Slashdot Mirror
U.S. House Rejects Net Neutrality
tygerstripes writes "A recent vote in the U.S. House of Representatives has led to a rejection of the principle of Net Neutrality from the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act (Cope Act), in spite of massive lobbying from prominent businesses. According to the BBC, the bill '...aims to make it easier for telecoms firms to offer video services around America by replacing 30,000 local franchise boards with a national system overseen by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'. However, according to House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, 'telecommunications and cable companies will be able to create toll lanes on the information superhighway... This strikes at the heart of the free and equal nature of the internet.'"
When I opened up this Slashdot article in Internet Explorer, the headline read "U.S. House Rejects Net Neutrality" but when I opened it up in Firefox it read "Wealthy Old White Men Reject Yet Another Form Of Equality."
In it's raw form, the internet is a communications device. You section it off--and you're going to piss people off. The more people you piss off, the more hackers you'll spawn. I for one hope that these "toll" lanes are violated right off the bat by the best and brightest of the Ukraine & Russia.
My work here is dung.
I read the article and I saw a picture of a movie star. Pretty random even though the blurb said she backed net netrality.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
Now my pr0n's gonna be impossible to get.
whhhhat???? the Internet is free????
I realize that "net neutrality" is conventional wisdom among geeks, but I remain very skeptical. To summarize:
1)bandwidth is already plentiful; we're talking about hypothetical harms here. (For the record, I actually downgraded my broadband a few months ago, with absolutely no complaints).
2)companies already pay for ISP's and webhosting; tiered service is not anything new. Anyway, webhosting costs have been decreasing in price. I find it highly unlikely that this downward trend won't continue across the board.
3)The thing I find strange is that if anything, tiered pricing, by passing on costs to distributors, could ultimately benefit consumers by lowering subscription costs. Tiered pricing could increase flexibility. I really am not sure. But that should be for private industry to decide. Even if legislators were relatively well-informed and up-to-date, the pace of technology change tends to outstrip that of legislative oversight; this legislation will probably be obsolete on the day it is passed.
4)So what if SBC decides to implement a tiered system of bandwidth! Consumers just stop renewing their contracts if they hate it enough. That's much better than making courts and legislators do a lot of hairsplitting about what legislative intent was/should be.
5)I worry less about tiered service than I do about ISPs blocking p2p traffic. Then again, I see no need to enact legislation merely to keep certain ports open.
6)as an independent content producer (and soon a distributor), I want the Net environment to be as unregulated as possible (even from laws that purport to ensure acess). If some ISPs are going to charge for tiered service, either they better offer substantial benefits to customers or people will abandon them in droves.
7)what concerns me more is restrictive Terms of Service and EULAs. If ISPs offer twice the bandwidth for half the cost, that is great. But if the saving comes with all sorts of extra provisions on TOS, then the battle has been lost.
8)There is a certain arrogance to the notion that consumers can't be trusted to act in their self-interest but require government's "help" to be protected.
9)I think the harm being addressed here is that consumers and businesses need more alternatives for obtaining net access. They shouldn't be in a market where they only have one ISP to choose from. To use myself as an example, the only way I can obtain DSL access in my apartment complex is by getting SBC phone service first. SBC could double the prices of a landline, and I'd have no choice but to swallow it. Then again, I could easily switch to a wireless phone carrier that includes wireless Net service. Or if worse comes to worse, I could obtain satellite. But government regulation would introduce an element of uncertainty and legal wrangling that could deter the offering of new services. For the record, I had a legal dispute with SBC, so I ended up going with a local company for DSL (although I still had to pay for a landline). It's still possible even in the day of semi-monopolies to withhold support from the incumbent ISP.
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
I'd try and make a pithy, Slashdot-worthy sarcastic comment, but my ISP doesn't allow that unless I upgrade to the Crusty Cynic Power User Package for an additional $9.95 a month.
'telecommunications and cable companies will be able to create toll lanes on the information superhighway... This strikes at the heart of the free and equal nature of the internet.' strikes at the heart and stabs it. stabs it. stabs it.
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
Why can't I view this article?
Oh wait...
I assume we're talking here about ISPs discriminating in favour of their own paid subscription services, as opposed to the backbone operators doing the same. Now the ISP's infrastructure is private, and there seems to be a competition among ISPs. Will they all practice packet discrimination? I doubt it.
You can say that this breaks the "spirit of the internet", but some packet discrimination is essential when routers have to choose which packets to forward first, especially when some traffic should be low-latency, other high-bandwidth, other low-priority. I agree that the best solution is for the end-users to pay for their traffic, not the solution provider, but again -- it's the ISP's infrastructure and they can choose their own business model.
This new level could also be used to spy on Level 1 ?
I am guessing this level has it's own security layer.
Wow!
The telcos will begin the tiered internet pricing, and in the end the price hike will inevitably cost the consumer more.
What I want to know is, how can I get around their speed throttling for sites that do not pay up? I am not that savvy when it comes to coding my own scripts, but are there any tools that will help make things stay the same usage wise (if not price wise)?
Also, can someone clearly list some bullet points of how this will ultimately affect the end user? I'd like to share them with my family and explain to my Republican father how his boys have ruined our countries future.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
It still has to pass the senate. Hopefully they have more sense than the house.
What I see coming is: you can't use your favorite search engine from your home computer efficiently. Your IP will love to replace Google with something maybe less useful, but more cluttered with advertisements. Of course, ultimatively this engine will use Yahoo/Google/MS search to do the task, but most probably there will be lucrative agreements between these companies and IP providers, who will add their own advertisements to the raw search results.
Am I right? Am I missing the point?
I hope the consequences in Europe will be at worse deleyed, and at best much reduced.
Or maybe new services will emerge -- similar to pay TV like Premiere in Germany -- which, for money, will promise you to filter out all ads and provide you with high quality service.
j.
Room 101 for you!
Signed, Ministry of Love.
1) agreed
2) Newsflash...they always have been, and always will.
3) Never was....never was.
If they can up-throttle comapnies that pay them, what's to stop them from down-throttling traffic from everyone who doesn't?
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
or is it just the US gov't that is doing this?
wasn't the "net neutrality bill" actually -against- the principle of net neutrality? and thus, by the bill not passing, hasn't net neutrality scored a victory?
If video packets were to be encrypted, how could the ISPs tell the difference between a video stream and a (very long) letter to my grandma?
Look at this from the point of view of the telcos for a moment. When everyone has a high bandwidth internet connection, everyone will be able to:
1) Make phonecalls
2) Do video conferencing
3) Access video services
4) Access music services
5) Play games with their friends
6) work collaboratively
7) etc. etc.
And what will the service providers be able to charge? $50 a month (or whatever) for the connection.
I don't see how rest of the world will stand for US mandating tolls on what should be, by design, nutral grounds. Hopefuly net result will be World-US Wide Web and US Wide Web. usww.theygottobejoking.gov
Welcome to the digital age. I sure hope the united states will come back to there senses in the comming 20 years. Giving up net neutrallity is giving up one of the core principles of the internet. Now internet wil be less easy to innovate and change the world. In return you get more and more control of goverment and Corporations. They should have nothing to do with content. Anyway sounds like all you slashdotters, free software movements and even Microsoft, ebay people should gather and march towards washington in one big protest. TO ALL NERDS GET FROM UNDER YOUR ROCK AND SPEAK OUT
The House is really on a roll today. Not only did they reject net neutrality proposals, but they also approved a digital licensing bill which was discussed on Slashdot before, that has fair-use implications for consumers.
It looks like consumers just can't win in these battles these days.
A community-oriented lyrics site
the internet gets more expensive and restricted than it already is i will be forced to cancel and pull the plug...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
For those who do not know what Net Neutrality is, I think this video sums it up pretty well.
An illegal war in Iraq
Not saying I support or agree with the war in Iraq, but how is it illegal? Last I looked the President was commander and chief of the armed services and had the approval of congress, it is pretty hard to be illegal with those two branches supporting it (especially when the supreme court hasn't heard a case regarding it).
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
Right when I discover my Web site's already acting slow, because of a heavily overworked server, they want to make it run even slower by cutting off my access to it? Look, RoadRunner's already offering probably the slowest, most unreliable broadband connection I can think of – every couple of days I have to restart the cable modem, router, etc. to keep it running, and of course there's no other broadband provider in my area. The last thing I need is for them to make it any slower. In fact, furthermore— CARRIER ERROR hsthth5yu3496345242n4i9pu233e0gjeindggE++
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
If net neutrality is not going to be enforced legally, then maybe it's time to start blocking internet providers who behave in such a destructive fashion.
Remind me to buy all the stock I can in non-US web hosts. I have a feeling that market's about to explode.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Ok, from what I understand it means that net neutrality is one step closer to being disregarded and that the internet is becoming more restricted and commercial; correct?
Do these congressmen/women actually think this is going to work? Neutrality is the foundation of the internet. It defines its purpose, its freedoms and its desire. This is a huge reason as to why its so popular. if it is restricted and controlled like it is becoming, people will lose interest and it will either fork or go underground, or worse - end.
For the love of God, can we not stop this?!
ilovegeorgebush
My name isn't Julia.
Of course that wouldn't pass. The Federal Communications Commission doesn't exist to provide government regulation of the communications sector in order to protect consumer interests. That would be patently ridiculous because the USA is a free-market economy, which means you can just run your own copper wire to your neighbor's house and start your own network if you're not happy with the one that exists. And if you don't get a permit to dig you can always use a pair of tin cans and a string.
No people, the Federal Communications Commission exists to censor those communications from swearwords and nudity, which is obviously a much more important thing for government to be doing.
It's a little late to worry about reading the text and contacting your Congressman, but here's a link to the bill. Here's a link to see how your Congressman voted.
>> "What would the robut do? Frame someone!"
Does anybody know where we can find the voting record? I'd like to see how my representative voted -- I sent him a rather lenghtly letter with a nice executive summary (for quicker reading), and I'd like to be able to tell him I'm either going to vote for him again, or that I'm crossing party lines on my next trip to the polls....
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
I can't wait for Google and its dark fiber, we've got to shit out this waste of ISPs.
The President was legally required to present to Congress the evidence that Iraq was an imminent threat to US security within three days of commencing hostilities, according to the legislation that gave him the authority you mention.
It's been three years.
They shouldn't be in a market where they only have one ISP to choose from.
Yeah, but we can't legislate additional wires or ISPs into existence. We can, however, legislate that the wires and ISPs exist are used equitably and in a way that protects people from arbitrary pricing and restrictions.
so I ended up going with a local company for DSL
The fact that you have that choice is itself a consequence of a legal framework that gives you that choice. Completely unregulated, your phone company would be the only DSL provider, and they'd charge monopoly prices (actually, completely unregulated, you'd be on a 19.2kbps dial-up line, if you're lucky).
So, legislation like this works, and you have just given another example of that.
The Internet is a form of communication that allows almost anyone to put a message out. For years People In Power (PIP) having been looking for a way to further control this. And now PIP have a method, a road in a manner of speaking, to ensuring that this form of communication can be limited, manipulated, and molded to their liking.
I'm not saying this to cause hate and discontent, or FUD. I'm saying it because I see it as an issue. I truely hope that the House is contacted by enough people to show them that this isn't what people really want.
Check out the Book "Censored: The News That Didn't Make The News - Carl Jenson & Project Censored"
Or go to a libray and ask the libranians about books or online content that have been censored; The good ones really pay attention to that stuff and want to tell people who are interested.
*Please excuse my spelling.
"Yeah, but by we know yo mama gives EVERYBODY root privilege..." -jpetts (208163)
Then they wouldn't have any way to know how to filter it would they?
Maybe by port number.....but they wouldn't be able to parse packets for "google" and slow those down.
My TCP/IP knowledge is rusty...but maybe you can't encrypt the destination port.......yet.
As for this:
It's utter bullshit. The ISPs won't lower the bills the end users, they'll just pocket the profits from prioritizing provider content.
Look for a technological workaround to this problem soon.
Question everything
I am shocked... SHOCKED that you'd actually expect elected representatives to actually represent their constiuents.
How silly of you.
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
Is there a site that list which people in the house voted for and against the bill. I think that would be nice to know so I can determine if I should vote for them (for standing their ground and voting for Net Nutrality, or against them for voting against it.), My personal echonomy and I am sure many slashdotters out there depend on Net Nutrality for their jobs. We don't all work for major corporations who can easilly aford extra costs without blinking an eye.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
and yet, here is a case where the government has decided NOT to add additional regulation, and just hear the hue and cry! Ultimately, if I or you, or ABC Giant Corporation(tm) pays for the infrastructure and owns the equiptment, don't they have the right to charge as they see fit for access? If I run a dry-cleaner can't I charge more for same-day service? Isn't reasonable that I might charge a frequent customer less, or I might charge more to clean your sequined tube-top? (sissy). The Cato Institue explains a more libertarian perspective on things
"The regulatory regime envisioned by Net neutrality mandates would also open the door to a great deal of potential "gaming" of the regulatory system and allow firms to use the regulatory system to hobble competitors. Worse yet, it would encourage more FCC regulation of the Internet and broadband markets in general."
Is it just me, or are a lot of people asking the government to regulate our businesses?
Kadko- *sigh* 156hrs and it looks like the work of a 12yr old
As soon as private companies got involved, and the internet was opened up for business, it stopped being free. The network owners want to charge as many people as much as possible, so they'll segment the market as much as they can.
This is just the free market in action. It has all the benefits and disadvantages of the rest of the capitalist system.
The biggest problem I have with this bill is that the lines aren't the telco's to regulate in the first place. Here's the sequence of events in the form of a chat log:
Telcos: Hey congress, we want to build fiber to have a faster internet for the future. Would you please pay for it?
Congress: Sure! That sounds like a swell idea. Here's some money!
Telcos: (Later) Congress we ran out of money! Can we have some more?
Congress: Sure! Just finish the daggone thing already!
Telcos: (More Later) Congress we ran out of money! Can we have some more?
Congress: Sure! Just finish the daggone thing already!
Telcos: (Even More Later) Congress we ran out of money! Can we have some more?
Congress: Sure! Just finish the daggone thing already!
Telcos: Congress! WTF! We want to be able to charge people more for using these lines you paid for with taxpayer dollars!
Congress: FINE JUST GO AWAY
You can buy faster broadband. Why aren't all of the people paying $15/month griping that their bandwidth is less than those paying $45/month?
I'm with PIPEX UK, is they detect an unencrypted torrent packet they traffic shape my connection down to 20Kbps (from 200Kbps) and everything runs slow. I switched to encrypted packets and it's back up again.
I guess google et al will just have to encrypt their packets. Https anyone. Probably have to use some sort of Onion routing TOR thingy as well as they will block things by IP address.
Maybe its time we all went back to FIDO-NET then we were all ISP's.
If they block Google and Skype then darknets will become universally adopted.
And so ends freedom on the internet. Fuck you, congress.
When the war is held to be illegal people are talking about a supposed violation of international, not domestic, law.
5 8,00.html1 34.stm
...well you get the picture.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,10891
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3661
You know - illegal in a greater global sense. After all, no country is an island...
No wait..
Some people pay twice as much and get half the speed because they're too far out.
It's stupid, and Verizon does very little to fix it.
There is no reason to believe they will do a better job with handling bandwidth across their entire system.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
If you read the article, this means that users will not have competing services (like how capitalism is supposed to work).
What was struck down was a proposal to make an amendment that would prevent providers for charging more for certain kinds of media & sites being accessed by users. What they wanted to protect you from is a scenario like you stream a lot of videos so you will now pay more than your neighbor who does not stream a lot of videos. The proposal for you to be paying an equal amount has been rejected & now you will begin to see ISPs opening up a salvo of charges to people who are simply accessing large amounts of information or visiting particular sites. It's up to your ISP to essentially decide what is tolled and what isn't now. May god have mercy on us all--because the Slashdot crowd is probably one that demands high bandwidth (if you're anything like me).
My work here is dung.
I'd much prefer government regulation of the Internet than corporate regulation of the Internet, which is what the access providers are angling for. Verizon is my ISP, and they have been quite explicit in stating that they think Google should pay them every time I access Google. I can't say this any more plainly:
THAT'S WHAT I'M PAYING THEM FOR!
I'd rather go back to dial-up than watch them extort content providers.
[command INSERTWITTYQUIP failed: insufficient wit]
Dad, What Was Internet?
fuvoo: watch something
Large media conglomerates going for the throats of providers.
Why? Because a large media provider will pay extra so their video and other content will get faster downloads. Like for example Disney paying TimeWarner. Then, however, to Disney's surprise, the speed of their media on the Internet only improves a little - very little.
Why? Because in order for the so-called 'toll lanes' or 'fast lanes' to actually make any real difference, each and every piece of equipment in between the provider and the consumer will have to have a compatible configuration - each and every switch, firewall, and router. Ultimately the end ISP has the most ability to impact how much prioritization will improve performance. So, Disney shells out millions to TW, only to find out they got snake oil. Large contracts like that don't get negotiated without SLAs, all of which have rebate clauses. Which will inevitably get enforced. In court.
Each time a packet crosses to another providers network, the treatment of prioritization setting in the packet will change, if respected at all. Who could possibly believe that AT&T will treat Verizon's IP priority settings exactly the same as their own. So, the likelyhood that telcos will be at eachother's throats is a possibility as well. Run a traceroute and see how many providers the takes to get to google, apple, or Disney. Then think about how well those providers will be at deploying effective prioritization amongst themselves. Not very well will be the answer.
Its kind of like locking a bunch of cannibals together in a room with no food. All the better.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
So when google lights up all that dark fiber and goes into the ISP business, will I be able to tell Verizon to stuff their toll lanes or will Verizon still be able to stick their fingers in the pie due to Interconnects?
How would that make any difference? At some point, those packets are likely to ride over one of the big telco's backbones. At that point it will be subject to QOS.
Using the smaller ISP does not avoid the issue...
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
The President was legally required to present to Congress the evidence that Iraq was an imminent threat to US security
What law requires the President to do so? According to the War Powers Act the President only need to remove forces if in 60 days congress hasn't declared war or passed a resolution. The President doesn't have to present any evidence to congress, assuming he can get them to declare war or pass a resolution allowing military action without evidence.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
If the companies that own the actual physical networks that the Internet is made up of choose to create differentiated services, then so be it. That's their choice. It's their network. Hell, they could just shut it down.
People running around screaming "the end of freedom speech" are idiots. Freedom of speech doesn't entitle you to a means to speak and desiminate your message. Prior to the Internet the government wasn't required to provide you with paper to write your scathing political treatise or publish your ramblings on the importance of Jules Vern to the modern psyche.
When the networks try to get government protection to screw with the public... I disagree with that as well... keep the whole damn government out of it.
Oops, by War Powers Act I mean War Powers Resolution, they are different laws and both are still in effect I believe.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
1. If this puts the bandwidth hogs into a higher price tier, so be it.
2. Will this really allow the telcos to blackmail internet company X? I would imagine, say, Google already pays an enormous amount of money for their multiple OC-3*2^zillion links. Couldn't they go to a different ISP?
3. If this made general Internet access suck it could (here's to hoping) force deregulation of transmission lines.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Just how long before the European ISPs (BT, I'm pointing the finger at you) see this going on, and decide that they'd like a piece of the action.
: Your point being?
Verizon : Well, that is some nice content you've got there, be a shame if something happened to it...
Or on the other hand, how long before US ISPs start making phone calls to non-US content providers? I can see just how that'd play out.
Verizon : Hey BBC, your good friends at Verizon are supplying 30 million customers with your content. BBC
Scary stuff. I've argued against a tiered internet before, because 'the public' will always go where they can get their information the quickest. Note I said quickest, *not* the most factually correct. Big Brother doesn't need to watch you if Big Brother can control your information before it even reaches you.
Yeah, because Google, eBay and Amazon certainly don;t have any money for political lobbying
You can read more about what Sir Berners-Lee had to say at the 2006 conference in Edinburgh in my journal entry which was rejected. (After all, who cares what Tim has to say)
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The Senate still needs to vote on a comparable bill, so it's time to write your Senators. For now I'll hold out the small hope that it might do some good.
Step 1: Google meets with Howard Dean
Step 2: Brin: "If you don't get your candidates to act on this, SBC will block access to blogs take a cut of every fund-raising dollar raised on the internet.
Step 3: Dean: YEEAAARRRGG!!!
What this will cause is sites like infowars.com and other sites critical of the government to be difficult to get to or outright banned altogether by carriers. This goes beyond money. 60% of the fiber in the ground right now is dark. The idea of limited bandwidth is total bullshit and total lie from the telecoms.
Slashdot humor has reached a new low. Jesus christ.
It's NOT a free market -- the U.S. gov't put the TelComs into a monopoly situation. Now the government is not stepping in to limit the power of those companies... Yes, you could switch your local-ISP, but they run on backbones provided by a few man ISPs so you'll still encounter "tiering".
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
What exactly does the COPE act that this was meant to amend allow? All I've heard about it is that it permiots a 2 tiered internet. I didn't realise there was any legal restriction in an ISP charging another organisation to route their packets in the first place.
Roll no. 239 is the one where they rejected 269-152 the net neutrality amendment.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/06/09/cable. phone.tv.ap/index.html
"WASHINGTON (AP) -- Legislation to open cable TV markets to more competition, possibly saving consumers hundreds of dollars a year, passed the House Thursday.
The biggest telecommunications legislation in a decade, approved 321-101, would make it easier for telephone companies to enter the subscription television market. A national franchise process would replace the current system where potential providers must negotiate contracts municipality by municipality, sometimes taking months and years.
The vote came shortly after the House rejected a Democratic-backed amendment aimed at better protecting Internet users from pricing or access discrimination that Internet providers might apply. The issue of "net neutrality" dominated debate on the bill.
"This legislation can increase competition not only for cable services, but also unleash a race for who can supply the fastest, most sophisticated broadband connections that will provide video, voice and data services," said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas.
He noted that because of the impediments created by the local franchising system, the United States doesn't even rank in the top 10 worldwide in broadband deployment. "This bill should change that statistic."
Rep. Fred Upton, R-Michigan, who heads the telecommunications subcommittee, estimated that people could save $30 to $40 each month if given a choice in video services.
But many Democrats said the measure did too little to ensure that broadband services would be extended to lower income and rural areas.
They also said the bill does not adequately address "net neutrality," preventing companies from discriminating against competitors or less affluent consumers by restricting access or charging higher fees.
The telephone and cable companies that provide the service say further regulation is unnecessary and would hamper efforts to expand high speed services.
Demanding assurances of net neutrality are content providers such as Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Yahoo! Inc., and Internet users ranging from the Christian Coalition to rock musicians.
Rep. Edward Markey, D-Massachusetts, offered an amendment stating that broadband network providers must not discriminate against or interfere with users' ability to access or offer lawful content.
Without that amendment, said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California, "telecommunications and cable companies will be able to create toll lanes on the information superhighway. This strikes at the heart of the free and equal nature of the Internet."
It was defeated 269-152. "You can call an amendment net neutrality," said Rep. Paul Gillmor, R-Ohio. "But it's still government regulation."
"Tilting the cost burden onto end users, which would be the inevitable result of neutrality regulations, will only delay much-needed broadband deployment," said Mike McCurry, co-chair of Hands off the Internet, a coalition of telephone, business and small government groups.
Barton's bill would give the Federal Communications Commission authority to enforce net neutrality principles and set fines of up to $500,000 for violations.
Democrats also complained that the bill did not commit providers to spread their services to lower income and minority areas.
The White House said in a statement that it supported the bill and its language on video franchising. But on net neutrality, the administration said the FCC has the power to address potential abuses. "Creating a new legislative framework for regulation in this area is premature," the statement said.
Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Illinois, a black lawmaker who represents the South Side of Chicago, said he was co-sponsoring the bill because it would make it easier for minority entrepreneurs to get access to the telecommunicat
As long as their is ISP choice for consumers then nobody is going to lose access to anything. At my house I can choose from DSL from phone companies or a tv cable modem. Soon there will be metro wi fi and IP from power lines. Competition and consumers protecting themselves through choice is a much better guarantee of choice than ham handed regulation from Washington.
The parent post underplays the realities of competition in the Internet.
1. There are a very limited number of tier 1 providers. Does anyone seriously expect that they won't create an informal cabal to implement additional costs wherever they can? There's a reason that the telcos and cable companies have been pourings millions of dollars into lobbying for no net neutrality.
2. The issue is not that consumers will be hit with additional costs, it's that content providers will be hit with more costs. Consumers can't move to another ISP if say, Amazon's web site is slow and expect that site to speed up if the problem is that Amazon hasn't paid higher fees for better service. If Amazon wants to move for better service, see point 1.
3. I fail to see how the parent's comments on bandwidth being plentiful makes a point. If the gatekeepers to that bandwidth are bent on charging higher prices and there's no way to circumvent them, it's not relevant.
4. The parent post suggests that if content providers are charged more, the costs to consumers will drop. In the absence of true competition, that's just naive thinking. The only responsibility a company has is to make money for the shareholders, there's no requirement to be fair - only true competition forces a measure of fairness.
By the way, we already have tiered Internet service. My ISP does not allow me to invite 200 friends to a party or mail 1000 buddies to let them know of important political developments (like Net Neutrality) - It has a "spam prevention" filter that throttles after 50 e-mails in less than an hour. It also does not allow me to run my own mail server or web server or ftp or any other protocol they can think off.
I'm not sure if Congress can do much about it w/o unacceptable collateral damage. At best I'd expect them to protect consumers by requiring disclosure and stop the false advertising, saying I get "Internet service" if in fact I merely buy web-page access and one way download of other services.
However, let the market get things right. I have $10,000 waiting to buy new stock in Google-ISP (or any other company) that starts a business delivering net neutral Internet service to consumers. Even if I do not benefit from the service area. If we want a better service, we need to provide the capital to compete with the guys that are trying to box us in. Another way is raising the capital for local Telco cooperatives and make sure in your community is competition that delivers net neutral service. Also, all telcos need licensing from the communities (but this whole bill is about to do away with this, isn't it?). So your local town/county governing body would be the one to lobby in order to make sure these licenses do include net-neutrality provisions.
Just my five cents
K
Busy helping non technical users of OpenOffice.org - http://plan-b-for-openoffice.org/
The Net is not a giant network providing free, unlimited access to free speech and communication. Worse yet, bandwidth is limited so strategic choices must be made sooner or later by both providers and clients. For example, I would expect Apple Corp. to have to pay my ISP if they want to deliver to me promotional videos in QuickTime format, which they obviously charge their clients for. Will that be reflected on my next bill? That's a possibility we must think of. Maybe that's good news, too -- smaller telcos may get a breather if they can strike better deals with companies such as Google and MSN. What I am more worried about is the concept of toll lanes on the Net and the details of how traffic will be (re)routed to such lanes. When I drive on the freeway I get to choose if I want to pay the price and switch to a toll lane, but how about when I download a large email attachment or file from a friend? Do I have any kind of control over that? I think we are witnessing the end of the "unlimited bandwidth" era for end-users.
Huh?
N netneutpass_1.html
From: http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/05/25/78683_H
"A U.S. House of Representatives committee has approved a bill that would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or impairing their customers' access to Web content offered by competitors. The House Judiciary Committee voted 20-13 to approve the bill, called the Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act."
I don't see anything about Tiered access in Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act of 2006 which TFA refrences.
is the source of this recent furvor all because of the off hand statement made by the CEO of AT&T? if so, he got exactly what he wanted, and what he never expected with one offhand remark.
I knew I hated those Dems for a good reason.
This why we are so screwed here in the US. We have a congress, (Republican-controlled, in case you didn't know) which belongs so thoroughly to the richest, most powerful corporations, that they will go above and beyond the call of duty to advance corporate interests. The funny part of this, is that the House of Representatives has historically been known as "The People's House" because its structure and rules historically has made it a more "populist" body. Miscreants like Tom DeLay, who created the "K Street Project" to create a way for corporations to funnel money to Republican House members more efficiently. Thanks to men (mostly) like DeLay, we now have a House of Reps that laughs in derision at the notion that infrastructure such as the Internet should be available equally to all users. To them, the notion of equal access is high comedy. Next time, I'll explain why these conservative so-called "think-tanks" suck so bad. For now, remember for a moment why this country was founded, what the founders believed. Think for a moment about the wording of the Declaration of Independence. Read Madison or Jefferson. Then walk down to the office of your local Republican rep and throw a brick through his window. Be an American.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Here's the house roll call. If your local crook^h^h^h^h^h representative is in the yea column, you might want to write him a note.
How will this affect porn? I remember someone saying that the pr0n angle determines a lot of the answers. Will service providers decide you can't watch Donkey Shows anymore or whatever else floats your boat? It will be like Utah except everywhere. I guess I can say good bye to my favorite news show "Democracy Now" as well, no doubt content providers like Fox News will pay Telcos to lower packet transmissions from their competitors websites??
Posted this a sec ago but seems to have disappeared. Roll Call Vote Details
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
I emailed my (Republican) Congressman about this and this was his response for the curious. I disagree with much of what he said but perhaps there are some discussion points here.
:
Dear Chris
Thank you for contacting me regarding recent interest group proposals for so-called "net neutrality." It is good to hear from you.
This year, Congress will reauthorize the 1996 Telecommunications Act. One of the key criticisms of that act (and the original 1934 version for that matter) is that, despite supposedly benevolent intentions, Congress essentially picked winners and losers in the various sectors of the telecommunications industry instead of allowing a free marketplace in which competition would lead to new technology, better service, and lower prices for consumers. As a result, many industry experts have concluded that governmental regulation has impeded the emergence of new technology and better applications. Perhaps the biggest example of America's stifled telecommunications progress is that the United States, despite being the world's economic powerhouse, is currently ranked 16 th for Internet broadband deployment. In anticipation of the reauthorization, I believe we must honestly examine and reflect upon the many government regulations already on the books and carefully consider the pros and cons of any newly-proposed regulations before endorsing proposals that may simply sound good on the surface.
One of the issues that Congress will address is the concept known as "net neutrality." Certain interest groups and press editorialists proclaim that Congress should mandate that cable and telephone industry broadband operators offer control of their networks equally to any and all Internet traffic. In fact, several major software and e-commerce firms have already formed a lobbyist organization called the Coalition of Broadband Users and Innovators (CBUI) to petition the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to do just that. In the name of preserving "network neutrality" and Internet "openness," CBUI members argue that the FCC must adopt preemptive "nondiscrimination safeguards" to ensure Internet users open and unfettered access to online content and services in the future. Despite the rhetoric however, there is currently no evidence that broadband operators are going out of their way to block access to any widely used websites or similar online services. In fact, any significant discriminatory behavior on the part of broadband service providers ( BSPs ) would generally be financially counterproductive considering that BSPs make more money by carrying more traffic. On the rare occasion that a BSP may actively regulate traffic or impose differential pricing schemes on their network, it would likely be for rather sensible reasons. Network owners may want to discourage the use of certain devices on their networks to avoid system crashes, interference, or signal theft. They may want to price services differently to avoid network congestion and/or conserve bandwidth. They may want to exclusively partner with other firms to help them reach new customers and ultimately create superior services. And perhaps they may very well direct users towards some content before others because it helps them make the necessary money to recoup the huge investment required to create and build out broadband networks. Outlawing the ability of network owners to favor certain content kills a major financial incentive for entrepreneurs to invent and build new networks in the first place. Ultimately, in the absence of clear harm, government typically does not regulate in the preemptive fashion that CBUI members are requesting.
Please be aware that the House Energy and Commerce Committee recently passed the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Efficiency Act of 2006. Among other points, the act empowers the FCC
Google! Thou art the Champion of the Free! The Saviour of all that is Geek and Open! Deliver us from this Evil!!
So now that Google's lobbying for net neutrality has run down the gutter, maybe they would fall in step and actually turn it to their advantage - create their own netlanes but instead of charging tolls they will have billboards up everywhere and make ad-revenue by the click. given the exorbitant charges that the conglomerates will certainly charge, there may be quite a few thrifty bandwidth seekers who will gladly switch over to Googlanes. time to unpack all that dark fiber...
My sig has been answered.
I was very disappointed (although not very surprised) to find that the COPE Act passed by a wide margin (269 to 152) without the net neutrality provision. Does anyone know of an easy way to find out how our respective representatives voted on it?
I know, I know, I should have contacted my reps before now... I only contacted my senators. But I want to find out who these telecom-penis sucking bastards are so I make sure I never vote for any of them.
I'm not old enough to remember the old AT&T monopoly days, and that might be the problem with a lot of voting constituents. I do remember what my mom told me about those times. It's hard to imagine that, back then, The Phone Company was basically able to give you the finger and get away with it. What could you do? Pretty much nothing, you might as well be asking the IRS for a sales tax refund. That's how monopolies work.
For the past fifteen years or so (don't know the exact dates, but since the courts broke up the old AT&T), there's been competition in both different service types and different companies offering the same solutions. But they've slowly consolidated, and now the monopolistic entity is back. It's more of a cartel now; and they have no incentive to go out of their way for you. Live in Idaho and don't like that you can't access Google without waiting ten minutes for the page to load? "Sorry. Try Verizon speedsearch!, with the all the info you need on your favorite music, videos, games, and sports-and-news!" It's the same as if you flip on the cable TV and veg. It doesn't matter to them. They make money on both. The difference is now, there are even fewer laws regulating who gets access to communication and information.
We can't imagine that the internet could just be taken away like that. But what's stopping them? We do technically own the pipes, but congress just proved to us that it's really only a meaningless technicality in their opinion. So the telco/cable cartel gets carte-blanche control. The CEO of SBC has even refered to them casually as "[his] pipes." In all but official title, it looks like he's right.
Companies who run wires through towns to your doorstep need all sorts of permission from the local citizens to do so. In exchange for that permission, they have to play by certain rules, i.e. "regulations". In addition, since only some companies are allowed to run wires, it creates an oligopoly (at best) and a monopoly (at worst). So additional regulation is needed to ensure that companies don't abuse that.
One example of a particular kind of abuse is where a company leverages their monopoly or semi-monopoly power in one area (the cabling, i.e. the transport layer) to profit in another area, e.g. in services that are available over the cabling, by discriminating against competitors for those services -- competitors who don't have the government-granted benefit of being able to run cables to people's houses. Trust me, you really don't want to be on the receiving end of this kind of discrimination.
Net neutrality regulation is trying to head off this sort of discrimination before it starts (whether it does so in the right way is another question). Some people say that this hasn't been a problem yet, and we can deal with it if and when it arises. The problem is that dealing with abusive monopolies after they've arisen is much more difficult: witness Microsoft.
My god those telcos have opened my eyes ! Google and Amazon are getting free rides off them! This must stop ! And don't stop with those interweb companies :
Ford has been getting a free ride off the tarmac companies for nearly a century.
And don't forget the free advertisement plays that the RIAA has been getting from internet radio and p2p ! Charge them for it.
LLU = Local Loop Unbundling
The EU forced through regulations forcing the "last mile" to be available to any DSL provider who wants to provide service over it. This way, most Europeans have a large choice of ISPs to choose from with a large choice of service offerings. Some are capped, some are not etc. The upshot is that here in France where I live I could have 20MBit ADSL2, with no usage caps, for 14.85 euros a month. If this company introduces new TOS that I don't like, I can change to another one.
In this way, thanks to the far-seeingness (for once) of the EU and National governments being prepared to make one over-riding regulation, the "Net Neutrality" debate is irrelevant here.
Apparently the US "Free Market" has generated a bunch of quasi-monopolies that have sufficient power both to squash LLU policies and "net neutrality". I feel sorry for you poor overpaying consumers in your free market democracy.
I can only suggest you support the little guys and any municipal networks as much as you can. At least they aren't lobbying to push your service fees up when in the rest of the world they are decreasing...
- Paul
What it boils down to is that for-sale businesses benefit, for-nought hobbyists get the shaft.
Let's say I have a little webpage that offers you some kinda tools. Small, cute, fuzzy, and most of all, free.
Over there, there's Bigsoft Inc. (apologies if such a company exists, and at the same time, YOUR NAME SUCKS!). They offer essentially the same tools, but for a price.
Now, which of us will be able to afford the additional "get your packets there in some meaningful time" fees? Bigsoft will simply add a few bucks to the price (whether you pay 45$ for already overpriced software, that's available in better condition for free, or 48$ doesn't make any difference). I can't. I'd have to start charging. More overhead, more worries, tighter security (to keep those CC numbers safe), more hassle all over.
In fact, NO company EVER pays ANY fees itself. It's simply passed on to the customer.
Free internet, in both meanings, becomes more and more a thing of the past.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Except when it comes to broadband, that's not the environment we live in. Telcos and cables have structured the law such that there are large barriers to entry. The end result is that most people have one choice for cable and one choice for telco and in some regions, both choices are run by the same company.
In that kind of environment, which is what most people experience, markets aren't going to function. You may respond - "well lets eliminate the barriers to entry..." - and I'd be with you but until that happens, you have to pass legislation that constrains monopolies.
Witness Cox blocking Craigslist to get an idea of what I'm talking about. In that case, Cox runs both the local paper and local broadband. Craigslist severely threatens Cox's classified ads so Cox blocks Craigslist. Cox also has it set up so its next to impossible for another broadband player to come in and compete. Is that really the future you want for broadband?
Also, the United Nations did not approve this action, so it is a unilateral rogue nation action. In terms of international law, it is no different than Iraq invading Kuwait. (Except, we gave Iraq the go-ahead when they asked us about it in advance, so that we could use it as an excuse to attack them. Look it up.)
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
The more I hear it, the more I think of communism. I.E. something that's great in theory but will eventually fail in a real setting if implemented in its pure state.
People are always quick to whine about government regulation is bad and that the free market sorts everything out, but the very next article, they're back to complaining about Microsoft.
I know there's a lot of techies here, so maybe my suggestion is unreasonble, but if you will, please remember your grade school social studies where you learned about the Trusts of the late 19th and early 20th century like Standard Oil and Ma Bell. If we DIDN'T have government regulation, this country would be run by monopolies (and, dare I say, fascists). And in the arena of ISP, it's even worse since it's so vital to our country and it's not like another company can just up and lay down new lines to compete with the already-established, local ISPs. Which is why, as said COUNTLESS times already, many areas only have one choice for ISP (including mine). The only way I could let the "free market" sort that out is by not having Internet access. Goodbye email, remote login, and productivity.
I know some people are always gonna be scared of the big bad government (and who wouldn't be with the crap they've done lately), but please use good judgment to see that not ALL government intervention is a bad thing, especially when dealing with amoral corporations.
Isn't the solution for this problem to have all the big companies ebay, amazon etc sign a pact that says they won't pay any fees to local ISPs for priotizing trafic? This means that the isp would come up the bad guy with just a bunch of slow sites? I know it would be hard for them all to agree to do this, but wouldn't it work?
I have Verizon DSL. About 2 years ago, I found myself unable to send email through my web site's outgoing server. After an hour or so of screwing around, I learned that I would have to use Verizon's outgoing mail server to send my email. The only other solution they would offer was to switch my web site hosting to their service. WTF?! They claimed this was to cut down on spam. Riiiight. Later that year, I found that I could no longer access Megatokyo through Verizon DSL, either at home or at work. However, I could connect to my friend's vpn and, through his Comcast account, get to the site just fine. I ended up putting an entry for a mirror IP of the site into my hosts file to get around it. A couple months later and all was well again, well, except the email which is still a problem. If this is the kind of bullshit I have to look foward to, forget it. You can keep your damn busted internet.
Anyone have a list of NO votes on this?
Q:How many libertarians does it take to stop a Panzer division? A:None, obviously market forces will take care of it.
If you could get paid twice for the same thing, wouldn’t you?
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Allow ISPs to do tiered Internet services, but don't allow them to call it Internet access, because that is false advertising. The consumer's definition of Internet access is unfettered, neutral access to everything. This new fake Internet where there's toll booths and roadblocks can just be called something else. Infonet perhaps (more like Inferiornet, but you get the point).
It would be like car manufacturers making a DRMed automobile that refuses to go on certain roads at 60mph until you swipe your credit card. That's not a car, that's a piece of crap.
Imagine you're in prison. Your cellmate is a big guy by the name of Verizon.
/.ers saying "so get a new cellmate"
Now imagine the warden turning his back.
When you complain that you can't walk, imagine a bunch of
You can do that. But either way, you're fucked.
One of the problems is that the network needs to expand capacity drastically to keep up with new uses. The ISPs that went bankrupt got smacked for leveraging _too much_ infrastructure that they weren't profiting from (PSINet, etc). So, I think now the market is wary of supporting expansion. What if a new kind of company operated as a coop regionally, offering true ownership of a piece of line to the 'bone. A coop could also make a guarantee against snooping. Either that, or a million of us could each kick in $50k or so and buy out AT&T :)
Fucking American Fascism, just as bad as British Colonialism in the 17th Century.
I felt a great disturbance in the Internet, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. ...
Ha! Ha! - Choke on your own bile Republic(an) Fools!!!
Good job letting the Fox(es) guard the Hen House!
China has been trying this with their great firewall of China, but it looks like the US is going to be outdoing them with a million points of censorship.
Question: Has this passed in the Senate yet? Because if not, we still have a chance to kill this by pressuring Senators.
You said: "Why isn't it reasonable that if a company is making money by using someone else's resources- they should have to pay for it?"
and
"www.kadko.com"
So I went and ordered $4,000 worth of Polymeric Silazane Finish. Verizon (my ISP) will shortly be sending you a bill for, y'know, making money off of their network. Does that seem reasonable?
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Things will change when the telecoms and ISPs start limitting traffic to politicians and political parties that don't vote along the lines they want. Of course, by then nobody will be able to find out about it because that net traffic will be eliminated, too.
So far, this has only passed the house. Contact your senator! My 65-year old mother has already called every senator for our state this morning. If she can do it, you can, too! We do not know all the effects this will have, but I really do think that the intention behind this has more to do with helping companies prosper than it has to help consumers. In one sense, this could amount to censorship of certain websites if they cannot make steep payments. The price of internet today is low and keeps dropping, and those who cannot afford it have public libraries.
"For the record, I had a legal dispute with SBC, so I ended up going with a local company for DSL (although I still had to pay for a landline)."
You only had that choice because the regulatory rulings and laws required SBC to ALLOW a local
company to offer DSL over SBC's landline. Otherwise, do you really think SBC would offer you
that choice?
It's an intriguing paradox that a certain amount of regulating is necessary to allow the
consumer more freedom, i.e. antiturst laws, etc.
It's a very good thing they're keeping their nose out how people use their privately owned equipment. They're using the old trick of taking big government regulation and referring to it with code words like "equality" so people don't know what it really is.
I find it rather odd that the slashdot crowd that's usually full of tin foil hat paranoia would want to open up the door for the government to monitor every piece of network equipment and control bandwidth.
It has been reported that Google has been buying up lots of "dark fiber". I think if Google decided to form a nonprofit Public Corporation and ask others to contribute, a new nationwide backbone completely independent of the greedy telcos could quickly become operational. Add fiber-free above-ground laser links (like microwave towers, only much higher bandwidth), so all those existing small ISPs can connect to this Interneg3 bypassing the telcos. And, since a Public Corporation doesn't have to make a profit, they could price access below that of the telcos, putting them out of the Internet business, and allowing their lines to be bought/added to Internet3. Serve 'em right!
Thank you Republicans! (and half of the Democrats)
Your allegiance to big business is now transparently displayed. Will it matter? No.
Will it get worse? Yes.
Goodbye freedom, hello corporate oligarchy.
The house of representatives has proven yet again to understand shit about technology and fair laws and could be bought again by big business to implement whatever they desired.
It is time those in the house start thinking about whom they represent, and maybe those being represented should get a clue and not vote on such idiots.
It is interesting that you seized on a quote from Democrat rather than a Republican since the Republicans are the ones that voted against Net Neutrality. The Democrats voted for it choosing to support the rights of the people over the unchecked greed of the businessmen, unlike the fat Greedy Old bastards Party.
Your post is just a straw man attempt at diversion and has the odious scent of a shill. Herr Goering is calling on line 3 to commend you.
Now, there is a slim chance that you really aren't a shill and are just not very bright, so read the following line and memorize it:
THE RUPUGNICANS ARE THE ONES WHO CHOSE TO SCREW THE PEOPLE YET AGAIN.
Why should they have to pay twice?...How many times does it have to be paid?
Given that the lines here are in place partly because of government spending, I've already paid for this bandwidth once, in the form of my taxes. When we start seeing advanced rate plans that charge me more for the same access I have now, are we not paying again when we already invested in this access before?
(It doesn't surprise me at all that this would happen in the House. The Republican Party hears two voices right now: massive corporate interests and the "social right," to which they need to pander to get elected. They don't think anyone else even belongs at the table when decisions are made.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
My Representative voted in favor of this. I already sent him a letter to let him know that I am not happy with his action. I'll be sending a letter to my senator later today demanding that he vote against this (not that it'll make a difference, but one can hope).
"Teleporting Rodents with D-Cell Battery Displacement" theory -- IgnoramusMaximus (692000)
Nancy Pelosi doesn't have anything but her own political ambitions in mind.
She's less trustworthy than Hillary or Teddy Kennedy. And I wouldn't trust either one of them with anything serious either.
Let's just add a little emphasis here... it's amazing how slippery you can be with vague qualifications slipped into your rhetoric.
...and so forth. Yes, that's very slippery of you indeed, Representative Boehner. You're a capable politician.
In other words, "If you don't like it, go make another internet; this one's ours."
-- http://frobnosticate.com
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?r109:./temp/ ~r109N60Aux
And rip the crap out of him/her
Sigh. And so ends freedom on the Internet *for American citizens*. The Internet isn't solely an American thing, you know. This could signal the end of America's dominance in the technology. Hail free Europe!
Boo the fuck hoo for the backbone providers, who built most of their backbones with my tax dollars. Or didn't you know that? The bastards run their lines over our public property, with money from our pockets, then charge us for the privilege of using what should be our lines, then charge us again in the form of extra charges to content providers outside their network. Net neutrality was the way things used to be, when the greedy bastards signed the effing contracts that let them get their cushy government sponsored monopoluies, and now they want to reneg on the deal. Fuck them and fuck the free market that lets wealth get concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Adam Smith, get your damn invisible hand out of my back pocket!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I'm sitting here reading the comments, and I'm thinking: "maybe this isn't such a bad thing." I mean, it's going to be bad for the U.S. -- that's inevitable. But there's a (admittedly slim) possibility that Europe could learn a lesson from our mistake, and we could see a shift in the balance of technological power. The European software industry isn't half as noteworthy as its American counterpart -- let's see where they are after 10 years of neutral internet, while the U.S. is held back by premium services.
This is the essential point:
Google already pays for its increased bandwidth as do all large bandwidth users. (if you have a website you know this. You are allocated a certain amount of download traffic and if you exceed it you are hit with extra charges.)
What the new bill aloows is for large backbone providers to negotiate individually with every website and set fees per byte based on whatever they can negotiate - UNEQUAL fees per bit. this puts the internet into a state of bandwidth brokerage closer to the dealings of a used car salesman. As with any arbitrage situation there will be enormous profits made by those brokers and hoarders and hedgers of bandwidth that will have little to do providing the service but endusers of every type will end up paying more - like a stock broker's fee.
Interestingly it may not bode as well for the backbone operators as they think. Eventually arbitragers end up controlling the assets of providers in those situations.
Additionally Google could say hey if you don't give me BELOW average cost or at least average then I simply will say so on our front page and tell people to switch to another provider who has a contract with a different backbone provider - and give the names of such providers. that would cause massive changes in subscriptions overnight and could bankrupt cedrtain pproviders overnight.
This whole thing introduces a layer of capital speculation into the internet that we just got out of after the dot com "BOOM." The boom and bust had nothing to do with content - it had to do with capital guessing which player would survive and more times than not they guessed wrong and continuity and reliability and capital was sacrificed in huge amounts until it all flushed out. We just got stable and now we are going to be back to speculation but in an other area.
It's time for a people created home to home wireless and laser mesh grid. We need to stock up on the wireless transmitters that can form an adhoc network before someone makes it illegal. All developing countries are using them to wirethemselves. Wires are old tech. wireless mesh grids are the latest and greatest (and cheapest). The city of Tempe arizona has its whole city gridded for internet through wireless mesh and if everyone does it you don't need a city backbone. It can be completely automatically self correcting and optimizing for speed and it is home to home without any government or corporate monopoly interference.
Now with this bill looming this should be a top priority for the sourceforge GPL software world. Making code that can be used by all wireless b g and n WImax wireless home routers to create this network.
Bypass the telcos backbone completely. Be pro freedom and pro free enterprise and against government protected corporate monopolists. Build your own network!
GeoPilot
http://www.globalboiling.com/
Personally, I'm not so optimistic that the FCC would use its power to address such abuses. Besides, $500,000 only makes for pecuniary humor compared to how much telcoms would gain from financially raping corporations like Google, Yahoo!, etc...
Its too bad this was posted anonymously, it deserves to be seen because you make some good points there.
"This strikes at the heart of the free and equal nature of the internet"
No it doesn't! It goes to the heart of the free and equal nature of the internet by letting anyone ask anything they want for service. Well okay, not quite, since we already don't see that kind of freedom. But at least it avoids making it worse by adding FCC regulation.
Would this mean that internet businesses would use off shore servers to atleast save on international traffic? And what would this mean to the internet as a whole. Cuz I can't see other countries following suit.
This is not another resource of the USA that they can abuse and milk for their own gain at the expense of the rest of the world. The internet is really an open source system that has joint ownership by all of the people that use it. I know that most large countries are looking to apply their own taxes or charging schemes to generate revenues for their respective governments. However why should something that has evolved now be hijacked by these technology Nazi's?
Yes the Government can make a mess of things. Seemes thats what we are getting.
1)bandwidth is already plentiful; we're talking about hypothetical harms here.
This is simply false. It has all ready happened that ISP are artificially dialling back on competitors. This makes consumers switch to the monopolies services. Yes there are not enough telecoms two is not enough.
2)companies already pay for ISP's and webhosting; tiered service is not anything new. Anyway, webhosting costs have been decreasing in price. I find it highly unlikely that this downward trend won't continue across the board.
So you are going to take away the little competition that exists today.
3)The thing I find strange is that if anything, tiered pricing, by passing on costs to distributors, could ultimately benefit consumers by lowering subscription costs.
I think you missed the point. We are talking about a distributor paying for all the wires that his data crosses. You are actual talking about changing the Internet into a Long distance service plan payed for by distributor. And anything that the distributor pays for is in the end passed on to us to pay for.
Do you think in time this will lead us to anything other then a single winner that will own the Internet. Look at what happened to the old phone system. Why do you think people are at this time not paying for long distance. Do you really think the difference in cost is not simply going into someones pocket?
4)So what if SBC decides to implement a tiered system of bandwidth! Consumers just stop renewing their contracts if they hate it enough. That's much better than making courts and legislators do a lot of hairsplitting about what legislative intent was/should be.
So I read this as, we should simply turn off the Internet. We don't need it we have can make long distance phone calls and get all the data we need.
5)I worry less about tiered service than I do about ISPs blocking p2p traffic. Then again, I see no need to enact legislation merely to keep certain ports open.
Its not p2p It's c2c.
Net2phone seems to own the p2p traffic. The Government seems to have a pickle to fix.
Oh, didn't you that all network traffic is p2p. Let me put that another way. To talk p2p one of the 'p's is the server and the other is the client. p2p is just a new way to define the old way the Internet works. It should be called Consumer 2 Consumer. Where net2phone owns your wallet. Yet another mess the government has made for us.
How do you think you find URL in the first place.
Net2phone, just wants to be the only provider in the Internet for DNS and search info for your phone. This is not how capitalism works.
6)as an independent content producer (and soon a distributor), I want the Net environment to be as unregulated as possible (even from laws that purport to ensure access). If some ISPs are going to charge for tiered service, either they better offer substantial benefits to customers or people will abandon them in droves.
This will not work. The right-of-way to provide ISP connections drives minimal competition. This will simply lead us back to the AT&T slash MaBell problems.
7)what concerns me more is restrictive Terms of Service and EULAs. If ISPs offer twice the bandwidth for half the cost, that is great. But if the saving comes with all sorts of extra provisions on TOS, then the battle has been lost.
You missed the point. With one ISP you get all the bad stu
I don't think the ISPs have figured it out yet - they do not represent the value of the Internet, they are not the ones with the power.
If I were a content provider, say Google, and verizon said "give us money all we'll lower the speed of your connections" I'd say "get bent". Then I would walk to my firewall and block Verizon's subnet from accessing my lovely Google search engine. Then wait a week, and see if Verizon would like to talk about selective traffic control.
My advice to content providers: respond in kind - they are your servers and you can do what you like with them. The ISPs have nothing to sell without you, and they've forgotten that.
Carpe Daemon
FYI,
f m?id=1705
A Video of the Full Committee Hearing is Available
http://commerce.senate.gov/hearings/witnesslist.c
When I was growing up, the whole thing that really excited me about the Internet was that you didn't have to be a "consumer." The idea was you'd plug in your computer and could pretty much use your bandwidth however you wanted. Gradually rules start getting written into contracts saying you can't have various kinds of servers or traffic, and bandwidth starts being consolidated around big hosting companies, and suddenly we're losing net neutrality and seeing ourselves as a bunch of consumers.
The basic danger I see is that the Internet is becoming less an open park / market and more like a TV set. This is just one more way to keep that process going. So does it stop when the typical Slashdotter can't easily put their own server up, when the telcos start severly limiting access to sites they don't like, when you can't access anything that hasn't got a major corporate backer, or what?
People keep saying "oh, it will never go that far!" and yet everytime I hear that, it's only a matter of months before the news comes up that, yeah, actually, it went that far about a year ago and no one noticed.
I guess I question why, on a day where there's yet another "NSA gonna get ya" story on the front page, that so many seem to be in a rush to hand the Internet wholesale to a government agency that's already proven itself to be corrupt and censor-happy.
Don't forget the ISP clause.
When you bad mouth your ISP
you pay a $10.000,00 finn perviolation.
Welcome to the darkside! =(
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
One of the problems with our system is that these politicians think that they can often get away with voting against their constituents interest because no one will bother to look up and see how they actually voted. As long as the "party" votes the way they should, most people assume it was the "other guy" who caused the measure to fail. The truth is, 58 Democrats voted against this measure (and 11 Republicans voted for it). It wasn't just one or two who switched sides here.
Look up how your representatives voted here! And then email them about it. So you know, you can always check the voting record of your reps as it happens at the Office of the Clerk - Legislative Activities web site (use the drop down on the right side labeled House Floor Proceedings -- or the calendar if you can get it to work).
-glynor
Some cultures are defined by their relationship to cheese.
They are waiting on the November elections to see if they need to buy...err... support Democrats instead of Republicans if the majority changes after the election.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Would that be the laissez-fairy?
where democracy is dead, where most people are too lazy or too dumb to care or try to understand the issues and exersize their constitionally granted rights and obligations, where big business and big money rules. and don't give me this crap about the "free" market. we have never had a free market in america - the businesses and individuals with the deepest pockets have always purchased unfair advantages for themselves. if you really value a free market you need to start with a level playing field, and that means equal access. in that regard the information super-highway actually is like a real highway - it's a public utility that should be maintained us such, with equal access to all, not extra access to those who can pay for it.
Not sure who "represents" you? Check here to find your representative(near upper left).
Oh well.
Thats because the Jedi again acted too late and too mild on the matter.
Had the jedi played a little dirtier, this battle too wouldnt be lost.
Read radical news here
The NET is already not neutral in some european coutries and in the third world. If you wanna know what can happen: At my home I have an ADSL with several blocked ports, and if a use the standard 4662 emule port it suddently get slow, (some weak taffick shaping against emule, enough for the layman anyway). If I want to run a server with all the ports unblocked (80, 25, etc), I need to pay for a 2X more expensive connection. In Europe, there is a country (I am not sure if its Portugal), that there is a limit for international traffic, and allows unlimited national traffic. There is too many fear-mongering (FUD?) in all this story, free-market is well proven too work well. If all this didn't happen in the third world, where just a few ISPs control the market, it wont happen in the larger american market.
If these companies (in the subject line) were really THAT concerned, Google could threaten to netblock ALL of verizons customers (ore redirect them to a page that explains the situation). Ebay could do the same thing and Microsoft could threaten to not license ANY more copies of ANY microsoft software to Verizon the company.
How many customers would scream bloody murder to Verizon if they could not access Ebay or Google. I'd think many. Telling Verizon you may not buy ANY more copies of Microsoft products could be VERY painful as well.
These of course are "nuclear" options, but if Verizon wants to do the extortion game, so can the other companies. Maybe Google should invoice Verizon for allowing their customers access to googles servers.
The supposed 'congress' can SELL OUT its constituents THAT EASY ?
Not only the u.s. people, but almost half of the world ???
And nobody is doing nothing except talking ???
So it is that easy - some smallest of interest groups who have enough money to BRIBE enough legislators to allow a LAW to be passed to F.CK UP ANY AND ALL CITIZENS, AND THERE IS NOTHING TO DO ABOUT IT ?
WHAT PART OF THAT IS A DEMOCRACY ?!!?
Read radical news here
will the rest of the world follow as well? As it stands the laws passed only affect IP traffic in the USA (and I swear all US sights seem to load a lot slower today!???!). I wonder is this will trickle down to the rest of the world. It would only make sense. New World Order can't be brought about if there is a free medium where people can easily exchange ideas.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
Seriously.
Telcos have been selling huge bandwidth up to date, with great fanfare.
It was EVIDENT that they wouldnt be able to provide such bandwidth if a small fraction of users demanded it at the same time, but as that wouldnt happen, they just went with it and noone said nothing.
This is the case in web hosting industry with some hosts - as almost none of the users will be utilizing their bw and space to the fullest, almost all servers stay underutilized, and you can oversell the server to a reasonably safe margin.
But, WE WEB HOSTS DONT FORCE CONGRESS BLURT OUT LEGISLATION IF OUR USERS HAPPEN TO UTILIZE THEIR ACCOUNTS TO THE FULLEST AND WE ARE IN THE RED IN RESOURCES - TO TOLL EXTRA WAGES FROM ANYONE WE CAN GET AHOLD OF !!!! WE JUST FIX OUR OWN MISPLAN.
Is it that easy in united states ? Someone makes some faulty business plan, it wents wrong, and then they can get new legislation to f.ck up more people to make up for their loss ?
HOW can u.s. people allow their 'representatives' to fuck them from behind with a brave face, escapes me.
Read radical news here
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll239.xml
I suppose this is the roll call for the net neutrality act ?
May this help u.s. voters to decide who to vote for, and not, and they wont be making any mistakes next time, for the sake of god.
Read radical news here
I am scared. I wish I had more say in this, our democratic system. Why should the government shell out money to help telecoms build fiber optic lines for faster transfer, money that is of the people, and then turn around and allow the telecoms an ability to install toll bridges along the side for when we use the newly availible speed? It's just like a bridge that gives priority to those with the money (large companies, people with big cash) to cross first, except this extends into the informational realm. It's one thing to pay the toll for physically crossing and putting wear on a bridge. It's another to pay monthly for access to something that does not become worn via use, and then pay for access to it again on a pay-per-view basis.
Disgusting.
http://www.fromfreedomtofascism.com/
This doesnt just affect Americans. It affects everyone everywhere. To me, Congress shouldn't have the right to make this descision.
I'm starting to think that an old idea I read about is the only soultion..
;)
Break the companies into 2 entities, one that provides transport for data, and one that provides services using that transport. Along with this would be a strict requirement that the two NEVER merge and that the data transport company must provide access to anyone that wants it for the same price and service level as anyone else. So if Joe down the street wants 256Kbit to Jim, he can get it for the same price and service level and BigCorpA getting 256Kbit to BigCorpB.
That doesn't mean that BigCorpA can't pay more for more bandwidth or a better SLA, but that Jim can get the exact same service for the exact same price should he want to pay for it.
Now the transport carrier has a huge incentive to upgrade the networks, they can charge more for higher throughput, lower latency, or just plain by-the-gig. It also means anyone can be an ISP and compete over those lines for all the same customers. So all the big corps can have thier own stuff and a local ISP can get on and offer something else. So, over the same lines, you can have ISPs that can compete over various services, prices, etc..
So the local church can have a porn-filtering ISP....
The local Linux User Group can have a wide-open anything goes ISP...
The Windows User Group can have a blocks all spyware ports ISP...
The security paranoid can have a blocks all inbound connections ISP...
The cheap bastards can have a cheap, slow ISP...
and on and on and on.....
That's competition. That's also exactly what the telcos/cablecos don't want. IMO, tax dollars paid for the whole thing anyway, so maybe it's time for taxpayers to take it back.
As much as I preffer to have less government intervention, the government created this problem, and it's gotten to the point that I'm not sure there is another way to fix it. *sigh*
If this type of legislation gets adopted internationally, it will make things easier for Google in China - China could buy out the bandwidth from underneath information they want to censor. I can see it now:
Dear ISP,
We here at the People's Republic of China would like for you to stop allowing bandwidth to sites which we don't like (including anything nice about Taiwan). If you don't, you and your native country will no longer be receiving all those nifty items with the gold "Made in China" stickers on them, and if you think that's bad - there are a whole bunch of stuff we make that we don't bother putting the stickers on.
Have a nice day!
Sincerely,
PRC
And, at least in the case of cable franchises, city governments have some say, non?
What's to prevent a few cities from telling the cable company/companies that hold the franchise that, although it's OK for them to apply differential service depending on whether an end user and/or a site like Amazon pays, *for their customers in the city* that cannot happen.
The billing/provisioning nightmare this opens is insane. You now have to decide whether to discriminate against Amazon packets depending on whether the other host is in San Francisco or not.
It also has some potential to drive a lobbying wedge between the telcos/ISPs that support "non-neutral" IP service, on one side, and the Ciscos and Accentures that they pay to buy and implement their fancy billing systems, on the other.
My company (Grouper) is an online video sharing service. If SBC starts charging us more for access to their customers, then won't they be abusing their monopoly position in that market the to the benifit of Yahoo's video service?
The toolbags known as the BBC neglected to mention that yesterday the very same US House passed HR 5417 in committee with bipartisan support. This bill has similiar 'Net Neutrality' language. Don't believe everything you read, people.
AcronymKillerFox is a great extension... but I didn't understand your reference about turning bathroom tissue into bathroom tissue.
Sean
[rimshot]
Today's broadcast has a good interview on this subject. http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/0 9/1427218
If Google *starts* to become the only game in town, and traffic starts flowing over its network in preference to everyone else's network.. in fact, if it even showed signs of going in that direction, the telcos would have to switch back to untiered so they could keep their customers. They're not just going to drop dead as soon as someone else starts differentiating on service, they're going to go with the business model that results in the most money. Having Google as a major player, however fun to talk about, would just be a factor influencing the economics of the situation and keeping them in check.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
C-SPAN has an interactive map that shows you how your reps voted on this issue. The first vote was to send the bill back to committee to reconsider the net neutrality issues. A vote of "yes" means that your rep was concerned about net neutrality. It failed horribly, mainly along party lines (surprised?)
The second vote was whether to pass the bill as-is, which passed by a 3 to 1 margin. A vote of "yes" means that your rep didn't think net neutrality was all that important. However, it's not quite as damning as the first vote since the passage of the bill does make certain markets (cable TV) more competitive.
God I'd love to see the GOPs stranglehold on both houses broken this November. I'm not a Democrat, but it's amazing how dangerously one-sided the federal goverment has become over the past six years.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
OK, There's lots of attempts to explain it and lots of confusion, so I'll throw my 2 dice into the water as well. My favorite metaphor: roads to internet
backbones are Highways, except private owned in the case of the internet (state and federal govs own the real roads, yes?). ISP's provide the road the goes from your house to an on-ramp. ISP's usually run a set of roads of their own to do this. After all, wouldn't make sense for them to pave a single road from your driveway to the onramp. They build a smaller set of roads and just hook that up to your house. Compare data to cars. all kinds of cars go on the roads. You can group it by type: truck, car, etc. but usually don't care what's in 'em.
OK, here's how I understand this tiering: The highways are going to get divided up. They want to set aside/build some lanes on the road and mark it for specific uses. Basically, if you don't have the right "permit" you're stuck in the two left-over lanes that aren't smooth enough or good enough to go fast and maybe can't even get big trucks on it. You look over the fence and envy those cars buzzing buy in the "good" lanes. This may or may not be fair, but I don't think it permanently breaks things yet. Your ISP can cut a deal for you if they choose and get you a permit or you can buy one yourself. At that point you are paying again, but at least you've got some options. Right now, you already pay for this "highway" or your ISP pays for you based on how many cars you put through. Now they want you to pay just to reserve the right to use the "good" lanes. Kinda annoying, but market can control it maybe. It's still bad in my opinion, but not catastrophic. What the amendment was aimed at was this: What's to stop these Highway owners from not selling permits? What if you look over the fence and see only "AT&T" trucks on those lanes? Maybe they are going to "AT&T" stores; maybe they are carrying AT&T private packages, etc. You start to see a conflict of interest develop. What's the point in selling permit's to other people who complete with you? Say, Google stores buy the permit and then their stores outsell you? Do you raise their permit price to drive 'em out? Do you revoke their permit for some reason? The Amendment was to prevent just that kind of temptation/opportunity. It was shot down. Anything else we can do?
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
For all their talk of "innovation" and "needing incentives" to expand available bandwidth, it seems that we already have a real-world example of what they'll do w/ a tiered 'Net: look at cell phones.
Insead of rolling out 3G phones w/ connections to the 'Net, the telcos have put their energy into tightly controlled, paid "services," such as $3 ringtones and, in some cases, short TV clips.
I'd much rather get a faster web browser on my phone than custom ringtones, but the phone company's just don't see the same profits in it, so the cell networks languish.
They'll do the same thing to the 'Net, given the chance.
--kieran
Whoever coined that term should have their ass kicked. Half the problem in getting net neutrality into law is framing the debate with the idea that the Internet is basically a set of "roads" and that web sites have their data "delivered" to the end user over the "roads". It might be a compelling analogy in the first order, but it obviously breaks down rather quickly. Unfortunately, when debate proceeds like this, we net neutrality advocates are starting from a position of weakness.
"Hell, the telecom companies are "delivering" the data to the end user over the "Information Super Highway", why can't they charge extra for faster service, just like Fedex, UPS and the postal service do??"
I don't see all the fuss. I think the telcos have a legitimate concern.
However, the free market (crippled as it may be) will prevail. It'll take some time, but it'll all work out. It'll go something like this:
o Telcos start charging content providers for delivery of their content.
o Content providers refuse to pay such an extortion fee.
o Content providers also inform their users if their content is not being delivered at full throughput due to their telco.
o Customers, expecting the full package, change to a different service provider.
See, the service providers have business exactly because the content providers are providing content worth requesting. If there wasn't anything useful on the internet, there wouldn't be any reason for the $50 / month broadband service.
It'll all work out, just let it ride. It might be bumpy for a couple of years, but it's eventually a losing proposition for the telcos.
Beware of geeks bearing formulas.
Fear not, dear friends; the Senate has yet to approve anything of this sort. Bear in mind that the house voted in favor of building a wall between the US and Mexico, while the Senate went the opposite direction and wanted a guest worker program; their opinions as of late have not lined up well. If a final bill ever makes it out of congress it won't look anything like what the House passed (...or at least, I sincerely hope so).
...and that's just the number of CORPSES. That doesn't count missing legs, eyes, colons, futures.
I pray to Dog that the Congressional elections in the fall are a blood bath. These parasites shouldn't be voted out, they should go to prison for that they've done. Better yet, let's shoot them in the streets like dogs, cut them up and mail their body parts to the families of the dead American kids that they killed for no reason.
Wow, John Boner makes me angry. I had best cool down a bit before I write any of these swine.
We have rights to chose our long distance and local carriers. We should have a right to chose our internet services provider and chose which long distance providers (backbones) through the local provider that we send traffic through. Boy what a headache would that be.
Mod this comment to hell if you will, but, please, offer some explanation for the mental chaos state i am in :
Im not a u.s. citizen. So, im not biased. My father was not a republican, or a democrat, i havent lived with either party's supporters never in my life, or had spent some considerable time. Again, i have no bias towards any party.
I also am a world history enthusiast. I enjoy reading and researching what has happened when and how, and where.
Naturally i have done a good deal of research on u.s. history too, from pre-columbian times up to this day.
However, i have realized while researching the period that is from the 13 states' rebellion against united kingdom to this day, WHATEVER bad happens to the american people seem to have happened in the periods when conservatives, (later republicans) are in power.
I wont go into long-past early independence times now, but citing from near past, the neverending vietnam war that has become a mess because of nixon, and the rep. senate, the nixon himself as a mess, incapacity of reagan to resolve the libya issue, incapacity of senior bush with iraq, the horrible, horrible issue going on in the veil of junior bush's 'war against terror', with american lives being lost increasingly day by day, american citizens losing their individual rights day by day, and now, the internet is good as gone, again with a republican senate, and ALL of the time, the republican 'representatives' do little to represent the 'traditional values' of the american people that voted for them, but do EXCEEDINGLY WELL in protecting and promoting the interests of minority wealth groups at the expense of the voters' rights and welfare.
I am baffled at this point :
The republican party seems to capitalize on 'traditional and good american values' almost EVERY election, get elected, then do practically NOTHING for preserving those values, instead they do ANYTHING that is neccessary to channel more wealth to some minority wealth group, even if it means creating new wars in remote, in places that seem godforsaken and forgotten to american people, and do this with very lame excuses, american lives, money, rights get lost, but, a new election comes up, AND THE CYCLE REPEATS ITSELF !!!!!!
This is what i do not understand, WHY DO these people REPEATEDLY vote for these people that do everything to harm them ?!???
Read radical news here
"US telecommunications law rewrite a mixed bag"
The removal of section (b) COMPETITION NEUTRALITY by the House of Representatives is rather odd, given that removal directly undermines the users rights on the internet. As the House of Reps normally supports the ordinairy US citizin, i really wonder what has been going on. Also given the fact that content providers like google, ebay and amazon have lobbied to keep this inside the House Bill. In these cases of unexplainable House Votings I can only say one thing : Follow the Money: recipients : the Reps. donators : all the big backbone carriers : AT&T, MCI, you name em."The US House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce released the final draft (PDF) of the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act"
Robert M. Stockmann
As it mentions at the bottom of the article, this still needs to pass the senate. Specifically, the committiee on communication, science and transportation. Here is a list of the members, please contact them with your opinions as there is still time.
Only dead fish swim with the stream...
Hey man.
Remember when I asked you "what good is being right if the world around me is wrong?"
I think I understand now. Let's do it. They started this war, not us.
What if the whole connection was in an encrypted tunnel being relayed by a few proxies? (maybe like Tor?)
If it gets to the first proxy without QOS, then how could they tell the where it came from or where it is going?
Of course it wouldn't be easy to implement it, but still.
Amen, brother! In fact, the next time I hear somebody use the term "Information superhighway" (or Ajax, Web 2.0, etc) I will actually kick them in the ass. Honestly. Right in the ass.
It's sad that we have to live through times of ignorance, but console yourself (no not Xbox) with the idea that such measures with ultimately defeat themselves. If the US choses to impose unjust restrictions or taxes on the internet. The ultimate victums will be coporations who make money via the internet not consumers. Consumers will always have X amount of dollars to spend and when they spend that much they will be done. So restricting innovation will lead to lost revenue for US businesses and the DOW and overall the nation... effectively providing less money to the very legislators that created the bill. Now unfortunately they will still get their cake money, for now, but while we regulated the EU will innovate and eventually the failure of our logic will become apparent. That is if ISPs really are dumb enough to charge extra for 'undesirable' bandwidth use. It means our kids will have less access to resources that are basically free in other coutnries, which is nothing new. The trend of the US economy moving sluggishly while others race by us will continue.
could be something as simple as an ISP blocking a classified site because it has a competing one
ahhh.. only problem with that: Telcos already lobbied for and won deregulation so that they don't even have to license service to other ISP now. So, they're slowly squeezing the small ISP out of the market and consolidating monopolies not only on the last mile but on ISP level as well. Oh, and the Telcos are remerging to control the backbone, ISP, and last mile, while being deregulated to get into the content business as well, reversing about 75 years of consumer protection against monopolies controlling the national scale production and distribution of media monopolies.
So yes, they do hold all the cards now, and no, there is nothing to stop them from totally anti-competitive practices so long as they ratchet it up slowly enough to keep the public unaware. Something they've done very well so far.
Gotta love the "I don't have to give a shiat because the invisible hand of the free market will take care of it" type argument after deregulation has already granted Telcos monopoly powers. Talk about clueless. Those people are the equivalent of Fundamental Evangelicals with their total lack of critical thinking and taking things on faith out of laziness.
There seems to be a lot of fuss on here about charging for bits, but maybe it's not ultimately about that. In time, user choice will decree that bandwidth is commoditised, and shareholder value will no longer be realised from raw bandwidth. Maybe the "GoogleNet" accelerates this. But in the meantime there is a need to be fast to market as content distributor. Rather than the traditional broadcaster, or the current webtv sites, it seems that the incumbent carriers are waking up to the need to be prevelant in this market. Further, One could argue that by imposing regulation allowing prioritisation of bits, this gives preference to distributors in (ahem) TV 2.0...
The telcos claim people are using more bandwidth, right.
Instead of this whole "tiered internet" crap where things like YouTube and Google Video get hit, why not take the logical step and either increase costs (to cover the fact that the average bandwidth use per customer has gone up) or better yet, stop offering truely unlimited accounts.
Most ISPs here in australia offer either unlimited downloads but shaped back to slow speed after a certain amount (in my case I get shaped back to 64k after 20gb of download) or they offer "pay as you go" downloads where you get a certain amount per month included in your monthly fee and anything above that costs money.
Of course, the telcos wont do this because "tiered internet" is not about money, its about control. The telcos want to use it to shut out all the things they (and their friends the media companies) dont like. This means BitTorrent and other P2P methods. This means VoIP (at least the kind that doesnt generate revenue for the Telcos anyway). This means people who run their own web/email/ssh/ftp/half-life/cvs servers from a home connection. This means people sharing content (not just illegal content but content that, whilst legal, is not distributed through a **AA approved distribution channel)
Common sense says that the best way to get a company to change their behaviour is to get enough of their customers to complain about said behaviour. Unfortunatly, most US telcos (like many really big companies) are now in a position where they consider themselves so large that they can do whatever will increase their profits and to hell with their customers.
The answer is to press harder for co-operatives and other alternatives.
And to switch from the encumbants to existing alternatives like Covad/Speakeasy/etc when they exist (how will this "tiered internet" crap affect them?).
And to continue the fight in washington (although the US political system is so screwed up these days that the things that worked in the past to get things done on capitol hill (people power etc) would probably either be totally useless, get you locked up under anti-terror laws or both).
It's not ISPs that are going to be charging an extra toll... It's the bigger carriers who deign to allow all those ISPs to exist. Those bigger carriers will be implementing net tolls whether the smaller ISPs want it or not. The smaller ISPs can implement their own tolls as well, if they want, but it'll be on top of the tolls already being implemented by the larger tiers.
There will be no "there" to go to, unless people gather together and find a way to build their own neutral backbone.
Good luck. Seriously
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
... thank you SCOTUS for Brand X. If it weren't for the old clueless 9 on the bench, none of this would have been possible. Just fucking great. Now we have to start a whole new internet because the corporate one is about to get really expensive. The people behind this scheme are the same people who charge two dollars for a fucking ring tone.
May I suggest an ad hoc WiFi web. Sure, it'll be slow, and much more localized, but the equipment is cheap, already deployed and can be repurposed rather easily.
I am a fellow libertarian but I would like to point out that it isn't indeed a free market. Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T all have government granted monopolies. Many of them are defined as "public utilities" given protection, and maybe even subsidies. Also, in order to start a "utility" public or not, the amount of regulation and legislation that you would have to wade through means that the barrier to entry is excessively high meaning that those that are already in the business, have an effective cartel/monopoly already.
We need less government regulation, NOT more!
Libertas in infinitum
The market will find the path of least resistance one way or another.
There is no market. Where I live, there is a single (cable) broadband provider. I can't get a cellular signal; the trees block the satellite signals, and DSL stops several miles east of here. If my broadband provider decides to favor a certain content provider, I have to deal with that content provider, or accept the reduced level of service.
So long as telecom providers have monopolies, there is no market.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
Thank you, Madame Pelosi. I, for one, am very grateful. Have a really good day.
How many beans make five, anyhow ?
If the ISPs can ask Google to pay them to not slow down their packets on the way to Google's users (prefered delivery), so can Google charge the ISPs to not slow down it's response times to those ISPs' customers.
Google used to display response times on it's searches in the early days. It can go back to this practice and link to an explanation on why the response time to your searches/Gmail/calendar/spreadsheet/whatever is lower than others and to statistics on which ISPs have better response times with Google. In a world where connectivity providers assign different priorities to different websites, websites could just send point users that have slow response times to their ISP's support:
FAQ
Q: Why is the response time to your website so slow?
A: Some ISPs limit or slow down access to some website.
You should check with your ISP if they give different
priorities to different websites. Ask them to not
limit access to access to websites you use. If they
do limit access to your prefered websites you might
consider changng your provider.
The telcos/ISPs sort of try to make the internet into something like a cable TV system where their customers get the limited content from providers they have deals with. They seem to forget that in this model it is the intermediary that pays the content provider and not vice versa.
Gun Owners of America's Craig Fields puts it best:
"In a very, very strange situation, what we have is the necessity of government intervention to ensure a free marketplace of ideas. Whenever you see people from the far left and the far right joining together about something that Congress is getting ready to do, it's been my experience that what Congress is getting ready to do is basically un-American."
Read radical news here
Comment removed based on user account deletion
contact your Senators immediately and urge them to vote in favor of an amendment to protect 'Network Neutrality'.