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
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.
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.
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.
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."
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?
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.
less regulation is not neccesarily better. just like less government is not neccesarily better. neither is the more version of either of those sentances.
Telecommunications companies have government sanctioned monopolies because they taxpayers paid for the communications lines and the companies agreed to follow Common Carrier rules to be allwoed to operate those lines and install them (on behave of the people, with the people's money)
The VOLUNTARILY subjected themselves to a higher level of regulation.
Force them to honor the terms of their sanctioned monopolies and stop screwing the consumer
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
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!
Right, but if we didn't have those regulations making them de-facto monopolies in the first place, then nobody would care about net neutrality. The market would be able to regulate itself through fair competition. You're saying that less regulation isn't always a good thing, but it seems to me that every regulation that comes out now is to deal with the failure of a previous set of regulations. If we remove them all, then the world would be a much better place. Mega-corporations wouldn't be able to use them to squash the competition and I'd have more choice/freedom.
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.
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.
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!
Appealing to government to resolve any conflict is not the only way. Let's say no net neutrality is enacted, and AT&T starts screwing over consumers. You have more choices than you listed. Instead of demanding the government do more, demand them to do less. Demand them to remove regulation, thus enabling compettition for AT&T. If AT&T is really screwing you over, then you'll gladly switch services if given the choice.
Going to the government isn't wanting a single person to fix the problems. Remember, our government represents the PEOPLE and is made up of representatives that the PEOPLE elect. We have placed power in both the Federal government, which deals with national issues, and in the State government, which focus on issues in the state. In issues like this, the Federal government, which is made of the PEOPLE, has the power to standup for the PEOPLE. It's not collectivist government, it's representative government.
Space for rent, inquire within
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
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.
Ah, yes, terrible things like the postal service with the cheapest rates for shipping anything anywhere. Terrible things like highways, power grids, safe airplanes, safe food, safe medicine, and licensed doctors and engineers. All of these have caused problems that were not around in the 1800's with sweat shops and child labor and malpracticing quacks selling snake oil and the inability to travel across country except on a monopolistic train and buildings burning and collapsing from improper design.
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.
I'm sorry, that article is trash. It's written by a graduate student, implying limited experience with the Real World of telecom monopolies. He's from Texas where there are several competing ISPs. But enough with the ad hominem... The article is trash because it is full of falacies such as praising the fair market system for allowing telecoms to own their own pipes while simultaneously lamenting the monopolies granted to the very same companies. Explain to me how letting monopolists get away with brandishing their property helps anyone. The telcos are getting big enough to be broken up again, not big enough to hand private control of the Internet over to. The article also completely ignores the fact that AT&T wants to charge third parties for routers, not just its directly connected peers.
This is an example of the horrible misunderstanding the author has. The routers are not the problem! Routers can route dozens of gigabytes per second on their backplanes, much more bandwidth than their pipes have available. Routers can be parallelized by traffic shapers that split the load from the pipes across several routers. Increasing bandwidth requires actual physical fiber runs, or better multiplexing equipment. Increasing bandwidth is generally required at the last mile, where it's least lucrative for monopolies to do so. After all, they can't charge customers $1000/month for 1Mb/s speeds. Scarcity is a scam caused by ISPs oversubscribing by several orders of magnitude, and by the insane client-server distribution model that commercial entities embrace. The Internet can literally transfer the entire Library of Congress in under an hour. That's how scarce bandwidth really is.
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.