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Coalition Sounds Off on Net Neutrality Legislation
DarqFallen writes to tell us that lately everyone has been talking about a tiered internet, though it seems there are other problems on the horizon as well. PCMag has the latest sound-off from the new SavetheInternet.com coalition. From the article: "Vint Cerf, so-called 'father' of the Internet, is among the big names and organizations that have come together to create the SavetheInternet.com Coalition, which hosted a national conference call [yesterday]. [...] [yesterday's] conference call is one of the coalition's many campaign tactics to emphasize the importance of 'Net neutrality,' the concept of a free and open Internet." The main topic of conversation was the latest bill from congress, the "Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancements Act of 2006."
From TFA:
Just when you thought the ramblings of John C. Dvorak weren't enough reason to stop taking PC Magazine seriously, they go and misspell the name of the Father of the Internet.
While the misspelling was corrected for some reason in the story summary, it's still right there in the first sentence of the PC Magazine article.
The rest of the article is well-enough written, but misspelling Vint Cerf's name pretty much sucks the credibility right out of it. Pity.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
VHS INTERNET FOREVER! (Until DVDs... then DVD INTERNET FOREVER! (Until Xvid INTERNET))
Wow... where did that come from?
Funnypics
Google has a huge vested interested in preventing a tiered Internet.
I'm not trying to dimininsh what Vint has done in the past nor am I saying that tiered internets are good/bad, but let's face it, Vint is hardly an unbiased source.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
I am always impressed at how good the names of these Bills are (although deceptice), its almost as if they are engineered to get people to back it (ok they probably are).
"Clarify the FCC authority to prevent Internet service providers from blocking or degrading any content or applications delivered over the public Internet."
FCC? Prevent? Censorship? This does not compute at all!
The US created it and damnit the US can destroy it!
http://religiousfreaks.com/its called "packet shaping"
ISP's are already discriminating on traffic, they are just getting you warmed up and passive ready for content filtering
The mispelling of Cerf's name in the PC Magazine article was corrected mere minutes after my original post.
Apparently, Bary Alyssa Johnson reads Slashdot. ^_^
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
That is the key - keeping the Internet so it has freedom of speech. Also, for search engines to bring up the most popular sites although there should be portions that allow companies to pay for a higher search ranking.
"The main topic of conversation was the latest bill from congress, the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancements Act of 2006."
How topical. Why is it that the main topic of conversation is POTENTIAL net censorship when very real censoship is occurring in China as we speak?
Did they solve that problem while I wasn't paying attention?
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
What are tabs?
MjM
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
Guess what? That's not our problem. If the Chinese don't like it, let them deal with it. Oh, they can ask us for help, and I for one would be happy to help if I could, but don't try to make it out that it's our moral imperative to rescue every sentient being on the planet from the consequences of their actions.
What I'm concerned about is a fragmented Internet where ISPs only let you access content they control. Or are you completely okay with that? Whatever, I kinda think you are trolling anyway.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Would it be feasable to create a giant peer to peer network based off wireless access points? Something that's more organic than the current net where a few carriers can make or brake the whole net. A net that's not under the control of the FCC (at least for the time). A net that least in some form can survive the war against Eurasia^H^H^H^H^H^H^H terror.
please excuse my apathy
If we allow this to happen and then criticize China, it's "people who live in glass houses". If we try to keep this from happening rather than focus 100% on China, then we get your complaint. Something's got to give.
"Proposals coming from telcos and the cable companies, as exemplified in some of their legislation, destroys that neutrality."
Again, why would anyone (who doesn't work for one of these telcos and cable companies) be against Net Neutraility?
It just goes against common sense.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I'd be upset if I were Al, obviously he is still not getting credit for anything he did.
...that the FCC has outlived it's usefulness and needs to go?
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer. - Edward R. Murrow
What I always love is that Big Business in America supports a free and open market for about an hour, and then gets all huffy because competition and efficiency force them to work harder.
Suddenly, free enterpise becomes bullshit, and they start pining for a mercantile economy.
If the value proposition for putting up new lines isn't there, maybe Verizon can just ditch its FIOS roll-out and leave us with really old, worn-out copper wiring that runs dial-up at a blazing 7 kbps.
Why is it the government's job to fix their value proposition?
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Seems that the idea here is for the telcos to get the tiered internet in place before upgrading the infrastructure to handle higher speed internet connections. You know, that way only the current media conglomerates can afford to shuttle their DRM'd crap across the wires.
Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancements Act of 2006.
Is it just me or is it that the more horrible a bill it, the nicer a name it has?
I guess you wouldn't get many people to line up behind
Hand the Internet over to the Incumbent Telcos to Apologize for Breaking up AT&T Bill
MjM
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
Are the censors, spies, and congress in general. They want all sites to register with the government to prevent anyone anywhere to be protected from child porn. They want ALL data to be retained because of kiddie porn, but it will have convenient uses for all the police, spies and nannies in the government. They want to regulate us, nanny us, and tax us out of existence. These issues make the threat from tiered internet seem tame. I don't see these guys standing against the real threat which is from governments. They are getting in bed with the real devil to protect us from the supposed threat from ISPs which we can walk away from with our dollars.
Their primary services work fine on low-bandwidth and high latency connections, so an extortionist ISP would have to threaten to cut their customers off from Google entirely.
If an ISP tried extortion, Google could afford to pay, because they're an established company with lots of cash, not a struggling startup anymore.
If an ISP tried extortion, Google could afford to not pay, because they're an established company with a household name, and many people would go back to dialup before they'd lose access to Google search and GMail.
Squint as hard as you can and you might see "vested interests", but the real threat of a crippled (why call it tiered, except to spin the discussion the way the telcos want?) internet isn't to Google, it's to the next Google. If anything, Google has a vested interest in helping telcos lock new competitors out of their networks; luckily for us Google hasn't yet become a "cut off their air supply" sort of company.
"Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancements Act of 2006."
When will people just stop using their "Clear Skies" aka "Clearly Incorrect" propoganda labels attached to the bills? Just say the bill introduced yesterday which legalizes a tiered internet and removes consumer rights to resell internet services, which from a quick glance seems far more accurate a description. Once they actually introduce it refer to it as HR1126 or whatever its id is. With some alphanumeric id people don't automatically get an opinion without RTFA.
At least put a "so-called" in from of the title. Of course it is kinda handy to just apply "!(Title)" and know what the bill is actually for...
All Americans should be especially outraged, considering that these corporations got FREE SUBSIDIES from our tax dollars to lay down all that cable. That's right, all that cable, we paid for it with our money..our tax dollars..now they want to continue to be greedy and get more from the government and the people.
The good news is forces such as MS, Google and etc. are major shareholders as well and have clout. Its all about the money, nothing more. Screw the customer. If congress and the White House are looking for a riot, they sure did pick one.. just waiting to happen.
I tried to register this morning to offer support
...why did they let me speciy a province/country/postal code if they only accept U.S. people ?
After completing the registration and putting some comments I was denied registration because i dont live in the US.
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
but let's face it, Vint is hardly an unbiased source
The beauty of rational and objective thought is, I DON'T HAVE TO CARE WHO VINT CERF WORKS FOR!
Vint Cerf has laid out his proposals and assertions, as has Google and the monopolistic telecomm companies. As a rational person, I can decide the veracity of their statements based on the other information at my disposal. I can never know when or if a liar is lying, so the questioning of motives is moot.
This obsession with motives and bias is irrational and leads to subjective decisions, not objective ones. Usually, it is deployed to disingenuously sow doubts about established facts and hide one's own positions from criticism, not that I'm claiming that is the case here. This post appears to be more collateral damage than maliciousness. The point is, I don't have to care what Vint Cerf's motives are; regardless of the fact that he has in fact acted with far more integrity about what's good for the Internet than any telecom. You will never find an unbiased opinion, bias is another word for goals and no action takes place without a goal, therefore an unbiased opinion is a myth. To search for an objective view is biased in itself.
All that is required to maintain rational integrity is to be transparent about what goals you assume in your assertion. Vint Cerf has made his goals clear, to build a useful network. The telecoms have made their goals clear, to profit as much as possible off this network; they don't shout it, they disclose this type of information more appropriately, like in statements to investors. If my goal is to use a useful network, then I can evaluate each parties assertions accordingly.
IMNSHO, this increase is relativistic irrationality can be tracked closely with the Intelligent Design movement's efforts to wreck science. This is an example of how one of their tactics is dumbing the entire nation down. They've been running a scorched earth policy against reason for years, their efforts have paid off when the nihilistic and relativist garbage they've used for ID has seeped into the veins of public discourse.
For the sake of objective thought, mod the parent down.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
I am pushing our town to include a Network Neutrality provision in Verizon's cable TV franchise agreement. I feel this is the best way to advance the Network Neutrality issue. The telecoms will steamroll the politicians at the state and federal level, but we stand a chance at the local level.
It's simple. We say to the telecoms: If you want to run a cable franchise in our town then you need our permission. If you want out permission then you will agree to respect the tenets of Network Neutrality.
Please visit my website to follow what we are doing at the local level.
http://www.redbanktv.org/
Tom@redbanktv dot org
You're all delusional with this Net Neutrality coalition. Go to Google News, click Most Popular and you'll notice TOM CRUISE has been at the top of the list for the past 2 WEEKS ! That's what people really care about and that's how corporate lobbied government is screwing us up the backside.
That said, I'm off to watch a trailer of MI III while my ISP still allows me too.
Keep your day job, and never come back to open mic night.
Page 24, line 17 start.
b) IMPLEMENTING REGULATIONS. -- The Federal Communications Commission shall prescribe regulations to implement the amendment made by subsection (a) with-19 in 120 days of the date of enactment of this Act.
As the FCC's leniency on regulations is what they're known for.
Sigh. It's a story about corporations limiting access to content they don't provide. It's not about China. If you can't see how that's off topic, your karma here is going to be pretty bad pretty soon. Sorry if you don't like it. Hell, if you are so concerned, make a journal entry or something.
But the attitude that we are somehow remiss for even raising the topic of corporate segmentation of the Internet when China is censoring Internet access is rude and condescending, and I'm guessing you are just trolling and have absolutely no concern for the Chinese except as a ploy to raise people's ire.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Isn't that what you really wanted? Some type of flame war where, in the end, you throw a polysyllabic bomb at your opponent, all the while trying to claim the moral high-ground?
So let's just cut to the chase...fucking moron.
What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with heart of neutrality?
The beauty of rational and objective thought is, I DON'T HAVE TO CARE WHO VINT CERF WORKS FOR!
...
No, the beauty of objective thought is I don't put Vint Cerf on a pedistal. He's just a man. A brilliant man but a man all the same. He gets paid well by a company with a vested interest in a non-tiered internet. The beauty of objective thought is I can keep my perspective and his perspective and Google's perspective all in context without trying to tell people what to think, like you propose to (jumping off on the irrelevant ID tangent, telling mods to mod parent down, etc)
'cause I was led to believe you were a spiteful God, beholden to your followers, yet willing to wipe everything from the face of the earth when the Wickedness of Man triumphs. Could you, perhaps, square the Wickedness of Man stuff with that whole Internet Quality of Service regulatatory proposal crap?
just asking, God (please don't stike me down with a bolt of lightning!)
Would "net neutrality" and any bill requiring it be struck down by the Supreme Court, based on their ruling that cable cos (and the FCC added DSL) dont have to share their lines with competitors?
Does it bother anyone that this coalition decided to publish their opinions under a dotcom (.com) TLD? So they're a for-profit company? Shouldn't they use a .net or .org ? It's okay to register a domain under multiple TLDs but they should point to the main one and in this case I disagree with .com being the catchall TLD.
.com TLDs... hmmmm are they actually selling kidnapped kids to slavery as a for-profit business model?
That being said, I see a lot of missing children websites being registered under
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
Smart man, it's tougher to bring about in the larger population centers but heck, I'll give it a try in my city.
Oops, how did this get here?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
I wish you the very best of fortune in this endeavor, but fear that it won't be quite that simple.
First, if the CableCo does discriminate against packets, you'll have to prove it. This can be quite difficult, depending on how the CableCo decides to set up its routing tables (City Hall gets full bandwidth on all packets, 'cause that's where investigations would be launched).
Next, when you move to fine the CableCo or revoke their franchise, they'll hang you up in lawsuits for 12 years, arguing all the way to the Supreme Court that the Network Neutrality provision in the franchise contract was
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Vint Cerf, so-called 'father' of the Internet
I think that, before I can come to any conclusion, I have to hear from the adopted father (or inventor, if you will) of the Internet, Al Gore.
Yes, I know that he didn't say that.
Does it bother anyone that this coalition decided to publish their opinions under a dotcom (.com) TLD? No. TLDs including .net and .org as currently set up are very silly, and it is natural for people to not respect them. People tend to look under .com, and it should be just as natural to look under .us or .eu.
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC. So who fixes the crappy powerbook I bought. AppleCare won't repair.
Schwab, thanks for the encouragement. I see your points and I know it is a tough fight. I still think this battle is best fought at the local level.
Here is why:
Verizon and the other telecoms are running fiber in towns intending to be able to offer internet, phone and cable TV over the fiber. Their business model can not work if they are not allowed to offer cable TV. In order to be able to run cable TV over the fiber the telecoms must go town to town applying for a cable franchise. It is as part of these new franchise agreements that we stand the best chance of working in Net Neutrality provisions.
Whether or not a telecom/ISP will obey that verbiage in the agreement is a whole other issue.
-- Tom
Personally, while crippling connections to outside content is clearly unacceptable, I think a tiered internet would be necessary to really bring us to the next level of high-bandwidth services. If the ISP can host content on their servers, and offer very high-speed (maybe around 1Gbps peak, 0.5Gbps min) access to it for reasonable rates, that would offer a great alternative to current internet distribution options, even if it's limited to targetting the customers of specific ISPs. If a tiered internet means I can buy some hosting from Comcast, and get guaranteed high-bandwidth serving to all Comcast customers, it would really open the door to services that are just not possible with current net topology, serving to other ISPs that might not have access to the bandwidth required for the service.
An obvious example is on-demand delivery of high-definition video streams. Residential broadband connections are just not fast enough to enable those kinds of services. If I could buy hosting from the major ISPs, I would at least be able to target their customers without worrying about dropped packets and poor connections. It would require some minor changes to internet file access, only granting access to the stream if it's hosted on the requestor's ISP, but it's not really difficult to implement with current protocols.
This is really going to be like TV network affiliates for the new century. Major ISPs that cover large areas of the country could even offer to split up the access based on geography, allowing for services like geographically-targetted advertising and such. I don't really see a practical alternative to a tiered internet if we want to have the kinds of high-bandwidth services that need to happen.
While I realize that will create a market where bigger ISPs can offer more value than others, giving them a competitive advantage. This could be mitigated with some checks and balances, however. ISPs could be obliged to sublicense any hosted content to other ISPs for reasonable rates upon request, or maybe content providers could be forced to adopt a uniform licensing agreement and offer it to any ISP. Content affiliates could promote content and deal with mixing in advertising from local businesses to the customers they're targetting.
To just arbitrarily push for legislation that would make things like this illegal just seems like it's going against progress, and would do nothing but keep me from getting the proper high-bandwidth distribution options I want to see on the market. I can't think of any better way to encourage development of high-speed services, including high-speed MANs (Metropolitan Area Networks)...
The other tier would be the internet we know today, and that should continue to function in an unfiltered manner, as it does today. It's just that it makes sense, given the internet's infrastructure, to give ISPs the ability to serve content at guaranteed speeds, to meet a demand that couldn't be filled without limiting access on an ISP basis.
Also, realize that it could work both ways. If you can establish p2p connections to people on your tier, possibly with some auto-discovery, it could allow some very interesting possibilities for p2p apps. Since they would be first tier connections, it might be possible to access your computer hard drive remotely at close to full speed, or do some serious videoconferencing with local partners. Tiers would really adjust the internet's operation to reflect how it's actually put together, while still allowing outside connections as they do now... I bet ISPs would love to be able to shift all that p2p traffic onto their own network instead of having to pay for outside bandwidth...
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
According to the Economist article on the subject, the concerns are overblown.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Just wait for the "Kittens, Ponies and Apple Pie" bill which makes it illegal not to have a twelve inch government "probe" up your ass...
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I think I should be the one to decide how the bandwidth I pay for should be allocated, and not the service provider who does not necessarily have my best interests at heart. If I want it to give priority to high-bandwidth service within the ISP let that be my choice. If I'd rather have good service from outside their network, or give highest priority to my own VoIP provider, let me decide that -- not them!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
All trolls and no posts make spun something something... Anyway, yeah, I guess you were just putting it into perspective. I just get a little jumpy on Tuesdays...
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
They can, in the same way I can. The individuals involved can all vote. If you are going to make a straw man, at least try to get it to stand up straight before you knock it down.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
...business is that in just a few short years, a user calling their ISP because Google doesn't work correctly or comes up too slowly will be the correct course of action....because it will be the ISP slowing it down.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
You really told them. Your post led them to edit their article. LOL LOOK! TMM REALLY IS AN EDITOR!
when corrupt private companies control all access to information, and private companies have own all land that would otherwise be usable for protest, the idea of a "private" company being able to slow and speed things up according to their own wishes becomes a great deal more important...What does it matter if the government censors us, or the private companies censor us on all their networks, if there are no alternatives?
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
Just think, they're TRYING to do something that will get EVERYONE insanely pissed-off at the major internet service providers.
If this got through, it would just about GUARANTEE independant companies would spring up to provide internet access. Likely, mostly through cheap wireless links to an antenna on the nearest hillside.
It's a shame guerrilla.net is offline now.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
As a consumer the idea of my ISP blocking access to certain web sites or degrading third voip services in order to push their own bothers me but... As someone who manages several small business networks and runs a micro WISP I know that there ARE sometimes good reasons shape certain kinds of traffic and in some cases block it altogether.
Is legislation really likely to be so well written that it keeps Verizon from blocking competing VOIP solutions but still allows them to do responsible things like giving all VOIP traffic priority over bulk downloads? Also for some mediums, such as standard 802.11b/g large customer uploads absolutely kill performance for everyone else due to the "hidden node" problem. Unless you are going to use some sort of propriatary polling scheme you pretty much HAVE to shape bulk uploads if you want anything that requires low latency to work at all. Also, would spam/porn/add/popup blocking be allowed as long as they are optional?
Google Cache. Always helpful.
An obvious example is on-demand delivery of high-definition video streams. Residential broadband connections are just not fast enough to enable those kinds of services. If I could buy hosting from the major ISPs, I would at least be able to target their customers without worrying about dropped packets and poor connections. It would require some minor changes to internet file access, only granting access to the stream if it's hosted on the requestor's ISP, but it's not really difficult to implement with current protocols.
This can be done with DNS, routing, and server access settings. No minor changes are really needed.
Many ISPs already route internal traffic internally.
Some local and regional ISPs offer game servers offer internal private mirrors of popular sites. Some offer game servers for games like Half-Life and others that have openly available dedicated server software. The first ISP I worked for actually had a customers-only bulletin board system.
When I was the technical operations manager for a small ISP, I made sure we had authentication servers in every major branch of our network so that the RADIUS authentication and logging traffic didn't need to even travel to the central office across our own bandwidth. It resulted in a number of benefits. We had outside links in several towns and tied them together with point-to-point links inside the network. Certain small towns we serviced had no direct Internet links at all, always being routed a hop or two through our network to get to the outside world. This cut down on our cost, since getting bandwidth in a town of 5,000 people is much more expensive than in a town of 50,000 or 100,000 people. It also allowed customers in certain (most) towns to be routed through multiple outside links in case of line failure.
At another ISP where I worked as an administrator, we had every city routed directly to the public Internet and all the mail, authentication, and whatever other traffic between the customers and our central network operations center (NOC) crossed other companies' routers. Some of our customers even dialed into equipment owned by companies that resold port time to us instead of into our own access concentrators. Using L2TP, destination NAT, RADIUS attributes, and a couple of other tools, we set up all deliquent accounts to see a website saying so no matter what address they put in their browser. Once they paid up, they could disconnect and redial then surf away.
So no, it wouldn't take much to do these things compared to current technology. Things like what you mention are pretty much already being done.
You mean like the People's Front of Judiah or perhaps the People's Judian Front??
Thanks for the informed reply. Yeah, I know it makes sense to do this, and ISPs do try to this as much as possible to reduce bandwidth costs, but I was just trying to make the argument that a tiered system has some obvious benefits, and we shouldn't try to make them illegal in the name of liberty. I think pushing the concept of tiers to network applications will really move us forward to take advantage of the way the internet is constructed, and maximize the bandwidth we could have at our disposal. The main thing ISPs could do to push development in this area would be to define the IP ranges of all the people in your tier, and allow faster connections to them; either that or make an extension to IPv4 that would track tiers as well as nodes, though that would be more difficult to get accepted.
If ISPs left the outside bandwidth unchanged, but added the ability for high-bandwidth first tier connections, it would really push a lot of power into the hands of the ISPs in several key ways. First, P2P would create a large demand for this type of service, pushing general adoption. Second, ISPs could upsell the first tier access as a type of Pro service (like digital cable TV being sold to cable internet subscribers). Third, as the first tier becomes popular and people become dependent on the level of bandwidth offered for local connections, ISPs could license access to the tier to other ISPs, as well as offering hosting directly to content providers.
While this means that ISPs would control a significant amount of the content on the network, it would really encourage the development of the ISP's network and storage infrastructure, and finally bring us some real high-bandwidth services in the only way I can really see this happening in a reasonable timescale. Maybe the bandwidth I mentioned (0.5-1Gbps) is a bit high, and we might be stuck with a few dozen Mbps for a while, that's still significantly better, and it's those asymmetrical upload speeds that totally kill most P2P apps, so that could be addressed with this new setup.
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
STATUS: TRUE
Good thing that the UN isn't controlling the internet and screwing it up. Yay for unbiased and good US capitalist concerns deciding universal infrastructure for the rest of the planet.
You can decide, by choosing the ISP you want to purchase service from. Letting end users modify their connection settings is the most ludicrous notion I've seen mentioned here in a while (from a network management perspective). All I'm saying is that connections that have to travel through different networks should be treated differently from connections over a single network; and it would be nice for ISPs to offer a service for content providers to guarantee access to hosted content at a minimum bandwidth to the ISP's subscribers.
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
Troll? Hardly. Nobody is ALLOWED to respond to my comments. I said so. That is the opposite of trolling.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
There is no functional difference between offering a higher speed tier and a lower speed tier and then forcing all competetors to that lower speed tier, and degrading their service. ... And even more interesting, you may allocate such a paucity of resources to the lower speed tier that it is effectively unusable.
How (if you allow for such an arbitrary assignment of resources) do you prevent a company from degrading a competitors service simply because it makes financial sense to do so (e.g. voip competing with landlines, etc.).
Realize that, if you advocate non application-specific QoS (i.e. provider targeted QoS instead of application targeted QoS), you advocate a 'net on which service providers are free to extract money from providers and consumers without any recourse.
I advocate 'net neutrality because I see the 'net as a major source of communication and, for better and worse, culture. I find it the idea of requiring more money for some bits over other bits to be alien-- Am I paying for access to the 'net, or am I simply paying the telcos to get rich?
Service/application targeted QoS is a different matter, and it -does- make some sort of sense, but it too can be abused.
Keep in mind that the telcos are not as interested in making tiers for the consumers-- they're more focused on the providers. Essentially, they promise to deliver reduced service to any provider daring enough to -not- pay them. Ostensibly, they'd like a bidding war-- that way the telco (as the monopoly or member of oligopoly) can extract all the profit possible from the providers.
Analogy: There is a trucking company. They charge by the pound. One day, after looking at your SEC filing, they notice that you're actually making a profit. They decide that you will be charged more by the pound than your competetor. Unfortunately for you, the trucking company controls the rights of way over which all products must flow.
Replace 'trucking company' with 'telco', 'pound' by 'bit', and 'products' with 'information', and you'll realize that this analogy is a very strong one.
If the roads were operated this way, and used what its advocates are pleased to call the "tiered" model, every road-network operator that wanted to start a trucking company would do everything they could to hamper all other trucking companies. Charge their customers extra. Slash the competition's tires. The analogy is damn near exact.
Do you want to live in that world?
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
The problem I see is that you're actually paying for access to a network, and part of that network (the part run by the ISP) has the potential to deliver a lot more data, and the rest of it (outside connections) are limited by how much the ISP can afford/get away with. While it's true that ISPs could probably let the outside bandwidth languish as they build internal infrastructure, but I think we'd see an interesting new development.
As the larger ISPs grow their "first tier" networks, and license access to other ISPs, the bandwidth capacity of these internal ISP networks needs to be very high, and high-speed connections must be made to any sub-licensor ISP, and you effectively connect the two tiers from the different ISPs with a high-speed backbone. This will encourage huge investments in network infrastructure, and as more and more ISPs connect their first tier networks with better and better connections, the entire internet becomes a whole lot faster. It's kinda like the notion of a rising tide lifting all boats. Even smaller ISPs can leverage their geographic coverage to gain a market for local content distribution and ad placement. This just has the effect of rewarding the ISPs who invest in network infrastructure, and allow for localized high-bandwidth applications.
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
A.) I can't reconcile Gonzales statement...
...with reality as I know it. Maybe I'm just a commoner with one of those "worker" jobs, but I thought the terrorists who attacked us got their money from oil, and the terrorists in South America got their money from drugs. I didn't realize the MP3's I didn't pay for were financing blowing up Americans! My God!B.) Even if that was true...
... With these two statements about the same piece of legislation, I'm about ready to quit my job, take the wife & dog, and go visit my cousin in Canada. Permanently. Preferrably after picking up some weapons along the way.Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
What are tabs?
MjM
The moderation system is out of control here. I originally posted this as a joke in response to the parent. I never expected it to get modded up, I only posted it to have some fun with the poster of the parent. But I certainly never expected it to get moderated down as redundant???
Redundant as to what?
So I'm posting it again to restore it to its humble 2. Waste your Goddamned precious mod points on it. I dare ya. I'll post it again and it'll show up again as a 2.
Ai!
MjM
*/
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
The price wars are a fairly understandable issue.
But, no one in the telecoms really admits that a portion of this is "Hey, if the damn government weren't sitting there, we could totally attack the ecommerce treasure ship and make off with the gold of the New Economy."
There, it isn't even a case of capitalistic maximum value.
This is classic mercantilism: any money someone else is making is money I'm losing.
Capitalism is based on the notion that money makes money. In essence, how the modern internet works. Google impresses people which encourages them to get DSL which makes SBC, Verizon, QWest, etc some bucks, not to mention the money made by millions of smaller businesses.
The telecoms are being very limited in their view of economics. Rather than thanking Google for its incredible work bringing subscribers to their hi-speed services, these companies plan to shit where they eat.
Their plan is to make the cost of entry into quality broadband services so expsensive that no one ever provides hi-end services except for them.
The problem is that this flies in the faces of the internet as a mentality.
We want diversity, selectivity and accessibility dirt cheap.
We want content on demand while we browse without obstruction.
The telecoms plan to destroy what made this business work for them in the first place.
It's a mentality more suited to 1500 than 2006.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
> IMNSHO, this increase is relativistic irrationality can be tracked closely with the Intelligent Design movement's efforts to wreck science. This is an example of how one of their tactics is dumbing the entire nation down. They've been running a scorched earth policy against reason for years, their efforts have paid off when the nihilistic and relativist garbage they've used for ID has seeped into the veins of public discourse.
:)
Well, you are right about how one can rationally separate things. So I can agree that net neutrality is good for objective reasons, even while questioning why you would add a troll to the end of your post, as if we did not have enough ID threads on Slashdot and needed another one here?
Besides, if you're going to troll, do it right. I blame the recent upsurge in trolling on conceited atheists who can't shut up about ID, how stupid IDers are, how brilliant they are, and how we should all support Dawkin's plan to rid the world of all theists and thus finish the great works of Mao and Stalin, both of whom wished to purge the world of religion.
What? It wouldn't be flamebait if it didn't mix gross inaccuracy with something that has at least some kernel of truth behind it. It even sidesteps Godwin by only invoking *other* despots, even though they killed more people all told.
For the sake of rational discourse, let the patellar reflexes trigger!
Because here at Slashdot we like to take topics one at a time. If you want a forum where you can post about your pet cause in any thread that's remotely ideologically related to it, then I highly suggest Daily Kos. The community there consists of activists and ideologues who are more than willing to take a series of issues as a trend that can be dealt with en masse. They even encourage thread hijacking, to a certain extent.
Yet I doubt even they would be too kind to someone who complains about the very existence of the story. You wanna talk about China? Try the umpteen other slashdot stories about it. Better yet, look for a forum that deals with it specifically, preferably an activist forum since that seems to be your angle on the issue. You'll have better luck there discussing it with people who know the issues and have some influence to actually do something about it.
This demands the rallying cry of the cynical, created for politics but apparently as applicable here:
With the advent of country specific TLDs, the confusion got out of hand. Besides the old ones (.com, .net, .org), you now have, say, .xx. Now, you don't only get www.company.xx, it's equally likely to find www.company.co.xx, www.company.com.xx, www.company.org.xx and so on. It generally descends into a TLD guessing game.
.com, .org and .net of course, or someone will go ahead and try some cybersquatting on you. Even if you're a NPO, you have to get the corresponding .com domain unless you want to fall prey to those people.
.com first. Simply 'cause they're used to it, and because they don't even have the foggiest idea what the difference between the various TLDs was about. Unless you're slashdot.org or a similar geek-page where you may actually expect your target audience to know about TLDs (I actually never tried slashdot.com, now that I think about it...).
As some more or less "serious" company, you almost have to get ALL relevant domains, including
Because people looking for your page will invariably try
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Lets them do whatever they want to do with the Internet...
Lets just go back being Surfing Teacher or Goat Shepperds
We spend so much time worrying about the freedom on the internet, as if this was the last place we could get any.
Who fucking care about the internet freedom, as long as they have their American Idols, their Hollywood stars, or their daily dose of Slashdot...
The Internet freedom fight is like French protests: A National pasttime, just for the sake of it...
If you want to fight for something, either go to Africa do some good, or pick up a gun and choose your battlefield.
Otherwise just do like I do: learn to live among the chimps, knows that trying to teach them is just a waste of time, and carpe diem as much as you can...
"Certain I'm an asshole?"
I was right. Thanks for proving it for me.
"How is that a straw man?"
A straw man (or straw dog[1]) argument is a rhetorical technique based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw-man argument" is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent.
Nowhere in my original post did I mention anything at all about internet fragmentation or my opinion on it. What you did is a perfect example of a straw man.
But I wouldn't expect you to know that. I would expect a half-thought out retort about staying on topic, completely ignoring the fact that you have been shown that you engaged in an obvious and simplistic logical fallacy, and then your defense of your fallacy.
So do that, and prove me correct again.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
I looked at the website and didn't know if it was a good or bad thing. If it was what the telecoms wanted or if it was what the 'save the internet' people wanted. A 'free and open internet' I can understand.
Nobody is ALLOWED to respond to my comments. I said so.
:-)
You're just saying that to encourage responses. It's working.
I can't decide if this post is interesting, funny, insightful, or flamebait.
You can decide, by choosing the ISP you want to purchase service from.
Really?
I mean, technically, yeah, I have a choice of ISPs...I can choose Adelphia for cable, or Verizon for DSL, or NetZero, or AOL, or any of dozens of smaller dialup providers...I could probably choose satellite if I didn't live in an apartment (can't put up a dish without the landlord's approval) surrounded by trees. So basically, if I want any kind of reasonable speeds, I have 2 choices.
But what if the services I really want fast access to are on Comcast? Or somewhere out in California? Or on the other side of the planet? What if both Verizon and Adelphia decide to be really stingy with the bandwidth they provide to outside services? By your model, I'm then forced to either use whatever they want to give me, or put up with artificially reduced bandwidth to the services I actually want to use--purely so that Verizon or Adelphia can try to wring a few extra bucks out of me (or out of the services who are willing to pay their extortion fees).
No. In the end, we have just 2 choices: network neutrality, or completely changing the fundamental nature of the Internet, to hand all power to the ISP.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.