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Poll Says No Voter Support for Net Neutrality
Giants2.0 writes "A survey conducted by the Commerce Committee says that Americans don't know what net neutrality is, and they don't want it. Ars Technica reports that only 7% of respondents had ever heard of net neutrality, but the report questions the fairness of the survey, which was crafted by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation to assess support for the current version of the Telecommunications Act of 2006. The survey suggested to respondents that net neutrality would prevent ISPs from selling faster service or security products, both of which are not true." From the article: "The very brief net neutrality description used by the pollsters is somewhat misleading insofar as it suggests that net neutrality would bar Internet Service Providers from selling faster service than is available today. Strict net neutrality does not concern itself with ultimate transfer speeds available to subscribers, but instead focuses on how different kinds of Internet traffic could be shaped by ISPs for anti-competitive purposes. For instance, strict net neutrality would not prevent an ISP from selling extremely fast 35Mbps connections, but it would prevent ISPs from privileging traffic for their own services for competitive advantage, or degrading the traffic of competing services."
And people wonder why Google is hiring lobbyists.
I'd give you both, but I don't have either at the moment, so I'll have to offer one of my home-brew mods, a +1 Sad But True.
At the rate we are going I would not be surprised to see that level of push polling being done in the next few years. If it hasn't started already.
--MarkusQ
That's because they are systematically blocking any objective measures for reporting what they are doing so that we could vote them out when they don't do it right. There is no penalty for classifying documents that should be public, there is no penalty for having secret meetings, there is no penalty for issuing no-bid contracts. All of these should be illegal in a representative government.
If Google, YouTube, and MySpace put banners on their screens informing people about Net Neutrality and what it'll mean for their services, this issue would go away quickly.
- gtaluvit (prnc. GOT-tuh-LUV-it)
Wow, what a condescending piece of Jedi hand-waving that is. Translation: "Hey, this legislation is too complex to compress into a 30 second sound-bite. But trust us, we know what's best for you."
I don't care if it's a tech, pharmacutical, or national parks bill. If a group chose to communicate like that to me, I'd take enough offense to instinctively oppose their viewpoint.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
Yes, this commercial is simultaneously infuriating and saddening.
Infuriating because they basically gloss over the whole issue under the guise of "Computers are hard, don't try to understand," and then lie about the conclusion.
Saddening because the majority of people that watch it are thinking it's true.
Side note: How much does it cost to run a commercial? I want one that just shows a clip of the commercial, and then some guy sitting there going "Really? The telecom industry wants to save YOUR money? When was the last time your cable bill went DOWN?"
While this isn't a NN issue per-se, it appears that my ISP is playing with my service slowing it down when it suits them (and inconveniences me). It might just be tinfoil hat stuff, but its been too regular. I've been meaning to set up a script to ping various servers over time, and map the trends. (I'm a scrip noob, any help appreciated).
So while I appear to have a 'neutral internet' (across services), I do appear to have interference when I've been gaming for 'too long'. I'm not being switched from the motor-way to a toll-way, they just regulate the number of cars I can use on the existing motorway.
False advertising used to be illegal. Now it's called differing opinions. Damn, the more I see ISP's fight this the more I'm convinced that we are missing something. They shouldn't be this afraid of making law out of a gentleman's agreement. When I first started surfing the web it was so frightening and wonderful, like the first time inside a domed stadium. It is an enclosed space but that space is so vast you can't perceive it all at once. Now it is becoming increasingly fractured by the limitations of my own imagination so I don't need somebody else putting walls up for me. Visit ten sites a day that you've never seen before,Now, before some suit makes it impossible.
If we can get people to agree to ban dihydrogen monoxide why is anyone even remotely surprised when, given something that the public understands even less than chemistry, the mechanisms of the Internet, a skewed poll suggests that they don't want it. A poll on a subject like this has to be skewed because absolutely everything the person being polled knows about the subject comes from the poll itself. It's definitely non-trivial to write a completely unbiased summary and certainly given the limited amount of space that you get for a poll blurb.
I'm all for net neutrality, but not in the form currently being campaigned for here and in congress. There is virtually no way that any net neutrality law that gets pushed through congress would be a good thing for consumers.
Here's what needs to happen...
The big problem in the US is that there is no competition between broadband providers. In most places, if you're lucky, you have a choice between DSL and Cable. That usually means getting service from a monopoly telco or a monopoly cable provider. Sure, there are companies like Earthlink that sell broadband services, but they have the uncomfortable position of having to be both the customers and competitors of the monopoly providers. This is never a good arrangement.
For true net neutrality, we need to divorce the companies that own the copper and fiber (local loop) from the ones providing dialtone. This means breaking up the monopoly providers into 2 or more entities each. One monopoly company that owns/services/maintains the wires, and one company that rents these lines from the monopoly provider and provides dialtone. The first one is regulated as any monopoly should be. The second is essentially a peer with all other dialtone providers.
This would put all the dialtone providers in the US on an equal footing, and give some serious incentive for them to add value since changing broadband provider wouldn't necessarily mean dealing with a company that has to buy stuff from their competitor.
There is clear precedent for this. Look at the deregulation of long distance in the 80's.
If we could ever make this happen in the current regulatory environment, then all this net neutrality stuff would go by the wayside. Any provider that wanted to pull this garbage of trying to charge both ends for traffic on a pipe would be writing out their own corporate suicide note, since people would just drop their inferior service.
QED (except for the part of overriding the lobbies of the monopoly companies)
Man, geeks suck at spin; this is probably why we're in our current position. Let's try a real ad:
HUSBAND and WIFE are watching fondly as a procession of household items float down a road. They are approached by THUG.
THUG: That's quite a nice internet business you've got there.
HUSBAND: Yeah, our website has really taken off. Things are looking up.
THUG: Aww, ain't that sweet. In that case, it'd be bad if I did this. (Stops floating items)
HUSBAND: What are you doing?!
THUG: You come in here, you gots to pay the toll.
HUSBAND: But we already pay our server costs.
THUG: No, no, that's paying Jimmy's gang. But your stuff is comin' into our turf. So you gots to pay the toll.
WIFE: But we've never had to do that before!
THUG: Times're changing, little lady. Cough up, or your little e-store comes crashin' to a halt.
Husband and wife look resigned, and husband pulls out his wallet.
OVERLAY: Stop the extortion; Vote FOR Net Neutrality.
The Telco companies will still have the first-to-market advantage (for people who believe whatever they see first), but this might make up some of the ground.