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FCC Backs a Tiered Internet
Going to be extorted writes ""FCC Chief Kevin Martin yesterday gave his support to AT&T and other telcos who want to be able to limit bandwidth to sites like Google, unless those sites pay extortion fees. Martin made it clear in a speech yesterday that he supports such a a "tiered" Internet." Could this be the end of internet innovation?"
...gee, as if I needed another reason to be a Libertarian.
Doesn't anyone think the FCC is overstepping its bounds? Maybe just a little?
Since now these comapnies are making decisions on what and how much sites will be traveling over their pipes, does this mean they lose their common carrier status?
It is time for a second Internet to come into action -- one that is voluntarily connected, one that is run over cabling (or satellite) connections that are not subsidized by any government regime. If we want it, it will happen, we just have to support the initial costs. These costs might be higher but in the long run they're lower because we won't be taxed to subsidize the costs.
this existed before the internet and it was neat but horribly slow.
there were people that set up unix and Xenix machines at borders of LATA's (a phone number that can call two areas as a local call) that would call each other to relay email and gopher requests.
it worked great.
Getting broadband speeds without the telcos involved will be 10000% impossible as they have the governments in their back pocket and do you know anyone that can afford 5000 miles of fiber, all the light gear needed to light it up and who can pay for the right of way access for that fiber?
Honestly our ownly hope is for google to light up all that dark fiber they have been buying and put a major hurt on SBC and the other greedy bastards right where it hurts.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Hold on a second!!
Google has a Wireless network for free...... and loads of dark fiber.
Whats to stop them connecting the two, and giving everyone free wireless via their OWN google web. Yes i fear the day when the web runs via one source (in this case google) but at least it will be a source whom generally gets things right and fair.
That or we will end up with "binded" lines where people upstream run programs to allow us to find the fastest route to said host.
Think of peer to peer style, with dns's run by each user. Self updating and authicating. Some people would run sites as gateways to other networks from say, Google net to msnWeb, and in return they would have some ad's on a page which appears "Please wait while you are transfered to xxx, if you wish click the ad as you wait, ad will be opened in a new window....".
Maybe im a crazy fool, but its them prosing a monolopy on the internet.
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
So the idea is to blame websites for generating interest, and so increasing bandwidth costs? So many problems
1. Google is a very clean site, MUCH less clutter than so many other search engines - I'd award it for saving bandwidth, considering people are always going to use SOME search engine.
2. Google's good. Really good. ISPs will probably save money getting their customers to use google rather than trawling round irrelevant websites looking for info
3. If we blame sites of generating so much traffic and bandwidth, what stops us blaming protocols or programs? Mr. Cohen's bittorrent generates a hell of a lot of traffic, why can't be blame him for providing this service if we can blame google for providing theirs?
Yeah, typical slashdot mentality. Blame Microsoft for everything. This problem is caused by the government ( FCC ) and benefits the telcos only. Microsoft gets just as hurt by this as Google. The only difference I see is back during the dot.com bubble, Microsoft was buying stakes in telcos like mad trying to speed high speed adoption. However, since then I think they have sold off alot of those holdings. ( Meanwhile Google has bought dark fibre like mad. Wonder if Google saw their dependance on the Teclos as a weakness and took prevenative actions??? )
I admit it, I'm guilty, I didn't read the refering article. Whoever submitted this must have had english as a second language. From the original article:
"In a question-and-answer period in front of the keynote audience, Martin said that "I do think the commission has the authority necessary" to enforce network neutrality violations, noting that the FCC had in fact done so in the case last year involving Madison River's blocking of Vonage's VoIP service.
"We've already demonstrated we'll take action if necessary," Martin said."
Clearly, the FCC chief is saying that they have and will continue to enforce network neutrality.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Have you tried to buy dark fiber from a telco before?
:(
Ain't gonna happen. I've tried. I've been trying to months now. Sprint, Charter, Ma Bell, you name it. They all have dark fiber I could simply light up and my work would be done, but none of them will do it. They want to light it and sell me "service", at a price that winds up well exceeding the price of the dark fiber. My choice winds up being having to overbuild them, because none of them will sell. At least not to the little guy, so Google might have an advantage here.
To put this into perspective, when I first started looking, I was being quoted $35/ft for fiber, "just to get to the street". Once you get to "the street", now you're having to shut down roads and such, so we're at closer to $100/ft. That, and my municipality has rules against putting fiber on poles, so you have to bore conduit underground...unless of course you're a big media company with a presence in the area (**cough** Charter **cough**), in which case they get to ignore the rules.
So for me to run fiber 1/4 of a mile to link my two sites? (btw, I'm going to user optical and rf backhauls, but I'd sleep a lot better with a "hardline") would cost nearly 1/2 million dollars. 1/4 mile!
Insanity knows no bounds.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
Actually, that's a great precedent to cite: but it works against your argument.
Standard "first class" mail is handled on a best effort basis, and there is no discrimination between senders or receivers. That describes the "net neutral" model for best effort route interconnects as it exists today -- and as it has existed since the advent of the internet.
The AT&T plan would say, "Yes, your 39 cents is good, but not when your mail is addressed to Google. In that case we drop your letter on the floor because Google won't pay an extra surcharge that we only levy against them." Net neutrality isn't limited to access -- it has to do with interconnect agreements. Best-effort routing is at risk, and with it the expectation that you should be able to route a packet from one IP address to another without worrying about which troll bridge your packet has to cross.
Don't worry, though. Us old timers have seen this before.
Liberty you never use is liberty you lose.
There's no need for the inflamatory story language. Trying to say that a tiered internet is bad is like trying to explain why decapitation is bad. You're wasting words. We're all with you.
Better to sound rational to convince those who don't understand. A non-neutral net is a terrible thing to contemplate.
At the minimum, neutrality protects the new marketplace. It helps all us smoes enjoy the good parts of a free market system. Calling for an end to neutrality is like calling for an end to racketeering laws in the real world. Sure, someone is going to make more money, but at the expense of the market as a whole.
And beyond brain-dead economic analysis, the internet has a kernel of world-improving good, with electronic journal archives for the sciences, free encyclopedias, and so forth. (Of course, wrapped around this kernel are gigabytes of porn...)
Who invited the FCC to the party anyway? Someone tell them their headlights are on so we can lock them out when they go to check.
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
Oh well not entirely. Because on the internet BOTH parties pay. Google pays a hosting bill as well. Bit like you would need to pay a subscription fee to receive mail as well pay for postage for sending mail.
What the new idea is to add yet another fee for the middle man. For the snail mail example imagine that you had to pay the post office to accept your letter, the receiver had to have a subscription to have a mail adress and now the mailman wants a cut for delivering the message at the normal speed.
As for your road example, it would be true if the car maker charged you extra for when your car is not stuck in traffic. Do not pay and your steering goes wobbly above 20 miles per hour.
No, there really is no precedent for this. The closest thing is the mafia who is famous for trying to get a cut of whatever money is being made even if they have no right to do so.
The telecoms are already getting paid by both google and the enduser for handling the traffic. This is just a way to get even more money.
Then again, there certainly is plenty of precedent for greed.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I would argue that, had we had a Libertarian government in the first place, AT&T would not exist (at least not in its current form) and therefore the other phone companies (which sprang up to compete directly against AT&T or were spun off after the 1984 breakup) wouldn't either. In any event we would be in a very different situation.
Google isn't using bandwidth on my ISP's network. The users are the ones who request the data. If they blocked Google, then the users would move as much, or more, data via other search engines.
This idea is a non-starter: If an ISP stopped carrying Google because Google wouldn't pay an extortion fee, the ISP's customers would leave in a giant stampede. So don't get worked up about this. Remember that it's legal for a restaurant to charge for ketchup, but you don't see a lot of pay dispensers for ketchup.
So, it sounds like some blogger misread "consumers" as "companies" and then got slashdotted.
This is why we need secure transmissions all around. Not for security, but rather to make sure that ISPs aren't saying "the receiving site isn't paying us, so your data is going to be sent out slower". Obscure the transmissions and we're set. Well, sort of. Ideally, it'd be entirely direct-transmission between servers and users (rather than being relayed between a dozen servers before you end up where you should be), or even more structured like a home network where you just plug in and have aceess to everything else (which is sort of what we have, we're just paying to plug in, and pay considerably more to do so with a higher speed cap. We've just got the telcos being greedy bastards trying to suck every penny out of their customers and then working with other megacorps to put artifical limits on progress so the **AAs can continue taking advantage of us.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Actually, I have tried to light dark fiber, and I was successful! It was during the dotcom days, in downtown Boston no less. The goal was to get a T1 installed into the office, but the install date was 3+ months away from any carrier. I hate Verizon more than I can describe, so they were absolutely NOT an option. In the machineroom was some fiber, and whatever termination box is used for that sorta thing. So, I called-up my buddy at a local CLEC, gave him the circuit ID, and he had it up and up, on, and running in less than a month (!!!). While I've never had this level of service EVER in 10+ years, it pays to know people, to call them, and to ask the right questions.
Then there was the issue with getting Cable TV, which the cable companies said wasn't available. Kinda strange since our office came with a bizarre A/V system, with multiple TVs. They really told us that there was no way to run cable to our office building. So, I did what any geek would have done, I went into the wiring closet, and connected the RF cable from the breakout box, to the other breakout box -- which was conveniently labeled with our suite number. Viola! Instant cable TV in a high-rise building in downtown Boston. I used to set up the TVs to play Star Trek TOS from the Sci-Fi channel -- y'know, with the closed captions. Gave the office a fun atmosphere, I thought.
Just because they say they can't do it, doesn't mean they can't do it, just that the person on the other end of the phone doesn't want to bother with it. Move around obstructive people, and you can move mountains -- or get your office lit.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
The FCC censors nationally on the basis of value that at a minimum, should be community based if we look at mundane law, but if we look at good supreme sourt decisions, should not be at all.
The FCC intentionally prevents low-power stations from operating, which directly muzzles the populace.
The FCC interferes with privately owned communications hardlines (cable, Internet, telephone) all resources that are not limited by anything other than commerce issues.
Sadly, the FCC is just a symptom of all the other major ills our government has developed because out system does not work.
Our country is mutating from a nation on-track for increasing freedom into a dump for conservative and corporate agendas.
What needs to be done is obvious; but Americans no longer have the will.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Ok I am posting AC to flame slashdot about this story.
This was posted on digg a few hours ago, same subject line and everything. If slashdot is going to be a filter for digg the EDITORS, FOR FUCKS SAKE FACT CHECK.
Here is how it goes.
1. IS TFA A blog?
If so read blog post + linked article
else read linked article
2. Does the blurb = TFA?
3. Does TFA = other source?
Really, it took me 5 minutes of my lunch break to fact check and figure out this wasn't accurate.
In fact, the article that the blog links to SAYS 1)AT&T will not do tied internet and 2) the FCC will enforce net neutrality and has in the past.
It's business RIAA style: When making a profit is not enough, sue someone for more.
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
Come on now! You aren't thinking of the best solution here. Your "noise" transmitter idea doesn't have enough focus to it. You have the problem of all of your stuff being affected as well (as well as your other neighbors). What you truly need is a highly directional aural transmission system (the type that "Minority Report" used) pumping out 150 dB of "Afternoon Delight". That way, you don't hear it, your other neighbors don't hear it, the cops don't hear it when they do show up, but your target can definately hear it. (Just remember to shut it off when the cops do show up, before they hear the evidence.)
Skyrockets in flight. Afternoon delight.
Getting broadband speeds without the telcos involved will be 10000% impossible as they have the governments in their back pocket and do you know anyone that can afford 5000 miles of fiber, all the light gear needed to light it up and who can pay for the right of way access for that fiber?
..." etc. No, I don't think so. It's as bad as Bush believing our only hope to rise obove #13 in broadband in the world is by giving the Bells whatever they want. Google is not a white knight. But as they say, "My enemy's enemy is my friend", so I welcome Google into the battle.
As an ISP and small CLEC, I can't begin to tell you how wrong you are. First, the majority of backbone providers are not associated with the Bells, so the Internet exists even without the Bells. No ISP needs to build out more fiber than is required to get to one of these providers without using the Bells - which they are doing in record numbers. It is easy to become a CLEC and once you become one you don't have to pay for the public right-of-way execpt for state and local taxes. Lighting the fiber is cheaper than you think - I just lighted 18 miles at 1 Gbps for under $2000.
No, the hard part is getting ISP's to cooperate with each other. They firmly believe, and rightly so, that you don't put your business in your competitors hands. The Bells taught them that.
The real problem is end users that think "our only hope is for google
Even though I live on the other side of the country, I think New York City is a good example of what can be good. In NYC you will find thousands and thousands of specialty shops with a rich variety of choices and services. Imagine if they were all Wal-Marts? Where would variety be then? How many inovative products would never see shelf space? Even if specialty shops cost a bit more, isn't it a good idea to support them and preserve them? NYC seems to think so. So why are you buying your Internet service from the Bells and the cable companies? The smaller ISP's have more services and better support. Isn't that worth preserving?
Have you tried getting a TV repaired. Back in the 60's and 70's I was a TV repairman. Repair never paid all that well, but, hey, you sell TV's, you should repair them. When people started buying TV's from department stores, TV repair shops couldn't make enough money to stay in business and folded. So now you can't get your TV repaired. And all to save $10. Notice the decrease in computer repair shops? In the 80's there were nearly ten times as many as their are now. Where will you get your computer repaired in 10 years? If you need a static IP address at home in a couple years where are you going to get one? From the Bells or the cable company? Yah, right. Why you wouldn't get around it is another story soon to be told.