Telco lobbyists lie about Skype. Again.
A little rant on US regulatory politics.
"Cheese Doodle-Eating Surrender Monkeys?" is how Hands Off The Internet 
slams Skype's bit of consumer advocacy. Skype proposes anyone can connect a phone to the mobile phone network so long as they don't hurt it. Basically, you shouldn't have to buy your phone from your mobile carrier any more than you buy a home phone or PBX from your landline phone company. HOTI's unsigned blog poster [how cowardly and deceptive, considering how much they get paid] wrote:
"what the companies pushing hardest — Google, eBay and Amazon — really want to do is freeze the market where it is now, with each at the top of their own game."
Distortions and off-point.
If the dinosaurs innovated and delivered on their promises, the whole US would have fiber to the home by now; standard devices could connect to mobile networks the way home phones connect to the Internet and standard devices can plug-in to telephone jacks and just work.
Is this truly a level playing field? Has hands-off regulation worked? No and No. Whole regions of the United States don't have access to broadband and where people do, not to more than one or two providers. This highly consolidated oligopoly spends more fortunes on underhanded crap artists like handsoff.org than R&D. And they are doing whatever they can to encumber innovators.
I'm not going to give any Google n. liar. A lawyer with a roving commission.
- Ambrose Biercejuice to Hands Off The Internet by linking to them. It's an astroturf (fake grassroots) site run for AT&T by lobbyist Public Strategies Washington. Complain to Mike McCurry at (202) 783-2596 about lying for a client. Tell him I said hello and thanks for selling out to the wrong guys after a career of public service.
P.S. I can't believe long time Skype partner, Actiontec Electronics, makers of the VoSKY family of Skype-to-PBX gateways, lent their good name to this vile project.
P.P.S. By the way, if you think I'm wrong, speak up. We gladly publish contrary views so long as unsubstantiated ad-hominem attacks are avoided.
Technorati tags: skype, skypejournal, liars, lobby, lobbiest, handsofftheinternet, freedom, regulation, fcc, Carterfone
Comments
Phil, on behalf of the Hands Off coalition, I'd like to answer some of your charges.
About that "lie" you refer to (and which a reader would have to click through several pages to find the specific circumstances of).
Mike McCurry wrote an op-ed for the Baltimore Sun some months ago, and the quoted section, where he says Google ""never have to pay a dime no matter how much bandwidth they use" refers to what Google is asking for from Dorgan-Snowe -- not what they pay now. To call out Mike McCurry for "lying" that Google doesn't pay any Internet access is kind of silly. In context, he is absolutely correct: Google, like eBay and Amazon are engaged in rent-seeking: They are asking Congress to make it illegal for ISPs to charge for a service that they want, but don't want to pay extra for.
It's interesting that you link to a TechDirt article that is critical of us (we have our differences with them, but in a recent post we acknowledge that we also have some common ground) yet you cherry pick one post we have written, ignoring another that points back to a TechDirt article persuasively rebutting the Skype/eBay argument for wireless net neutrality. If you haven't seen it, it's here.
As for laissez-faire, well, years of regulation led up to the situation we were in before deregulation, and the market isn't perfect yet. But the market is working, and Verizon for one has spent billions laying fiber to the home. They're not a member of our group, but I am sure they are spending much more on laying new infrastructure than lobbying. And what's so illegitimate about joining the debate, anyway?
To address another point: Our names aren't on it because we sometimes have multiple contributors and the message comes from HOTI as a whole, not just one blogger. You still know who is in charge of this project, something that is not true of many other blogs contributing to the debate.
And lastly, Hands Off has always disclosed its list of members on our website. They include ISPs like AT&T, unions such as CWA and other non-profits. When we appear in comment sections of blogs, we always identify ourselves as working on behalf of Hands Off. More disclosure than we've seen from groups on the other side of the debate -- Save the Internet, for example.
Posted by: Hands Off the Internet | March 13, 2007 06:20 AM