Paul Kapustka's Blog

Sit in a room for the better part of an hour with AT&T's Jim Cicconi and Verizon's Tom Tauke, and eventually they may zap your brain with enough mind-numbing phrases to make you write something like this, a somewhat desperate attempt to get a short news story out of a long, rambling discourse.

Cicconi's point about net neutrality being all about video would have been great had he named names. But he specifically didn't say anything you could hold him to, which is maybe why he's such a good lobbyist and lawyer. He (and Tauke) hinted that Google was the main culprit here -- and that Google is planning to stream movies over the Internet, and it wants net neutrality rules to let it use the dedicated bandwidth the telcos are setting aside for their own video businesses.

That would be a good story, if it were true. We may never hear Google's side of it, since the company is a black hole these days when it comes to press requests for information. (For the record, we are now at two months in counting waiting for a reply from Google PR to a question I had following this story. Anytime you want to return the email is fine by me, guys.)

But it's not even fully true from AT&T's side. When I asked Cicconi specifically that if net neutrality is all about movies, why has Ed Whitacre also singled out Vonage as a "freeloader?" Cicconi didn't answer the question directly, but replied instead about Google wanting to ride over AT&T's not-yet-deployed video stream, which he compared to a VPN. I tried again, but no answer on Vonage. And remember, blocking Vonage is where this whole net neutrality thing started. By not being able to answer clearly about VoIP, Cicconi ruins his own "it's all video" argument. Some other reporters with a number of words to type by deadline may buy the explanation, but here at NN central we need some more meat.
Score for Cicconi: 4.5

Verizon's Tauke, who isn't afraid to sink to new lows in the debate, seemed exasperated that it's "difficult to find some consensus on what they [the net neutrality proponents] are seeking." He then segued into a doozy that I haven't seen anywhere else in the typically docile "telecom press" -- comparing the net neutrality debate to the war in Iraq.

"It's a little like the war in Iraq," said Tauke, causing cringes all around the room. "There's regime change and turmoil there... and here, there is regime change too."

Much to the Verizon PR staff's joy, Tauke gave up the line of reasoning before he actually called Google insurgents. Smackdown score for Tauke: 0.5.

But the us-vs.-them thinking is pretty indicitive of how such lobbying battles play out. In the past, it was easy -- Cicconi, previously at RBOC opponent AT&T, would tilt his sword against Tauke. Both opponents understood the rules of engagement, death by steak dinners at the Palm, our spokesman against yours.

But the net neutrality battle is different, because like the Internet, its proponents are multiple and diverse. They are opinionated, and all believe they are qualified to lead. They do not band together and speak with one voice, like AT&T, Verizon and Qwest can, within minutes. Ultimately, it may lead to the learning of a hard lesson with short-term defeats in the writing of telecom reform legislation. But over the long haul, net neutrality proponents may learn how to band together effectively and knock down the weak house of cards being built by the telcos.

One of Cicconi's statements Wednesday -- that there isn't the investment money available to build a public Internet that could deliver the QoS of a dedicated line -- seems easily disproved. The folks who are building Internet2 have already told the Senate so, in that by building 10 Gbps backbones and 100 Mbps links to desktops, they are ALREADY doing things like streaming HD videoconferences and more. In Boulder, Internet pioneer Bob Kahn asked why there aren't more technical solutions being proposed for the net neutrality concerns -- my guess is it's a combination of people like Cisco running scared from any real debate (they don't want to anger the people who buy their million-dollar routers) and the scattered efforts from the rest of the arrogant Silicon Valley companies (Google the new Microsoft here) who still think they can ignore what happens in D.C.

Right now, I still think that the telcos are winning the political battle over net neutrality (as Tauke and Cicconi do -- "we're scoring a lot of points," Cicconi said smugly), but that in the long haul there may be finer points -- such as the need for more transparency in network performance statistics -- where net neutrality proponents could score real victories that would matter greatly to consumers of an open Internet. While many in the media may be tiring of this debate already, it's just getting started. And truly, it's just starting to get interesting.