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FCC Votes Yet Another Study of Net Neutrality
yuna49 writes to let us know that the US Federal Communications Commission last week announced a Notice of Inquiry (PDF) into: "...the behavior of broadband market participants, including: (1) How broadband providers are managing Internet traffic on their networks today; (2) Whether providers charge different prices for different speeds or capacities of service; (3) Whether our policies should distinguish between content providers that charge end users for access to content and those that do not; (4) How consumers are affected by these practices." eWeek reports that the study is targeted at whether broadband providers are treating some content providers more favorably than others. Distinctly absent is any discussion about port filtering or other restrictions on Internet usage. The two Democrats on the Commission pressed for a broader "Notice of Rulemaking" to move more quickly towards a policy of non-discrimination. The Republican majority ignored these arguments and voted for an Inquiry, to which the Democrats acceded.
The Republican majority ignored these arguments and voted for an Inquiry, to which the Democrats acceded.
I don't get it...Why in the world is there a Republican majority?
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
They're going to continue this until they get the vote desired.
Cloned foods give the statement "We had that last week!" a whole new meaning.
This article is worthless without some kind of reference to tubes.
My question for Net Neutrality has always been: why do we need a law like this? What is currently happening that needs to be fixed by this law? Forcing websites to cough up to be given a high bandwidth access to end users would be bad, but (AFAIK) that's not happening. I really don't see a need for this type of law, and I see no reason to make a law to solve a problem that doesn't exist.
They're just stalling. Sometimes it's easier to delay the affirmative plan indefinitely than to actually defeat it. Of course, it costs money, but it's "taxpayers" money, so that's all right. In northern california, we could really use a light rail system, as there are a lot of people who commute all the way to san francisco. Every year, there is a proposal to implement this. What happens is, they spend a couple more million on "studies", and spend the rest on widening the existing roads. This is like a contractor's wet dream, and probably pays well for the politicians, but does not ultimately solve the problem.
#5: What happened to the subsidy money given to these providers?
4 0_F.shtml
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060131/20212
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
Is there a way to submit comments to the study? Most Slashdotters can answer some of those "questions" off the top of their heads. I'm not going to fault the FCC for doing more research, just so long as it is real research and not a secret way to rubber-stamp some corporate agenda.
Well, they could, if they took that away from the NSA.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Why do you think that the government is fit to rule how Internet providers charge for their services?
Because the government built the infrastructure upon which these companies have built their businesses.
We are having quite fine Internet outside of USA. It's cheaper and faster. But then we don't have morons elected for their good looks who are trying to poke around and disturb the Internet.
Perhaps, for now. Money is more addictive than any narcotic. When the entire world population is hooked on easy access to the internet, the only thing that will stop the providers from squeezing every last nickel(Or Shilling, or Rupee or Ruble or Dinar) out of them will be fair regulations. The free market is an ideal, not a universal fact.
If your ISP is not offering good access to all the sites you want, then get a better one!
And tough shit for all of those people who only have one alternative for broadband? No thank you.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
We lost a free and open and truly neutral internet a while ago. When and why did it become OK for every provider to dis-allow open ports and servers? Now a bunch of techno elitists will rush in and say, "Oh no one should be allow to run servers on those type of lines" and "ZOMG, spam will run amuck because people will be allowed to run servers!"
1 - The spam argument is the same as the child porn argument - take away everyone's right because some people might abuse it.
2 - The current situation is the worst of all possible because people who want to run servers are blocked by the AUP of their provider but zombies are free to spam and DOS and whatever as they please because providers don't block ports based on abuse.
So now we have the repub, right wing, pro big business assholes pretending that after 200 billion in give aways, consolidated monopolies and govt protected one-provider access to the last mile that its the mean websites that are blocking innovation. Yeah, google and youtube are the reason our telecomm services lag behind the rest of the 1st and 2nd world in pricing and performance - that's the ticket, its google's fault.
BTW, the only provider that I know of that did not have a no-servers or otherwise stupidly restrictive AUP was http://www.rawbandwidth.com/ they also didn't use PPPoE !!
But PacBell may have forced them to change their AUP, not sure...
True Net Neutrality:
Did I forget anything?
That would be actual Net Neutrality, the US telecomms have to be laughing at us, they take tons of tax money and entitlements then provide relatively slow, horrible service at high prices, lock in customers, treat them like garbage and then cry a bunch of crocodile tears in front of congress about how hard they have it.
dont you mean every second november?
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I totally agree. I think government regulation sucks. They should get rid of those stupid laws like Human Equality so I don't have to let them damn black people on my bus without charging them extra.
c++;
I agree absolutely, then racist bastards like you will go out of business. Yes, I know you were being sarcastic, but I still think you are a racist...you think that those of non-majority ethnic groups need the governments help to make it in our society. The problems with segregation were when the government forced companies to discriminate against ethnic minorities. The "blacks must sit in the back of the bus" was a government regulation...the bus companies didn't want it. A study of the economics shows that without government intervention racist companies don't d as well as non-racist ones, and monopolies don't last.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
you're lucky that you have that. there are many places where you only get one, and sometimes you get none.
there is no competition in the residentail bandwidth market and that is the crux of the issue. if there was competition there would be no such thing as net neutrality because neutrality would be standard operating procedure for every provider lest they lose customers to a competitior..
concerns over net neutrality are a symptom of insufficent competition in the market. the market cannot pressure the players because the market simply doesn't exist.
sarcasm:
-noun
1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.
I have thought a lot lately about the lunch counter issue. I think forcing the racists to let blacks eat at their establishment probably robbed would-be black business owners from the opportunity to make an inclusive or all-black establishment and instead of having a generation of prosperous black business owners we got the expectation that the government should force us to be civil to each other.
I think we should be civil to each other, and that if a business isn't living up to that consumers should boycott it. Putting that responsibility on government is a short sighted abdication and resort to force that should have been avoided.
Now, if there was some kind of illegal business practice, or a practice that should have been illegal, that stopped black would-be business owners from being able to start businesses, that could and should have been very aggressively dealt with. I'm not saying that we should have ignored the situation completely. But the bus stuff changed by a boycott, didn't it? So presumably actions like that could have fixed other situations, and people who refused to do business with blacks would end up rewarding those who would.
Maybe.
Liberty uber alles.
This is exactly a good point. The bus stuff and most of the other stuff that was the subject of the 60's boycotts was a product of government regulation enforcing segregation. Most social ills that are amenable to government correction (segregation, monopolies, etc) are a product of government action in the first place. The correct response is to change those laws which enforce these things and allow the free economic exchange between individuals. I think the correct response to the problem that "net neutrality" represents is to eliminate the "last mile" monopolies and allow any one who wants to to provide service to whomever, wherever they want. There would be some problems that would need to be addressed and some areas would get better service than others. However, this would offset one of the problems that liberals often complain about: urban sprawl. If you chose to move outside the current population density areas, you would have to give up the best in internet access.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Users will never regulate the internet, but we are left with some choice as to who will. Government or the ISPs? There is slightly less conflict of interest on the government's part, and the ISPs are generally clear about their intent to demand money from content providers. I'd love to see a free-market solution, but competitive broadband is largely a myth.
(IANAL)
(IANAL)
collusion (oligopoloy) is essentially the same thing as a monopoly. i suppose that you could get a dozen providers to collude... but the temptation might be too great for a small player to undercut the rest of the cartel. too bad that bandwidth has to be compatible with other providers in order to be useful or anyone could get into the game.
it's also too bad that EVDO is in the hands of the only two telcos that matter in america (at&t and verizon) who both have landline and DSL/fiber businesses to protect otherwise there could be some competition overnite in the form of a national mobile broadband network (imagine a little box with a GSM/CDMA antenna and a SIM card and a WIFI tranceiver... like your DSL modem only with no wires). BPL, muni-wifi, and muni-fiber are all mired in telco/cableco funded legal wrangling to offer much hope of competition.
having a choice between your local cableco monopoly and the local telco monopoly is not competition. that's being forced to choose the lesser of two evils. in many cases, for internet access, that lesser evil is the cableco monopoly.
in that situation, the enemy of your enemy is necessarily your friend.
sarcasm:
-noun
1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.
My family lives too far from the CO/DSLAM to get DSL service, meaning the only broadband is Comcast. The response was "screw this -- it's dial-up."
That's not without its inconveniences, of course.
(IANAL)
You might want to study up on the difference between throughput and latency.
And I'm saying, that little note will not buy you what you are hoping it does. It cuts deep but misses all of the vital organs and leaves a big red sticky mess everywhere. A much more surgical strike is needed. Make it illegal to purposefully degrade anyones service. Make it illegal to filter legal content. But if you make it illegal for me to continue to offer MY services on MY network at a guarunteed class of service, I have other options and I will use them. That is not any kind of threat, so don't see it that way. That is just a fact.
As I said previously, I really hope it doesn't come to this, but I'm pretty sure it will. Pass legislation, but pass the right legislation, or the solution may be worse than the problem.
It was around 2000 or 2001 I think. I bought DSL from a local ISP, who supplied it through SBC and my phone line. SBC made money and my ISP made money. I paid $25 for 5 fixed IP addresses, 128Kb/1.5Mb, and a Giganews feed. When I moved across town, 2002?, I was NOT able to just transfer my service because my ISP could no longer sell any DSL, SBC wouldn't allow it. I ended up getting DSL from SBC for $25 and a PPPoE connection. Since the software they wanted to install on my PC COULD allow SBC to play around with my TCP/IP and QoS parameters (they said they wouldn't use that feature...), I simply bought a router with PPPoE on the WAN. Great, without ANY government involvement I still had to replace my 5 IPs with 1, at the same price, AND lose the GigaNews feed my old ISP had. Please explain how much worse things can get if the feds make the rules? I would be happy with 5 IPs @1.5Mb for $25 again VS $34.99@3.0Mb PPPoE/DHCP, NO servers, and a retarded newsserver.
Former geek, now I can rest...
Rather than "would", I would use "might" or "could". When you remove government force from the equation, what you can be (relatively) sure of is more liberty. You can't really be sure of what people will do with that liberty. Maybe someone will specialize in wiring suburbs and make them even more attractive, for example.
(Hope you don't feel like I'm too nitpicky here. I am a strong believer in deregulation, and I believe that one of the weaknesses of the way de-regulatarians generally argue their points is that they often make it sound like if you could just take away the government force things would be idyllic. What we really can logically assume is that people will have more liberty. Which, I think, is all that we should assume, and is worth the effort to work for. We cannot assume that people will behave a certain way given that liberty, because liberty by definition is the ability to behave in whatever way you want.)
Liberty uber alles.