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Net Neutrality Is Just "Mumbo Jumbo"
Ergasiophobia writes "It seems the National Cable & Telecommunications Association is spreading a blatant lie in the form of a commercial claiming that the net neutrality act will cost the consumer more and that it is 'bad' for the consumer. This, of course, ignores how much the cable companies will profit from the act's defeat. For some truthful information on the net neutrality act check out savetheinternet.com" This honestly seems too stupid to actually be real. Anyone know for sure?
This honestly seems to[o] stupid to actually be real. Anyone know for sure?
Shouldn't you work that out before putting it up on the front page?
You asking if the commercial is real?
It is. I've seen it in the Dallas-Fort Worth area once.
Watch the Teaser Trailer for "The Lightning Thief" Her
Before you raise a stink, isn't it worth it to learn what it is that you are complaining about? Part of that is understanding the opposition's side.
Well, *I* know that when somebody opposes XYZ's position on the grounds that XYZ are full of "blatant lies" and that "truthful information" is just a click away, over here, just take the red pill kthxbye, THEN I become suspicious of both parties' position and motives.
Global warming is a cube.
...so LEAVE ME ALONE!
Seriously, though. All these arguments and battles and stuff are getting kind of stupid, and honestly it's just a waste of time – don't we have anything more important to do than tax the Internet into oblivion like, say, maybe fix the situation in the Middle East? Kind of ironic, we're fighting over neutrality, which usually means NOT taking sides...
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
what?
I think they are right in a way. I don't trust anything from Congress that will be called a "Net Neutrality Act" not because I don't favor net neutrality. It's just that Congress will add riders and modify it into the typical Trojan Horse that you've come to expect from them.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Another sickening example of commercial industry attempting to brainwash the general public with their bullshit... Anyone who knows the least about the net neutrality issue will not be fooled.
Any idea what percent of the populace knows little enough to be swayed by this?
1) One might argue that net neutrality wouldn't be a net cost to customers but it's hardly a "blatant lie" to suggest it would. At this point, one can only make guesses as to how market forces would net out in either situation.
2) Even if that claim were obviously false, the submitter's argument against it is a total non-sequitur.
3) People who write "seems to stupid to actually be real" shouldn't throw stupid.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I have seen it on our local cable provider, Time Warner Cable in Houston. What's sad is how insulting this is to the intelligence of the audience.
That Congress makes these laws and then passes them off to the FCC. They'll make some half-assed bad law. The FCC will be lobbied everyday by the telecoms until it works out in THEIR favor and we'll be even worse off because they'll have worked the laws against the market. It may take a decade to undo that kind of damage if it even happens.
This honestly seems to stupid to actually be real. Anyone know for sure?
Sounds like reverse psychology to me: Convice people that Net Neutrality will actually give the telcos and cale companies the ability to charge you more for net access. Of course, the reality is that eliminating Net Neutrality will do that, but most consumers won't take the time to investigate and find the truth. In this world of wrong-is-right, up-is-down, less-is-more, and lies-are-truth it's easy for the companies and government to lie to get what they want and they don't have to worry about the average Joe/Jane calling bullsh!t on their lies.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
So next, will you let them pass laws saying you can't prioritize TCP/IP packets based on port number because that would be unfair to some users?
This is not geared to the /. crowd. While there will be be some in here who will buy into it, the vast majority will see it for what it is.
This is being addressed to the ignorant consumers and politicians. Sadly, they are the majority. As it is, if you really want this to not happen write your reps. Better yet, if you have the time, or contacts, educate them. keep in mind that these companies have BILLIONS backing them and are sending "educators" (lobbyists along the lines of abrahamoff) to help your local politicians understand the issues.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If everybody pays exactly the same for all types of packets, then how are we supposed to get improved delivery for packets that need high QOS? This doesn't make sense. It's like passing a law that forces FedEx and UPS to charge by the pound for delivering *everything*, no matter what service is needed. Now on the other hand, if the big carriers are trying to jack up the rates for Google and Yahoo based on the perception that Google needs them, more than they need Google... well, free markets have a way of fixing problems like that. I say... if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I think we should let the market forces fight it out and see what emerges from the battle. If something really ugly comes out of this, *then* we can go fix it in Congress. But we should give the market a chance first, and let it continue evolving.
Why aren't all these companies being so vocal about software patents, which are a huge lose for the consumer? Hopefully we'll see companies that don't quite suck so much when telcos put these current hypocrites out of business.
Just wondering if there is a convenient label for when people, for whatever reason, give really vague ideas labels that are basically a carefully worded mis-direction... like "net neutrality" or "economic rationalism" for example?
Confirmed at Butler County in Ohio via Time Warner Cable.
"...Net Neutrality is just mumbo-jumbo..."
"...is bad, forcing you, the consumers, to pay more..."
Makes Microsoft's FUD look a bit tame by comparison.
Net Neutrality is not the answer to the problems seen in the US. The correct answer is to make the largest players rent out their infrastructure with bitstream access and LLUB (Local Loop UnBundled).
As soon as other companies can buy access to the customer and sell them services, then the largest players can't offer degraded or bad service, because the customer can go elsewhere. The problem that Net Neutrality tries to solve is a problem because the customers in a lot of areas don't have many companies to choose from. Solve that problem instead of trying to enforce Net Neutrality and the US will be much better off.
from Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS): "Opposing the heavy hand of regulation that network neutraliy represents is critical if we are to maintain the Internet as an open, evolving, and market-based tool, and to protect children and families from the negative aspects of Internet content that exist today" soo... If I'm understanding correctly, Net Neutrality will allow our children to view porn? Aaaannnd voting down net neutrality will protect the children? Hmm... but wait a second... wouldnt opposing a 'heavy hand of regulation' be the EXACT OPPOSITE of protecting people from certain types of internet content? I think giving my telecom control over which websites will get priority traffic and which won't will definitely protect me from some internet content alright. Ought to get rid of all those pesky choices and alternate points of view.
Well, here is the other side.
Once the above occurs, the telcos/cable will start charging for the connections from one to the other. All in all, this is beginning of the end of the net IFF the tellcos are allowed to charge on the other side of the connection.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Well, *I* know that when somebody opposes XYZ's position on the grounds that XYZ are full of "blatant lies" and that "truthful information" is just a click away, over here, just take the red pill kthxbye, THEN I become suspicious of both parties' position and motives.
/. Sometimes, when one is right, yet doesn't have corporate backing, one feels the need to stress one's message so that people read/hear what one is saying.
:-)
What if XYZ's position is full of blatant lies and truthful information IS just a click away? Pretending that the veracity of a message is determined by its cool, calm exterior is as idiotic as believing something just because it's on
For some reason the Democrats think that not being aggressive keeps the constituency happy, despite the last two presidential elections, where a dispassionate wet towel lost it all by virtue of not growing a f-king spine. Or, at least, it was close enough to steal both times. And the dispassionate wet towel took the beating without nearly enough moral indignation, because the wet towel thought the exact same thing you do.
Better to be a spineless wet towel than allow passion into my voice, thereby potentiating the emotional sway of some people based solely upon that passion.
I mean, come on. You rejecting an idea based on the fervency of some jerkoff script kiddie somewhere in Albequerque is as bad as you believing it because of the same fervency. No disrespect to jerkoff script kiddies in Albequerque, of course.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Don't tell us we're stupid if we don't agree with you, or anything. And don't bother to use actual grammar, either. That makes us even more likely to follow like sheep.
hey... Slashdot... you are becoming less and less interesting.
We have seen an explosion of telecommunication technology and consumer options since AT&T was broken up and the telephone industry was transformed from a monopoly into a set of carrriers that could each compete on level ground. Many here might be too young to remember how the phone company used to argue that the integrity of their network would be compromised by even adding a diifferent (not AT&T) handset to a line in your house. At that time, AT&T's network ended (barely) at your ear.
There were plenty of jokes about the break-up at the time and it was impossible back then to see what the full effect of this might be. But today, we have a recent and relevant history to help guide our decision-making. Level ground, competition for services and not territoriality of infrastructure is what gives consumers choices while driving up profits. I believe Net Neutrality is ultimately better for service providers, too, though they appear to be too greedy to see it.
I've not been hearing comparisions by the media or analysts of Net Neutrality to the phone system break-up but the parallels seem compelling to me. To the extent we can bring the argument to "people who matter", perhaps this is a way to get past that disengenuousness that is the hallmark of today's politics.
Just look how the BP petroleum company runs all those corporate image advertisements that say how much BP cares about the environment.
'To' is a word too, dumbass. Spell checkers won't do a damn thing to help with that.
Net Neutrality is Just "Mumbo Jumbo"? Mumbo maybe, Jumbo NEVER!!
Warhammer forums
Rob, you are TOO old to be TOO poor at English to confuse TOO and to.
my internet is a dump truck, full of pr0n.
they say it is often more relevant then the comment above, all we know is its called the Sig!
From the blog
In California there was an outrage when it was disclosed that electricity companies had deliberately idled plants while supplies were tight and then waited for prices to skyrocket on the spot market. If the current Internet network infrastructure provided by the backbone providers and Internet service providers can currently support much higher speeds and data quantities to current customers, then is the act of packet filtering and setting arbitrary low speed and data caps also effectively providing an "idled" service?
Is a tiered Internet service, where content providers would be effectively competing on a similar market to the electricity "spot market", a market based entirely on artificial Scarcity?
Time Warner Cable in Green Bay, Wisconsin has been airing this advertisement. I agree with some of the other posters that we should look at both sides of the issue before calling the commercial a blatant lie. Being someone who has worked for a long time in the telecommunications industry, I feel that Net Neutrality is essential for freedom of speech, nothing more. Let's face it, the monopolies that currently "own" the bandwidth in the United States are going to, "raise the cost to consumers," with or without Net Neutrality in place. Why make it more difficult for unpopular ideas (ie, those without big corporate funders or lobbyists) to have a voice?
The thing that I found most disturbing about the advertising was its total lack of substance. Never once does it explain how or why costs would rise, etc. It felt really slimy, like a poorly done political mudslinging ad (which, some would say, it was). My gut reaction is that nothing in the advertisement was blatently illegal, just very very unethical simply due to what it does not say. Deceipt by omission of fact is still indeed a lie.
Honestly, NOTHING is to stupid to be actually real. Submitter must have been on the series of tubes long enough to understand that by now.
It's over now. That, or it's go time. One of the two. acts of gord
What are the chances that Google and other pro-net neutrality companies will answer with their own advert? How can peoples awareness of such a complicated issue as NN be raised, when to most people the Internet is simply a pile of black voodoo magic?
Promote Charity on Myspace, Show Your Colours!
Honestly, I think there might be some false advertising in this, but my honest opinion is that we need to fight fire with fire and get the tech companies to start advertising as well. The ads need to be factual, straight to the point, and needs to explain in layman's terms EXACTLY what is happening and why the providers have a vested interest in spreading misinformation.
Yeah, the rules of this game suck, but if we want to win we either have to play by them, or rewrite them.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtOoQFa5ug8
I've seen one of the ads - unfortunately they are very real. I thought it was pretty stupid, but I imagine it's going to carry a lot of weight with those who aren't familiar with the issue. It would sure be nice if some major company would put forth an ad campaign to smack the telcos back on this issue.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Yes, the commercial is quite real. I wasn't really paying attention but I heard "net neutrality" and it grabbed my attention very quickly. Unfortunately I only caught the very end of the commercial and wasn't able to tell if it was in favor or against. I did however see that it was "sponsored by" the National Cable & Telecommunications Association.
I was dong some work in Austin, TX two weeks ago and saw it every commercial break during some periods. I couldn't believe it myself - all "political" ads like this just say "don't understand it, just be against it". Sad part is it works.
This might be a weird question, but what happens to international traffic from outside of the US to the US? It seems unlikely that sites from Abroadistan will be itching to pay US telecoms for priority access into US homes.
Does anyone even realize that the internet isn't a US only affair? That abandoning network neutrality could result in isolating the US?
That's absolutely true, not only in the internet, but in every single transaction in the economy. It seems that today companies are trying to squeeze profits from every single facet of their operations. This means that, too often, the price is being paid indirectly and the consumer has no choice.
This effect appears very clearly in the whole "intellectual property" issue, where it seems that almost every company is trying to "licence" ideas, instead of offering a product directly to the consumer. I may have a choice between products "A" and "B", but I have no choice at all if both manufacturers must pay a fee to the same patent troll.
Even among net-savvy people, you see a lot of questions like "Would having a non-neutral network be such a bad thing?" Certainly it might be nice if your provider guaranteed that your voip traffic would get through to your voip provider no matter how many people are running bittorrent at that time. It'd be significantly less nice if your provider did that if you signed on with their voip provider but left you in the bittorrent class if you were using a different one, like Vonage. I suspect that in a non-neutral network that's the much more likely scenario with most providers.
There's always the option of shelling out some extra cash and signing on with a provider who doesn't pull such shenanigans, but as we have seen most people won't. Even most small-to-mid sized businesses won't bother to check into such things. Really big businesses like IBM have their own infrastructure and probably won't notice.
So the first trick is figuring out how to explain this in a manner that won't sound like Charlie Brown's teacher to Joe Average Citizen and the second trick is getting that message out to enough people that it'll make a difference.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Yay time warner! It's definitely real here.
stuff |
Because people start to wonder what FUD to believe.
It's not really necessary to use adjective-heavy phrasing to debung anti-neutrality propaganda.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
At this point, one can only make guesses as to how market forces would net out in either situation.
The Internet has practiced net neutrality since its inception. Why do you suggest that one can only guess how it will play out? It's playing out just fine right now and has been doing so since the beginning.
I'm a big tall mofo.
How do you figure it'll cost the consumer more? Net Neutrality basically means the service providers can't double-dip and try to invent profit where there is absolutely no expense, thus unnaturally inflating the cost of the internet as a whole, by making service providers pay for the end users' end of the network connection, when end users are already paying for it, and service providers already have to pay for their own end of the connection. By making such unfair fees illegal, the failing of Net Neutrality "will cost the consumer more", not the other way around.
How do you figure it's "common sense" that Net Neutrality is bad for the consumer? The failing of net neutrality would almost assuredly make the costs of starting a new online business prohibitively expensive, as opposed to the amazingly level playing field we've managed to maintain for new business starting out on the internet for the last decade. If Amazon, Yahoo and MSN are all given the high-priority bandwidth, and the "next big thing" would be relegated to whatever is left over. With the "next big thing" appearing to be slower than dirt, through no fault of the creators, the "next big thing" becomes the "last failed thing", and the only companies that are able to innovate are the likes of Microsoft who can afford to put the money into it. What happens to all the sites out there right now you love so much? Wikipedia would be toast, so would Last.fm, and del.icio.us, and Digg... maybe even our very own Slashdot, who knows. It depends on how much more expensive it gets to run a high-traffic site.
Here's my favorite part: their argument is "why should Google be able to use my pipes for free?" To truly get an idea of just how absurd this would be, think about this: AT&T offers consumers and small businesses internet service, as well as offering backbone-level service to web hosting providers and data centers. Theoretically, there could be an AT&T pipe connecting Google's servers to the internet, and an AT&T DSL or dialup connection connecting YOU to the internet, and Google would STILL have to pay for "higher priority". In this scenario, not only would Google not be using those pipes "for free", but AT&T would in fact be collecting THREE TIMES from two parties.
But, forget all of that, because the real reason Net Neutrality is good is very, very simple. What matters is that Big Telco - specifically Verizon and SBC - had a brilliant idea of how to double their profits without incurring any additional expense, any additional work, or much in the way of additional equipment (routing gear is peanuts compared to most of the infrastructure expenses they've got), all the while looking like the indignant victim, by using peoples' fear and misunderstanding of technology. They want something for nothing and they'll use all the FUD they can muster to get it.
Don't let them!!
[Z?]
The entire debate on this matter would be completely and utterly irrelevant (and no one would care, on either side) but for the fact that there is still little to no true open competition for wired broadband Internet access. Most people, IF they are lucky, can choose between either the cable company that holds a geographic monopoly for cable over their service area, or DSL from whoever bought out the 'Baby Bell' that holds a geographic monopoly over the copper loop infrastructure in their location, which forces them to also obtain basic telephone service from them (occasionally one can choose to get DSL from a blessed 'partner', but the phone service is still required and still has to be from the monopoly, not a CLEC)
And that is only for the *lucky*. The unlucky sometimes only have one of the above options available (usually cable, for folks who are too far away from the telco switch for DSL), or just as often neither (both too far for DSL, and no cable service in their area)
Wireless is an interesting option, but usually requires either a hefty up-front investment, and/or a minimum term commitment. Weather, trees, and distance all affect reliability and usability as well.
If and where there were truly open competition for broadband access, customers wouldnt need to care wether the telcos and cablecos wanted to sell a 'limited' pipe, becuase they could always choose a different provider. And the telcos could choose to do that and have less customers, or not to so and have more.
I think its time for some changes. Either regular broadband, require it to be universally available and content/protocol and source/destination neutral, or take control of the wired infrastructure whose buildup was subsidized by citizens under government-sanctioned monopoly back from the now mainly unregulated telcos and return it to the communities, at at the very least to a highly regulated entity.
Both the telco copper infrastructure, as well as the cable coax infrastructure, *are* both natural monopolies, and without tight regulation or control by a truly neutral party, whatever private enterprise controls either WILL (and does) abuse them to its own benefit (and to the detriment of average citizens)
As in, home of Verizon. Home of Kenny Marchant, who (I swear) basically has as his platform statement "I'm Bush's lapdog". Who opposes Net Neutrality (surprise) because he thinks the market should decide.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
like a simple, black screen stating in large, friendly letters:
"War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
Net Neutrality costs the consumer"
Or maybe something the average viewer can understand like an analogy involving a supermarket and evil people blocking all the roads there unless the supermarket gives in to their demands with net neutrality being compared to a law saying "you can't put up roadblocks".
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
"Network neutrality is anti-consumer.
Network neutrality proponents don't disagree that the upgrades necessary to increase bandwidth capacity must be paid for. But they shy away from stating their real agenda, which is to insist that customers pick up the tab. It is quite possible that the marketplace will produce more creative and efficient models, a prospect stifled by network neutrality.
Moreover, is far too early to predict which business approaches will succeed in the long run. Any attempt to do so runs the unintended, but high, risk of promoting an approach that fails in the market. The current hands-off policy has given us the flexibility to innovate and respond to consumer demand. Abandonment of that policy will undermine -- not promote -- consumer choice."
I don't see a copyright notice on that page... ;)
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Include a clause in the Net Neutrality bill allowing telcos to prioritize traffic ONLY by the user defined ToS field. Then drop the DiffServ and ECN crap in favor of the original specification. We prevent source/destination discrimination but can continue to route packets as functionaly nesisary.
Problem solved.
The large "source" providers have already paid money. That is they are connected to ATT, or MCI, or whoever. How many times do they have to pay?
Yes, they paid to be connected to a backbone provider. But what about your local broadband provider? You're paying them for your connection, you say? Yes, and that price has been so far structured on use to date. What happens when the use starts shifting from web browsing and email checking to people *routinely* downloading/obtaining all of their TV shows, movies, and so on, via legal commercial channels? Tough shit? What if their current pricing and usage model doesn't support that? Yes, you're paying for "unlimited" 5Mbps cable modem service, or whatever. And *you* can get and use that, *today*. And you can keep that pipe full 24/7 in many markets without raising an eyebrow. As long as you're one of the "1%" customers: the small group of customers that use a majority of the resources. What happens when that "1%" grows to 15? 25? 50? What happens when $50/month for 5Mbps service no longer covers their costs?
What about DSL providers whose operations may largely be supported by telephone business? What happens if they lose a quarter, third, or half of their paying $30/month landline customers to VoIP? You might argue they're already losing them to cell phones, and so on, and I'd agree. But the bottom line is, they're looking for ways to continue to support their operations five years down the road. If charging large source providers (like a forthcoming iTunes Movie Store) or "taxing" VoIP traffic are ways to continue to do it, is it surprising that they're trying to explore that avenue?
Once all companies can make more money by charging the other side, they will have no incentive for competeting to get your business. After all, they still get to charge the other side. This is a nice way to remove true market competition.
Yeah, because the competition for my home broadband connection right now (and that of MANY others) is truly dizzying.
...
The "source" provider today, is Google, yahoo, etc (from tellcos POV). But with p2p growing faster, the source will be everybody. So are they saying that they will shortly split our costs based on upload/download?
p2p "growing faster"? What, you mean legitimate p2p? I wouldn't say it's "grown" since they heyday Napster. And large commercial providers like YouTube, Google, Apple, and so on don't use p2p; they use commercial content distribution networks and their own distributed services. Not p2p. So then, the "source" is "Akamai", but the content still originates from "Apple", or whomever, and that's who they're looking to charge. Even if Apple decided to distribute all the HD movies on the next generation movie store via BitTorrent, the point is they'd still want to recoup costs from Apple, for the reasons I outlined above.
This isn't Level3 and Qwest and AT&T that are doing this (at least from the backbone side). This is Comcast and TimeWarner and the local telephone providers. The companies who have MILLIONS of broadband customers paying anywhere from $25 to $50 or so dollars a month on these broadband services, and they can see a day when, as new commercial media services evolve, that their overall network usage could increase a hundredfold, a thousandfold, or more.
It's easy to sit here and say Google already pays to be connected to Level3 or Cogent and I already pay to be connected to Charter. But what if I and a hundred thousand others all of a sudden start downloading a few 1 gig movies from a legitimate commercial provider every other night between 6 and 10pm? How can they support that? What kind of buildout to the headends and COs is required by the cable and telephone operators to support this massive surge in use that isn't compatible with their current pricing and service delivery model?
There's all kinds of arguments from both sides. I'm sure greed is ALWAYS involved to an extent. But the point is, this didn't just come out of nowhere.
The semantics may not be what the writer actually intended, and the mistake may be caused by his spelling limitations, but a spell checker or even a sophisticated grammar checker will not correct that.
That's why I disagree when people say more powerful CPUs are not needed for office applications. In order to correct the spelling mistake in "This honestly seems to stupid to actually be real" one would need a computer with enough capacity to understand the context around that sentence.
The content providers couldn't survive if there were no "eye balls" to look at the content and the access providers wouldnt survive if there was nothing for their "eye balls" to look at. They need each other.
Is this really about how much the consumer pays? Or is it about how the profits are shared between the telcos and the content providers?
I've seen it played once on Time Warner cable in San Antonio. I wanted to vomit.
"I threw up my hands in disgust and wondered if it had been such a good idea to have eaten my hands in the first place."
Thanks for dragging the images of Buster Keaton, Mary Pickford, and some of my other favorite silent film stars down to your cause, guys.
i've seen it a few times on the cartoon network's weeknight futurama eps. guess they're going after the week night cartoon watcher demographic.
just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand!
WITHOUT Net Neutrality we all pay extra.... not for our internet access, but for the products and services we use... and in our decreased wages due to higher operating expenses at the company we work for. First it will be Google and Amazon, etc. but then it will be all businesses....
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Your post has far more "truth" in it than the OP.
I mean, if you read Slashdot you would have known that this topic has already been discussed.
So I have to wonder: new way to dupe articles? Instead of printing them again simply start asking some questions about it?
On the one hand, I feel the colorful lettering and 1915-era scared people is almost too silly to be true.
On the other hand, this is the American public we're talking about. Stupid people in large groups, that sort of thing.
"Just because you're eloquent doesn't mean you aren't a fucking crackpot." -Wavebreak
ISPs won't grant priority to certain types of traffic alone, they will grant priority to certain types of traffic from certain CUSTOMERS. Your statement that a startup company would passively benefit from an ISP granting priority to VOIP or gaming packets is nonsense. The startup would have to PAY MORE. And even then, the added "priority" would only survive within the scope of the providers network (if that!). Once it peers out to another network that serves the startup's VOIP or gaming customers, you are at the mercy of THAT network.
Racketeering and extortion always looks like a great business model when you have the opportunity to practice it. It's far to easy to forget that this is immoral and criminal.
I forgot to include an important counterpoint to my devil's advocate.
The cable and telephone operators - the entities that own by far the majority of the "last mile" into millions of homes - currently are stuck in mentalities that revolve around their traditional businesses. Namely, provision of television content and telephone services. Their unique position of owning wires that physically reach everyone's homes placed them in a unique position to also deliver data services. However, the burgeoning data business is still playing second fiddle to what many of these providers see as their declining core businesses.
As more and more customers shift to obtaining things like entertainment content and voice/video communications capability from internet-based services, the less customers will patronize cable and telephone operators in their traditional markets.
What the home broadband providers need to do more than anything is to start seeing themselves as movers of bits, and nothing more, and concentrate on becoming damned good at that. Instead of trying to engineer mechanisms for charging "large" content providers to subsidize their operations, they should be building out and investing in better and better IP data networks. There will be a day when I may elect to get CNN á la carte directly from CNN, obtain my TV shows and movies directly from publishers or commercial aggregators like iTunes, and my communications services from a combination of my wireless carrier and the internet. Some of these are already possible today, and are growing.
Traditional, regimented television delivery and landline telephones in many large markets are at the beginning of being on the way out. Yes, for many readers here, they already are. But for the vast majority of people, particularly those in the US, we haven't even scratched the surface in some of these areas. The home broadband operators are in the best position to move these bits we'll all need moved. The sooner they realize that's their future, the better it will be for everyone - them included.
There is a peculiar concept that if something is funded by businesses it's not costing consumers anything. The trouble is that those businesses are making their money by selling something to the consumers - so if the direct cost to consumers to use the Internet goes down as a result of a non-neutral net, then the cost to businesses goes up. Those businesses have to turn a profit so either they have to cut their profit margins or pass the costs on to the consumer in the form of increased prices. Guess which?
But worse still, everyone along the chain has to make a profit - so if I pay my ISP a dollar for net access, that's the end of the line - but if the maker of my favorite widget has to pay my ISP a dollar and therefore has to charge me a dollar extra for my Widget - then WalMart has to pay a dollar extra and I have to pay a dollar fifty extra because they have to make a profit too.
It's the same with "free" services such as Google and MySpace - yes, they are free to the end user - but the Widget makers who are paying them to advertise there are charging me more for their products as a result of that cost.
I would honestly prefer that the world were utterly devoid of 'push' advertising of all kinds and that I had to pay what these services actually cost. Sure Television would cost more, there would be a penny per search on Google and so on - but the end products I buy would be vastly cheaper as a result.
According to this: www.transportation.anl.gov/pdfs/TA/57.pdf (for example), 23% of the cost of a new car is the cost of marketing it to us! Now - which would you prefer? No adverts on TV or on the web or on ugly signs everywhere - but TV and Internet that costs (say) $20 per month more than it does now ($200 per year maybe) - but the cost of almost everything you buy being 23% less...or what we have now where a fifth of the price of almost everything we buy is the cost of advertising it to us?
So - no, I don't WANT cheaper Internet paid for by businesses - I want much, much more expensive Internet with no adverts at all anywhere - because I'm smart enough to realise that it would save me money overall.
www.sjbaker.org
..if you want to try to convince people that raketeering and extortion is a neat thing, then at least have the balls to post under a real account and not an AC.
Now you likely will try to change the subject by making issue of the fact that I called you out as an AC.
It is real, I've seen the commercial in Wisconsin. And don't forget, the stupid vote is the majority in this country.
They were so pissed off that it was randomly airing relatively frequently on cable channels in NY, and when she gave me a summary of the commercial, I thought "This can't be real."
Lo, Slashdot proves that there is no glass ceiling for people with little minds.
It's only an insult if it's not true.
So far this only appears to be in the U.S, I just hope that this nonsense doesn't spread over the world. I don't exspect it to do so. The rest of the world seems knows what the internet means in the form of communications. It appears that US telecoms are just thinking about margin the profit up as the possible can. So there CEO can get paid more.
I've been swearing at these commercials for a couple days now. The ad itself is absolute crap, and I'd be surprised if many folks bought into it, but they're definitely being broadcast.
I have a girlfriend whose name doesn't end in
The commercial is definitely showing in North Carolina.
..it needs, in effect, a union. At least in a large country like the USA with multiple ISPs.
...well, that ISP would probably roll over pretty quickly.
Assuming for the moment that you could get MS, Google, Yahoo, YouTube and MySpace into a union, and vote to block all content to a particular ISP until they behaved themselves...
Even smaller websites could get into the act with technology similar to RBL. And the ISPs' only possible defence would be to band together, forming an effective communications monopoly.... which might cause FCC problems, and would certainly encourage p2p mesh grow-out in large cities.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
... underestimating the intelligence of the american public.
And they know it.
You can't take the sky from me...
He could have been clearer, but considering the subject I think he was saying "Will cost the consumer more" is a blatantly obvious lie.
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
I am not an 'internet geek' but I want to understand the 'network neutrality' issue. Slashdot users seem strongly against it, but I don't see what the big problem is. So, here is my understanding, please correct me.
The issue is network neutrality vs tiered internet. We have network neutrality now, where companies or people are charged on bandwidth and total amount of data sent (a data cap) but tiered internet wants to additionaly charge for things like latency, packet drop rate and error rate.
Economically it makes sense to me: Only pay for what you need. If you just have a personal web site and you don't need low latency, you don't need to pay for it. With tiered internet you have a choice while you didn't before. The higher service costs more because it is harder/more expensive to maintain, and can't support as many users. (the price for a tier should increase/decrease until the number of users just matches the number that can be supported, efficiently using available resources)
Peole are assuming that *everything* will cost more. As long as no one is abusing monopolies, shouldn't the prices for each tier converge to their proper value? The high latency one will decrease in price. The exact price depends on how many companies need low latency.(I'm not a libertarian by the way).
I realize this is a simplified view of economics. But is it really that wrong?
Here is another common argument I read for neutrality: ISPs will artificially give priority to some companies, including itself, even when the competition is better, thus skewing the market and creating monopolies.
How is it any different from now where ISPs could throttle the bandwidth selectively? Of course ISPs should not be allowed to charge based on who they are making a contract with. They are allowed to charge on bandwidth, data and now latency, (just plain numbers) but not allowed to make special deals with Yahoo just 'cause it's Yahoo! Nor should they charge by application. Only by the numbers, since they represent the actual cost in materials. That's just reasonable, for all parties.
If one company requires high bandwidth, so will all its competitors (who produce a similar product). So they all have the same costs.
I will also point out that this problem is seperate from the problem of ISPs overselling their service. That is truly a problem. But as it happens, I think tiered internet would help solve it.
If I want truthful, unbiased information, savetheinternet.com is the last place I'm going.
... someone, google perhaps, is going to launch an ISP that makes neutrality a central part of its offerings. Yes, I understand that that one ISP ensuring they don't play games isn't enough, but it is marketable and it is a start... Then the millions of tech savvy people who the sheep routinely pay to fix their computers, consult with them about future computer upgrades, etc... are going to tell them that their non-neutral service providers are junk, explaining that they limit access to parts of the net that they don't make money on, while simultaneously talking about how great the neutral offering is. They won't be able to run enough commercials to counter that predictable and inevitable movement.
So if the legislature and the sheeple get sucked in, the free market will eventually solve this problem. Of this, I have no doubt.
Those cable companies are right!! Let's make the whole world work this way! That'll be SOOO cool! I'd like to have the studios pay the theaters for my movie tickets! Publishers pay the book stores for my books! EA pay Fry's for my games! Absolutely *everybody* pay for my bandwidth!
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
that solving this issue is as simple as voting one party is either a moron or a 17 year old.
I dunno about "this seems too stupid to actually be real". It seems logical to me that telcos need to make their money from somewhere. Currently they bill the consumer. They want to bill the silicon valley companies. It sounds to me like what they are saying is exactly true. The silicon valley companies want the consumer to be the one paying. Is it possible that the extreme bias on this issue from sites like slashdot is due to the fact that a lot of people on this website work for those silicon valley companies?
And reported it as obscene and offensive?
Ads are a terrible way to learn about Net Neutrality.
I keep tabs on the debate at The Technology Liberation Front, which is libertarian, IP Democracy, which provides Net Neutrality news and a wider slice of commentary, and Common Cause, which is inherently suspicious of corporate power.
The TLF and Common Cause each come at Net Neutrality from their own philosophical start points, and IP Democracy is about exploring the debate. Net Neutrality is not the central issue for any of these three sites, so they are much more useful sources of factual information and intellectually honest debate than any of the corporate-sponsored coalition sites on either side of the debate.
When Google or Comcast talks about Net Neutrality, I simply can't believe that they are not acting out of financial self-interest, so I find it impossible to give credence to anything they say. They're locked in a struggle for control of the Internet. I want fast Internet access, lots of provider choices, and true competitive pricing. So I'm not going to do my research by reading what the goliaths in this struggle are telling me.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
And the "actually" is pretty superfluous.
The rest of the world has to be laughing at the US. We claim to have a capitalist system based on market forces and competition, yet cable companies maintain monopolies in markets. I have no choice as to my cable provider. Sure, I could go satallite, but why is it cable companies don't compete over cable. The problem for me is broadband and there is no competition to keep down prices or provide a more competitive product. Now, the cable companies want to be able to direct traffic across the copper infrastructure the public should own so they can make even more money. When are these guys going to become freind of the consumer? Never. We need to remove their ability to be the exclusive provider of content over cable. This behavior is creating fat, inefficient companies that whine like spoiled children and this seems to be counter capitalist/free market belief. There is no why if this act passes that it would cost the customer more unless cable companies are inflating their operations on purpose.
Particular methods of advertising are done because companies have determined it is the most cost effective way of companies getting the message out about their product. If advertising-supported content in media like TV, radio, internet and print were abolished, other, more expensive for the results, means of getting the message out on products would be resorted to, driving the costs of products up even higher. Or companies would communicate less, settle with smaller regional markets for longer, and less economies of scale, and thus higher prices for the same quality goods in many cases. Most likely, a combination of the two.
Plus, as the collection costs for something like TV or internet searches from a wide array of end-users would be more than the collection costs from a small range of advertisers, the costs would be driven up in many cases from the other end as well.
Why is this suddenly an issue now? Frankly I distrust this because it's trying to get Congress to pass more laws, which is almost always a bad idea. If "there oughta be a law" to protect this 'net neutrality' thing, why has the Internet gotten along fine without such a law for 25 years now?
When I think about things that are efficient, unbiased, and good for everyone, I rarely think "US government regulations".
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
We tried that once with DSL, but the FCC pulled the rug out from under it a few years ago. However, some operators still have municiple deals that have allowed them to stay in operation. And it looks like things are going to stay that way until consumers can lobby as well as the companies that stand to profit. Proconsumer (read: the people) action by the government is a whimsical dream at this point in time.
In short, the cracks in the system that have have created this problem in the first place are the same ones that riddle American politics in general--cronyism, bribery in the form of campaign contributions, etc.
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
You know, I kind of like this method of advertising.
Most companies start with the truth, then move on to something fabricated from it.
This is far more efficient, as it manages to start from BS.
Maybe if they were to fabricate something from BS, we'd be able to also prove that the internet itself damages companies.
The truth of the matter is that we don't need any new laws pro or con. Pro Net nutrality reminds me of all those laws that forced the railroad barrons to charge fair prices and offer reasonable services. Well, anyone who wants to know how that turned out only needs to look at the sorry state of Amtrack in the US today. Anti net neutrality laws remind me of those Airline services who were too afraid to tell their own customers what type of carryons they could have - so what did they do, they got the government to pass a law requiring the regulation of carryons. Anyone who has been on a plane knows how "responsive" and "enjoyable" the service is.
The truth of the matter is that there are plenty of new technologies coming down the pike like wi-max (with a 32 mile radius). There are plenty of market forces that will put the phone and cable companies out to dry if they try to jerk arround people by throttling some peoples content and not others. For God's sake, what has come over people. Users in the IT industry do not need the government to save us from crappy content practices, they need the government to get the hell out. Even if they did get the US to pass such a neutrality law, will they get every other country on the planet to do it too? Will they have regulations that say you can't throttle traffic routed thru other countries? Will the have laws the controll how traffic is routed? Seriously, how far do people want to go with this. Using Government to force neutrality is the wrong tool for the job. When was the last time the government has ever helped us? ever! I hope it is not lost on people that the more we turn to government for help, the more beholden we are to them. The more we turn to the government for help, the more it will lock in short term local "solutions" at the expense of long term global ones.
In any situation where they have any competition, they'll cut their profit margins slightly. If they raise their prices, they risk their competitors taking away market share by NOT raising their own prices.
Less profit is better than no profit.
I'll choose option #3. Free TV and ad-supported websites, while still getting stuff 23% cheaper by buying from companies who don't spend much money advertising.
Let the fools affected by ads, and dedicated to buying brand-names, subsidize everyone else.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
It seemes everyone here is way too willing to embrace Net Nutrality. While I agree that without it we could run into some potential problems, I think the answer to the problem is more in between Total Net Nutrality and No Net Nutrality. The reason is this: Ttere are two types of internet networks, private and public. Most ISPs operate private networks, which many plan to use to deliver IPTV, VOIP, ect, along with user traffic. Running separately from these networks is the Public Internet infrastructure. This Public network is the one that we should be concerned with, because no ISP owns that network and they do not have the right to shape traffic on the network; however on their private networks, they should be able to do whatever they want with the traffic since they own it. QoS is almost essential to the delivery of IPTV and VOIP. While, yes, it would be better just to roll out faster networks, the fact is that that wound not only be more expensive, it would also seriously delay the arrival of IPTV in some parts of the country.
"let US make up our mind"
Thank you.
This net.neutrality debate terrifies me.
It's the same "we need we need we need" nonsense that gave us icann. If you look at the first time icann was mentioned on this site consensus was that it was a good thing, while a few folks said "this is not good".
Now history (or is that hysteria?) is repeating itself. It's a fashion statement and the worst form of political incorrectness to disagree.
The problem I have with this whole debate is, the insistance on changes to the regulatory frameworks and addition of new laws.
It seems to me people who insist we need new laws either have no experience in this process or are self serving and are looking to get themseleves and their friends jobs in some form.
So I ask you please please please: look at actual problems that have arisen and look at what happened and how quickly and ask yourself are there existing safeguards in place and do we want and need new laws governing the Internet?
Need Mercedes parts ?
There is another peculiar concept that advertising is a net cost. If marketing was a cost without an at least equally great return on investment, then companies which don't advertise would have an advantage. Even though we sometimes want to flee from the ads which surround us all the time, they are an important aspect of a free market economy. The first impression is that you get something for free, after looking more closely you realize that you not only pay for the product but also for the marketing, but if you look at the whole, you realize that without marketing, you would pay even more, not less.
The internet is moving forward and leaving America behind. Europe and Asia already has some key internet players offering their customers broadband access which are way ahead of what USA customers get.
US telecoms companies want to increase profits without offering a better service.
One of the earliest descriptions of the internet that I can recall sticking with the public is "The Information Superhighway." I think it is an apt analogy. Information (and even disinformation) flows across the internet very much like cars travel down a freeway.
What the cable and telecommunications companys want to do is turn their networks into toll roads, charging the big information providers a toll for every byte of data they send down high-speed wires. For those of us who don't have the need for speed or quanity, they say that they will not charge us for access. Uh-huh, that is why the scalped us so badly on long distance charges for so many years -- right? Sure I will believe them, uh-huh.
If the internet had not yet been built, had the business plan not already been implimented, then I could see how they could have an argument but, they have already built it and have already accepted the business plan. They should not be allowed to change it now! They knew what they were getting into when they built it and it is now part of the national infrastructure just like the freeways are.
If the telcos and the cable companys want to build something else, another different internet then let them do that and charge access for it. Perhaps they could add speed and services (like improved security?) that could make it worth an access charge. If something like this were done, I'd accept it.
How can a company that does that be trusted with anything else?
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
The sad part is that we're all going to lose because the media control public opinion and they can spew lies and lobby for whatever is in their interests.
This was done with the Fairness Doctrine and the 1996 Telco Act which paved the way for even more corporate control.
I fear the only way to protect peoples' rights is to create some sharp-toothed PAC that is modeled after the NRA that goes after politicians who threaten to take away neutrality rights and promote media consolidation, not unlike how the NRA fights tooth and nail against any form of gun control.
And the like ? Did these robbers say to the customer about their new "universal service cost" that the fcc recently rejected ? Or not ?
I guess not.
It would be TOO much of a showing of one's own cards about their plans beforehand.
Read radical news here
Because, since it's inception, no ISP has seriously considered the idea of charging content distributors an extra fee for using their wires. Thus, we have no idea how this will pan out. Does it make sense now?
I invite you to re-read the grandparent comment, my reply and then your reply. If you do, and you catch what you missed the first time, consider it an opportunity for introspection. Because what you missed is that grandparent comment claimed that net neutrality and non-net neutrality were on equal footing and there was no way to determine how either of them turned out.
Does that make sense now?
I'm a big tall mofo.
Now, IANAL for another two plus years, but I did some (quick) hunting around about False Advertising to see if there was any claim here. Unfortunately, it seems there isn't, as they're not selling a product (maybe there's something else about campaigning, but I couldn't find it), and no consumer is being injured.
But! Then I watched it again. It seems, by the clever use of "Google-eyed" and the writing of "Mumbo Jumbo" in Google's font/coloring, they are falsely infringing on Google, by making it appear that they are somehow affiliated or sponsoring this message. I'd say Google has a claim to take them to court over!
But again, IANAL for a while longer.
"unethical advertisement"
Now that's funny.
Companies don't advertise as a public service, they do it do make money. In this case, if they can ensure that net neutrality doesn't happen, they can make a mint charging exortion fees to big websites.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
"Mumbo? Perhaps. Jumbo? Perhaps NOT!"
#DeleteChrome
First off I support the idea of a gauranteed QOS internet subspace if you will. A background network that can gaurantee the quality of connections between computers. Be this connections for internet games or connections to transfer audio and video feeds for real time communication. And it should be comsumers that directly pay the extra costs for this background internet. Kind of like long distence service.
I don't support ISP's blackmailing websites for extorion money or being filtered out. And they will do it. Imaging the shitting quality of a site like myspace which is caused by poor design and exponential growth actually being caused by your ISP. At first it will only be the biggest sites. Or giving one site a bandwidth edge over compeditiors. But eventually it will be all sites and the ISP's will degenerate into what AOL use to be.
Of course, as you note, lots of people have limited choices as to broadband providers, so screaming to high heaven might not have much effect on the providers bottom lines.
If enough people did complain they could have an impact. Though maybe not individually, if a group of customers were to get together they could file a lawsuit against the access provider for not delivering what they promised. But I thing that as broadband wireless grows, like the network Google is building, this will put pressure on traditional landline access providers. If the FCC were to open up the airwaves then wireless would skyrocket. However the FCC is in the pockets of mass media, and even more in the pockets of Christian fundamentalists like those who complained about a "wardrobe malfunction". I'd love to get broadband wireless anywhere and have just one bill for access than two, one for cable at home and another for when I'm out. I'd even pay a little more than I do for cable for wireless, well actually I'd probably keep my cable because of the webspace they provide. What Google is building in LA will offer both free and paid for services. The free version though still broadband is slower than the paid for version and is supported by ads.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Do you ever give up? You're wrong.
But, the point is, *we don't know* "how market forces would net out in either situation".
We've had a net neutral Internet for 30 years. I think we know how it's going to net out in that situation. We also know what its effects on the consumer will be. We've all been experiencing them for years! Your insistence that its effects are unknown is just laughable and only serves fearmongers that want to make everyone believe things would be rosier if everyone's ISP got to filter/throttle whatever content provider didn't double-pay them.
Kindly don't take my lack of a reply to your next trolling as anything other than disinterest in you.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Bingo, you got it. What this would do, is turn the internet as a whole (progressively) into AOL.
It amazes me how many lies politicians and CEOs are willing to tell to make MORE money. Like they need more. "Oh we need more money to help with the rising cost of running newer cable technology and such". That's BS. TOTAL BS. Other companies, in other countries do fine. I also doubt these fat-cats need all 4 of their vacation houses. Why not just ONE house, huh?
This shit pisses me off so much, I almost cannot believe that they'd try to "own" the internet. But at the same time, it doesn't surprise me, they're pigs.
The internet is not owned by anyone. It is belongs to EVERYBODY. WE run it. WE put up the content. WE OWN IT. Not some god-damned phone company.
Why can't they run their companies like men, instead of lying children? Don't they know that competition is the heart of TRUE capitalism?
If you want your life to be run by these bastards, go ahead, kill net neutrality. That would be yet ANOTHER win for the rich, and they don't need anymore wins.
It's now become part of the mainstream and is pushing other mediums in a big way.
Just a reminder, the plural of "medium" is "media".
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
I've seen this comercial for the last 10 days on local cable. Time warner cable in Cincinnati Ohio.
man is machine
Maybe it would be better off for the consumer if we paid the costs directly, but it's never going to happen. It's a classic prisoners dilemma. If nobody advertised, the benefit for the first guy to break from the pack and put out an ad would be enormous. So of course everyone else who wants to stay in business has to sink tons of money for ads just to keep up, and we end up where we are - no one's making out much better than if no one did at all, but they're not going to run the risk of being left behind.
Thanks. IMO, the replies that explain everything clearly w/o any bs are always at the end of the thread...guess that means I should start reading there, maybe?
The main problem with their argument is that the internet is really a series of tubes. When they understand that, I'll be able to receive my internets faster.
how we are "Google-eyed" and that the mumbo jumbo is in the same lettering as Google's logo. This is propaganda at it's best! That said, calling this a "blatant lie" is retarded. This is nowhere near a black and white issue.
Which is more important for individuals? Which is bigger in terms of national economics, basic goods or communication infrastructure?
So if you are against free markets as in not-regulated and not politically-controlled markets, why don't you require, that gocery stores everywhere should provide price and quality neutral access to all goods for all good men?
We Europeans are supposed to be more leftist than U.S.A., but we just don't get the fuss over "net neutrality". We don't have "universal access" or free-as-in-communims local calls either, and we could not care less.
Anssi Porttikivi / app@iki.fi
It's too late for this post.... But are we really sure Net Neutrality is a good thing? What if NN prevents or delays a cool ap. A movie download service might be vastly improved if it can ride in the fast lane. I may be willing to pay for that speed but NN may prevent this. Thoughts?
Oh Senator Ted Stevens, tell me like it is. We must all remember that the "internets" isn't just a "big truck you can dump things on, it's a series of tubes!" And these are the people in our government that make important decisions? About things they are completely clueless about? I'm just glad we have Alaska Senator Ted Stevens on the job!
Um....is it just me, or does this sound like a statement from the mob?
So, it seems the brunt of the ad is that if you sign off on Net Neutrality, you're going to end up paying more.
I would sincerely hope that people would realize that the price increase we would "pay" is really "blackmail" from the cable/media companies for standing up for our freedoms online.
Unfortunately, as we have seen in the past six years, Americans en mass are not the type to think for themselves, especially when weighing between "freedom" and "cost". This ad seems like just enough FUD to convince most to give up their freedoms, rather than paying a higher cable bill. Could be worse - at lease we're not looking to get into yet another war.
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -- "Step Right Up", Tom Waits
voting Republicrat or Democan? Green is almost as bad. The only party that cares about freedom, Liberty, and the Constitution is the Libertarian Party, the party of principal.
Dry line DSL is when you get DSL with no phone line.
In recent years (I think in response to some FCC rule, but that's an assumption on my part to explain the sudden change) "dry line" DSL has been available - suddenly from all DSL providers here at the same time, where previously it wasn't - for about $6 more than not dry line with the same service. (It was previously available in some business packages for substantially more)
The previous time I tried to get DSL, these dry lines were very expensive. Much moreso than the monthly fees associated with a landline phone. So the cheapest option for any kind of residential DSL was to get a regular phone line - which HAD to be from SBC - whether you used it or not and no matter who your DSL provider was.
You certainly could've gotten a VoIP service as soon as they were around - and used them for, say, all your outgoing calls to be cheap - but you still had to have a phone line through SBC.
In fact, I think a phone line with SBC and SBC DSL is still the cheapest way to get broadband here by a pretty wide margin. (I think Comcast offers some good deals IF you count an expensive TV package as something you were going to get anyway...) (I haven't compared this personally, because I need a static, serverable IP, and both of those services were out of the question.)
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
Yes, but are people who would otherwise get a broadband line likely to use wireless instead, or is it mostly going to be used by people to get fallback access with their laptop when away from their broadband line, and by people who would have otherwise settled for dial-up? Is it really competing with broadband lines, or is it supplementary?
I'd be willing to bet if the only computer they have is a laptop they would be willing, and will want, to get wireless broadband (WiMax). Those with a laptop and home or office would be more likely to stay with landline access, until they get a taste of WiMax then they will want it too. When I get a new laptop if I could get it I would drop my cable service and just use it it it were unlimited. Looking at how popular hotspots are becoming just in cafes and book stores I'd hazard to guess many others would too. Now if it were metered then I would keep my cable.
FalconShould there be a Law?