Christina Gagnier is talking about Net Neutrality.
"Net neutrality advocates haven't done a good job framing the debate" in terms of digital inclusion.
Christina works with Mobilize.org.
"Comcast has decided to stop its traffic shaping practices with BitTorrent" in the past 3 days. "I met with Richard Clark of AT&T.... his argument was that net neutrality will hamper innovation and crush the provider industry."
Christina mentioned the Save the Internet Coalition, and how net neutrality brings together pro-choice groups and the Christian Coalition.
A participant told us that her provider, I think she said it was Charter, has been offering her faster bit rates for $5/month. Of course, Time Warner has already moved in the direction of tiered internet access.
Tracy Rosenberg, Media Alliance: There is a FCC hearing on Internet equality coming up soon at Stanford, and we have 900 seats to fill. Information about the Stanford hearing is available here.
"When we are talking about the word 'equal,'" we have to talk about access and the digital divide. "Digital inclusion" is how we talk about what we are doing about the digital divide.
2 models to consider:
1) Content creation/empowerment programs/citizen media/DIY media. Unfortunately, we have a distribution problem.
2) Neighborhood technology centers: "Are these programs meeting a need for social justice."
"How do we in sure a neutral playing field... how do we get to a sustainable Internet reality that sustains social justice?"
Some possibilities:
- Getting high speed Internet access into more people hands: "We should have a conversation where this is a public infrastructure."
- Muni wi-fi: but we have problems with the model of relying on companies. There's not much money to be made, as in public utilities. We have seen some successes. Check out One East Palo Alto, but it has been funded by Hewlett Packard.
"Part of what we have to do is.. take on the responsibility to create little pockets of infrastructure... If there's a little armada of community tech infrastructure projects, then maybe we really do have an alternative media movement that can compete for hearts and minds."
"Sometimes the reality on the ground gets ahead of public policy stuff." For example, pirate radio created the opportunities that led to Low Power FM radio.
Q&A:
Christina mentioned the flawed Broadband for All? report issued by the Public Policy Institute of California.
There's a lively discussion about the rising (I'd say rhetorical) tension between Net Neutrality and intellectual property. On this subject I'd submit David Byrne's recent Wired article for emerging musicians navigating these new complications. Other resources: Larry Lessig, Creative Commons, the Future of Music Coalition, and the Independent Online Distribution Alliance.
