Andrew Orlowski

Collected Journalism

Tag: net neutrality

  • Spontaneous human combustion: Skype to blame

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    A Voice over IP service was to blame for a man in Massachusetts bursting into flames at the weekend.

    The man, David Reed, held an executive position at Lotus in the early 1980s, and was a Fellow at HP Labs. He is said to be recovering from the spontaneous human combustion at MIT Media Lab, where he’s on the faculty – and where, we hope, the presence of alarm clocks that run away from people shouldn’t hinder his recovery.

    David Reed

    We’re … Read More

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  • Google – this internet won’t scale

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    Google’s TV chief has admitted the internet is crap for TV. Speaking to the Cable Europe Congress in Amsterdam, Vincent Dureau told attendees:

    “The web infrastructure, and even Google’s [infrastructure]…doesn’t scale. It’s not going to offer the quality of service that consumers expect.”

    Dureau, is head of TV technology at the ad giant. He candidly admitted that his own YouTube video service was part of the problem.

    Engineers point to two different problems with today’s internet. The bandwidth is too … Read More

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  • Robert Kahn on Net Neutrality

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    Robert Kahn, the most senior figure in the development of the internet, has delivered a strong warning against “Net Neutrality” legislation.

    Speaking to an audience at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California at an event held in his honour, Kahn warned against legislation that inhibited experimentation and innovation where it was needed.

    Kahn rejected the term “Net Neutrality”, calling it “a slogan”. He cautioned against dogmatic views of network architecture, saying the need for experimentation at the edges … Read More

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  • How AT&T chewed up, and spat out Net Neutrality

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    “It sure would be nice, but it doesn’t have much chance of happening because of market power, size, etc. I think it would be real hard to do. I don’t think the regulators would let that happen, in my judgment.” – Ed Whitacre on the possibility of taking over BellSouth, 2005.

    The definition of a Southern Gentleman, it’s said, is someone so charming they can hand you your guts back on a plate – and you thank them.

    If that’s … Read More

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  • Old net geezers play trip-you-up

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    Cerf and Farber

    The rolling net “neutrality” debate brought two of the internet’s most distinguished elder statesmen together in mortal combat this week. The two gentlemen, Vint Cerf and Dave Farber, said they agreed on most things. But where they didn’t, they tried to pull the chair away just as their opponent tried to sit down.… Read More

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  • The New Paranoid style in American politics

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    The most interesting thing to emerge from the so-called ‘Net Neutrality’ bid had nothing to do with telecomms technology or policy. It’s the startling and, at the same time, banal fact that paranoia has become the default flavour of politics on the net.

    Phantoms fight phantoms, here. When the historian Richard Hofstadter wrote his famous 1964 essay for Harpers, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”, he was inspired by the anti-Catholic fervour of the John Birch Society, and the … Read More

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