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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?"
I have a solution to fixing the FCC and it has to do with my subject line. Figure it out.
I believe the FCC is one of the most unconstitutional departments in the Federal government and completely destroys the reason why it was set up in the first place. If the airwaves are public property, why are they regulated to the point that no one but the elite can access them? How is the Internet considered public airwaves if it is run over mostly private lines?
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.
I don't care much for the idea of regulating any speech -- broadcast or face-to-face. I don't see the Constitution giving the Federal government any power to regulate the airwaves (the interstate commerce clause was not meant to give the Feds power to tariff and tax, it was meant to give the Feds the power to prevent the individual states from tariffing and taxing interstate commerce).
The reason for this FCC mention is because the distribution cartels who have used copyright, airwaves regulation and subsidies for decades are now scared that their cartel will fall apart. Copyright has been antiquated by the Internet -- creating opportunities for millions of artists to distribute their artwork themselves (not needing the cartels). The subsidies for the phone companies and the old media companies have proved to be worthless as almost anyone can now afford to be not just a receiver on the mediacast network, but a sender as well. The regulations that were used to keep others from entering the market are now working against the big media companies.
This means that they want blood. They want control. They want their cartel to stay together, and the only way they can do it is through the use of force and coercion -- which is basically what the FCC is about. Maybe Google will come up with a free GoogleNet and let anyone (including competitors) connect to it. Maybe some kid in a garage will figure out a way to get a secondary network structure built, I have no idea, nor do I care, there are billions of people out there, I have faith in humanity.
The future will not be able frequencies or bandwidth or censorship or control. The future will be about freedom; I am just waiting for the day that software radios with reasonable frequency hopping methods can be used to give everyone high bandwidth at low costs without worrying about what monopoly their village lets run cable or worry about paying for someone out in Montana who can't afford their own wires run. For this, though, the FCC will need to completely vacate the airwaves. The day will come, we just have to find a solution to the FCC who keeps it all down.
I have a solution. I plead the second.
The FCC needs to be disbanded. They don't even know why they exist anymore.
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
Let's see who needs who.
Pork is not a verb
Basically, the blogger completely lacks reading comprehension skills.
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?
http://www.networkingpipeline.com/news/183701554
The first half of the article is the AT&T CEO saying that they'll never block access and doing that is business suicide. The second half is this from Martin:
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.
That's got nothing to do with site extortion. Shame on the submitter.
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?
This is the beginning of the HUGE attack on average people using the internet to get unpopular messages out to the rest of the internet in America. Since the internet allows anyone with the itch to "publish" their views freely, the larger corporations have been trying to find a way to shut that down. Can you imagine what the world would be like if everyone had access to radio and television stations to program their own stuff unfettered (putting aside the technical issues of interference since they don't apply to the internet)? The only way that people will be able to pass any really important infomation that the media giants don't want you to here eventually will be e-mail. And e-mail is about as threatening to them as phones were. Expect to see a lot of the ISPs that provide web hosting and the free web hosting services and blog services more heavily restricting content if it doesn't serve their corporate masters well. Expect to see more and more TCP and UDP ports being closed off so you CAN'T run your own darknet to provide services of your own to your friends and family (something I do right now). Big media is NOT interested in someone having a large enough stage to broadcast a message that big media doesn't want people to hear. In the future, we will all be criminals even if all we want to do is tell the truth. We're halfway there now.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Because I'd have sworn I paid for a 3 Mb connection. If Google can provide me with 3 Mb bandwidth, why exactly should they be paying the ISP I already paid?
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
You're saying that you don't think the statement, "Pay us or we'll make your content crawl for our users." is forceful, intimidating, and potentially undue or illegal?
Think of it this way: The internet is a website's path to its front door. How would you feel if the government sold the sidewalk leading to your front door and told you that you'd have to have your customers use the back entrance unless you started paying $50 a month?
you wouldn't like them when they're angry.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
That's what I've been saying since this all started. Most broadband markets have at least two providers now; If one goes to this approach and websites refuse to play ball, they'll lose market share.
I wouldn't put it past Google to post a message: "You're connecting to our site via AT&T DSL. We apologize if the site is slower than usual; your ISP is artificially limiting the bandwidth to our website. Call AT&T Customer Service at xxx-xxx-xxxx for more information."
Picking a fight with Google is probably a bad idea.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
This week's issue of The New Yorker had a one-page article briefly summarizing the *actual* tiered internet (google has to pay SBC to ensure QoS, not the tiered-to-consumer plan in TFA) and pointing out why it was such a bad idea. It read just like a +5 Informative from /. with the same points we've all made during previous posts on this, and got me to wondering if the person who wrote it reads /. -- so if you do, thanks! it was lovely and did a great job of explaining to the teeming masses what it means and why it's a bad idea.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
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).
Of course, TFA doesn't actually say what the summary claims. Another example of Slashdot outright lying. Must be a weekday.
Mr Dada- your implication is clear- and I question the intelligence of anyone who posts that kind of threat on a public board. The FCC, like any gov't organizations, can overstep its bounds. And if you don't like it, it can be changed with your vote. I don't want to talk politics, but the tired internet debate is just like the (insert contraversial subject) debate. It is the apathy of the American electorate that allows these crazy schemes to go forward.i n1419502.shtml
Lest you think the above post is speculative: The FCC is an important organizations, as the following article illustrates.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/20/tech/ma
FAA On Trail Of Pirate Radio Station
MIAMI, March 20, 2006 (AP)
The FAA said it has conducted about 30 similar investigations of pirate broadcasts interfering with airport transmissions in the past decade.
(AP) Airline pilots taking off from Miami International Airport are getting an earful of hip-hop tunes from a pirate radio station that sometimes interfere with their communications with the control tower.
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
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.
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.