their professors spoke of how critical net neutrality was for their teaching and research. Health professionals likened Internet rationing to rationing health care then went on to point out that without net neutrality the revolution taking place in American health care would be stopped dead in its tracks. Remote clinics would not be able to use the net to access specialists for consultation and there would be no links to online records that enabled clinics and hospitals to save the lives of those with allergies or other special conditions.
The Bottom Line
The broadcast itself was testimony to why we need net neutrality. Commissioners Copps and Mignon are to be commended not only for holding the hearing but also for staying the entire four hours to listen to everyone. The networks, the cable channels and satellite TV all ignored this meeting. So did the local paper and most of the media, with the exception of Minnesota Public Radio. Thanks to The Uptake, those who could not make it to South High School were able to see the testimony live.
As many speakers pointed out, the big fear is that the Net will become like cable television. In fact it could be worse than that because it threatens to combine two business sectors that have become more notorious for screwing consumers than the proverbial used car salesperson–cable and cell phone companies. In such an environment a program that only attracted a thousand viewers probably would not be broadcast.
That realization and the testimony made me ponder what this country has made of the Internet and broadband communications. As anyone who has visited Europe or the Far East knows, countries in those regions are far ahead of us in both cell phone access and cheap, fast Internet service.
Rather than seeing the Internet for what it could be–and what it is in so much of the rest of the world–the leaders of this generation have settled for half-measures with a few subsidies, programs that promised more than they delivered and a confusing regulatory structure no one is happy with. We have created a mongrel Internet that has everyone calling for tech support. Like the early days of radio, there is still no national vision and even less consensus on what the Internet should be.
If the story of the decline of America is written like the story of the fall of the once-glorious British Empire, its turning point will be this nation’s failure to embrace the Internet. We will let those future historians sort out who to blame for this, but right now the list of culprits is long from cable and entertainment companies who throw up roadblocks because they fear the Net will make them obsolete to those who want to regulate content like they do in China for fear people might get the wrong ideas.
But what united all those diverse voices in Minneapolis was a grassroots belief that this country needs to do more to bolster the Internet. While free market advocates insist that the market can develop the Net on its own, history teaches a different lesson. America became a world power in part because in the nineteenth century this country invested billions in developing a coast-to-coast railroad system that served the entire nation. The railroads made America a major player in international markets because they enabled this vast country to quickly ship farm produce and factory products to seacoast ports and then to the rest of the world. Without government subsidies this would have never happened.
We need to make a similar commitment to developing the Internet. That means we need make sure everyone has access and to support the concept of net neutrality. Curiously, the means to accomplish much of this is already there.
Dark Fiber
I’ll bet not many of you have heard the term “dark fiber,” but I predict you will hear a lot about it in the next few years. In simple terms dark fiber refers to an unlit strand of fiber in fiber optic cable. A fiber optic cable is like stranded wire in that it consists of dozens and dozens of thin bundled glass filaments (see above picture). What makes it different than stranded wire is that each fiber can carry its own signals.
When the technology was first developed the capacity of these information pipes was equivalent to a drinking straw, but software and hardware innovation have had the impact of enlarging that drinking straw to the the equivalent of a city water main. These technological advances mean a fair amount of fiber in this country is under-utilized. That has left a lot of dark fiber across the United States.
The problem is no one knows how much there is. Here in Minnesota the state has undertaken an initiative to identify all the cable in the ground and how much is being utilized. That study has found we have a line here in Minnesota where only about half the capacity of the “pipe” is currently being used. Even more interesting is that so much cable was laid that the state literally does not know where it all is or how much capacity it has. My city has a huge bandwidth line going less the a 1/4 mile from our city center but no one can tell us how to hook up to it.
Joe Savage, spokesperson for the Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) Council – a non-profit organization of 200 companies and other organizations dedicated to expanding the deployment of all-fiber, next-generation networks–stated in a press release this March:
America will need widely available, vastly higher broadband speeds within the next decade to ensure that our citizens and our businesses can compete in the global economy. Accordingly, we need a national strategy to expand next-generation, very high-bandwidth networks to every community in the country.
The technology already exists to far exceed that goal. So does the willingness of many telecommunications providers to build the all-fiber networks that will get us there and beyond. Our hope for the National Broadband Plan is that it will set the stage for policies that will remove existing barriers and provide incentives for private investment, so that the deployment of this critical infrastructure can accelerate.
To give you some idea of how much dark fiber is available, National LambdaRail (NLR) has acquired more than a third of the 28,000 route miles of dark fiber so far snapped up by the research community, according to Steve Corbato, Internet2′s director of network initiatives and an NLR board member.
A white paper on the economics of dark fiber makes the case for using it more widely:
A typical dark fiber connection may cost one time $25,000. If your organization is currently leasing an OC-3 circuit (155 Mbps) it could be paying anywhere between $3000 – $6000 per month which results in an annual cost greater than purchasing dark fiber. If your organization is leasing local loops with greater capacity then OC-3 the cost savings can be more dramatic.
The typical payback for dark fiber as opposed to purchasing managed bandwidth is 12 to 18 months. And for this short payback the customer gets a “future proof” network for the next 20 years where there is no increase in local loops costs as the customer’s bandwidth demands increase except to upgrade the equipment at the ends of the fiber.
As I mentioned in the previous piece, cable companies are especially reluctant to lease dark fiber. One industry source confirmed this noting:
Cable operators, he said, are concerned that not only will prices fall, but that the super- fast service will encourage customers to watch video on the Web and drop their cable service. The industry is worried that by offering 100 Mbps, they are opening Pandora ’s Box, he said. Everyone will be able to get video on the Internet, and then competition will bring the price for the broadband down from $80 to $60 to $40.
The Sleeper Issue
Why I have I included all this information about dark fiber in an essay about net neutrality? Because last night in Minneapolis it was clear people worry a few companies will dominate the market and net neutrality will go out the window. Dark fiber offers an opportunity to short circuit this scenario. We can have net neutrality and real choices in Internet access if we adopt a strategy of encouraging the use of dark fiber.
If you do a search on dark fiber for you state you will probably find multiple entries about various cities that are in the process of developing their own Internet networks. Now, as several speakers in Minneapolis warned, government can pose as much a threat to net neutrality as any corporation. That is why the FCC needs to couple dark fiber policy with net neutrality. Any entity that gets into the Internet business must agree to makes access affordable and be content neutral.
Of course the devil will be in the details. But the comments of those people in Minneapolis gave me faith that we can work it out. They also carried an implicit warning. The first Magical Mystery Tour in 2003 arose over the FCC’s proposal to change the rules about media ownership. It precipitated a public reaction that spread across the country until Congress was forced to take action.
The amazing part about those protests was that there was no great leader, sword in hand, leading the charge. This was a spontaneous uprising, a popular revolution whose roots go back to those anonymous “embattled farmers” who stood at Lexington and Concord. For those who feared for the future of the American people this was a sign that when sufficiently aroused they could exert their power.
That protest represents a significant statement that the American people still will fight for fundamental values even when they involve complex, arcane language in an arena few had ever paid any attention to. The turnout in a high school auditorium in Minneapolis shows that spirit is still present.
The 2003 protest occurred before the social media we have today had been well developed. If we throw Twitter, Facebook and cell phone texting into the equation, it means that net neutrality could generate a far larger protest. It has the potential to become a powerful issue for our own times. So stay tuned.
A NOTE ABOUT LISTENING:
The first draft of this article, written too quickly last night, generated some pretty low ratings, in fact the lowest ever. They were justified. The original article had typos and all sorts of other mistakes. It was a good lesson to learn. It also affirmed the message of the essay. An open Internet allows for the kind of feedback that can provide positive change and make us all better.
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