Friday, November 03, 2006
Korea: Wholesale breach of Net Neutrality
From today's (Oct 31 - Nov 3) issue of Dave Burstein's DSL Prime newsletter:
This may be the first large scale breach of network neutrality **for commercial purposes**, but many countries that practice political censorship violate the dictum, "Consumers are entitled to access the content of their choice," every day. Of course, the Kevin Martin FCC added the important modifier, "lawful," which makes blatant censorship, and probably even these Korean shenanigans, OK.
. . . in Korea we have the first large scale breach of network neutrality . . . Two million cable modem subscribers and one million LG Powercomm broadband customers are being blocked from watching video from video on demand service HanaTV, Korea Times reports. Korea’s innovative Hanaro, #2 to Korea Telecom in broadband, has signed up 60,000 customers for video on demand in the first three months. KT Vice President Shim Ju-kyo tells Korea Times ``We are 100 percent ready to introduce Internet TV services and we will do so next year as soon as the legal framework is set up,’’ LG’s sister company, Dacom, has an IPTV offering of their own in the works. Hanaro is controlled by U.S. investors AIG and Newbridge, while Goldman Sachs and Bill Kennard’s Carlyle Group have been investing in Korean cable companies.
The Korea Cable TV Association is maintaining “IPTV is a broadcasting, not a telecommunications service” and boycotting the Hanaro offering. Cable networks have been fighting a regulatory battle to keep telcos out of the TV business.
This may be the first large scale breach of network neutrality **for commercial purposes**, but many countries that practice political censorship violate the dictum, "Consumers are entitled to access the content of their choice," every day. Of course, the Kevin Martin FCC added the important modifier, "lawful," which makes blatant censorship, and probably even these Korean shenanigans, OK.
Technorati Tags: FCC, KevinMartin, NetworkNeutrality
Comments:
Post a Comment
