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Net Neutrality Voted Down in U.S. House Committee
Ana10g writes "Business Week provides a look at the recent vote by the House Committee on Energy & Commerce, in which the FCC would have been given the power to prohibit discrimination of Internet traffic. The battlefield seems to be centered around which group has the better funded lobbyists, with companies such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and many others competing against the well funded Telecommunications lobbysts. The committee voted the amendment down, 34 to 22."
This just reinforces the fact that the common public interest is not correctly represented by congress.
me jumping with kites I make...
As the old saying goes, the opposite of progress is Congress.
The proposal, by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), would have given the Federal Communications Commission the power to prohibit discrimination when it comes to sending traffic over the Internet. Couldn't this, technically, also eliminate QoS/fair queue'ing and general firewall rules?
The above is most likely humour. Slashdot foot icon goes here.
So long as we're clear: it's just big companies with lots of money fighting each other for the right to make money off of us. God for-fucking-bid the "battlefield" should in anyway involve some kind of consideration of what might be best for the human constitutents the congresscritters are elected to serve.
Although the telecoms are powerful, this isn't just an issue of telecoms vs. the public. There are a lot of powerful voices saying that the telecoms shouldn't have this power, such as google, amazon, and intel.
Badass Resumes
The idea of giving the FCC more control over things they probably shouldn't control doesn't make me happy, but missing a chance to explicitly prohibit a tiered Internet is kind of a bummer... Oh well, in cases like this consumer always gets screwed one way or another, it's just a question of who's doing the screwing...
As an aside, doesn't the whole "tiered Internet" concept that the telco's are trying to float violate the concept of "common carrier"? Anyone know?
It would depend on the wording of the bill, and given that Google, Yahoo, and Amazon know something about traffic over the internet, I would assume that the bill would be written well enough to get around those problems.
Albuquerque PC
Unfortunately, Google can't do anything as buying senators qualifies as "evil", which is in direct disagreement with their slogan.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
I think congressmen are like patents. It's morally acceptable to purchase them for defensive purposes.
Badass Resumes
Shouldn't be which group has the most voters? And I mean in the country, not in Congress.
with companies such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and many others competing against the well funded Telecommunications lobbysts.
Ah, yes. Your monopoly profits at work -- ON BOTH SIDES!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
So it's YOUR fault?!!
*grr*
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
"Unless that was intended as funny"
*lol* can see it now: breakdown of votes for new amendment was:
60% funny
20% troll
20% overrated
goddamn mods
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
During that week, any requests for pages from those sites from the telecom's network would respond with a warning page saying
Content providers' sites are one of the few reasons that Verizon and at&t can sell anything. Without sites like Google, Amazon, and Yahoo, Verizon and at&t's pipes are pretty much worthless. The content providers really should make this clear to Verizon and at&t.
Albuquerque PC
The shame is that we (the voters) don't stand up and say "ENOUGH!" Is it because we don't think what we want is right, or is it because we expect political special interests to win despite what we, the voters want?
The game is rigged, sure enough, just as long as we sit down, shut up, and don't vote. I don't care if you disagree with me, I just want you to vote.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
OMG!!1! We're on the same side as Microsoft!?!?! WTF?!?!?!11?!?//
I don't understand how telecos are going to throttle packets.
It sounds as if the telecos are going to throttle the entire internet, especially the bigger content providers. Then only "paid", higher tiered content providers will be delivered with "premium" speeds? All the while the premium bandwith will be reserved for the telecos digital television over DSL and such.
But how is a teleco operating one of the net backbones going to know what exactly is inside a packet, if the packet is coming from a paid tier source, and where it's destination is without opening it up and examining it? That sounds like a rather ominious intrusion.
This is a step towards an extortion economy. I've heard of right wingers playing Twister before but the logic behind that post makes a Pretzel look straight as a pencil.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
If they ask questions and vote their interests, Congress will respond to their interests.
If they spend their time watching TV and vote based on what they see in expensive TV campaign ads then Congress will respond to whoever donates money.
I don't think the net neutrality question---or, rather, questions---are so straightforward as some here make them appear. The topic, however, is extremely important: what connection do you want to have in 5 years---a 10-Mb/s one or a 1-Gb/s one?
-- Stanislav Shalunov
You know... if everyone is forced to deliver all net content unfettered, there's no competition on quality, whereas is they aren't required to, different carriers will be able to compete on how unrestricted their net access is... thereby helping consumers by driving prices... um... sideways or something.
This space available.
http://action.freepress.net/campaign/savethenet
not sure how much it will do now...but worth a shot?
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
The thing is, without the neutrality bill, the telecom could slow down the traffic of that download or email to nearly zero before building extra capacity to handle both the priority and nonpriority services.
The battlefield seems to be centered around which group has the better funded lobbyists
Gee, I would *never* have thought! I mean, like, in this day and age, I would expect that buying off politicians was *impossible!*
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
The parent to this post is an idiot.
The FCC is desperately needed to regulate the internet. The FCC needs to ensure a level playing field when it comes to net traffic, whether that traffic is for google or microsoft, or my own server. I don't want to access my mail at dial-up speeds because the provider between me and it decides to that their uncompressed HD content is more important then my 5k file. I don't want my connection to time out to an independant site because verizon decided to shift all their traffic onto "the internet" thus freeing up some of their private lines to save maintanance costs.
Ensuring that the net stays neutral keeps the net more like a town hall and less like disney land. Allowing the telecoms to start charging prices ensures that they only peolpe who can truely serve content are those that have the money, not neccassarily the ones with the best content.
I'm not a fan of regulation, but it's better that the FCC does it then the telecoms.
First, yes it would. Thanks god I live in a slightly more sane country (only by a bit unfortunately). Otherwise I would have lost one of my primary pieces of daily bread. Been doing QoS for 7+ years now.
Second, Amazon, MSFT and Co should have acted long ago when the Baby Bells and Bell Wannabies killed off the peering points circa Y2K. Instead of that, they went into a direct relationship with the Baby Bells and Bell Wannabies. As a result they simply do not have a leg to stand on regarding any such issues. They are already in contractual agreement with the ATT, Verizon, Level3, etc and if one of these decides to alter the contract there is little they could do.
To put things in a perspective - in the US traffic from access goes across the telco backbone and goes to Amazon and the like via a private link. In this environment the content provider is at the mercy of the telco. In Europe the traffic goes from access across the telco backbone after that traverses a well maintained non-profit peering point like Lynx and hits the content provider after that. Technically, you can do QoS in both cases. Practically, while you can there is no way you can guarantee any QoS because you do not control the entire route. The Bells understood this more than 5 years ago and killed the US peering points like MAE by maintaining the infrastructure as bad as they could (they also owned most of them) and forcing everyone to go private. From there on the question of net neutrality is utterly pointless.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
..will be routed around. At least for the rest of the world that doesn't cripple itself. It could really suck for US internet customers and businesses for a long time unfortunately, if the major copper and fiber owners manage to roll this out.
This may very well mean those content providers and other businesses will move operations outside the USA. Hopefully, this might (not sure on this) make it difficult for US-based major telecoms and ISPs to discriminate against foreign traffic because of international treaties and agreements.
Combined with restrictive IP laws and high taxes, this could add significantly to pressure forcing innovative technologies and the corporations behind them to base themselves outside US control.
As Princess Leia said about a possible future powergrab..
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
Once more, it seems (relatively) short-term profits win out over longer-term strategies that would benefit everyone in many ways, including even themselves, and to a much greater degree over time than this self-defeating quick cash grab.
Seems they never learned the old adage about not crapping in ones' own nest.
Cheers!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
In the words of our infamous veep: "Go fuck yourself". Now whaddaya say we go hunting next weekend and you stand in front of me? Kay? ;P
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Another interesting question I think needs to be asked - if the United States validates AT&T Chairman's belief that those are 'his pipes' (forgetting its only the last mile,) how long before China decides that those are 'their pipes' and ditto for every connected country in the world.
Doesn't it stand to reason that anyone providing last mile connectivity or even backbone suddenly declare themselves worthy of charging these tolls? So instead of Google/Yahoo/etc paying just SBC/Verizon/AT&T - now they're expected to pay every telco the world over to ensure they're competitive globally vs. local competition?
Very dangerous precedent could potentially be set. (And FYI - Congresspeople are not completely oblivious to phone calls and snail mail. If it adds up on them they take that very seriously particularly if you are a constituent. Sending an e-mail though is completely useless (I know...)
Cynicism aside, what's the right thing to do in this situation?
On the one hand, in seems like the people who own the pipes should be able to do whatever they want with them. If we say they can't prioritize traffic of people that pay them good money to do it, aren't we violating their right to property?
On the other hand, if they start charging individual sites they could potentially hamper the economy, which would be against the public good. The problem is something like if all the roads in the country were privately owned and had toll booths everywhere...
Maybe the answer is that bandwidth should become a public utility. The companies who own it should be granted a monopoly, but then should be severely regulated along the lines power is. Its obvious that internet connectivity is as important to the public good as water and power. We need uniform access to these services across the country. Any part of the country that doesn't have access because its not profitable for verizon to provide it, simply can't economically develop. Also, realistically speaking, this would be *vastly* easier to do than power.
I'm sure that the existing bandwidth providers would have to be pulled into this kicking and screaming... but frankly the exact same thing happened with power providers. Originally, power companies didn't want to be forced to do things like run lines out to rural areas. This was unfortunate, because electric lighting is pretty important in agriculture. Eventually, when it was evident that the interest of the power companies came so strongly in conflict with the public interest, the regulations we have today were set up.
I don't know if this is necessary for bandwidth. It hasn't really come up so far, primarily because its a new thing, and because it didn't take them that long to make the internet accessible from pretty much everywhere in the country, by some means or another. Of course, that's just my anecdotal impression. Are there some places where its impossible to get a T1 line at a reasonable price? Are even businesses stuck with satellite in many places? If that's the case, it would be a strong argument to regulate the ISPs in some ways.
However, as far as I know aside from just generally failing to get home broadband to work on their first try, the ISPs seem to have done a pretty good job of getting everyone internet access. I think they must be somewhat aware of what could happen to them in terms of regulation if they abuse the public good too much. I'm sure they will follow a very fine line, but I'm happy to wait to see if they cross it before I consider regulation a good option. As a rule, its best to do nothing if you can. However, prioritized traffic is probably something we have to stop, depending on how strong the prioritization is. If they insure a certain level of quality for all traffic, it probably won't be an issue... but I suspect that they won't if they can get away with it.
I wonder how the committee voted on this.
Would it be so hard for the reporter to include that in the story?
The official site of the committee hides their voting record on matters like this very well.
I couldn't find it... Would it be that hard to have a quick link on the main page?
http://energycommerce.house.gov/
Business as usual within the beltway.
Please remain on your side of the pond.
In most big technical companies, it's tough enough to get your *management* to understand the critical technical issues. (If you work in a small startup, there's a good chance that some of the main players do understand, but if you're big enough to have VC-funded management and an HR department, it's pretty likely that have the management aren't technical enough.) Getting *Congresscritters* to understand anything technical is much tougher, and the FCC are a variable set of political hacks, ranging from occasional people who are outstandingly good to other people who are more concerned about regulating TV coverage of Janet Jackson's boobs.
The MoveOn.org petition-distributors don't understand the real issues, so the things they're telling the Democrat Congresscritters aren't helping their ignorance any. Some of the big customers understand some of the real issues. The telecom company managers have demonstrated that while they may understand some of the issues, they'd rather do a bone-headed arrogant "It's Our Money" regulatory play than try to talk technology to the public.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Reps and Dems are in this together, so all you gotta do is vote for some alterna... oh.
Hmmm...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
10mb or 1Gb doesn't matter, as long as someone else dictates at what speeds you may go where.
I don't care if I got 1GB speed when accessing a port 80 (http) server, when at the same time I get 50kbit for streaming content, P2P or secure copy.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
From a comment on Groklaw:
i d=2006042600285164&title=Net+Neutrality+is+equal+t o+Freedom+of+Speech...!&type=article&order=&hidean onymous=0&pid=434496#c434501
Note that the "children" comments that followed this comment covered much detail regarding some specifics to part of what was in the quotes taken from the comment below - to see those comments and children of those comments go to:
http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&s
"Verizon and the TelCo PAC say they need to be paid for the upgrades to fiber that they are making? Well, one union lineman that works for Verizon told me that as the TELCOs install more fiber to the house, they will end up saving HUGE amounts of money, as the TELCOs will more longer need to pay for the expensive labor that is required today to maintain the copper lines (corrosion, lightning damage due to copper getting hit then equipment blowing up), as copper costs them. The Union for Telco workers is looking at fiber optics to the business or house as the biggest pink slip creator ever in the history of the Telephone Industry. Copper costs the Telephone Companies in both labor (maintance) and equipment (Fiber equipment lasts longer and does not suffer from electrical surges that are caused by every lighting storm that happens in the US ever day. Fiber does not corrode, does not conduct lighting, and is even cheaper to produce with a lower cost per foot to buy than copper... FIber is just glass! Cheap to produce and cheap to maintain... all splices to fiber lines are perfect every time. A splice to a copper line is a future failure point due to the corrosion that can then occur at that point or break in the line.
The Telephone and cable industry does NOT need to charge more! They don't need the right to OWN the internet and charge fees to those who USE is (other than the customer side where a customer can choose the speed they want and pay the fee for it's use)! The Telephone Companies and Cable Companies are looking for their own monopoly again (only this time in restricting free speech, freedom of commerce, and to restrict and own the freedoms of competition with their own a third party tax OR TOLL BOOTH ON THE PUBLIC INTERNET where the fees then become a barrier to it's use!
IF the Republicans pass this bill through it will cause masses of internet users to vote them out of office in the next election. The US internet user wants their internet access on every side to remain free! This is an attack by an industry on the Freedoms of Internet Access and by doing this it is a direct attack on the Freedoms of Speech! What are YOU going to do about this TODAY?"
Google's Quote of the Day two days ago hit the nail on the head:
In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.
- John Adams
You're almost certainly joking, but it's worth pointing out that a lot of corruptions start with well-intended abuse. It may seem reasonable to encourage a politician to do the right thing by unorthodox means, but that only leads to further corruption. What we need to do is expose any failures in the system that lead to politicians doing the wrong thing.
What we need is a (near) completley deregulated internet, and privacy on our home computers. If ATT and SBC start filtering Google and Amazon, then maybe ppl will sign up with companies like Speakeasy and other local providers.
"He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. [...] It's what drives men mad, being methodical." G.K.Chesterton
When you think of Google, Amazon, Ebay etc. ... their whole business depends on telecommunication, so that what it's worth to them to have their data sent is basically their entire profit margin, which is non-zero. So ... at the moment they are enjoying a benefit which is known as "consumer surplus". Consumer surplus is the area between a demand curve and a given (fixed) price (see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_surplus).
Any marketeer knows that to get the maximum amount of money out of a market, you have to deal with each consumer individually, and price your goods to exactly what he's willing to pay. You can do that if his negotiation position is completely transparant to you, i.e. if you know his demand curve.
Now that extreme is too bothersome, so what do you do? You segment the market into sections that have approximately the same willingness to pay. For each segment you then negotiate a price close to the minimum willingness to pay for that segment. You won't get all the revenue you would have if you were able to charge each consumer the maximum price they're willing to pay, but you're getting close.
The trick is to identify the segments in the first place, and to gain a strong negotiating position. Identifying your customers is the basic step to figuring out their willingness to pay, and of late we have seen Cisco routers that do exactly that. So that's one hole plugged.
The second issue is to gain a strong negotiating position. That's all taken care of because the telecom companies have ensured that all electronic traffic must pass through their infrastructure.
The only remaining problem was that it wasn't legal for them to bluntly start pricing each individual customer what they would pay. Now with the removal of "net-neutrality" this is taken care of as well. Telecom companies can simply induce unacceptable delays as follows:
- (1) allocate reserved bandwidth channels on their infrastructure for customers that are prepared to pay more (got to provide superior service if we're going to charge more, right?)
- (2) route traffic in those channels with priority over existing infrastructure
- (3) watch natural traffic growth of priority traffic squeeze the performance of the non-priority traffic
- (4) politely but firmly negotiate large price increases with large customers such as Google, Ebay, Amazon who can't live with the now much reduced performance of their services
All legal, all neat. Telcos increase their profits at the expense of the (large corporate) users of telecoms facilities. Of course it won't stop there. Individual consumers and small businesses are next. Not satisfied with your Internet performance? (hehehe) Subscribe to our Deluxe service!
If you think I'm making any of this up, then see Cisco's pitch of its routers that can identify traffic here http://www.corecom.com/ftpdir/pub/corecom/iprev-bi lling.ppt. as powerpoint and here as html: http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:dt-ljUr4k5QJ:w ww.corecom.com/ftpdir/pub/corecom/iprev-billing.pp t+cisco+routers+identify+traffic+tiered+charge&hl= en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=8
The only cloud in the sky is the fact that the Telecoms companies don't create value in this way. They simply take away consumer surplus. Gi
>I sometimes wonder if it isn't just time to move to another country.
Ain't no other country want your lazy ass, and even if it did; name any that ain't already as corrupt and bought out as america is.
Ain't no where to run to, so you might as well bite that pillow.
And the opposite of the Constitution is... well, you work it out.
qntm.org
Prostitution! Whoo Hoo! =D
Do I get a cookie?
I love to slaughter the english language.
I wonder if anyone has pointed out to these astute members of Congress that without net neutrality it would be possible for well-funded opponents to pay for much better access of their campaign websites to voters? Also, moving beyond the Googles, Amazons and Yahoos, does all this mean that superchurches will have better access to me than my local Methodist church, that the Havards and Stanfords will have better access to my college-bound children than the nearby small four-year liberal arts college, that it will be easier to buy a ticket to a Broadway show than one to a local production by the hometown theater company? The net should be regulated in a manner similar to a common carrier. To expect the telcos and cable operators to play fair is like expecting someone who cheats at cards to play fair. Telcos and cable operators have routinely stacked the deck in the past. I expect them to continue to do so.
I respectfully disagree. I'm inclined toward free market capitalism, but the model just doesn't work when public funding has entered the equation and there are institutionalized monopolies in that market. Your independent ISPs STILL have to go through networks owned by the big Telcos or cable companies. If the Internet is fully "de-regulated" as you suggest, those companies will be able to slow down the service you get from the little guys, and/or make it more expensive. Consumers will definitely gravitate toward whoever provides the best service for the money. "De-regulation" is a nice buzz word, but when the consumer is locked into a market where a monopoly dictates availability and price of the service, "free market" capitalism is broken.
Call your senator.
Tell them what you think this bill will do. And mostly why you won't vote for the again or contribuite to their campaigns.
(It is the only thing you can do, unless you are a freelance lobbyist that wants to work pro-bono for slashdotters.)
Here is their contact information.
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/ senators_cfm.cfm
Everybody pays for their bandwidth already-- the price of connectivity is pegged to how much traffic you generate. If Google, Amazon, et al. create more traffic, they buy more bandwidth to carry it. Payment scales with use right now. There's no such thing as more or less profitable traffic, for a telco-- traffic is traffic-- and there's no reason there should be.
This is not about making payment scale with use. This is a shakedown.
The analogy you draw to the California energy companies is surprisingly apt-- that was a shakedown, too.
If Slashdot members in each community where Verizon is applying to get a cable TV franchise would speak up about Net Neutrality at their local town council meetings then we have a chance at kicking a leg out from under the telcos.
The legislation that will allow for national cable TV franchises will not be passed into law for at least a year (if at all). That gives us time to approach small towns and tell them to make Verizon put provisions into their cable TV franchise agreement for Net Neutrality.
I know it sounds like a crazy and far fetched idea but it can work.
All we need is a few key towns to stick up for Net Neutrality and we will have the precedent needed at the national level.
Verizon needs to roll out their TV service as fast as they can. Holding them up at the local level is, in my opinion, the best way to protect Net Neutrality.
Check out what we are doing in my town: www.redbanktv.org
Thanks -- Tom
A fact that the general public does not realize that if oil wasn't so high that the government is now taking action against the Big Oil companies (who have anally raped consumers at the gas pump while raking in record profits), the government would be taking action against Big Telecom (which has been leaving dirty messages in our voice mail like a drunken Pat O'Brien).
Given that the House Committee on Energy & Commerce has done little to stop Big Oil from buttf*cking us, it is more than certain that they will allow Big Telecom to do the same.
Big Telecom's arguments for wanting to make the Internet it's b*tch.
First, they tell us that they "want to provide more services to consumers" and "are woking hard to bring it to consumers." For those who were not born yesterday, this is BS. The telecom industry generally says these things because they are also trying to take over the entire cable industry, not just part of it which they already own. They don't want a slice of pie, they want to whole thing.
Secondly, they tell us that they "want to help the government apprehend online predators". It sounds like a noble objective, but what Big Telecom doesn't tell the goverment is that this goal is at the bottom of thier list of things to do, which probably looks like this:
When I was in the kindergarden and first grade, AT&T and some energy gave the school these fliers to pass out to children to teach children about energy conservation and tell children about some of the technology that is out there that AT&T used to help others especially the disabled and the deaf. In retrospect, this is nothing more than corporate propoganda. If you have children who come home with this sort of materal, file a complaint against the school board for allowing major corporations to sell out your children!
Generally, Big Telecom does not report any records of predators who work for Big Telecom. They also won't report anyone who works for any government agency in order to influence the government, at the right price no less. They will also hide any evidence that they themselves are engaging in these illict acts. Industries often use altrusism to coverup any corruption they are currently engaging in (see Big Tobacco).
Finaly, Big telecom also tells us that they "want to pr
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
I really can't tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing. We can agree that it's bad if the telcos achieve a monopoly. But does this laissez faire move on Congress' part help, hinder, or neither? If the markets work, then I feel hands off is best. I think the markets are working currently. Even that Whitacre character of SBC has conceded that forcing discriminatory service on customers would be economic suicide.
If the market doesn't work, then it seems to me Congress' best move is whatever is required to allow the market to function. It may be as simple as a requiring a little daylight, so the telcos cannot hide things and customers can inform themselves. That's how sales tax is done in the US on everything except gas. A store must mark items with the price _before_ taxes are added, so that when we get to the cash register, we see exactly how heavily we are being taxed. A bad law has many edges and unintended consequences. Think "chilling effects". It would be the height of irony if we passed a law intended to preserve net neutrality, but which had the opposite effect by perhaps unwittingly raising the barriers so high there is no competition because only the biggest can afford to comply with all the regulations. Think SOX.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"