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Net Neutrality Bill in Congress
hip2b2 writes "The US Congress is finally doing something to prevent large bandwidth providers and network operators from charging (or putting restrictions on) competing web and other Internet media content providers. According to this NetworkWorld article, the new bill sponsored by Democratic Representatives Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Jay Inslee of Washington state, Anna Eshoo of California and Rick Boucher of Virginia in the House and Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon in the Senate. I am not a big fan of legislation, but, I hope this bill keeps the Internet a freer place." Here is our coverage of the first round.
Government legislated control of Internet traffic management is the exact opposite of most any definition of "free".
My prediction is that this bill will never even make it out of committee. Far too many telco lobbyists on K Street to let that happen.
Thalasar
at the end - the Senate bill would only require that net neutrality be "studied", not enforced. This is a tactic employed by both parties - introduce a bill for publicity in one branch of the legislature, introduce a version which is watered down into oblivion in the other, and kill it in committee during the process of "reconciling" the House and Senate versions.
This is particularly often seen with the House bill being the publicity seeker - Reps need to run for office every 2 years...
Using plain ol' text since 1968
Have you seen who runs Congress ?
Have you seen noticed the oil companies raking it in ?
I expect more intrusive laws to divide and conquer the internet by corporate robber barons.
As I recall there is a very long path before a law becomes a bill. It's a rough ride and poor old bill might get a bit hurt on the way.
Should we all have a whip around, get some cash to lobby/bribe some of the body politic? I mean the free man doesn't really have an input into the political system these, days what with all the major corporations and their politcal representatives.
They should invent something to deal with that. I suggest something to do with "common people" and "rule, strength", leveraging something called voting. Maybe democracy? Worth a shot.
Your statement is absolutely absurd, and it is an insult to centuries of struggle for democratic government.
In fact, it is the primary purpose of our government to keep us free, and the primary instrument our government has for that is legislation: legislation that keeps people from harming each other, legislation that keeps companies from distorting a free market, and legislation that establishes institutions that protect us from external threats.
Government legislated control of Internet traffic management is exactly what it means for our government to keep us free.
Now, I'll give you this much: our government sometimes does the wrong thing, either because of misguided people (like you!) or because of outright corruption. But the solution is not to get rid of democratic government and legislation (we had that for a few millennia and it wasn't pretty and certainly not free), the solution is to fix government and make sure the legislation is good legislation.
It was in Democrats' time that internet was spread all over the world, and it became the medium with the most freedom ever known, and it is democrats again who are trying to protect it.
Read radical news here
"I am not a big fan of legislation, but..."
I've read this a few times on Slashdot now. It's usually followed by some comment about a special case (or special interest?) where legislation is a Good Thing. This bugs me, because it's hypocritical.
As an example, the entire concept of laissez-faire (free-market) economics (thank you, Adam Smith!) is based upon assumptions that do not hold in the real world. If we want an economy that even approximates a 'free-market', then we need legislation.
Look at Microsoft, or AT&T. Were it not for legislation, there's be no check to their anti-competitive practices. In my opinion (FWIW) the natural end-consequence of a totally free market (in the absence of any control) are cartels - massive companies bribing (what remains of) the government, and helping their cronies and friends.
So you've seen no evidence of any wireless provider disallowing SMS messages to another, right?
So you've also seen no evidence of some ISP's throttling access to certain types of traffic, particularly someone else's VOIP (e.g. Vonage)? Talk to the Canadians who are getting screwed by Rogers.
The telephone systems work as seemlessly as they do because they are REQUIRED to do so. Yes, I can switch providers for long distance, etc. Why is that so easy, because everyone HAS to pass the traffic along equally. Imagine having a phone conversation where you speak, the other party has to wait a second or two and vice versa.
I already pay to consume bandwidth and data providers pay to send it. Enough of the greedy SOBs trying to extort every penny out of everyone because they were too stupid to develop their own Googles and Yahoos. This is no different then the scum "patent" holders who sit back with what are typically bogus patents waiting for a company to spend their time and money to create real products and then swoop in and extort money from them.
As noted elsewhere in this thread, be very careful about getting too excited about this bill. I'm all for network neutrality, but if the re-introduction of the broadcast flag is the price we pay for it, I'm not sure what to think. We need to stand up to our legislators and get them to pass an honest bill. We're not talking about a little pork project added onto an otherwise good bill. Rather, this bill now is now a complete mess, giving corporations less control over the internet, but more control over digital media. The only difference is which big corporate entities stand to benefit most on the backs of consumers. Do not stand for this kind of garbage, and contact your representative and senator today, because no informed American would want the broadcast flag, even if it is wrapped up in a pretty little bow that says "network neutrality" on it.
Why would it be bad to have competition in the type of service provided? Why would it be bad to be able to prioritize types of network traffic? Why would it be bad to have competitive internets where different networks interconnected out of market pressure instead of FCC or Congressional regulation?
Because the end result would be a "diverse" array of options that were all worse than what we have now.
Your argument sounds like the one American health care companies pitch to their customers - "hey, wouldn't it be great if you could *choose* to pay a different rate because you live a healthy lifestyle according to this detailed information you supplied us with?" The implication is supposed to be that your health care costs will go down because you're healthy, when really they will stay the same (instead of increasing)... for now. As time passes, your rates will still increase as other "unhealthy" behaviours are added to the list.
No telecom corporation in the US is going to *improve* service in the name of competition for internet access customers. They will race to the bottom to see who can provide the shittiest service while still retaining the most subscribers, because it's more profitable in the short term (which is all they care about now, thanks to myopic shareholders and execs).
The internet works just fine the way it is. What *possible* benefit could competing networks provide, other than to the people with stock in the telecom companies involved?
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
Without pressure from constituents, it is even less likely that a bill will ever reach the floor.
Proposed legislation is just as important as legislation that reaches the floor, potentially more so -- once it reaches the floor, most legislators have already decided where they stand on the issue.
Now, in the formative stages of legislative thought, is when it is MOST important to make sure your legislators support your views on issues like this. Waiting until it hits the floor is like waiting to have your brakes fixed until you need to stop to keep from rear-ending someone while barreling down a hill at 80 miles per hour. Our legislature needs 'preventative maintenance' just as much as your car does.
Contact your legislators early. Contact them often.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
If not the ethernet into your home or office, they will control the wireless access points.
If it's a free service in one of the many coffee shops that offer it, then you can't really expect them not to try to find some way to make a profit off of the free bandwidth they are giving you.
It's astonishing how many people are just automatically assuming that network neutrality is good. Considering no such neutrality is imposed on wireless telephony, cable or DBS, why is it necessary here?
Because it's not politcally acceptable to charge some businesses extra money in order to avoid having static on their phone lines, or certain entertainment companies not have snow or ridiculously high MPG compression on their channels. It is, however, for some reason politically acceptable to do this with when the very same data is transmitted by TCP/IP.
Imagine if Verizon Wireless told Fox that they had to pay Verizon money if they wanted callers from Verizon Wireless calling in votes for American Idol to avoid static and dropped calls. What if Rupert Murdoch (DirecTV) told HBO that unless they paid, HBO's video stream would be set on very high MPG compression so it looked like crap. It is technically possible, but customers wouldn't accept it. With the Internet, customers are largely ignorant of how it works. They won't know they're getting fucked until after it's over. That's why.
I think it's actually the definition of anarchy, which means you're arguing in circles.
The internet, despite being funded by the government, is a creature born relatively free of arbitrary strictures, conceived, in fact, with the intention of circumventing them.
I read an article yesterday about the financial services lobby finally getting involved, as they've suddenly realised that tiered service could have an adverse effect on their customer service reputations. If customers are suddenly forced to pay extra to get a bank statement, or make an online payment, or have to accept slow service with their current internet service, this is going to impact on them in a horrible fashion. It's a shame, but the reality is that this will likely end up as a behemoth industry vs behemoth industry fight over our rights to reasonable service at a reasonable price. Sorry about the lack of a link, I'm having to look over my shoulder and risk a dressing down just to type this out - searching for the story would be too damn risky.
Freedom for Citizens != Freedom for Corporations
In my view, it's important for the government to regulate corporations, when corporations take a prominent role in determining how basic services will be provided to citizens.
Individual citizens do not have much of a voice in determining what the options are...unless our government is that voice.
I find it baffling why you would value a corporation's "freedom" over that of the masses. But that's just a difference of opinion. Neither side in this argument can legitimately claim to represent "freedom for all."
Pete Forsyth
don't forget the senate one has the broadcast flag attached to it.. which, knowing our hollywood puppets--- i mean congressional representatives--- would be the only thing to survive.. campaign against this bill in the senate.. say nothing in the house lest they tack the flag onto this one too -.-
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The market is based on legislation. It cannot exist without it. Laws govern contracts, fraud, trademark violations, false advertising, property, theft, violence, and so on. The government is already involved in every "private" transaction.
The claim that legislation is inherently bad implicitly redefines the market as some sort of natural state of affairs. The modern economic system is very much a product of human choice and action. It is no more natural than any other economic or social regime. The blanket criticism of legislation is an ideological attempt to obscure the ability for human beings to choose their government and their laws. If you believe democratic government is the problem, by all means criticize that. Don't try to redefine "legislation" to exclude democratic change (or what passes for it anyway) from a fundamental sphere of human activity.
I'm probably not as worried as I should be about this.
One of the real problems driving this is that being an ISP or being a backbone provider is nowhere near as profitable as having cool content. The ISPs in various forms have been either trying to buy content or produce their own. Neither approach has been very successful. In my opinion that failure is due to the business models between pumping packets and producing content are pretty incompatible.
Now let's assume that the net isn't neutral. So every ISP will contact, say, Yahoo! and offer some kind of "enhanced services package" that will guarantee that packets to or from Yahoo! will get there faster.
My first question -- how does Yahoo! or any other customer measure whether they are getting any benefit from getting their packets faster? Given the service quality history that most ISPs have, I'd be pretty damned skeptical that they could get something running that could be specific enough to an actual entity they could bill, and keep it running. I'd also wonder how Yahoo! or any other business could justify paying such a tariff if they couldn't measure the benefit.
My second question -- how many "enhanced serice" deals can a company like Yahoo! manage? There are still quite literally thousands of ISPs in the world. There aren't that many backbone providers, but there are still quite a few. That is still a lot of contracts to manage. Note that having even dozens of such deals is going to make the measurement problem described in the first question even tougher.
It seems to me that this is going to be a very tough sell. The threat that they could favor content they produce themselves kind of begs the question -- they really haven't been able to produce persuasive content of their own, and even some of the spectacular mergers (e.g. AOL/Time Warner) haven't been what I'd call spectacular successes.
One place where this non-neutral net idea could "work" well is with foreign service providers, especially in poorer countries with fewer network access points. There it could be done by demanding a "tariff" from Yahoo! or Google or all access to those services could be effectively blocked in such a country. This could be a killer revenue source for poor, corrupt, and dysfunctional third-world countries, much like long-distance tarrifs are now.