DSL Prime: India Blocks Yahoo, Google, Blogs

As the net neutrality debate heats up, a relatively liberal nation implements censorship. Of course, totalitarian regimes do this all the time, with U.S. equipment, without facing the press.

by Dave Burstein of DSL Prime and Future of TV [July 27, 2006]

"Why would anyone ever want more than 24 megabits?"
—Randall Stevenson

Broadcom's stock dropped by a billion dollars on July 21st after they announced an $80 million revenue shortfall led by DSL sales. Fearing the trouble would spread, investors that day knocked Ikanos down 10 percent, Conexant 8 percent, and Infineon 6 percent.

Investigating, I found several indications of the opposite, stronger than expected DSL demand. Europe is being overbuilt by the country and now obsolete up to 6 Mbps nets are being replaced with 20 Mbps (AT&T) and 50 to 100 Mbps around the world. Fortunately, some of the good news moved quickly, and all but Broadcom recovered on Monday.

False rumors about chip supply can have severe consequences. There may be a problem affecting other companies, as Wall Street guessed. Broadcom might just be having a one quarter glitch, as CFO Bill suggests. The problem may be Broadcom-specific; they are late with highspeed VDSL, which has won massive orders from DT and AT&T. I don't know, even after checking in with a dozen well informed sources around the chip business. Most of the industry reads DSL Prime (it's free, has the best gossip, and little competition), so I have to be very careful with something like this.

Search Kevin Martin at news.google.com and you'll find

"DSL Prime Editorial: The Buck Stops Here, Mr. Chairman
ISP-Planet- 2 hours ago
Kevin Martin is responsible for fulfilling the President's universal broadband pledge. If he has the backbone, he will demand actual deployment as part of the merger conditions. …"

Even more flattering was a "good editorial" note from an editor at one of America's most respected newspapers. Will Kevin Martin look Ed Whitacre in the eyes and say, "You want your merger, this is what you have to do for the American people?"

Martin faces probably the biggest decision of his career with the AT&T/BellSouth merger. He very briefly has a powerful lever and a chance to accomplish his main goals; during the rest of his term, he will have to struggle harder for lesser results. That power, used responsibly for reasonable goals, could deliver "affordable broadband" and "access to content of your choice" to half the United States. A brave judge, Emmet G. Sullivan, has re-awakened antitrust law by questioning the SBC/AT&T and Verizon/MCI deals. Whitacre will agree if Martin is strong.

I owe readers the stories on Australia (nearly insane claims by Telstra), Germany (DT wants the government to hold back the other companies), India (Maran is honest he's protecting the BSNL wireline monopoly), Alcatel's AT&T problems (severe), BT's great but limited network (will they switch to fiber home or to the curb?) and more.

India Blocks Google, Yahoo, Blogs
Of course carriers have the ability to block
India's Department of Telecommunications didn't like "two impertinent pages … extremely derogatory references to Islam," The NYT was told, but the OpenNet Initiative at Harvard discovers "The DOT has provided ISPs with a list of websites to block that runs 22 pages long. Eric Bellman and Peter Honeycutt (WSJ) report "parts of Blogger and GeoCities are among the websites blocked." Included on a list seen by The Wall Street Journal are sites that showcase views of an Islamic holy man, conservative Hindus, and Dalits. After news reports around the world, India backed off for now.

This is a practical demonstration that AT&T could block or degrade the text pages of Google. I do not think the company will, even if CEO Ed Whitacre says so. On the other hand, everyone knowledgeable about the networks involved knows AT&T intends to slow down or degrade outside video and give their own video a major advantage.

CEO Ed Whitacre testified to Congress he wouldn't degrade the incoming signal, but he isn't installing the (comparatively modest) equipment required to make his testimony true. Neither are Deutsche Telekom or France Telecom, so "net neutrality" will soon become a political issue in Europe as well.

Verizon's FIOS network, at current customer volumes, comes very close to being neutral, if peering is clean. As more customers sign on, we'll see if Verizon continues to reliably deliver 15 Mbps to customers who pay for 15 Mbps .

Copyright 2006 Dave Burstein.
The DSL Prime Newsletter is reprinted with permission.

"The power of the printing press belongs solely to those who own the presses"
—A.J. Leibling

The Internet is the cheapest printing press ever invented.