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
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
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.
South Korea temporarily lifts decision to block VoIP services
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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
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?
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.
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.
"According to the system of natural liberty, the sovereign has only three duties to attend to
Which commie was it that said that? Oh yeah, Adam Smith.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
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?
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
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.
>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".