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Dueling Network Neutrality Commentary on NPR
cube farmer writes Wednesday National Public Radio featured a commentary by telecom representative Scott Cleland in opposition to Network Neutrality legislation. Thursday Craig Newmark, the Craig behind craigslist, countered that Network Neutrality is essential for consumers. Who made the stronger case?
I feel Craig made the stronger argument - as it was plain and simple. Although I found it interesting that both referred to how the net is *now* as being what they believe it should be. Craig believes it's free now and should remain so. Scott Cleland seemed to say that it's open now, and to keep it open, close it down. Odd that..
{} ------ When I think of a good sig, I'll put it here
>Who made the stronger case?
If you thought reading TFA was hard, how about listening to TFR broadcast two days ago!
Grundes!
...I would have to say Craig made the strongest case.
One guy says that net neutrality is bad. Another guy counters(?) that net neutrality is bad. I thought I was getting an argument, not two different statements of the same opinion.
Finding other idiots on
Except I only heard the commentary from Scott Cleland. It was chock full of misinformation and outright lies. I have never been even remotely "upset" after listening to a story on NPR, and after having heard this, I was incensed and immediately wrote an angry feedback message to NPR about it.
Point and counterpoint debate is good, but they need to air them both back-to-back, lest they let the lobbyist get away with the utter crap he was spewing.
I even tuned into Morning Edition yesterday morning specifically to hear the counterpoint argument, and it didn't air at the same time of day.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
seemed to be about equally persuasive. The internet has been a level playing feild (or close to one) for a long time which is what makes it so interesting, is net neutrality going to give the gov't license to unlevel it how they see fit or will the goverment protect us from the big nasty tel-cos?
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=vi ewfeature&id=1497
Lawmakers don't know enough technically to make a law that wouldn't have unforeseen and damaging consequences, even if they supported net neutrality.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Without net neutrality, each ISP's "internet" would just be a huge billboard with some websites between. I dont see whats the problem for the ISPs with the current internet model. If the costs are too high, here is a hint: people already pay for internet access.
First, net neutrality is really a misnomer. It's really just special interest legislation, dressed up to sound less self-serving. Did you know Microsoft, Google and Yahoo are lobbying for net neutrality? If they're successful, they'll get a special, low-government-set price for the bandwidth they use, while everyone else -- consumers, businesses and government -- will have to pay a competitive price for bandwidth. [It] doesn't sound very neutral to me.
This guy deserves some sort of prize for shameless, bald-faced lying.
I blogged about this yesterday (http://lizawashere.typepad.com/liza_was_here/2006 /06/net_neutrality_.html), but in a nutshell, when a group of incredibly smart people like Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf, Gigi Sohn, Larry Lessig, Danny Wietzner, Susan Crawford, and others all agree...
AND they are joined by groups as diverse as Consumers Union, Gun Owners of America, Feminist Majority Foundation, the Christian Coalition, and MoveOn.org...
AND they're opposed by traditional telcos and cable companies...
Who do you think is right?
These opinions are my own. My employer is not aware of them, does not endorse them, and is not responsible for them.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
...was when the telcom shill tried to make it seem like neutrality would be harming the ISPs, when in truth it would only harm their ability to extort money from internet based services.
ISPs already get money for bandwidth usage from sites they host AND their CUSTOMERS. How much more can they go for with a straight face?
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
Scott Cleland: Amazingly, the proponents of this radical change in policy don't even have any real evidence of a problem, only unsubstantiated assertions about hypothetical problems.
It's called a concern. If I hand some firecrackers and some matches to my 6-year-old and turn him loose, I don't have any real evidence of a problem, only unsubstatiated assertions about hypothetical problems.
The one guy says,
While the other guy says,
If the opposite is true, then we shouldn't enact a new law to fix what isn't broken. No?
At first I was all for some kind of "Net Nuetrality" law, but I do agree that really any new "internet regulation" law that is passed regardless of who it favours is going to have long reaching effects. The solution? Keep your damn paws off my Internet, politicos!
Is there heaven? Is there Hell? Is that a Tuna Melt I smell?-Primus
I felt he had the more persuasive arguments, which is a shame since so many of them were utter bullocks. I feel like Craig should have answered more directly the issue of the backbone networks which are "privately" owned, but really represent a public trust.
Oh well, I guess I just need to resign myself to playing a rigged game.
And it wasn't just that I disagreed with him over net neutrality. He couldn't make a case that letting telco's balkanize the internet was in the interests of the consumer.
The way I see it this is nothing more than pure greed from AT&T (we know how much they look out for consumer interests), Bellsouth and handful of other companies all of which got a sweet deal when the internet was privatized. But in the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately corporate handout game, that history doesn't seem to matter now. There's a reason Bellsouth has a thirty person lobbying office on K Street. They spend millions on the hill and wouldn't be doing it if they didn't think there were billions waiting at the other end of this sweetheart legislation.
If internet traffic is such a burden, sell of those assets and move into another line of business. If it's such a loser, get of the business. Because I'm all a flutter over poor, poor Bellsouth not being able to set up toll booths on the net so they can charge at both ends of the pipe.
What's new and interesting to me is how special interest legislation is now connected to massive PR campaigns. The RIAA's launch to equate copyright infringement with theft, even though they are very different issues. The TV commercials touting tons of CO2 as a good thing for the environment. I'm just getting sick of corporate interests propagandizing TV and the mainstream media for political issues.
I want my government back, I want my news to be written by real journalists, not PR staff angling for a press hit, I want my privacy back and I want to own the data about me. Why is that asking so much?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Once people start thinking of making the Internet ready for VOIP 911 calls and other emergency traffic, without 'net neutrality' safeguards in place, the government will have to take on the task of architecting and enforcing standards to make sure that emergency traffic is tagged and treated right. If the telcos are uncomfortable with net neutrality legislation, I wonder how they feel about having the government telling them exactly how to do QOS/diffserv. The sheer size of such a regulatory task would easily dwarf any kind of net neutrality bill. They're actually asking to be regulated even more than under net neutrality.
Some groups are already raising the issue of whether or not the Internet should be capable of providing prioritization for emergencies
Worse still, in the end, if the telcos end up selling prioritization to content providers, those content providers, once they measure what they get, will find it poor and inconsistent anyway. QOS/diffserv pretty much needs end-to-end compliance to really make a consistent difference, especially at the ends (local ISP) where traffic loads are more variable and fanned out. Backbone setups won't matter nearly as much as last mile setups because the loads are static.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
One thing that has continually confused me in this debate is the idea that Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo aren't already paying for their bandwidth. The telcos lay the wire, sell it to ISPs, and the ISPs sell bandwidth, plain and simple. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but what the telcos WANT to do is find some way of charging the big companies MORE because they use bandwidth--but they already pay for it. It's not like Google is holding a gun to AT&T's head, here--Google has to pay for the hundreds upon hundreds of terabytes of traffic they generate. So what the hell is the problem? All network neutrality is saying is that you can't make someone pay more for their bandwidth if they happen to actually use it. Am I misunderstanding this? Where, in any of the amendments (the current being the Snow-Morgan) trying to force net neutrality into the telco bill, do they mention price fixing?
The congresscritters claim to be examining this issue fairly on behalf of the consumer. Here's the response from my representative after signing the google petition:
Dear Mr. xxxxxx:
Thank you for contacting my office regarding the issue of internet neutrality. I appreciate your thoughts on this subject and the opportunity to respond to you.
Net neutrality is the philosophy that internet service providers (ISP's) should not be allowed to prioritize content and services (particularly video) that come across their "pipes". I believe there is a need to strike a balance between preventing interference with internet traffic, while allowing the ISP's to continue to invest in this nation's internet and telecom infrastructure. Ultimately, I think it is important to provide equal access for these consumers and a balanced playing field for all involved. I appreciate your thoughts on this subject and will keep them in mind as legislation comes before the Senate for consideration.
Thank you again for contacting me. Please visit my webpage at http://isakson.senate.gov/ for more information on the issues important to you and to sign up for my e-newsletter.
Sincerely,
Johnny Isakson
United States Senator
For future correspondence with my office, please visit my web site at
http://isakson.senate.gov/contact.cfm
This same argument was used to deregulate california power companies in the 90s so they would have incentives to build more power stations, it didn't work. Rolling blackouts(or in this case poor service based on your packet identity) on the internet will not 'benefit consumers'.
The government should rigorously regulate the telecoms to _ensure_ best access for _all_ consumers, as well as allowing new technologies like youtube.com a chance to grow. I'd much rather see my tax dollars subsidizating of faster routers than supporting more bloodshed in Iraq.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
On the NewsHour on PBS, there was a similar exchange yesterday or the day before. The pro-telecom guy sounded a lot weaker, because he resorted to more big and mis-applied words in trying look somewhat smart while jabbing the rep from Amazon.com. The rep from Amazon.com was able to look straight at the moderator/camera and say (paraphrasing) "we already pay more for more bandwidth" and "there isn't enough competition among ISPs to ensure the tiering won't be abused."
I don't know, but one side just sounded like a much simpler and more direct argument that made more sense. The other side involved more dancing and verbal acrobatics to make it seem like an argument was being made, but it wasn't convincing.
Also, they did not discuss that allowing the tiered-pricing model would need extra regulation and monitoring (not less) to ensure educational, non-profit, and community service organizations aren't penalized.
"Net neutrality proponents worry that telecom, wireless and cable companies might one day favor their own content and applications over others."
He says this, but nowhere does he say that the ISPs won't do it. Normally when I make arguments, I try to refute the opposition's points, especially when I myself bring them up. Then he goes on to try to scare his audience about Big Bad Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo supporting net neutrality and then making up something about them getting a cut-rate deal while consumers pay a "competitive" price. Wait, didn't he just say he's "net competition" proponent?
Besides, if anyone has questions about net neutrality, they should just ask a ninja about it.
The telecom execs claim they need lots of cash to build an infrastructure
The telecoms want to replace Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and You. And will when they extract usage tariffs on the order of long distance charges. What will be left is a broadcast Media not unlike TV. We will not be online but rather we will watch the people the telecoms pick to entertain us.
Scott Cleland chairman of NetCompetition.org, said
" Second, net neutrality would be a 180 degree reversal of the government's highly successful policy to promote competition and not regulate the Internet.".
That's and out right lie. The telecoms will have the power shut out all of what the Internet should be, by simply controlling cost. There brodcast offerings can be cashed at there POP sight and not even need an Internet. At that point the new printing press will be effetely be dead. And an real Internet usage will be added to your long distance bill. Scott confuses broadband with extreme offering TV over your phone lines. With the sort of relativity low bandwidth usage we get from Google and Slashdot.
BANDWAGON = RIGHT
?
I have repeatedly asked this on forums where the consensus is largely pro-net-neutral, and never get a good answer. I'll try again.
If creating a tiered internet:
1. does not worsen my connection *at all*
2. does not cost me *any* more money (assuming I am not benefiting from it), either directly or indirectly
3. is *entirely* paid for by people or companies that can benefit from it
why should I care? It seems almost as if tiered internet could be a good thing because it would allow many applications of the internet, such as VOIP and video over IP (which were promised to us a long time ago but still not delivered in a good way) to function better.
I would appreciate a well thought out response from someone who is educated in this well enough to not start with "I think..." or "maybe this will happen..." I have, time and time again, seen people make vague claims (eg. "you can't trust the telco companies, anything they do is bad") and repeating what the corporations that will not benefit from this say (eg. google and amazon). But can someone please tell me WHY net neutrality is such a good thing?!?
This argument isn't so much over the internet, as it is about AT&T wanting to get into the video business, without having to pay franchise fees, or being locked out by existing monopolies granted the cable companies.
T is running ads in my area promising this will bring lower prices for existing video sources via competition with the cable providers.
I think Craig makes the strongest case.
But seriously does anyone believe that other guy when he says:
So, because google wants to be treated like everyone else, they are actually asking to be treated special?
And the boiler plate argument on the side is now that it is just some "fear" that we all have about the big bad telecoms... of course that fear isn't based on statements by their CEOs that it is their intention to start charging for lower latency as well as more bandwidth. I mean it is just a fear until they actually start doing it... even though they said they are going to do it. I mean how do you know someone is going to pull the trigger, until they actually do. And just because google and other companies have already said that the telecoms have approached them with these threats, I'm sure the telecoms where just kidding around. Those kidders.
Just wait, when the telecoms roll out their new hidden fees, they will just start calling it something else and tell us that all our "fears" where just irrational. And all that lack of choice we are left with is just "the market" and has nothing to do with their legitamite business practices.
I haven't heard Craig's yet but have no doubt that it will be brimming with all sincerity that Cleland's lacked (regardless whether he's right).
If the ISP's really believe they have the better argument then I suggest one of their CEO's step up to the plate and explain to us why. Leave the shilling to the lobbyists and their paid minions in DC to buy the laws.
Lastly, shame on NPR for letting the ISPs place a paid spokesmouth to argue their case!
I am very much in favor of net neutrality, but this may be opening pandora's box. Once the government is regulating something, it is extremely difficult to stop; the nasty tenticals of government meddling just expand. Furthermore, as another post mentions, our congressmen are not technical experts, and it will be difficult for them to draft a bill which doesn't have bad side effects. Especially with lobbyists trying to stick loopholes in the bill.
Furthermore, I am not convinced that a bill is necessary to maintain net neutrality. I for one will definitely vote with my dollars: as soon as some ISP keeps me from going to websites, I move to the next one. The only question is if there is enough competition for me to find somewhere else to go.
Qxe4
Is he saying that only those businesses lobbying for net neutrality will get it? Because here, he's saying "everyone else", including businesses, will have to pay "a competitive price" (whatever that means). Are Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo not businesses? What the hell is this idiot talking about?
I was of the impression that net neutrality had to do with, among other things, the idea that if it isn't "neutral", then, say, Comcast could partner with, say, Amazon, and give priority to Amazon traffic to the end-user. If said user tries to visit, say, Barnes & Noble, the site will be much slower than Amazon, because Barnes & Noble isn't partered with his ISP. (Same with game servers, VoIP providers, etc.)
This is more or less what he says here: Uh, who said anything about pricing? All I want is for the law to say "ISPs are not allowed to prioritize packets based on business agreements or partnerships or whatever else. The user pays for a 6 meg pipe and gets to send and receive whatever bits he wants, period."
You know.. sort of the way it is now.
Since I can't read Craig's argument, I can't say who "won", but from this, the guy is alternating between babbling and outright lying.
And of course, consider the question another way: "Two men debate net neutrality. One would stand to directly profit from preventing net neutrality, while to the other, it wouldn't make much of a difference. Who do you think is more honest and objective?"
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
who sounded less like a total douchebag, I'd have to give the nod myself to Craig.
Innovation makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old regime... -- Machiavelli
I'm shocked that NPR aired this. I understand giving airing sides of an argument, but this is nothing but lies. I don't mean that I don't like it, or I disagree - I mean that factually this is nothing but lies. NPR needs to do a little bit of fact checking before airing something so inaccurate. Usually I like NPR, but this is abhorrent.
Worse yet, is that this isn't new: These guys are winning this battle because they are putting out so much misinformation.
<sarcasm>Only the market can be right !</sarcasm>
:wq
Prior to reading a few articles on the subject, I had taken the assumption that network neutrality was a good thing. It didn't cross my mind to question whether or not it was actually good. But then I read this article and it tweaked my desire to have the government leave me alone to negotiate my own private decisions.
But, of course, I'm frustrated by this. I'm really nervous about the ability of the telco and the cableco to take away my easy access to vonage (or any other 3rd party service that I might like). Both of those companies offer competing voice services at a higher price. So they have incentive to make it hard for me to use a more efficient and cheaper solution. I don't know how to resolve this because I feel like I have very little choice in the matter and I can't effectively make use of an alternative high speed broadband provider.
That is, until I read this article which argued that the entire problem starts with government regulation of telco and cableco providers. We have very little choice because the government came in and granted exclusive monopolies. Do we really think the solution to the problems created by government regulation is more government regulation? For my part, I don't.
I now think that the best solution is to get the regulating bodies out of the way so that competition can be employed. As soon as there's a competitive marketplace for last mile high speed connectivity, if the cableco restricts my access to vonage, there's lots of other choices. They'll lose market share and the benefits of network neutrality will be achieved without all of the heavy handed (and ineffective) government oversite.
My current stance is: have patience. It might just work itself out on it's own. It might not and at that time the argument in favor of network neutrality might have more weight. But for now, I'm not convinced. And if you're certain that we need to "do something" then the thing we should do is release the restrictions on who can and can't provide last mile service to my house.
But, of course, I'm willing to be wrong on this one. Anyone care to educate me?
Oh... and here's a pretty good compilation of opinions on the subject.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
I would say that neither made a very strong case for their respective sides, but Craig did the best job.
The Telco guy said, "Net Neutrality is bad." But failed to supply a good, factual "why". Instead, he promoted what services could potentially be offered if "government regulation" is prevented. He tosses in buzz-words with negative connotations (e.g. "government-monitored," "socialized," "special interest") , along side good-sounding ideas, but fails to offer anything of substance. It made me laugh when he tried to describe Net Neutrality in the same terms that Net Neutrality proponents describe telco regulation.
Craig's reply lacks factual references as well, but provides some good examples. Basically, it points out all of the bad things that the telcos could do if net neutrality wasn't preserved. I rather like the telephone analogy. But this isn't the most convincing argument against the telcos I've seen.
I may have been a bit unfair, considering there were probably size constraints on both. I doubt, however, more room to write would've improved the Telco's argument.
Hey slashdot, I'd love to see a poll on this.
Hmmm...I predict a lot of healthy discussion and changed minds on this one.
Two things stuck out at me wrt Cleland's position.
While Cleland wants to make sure you know exactly who's behind "net neutrality" (Microsoft, Google and Yahoo), he's standing in front of the anonymous NetCompetition.org. That would be the US telcos, cable companies, lobbyists and trade groups. Surely they are the bastions of fairness, light, hope and the American Way.
Then there's the issue of painting the other camp as describing some unknown phantom:
Amazingly, the proponents of this radical change in policy don't even have any real evidence of a problem, only unsubstantiated assertions about hypothetical problems.
Then he lands several unsustantiated assertions himself (somewhat edited):
high cost to consumers, slower Internet, higher prices, less choice, less privacy, more government surveillance
Gee, no Global Warming and Avian Flu?
If AT&T and Verizon are NOT on that bandwagon then it's very probable that that wagon is traveling in the right direction or the band is playing the correct tune or whatever stretched metaphore is correct in this context.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
Well, Cleland claimed both that:
All else aside, if a law wouldn't limit their behavior, how would it limit their behavior? I only heard a few minutes of the interview on my way to work, but Cleland immediately lost based on logical faults alone.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Here in germany, we had a somewhat similar debate about the net long before it really became an issue on the web: In germany, it is forbidden to show images or text a racist background. So basically, after a author wrote an essay about how ridiculus a neo-nazi website (which was located in the USA and untouchable by german law) was, and linked to it, he got sued because of this link. He won the trail, because the judgde decided that he clearly wasn't linking to the website to promote it, but to make fun of the idiots behind it. But now politicans steped in, with their funny views on how the web works, and demanded ISP to make the webiste and other unacessible to users from germany ( yes germany, not china), therefore giving up their neutrality. That is the main point why we must have net neutrality: Nobody would care about a website being pulled down, but where do you draw the line? Sure, there is a big gap between making some racist idiots website unaccessible and doing the same to the opposing political party or information about humans right like china. But its a small step in this very direction. "Wehret den Anfängen"
What...you allow others to think for you? Even when those others are well-intentioned and incredibly bright individuals, it's still a dangerous proposition. It's that kind of thinking that has us stuck in the "Republican v. Democrat" team competition that's destroying our country.
Think for yourself. Make up your own mind.
My position on Net Neutrality is very simple. If someone provides Internet service to me, they are providing the service of routing my Internet packets to and from the Internet. Nothing else. If they have email service, or Usenet, or VoIP, it is on the Internet, and should be treated like any other Internet host. Nobody gets special treatment.
It's not fair to Internet-based companies to allow network providers to charge both consumers and producers when only the consumers have an account with them. Take the telephone system as an analogy. Similarly, it's been subsidized by the government, and is almost ubiquitous. When I make a long-distance call, it's charged at the same rate once it's outside a certain area. The person receiving the call doesn't get charged (because the caller paid for the call, and the recipient already pays for the physical connection). If network neutrality didn't exist, it would be like allowing each switching office that my call goes through to charge another fee, or rather if the phone company charged large companies to receive calls from consumers, even though the large company has already paid for phone service. The company may have to pay more for a high-volume connection, just as an Internet company pays more for a bigger pipe, and they might have to pay per-minute, just as many larger connections charge per byte, but once the connection is paid for, it's paid for.
ttuttle is a rankmaniac
I disagree with your thinking and wish to unsubscribe from your mailing list.
/.er
:-)
I like making choices based on the relative merits of the options and not so much on the people/organizations/entities tied to the options. But hey, I guess I'm just not a typical knee-jerk reactionary
when a group of incredibly smart people like Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf, Gigi Sohn, Larry Lessig, Danny Wietzner, Susan Crawford, and others all agree...
AND they are joined by groups as diverse as Consumers Union, Gun Owners of America, Feminist Majority Foundation, the Christian Coalition, and MoveOn.org...
Not to mention that they speak of their own volition while Scott Cleland is getting paid for espousing his (the telcos?) so-called opinion.
I run an ISP. From my perspective, our customers are already paying us for the service they receive. If we wish to make more money, we earn it by offering more and/or improved services at a higher price. If we were to generate outside cash by making some packets more equal than others, we should rightly suffer the consequences. Our customers, however, not the government, should (and would) be imposing the penalties.
On the scale of the (we own your data) AT$Ts, however, customer revolts are more readily contained. The proven ability of the telecommunications industry to prosper at the expense of the customer does make neutrality legislation attractive. Until, of course, the AT$T legislative army manages to make net neutrality equal whatever they may please.
"The telecom execs tell us they can be trusted to play fair and not extend privileges unfairly."
My first job out of college was as an accountant in a Jewish CPA firm. After making some dumb mistake my supervisor called me "schmuck." I asked what that meant. He replied. "Trust me."
Mr. Cleland says...
They want Congress to pass a new law to ban that practice by regulating the price of broadband service and the way it's sold.
Technically true -- for the history of the Internet, this was enforced by agency regulation and not Congressional law. Now it's about to change, unless a law requires it to stay the same.
Now, net competition proponents, like me, believe that the best way to guard a free and open Internet is to maintain the free and open competition that exists today, not create a new government-monitored, socialized Internet.
"Maintain" is a falsity. "Socialized", yeah, the Internet had no government support in the past.
First, net neutrality is really a misnomer. It's really just special interest legislation, dressed up to sound less self-serving. Did you know Microsoft, Google and Yahoo are lobbying for net neutrality? If they're successful, they'll get a special, low-government-set price for the bandwidth they use, while everyone else -- consumers, businesses and government -- will have to pay a competitive price for bandwidth. [It] doesn't sound very neutral to me.
This paragraph implies that the above companies would get a special price mandated by the legislation, which is a lie.
Right now, you pay as a consumer to connect your PC to the Internet. You pay as a provider to connect to the Internet. These prices are (generally) based on bandwidth -- regardless of what you are doing with that bandwidth. Of course this works great for Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo -- they are the most popular. If prices suddenly doubled for them, maybe they wouldn't be able to afford the quality that makes them so popular.
Second, net neutrality would be a 180 degree reversal of the government's highly successful policy to promote competition and not regulate the Internet.
False. As stated above, "net neutrality" has been the status quo on the Internet, it just didn't need to be a law because no one was trying to change it.
Finally, net neutrality legislation would be a lousy trade off for consumers. The consumer benefits would be small, but the cost to consumers would be huge. Price regulation would destroy any economic incentive to innovate and invest in the private networks that make up the Internet. Over time, we would end up with a slower Internet and higher broadband prices and taxes for consumers, less broadband choice and slower broadband deployment to all Americans. And it would also mean less privacy for all Americans, as net neutrality would require more government monitoring and surveillance of Internet traffic.
Given that "net neutrality" is the current state of affairs, I'd say the Internet is doing pretty well from a business perspective.
Since virtually every paragraph in this commentary includes a misleading or false statement, I'll go with the other one, thanks. I hope most listeners knew enough to do the same.
You must have been under a rock since 1999..
The news has been nothing but misinformation and propaganda for almost 7 years now.. anyone who hasnt noticed has to be either republican or comatose.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
1) Who is they?
2) AFAIK, network neutrality has nothing to do with regulating the prices or how it is sold.
Are there multiple things going under the name of network neutrality? Network neutrality, as I know it, is codifying into law the existing way the internet already works. It involves no new regulations, no special agencies, nothing about prices, or sales, etc. Am I wrong? Or are these guys making up FUD to confuse the issue?
With Telcos jacking up prices on everything, and buying up all the competition, we will soon be back at MaBell...but VoIP is the way of the future, so I have moved in that direction...I don't think AT&T or Verizon need my money.
Here in Utah, we have a project going called UTOPIA (http://www.utopianet.org/) which can be used in municipalities to give everyone a low cost "fiber to house" solution for Data and VoIP.
Like our garbage, recycling, and other "out-sourced" services that are provided us in the city, we would pay the internet bill with our city water bill. Then something like "net neutrality" don't even come into play, as UTOPIA is putting in their own lines.
--E--
Couldn't Google (and/or a coalition of web content companies in favor of network neutrality) simply use the same tactics against the ISPs? For instance, Google could say that it deserves a fee from an ISP to guarantee access to any of its users of the Google website. If the ISP doesn't agree to pay, then all requests originating from that ISPs network will not be accepted. However, Google would be willing to offer free access to any users on ISPs with neutral networks. ;-)
"The telecom execs tell us they can be trusted to play fair and not extend privileges unfairly."
and the fox tells me they can be trusted to play fair and not extend privileges unfairly with the hens.
Remember kids, corporations are benevolent, holy, and blameless creatures. We should be honored by their presence and feel glad they wish us to provide them money.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Wait ... is this NPR you're talking about? The same NPR that reprimanded someone for upsetting Bill "I raped an assistant and got away with it" O'Reilly? Or is this a different NPR? Because I would never expect them to roll over for some dirtbag ... except maybe now and then ...
I'll take Google and MIcrosoft over Ma' Bell, comcast, and the other cronies any day of the week.
On one hand, you have the telcoms who want to charge us more and possibly block or limit certain content. On the other, you have Microsoft, etc, who want the government to regulate the internet to make sure it stays neutral.
It seems to me that the government would do everything it can to turn that regulation into propagation of their policies and their own interests. Obviously, that isn't good for smaller websites who disagree with certain policies the government has. Maybe the telcoms would limit certain websites because they don't make that much money or don't bribe them(figuratively or otherwise) or whatever, but it sounds like it would be better for free speech to side with the telecoms. Since, they don't, or at least, I think they don't have any real political objectives with this, other than monetary.
Though everyone here seems to think net neutrality is a good thing. I don't see how the government regulating the internet is preferable to the telecoms doing something similar. Are we screwed either way? If so, somebody has got to find a plan to free the internet.
~ So sayeth the wise Alaundo
These are some of the 'facts' that people seem to be trying to say. A lot of it seems to be contradictory. A. The net neutrality act is already in place and were debating keeping it. Is this true? B. The debate is over 2 sets of lines really - 1. The internet backbone, which, if the people who are maintaining this right now act unscrupulous then ISPs and corporations (M$, Yahoo, Google) could place their own wires to bypass. 2. The wire to your house, which is placed there by a company that has a government-enforced monopoly that allows them and only them to bring that wire to you. C. This law is supposed to make it illegal to pay more for higher speed internet. Is this true? D. Without this law, Bell South could make sure that the only 'internet' you get is the one that connects to their websites.
Improve things? We're just trying to keep things from getting worse!
"Damage control" describes most of my political action lately - I generally fancy myself as a progressive, bleeding heart left liberal (yes there's a bit of sarcasm in there for some of you), but lately I have found myself feeling like a bit of a short-term regressivist - I would like to turn back the political clock to September 10, 2001. Ironically, I would consider this "progress."
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
We all pay for the bandwidth we use. Google pays for the bandwidth it uses to send us information and receive our requests. In the inverse, I pay to access Google and get the response. Why should Google (and ultimately I) pay to make sure that access to Google is just as fast as access to SBCSearch or ComcastSearch? Bandwidth is bandwidth and it doesn't effect the carriers one iota where the packets come from. If you want to charge me more for more packets, that's fine. Or, if you want to charge me more for a network that provides QoS guantees for packets where I assign the priority, fine. I guess it comes down to that I'd love an end-to-end QoS aware network, just not one where the provider sets the QoS level for different packets based on the origin of the packet and the ransom the originator has paid. QoS costs more, more bandwidth costs more, carrying packets from Google or from anywhere else costs the same. Charge me for services that cost you (the provider) money, not for where I choose to get packets from.
Well, of course you should make up your own mind.
But are you honestly uninfluenced by expert opinions? In all areas?
Cuz if you are, I'd like to sell you my programming book. Why would you buy one from O'Reilly instead?
These opinions are my own. My employer is not aware of them, does not endorse them, and is not responsible for them.
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=189331&cid =15590580
Seriously. It's, what, 80-90% of technically conversant people who believe that net neutrality is good, and that allowing telecom companies to arbitrarily extract extra fees by packet tpye is bad. So, why is it that our reps don't listen? Are they simply swayed only by money? Blinded by ideological generalizations? Incapable of understanding the issue?
Tweet, tweet.
I did not get to hear the NPR story but did watch the NewsHour on PBS last night. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-june06/ne tneutrality_06-22.html is the link to the commentary between Paul Misener and Scott Cleland.
Not having any prior knowledge or interest in this story I must say this is going to be a hard one to solve. On one hand I fear my government whenever they get involved in something that is working reasonably well already. On the other hand I know the big Telco's won't lobby for anything unless it is in their financial interest. Reading Slashdot comments above leads me to believe most web savvy people are on the side of net neutrality.
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
See, here's the thing. In the United States, we have this law called the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, colloquially known as McCain-Feingold. Part of what this law does is outlaws the use of "soft money"--that is, money that isn't given to a particular type of organization--for taking out endorsements for a candidate within 30 (or 60, depending) days prior to an election.
What this means is that I cannot take out a radio ad saying "I think we should put so-and-so in office" within the 30 days prior to an election.
So what does this have to do with net neutrality? Suppose the government has mandated net neutrality, which means that it is regulating the Internet, just like it regulates radiospace. Wouldn't it then make sense, according to McCain-Feingold, that I cannot create a banner ad endorsing a candidate?
And then, what about say, blog posts? What prevents McCain-Feingold from applying to those? In other words, I cannot endorse a political candidate in my own blog?
If we allow the government to start regulating the transmission of information over the Internet, what prevents it from applying more regulation and censoring things, such as political speech?
I understand that a common counterargument may be "But if we don't have net neutrality, what prevents the evil monopolistic telcos from getting rid of free speech?"
Firstly, I work for one of those telcos. And I will tell you that we want to give people the best service possible. We are not evil. However, day-to-day operations cost money. Networks don't just run themselves.
And secondly, the existence of competition in the market would prevent the telcos from doing that. It may be the case that right now, not everyone will be able to pick. But how long is that market condition going to last? Consumers will demand access to everything, or they will go to their competition.
Of course, the problem is far more fundamental than all of this. There are two fundamental issues at stake here:
1. how much should the government be able to regulate its citizens communications
2. how much should the government subsidize the communications industry
I strongly say "neither". But then again, I'm not a socialist.
I was disappointed with the argument for the anti-neutrality stance, and disappointed with Craig's rebuttal.
Here's why:
First, the anti-neutrality Scott Cleland. He says,
"Net neutrality proponents worry that telecom, wireless and cable companies might one day favor their own content and applications over others. They want Congress to pass a new law to ban that practice by regulating the price of broadband service and the way it's sold."
As I understand the Net Neutrality argument, no one wants Congress to regulate the price of broadband service. I think most people are quite content with paying a competitive price (that is, a price driven by competition, not regulation) for access to the internet, with the price varying depending on how big a pipe you want to rent. This is true whether you are a consumer, paying $50/month for cable internet access, or Google, paying who knows how much per month for the bandwidth they consume. I don't hear anyone clammoring for Congress to regulate these prices.
What people do want, however, is for Congress to make it illegal for any middle man in between the content provider's ISP and the content consumer's ISP to charge an extra toll, a toll that is certain to be levied based on A) content type and B) the size of the pocketbook of the sender.
Cleland goes on to say:
"Now, net competition proponents, like me, believe that the best way to guard a free and open Internet is to maintain the free and open competition that exists today, not create a new government-monitored, socialized Internet.
The thing is, I think most people do want an internet like it exists today - a free market system where the phone company sells bandwidth to ISP's who in turn re-sell it on either end of the fat pipes. We all pay for access to the fat pipes through the fees we pay for the little pipes on either end.
What we don't want is for the owners of the fat pipes to be able to tripple-dip - collecting fees from the sender's end of the pipe, the receiver's end of the pipe, and collecting a fee based on what kind of content is being sent and who sent or received it.
Cleland also says:
"Did you know Microsoft, Google and Yahoo are lobbying for net neutrality? If they're successful, they'll get a special, low-government-set price for the bandwidth they use, while everyone else -- consumers, businesses and government -- will have to pay a competitive price for bandwidth. [It] doesn't sound very neutral to me."
This is news to me. I have never heard that Microsoft, Google, or anyone else is looking for regulated prices for their access to the internet. I think they are quite content to pay competitive prices for access to the Internet. What they don't want to do is pay a competitive price for access to the internet and then have their data being tolled again by every middle man who own's a piece of copper or fiber between them and their consumers.
He further says:
"Finally, net neutrality legislation would be a lousy trade off for consumers. The consumer benefits would be small, but the cost to consumers would be huge. Price regulation would destroy any economic incentive to innovate and invest in the private networks that make up the Internet. Over time, we would end up with a slower Internet and higher broadband prices and taxes for consumers, less broadband choice and slower broadband deployment to all Americans. And it would also mean less privacy for all Americans, as net neutrality would require more government monitoring and surveillance of Internet traffic."
This is just plain crap. No one is saying that the backbone owners, the phone companies, can't charge ISPs whatever they want to or need to for access to the pipes. These costs get passed on to the ISPs customers based on how much bandwidth they want. There will constantly be a demand for higher and higher speeds. The phone company can, and
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Slashdot's Bill: $100,000
Fox News's Bill: $0
The fallacy in this argument is believing that the market will favor the better service [read: content providers]. However, if there's one thing you can take away from corporate history, is that monopolies win 98% of the time. Rockerfeller, Gates, and Ford all employed their monopolies effectively. Historically it was only a more nimble competitor that tended to topple the bigger fish, but rarely (if ever) has anything gotten in the way of a successful monopoly.
Everyone keeps focusing on the big fish in this struggle, without realizing that it's the little fish that will get squashed. It's the ma and pop shops that will have to go belly up, because they don't have the deep pockets to fight an extra bill from the telco's. Corporations like Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft have enough money to keep their monetary losses to a minimum, but small time sites do not.
What we're essentially considering here, is whether the telco's have an arbitrary right to charge certain sites more. If this passes, how difficult would it be for well connected people to start censoring the internet this way? I'm not saying it will happen, but power like this often devolves towards abuse, and there are probably only 1 or 2 politicians with enough know-how to keep this abuse in check. I find it difficult to believe that any good can come from this (except for the telcos), as history has a definite pattern to favor the monopoly in question.
Who do you think is right?
What a terrible way to look at the issue. You're making it into a popularity contest. Don't forget that this same reasoning is why our political system sucks sometimes. Politicians spent money to play games with our heads, and we suck it up.
Yes, if people you admire have viewpoints on something, that should get you interested in the issue, however, your opinion needs to be based on your intrepertation of the facts, not on what the cool kids or the bad guys think.
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
Yeah, what he said!
[command INSERTWITTYQUIP failed: insufficient wit]
Extracts from TFA
.....and that is because the referee is having to interfere on the playing field when one team is starting to play dirty.....
"Now, net competition proponents, like me, believe that the best way to guard a free and open Internet is to maintain the free and open competition that exists today, not create a new government-monitored, socialized Internet. "
He's playing on the fear of being 'monitored', but the only monitoring by the government in this instance is the price of bandwidth.
"First, net neutrality is really a misnomer. It's really just special interest legislation, dressed up to sound less self-serving. "
U'm yes. It is special interest legislation aimed at the self-serving telco's. So?
"Did you know Microsoft, Google and Yahoo are lobbying for net neutrality? "
Yes, I did. That is because they are going to be hit hard by a non-neutral internet. Without a neutral internet, Telco's have free reign on charging Yahoo and Google whatever they like. However, the non-neutrality is likely to end up hurting the consumer through throttled bandwidth to Yahoo and Google, in the Telco's hope of consumers using their product. Yahoo and Google offer plenty of free services like web-mail, FlickR, Maps, Search etc, and the only reason they use high traffic, is because of the large number of consumers CHOOSING to use their services BECAUSE they are better!!
"If they're successful, they'll get a special, low-government-set price for the bandwidth they use, while everyone else -- consumers, businesses and government -- will have to pay a competitive price for bandwidth. [It] doesn't sound very neutral to me. "
Google / Yahoo wont get a 'special low government set price', they will just get the same rate that is commercially available to others - on the commercial market!!. The Telco's shouldn't be able to charge more for UDP packets (used for streaming) over TCP/IP packets! (web browsing). I can understand telco's tiered charging for MBps, which Google and Yahoo already pay a premium for. You think Googles internet connection is cheap?
"Second, net neutrality would be a 180 degree reversal of the government's highly successful policy to promote competition and not regulate the Internet. "
"Amazingly, the proponents of this radical change in policy don't even have any real evidence of a problem, only unsubstantiated assertions about hypothetical problems. "
That is because the Telco's haven't done the dirty on the consumer YET. This is a crime waiting to happen. The Telco's are clearly positioning themselves to commit extortion, they just haven't sent you your Internet bill:
Google Video charge: $50
Yahoo maps Charge: $80
"Large Unfriendly Telco" with heaps of popups and crap search tools $0.50c
(you saved $100 by using US!!)
"Finally, net neutrality legislation would be a lousy trade off for consumers. The consumer benefits would be small, but the cost to consumers would be huge. "
Now that is a threat if ever I've heard one.....
"Price regulation would destroy any economic incentive to innovate and invest in the private networks that make up the Internet. Over time, we would end up with a slower Internet and higher broadband prices and taxes for consumers, less broadband choice and slower broadband deployment to all Americans. "
It just gives the Telco's an excuse not to roll out services at the rate the consumer wants ($$$$). It is now clearly obvious the Telco's are trying to maximize profit per Mbps, not provide more Mbps!!!
"And it would also mean less privacy for all Americans, as net neutrality would require more government monitoring and surveillance of Internet traffic."
Fishing for an emotive response from the weak minded here.... The only surveillance (IN THIS CASE) would be for the Government to check the charging rates and that taxes are being paid, not the actual tr
Holy shit! The Christian Coalition and MoveOn.org are...working together?
>I have repeatedly asked this on forums where the consensus is largely pro-net-neutral,
>and never get a good answer. I'll try again.
>
>If creating a tiered internet:
>1. does not worsen my connection *at all*
>2. does not cost me *any* more money (assuming I am not benefiting from it), either directly or indirectly
>3. is *entirely* paid for by people or companies that can benefit from it
>
>why should I care?
Here's why:
First of all, it WILL worsen your connection. You just won't know why. You might notice that some web sites seem to load up faster than others, or that your service from one VOIP provider works well while from another it is slow. But you won't know why - you might just chaulk it up to a slow connection somewhere in the world. But eventually, you, and everyone else, will get tired of dealing with the slow web sites and services and start to patronize the faster ones.
What you and everyone else won't know is the reason the sites and services were slow was because they couldn't or didn't pay the extra toll to the pipleline owners to insure good quality of service for their data.
Secondly, it WILL cost you money, but again, you won't know it. But if you buy any service or product from any company that is being forced to pay extortion in order to do business on the 'net, then you will be paying that extortion fee in the form of higher prices for those products or services.
Lastly, sure it will be paid for by those who can afford to enjoy the benefits offered by the extortion. But as above, you and I will pay for it. But worse, you and I will lose speedy access to a lot of potentially new services and products that could have been put up on the web but, because they couldn't afford the extortion, never were. Or they will be gutted to such an unusable speed that they will wither on the vine.
And the hell of it is, even if you wanted to complain about it, you won't know who to complain to! If you call your local ISP and complain about the speed, all they will be able to say is, "Sorry, something upstream of us is slowing down the data." Unless you want to get geeky and start doing packet tracing, which most consumers don't have a clue about, they will never know why some things are slower than others. They'll just quit using them in favor of the speedy ones.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Net neutrality is right, because they already charge for a given bitrate.
Net neutrality is wrong, because the government shouldn't interfere with the free market.
But you know what? Neither of those answers have a goddamned thing to do with what the answer is going to be.
What's the answer going to be?
Net neutrality is wrong because it interferes with the ability to create artificial barriers to entry through contracts. You want to know what the end result will be? Follow the money. How can big content and big transport both make money off of net bias or net neutrality? The can both make money if they create bidirectional contracts that leave the little guys out.
Whazzat?
Suppose big transport says to Google, "We're not going to carry your video if you only pay for the pipes once." Maybe Google goes along at first. If they do, big transport will raise the price. They will keep raising the price until they find the point where Google is no longer willing to pay more. The find that by charging too much. At which point Google says no, and big transport turns off the switch.
Then what happens? Fourteen million screaming customers blow their stack. Big transport goes to Google and says, "OK, we'd like to renegotiate the price." To which Google responds, "Forget it - we see the light now. You are going to pay us for the right to carry our content, just like television." The box for a while, and eventually they wind up with a contract that says something along the lines of Google will pay PacBell $0.10 per megabyte for transport, and PacBell will pay Google $0.10 per megabyte for content.
Why do they come to this arrangement? Simple - anyone who's not big enough to play in PacBell and Google's league will either pay PacBell, or not be able to compete with Google. Everybody wins. Well, at least everyone who is in big content or big transport, and fuck everybody else, right? I mean, nobody else stepping up to the lobbying plate to pay for this legislation, so nobody else cares, right?
Right? Wrong? Big transport and big content are the guys with the guns.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Yup! A clear sign of the impending Apocalypse if I've ever seen one. Which should make the Christian Coalition happy...
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
It's true, the Christian Coalition and MoveOn are working together. Here's the list of coalition members supporting Internet neutrality legislation: http://www.savetheinternet.com/=coalition
Unfortunately, it isn't in alphabetical order. But it's entertaining reading.
These opinions are my own. My employer is not aware of them, does not endorse them, and is not responsible for them.
From TFA of the telecom exec: "Over time, we would end up with a slower Internet and higher broadband prices and taxes for consumers, less broadband choice and slower broadband deployment to all Americans."
- Too late, this is already true. Most places in America have two choices AT MOST for broadband. (I live in a well-populated urban area, and my ONLY option is Cable Internet, I am often unsatisfied with the Quality of Service, but I have no choice but to either keep paying $50+ dollars per month, or go back to dialup) Broadband has been in my city since 1999 now (SEVEN years, an eternity when you are talking tech) and prices/choice have YET to improve, with the exception of "special introductory rates" which revert to the same high prices when the introductory period is over. Meanwhile, we keep hearing about places such as South Korea where they are WAY ahead of the U.S. market in speed (common 20 Mbps+ connections) and have MUCH lower prices to boot. If anything, government intervention is sorely needed purely to protect the consumer from price gouging and monopolistic/duopolistic behavior.
Network polarity (the opposite of network neutrality, I guess) takes away bandwidth/latency from the common pool and gives it preferentially to a few. This is great if you have specific needs. However, by enforcing network neutrality, if you need improved bandwidth/latency, you have to increase the total so that everyone benefits, including yourself.
It's the old argument about splitting up the pie vs. baking a bigger one. Assholes favor carving up the current pie in their favor. Progressives favor making a bigger pie. It's that simple--you're either an asshole or a progressive on this one. Too bad the assholes run the country and have all the money (redundant, I suppose).
One of the things that the NPR broadcasts helped to underline in my mind was the fact that there is a presumption in all the commentary on this issue so far that the battle is between the telcos (really ISPs of any stripe) and the content providers. And while these interests do represent certain vested Internet players, they ignore the group that is the predominant player on the Internet: the users. The obvious answer is that the telcos and content providers each shout with a [somewhat] unified voice, they've got the money, and they are interested in the outcome.
Where is the American Automobile Association for Internet users? I know of no such organization that is the AAA's analog in the Internet community, and just like AAA has worked on issues that effect drivers in the U.S., we need the same kind of unified lobbying force on behalf of the Internet user community. Irrespective of your stance on this issue, it should be pretty obvious that without involving the users, neither side on this debate is going to come up with a solution that benefits anyone but themselves.
<epiphany>Hey, an American Computer Association [for lack of a better name] could even use the 'roadside service' type approach that AAA uses, where if you were interested, you could pay a membership fee and get technical support in return!</epiphany>
You might be surprised how many people think this way or in manners similiar to this. I recieve a few emails every month or so for a support request something to the effect of "I can't get to google, do you know why it's down?." Many, many, many people seem to think (especially Windows users, just browse some of their community forums) that if a website is down for them, it must be down for everybody, and they're completely oblivious to how things work.
Incidently, I used to have a roommate (before webmail like gmail was out) that would email important photos, documents (his resume, reports), etc to himself (his ISP's email box). He'd check his email and download all that stuff back into Outlook to "make sure it was still there," not realizing that he was downloading all the stuff back to his computer. One day he decided to format his computer and reinstall Windows 98, only to discover all of his emails were gone. When I told him what he had done (and that his shit was gone forever) he promptly put his keyboard through the drywall between our rooms.
He didn't get his deposit back.
This kind of weak NPR-enabled nonsense frosts me. Try listening to the BBC -- if a speaker is bullshitting, the interviewer calls them on it. If the interviewer asks a question and the speaker evades by spouting, the interviewer calls them on it. It's called doing your homework, and actually mediating, things NPR (or, really, just about any US media outlet) can't be bothered to do. <sigh.>
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Your sig is great. Where do I sign up!?
RTFA. Craig did not say Network Neutrality is bad. He was rooting for it.
I may have missed this, but I thought we (the consumers) were already paying for this. We pay a higher fee for a higher bandwidth service. A large company isn't paying for cable modem rates and then getting T1 performance at the expense of their service provider...and I'm sure their service provider isn't paying for a single T1 and getting gigabit out of their access point.
While it IS true that we are talking about the possibility of slowing some packets down based on where they come from, or possibly blocking them altogether, I think there is a possibility that the free market will end up winning out...if you charge too much for the amount of content you allow through as a network provider, won't the suppliers of that content go elsewhere? If you don't let packets through to the end-user customer, won't they also change service providers?
What am I missing?
Isn't blocking or slowing delivery of the packets going to make things look and feel a lot more like they did back when we all were going to what amounted to mega-bbs's like compuserve, and GENie?
Cross-reference both of those made-for-radio essays with Bob Cringely's latest article. It all leads me to believe that the best "solution" to apply to Net Neutrality at this point is more "benign neglect" -- and on top of that, my paranoia operates at such a hair-trigger that I wonder what other intrusive regulations are going to get slid in along with whatever legislation gets put forward and will certainly not be vetoed by the smirking chimp.
Still hoping for Gentle Treatment...
And now you're on Slashdot discussing it with other people, all of whom seem to understand that. What's the problem?
Morning Edition is a news program. It's job isn't to inject its own editorial opinion into a subject (though that's what it gets accused of a lot). If it lets two people speak on an issue and leaves it there, then it's done the job of informing you, the public.
Before this morning, did you realize that the opponents of net neutrality were using these kinds of baldfaced lies to support their position? That these were the things they were telling your legislators? Well now you know. And you have NPR to thank for informing you.
Breakfast served all day!
<sarcasm>Only the market can be right !</sarcasm>
I don't think there's even much need for sarcasm here. If there were an open market in consumer telco services, this wouldn't even be a big issue. But instead, decades of government-backed monopolies followed by a lot of lax anti-trust regulation have created a giant mess that has only the most tenuous relationship to a market economy.
If people had the choice between a dozen different broadband ISPs each with some reasonable slice of the market, this wouldn't be an issue. If one of the ISPs were dumb enough to try this sort of extortion, it wouldn't work: both their customers and the web sites they were shaking down would tell them to get lost. Instead, for a lot of people broadband choice comes down to deciding which user-hostile monopoly they want to give their business to, the telephone jerks or the cable jerks. From what I've seen, duopolies are nearly as bad as monopolies. And neither one is much like an open market.
...and Prices?
*please say 33706, please say 33706*
It's not just a bandwagon, but a bandwagon filled with special interests that would normally be at each other's throats. These ISP net.shenanigans are like the invading hordes (such as Mongols) that tended to unite the warring factions in Japan during it's feudal period.
Your comment left out conspicuous and important details.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Wow, this guy really piles an Pelion on an Ossa on an Olympus of bullshit.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
I could almost swear some author somewhere has already described this, but the first thing that popped into my head was an image of a rotund alien race that speaks by farting. Maybe that's just an unconscious recall of some of my elder male relatives, I dunno. Interestingly, "communicating by farts" shows no hits on Google, so there might be a niche here for content development and provision...
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Mod parent way the hell up. This is precise and to the point, and absolutely correct.
Or have you only comfort...that stealthy thing that enters the house and guest then becomes host, then master - KG
If you have ever been one of those people who have suddenly had their broadband (advertised as "unlimited") capped down to 56k after exceeding an arbitrary data transfer limit which should not exist, this is the main reason they are so opposed to this legislation.
It would apply very aptly to this practice, and comcast can't have that or it would actually have to deliver on its promises to its customers.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
http://www.internetofthefuture.org will cause Joe Sixpack (and congress) to say "oh I get it, they need more 'lanes', you know 'truck lanes', car lanes', diamond lanes', for all the new Internet media stuff that I want. Wow the telcos really do have a problem."
In reality it's ALL ones and zeros, so all this BS about 'lanes' is just that - you pay for how many ones and zeros you handle. And how can one zero be worth more then another (or one 1 for that matter).
Why would one 'type of 1' need a special 'lane'? can one '1' be distinguished from a different '1'?
No but big pocket companies can easily be differentiated between - so their 1's should cost more. What total crap.
This ad (seen by me running on /. yesterday) caused me to make a donation to the EFF.
just seeing it again today checking 'preview' for this post made me go donate some more money to the EFF.
If you care you might consider the same thing, and let your Representatives know how you feel and stress that it's a delivery system for 1's & 0's, not 'lanes' for differing traffic.
In a bid to keep itself afloat, Enron hatched an interesting scheme; get a bill in California passed that deregulates energy, then create a market. I remember this state bill -- it was couched as a measure that would supposedly "give consumers choice", and "lower energy prices because of competition". Naturally, it passed, then the fun began. Enron's ethically bereft traders would "buy" a bunch of power when all the generators were at capacity, call up a generator and tell them to shut down (creating a shortage), then "sell" California the power at 10 times the price. If I recall correctly, before they went belly up, they were trying to figure out how to do the same thing with bandwidth. Can you imagine bandwidth "brownouts" brought about by artificial "shortages". Lovely.
I think it would be more difficult for telcos to pull something like this off because they would have to conspire to do it. Right now, the 'net is in a rather unmanaged, unregulated state. Beware of laws that claim to regulate or even deregulate it (even in a seemingly beneficial way), and watch for any association between the carriers. I must emphasize that first warning, netizens -- beware ANY legislation. No law is going to improve a bandwidth consumer's position at this point. Telcos cannot create a "fast lane", only slow down all the "lanes" but one to create a market. Don't give them an inch, or they will take a mile.
How exactly does "We already pay for our bandwidth, don't make us pay extra not to have it castrated." translate to "they'll get a special, low-government-set price for the bandwidth they use"? . :
Face it net neutrality is about 1 thing, money
Note: from here on out telco refers to both telcos & cablecos.
Facts
Is there anyone who would like to dispute those 3 facts?
The telco argument is that they are providing the backbone and places like Google are making money by using that backbone without paying for it. I refer you to point 2. Google has in fact paid thier provider for the use of that backbone. Let's take a look at an example Google.
Request: Consumer -> Telco East -> Telco West -> Google
Response: Google-> Telco West -> Telco East -> Consumer
In this situation, Telco East collects money from the Consumer for the ISP service, and Telco West collects money from Google for the commercial bandwidth service. Telco East and Telco West have a Tier 1 Peering agreement saying they will allow each others traffic to pass between them.
The Telco East is now saying that the peering agreements that allowed them to build the phone system and create the demand for IP services is no longer fair, and that Google should pay them AND Telco West. The issue is that IPv6 includes as part of it's core, QoS routing. This along with the advances in traffic shaping, creates a situation where it is technologically feasable for Telco East to disable, slow, or filter Google's traffic based on arbitrary criteria. So what the telco's would like to do is charge individual providers based on the traffic volume and type, downgrading the traffic of those companies that do not pay for premium transfer even if they have paid all the other companies in the tracert.
In this ideal telco word Google would now pay Telco West for the priviledge of sending the packet, Telco East to make sure they don't downgrade it, and the consumer has to pay Telco East for the privilege of receiving the packet. Now throw out our little simple request & move into the real world. When the Chicago peering points were having some issues a couple of years ago, it wasn't unusual to see a packet route through 12 seperate networks in order to get from MA to CA. That's 13 seperate charges the telco's are collecting on each packet. Worse, if network 11 drops a packet, Google has to pay 1-10 again.
Lets move on.
Telco East wants to provide VOIP services in addition to their standard POTS phone service. Now because every VOIP inc. sale is 1 less Telco East VOIP customer, Telco East places VOIP inc at the bottom of the traffic shapping pile and their own services at the top of the pile. This ensures when Bob Consumer calls Bill Consumer, Telco East service sounds better. Now of course VOIP inc. could always pay Telco East the "QoS" premium, but what if they are located in Eastern Russia, will Telco East accept Rubles? or Vodka like Coca-Col
Its funny that when people talks about net neutrality, they are talking about the web.
There are plenty of ISPs around the globe throttling things like the edonkey network, bittorrent network, skype, vonage, etc...
They are filtering and throtling by application, and that to me is not net neutrality.
Also there are lots of people behind NATted ADSLs with five times less upstream bandwith that downstream bandwith, and without the ability (by contract) of running servers.
I would say that the Telcos are already exerting far too much control about what we do with the bandwith we buy.
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
They already get paid at both ends because they're serving the customer at each end.
We may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode. -Capt. Mal Reynolds
The California power situation was not caused by deregulation of the power companines, it was caused becuase portions of the power distribution network were not deregulated. If the the powercompanies like SCE could have raised rates to match what they were having to pay there would not have been any rolling blackouts and consumers would have started to conserve engery. The governement should not regulate the telecoms more, the should regulate the local loop more, to pave the way for access to big telco competitors.
in the rich mens' world.
Ahaaaaa- aa aaaa aaaaaaaa All the market i can graaaab - if i had no network neutralityyyyy
Read radical news here
this is like what the telcos are doing with cell phone service ( minus the qos aspect) because both people are being charged for minutes for 1 call, no matter who initiated it. Some international cell phone carriers ( from personal experience in the dominican republic) only charge the person who initiated the call. this double dipping on the telcos part must stop.
No, it's:
Opinion of intellects that are in the know = X
Opinion of groups that are usuallly diametrically opposed to each other = X
Opinion of group that stands to benefit financially from not having net neutrality = Y
I trust that X is more in line with what is "right" than that of Y.
It's called a concern. If I hand some firecrackers and some matches to my 6-year-old and turn him loose, I don't have any real evidence of a problem, only unsubstatiated assertions about hypothetical problems.
Yet at this point the firecrackers are in a cabinet in the house and your six year old is outside playing in a sandbox.
Why do you want to give the FCC more power (which may by the way also be handy in getting that broadcast flag in place) when all we have right now is a crazy CEO spouting off about what Verizon might do? We all know that what upper management says and what the technical realites on the ground may be can be very different.
Let Verizon start trying to charge Goolg efor bandwith, and then let Google block the entire Verizon address space. How many seconds do you think it will be before Verizon backs off when the help desk lights up like a christmas tree and Verizon employees can't get any work done because Google is not there to help them?
Some of the counter arguments from the broadcast sounded pretty stupid but the fundamental view of not making new laws when people don't know what they are doing is sound - it just needs a better proponent.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Who made the stronger case? If it's broadcasted on National Communist Radio, then it's a safe bet that whoever had the more liberal argument had the "stronger" case.
But when The Fathers Of The Internets, MoveOn, and the Christian Coalition are together in support of something you don't like, chances are you're out in the tall grass.
http://www.npr.org/contact/
let them know what you think about letting shills on their programs.
That's true enough... I did include a little flamebait in my original submission, though, to liven it up a bit ;-) Still, I can respect the editorial decision not to run with the story; I just didn't want 7macaw (and others) to blame me for not having served the commentary when it was freshest.
You're right; this whole debate is really about the smaller players remaining competitive in the content marketplace.
We already have cable and satelite TV... In my view, the telecoms' proposals would inevitably devolve the Internet into a similar model, with a a few big players, a handful of mid-tier players, and a marginalized fringe of "public-access cable channels" on the outside. These last would only be available at a premium while the propaganda pablum would remain cheaply available to the masses.
On the one hand, that would probably make Slashdot an established mid-tier player; on the other hand, it would mean that commentators, writers, artists, filmmakers, musicians, and other creative types would have their ability to break into the public consciousness severely restricted. The common "guy on the street" would be relegated to publish only through established channels, e.g., livejournal/myspace/friendster, where their voices would be allowed only so long as they didn't substantively reject the established order or compete aggressively for the audience controlled by big media.
With all the predictions of an attention-based economy, an awareness of this potentiality can only help policy-makers and opinion-shapers build a stronger case for preventing an oligopoly of information providers from squeezing the (currently) niche players out of the market of ideas.
MacOS, Windows, BeOS, GNOME, KDE: they're all just Xerox copies
From the root comment:
"Except I only heard the commentary from Scott Cleland. It was chock full of misinformation and outright lies."
Verbum sap.
So, what DOES the violation of net neutrality do for those big access providers?
I think they're trying to make a viable channel for video-on-demand. That means porn,
and they'd rather call it 'let the market decide' because it sounds respectable
(to Republicans, anyhow).
The servers we all use on the internet (Google, Ask, Ralph's-pretty-good-grocery.com...) are
already paying according to (1) pipe size and (2) aggregate flow and the proposal is to
add (3) continuous-service-no-busy-signals. In the water analogy, it's about your
utility delivering nothing for a few seconds/days. And my water utility DOES interrupt my
service from time to time when high-flow uses intrude (occasional street cleaning using
the water mains, stirs up sediment and loses water pressure).
This probably means everyone on the current high-interest services can do just fine with
the lowest of the 'priorities' that would exist under the proposed scheme. They hate the idea
of taking a well-understood rate structure and making unspecified changes (and the
doubletalk from the tiered-internet proponents isn't gonna allay those fears, nor
should it- yes, there WILL be gouging tried if net neutrality goes by the wayside).
"this is nothing more than pure greed from AT&T"
I object to this strongly. AT&T was a knight in shining armour compared to SBC, who is now the real company behind the AT&T name. This is nothing but pure greed and a feeling that neither social concience nor obligations of promises apply to them on the part of _SBC_. AT&T behaved better than these horrible vermin even on their worst days.
I actually brought this point up in my letters to my state's senators this week. (It's Idaho though, so it's not like we hold a lot of power. But maybe they can bring this serious point up for discussion.) Their non-discrimination of whose traffic they carry and how they carry it is what gives them the status of "common carrier". That label is what insulates them from liability for illegal material that is transmitted around on their pipes. This applies to stuff like the postal service, UPS, telephone service, etc., where they just pass everything along without knowing the content or treating it differently based on it. If they take that seemingly small step of treating web traffic differently based on whose it is, they would then be making knowing decisions about what traffic to carry, and would therefore no longer be a common carrier. This would be total B.S. if congress lets them get away with discriminating packets and yet keeping their common carrier status.
We may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode. -Capt. Mal Reynolds
I don't entirely disagree with the general criticism, but here it seems to be misplaced. First of all, these were not interviews, but more like an audio op-ed. Thus, just like the Op-eds found in the newspaper, or the opinion pieces presented on the numerous "news magazine" shows (and other cable news infotainment) there is not questioning of the speaker. He isn't even being interviewed; it's a speech.
Also, NPR seems like an odd source to focus on in this criticism. If anything, they provide more critical, factually based coverage than any other (non-print) US news outlet. In other words, they're better than just about everyone else in the US media. Try watching The Today Show, CNN, or Fox News and then you'll really see interviewers swallowing obvious loads of crap. On NPR, factually incorrect or dubious statements often are challanged by interviewers. For example, I think it was in this story (I can't listen to it now to be sure) that the interviewer very politely tore apart a GM executive's argument for why many families "need" an SUV. Now, I'll agree that sometimes interviewees aren't challanged as strongly as I might like, but misleading or false statements do get challanged. Not only that, but they also air "letter to the editor" type comments that point out errors in their coverage or the statements of guests. That's a hell of a lot more than most media outlets do.
In essence, I agree with your sentiment, but it's directed at the wrong people.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
They misrepresent the issue badly and it goes downhill from there. That article simply proves that academics have no clue either, and fail to apply critical thinking to the positions which are communicated to them.
How is Wharton wrong? Let's see:
- I work in DC, for a trade association, and around here it is called the Law of Unintended Consequences. It's a law because anything, including inaction, is guaranteed to have some unintended consequences. If avoiding unintended consequences was the bar for Congressional action nothing would ever get done. It is a content-free, all-purpose argument used to stall progress on any issue of your choice (witness: global warming).
- Congress has been making laws about telecommunications since at least 1934. It's a little late to argue that they shouldn't do anything. In fact the current mess is a direct result of the 1996 Telecomm Act and the Supreme Court's interpretation of it as announced last June. So let's not pretend that the Internet was free of regulation until now. In fact it has been heavily regulated from the very beginning, by Congress. It's a far more accurate view to say that Congress is considering unfucking Internet regulation, as opposed to saying that they are fucking it for the first time.
- One way the Internet was regulated was through the concept of "common carrier" which dates back to the 19th century and the development of the railroads. ISPs until recently were required to be neutral because their signals were all carried over telephone lines (the dial up era), which are subject to common carrier regs. The introduction of the cable modem raised the question of whether that infrastructure was common carrier, and the question of common carrier on cable networks was what the Supreme Court decided last June. They decided it does not apply, which would seem to allow cable networks to do whatever the fuck they want on their pipes.
- The current fuss is due to the ILECs (old telephone companies) demanding parity with the cable companies. They are asking Congress to re-write the 1996 Telecomm Act to give telephone companies the same freedom as cable companies. As a result anything the FCC says (their "4 assurances" included) is not worth two shits because the FCC can only implement the laws as written by Congress. They can promise you the moon today but if Congress gives it away then tough shit. DO NOT think that access to content is safe. If the cable and telephone companies get their way in the re-write, they will have the power to do whatever they want, including slow down or even block whatever content they feel like. Assurances from the FCC made now have no bearing on the issue, because the problem is in Congress, who overrides the FCC.
- The question of prioritizing new types of data, and companies like Akamai, are not related to the concept of net neutrality. Those are red herrings put up by the ISPs to distract and confuse. Net neutrality is about being content neutral not technology neutral. Net neutrality provisions, if written correctly, would allow the development of new services and routing technologies, but they would have to be based on technical factors, not content or originating IP. These proposals are out on the table but are ignored by the big ISPs in favor of manipulation, lying and distortion in an attempt to grab absolute power over what you can see and do on the Internet.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Net neutrality proponents worry that telecom, wireless and cable companies might one day favor their own content and applications over others. They want Congress to pass a new law to ban that practice by regulating the price of broadband service and the way it's sold.
a) It's not just worry, it's happening already. VOIP is one example. Not to mention, one of the initial arguments for "Net Competition" as Cleland calls it, was because Google, eBay, Amazon, and other big content providers were getting a "free ride" by using the ISP's connection to the end users. That's how one of the telecom execs phrased it, I don't remember exactly who the quote came from. It sounds pretty clear that even though this lobbyist and the astroturf websites out there claim this is all about being able to keep the internet free of congestion, it's really only to keep real content providers out of the way of the telco's content.
b) Who was ever asking for the price of broadband to be regulated? The only people wanting to be able to set new prices that aren't currently set is the telcos, wanting to charge content providers.
Now, net competition proponents, like me, believe that the best way to guard a free and open Internet is to maintain the free and open competition that exists today, not create a new government-monitored, socialized Internet.
c) Since when does Competition mean letting the gatekeepers to the world of the content become the offerers of the content, able to pick and choose how the content is delivered to the consumers?
d) He wants to block regulation that will keep things the way they are. He is not asking to be able to "maintain the free and open competition that exists today." The telcos are just realizing now that they can easily blow away their competition in markets they've never competed before. They are the ones that want to change how they do business. The intent of the regulation would be to resist that change.
e) The government was central to the creation of the Internet. Remember DARPA?
First, net neutrality is really a misnomer. It's really just special interest legislation, dressed up to sound less self-serving. Did you know Microsoft, Google and Yahoo are lobbying for net neutrality?
f) "net competition" is really a misnomer. See above.
g) Just because special interests are lobbying for it doesn't mean that there's no good foundation for it. It's still net neutrality, and it's still important to the way the Internet works today.
h) Did you know that AT&T and Verizon are lobbying for "net non-neutrality"? Seriously, he's trying to make this into a war between the telcos/wannabe content providers and the real content providers, and acting as if the telcos are on the side of the users, and completely ignoring the fact that the whole reason why users want to "be on the interweb" is because of the content. That's why people use the Internet. It's not to move bits through the telco pipes. I don't pay my power bill to support my power company, I pay it because I need the juice generated by the power plants.
Finally, net neutrality legislation would be a lousy trade off for consumers. The consumer benefits would be small, but the cost to consumers would be huge. Price regulation would destroy any economic incentive to innovate and invest in the private networks that make up the Internet. Over time, we would end up with a slower Internet and higher broadband prices and taxes for consumers, less broadband choice and slower broadband deployment to all Americans. And it would also mean less privacy for all Americans, as net neutrality would require more government monitoring and surveillance of Internet traffic.
i) In what measure would the benefits be small, and the cost large?
j) Again, the telcos are the only ones talking about setting prices on anything.
k) Haven't we already been paying the telcos to invest in and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strowger_switch/
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
That's the whole point of this debate. The Supreme Court decided, based on the 1996 Telecomm Act, that cable Internet service is not subject to common carrier status, and that will go into effect this August. However DSL and other telco lines still are considered common carrier. Hence the huge amount of money the telco companies are spending now, to convince Congress to rewrite the 1996 Act to free them from common carrier laws too.
BUT what Congress should do is simply rewrite the laws to re-apply common carrier to cable Internet. That would reset the bar to where it was one year ago. Tell your member of Congress.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Mod Parent up please!! For once, I wish I had mod points.
In the final analysis, "the market is always right". The trouble, however, is twofold:
1) It tends to take a while, during which time the extortionists and market-manipulators make money hand-over-fist, while the rest of us pay.
2) The adjustment back to equilibrium tends to be unnecessarily violent (think "French Revolution" in politics, or the workers for formerly strong companies getting the shaft when their managements can no longer maintain the manipulation).
That's all *good quality* regulation should do: Recognize the long-term values of good behavior and consequences of bad behavior, with the goal of less resource-sucking and whiplash.
I'm with that Cleland on this one. We can't trust those huge megacorporations like Yahoo!, Google, and Microsoft on this net neutrality issue. They're just trying to screw us! Not like the telecoms that value our rights on keeping a free and open internet.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
The problems of local franchising, federal preemption, common carrier, and net neutrality are mixed together due the structure and language of the 1996 Telecomm Act. They do not have to be, it is just the way that law is written and interpretted. Telecomm companies are taking advantage of that to try to kill all the birds with one stone--open the local franchises, get federal preemption, kill off common carrier, kill off network unbundling and competitive access, and give them total power over the content and services being offered over the local networks.
Network neutrality is primarily concerned with the last one--the control of content and services. Because of the 1996 Act, that is tied to TV today, and telecomm companies would like you to think that it has to be. But it doesn't.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I am an anti-regulation guy, generally. But it appears to me that as long as the internet is a "private affair" -- unlike power, phones, sewage, etc -- the result of ALL of this is going to be negative for society.
I hate to say this but I think internet access needs to be deemed a public utility and enjoy the same regulation to assure that. And I never thought I would say that.
The problem is: both sides have a point. It may not be the point you want but you have to realize that maximizing revenue is what a company is supposed to do. And they will do it until we (the customers) or the government say "no more". In most cases, the market strikes a pretty fair balance. If you don't like a product/company, you go to another one. The "bad" one loses business and dies away. The "good" one you now buy from suceeds and profits. However, in this case, the market just does not provide enough efficiency to assure fairness because of the high barriers to entry (much like power and power lines - there is one supplier in many markets).
Take power for example. We all know that power is key to survival. And there is a reason your power company can not charge you $10,000/mWh. The government (via public utility commissions) won't let them do that. In fact, the PUC's are supposed to guarantee that things are "fair" for both parties. ie: the company providing the power makes a reasonable profit and the customers pay a reasonable price. We all know they COULD charge $10,000/mWh - and we would pay it, but most of us also realize that would be a bad thing in the long run.
Until internet access has some kind of classification like this, we will continue to see this boxing match play out. And the end result will be bad for us, the people.
Any bill that favors the little guy and leads to the rich not getting what they want stands no chance in a republican congress. That's why Net Neutrality didn't pass, and won't pass with our current legislature in the US. Undeniable proof:
l e_ID=2027 (1,2,3,4)
In the last 9 years, we have not seen the minimum wage rise above $5.15, or roughly $10,700 per year at a 40 hour work week. Yet Congress has voted 5 pay raises for themselves, claiming a need for "cost of living adjustments". Who needs a cost of living adjustment, someone making 10,000 per year or someone making 150,000?
http://www.yourcongress.com/viewarticle.asp?artic
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/06/20/dobbs.june21/ (and 5, two days ago)
Sorry about the tangent, but I think it's important if you want something done about this, to realise the first step is to get someone into office listening to more than money.
Kick the elitists out of office, and maybe then we'll have our equality on the net.
You can get 15 minutes of fame, but you can go down in history for infamy.
,,,happening...," it sends up a red flag that says to me, "credibility alert!." There was a similar discussion on PBS between someone from Amazon and someone with an anti-neutrality stance (exactly who, I didn't catch).
While certainly one can be unnecessarily paranoid, to suggest that such things as cautioned by the Amazon rep essentially "can't" happen as the other guy keep arguing, is too far in the other extreme (or even worse, the argument that "market forces" won't let it happen).
Also, a comment was made about Amazon "pulling" customers into their site, which I thought was completely bogus-- while Amazon advertises, so does Home Depot and it's up to the customers to decide to go there to shop-- having different roads into the stores cost a different amount to travel over is a closer analogy than Amazon "going out" to customers and having to sometimes pay more to do that.
The internet is a similar resource to the public airwaves and/or public utilities or the public highway system. It is essential that equal access is maintained and that the resource does not end up maniuplated by corporate greed...
Been running a high volume webserver thru earthlink for 5 years on a resedential account, 768/768 asdl with static ip, $65 / month.
I also believe AOL for example is still quite among us, just to name one company who always tries to favor its own content over that of others (less so now then in the beginning, but regardless, they still do, and they aren't exactly small). What I am trying to say here is that a substantial number of people will never know what they are missing, hence won't complain or switch.
Ah but AOL's subscriber base is strinking. More and more AOL subscribers are leaving AOL and getting their internet access from another ISP. Recently there has been talk in business and investment circles that Time Warner may divest itself of AOL, that AOL is becoming a drain on the corporation's profits.
FalconShould there be a Law?
... the one I agree with, of course!
I work for a telecom infrastructure providier. Net neutrality will be dead within 5 years. It is what every big infrastructure buyer wants. No one should have any illusions that consumers matter more than big buisness. They want it and and they will pay for the officials you elect to get it done. Simple as that.
The problem as the telcos/providers see it, is that the internet evolved too fast and got away from them. A million unregulated services making money that they don't get a piece of. And that is their problem. They are not in any way happy with being a provider of a data pipe, and let you come up with a new service to make money.
While they make money they make money on the volume of traffic, they don't get to hold any of it for ransom and demand a cut of the actual buisness. Essentially they want to tax every service out there.
Craig is exactly right about the implications. Remember the myriad of 3rd party services on the phone network or the cable network? Essentially ZERO. Once they regulate and double charge for each bit. Any small startup is hosed. They can't afford the extra fees and they can't compete with the big corps who do.
They don't want the right to provide extra quality of service as they claim. They want the right to completely destroy quality of service and then charge a fortune to get it back. It is not like they are going to re-egineer the network for more bandwidth for higher end customers, they will simply shrink the pool of the low class internet (free services, individuals, startups) until you would think dialup is fast. But it will be nice and fast to visit Google/MS/Yahoo etc...
Look at what ISP's have been trying to pull against Vonage, often because they have competing services. The is extortion of a limited resource and nothing more. Sad thing is,it seems unstoppable to me.
The thing is is that VDSL only works the last 50 meters:
VDSL (very high bit rate DSL) Up to 26 Mb/s, over distances up to 50 Meters on short loops such as from fiber to the curb. In most cases, VDSL lines will be served from neighborhood cabinets that link to a Central Office via optical fiber. It is particularly useful for 'campus' environments - universities and business parks, for example. VDSL is currently being introduced in market trials to deliver video services over existing phone lines. VDSL can also be configured in symmetric mode.
VDSL will still require fiber from the CO to the curb. Laying all that fiber would be expensive. Wireless would be much cheaper, admittedly not as fast though maybe, at least now. Cellphones could serve as a model.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Great post. I like the fact-checking idea, and thought of a nebulous version of it before you even said that. Here's a link for feedback: NPR Taking Issue
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Out of curiosity, who thinks that Microsoft should pay for the traffic caused by millions of people downloading security patches for Windows?
Microsoft does pay for it's pipes, and most of those who download the many patchs MS has to release pay for their access as well. I may, and do, blame MS for somethings but not for this.
FalconShould there be a Law?
high traffic sites like google, amazon, ebay, etc... should simply have a redirect that occurs when a user on a specific company's connection brings up their site.
for example, if bellsouth is wanting to charge google more to make sure that it's site runs fast to a bellsouth consumer, google needs to make a page that reads: "don't like how this site runs under bellsouth? here's a list of other companies you can use to surf the web:"
Okay, here's my $.02:
... but only if you're paying for content in the first place) it will certainly cost you in terms of *value*.
1) "If creating a tiered internet does not worsen my connection *at all* why should I care?"
A) We'll assume, for the moment, that the telcos will play nice and truly leave the "slow lanes" alone while charging a premium for the "fast lanes." Once you get used to having services provided to you over the "fast lanes" the "slow lanes" will still *appear* worse, indeed likely unacceptably slow.
Did you ever use a modem to get to the Internet? Once you make the move to broadband it becomes torture to even *think* about going back to dial-up speeds. The same effect will apply: today's acceptable speeds will be tomorrows way-too-slow speeds.
Another poster's answer also applies: while the bandwidth of your connection to your ISP won't change, the bandwidth of a service provider (like, say, MySpace) may well change, resulting in an overall slower Internet.
2) "If creating a tiered internet does not cost me *any* more money (assuming I am not benefiting from it), either directly or indirectly, why should I care?"
A) While it may or may not cost you any more money (another poster's statement that increased costs will be passed on to you does apply
Two recent hits on the Internet that I can think of are Flickr and MySpace. In an environment of a tiered Internet it is quite likely that services such as these would see much slower uptake simply due to bandwidth issues. When sites such as these start out they don't have much, if any, capital to invest, so they wouldn't be able to pay for a "fast lane" on a tiered Internet. I could easily see a site like Flickr being critiqued early on with a statement like, "This site has a remarkable online photo management and sharing setup but transmission speeds are very slow." That's not going to win many adherents to the site. If uptake is slowed enough such a site may die before it can reach the critical mass necessary for it to get the money to buy a spot in the "fast lane."
Perhaps you don't use Flickr or MySpace, but odds are that some service will arise on the Internet that you'd like to make use of. If that service dies due to tiered-Internet factors, and I expect that some will, then you're losing value.
3) "If creating a tiered internet is *entirely* paid for by people or companies that can benefit from it, why should I care?"
A) Mainly, as I understand it, because you have *already* paid for it (improved bandwidth) and the telcos haven't delivered.
As I understand it (somebody correct me if I'm wrong) the telcos have been heavily subsidized by our government to improve our broadband bandwidth and penetration throughout the country. That's *your* money, your tax dollars. The telcos have failed to live up to their side of the bargain. Until they do they should enjoy no privilege of creating a tiered Internet and profiting from it.
The argument in 2), above, about losing value, also applies here, as loss of value to you means that you are indirectly paying a price for a tiered Internet.
Q) "... can someone please tell me WHY net neutrality is such a good thing?!?"
A) Because it provides a level playing field for innovators and entrepreneurs to create new services and businesses on the Internet. Also, for that matter, because it provides a level playing field for people who want to run small service set-ups (such as, if I wanted to set up a server to provide voice chat for an online game playing guild) without having to pay an arm and a leg to do so.
Did you catch that real disingenuous bit: ". . . allowing the ISP's to continue to invest in this nation's internet and telecom infrastructure. . ." as if someone were stopping them from doing so!
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
*dude*. I'd call myself a left-wing whackjob, but these days I'm in favor of libertarians, old-school Republicans who actually believe in not spending money and not passing laws to control people's lives -- I'd probably vote for Reagan at this point. Instead I'm faced with two parties who both want to pass laws to protect me from unlikely dangers, and maximize their corporate donors' profit margins to my detriment.
Well if you believe in government not spending money and not passing laws that control people's lives, ie the Libertarian platform, then you wouldn't want to vote for Reagan. Reagan increased government spending quite a bit and was busy with controlling people's lives too. Up until the current occupant of the White House, Bush Jr, Reagan did more to create a hugh national deficit. After Nixon, he also cracked down hard on the fake "War on Drugs" more than others. I don't recall what issue, but last year the Libertarian magazine Reason had an article on Reagan's record and how it compared to libertarian ideals. He fell flat, about the only good thing he did was reduce taxes. But spending went up, leading to that deficit.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Reading both articles, and other material on net neutrality on the Net, it seems to me that what we're seeing here is a frantic attempt to chase after escaping revenue -- as VOIP becomes more popular, the interchanges and long-distance trunks won't get as much traffic so the telcos will lose the charges they levied on that traffic -- by making it legal for them to say "Nice VOIP setup you have there. Be a shame if a surge in bandwidth usage disrupted its packet traffic and garbled conversations. But we'll cut you a deal; if you pay a 20% surcharge on your bandwidth rate, we'll see that your packets get a high priority, so they'll go through without interruption."
The Equal Access has been the factor making the internet great for everybody.
If we give up Network Neutrality, all the little web sites will vanish in a year,
voIP will vanish, say bye-bye to iChat video conferencing, and iTunes very existance may come to a crashing end, as Apple and their customers may Both be forced to pay even more for the bandwidth to sell songs to iPod users. Say goodbye to free speech, Amy Goodman, the NRA, religious organizations, slashdot etc. As the only people able to afford to use the network will be the largest corporations, with no room for small time competition.
Compromise - split the Internet in two separate halves (i.e. not stealing bandwidth from each other at all). Leave it up to users which they want to use.
The "Neutral" half is the current internet - not reduced in any way.
The quality of service (QOS) network would be built in parallel, would use variable pricing, so that supply and demand keeps users filling the pipes, without hurting QOS. A typical application would set the price the user is willing to pay, based on the current end-to-end price of their virtual connection. Any time the price for their virtual connection exceeded that price, their data would be re-routed through the "Neutral" network. Either the transmitter or receiver of content can decide to pay for QOS service..
Multicast technology should be implemented at least on the QOS network, so that one-to-many broadcasts (live TV, radio, etc) can be done in the most efficient fashion - users would only pay for their share of the shared channels.
Well, you're falling for the "Appeal to authority" fallacy.
:)
But you're right anyway.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
If these ISPs ask Google for money, Google will just put a notice on their page to that ISPs customers, telling the customers that the ISP is slowing down their service and ripping them off by not giving them the bandwidth they paid for. THE CUSTOMER DECIDES which websites they want fast. Google will conveniently give them their representative's phone number and list alternative ISPs. That should take care of the problem real quick.
It appears to me that you trust governments, but not companies. Yet, both are organizations run by people who are ultimately accountable to the people.
Well, not really. One should be, but isn't. The other is directly accountable only to the stockholders, not the customers. The free market is neither free, nor a market. A market has choices. A purely free market allows anticompetitive practice and profiteering at the expense of the consumer. How many areas have cable competition, really? Not mine, I can tell you that. So I can either put up an aerial or pay through the nose. This, in no universe, constitutes a choice. Please do us all a big fat favor and put away the bells tolling for the virtue of unfettered capitalism, because it's precisely bunk and you know it.
Do you also mean Bill "I wont attack a newspaper but my fans will" O'Reilly? You probably mean it. Check Bill's Shame list and the newspaper he attacked according to the Google search- you'll see something more than just a coincidence. It's more like a cheap shot for him if he cant attack the AJC.
"Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
At first I was all for some kind of "Net Nuetrality" law, but I do agree that really any new "internet regulation" law that is passed regardless of who it favours is going to have long reaching effects. The solution?
At first thought I was leaning towards a net neutrality law, but second thought changed that. In general and specifically here I believe no law or regulation should be enacted unless and until a real problem is indentified. Real not potential problem. It wouldn't even be a problem if the FCC would get out of the way and allowed services to offer wireless broadband. Like in Portland or San Francisco, only with competition.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I do not know why everyone is in such an uproar. Net neutrality is nothing but a big hand wave.
If anyone really knew how the Internet core or edge access networks worked, they would understand that net neutrality will be difficult at best to create, and even more difficult to enforce. And, who is going to police the matter anyway?
Are you going to be able to give the ISP/Telco a ticket for keeping you from running at advertised speeds? Who are the Internet COPS anyway? And, why do they care that my P2P traffic is running 100% of the time?
Smile and wave boys. Smile and wave.
If you're too much of a chickenshit to argue the point you only assist me in making mine.
My book, podcast
Had the government finished SkyNet on time. Dammit.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Anti-Network Neutrality boils down to this for me: it is unethical (and may be illegal) to sell the same widget twice. Analogy: I am hired to provide data requested by my employer. It is unethical for me to charge the data sources to be included in the data results I give to my employer. If I did, and omitted data from sources who didn't pay my extortion, my employer would fire me, and possibly send me to jail. Data providers pay their ISPs for network access (to upload). Data consumers pay their ISPs for network access (to download). If an ISP is fortunate enough to have both a provider and a consumer as customers, they're doing a good job, and getting paid properly for it. Forcing all providers to effectively become your upload customers, in order to reach your already-paying download customers is called extortion. With one caveat, it matters not if there is only one ISP for a particular location, or several. The caveat is the monopolistic nature of having but a single choice -- you must pay the extortion, or get no service at all.
Anyone want to confirm this with a citation? I seem to remember that ISPs are NOT common carriers, but telecoms are.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Last I checked, shareholders were people.
I'll set aside the general obtuseness of that remark and just say that a company's customers are more numerous than their stockholders generally by an order of magnitude, and usually quite a bit more. Yes, they are people, but you miss the point. While a company exists to pursue profit, to do so, it must present a product to a base of individuals or other aggregate entities of significant enough number to turn that profit, while enticing them to purchase that product with a statement of fair value. To do this implies a level of fairness in the unwritten contract between the consumer and the producer.
I will concede that on a certain level, the free market is a philosophical concept, rather than a reality. Though I will not concede that a purely free market "allows" anything at the expense of the consumer; the word choice is setting me up to put my foot in my mouth.
Actually, your lack of a concession that a purely free market allows anything at the expense of the consumer is where the foot ended up in an oral entanglement. A purely free market allows EVERYTHING, including those things which are detrimental to the consumer. Whether or not those things come about is a function of the quality and health of the aforementioned gentleman's agreement between the consumer and the producer.
In a free market, yes, it is possible for a company to produce a good and charge far more than that product is worth. However, if the deal is really that bad, then another company will produce that good at a "more reasonable" price. Perhaps the original company can underprice and lose money, since it has more in its coffers. Eventually (which may, admittedly, be long off), that will be damaging to the company. The original company may also engage in various unethical practices to create a stranglehold on the market. I am not condoning these practices. I am advocating a free market, not an anarchy.
Well a free market is precisely that, an anarchy. Which, incidentally, is why we don't have one and why we shouldn't be wishing for one. Of course, your presumptions seem to be based upon primary economic theories rather than the rather banal realities we all deal with on a day to day basis. Using your example, you state that if the deal is really that bad, then another company will produce that good at a "more reasonable" price. You seem pretty sure. I'd like to know why. You see, you seem to be insinuating that companies just spring up to fill these vacuums and niches. Well, what happens when the barrier to entry for producing this product is rather high, and the original company is well established? Is the competition you speak of so highly automatically to appear? And you are right, the original company may underprice because it may have huge war chests. You are wrong that this will harm the company, because they can simply overcharge later to manage the shortfall, having crushed the nascent competition. It is the nature of the free market to make sure that the big players stay big and the little players get crushed out of existence or otherwise absorbed.
You're right, in many places, there's not cable competition. Right now. But here's the real question: why is there no competition? I suspect if you research that, you'll find that it eventually comes back to the government. Remember, our government gave 47 billion dollars in subsidies to companies in 2005. That's a hell of a lot of money that the government gets to decide what company wins for me.
Obtuse in the other direction:
Funny, I thought the people were the government...
Actually, the reason that cable companies don't compete is because it is their contention that it is their infrastructure, therefore they decide who gets to play on it. Many have decided to provide their own services rather than open up to competition from outside parties. From a purely free market sense, this is not only justifiable, but savvy. Bel
I voted for Ron Paul the Libertarian presidential candidate in 1992. Again in 2004 I voted for the libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik. Unfortunately I didn't vote in 1996 or in 2000. In 1996 I was hit in an accident a few weeks before the election which put me in a coma, and in 2000 I wasn't registered to vote early enough to vote after moving so I could get therapy because of the accident. In both cases though I supported the libertarian candidate, I don't recall who in 1996 but Harry Brown in 2000.
FalconShould there be a Law?
You want faster speeds, you're gonna have to start paying actual prices for them.
If VDSL can go a lot father than 50 meters then either you know more than the industry and the VDSL Forum does or they are lying. As far as fiber is concerned there shouldn't be a problem with it going the distance, across country or even the ocean. Light signals go a lot farther than electric signals and still remain coherent. Repeaters may be needed over a certain distance but the siugnal should still be good. As for wireless, I don't know where 50 megabit rate comes from. Earthlink will be offering 1mb for $20. That 50mb would provide 50 people with 1 mb each, actually a lot more because not all of them will be constantly using all that bandwidth. However according to Braodband Wireless Exchange Magazine Alvarion offers up to 108Mbps. I wouldn't be at all supprised if in the next couple of years if wireless broadband were common even for the mobile.
FalconShould there be a Law?
That's a pretty big "if". How would you ensure people actually get the choice at all ?
To me, the outcome of an all-out deregulation appear quite obvious : global monopolies cherry-picking the most lucrative market and catering solely to the lowest common denominator, while breaking interoperability to keep out smaller contenders. You may say that I smoke crack, but we currently have a telecomm system that mostly work despite being heavily regulated. The burden of proof is on the total-deregulation crowd, who wish to throw the baby with the bathwater. I do not pretend that the current regulation framework is perfect, but it would be much easier globally to fix it than to clean the mess of a complete deregulation IMHO. *erm*California power deregulation*erm*
Incidentally, I currently have the choice of about half-a-dozen broadband ISP in my heavily regulated area, and I certainly benefit a lot from the price war going on. I never paid any less for telecomm than in the past year. So there.
:wq
Craig was right and I recognize that since I know what the controversy is really about.
But Scott made the stronger case for the vast majority of NPR listeners. He did it by raising issues that aren't in dispute, by claiming benefits that do not flow from his position, and by hitting high-Q buzzphrases.
What really p**d me off about the duel was that they ran the two presentations on different days! As usual with NPR, the form is everything. Those who heard Scott the first day were swayed toward his position, and *if* they heard Craig the second day, didn't remember enough about it to think it was refuted (since there wasn't time for Craig to do a formal rebuttal). Those that heard only Craig knew that they didn't have the other side so likely resisted making a conclusion.
NPR is really good at this type of slant. Anyone hear the hatchet job on Larry Summers this morning? On the surface it sounded quite collegial, but the lingering (unfair) impression is that of a misogynist.
You can't take the sky from me!
deserve precise answers... so here are yours.
I would ask why the barrier to entry is as high as it is. Why does it cost over 300,000$ to get a taxicab liscence in New York City, for instance? The (government-set) number seems fairly arbitrary to me, given how the costs for my car get nowhere near that high.
I don't know, but I would wager that a hack license is an element of the tourist industry and necessary transportation infrastructure in NY. If they lowered the price, then any numbnuts would get one, and likely this would degrade the quality of service because you've got a lot of people who don't take the job very seriously. Easily acquired, easily dismissed, you know. By setting the bar high, the government makes an attempt to guarantee the quality of service to both residents and tourists, because only people interested in doing a serious job would lay out the initial cash.
I will admit that I do not follow. If a company beats its competition, then its product would have to be competitive in some form against its competitors; consumers would get the benefit from that.
It would be... until the competition disappears. Then what are they competing with?
On the other hand, what if an ISP wants to be built around being "family-friendly", and would automatically censor pornography and other kid-unsafe websites? They could advertise themselves to religious families as "family-friendly". I have a hard time saying that said ISP should not exist because it does not follow a net neutrality position. Though it should be upfront about its censorship.
So long as it religiously routed porn packets to other parts of the net and screened only for its customers who have opted in to its service, then I'd have a hard time saying that too. However since services already exist which allow this, and I really have a hard time with the idea that you'd trust the censors to know what's family-friendly and what isn't, I'd really question the sanity of anyone who would subscribe to such a service. The old conundrum about prurience being in the eyes of the individual rears its ugly head when that website on Darwin was blocked because the ISP is run by a bunch of ID fundies.
But that's not what the revocation of net neutrality is. That's a filled niche into the existing infrastructure. Net neutrality gives companies the ability to play favorites depending who's paid into their services (which they've already paid into). It gives them the opportunity to reroute requests and just generally control the user's experience, even exert a political voice by censoring sites which may be critical of its practices.
In regards to the fox and the chicken and the trustworthiness of the government vs. the company, the government is incipiently really no more or less trustworthy... but it is better in this regard because WE have oversight. Do we have oversight of the company?
If you must know, I would compare the government as a misbehaved, yet domesticated animal, like a poorly trained dog on a leash. Just because we don't yank the chain often enough to prevent it from getting into trouble is immaterial. That is OUR fault. But a fox is a wild animal which has no control. We defend against its interloping by siccing the dog on it. Sometimes the dog responds to direction, other time it gets distracted by a passing butterfly. But it is still under OUR control. The same cannot be said of the fox, which would make fools out of anyone who trusts the fox to act unfoxlike.
Of course, if the government really does know best, as can be concluded by the fact that it must regulate, why don't we just let the government control and run everything? That way, you wouldn't even need to worry about regulations because then there are no companies to regulate: the government can regulate itself, and the government is all-good.
If you're going to be this facile, I don't want to play anymore. The government does know best about a lot