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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?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
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.
You're not grasping what's happening. Right now, things are the way they are because Congress agreed to net neutrality during the Clinton Administration. It's actually law that a telco cannot be preferential in how it directs traffic. However, the bill only included a temporary provision for net neutrality, and now its time is running out. The entire point of net neutrality is to keep the status quo, and therefore renew net neutrality.
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.
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 should actually expound a little bit. What really happened is that last year, the FCC reclassified DSL from "telecommunications transfer" to "information transfer." The regulations surrounding telecommunications are extensive (probably too extensive, considering how terrible our phone system is) but one of the enforceable provisions therein is the idea that packets cannot be prioritized; the telcoms have to let whatever comes through keep going, and cannot modify it. Once the FCC changed DSL's classification, the rules changed, and the regulations surrounding "information transfer" are much less clear about the extent to which telcoms can interfere with the content. This current bill essentially lays the groundwork for how information technology is going to be handled in the foreseeable future--it is the guideline for how things are going to run. (So the idea that the govt. should stay out of the market is a moot point, because with or without the amendment for net neutrality, the telco bill is going to pass in Congress.) If that bill does not include provisions for network neutrality, you can bet your ass that our ability to retrieve content is going to be affected almost immediately. I have no problems with prioritizing certain packets over others, as long as no one stands to profit from it. You want to make 911 VoIP calls take preference over everything else? Great, sounds like a plan. But if you want to make sure Verizon's business partner's website comes up faster than Google, then I'm not buying it.
I'm shocked that NPR aired this. I understand giving airing sides of an argument, but this is nothing but lies.
NPR's segments like this (they have one every few weeks) always have one (or both) sides lying out their ass. You probably just noticed this time because you actually have a deep understanding of the issue. I listen to NPR news pretty much constantly, and I'm frequently bothered by what they try to pass as 'balance'. They go so far out of their way to present 'both sides' of an issue that they frequently fail to realize that one side is either completely full of crap, or a total crackpot.
Perhaps they think that airing this guy's lies will let people see that he's full of it... But I don't think enough people are knowledgeable enough about the subject to realize it.
Well, certainly nobody can predict the future, except to look at past trends. Just as I cannot say with 100% certainty that non-net-neutrality will be bad, neither can you say with 100% certainty that it will be good. So if we look at past trends, and try to extrapolate from them, we get many of the pro-net-neutralirty arguments.
You assume that the only three conditions of non-net-neutrality are those you listed. Those may come true, and you don't know it anymore than I do. You also failed to list any negatives:
1. Those who cannot afford to pay more will lose out. How will an independent filmmaker, just starting out, be able to afford the "premium" access speed that Disney can EASILY pay, in order to compete with them? How does that engender fair competition?? You may say the independent has a "flawed business model", or maybe needs to get VC funding first, but the problem with those arguments is that the independant can freely compete *NOW*, and non-net-neutrality will block him off...
2. Define "worsen" your connection. For "premium" sites, your download speed may get better, but for "non-premium" sites, it will certainly get worse. That to me defines "worsening" my connection. If Comcast doesn't give me the SAME download speed, regardless of where the site is, I'm going to get pissed. Why should I have to pay the same rate for a SLOWER speed on some sites?? I understand that network traffic can affect download speed, but this is an artificial limit imposed by my ISP, not just random traffic loads.
3. It is all about freedom. Not just for competition, either. ANYONE can publish music, video, text, whatever, on the internet as it is today, with no advantage, and no penalty. The market will decide who gets the most hits, downloads, page views, etc. Once the high-speed lanes are built, that will change. The smaller guy will have a penalty, and the larger guy will have an advantage. And not because one has a better product, but because one has deeper pockets and can afford the high-speed lane. I don't know about you, but I know very few people who would put up with speed degradation if they can get it from somewhere else faster. That's a problem when the degradation is an artifically-imposed sanction.
"if it ain't broke, don't fix it"....
You know what pisses me off about this? We had rules that fixed this...common carrier rules. They decided that those no longer apply to the telcos, and now we're screwed.
Or have you only comfort...that stealthy thing that enters the house and guest then becomes host, then master - KG
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
The really interesting thing is that FTTP the actually rolling out. I'm now on a 15Mbps fiber connection provided by my local telco. And the theoretical limit of that fiber is a lot higher than 15Mbps, so I'd expect increases as the backbone is upgraded.