Slashdot Mirror
Battle Lines Drawn Over Net Neutrality
InfoWorldMike writes "As the U.S. Congress argues the pros and cons of network neutrality, many companies doing business on the Internet say their very futures may be at stake. Net neutrality supporters want new laws prohibiting Internet providers from blocking or degrading traffic from their competitors' networks. Determining the full effects of Net neutrality can be difficult, however, in part because the concept is hard to define precisely. Most of the debate has taken place inside the Washington Beltway, where lawmakers and outsiders have proposed several different versions. InfoWorld has a Special Report up exploring the issue with a debate between experts Bill McCloskey and Jon Taplin and some of the news that has captured the issue as it developed."
What would happen to sites like YouTube if they had to pay a premium to get their bandwidth seen?
Funnypics
Welcome our new profit-driven corporate overlords.
Oops.
That's not a new development.
Nothing to see here.
If a chair is thrown in a forest, and there are no witnesses, did Ballmer still do it?
As the U.S. Congress argues the pros and cons of network neutrality
I can hear the auction house sounds from here.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
imagine what the slashdot effect would be once they started limiting bandwith down on some of these sites, even worse than it is now
A Smith & Wesson beats four aces -- Murphy's Law of Poker
The less regulation the better. Especially considering who will be writing such regulations.
Developers: We can use your help.
I had my staff send me several spare Internets in case the big telcos broke this one. I've plenty of them stored in the basement now so if anyone needs one, I'll Fedex it over for a reasonable price.
See, there's no reason to worry!
OK line up boys and girls. On my left: those who think that the Federal Government should run the Internet for the good of the public, because those big corporations are EVIL. On my right: those who think that free-market competition should decide the winners and losers, and will drive the Internet's evolution much faster than the stranglehold of the --- perhaps not "Evil" but at least "Slow, incompetent, and stifling -- Federal Government.
Where do you stand?
Think carefully, your future is in your hands.
Then call or write your representative.
Nothing quite like a bunch of people who have never read a single RFC, have no idea how this here interweb thing works, and have never heard of people like Jon Postel or Vint Cerf trying to fuck with the net.
I bet all this started over some telco exec trying to figure out a way to cash in on google's success. When I first heard about what they wanted to do I distinctly remember blowing it off and saying "it will never happen, it's too ridiculous for anyone to take seriously", i guess i was wrong. This illustrates a pretty sad state of affairs in the business end of the Internet.
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
In my opinion, many advocates have been going about this fight the wrong way. The telecoms are spending a lot of money to fram this debate as a fight over the infrastructure (and the idea of limited bandwidth). Currently, we're losing that debate, both due to funds, but also due to poor communication.
However, if we frame this in reference to the existing concept of common carriers, we should go a lot farther. Quite simply, the telecoms want to control what is sent over their networks. If they want to care about what data is passed over their network, then they need to take full responsibility for that data. If someone is transporting child pornography, then the carrier should be liable, because they are intimately involved with monitoring the data being passed back and forth (how else would they be enforcing their charges against big sites?).
We already have laws on the books that provide common carrier protections for some companies in exchange for certain guarantees. By framing the debate in terms of common carrier status, we should be able to force a similar exchange.
Sometimes, they fill up and it can take days for the internets to arrive.
Won't someone PLEASE think of the poor, defenseless tubes?
As long as our fine congress has as strong a grasp of how the Internet works as Senator Ted Stevens how can they fail to make the right decision?
"I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?
Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially."
Personally I think 5 days is pretty good to transfer an entire Internet to your personal office. I however have lower expectations than our esteemed Senator.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Am i missing something, was there something wrong with the current internet?
Oh. yeah, i forgot, It doesn't make money for the government.
There were two questions asked and a total of six statements from the two men. Not to mention the fact that the only response to the question "wouldn't companies have to pay a premium to get their content to end-users" was "Bellsouth has promised not to do that." No mention of the policies of the other 4 major ISPs, and no mention of the possible conflicts of interest that tiered pricing would bring about. It would have been nice if the pro-neutrality guy had raised these issues- and had some backbone. (All he does is blather a little about dark fiber.) Or, barring that, if the interview/debate had been longer, so we could get more of a sense of the depth of this issue.
Sono koro, bokura wa, sore ga sekai no shinjitsu da to shinjite ita.
South Korea temporarily lifts decision to block VoIP services
r ticle=37448&archive=true
SEOUL -- The decision to block South Korea-based U.S. military community members from making phone calls via the Internet has been put on hold.
The South Korean Ministry of Information and Communications and Dacom, the Internet service provider that serves about 12,000 base customers, agreed late Thursday to a U.S. Forces Korea request to suspend Saturday's deadline to begin blocking the service.
Dacom and the two other major ISPs, Korea Telecom and Hanaro, want to ban U.S.-based voice over Internet protocol, or VoIP, companies that are not in compliance with the country's Telecommunications Business Act.
South Korea agreed to "suspend their decision to block these services pending the results of further discussions with USFK," according to a military news statement released late Friday.
USFK commander Gen. B.B. Bell "expressed his appreciation for the suspension and noted his desire to seek a solution that does not disadvantage U.S. servicemembers and families serving far from home," according to the release. USFK said it will keep people informed of developments.
The issue came to light Thursday when base Internet customers received notices stating they would no longer be able to use some of the most popular VoIP companies, including Vonage, AT&T CallVantage and Lingo.
The Army and Air Force Exchange Service contracts on-base Internet service through a company called SSRT, which in turn buys its Internet time from Dacom.
More: http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&a
The sound of a large switch being thrown was overhead near the Mountain View, CA, headquarters of search giant Google this afternoon. A local robed old guy was quoted as saying, "It's as if millions of miles of dark fiber suddenly came online, and then telcos everywhere were suddenly silenced."
Yes, because OBVIOUSLY the big providers will never think to spend some of their vast fortunes to get a ride in the fast lane. It's not like the little guy will be forced to pay the toll if he even wants to compete with the big boys.
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
I am against legistlating Net Neutrality because it's like legistlating World Peace. You can pass all the laws you want, but that's doesn't mean it will make it happen.
Some people seem to have the belief that Net Neutrality exists today. Hah! How can one tell? Is the data transfer being slow because there is congestion somewhere, or because someone has decided to limit your bandwidth somewhere in the connection? How can the end user tell if they are getting 'Net Neutrality (sic)' or not?
I want carriers to start charging end users for differentiated servers. Then the end users will stare at their bills and at their computers, and try to figure out when/how they ran up those bills. Did they actually get what they paid for? Did they actually spend that much? How can they tell?
If people believe they are protected by 'Net Neutrality' legistlation, they'll never question, never ask, never probe into how things are actually running. (Committed Information Rate vs. Burst on frame-relay networks, anyone?) Without that comforting illusion, when confronted by real bills, they'll have to start asking questions. They'll have to educate themselves about the matter.
That is a far better long term win than any mythical 'Net Neutrality' watching over them paternalistically.
Okay, so Slashdot has this lively debate about Net Neutrality. And paid "experts" stage a lively-looking debate about Net Neutrality on the news. But in the end, does it really matter?
When it comes right down to it, the only people who matter in the debate over net neutrality are the congressmen. If we leave "the market" to decide, it will decide against neutrality-- because "the market" consists of a small pool of telecom monopolies, and they will always "decide" in their own interests.
And the congressmen, the only people whose votes matter here, don't understand this issue-- they're just voting along flat "Government intervention good!" versus "Government intervention bad!" party lines. So basically, what happens on the "Net Neutrality" issue isn't about what's best technically, or what's best economically, or about what's best for the public-- it comes entirely down to, which party line will win? Which party is better at pushing their line? More specifically, it comes down to, which party will win the 2006 elections?
And we already know the Republicans are going to win the 2006 elections. There just isn't any alternative-- there's no opposition. The Democrats aren't even trying. They're just sitting back, letting the Republicans set the agenda of Congress and the terms of every debate, and failing to either distinguish themselves from the Republicans or establish themselves as a credible alternative. The only time the Democrats even manage to get enough media attention for the public to remember they exist, it's over embarrassing internal bickering. And with no impressions of themselves in the public mind except internal bickering, the Democrats are going to lose.
So the "Net Neutrality" debate has already been decided, based on entirely external factors. What does Slashdot have to add?
InfoWorld has a Special Report up exploring the issue with a debate between experts Bill McCloskey and Jon Taplin and some of the news that has captured the issue as it developed."
I'd hardly call that a debate, there were what 2 exchanges? The FA was brief to say the least.
"The problem with internet quotations is that many are not genuine" -Abraham Lincoln
As the old addage goes.. If it's not broken, don't fix it. The internet works fine, dont break it.
I am curious about the organizations that oppose network neutrality. The article has a list which seems to match the list on a fake grassroots site run by telecoms.
Is the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation really a group representing Black Americans? If so, why would stand aganist network neutrality? Their web site doesn't list Network Neutrality as an issue anywhere that I can find.
How about the National Association of Manufacturers?Net neutrality isn't on their list of key issues either, but a search reveals a misguided report showing how they don't want network neutrality because it would stifle companies from laying new fiber. I can see manufacturers not liking that, but since network neutrality has nothing to do with laying of fiber, I only assume that someone there is misinformed.
The whole list of supporters seems this way. Is anyone here a member of one of these organizations who can shed some light on the views of these organizations?
We just need to make sure that the tubes we get are free from any blockage. That way the internets flows with maximum speed. When max speed is possible through our tubes, everyone wins! Flush often to prevent nasty buildup by corporations trying to ruin the lives of our children.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
All that will happen is that a number of the sites will change to p2p rather than a server. All in all, this will work against the companies that are hoping to make a few bucks off of companies like google and MS.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
We don't have a free market, if we did corps like Verizon would not install DSL equiptment then refuse to light it up.
eh, you could do much worse. You could have George W. Bush or Dick cheney decide it.
Ahhh. There is the problem.
Nah, nah
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
I'm not saying we do have a free market, but surely the best way to get one is not more laws and regulations.
When did Verizon do this, and more importantly, why?
The sea changes color, but the sea does not change.
I give up.
At some point in the future, I may write one final document about why I am for net neutrality, put it on the Internet, and send it to my congresscritters.
But for now, it just hurts my head to even try to begin to understand how anyone continues to be fooled. I don't understand how anyone can believe this bullshit:
Or this bullshit:
Maybe South Park has the answer. Maybe we've all buried our heads in sand...
But really, how can any thinking person not see that these are complete and absolute fucking lies? If they're not going to filter, degrade, or impair any service, why wouldn't they be FOR net neutrality? Or at least neutral -- why would they care if there's a regulation forcing them to do what they're already promising they'll do? Simple: Because they're either outright lying about their intentions, or you need to read between the lines: "Not filtered or degraded" doesn't necessarily mean "As fast as anyone else". And "degraded" compared to what? Whatever the fuck they want.
This is not a conspiracy theory. This is not a communist plot. This is the simple truth: Without net neutrality, the Internet as we know it will be gone, and the American Internet will be as bad or worse than the Chinese "Internet".
But I give up. I really don't think there's anything more I can do.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
The local techs don't know, neither do the people I talk to on the phone. The rumor is that they doing things like this all over the state to try and force the Texas PUC to do what they want in regards to FIOS (not scheduled for this ex-GTE area till sometime 50+ years from now. It doesn't make any business sense for them to install equiptment then refuse to provide service - Cox doesn't have trouble providing cable internet in this town so lack of demand for HSI isn't a reason.
Umm... you never tried to use an search engine before Google came around, did you.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Am I missing something? Google and other content providers are already paying premium prices for T3 lines for extra bandwidth. Why should they be penalized and force to pay extra? They are already paying for the bandwidth, why can't they use it?
As described, I don't really have a problem with what the telcos are proposing, but I don't believe the telcos are being honest in describing their intent. They claim they do not intend to degrade any content provider's service, but if a content provider pays some sort of fee their content would receive priority handling. (How this can be done with a limited amount of bandwidth, I don't know, but that's their stance.) I believe they are talking a reasonable argument to get what they want, and when it is in place they will apply the thumbscrews in the name of profit.
Here's the deal, Mr. Telco. As a consumer buying your service, I pay for a certain amount of bandwidth. I expect to get it. Whether it is spread across many endpoints in a peer-to-peer network or used entirely on a single video feed should not matter, as I have a contractual agreement with you for a certain amount of bandwidth at a certain price. If you want to set up a service whereby you charge content providers to deliver content to me at an even faster rate, go ahead and make me happy, but if you in any way restrict my speeds to something below the speed rating stipulated in my contract, then we're talking about breach of contract and I will expect some sort of rebate.
So, if net neutrality does not get passed in some form, I want to see ISP agreements that stipulate in no uncertain terms what my minimum unfiltered Internet bandwidth will be, so I can make an intelligent choice of service and I can complain when I am not getting that level of service. Given that ISPs oversell their networks, this could be fun. What exactly happens when the number of "premium" downloads exceed the capacity of my ISP's network or my local link? But I'm digressing into technical mumbo-jumbo now...
I'm not saying we do have a free market, but surely the best way to get one is not more laws and regulations.
We certainly don't have a free market and in most locations in the US there is a government enforced monopoly, one cable company and one phone company get to run lines in the public right of ways. I have an excellent proof that we don't have a free market. For me to purchase cable broadband access costs $65. For me to purchase cable broadband access bundled with basic cable TV service costs $50. No free market would let this continue, especially for the many years it has.
So what is the solution? Do we change the laws so anyone can run lines anywhere and deal with the hideous mess and less reliable service it will create? Or do we regulate the industry so that in exchange for being government sponsored monopolies granted billions of dollars in tax dollars as subsidies and exempted from many laws as common carriers, we actually force them to act as common carriers and carry whatever data they are handed the same as any other data? Or do we have the government take over the whole net and run it as a public utility, like the highways?
I bet you can guess which one I think is workable.
Yet more proof that the technology industry needs Pete Ashdown to counter the asinine positions pushed by Ted Stevens and (Ashdown's opponent) Orrin Hatch. The nice thing is that even if you can't donate to the campaign, you can still help Pete receive funds by casting an email vote.
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. But when life gives you crap, please don't make a beverage out of it.
I've never heard Net neutrality portrayed that way. Especially since net neutrality is one of the core principles of the Internet that has been around since day 1. This seems like a tactic by Infoworld where they wanted to say "We are going to portray net neutrality as an assault on the core principles of the internet" while somehow managing to blame someone else.
I'm going to moderate a debate on global warming by starting out with "Now, global warming is generally portrayed as a phony made-up theory by a bunch of environmental wackos trying to assault democracy. Tell me Mr. Al Gore, do you believe ther is a chance that some of these hippies might not be high?"
I see no reason to enforce "Net Neutrality" through any law, especially since we've seen what happens when the government regulates any action -- less freedom, not more.
The Mises Institute has a great article on why NN is a terrible idea. The article is titled Who Owns the Internet? and it really gives great insight into why the political side of NN is just another fiasco and a tool to control the Internet by those already in power.
Competition will keep the Internet cheap and fast -- not laws. NN will only decrease competitive opportunities, and we all know the law will end up with 5000 pork barrel adders that have nothing to do with the title.
I really think people keep ignoring how tiering will work in reality. ISPs/telcos are not going to block or restrict bandwidth to sites. (please refrain from replying with port 25/craigslist/small isp examples) They are craftier than that. They plan to partner up with specific content providers and provide them additional dedicated bandwidth which they will define as Private Bandwidth. This will allow them to say that they are not blocking anyone from using the Public internet.
For example: they will bundle in 5mbps dedicated bandwidth to MSN sites at no extra charge to the consumer.
The net effect will be that the ISP's partners will have an advantage over those content providers that will not be receiving dedicated bandwidth. Over time this will have the effect of reducing competiton and innovation on the internet. You can not compete with that dedicated bandwidth.
Net Neutrality proponents should start thinking about how the ISPs really will implement tiering; no one on the other side of the argument really believes that the ISPs really could get away with blocking/restricting. You won't be able to convince them unless you really start talking about how Access Tiering really will come to be.
What ever happened to the Internet Protocol? Isn't that precise enough?
Isn't it an ISP's job to seel the Internet Protocol as a service-- and isn't distorting IP traffic for the sake of higher-level protocols false advertising?
And since when was IP designed to let carriers bill IP users that they aren't physically connected to??? Trying to bill in this way seems expressly anti-Internet to me.
If these telecoms want to sell something that isn't The Internet, then they need to stop pretending they're Internet providers. Nor should the government allow them to pull a bait-and-switch on the public.
The articles you see in papers and news sites all seem to boil it down to companies having to pay more for the larger amount of bandwidth they use. But that can't be it, because that's what's been happening all along. End users pay more for a faster DSL connection. ISP's pay more for a fatter pipe. This is the way it has always been... so to say that this is in danger of happening doesn't make any sense.
On the other end of the spectrum is the idea of charging based upon the nature of the content. VoIP, for example, being billed at a higher rate than, say, Usenet or web surfing. This is akin to the phone company charging you (or somebody) more if you use your telephone to dial the police or hospital than they do if you dial your mom. In fact, what might be more accurate is if the phone company charged less when you were talking to your mom about her meatloaf recipie... and then charged more when the nature of the conversation turned to "... make sure that you remember to give dad his heart medication!". That would be billing based upon the nature of the content.
I've seen some argue that this would merely be capitalism at work. It's charging what the market will bear. Getting the "heart medication" part of the message through is more crucial to you than getting the "meatloaf recipie" part through... and the phone companies should be able to charge what it's worth to you.... not what it costs them, right? Well, all I can say to that is that there are situations similar to that which the American people have pretty much agreed are unfair. Look at profiteering, for example. When a hurricane hits some region and the stores start charging $20 per gallon of water, we've pretty much agreed that that's crossing the line... partly because the increase in price had nothing to do with an increase in costs. (yet also partly because the predicament that the buyers are in wasn't forseeable).
Plane tickets would be a counter-example, however. Airlines have all kinds of tricks to get more money out of the people who can/will pay more. Charging more if you don't stay over a weekend is their way of getting more money out of the business travelers (who are traveling to a weekday conference, having the company pay for the airfare, and don't want to spend the weekend away from their family). This is an incarnation of price-discrimination that we've come to accept.
Which of those you feel NN falls into is up to you... but I think we need to start by giving our lawmakers some more-accurate analogies.... because the "fatter pipe" thing is just way off.
I have an excellent proof that we don't have a free market. For me to purchase cable broadband access costs $65. For me to purchase cable broadband access bundled with basic cable TV service costs $50. No free market would let this continue, especially for the many years it has.
Amen, brother! But I suppose I should be glad for the scraps. When I was buying my house, I first went down to the local Adelphia office to make sure I'd be able to get high-speed internet at the new address and I made it clear to them that I'd only move to where I could get it. I needed it for my business. Several manager-type employees assured me that it was available their so I closed on the house. I then ended up going a year and a half without anything more than dial-up because Adelphia was wrong and there were no other alternatives. It made it almost impossible to do my work.
It's not just cable, I frequently find myself wanting (simple) things, that no one is willing or able to sell me. The "free market" in this country is horribly broken and I want it back. Large corporations are the enemies of capitalism because they see regulation as a way to keep potential competitors out of the game. Net neutrality seems to be a case of having their cake and eating it too. I'm against it in theory, but I'd be screwed in reality.
Right, then it's a witch. So maybe there is still more to work out...
UserAdvocate: The voice of the user
First, as many slashdotters as possible get jobs at the big telcos. Then, we allow the big telcos to get the legislation passed that allows for a tiered internet. However, when it comes time to program the tiered internet, all the slashdotters that previousely got the jobs at the telcos can volunteer to do that work. Then, they'll program it so nothing actually happens. Turn in a big script that just doodles smilies or something. Then, since the telcos have won, they'll stop trying, but we'll still have an internet where the tubes ain't broke! Genius!
Google: "All your data are belong to us."
Without Net Neutrality, little sites will never be able to make it big. Content providers will controll our access, and I don't want to see that happen.
Sadly, my own party--the Republicans--isn't seeing the light on this one. Net Neutrality opponents have gone so far as to point out that it's not really bipartisan, because too much of the Republican leadership was willing to sell us out to the telcos. For that reason, among others, I sent them a message saying that I'm leaving the party and I'm going to do whatever I can to undermine them politically with my vote and protests.
And if anyone from the Republican party leadership is reading this, I'd just like to say SCREW YOU, YOU BASTARDS! BECAUSE OF YOU I'M _ASHAMED_ TO HAVE EVER BEEN REPUBLICAN! Further, I'd like to inform them that I would even go so far as to *shudder* vote for Hillary Clinton if I thought it would help undermine them. I think that most people who have ever been Republicans can understand how strongly I feel about how deliberately and systematically the administration has sold-out the public by the magnitude of that statement. Having friends like Ken Lay? The thought of such greedy, deceitful bastards in any position of public trust or influence sends chills down my spine.
And I don't want to hear any libertarian crap. The telcos are a government-created abomination, entrenching them further under the guise of "free market reforms" is positively moronic when they're essentially government-protected crown monopolies.
This is something @home did. They provided content via a portal that was on their network. Media companies who wanted their content on @home had to pay. @home in turn provided a dedicated audience and higher bandwidth availability to the content.
That being said, why can't ISPs, Content Producers and Content Providers use this method? Setup regional servers that can provide dedicated bandwidth to those willing to pay and a dedicated audience by way of the ISPs subscribers.
I think the reason is control and money. The ISPs, Content Producers and Providers want more control over the audience. They want lock in. They want everything that is bad for a free market.
What could possibly go wrong?
Seems to be the same with lots of things. Deregulate and a few behemoths buy up everything, and you're left with no real choice.
I don't know how to keep things from doing this. Market forces favor oligarchies forming in anything with nonzero barriers to entry, and supplying bits takes money.
I was hopeful that municipal internet would provide a bit of competition, but the established players are determined to prevent that. Competition is well and good until it might hit their bottom line.
Man, you really need that seminar!
Without net neutrality, what's to stop backbone providers from charging content providers (ex. Google) also for "guaranteed" bandwidth? They might have the "if Verizon could do it, we could too" attitude. Google could be charged multiple times for sending data to a customer because it traversed networks owned by different providers.
That would be like trying to send a letter from California to New York, and being charged an extra stamp for each state my letter goes through, just because my letter is in a plane flying through that state's airspace. In the end, my letter could cost me 10 EXTRA stamps. And that's assuming a direct flight to New York.
For the Internet to continue as is, net neutrality is a must.
Respect the laws of physics, for the laws of physics have no respect for you.
That's all, the forced "net neutrality" would amount to... Another government agency interfering with the market.
The only valid argument is telcos pessimizing traffic of companies, competing with them on something else. Against that there already are anti-monopoly laws...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
If the system becomes tiered and bandwidth prices go up, cannot technology rise to adapt to the limit?
New protocols similar to bittorrent could be used to spread bandwidth over a variety of networks and
compression could help a lot as well. Perhaps the html/browsers could be changed so that image sources
could be a "list" of sources and your browser could pick the cheapest quickest route based on a rule.
Perhaps browsers could even talk to each other to share images.
Instead of looking at this as the end of the world, why not take the opportunity to do something better.
We might end up with a browsing experience that is faster than it is now.
Sure it does, that equipment will just get more expensive with inflation, the labor to install it will not be going down either. Sooner or later the PUC is going to put the gun to their heads, that's when it'll get turned on; gotta maintain the artificial scarcity you know.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
The Line MUST Be Drawn here, This and NO FURTHER!!!
If you really want the Republican party to hear you, come November vote them out. Yeah I know the Democrats are not really any better. But it seems that we have better government when we have a divided government.
So here's a simple question. If we "need" laws on net neutrality, what are those laws going to stop that is taking place right now? If there is nothing going on today, what makes us so sure there will be in the neare or even distant future?
Verizon has said they would like to charge large companies like Google money for the bandwith users of those services use. Fine. It's not illegal, so... why have they not done so?
Perhaps THAT force that has kep the Verizons of the world at bay should be strengthened, rather than having a bunch of people that poorly understand the fundamentals create new laws that the whole tech insdustry has to keep track of.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What is more evil to me is a law mandating that either side do something. Why do we need a law to handle an idea this stupid? If Verizon tries to collect money from Google, what will make Google pay? And Google has other levers to work against Verizon doing so like anti-trust laws (as they have threatened) and even outright blocking Verizon from using Google (which actually brings some degree of harm to the company throgh workers not being able to find things as easily or (evil laugh) blocking verizon employess from all the USENET archives.
You don't have to choose any evil, simply refuse to back a law that might bring more power to the FCC and let the titans fight it out. It's not like either side lacks money and lawyers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
De-regulation is a good thing for consumers how? Yes, let's stop regulation of trusts and unsafe labor conditions and minimum wage and so forth. What kind of ivy-league masterbatory economics course did you step out of?
Less regulation does not, for the last accursed fucking time, give people more choices. I could be wrong, of course, about the... self-congratulatory ideas about economics and business. I could be totally wrong, and hell, when the telcom boys charge popular sites with little revenue and mass appeal a fuckton of money just because they are popular websites (like, oh, this one called slashdot ), so we are forced to see content driven by shitloads of ads and corporate sponsorships that get rid of any controversial, meaningful content, in the end, us consumers will REALLY benefit, we'll be in a better place and much happier for it... somehow....
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
Get someone actually there to demonstrate to the politicians what it might mean.
Have them sit and wait in silence for 5 minutes for every page they want to look at on the internet. Make them use dial-up and try watching streamed video over the internet. Then let them go to some site with 15 words per page surrounded by flashing ads at blinding fast speeds.
That is what the loss of neutrality will do to their internet experience. Tell them that they'd better hope they have the money to pay every ISP in the state however much they ask for, or their campaign website drops off the face of the planet. Scare them into it. They understand money and fear. Make them afraid.
Check out http://www.prwatch.org/node/4458
Other frontgroups include; http://www.handsoff.org/ http://www.minimumwage.com/ http://www.abionline.org/ http://www.consumerfreedom.com/ http://www.epionline.org/ http://www.animalscam.com/ http://www.activistcash.com/ http://www.consumerfreedom.com/ http://www.activistcash.com/ http://www.physicianscam.com/ http://www.epionline.org/ http://www.abionline.org/ http://www.physicianscam.com/ http://www.petakillsanimals.com/ http://www.nannyculture.com/ http://www.cspiscam.com/ http://www.animalscam.com/ http://www.maddatgm.com/ http://www.cspiscam.com/ http://www.bacdebate.com/ http://www.bacdebate.com/ http://www.maddatgm.com/ http://www.responsibledrinker.com/ http://www.petakillsanimals.com/ http://www.bermanco.com/ http://www.firstjobs.org/ http://www.petapetition.com/ http://www.bermanco.com/ http://www.obesityscam.com/ http://www.rottenacorn.com/ http://www.madcowscare.com/
http://www.livingwage.com/
Personally I think 5 days is pretty good to transfer an entire Internet to your personal office. I however have lower expectations than our esteemed Senator.
Only five days to grasp the entirtey of the internet, and hold it in the palm of his hand before lunch.
Do you not now realize the truth of the matter? Senator Stevens is The Architect.
I'll bet I know where he keeps it though, on a small island in Alaska. No wonder he needs such a large bridge. It's gotta bear some load to handle all those pipes being shipped over!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Just what in the world makes you think we don't need net neutrality? You're incredibly naiive, if people wanted a better ISP, they would have switched to it, but unfortunately for a large amount of areas, that is impossible, as there is usually only ONE ISP WITHIN A 50 MILES, unless you live in a large city. What you are basically saying is: let's stop regulating the net, let these ISPS screw over the internet, by charging each site individually, and then reduce the stuff stopping them from setting up wires all over my neighborhood. Current laws prohibit an ISP from setting up its own wires, because, if they could, they would be all over the place! The public wires are there for everyone to use, not just one company, or person. You're basically saying: let's stop regulating the net, so ISPS's can screw over the internet, then, let's stop regulating how many wires they can have, so that the customers have less than a choice that they have now, to get internet service. We pay 30$ a month, for 3 mb cable internet where I live, and from where I live, all the way to my parents house (a total of 86 miles), there is only one ISP.
The funy thing is you have hit on the fundamental truth of the matter. Why pass a law to help either side in what is essentally a battle of the titans. Let them work it out, as has been done countless times in the past.
I'm for Law Neutrality. Try not to make new ones until there is an actual problem as opposed to only speeches from crazy CEO's.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
> This is something @home did. They provided content via a portal that was on their network. Media companies who wanted their content on @home had to pay. @home in turn provided a dedicated audience and higher bandwidth availability to the content.
And now @home is out of business.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
I am as concerned about the topic as anyone, but has anyone considered the consumer backlash that would happen should net neutrality become a thing of the past? If my ISP suddenly blocks or degrades traffic to Google or whoever fails to pay them extortion money, the internet will become far less useful to me, and I will cancel my service immediately, possibly expressing my thoughts on the issue on a piece of paper taped to a brick and my cable modem before throwing it through the windows of the Time Warner office.
Careful, they'll take away your secret decoder ring...
Just kidding. I'm actually posting to give you kudos for being able to see how badly the Republican party has been hijacked by Big Business and the religous right. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Massachusetts liberal but find myself willing to vote for a moderate Republican candidate if it means those yahoos fall out of power.
I wish more people would realize that just because you've always voted for one party (or feel that that party is aligned with your own personal politics) doesn't mean you HAVE to vote for someone you don't like.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Here is a Net Neutrality question. If an article appears on Slashdot that criticizes Comcast or ATT or one of the other carriers, or calls for unionization of the telco industry... do you think you'll be able read Slashdot that day?
Seriously, why would a corporation allow that to be sent out on the Internet if they can just block it with no repercussions?
What will happen to sites like YouTube, Craigslist, Slashdot, and Drudgereport, or any other site if the federal government starts regulating them and determining how they are to use Internet bandwidth and for what price?
What will happen to the thousands of independent ISPs if the federal government starts regulating them and dictating their pricing structures and the services and deals they can and can't offer?
The recognition that all 1's and 0's are of equal value. The value of the 'content' represented by those 1's and 0's is Neutral to the vale of the 1's and 0's.
The only actual value of the 1's and 0's is the cost of shepherding them from point to point - The larger the herd of 1's and 0's, the more it costs to move them. Which is the way it is now (pretty much, what Telcos charge for X number of 1's and 0's moved, is a separate argument).
So to phrase it another way; The cost of moving X number of trucks down a highway has no relationship to the contents of the trucks. The number of trucks you move is the determinate of cost, not the value of what they haul.
The Telcos would change this, if allowed.
We had best understand it's only 1's and 0's that 'move' over the net - the content is neutral to the method of conveyance, in the case of digital information.
Lets keep it that way.
Or we kiss our new shiny goodbye... forever.
Unfortunately, ISPs have been successful by lobbying [payoffs] to keep from being classified as a common carrier. They like to enjoy some of the privilages, but are reluctant to "pay" for these privilages.
If a an ISP wants to extort from Google, Vonage,Yahoo, YouTube for not screwing with their traffic, I'd say let them. And as soon as they do, start holding them criminally liable for every gambling transaction, spam scam, phishing attack or kiddie porn transaction that originates, terminates or transits their network.
However, if they want to be immune from what others are doing on their network without their knowledge, they need to be transparent to the origin/destination/content type of data they are transmitting/receiving.
Wikipedia on Common Carriers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier
> If you really want the Republican party to hear you, come November vote them out.
I've never missed a single vote. Believe me, they'll hear from me at the polls--I'm part of a demographic that's usually considered to be part of their "base" in a fairly Republican state, so I'll do what I can to help erode their support.
Face it, businesses do not promote something unless they will make money from it. The stated purpose of the telcos is to charge services of higher value more money. This increases their revenues while providing nothing more of value to the customer. "Ahh" you say, "but they need to provide better service to enable these high value services to work well, and they need more money to invest in the infrastructure!" Well guess what, higher bandwidth in "dumb" pipes costs less to implement than "smart pipes". So the telcos' scheme not only increases revenue, it also increases cost. Both will be born by all of us. A neutral Net is the most economical way to run the Internet that is known at this time. It is important for commerce just neutral phone lines and roadways are. Abandoning Net neutrally will increase the friction of Net commerce as economists would say.
And for the "free" market idealogues, capital intensive infrastructure does poorly when run like a competitive market. Who is going to run two lines down your street? That just doubled the cost of the service to provide a duopoly. Generally the guy with the infrastructure there first wins, the cost of entering an established market is too high for competitors to enter. So in a "free" market, these services naturally gravitate to a monopoly.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but when the scientists/engineers started the Internet2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet2project (a test network for university/science applications in which they got to try out new network ideas/protocols that would eventually transfer to the big Internet), they assumed that layers of prioritisation for various IP traffic types was the way to go to smoothly shift traffic around to everyones satisfaction. However, after playing around with this concept, it was basically agreed that this just didn't work. The overhead in the routers when trying to analyse IP packets was just too great in CPU time and delay.
The best way to get everything flowing smoothly was to ignore prioritisation and just increase total carrying bandwidth. Ignore trying to understand the packet and just ram it on through without delay to its destination.
That is, if your 10MB/s network is causing delays in office VOIP or video or apps, then don't try to come up with a scheme in software or hardware to implement flow control or prioritisation for certain protocols/apps. Instead, just put in 100MB/s connections to everyone and things will again be sweet. Then go to 1GB/s later, and so on.
But assuming that telco's do put in a prioritisation scheme, what are they going to do when people start to:
1. Encrypt all traffic and send on random ports.
2. Run all traffic through an anonymising network such as TOR (its improving all the time).
But surely the telco's know that just increasing bandwidth is the best technical (and possibly only) way to go for high speed internet. That means they are lying through their teeth when they say they need to implement tiering schemes. What about all that dark fibre in the ground??? Thats got to significantly boost (by 1000 fold?) capacity if they light all that up. Then slap some more fibre down later when it runs out. You can fit a lot of data through a single fibre optic cable. However, if the telco's are intentionally lying through their teeth, they must have some other plan up their sleeves. These ugly people at the top only want money and profit (greed). They do it by targeting rich groups (Google) and sucking money off them, and screwing over everyone else in the process.
If the telco's want to protect POTS (normal phone lines and profit), they are out of luck. Digitised voice requires very few bits. Whereas a whole building of equipment was needed in phone exchanges, now you only need a couple of small boxes of IC's. I imagine going into a room of telco employees, flipping a IC chip on to the table in front of them, and telling them that this small piece of silicon and plastic has just replaced all their jobs. They're fired. Don't fight it. Go west, young men. Find your fortunes in new fields of opportunity.
Good communication is good for democracies and therefore good for people. Also, an excellent market place requires excellent fluidity in communications (that is, 0s and 1s, all info such as voice, video etc can be digitised). The internet is just that. Every node has a direct connection to every other node. It is probably the best theoretical model of communcations ever. Along with computers to manipulate the 0s and 1s, the internet is therefore possibly the best invention since the printing press and before that, the invention of fire. Don't let anyone screw up this model of communication, and its implementation.
The decoupling of information from its medium is ideal as it spreads power. Because information is power (in politics, war, everywhere). Hence, the anguish of RIAA and MPAA and others. Loss of control of information through loss of control of medium (CDs etc). Tough luck. Imagine the sheer boost of creativity that is coming when that creativity is available to all world wide from anyone to anyone, and competing on its intrinsic merits. Creators can still make money. New ways of advertising and selling of physical supplementary items. A lot will create just for
That actually doesn't sound too bad; if I got MSN at 10Mbps and everything else at 5Mbps I wouldn't complain, since there's a definite diminishing marginal utility to bandwidth and I'm already getting 5Mbps today. But if ISPs start offering plans that are more like 5.5Mbps for "enhanced partners" and 0.5Mbps for everything else, I could imagine a stifling effect on innovation. But it's very difficult to argue against allowing ISPs to provide more than they are today.
Just curious, dada21: Do you think that the immunity-from-responsibility that comes with Common Carrier status, is also a regulation that results in less freedom instead of more?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Fine, I'll start my own net... with blackjack... and hookers! In fact, forget the net and the blackjack!
(I'm only half-joking)
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Sometimes being OLD, fading rapidly into 'no one will remember what ever the hell I say or do" Merl days after I'm no longer earthbound, is so freeing'!
Like you, after hearing Everett Dirkson speak when I was 18 years old, I was a rabid *republican (*no cap's on purpose). Many years I've done my best to be responsible, investigated the the positions of my candidates and voted my conscience.
NO LONGER! Not having to resort to AC to state my position is also 'freeing'. No one should be able to restrict my right to do so by financial control. BIG BUSINESS=REPUBLICANS= More and more control...more and more restrictions and less freedom for those of us who grew up believing in standards that simply do not exist in the Republican party anymore.
I've been a netizen since 1980/81 and my first reaction to it's growth was this was a possible answer to equalizing information all over the world, over time and maybe lead to techniques, technology, information and human ingenuity which would lead to my stupid ideological 'better world'.
I have the advantage of 'Non-Partisan' registration which allows me to vote our candidates RECORDS, not their rhetoric, promises, propaganda or prolong their hidden agendas hidden in
out and lies.
YOU! All of YOU who can, MUST, use this tool (the whole Internet) to fight the Greedy FAT CATS! It is your right, it is your job and you are capable.
This radical old hippy, (my 48 year old sons nick for his geeky Mom in his basement), is counting on you. Perhaps you can accomplish what my generation thought we started.
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It simply wastes your time and truely annoys the pig"
I agree that big business LIKES big government due to big government's ability to regulate and legislate in favor of big business. I also agree that government usually stifles competition, harms the economy, stunts productivity / growth, creates artificially high barriers to entry, and in general does more harm than good.
= 15659982= 15660441
With that being said, I think that the 'Net Neutrality' issue is a bit more complicated. First off, these telco/backbone providers do not operate in the free market. They are all government granted monopolies. In fact, some of the infrastructure was created using public funds. This means that it is not a simple black and white issue of "deregulate and everything works itself out".
The solution to the problem was for private enterprise to create the Net to begin with and work itself out instead of letting the government screw things up as always by funding an oligopoly.
There are two VERY important posts that you should read here:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=190337&cid
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=190337&cid
Libertas in infinitum
"competition doesn't exist within governmental regulation"
I hate to break it to ya but the telcos are not part of the free market. They are government-granted monopolies. There is no competition in that sector because the government says it's not allowed.
The problem is the government meddling in the marketplace. In a free market, competition DOES indeed exist.
Libertas in infinitum
Common carrier has more to do with legal liability and responsibility for content, and much less (as in nothing at all) to do with interconnection of data networks and charging fees for traffic going over them.
There is nothing to stop telcos for instance from blocking any traffic they choose - they do so all the time to stop DOS attacks. There is further nothing to stop them from charging for complex QOS access schemes with thier customers and content providers liek google, except that they know anti-trust suits might take a big chunk out of them. There is nothing to stop them slowing down VOIP packets as some have done, except for customer complaints.
They are indeed trying to work legislation into the pipeline but it's not for the reasons you are claiming. You also seem to misunderstand my point, which is that I simply want NO additional legislation around this topic, for or against the telcos.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So what stops Verizon from charging you and me for bandwidth too? Your local ISP can just get charged a Verizon Tax, and an AT&T Tax, and a Sprint Tax, etc. You can buy Premium Packages for accessing Google, Yahoo, MSN, and CNN. Good luck finding a premium package for bittorrent, slashdot, craigslist, or anything else remotely associated with freedom. All that traffic can either go to /dev/null or sit around in a queue waiting for everyone else's streaming advertisement packets.
Nothing so why has it not happened already. That is the "simple question" I am asking. Must not be so simple since no-one can answer it.
People like you always fear the worst but fail to understand that sometimes, perhaps a lot of times, the worst doesn't happen because there are a lot of factors at work you do not understand. When you throw an additional control on top of a system that you do not understand you will get results you do not expect, which may or may not be bad. Before you change what we have now udnerstand what you dislike about how things are CURRENTLY done, not what may be - and work to address those. Trying to legislate against a problem we are not having is insane.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Lets say the ISPs decide to start degrading performance of servers that aren't willing to pay up. How exactly do they accomplish this? Isn't the core idea of TCP to not let anyone use bandwidth of a node more than anyone else? Or are they thinking on the level of peering agreements? (any BGP experts around?)
"You're everywhere. You're omnivorous."
When they deregulated radio we ended up with 2 companies owning 30 stations around here
Appropriate analogy, especially when you consider what non-net-neutrality really is: payola.
Want your website to reach my customers? Write me a check.
Want special treatment, ensuring your site and not your competitors, will respond promptly? Show the money.
Want to ensure preferential treatment on my network, since it would be a shame if your packets somehow got lost? I'm thinking of a number... a big number.
Want to make sure nobody will ever see your site or access your service? Ignore me and people will get hurt.
Payola is a racketeering effort that has been found to be illegal in the recording industry, yet the ILECs (aka "bloated former Bells that should be dead by now") are extorting this mafia technique in order to use it against more agile content competitors.
It'll be interesting to see if U.S. Congresspersons oppose it. Those that don't ought to join Skilling and his unethical ilk in a Federal pen for 30+ years. Read up on the payola racket that has infected the recording and broadcasting industry over the years and you'll find a clear parallel in the opposition to net neutrality. Of course, a weekend with the three Godfather movies wouldn't hurt either...
What will make Google pay will be the fact that Verizon can now block Google until Verizon extracts as much money from them as they think they deserve. Do you think Google searches will be free if that happens?
More like the other way around. Verizon blocks google, and field roughly 10k calls/sec until it's back. How long do you think it will be before VERIZON folds.
Furthermore, do you know why Google has bought all sorts of dark fiber? Do you know about thier wireless trials in SF? If Verizon blocks Google they switch to plan B and open up giant wireless internet farms all over Verizon territory. There's Verizon with no google access, and profits being eroded by a flood of people switching to the easier Google service. Good luck Verizon!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Here is his Response:
... basic tech news feeds and somewhat insightful analysis/gems posted by the commenters. Even after moderation was added and the site grew, you would still see a vast majority of commenters posting things like
m ics.pdf
d fm yth_wp.html
"The Internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it."
or
"The Internet is founded on peer sharing arrangements and it's technically difficult and economically impossible to implement a different system and have anything beyond Compuserve circa 1991."
Or perhaps some detailed links on why bandwidth restriction costs more. Like Andrew Odlyzko's paper...
http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/privacy.econo
or these other ones which may also help people gain understanding of the issue.
http://www.sobco.com/presentations/ngn.09.12.05.p
http://www.f5.com/solutions/technology/bandwidth_
But we didn't get that here. Instead, we got a bunch of people yelling at each other about things they simply have no understanding of. This goes for the lawmakers, the journalists, and almost every single comment posted here.
Unless you have a copy of W. Richard Steven's TCP/IP Illustrated on your shelf and understand the difference between a Tier 1 ISP and a Tier 2 ISP, it is simply impossible for you to understand what this supposed "debate" is about. Stop posting on here about it and do some basic RESEARCH! You know... the thing you do when you are reading something not written by a journalist or political hack from either US party?
To those rare comments that helped, keep up the good fight!
To the rest, know this. If you feel compelled to talk to a lawmaker, just tell them to stay out of these pissing matches that have been going on for a LOOOOOONG time now. Lawmakers are simply not smart enough to understand the problem or help in any meaningful way.
>Determining the full effects of Net neutrality can be difficult, however, in part because the concept is hard to define precisely.
Not really. There are only a handful of major backbones. It's like saying a railroad can charge different rates based on how desperate the customer looks to get to his destination. "Prioritizing" people is like putting them on different trains.
Whatever the current system is, charging users for bandwidth, is working fine.
Common carrier has more to do with legal liability and responsibility for content, and much less (as in nothing at all) to do with interconnection of data networks and charging fees for traffic going over them.
No.
A common carrier is a carrier (of anything) who offers services indiscriminately to the public. By definition, you can't be a common carrier if you discriminate between customers. There are definitely laws surrounding the legal obligations of common carriers, but these don't change the definition of the term.
"There is nothing to stop telcos for instance from blocking any traffic they choose - they do so all the time to stop DOS attacks. There is further nothing to stop them from charging for complex QOS access schemes with thier customers and content providers liek google"
It isn't that simple.
The FCC has long regulated the "telecommunication" aspect of internet access as a common carrier service. We pay universal service fees on our phone bills because of legislation that sees the phone ("telecommunication") network as a common carrier.
However, the "enhanced service" of internet packet switching and connectivity, has been traditionally considered something different. The FCC didn't regulate these "enhanced services" because they were a niche industry, and it wanted to promote innovation and competition. Thus, it's perfectly acceptable for Verizon the ISP to block your Vonage packets (Verizon the ISP is an "enhanced service"), but it has never been acceptable for Verizon the telecommunications provider to block or regulate access to any other ISP who wishes to use the same lines.
The problem is that today, there is less and less distinction between the "telecommunication" service of old, and the "enhanced service" of today. The legal framework is set up for a bright-line, 1960s-era distinction, when modern networks routinely blur the line between telecommunication and "enhanced service." The telcos know this, and are actively using the fuzziness of the issue to extort their biggest customers, while simultaneously claiming a number of benefits that are only guaranteed to common carriers.
You also seem to misunderstand my point, which is that I simply want NO additional legislation around this topic, for or against the telcos.
This is a red herring. The whole reason that "enhanced services" have been able to survive in a poorly-regulated environment is because there has been the promise of competition for the wires, which is only guaranteed by common carrier regulations. But with the advent of fiber optics, digital voice and video, and the movement of nearly every traditional service to packet-swtiched networks, there is no longer any guarantee of competition.
In other words, it's complete bullshit to suggest that "network neutrality" legislation is some sort of onerous new form of regulation on the poor, bealeagured telecoms. The telecoms are doing their best to escape the existing regulations -- this is just an attempt to keep things the way they are now.
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
Bittorrent is now moving into legitimate distribution of movies for studios. So, would this mean that ISPs couldn`t traffic shape BT packets any more?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I have my personal opinion on this, and I could be completely crazy.. but...
You have two big sides to the "internet" as far as who has really paid for it. You have some large companies who have constructed these huge backbones. Strining countless tons of fibre, so on and so forth. Mostly for the "good of hte internet" and to make some money.
Then you have the local telcos and cable companies who invested in infrastructure in order to get "high speed" internet access out to homes in an era where you would buy "high speed" access, but you'd never really use it all (non multimedia web browsing just doesn't gobble up bandwidth). They made money, until people really started using the bandwidth and the more we use the less the make.
Both of these entities see third parties come along and with the "it costs very little to start up a business on the internet" mantra make billions. (see eBay, Google, Yahoo, etc) THey see sites like YouTube use ads to make money while absolutely pummelling distribution networks. How can they make these billions? Why riding on this great infrastructure that other people have built of course! Not to mention come big players now want to start streaming full on DVD quality movies over it.
Well guys, the proverbial pipers are at the door, and they want to be paid now. The question is would YouTube, google video, etc really be this sucessful if people had to pay a more realistic cost associated with getting the data between the two points.
Now the proverbial pipers are at the door and want to get paid.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
>After all, each and every piece of equipment on the Internet will need to have a compatible configuration for QOS/Diffserv to work with any consistancy.
Important insight there.
Imagine the conversations: "We won't peer with you because of your irresponsible failure to prioritize our VOIP service with e911 support", or the really important one, "Dear 2d tier ISP, we're sorry to hear about your technical problems with packet loss. We can't help you now, but if you contact our mergers and acquisitions department to join the VerwestBC family, our unique network operations expertise can fix your mysterious problems".
> But I give up. I really don't think there's anything more I can do.
I'm not about to. That's exactly what they want. I used to be a Republican, but if you've seen just how the Republican leadership is pushing the clueless majority into selling us out on this issue, you'll understand why I sent a message to my senator that said, in essence, SCREW YOU!
Klein bottle for rent - inquire within.
There is not a answer to your question that is as simple as the question itself, but for the record, the ISPs were prohibited from doing this by law up until a few years ago, because digital communications was presumed to have Common Carrier status, as granted to telephony in the Communications Act of 1934. However in 2002, the new media-deregulatory FCC ruled that Cable ISPs were "information services" and not telecommunications as such, absolving them of Common Carrier obligations to allow open access to their networks. This was taken all the way to the Supreme Court, where last June they ruled six to three in the FCC's favor, indicating that a similar judgment would be appropriate for telco ISPs as well. Then in August, the FCC (surprise) issued a statement classifying DSL as an information service as well, effectively paving the way for a tiered Internet. The only reason nothing's come of it yet (at least in the US) is that the August, 2005 ruling came with a one year transition period attatched to it, which we are still in. This is why the issue is coming to a head right now.
Offering video delivery service to their own customer base at a premium level unavailable to non paying competitors???????
This is pretty much exactly the issue. Although not limited to just video services, VOIP service would be another big one where low latency is important.
Honestly I don't think it's surprising that we are seeing this now from both the cable and phone providers because these new Internet services (video and voice) can potentially hit them directly in their pocketbooks. Consider that DSL providers are voice phone companies and cable Internet providers sell video services. They are going to want to retain their customers even if the services switch to VOIP and IPTV.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
I don't know what you were trying to say about airlines, you'd have to clarify... but... Let me be very clear: Not believing in a minimum wage is not a valid viewpoint. Capitalism serves only to better the lives of the people, and is only in place now because we do not have a better system. Creating wage-slavery is not a valid viewpoint, it never was, it never will be. To believe that means that you are shit.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
Yes, that's why we don't have DRM, the impending broadcast flag, 95 year copyright, software patents out the wazoo, and why Murphy's law is baseless.
You'll note we don't have he broadcast flag yet (thanks to the lack of a net neutrality bill passing which will increase the FCC power enough to do so).
Yes bad things can happen - and they have. That's exactly what I am saying. Given that bad things are likely to happen why has this particular bad thing, Verizon trying to charge google a fee per user access, come to pass? That is what we all fear. Why has it not happened when there is seemingly nothing to stop them from doing that right now?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It has not come to pass because a) people noticed (and only because Google publicizing it instead of rolling over), and b) people cared enough to lobby Congress to preempt the problem. Perhaps b) was unnecessary, Google is a big company after all. But without the support of essentially the entire population of the world minus cable and telephone companies and their flunkies, I don't know if they would have been successful.
As you note (b) was really not needed becaue it's up to Verizon to try and charge or not. Since public backlash has ssemingly accomplished anything a law was aimed to do why not accept the fix and not add yet another law to the book that is bound to be badly written and laden with earmarks to build a $4 million house for the Petunia Lovers Of Ohio?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Net neutrality supporters want new laws prohibiting Internet providers from blocking or degrading traffic from their competitors' networks.
Wasn't this already fought over in Congress. I remember hearing about this issue in particular, where ISPs wanted to be able to block certain sites, and they lost. I think what's going to happen here is what happened to Real Estate and all other businesses. There will be anti-discrimination laws most likely, but the real issue of Net Neutrality, at least from what i've read, is cost. This really only came to the table because Google and Yahoo and other such sites are implimenting Broadband streaming video, which uses a lot of bandwidth. They want to then use this "Net Neutrality" concept to pass their costs on to everyone else by forcing ISPs to charge everyone a flat rate. So, instead of each person paying for their own bandwidth use, everybody pays for everyone's bandwidth use. Which helps out big businesses a lot, but hurts smaller sites.
I find it funny that residential providers have no problem allowing p2p file sharing of materials as long as their customers are using dynamic ips... yet those of us who would like to use the internet productively and have a mail/web/whatever server at home have to pay out the arse our use a dynamic dns provider...
I do not and will not use a provider that degrades my service between me and a competitor. This is foolish... Understandably businesses need to protect themselves and so too should individuals. In fact I find it appropriate for the ISP to 'require' their new broadband customer to have a router/firewall and boohoo if they have to support it... pay your techs more and get better techs... train them! This is bare minimum to assist with the majority of the major issues regarding the internet traffic created by users of broadband internet service. The major issues that prompt involvement of bureaucrats.
And who's bright f'n idea was it to involve the government in the internet after they let it go!? Eh?
:-( --- argh. Despair, I owe again.