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FCC Votes Yet Another Study of Net Neutrality

Posted by kdawson on from the analysis-paralysis dept.

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.

12 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Republican Majority by heinousjay · · Score: 5, Informative

    The FCC isn't Congress, it's part of the Executive branch.

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  2. Along these lines... by kmac06 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Along these lines... by SeaFox · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

      I'm sure people said the same thing about Fair Use rights. "Why do we need a law that proactively states people can use their music they purchased any way they see fit?" The record companies would never do something so consumer unfriendly as to try an dictate how people enjoy their product, or say they had to buy a separate copy of an album on tape to use in their Walkman instead of just dubbing the CD they had already bought for their CD player. Right?
    2. Re:Along these lines... by Irvu · · Score: 2, Informative

      However at least some of the carriers have begun doing two things: a) arguing that Net Neutrality is illogical and inappropriate and that they need to implement biases, and b) implementing biases. Most noteably many users of Vonage and Comcast have seen their service degrade drastically in recent months just after Comcast released its own competing service.

    3. Re:Along these lines... by quanticle · · Score: 4, Informative

      However, you notice that there is no mention made of *where* your traffic goes. The fact that you pay one flat rate to access Google, Slashdot, Youtube, and what have you is due to the FCC's Net Neutrality regulation. Without this regulation, your cable or telephone company would be within its rights to charge you different rates for different web sites. In essence, the Internet would become like cable TV, with websites being broken into various tiers, and you having to pay extra to access other tiers.

      Example: if Comcast struck a deal with Yahoo, Yahoo would become the default search engine, and Google would be moved into a "premium" tier, meaning that I'd have to pay extra in order to access Google. I don't have to do this today because of Net Neutrality.

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      We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
    4. Re:Along these lines... by burnin1965 · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.

      Yet. There have been noises lately from corporations who wish to cash in on mergers which have created large blocks of internet subscribers. Noteably the CEO of SBC has been making serious threats to change the way the internet works by charging content providers to have access to SBC customers.

      And make no mistake about it, SBC's intention is to charge every content and service provider a toll to have access to customers on SBC's broadband connections.

      I see no reason to make a law to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

      The reasoning is that telecoms like SBC are becoming broadband ISPs and ISPs have managed to stay clear of the common carrier status. THIS is what SBC and others want is to drop the common carrier status so the FCC can no longer regulate them and they can begin to cash in on the monopolies they are building by extorting Google and others for the profits SBC's CEO covets.

    5. Re:Along these lines... by MobyDisk · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's another myth. How does network neutrality stifle innovation? When common carrier laws were created for shipping companies, it didn't stifle innovation. Nor did it stifle innovation for telephone companies. And it isn't stifling internet companies either.

      I've been replying a lot to this discussion, so let me cut down to the real reason we are in the situation we have now:
      Comcast says I get 4Mbps of bandwidth. But they really divided 400Mbps across 100 customers, said I get 4Mbps (that's a simplified version). Now that everybody wants to download stuff from YouTube, Comcast finds that they don't actually have enough bandwidth to give everyone 4MBps. So they decide that maybe they can charge some customers to have priority over others. They make more money and finance their rollout of real 4MBps service. They they tell everyone it is 8MBps service, and sell another the option to give priority over other users. This cycle repeats forever. But it's a scam - one person gets 4MBps only because someone else's connection is now slowed down even further because their packets are delayed. You see, you really can't "speed up" a packet, you can only slow one down. There's an expression "robbing Peter to pay Paul" when you get behind on one bill, and so you pay another bill late to make this one on time. That's what the ISPs want to do.

      A similar thing happened years ago with phone service. Phone companies would sell caller ID, and a service to block sales calls. They they sold the sales people a service to block their number. Then they sold a service to send blocked numbers to a special message that told them to leave a message. Then they sold sales people a service that got around the special message. In the end, nobody ever got what they paid for. The phone companies just pitted their customers against each other. So it is with "priority" service. Once everyone pays for priority, who has priority then?

      Instead, we need to go the opposite direction than all of this. We need to make ISPs report accurate information on their service level (The FDA mandates food labeling and nobody went out of business). Then, we need to open-up the local telco lines to competition. You do that by separating ISP service from phone line service. Ex: Verizon does the local phone lines, but Comcast, Earthlink, CavTel, etc. provide ISP services over those lines. This will open-up real competition. In Maryland, they passed a law about 5 years ago that did this, and DSL suddenly appeared everywhere and new ISPs arrived. Now that the law reverted, my current ISP is likely to vanish since my local telco (Verizon) can force them out of business once the time limit is up.

      It all gets really complicated. But in the end, Network Neutrality just means everyone is treated fairly. It has worked in every aspect of the telecom industry thus far. If your issue is that no law is needed, that is a reasonable position since the FCC is handling this now. But remember, the telecom companies stand to gain a lot by starting the phony "prioritization" scam, and you will find fake blogs and links all over the place with info about why Network Neutrality is evil. The telecoms see a chance at eliminating the FCC law, and the fight is really just to retain the status quo, more so than to add any new regulation.

    6. Re:Along these lines... by bendodge · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I am personally against the current form of net neutrality. I think that government intervetion is almost always bad. The ONLY regulations that should be passed:

      1. All backbone providers must allow other providers to connect to them on a naked pipe.
      2. All providers must use standard protocols*.
      3. Providers may only throttle data/bandwidth based on protocol, not orgin/destination.

      *I'd leave defining "standard" up to ICAAN, with these additional rules:
      1. The protocol must be open - anyone can see how it works and get specs for it.
      2. Usage or modification of the protocol must not be restricted by patents or copyright.

      I believe anything more is harmful to the free market.

      --
      The government can't save you.
    7. Re:Along these lines... by MobyDisk · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Except for throttling by protocol, I would agree. Throttling by protocol sounds reasonable, but I don't trust the ISPs to do it equitably. They'll do something smarmy like slow video then charge a special rate for it, even if there is plenty of bandwidth available. In theory, rule #1 in your list means I can just switch providers, but I doubt the list will include someone completely neutral.

      How's this? They can throttle based on protocol but only using the throttling rules that I set.

      Also, the major bandwidth hogs will just change protocols. BitTorrent over HTTP anyone? It will just result in another escalation war like the telephone blocking scheme.

    8. Re:Along these lines... by Paradigm_Complex · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Net Neutrality has nothing to do with bandwidth to end users. I'm not sure where that one came from.

      ... or re-prioritize the network stream...

      Having my bittorrent re-prioritized behind VOIP would slow the rate, no? Should everyone else on my block use VOIP all the time while I'm socially inept and spend all my time downloading different linux distros because I can't make up my mind, I could have my bandwidth throttled. In this case I am, btw, an end user.

      --
      "A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
  3. #5 by mastershake_phd · · Score: 2, Interesting

    #5: What happened to the subsidy money given to these providers?

    http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060131/202124 0_F.shtml

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    Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
  4. Re:Speaking as a Republican by Fatal67 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Your idea of fair regulation will not make things better. In fact, every thing will get a lot worse. Your provider is selling you a best effort service, and while those pipes are under utilized, everything is great. As it becomes necessary to keep pipes closer to capacity due to business models and the average user continues to consume more and more bandwidth, services will start to fail. Video over IP will be one of the first to suffer performance degradation. Then Voip. Then any real time interactive apps. That's what happens when a best effort service is all you can get and voip and video traffic can't be given a higher level of service. Of course, the service providers will build another 'closed' ip network for their own services and they won't have to deal with the result of this brilliant solution.

    Your solution of regulating equal treatment is going to lead to a more closed off Internet as service providers stop throwing money at an open infrastructure and starts spending on their own 'internal' network that will carry their services at whatever priority they want and not have to deal with it. Of course, anyone else wanting to offer a high level of service for their product could connect to this closed private network and have their services delivered with better quality than the folks who are still using the best effort 'internet' service.

      Never happen, you say? It already happens. Cable delivering VOD over closed IP systems. Phone companies running their voip over closed networks.
    Can't you hear the service rep now? "Oh, I'm sorry sir, that 40 dollars a month is for a best effort service connected to the public Internet. We have no control over the quality of the service that run on that network. Would you be interested in connecting to the ComWarnATTizon private ip network? For an additional 40 dollars a month you can receive your video, phone, interactive services at the best performance levels we have to offer as well as a connection to the old Internet . Should I sign you up?"

      Believe me or not, you should bookmark this. You're going to want to reread this in a couple years. There are valid legislative actions that could put an end to all of this, but it will probably take everything getting fubared before antone is willing to logically look at the issue.