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AT&T CEO Attacks Network Neutrality
Verteiron writes "The former CEO of AT&T, Ed Whitacre, had some interesting remarks to make about Net Neutrality during his parting speech. Choice quotes include his plans for getting anti-neutrality legislation through: "Will Congress let us do it?" Whitacre asks his colleagues. "You bet they will — cuz we don't call it cashin' in. We call it 'deregulation.' "
More information on AT&T's attitude problem and a video of the speech are available. There's no sign that his replacement is any better."
Since when is the Net "neutral" ? It's where conspiracy theorists always hide!
Smile, don't click...
Why does AT&T hate America?
I guess if they wanted to change, the old boss could have done that; Since they don't want to change the company's direction, it's just logical to get a new CEO with the same mind.
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
I once tried attacking network neutrality, however I ended up in hospital having a wifi antenna removed from parts indescribable.
liqbase
no other companies will work with AT&T since they are evil and who would want to be associated with an evil company...oh wait...
:-) It's a joke....relax...
C:\>ping google.com
Resolved "google.com" to [64.233.167.99]
Hello! Welcome to AT&T PingSelect(tm). Please enter in milliseconds your desired ping time to website "google.com".
>25
Unfortunately, website "google.com" is not available at that ping time. Please contact the website administrator and advise them to upgrade their AT&T PingSelect(tm) package if you wish to ping website "google.com" at this value. Please select another time in milliseconds.
>50
Unfortunately, website "google.com" is not available at that ping time. Please contact the website administrator and advise them to upgrade their AT&T PingSelect(tm) package if you wish to ping website "google.com" at this value. Please select another time in milliseconds.
>100
Pinging google.com [64.233.167.99] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 64.233.167.99: bytes=32 time=100ms TTL=247
Reply from 64.233.167.99: bytes=32 time=101ms TTL=247
Reply from 64.233.167.99: bytes=32 time=101ms TTL=247
Reply from 64.233.167.99: bytes=32 time=100ms TTL=247
Ping statistics for 64.233.167.99:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 100ms, Maximum = 101ms, Average = 101ms
C:\>
Reminds me of Bush's candid comments we got to see in Fahrenheit 9-11. "This is an impressive crowd - the haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elites; I call you my base."
Question: did this guy know there was a camera rolling?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I mean look at how well "deregulation" worked in the airline industry? More people can fly, flights are cheaper, to more destinations... crammed into tiny airplanes with more people... lousier food... more delays... bad customer service... bankruptcies... never mind.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
For those Americans here who are of voting age, I suggest you start voicing opinions to congress speak to your management if you are in the telco/networking field and make noise. All this "wah wah wah" on a forum is pointless. Sure I can hear you, the trolls can hear you, but I doubt political parties can hear you. Start filling up those blogs of parties who want to "strike a pose" on the technology sector "We're hip... We have a blog" ... Oh so you do Senator Whatever... Start /.'ing them for straightforward answers, comments and plans. Anything else is just linenoise
Infiltrated dot Net
I suggest we combine some tactics that are known to work.
Back in ancient times, the UAW would target ONE company for a strike, in order to get an agreement that could be used later as leverage with the others. Say what you like about the state of the auto industry today, but the tactic worked with great effect.
Next, we have the NRA, and their targeted boycotts. When they were unhappy with Smith and Wesson's push for high-tech gun locks, they instituted a very effective boycott. Their manufacturing slowed to a crawl as sales tanked. S&W was sold at a fire sale price as a result. The CEO landed at some lawnmower company. I heard the NRA considered boycotting the lawnmowers as well.
We can't boycott all of the ISPs at the same time, but we COULD pick one and boycott them. Even the dimmest bulb in the executive suite can understand poor revenue and trace it back to customer unrest.
Wow CEO of telecom says "We want more control and more money"
What a surprise.
"You bet they will -- cuz we don't call it cashin' in. We call it 'deregulation.'
I don't call it customer satisfaction. I call it screw'n them over.
my mom has a myspace page....which is like soooo embarrassing!!!! please troll her into getting rid of it....thanks
http://www.myspace.com/amandagrashel
alex
I hope the fuzzier minded GOP congressmen don't get too confused on this - the "deregulation" banner AT&T are flying under sounds good but consider the financial equity markets: heavily regulated and you won't find an investment banker (paragons of free market capitalism) who'd want it any other way. Certain foundation structures like markets, networks need to be regulated to keep them neutral, transparent & useful. This enables freedom, paradoxical perhaps but pretty obvious.
Now, after a lot of ISP/webhost consolidation, some of the biggies want to reintroduce performance tiering. To differentiate commodity IP transport into various service levels. That's elementary marketing to capture increased revenue from those customers willing to pay more.
I'm far from certain this is a bad thing. Instead of everyone having the same (erratic) latency, some people will pay for better, and the rest will get slightly worse. Frankly, I'm far more concerned about preserving competition between ISPs at all levels, from comsumer last-mile broadband up through the long-haul links.
The people running these companies always espouse the advantages of the free market, how essential it is for their survival. And yet, these same jerks will be the first ones crying for government protection the second they start feeling threatened. All this serves to do is erode confidence in the free market system. Inevitably, once people start catching on to what's going on they start calling for excessive government control which can end up doing more harm than good. You'd think these idiots at these companies would be wary of that sort of backlash. Ultimately, it's not the system that's the problem but rather lobbyists, corrupt politicians, and an ignorant population.
That's the ultimate problem here. People don't know this is going on, first of all. I suppose the media doesn't deem it exciting enough to report this. But it wouldn't make a difference if they did because most people likely wouldn't care. Even worse, they probably wouldn't even see anything wrong with what AT&T wants to do.
People have gotten so used to paying for every little thing that they be able to justify AT&T's position. I suspect that's one of the underlying motivations for this trend. Companies are realizing just how tolerant consumers are of this nonsense. I've read that recent studies have found that consumers are growing increasingly comfortable with monthly payments. A company can raise rates on a regular basis and few complain.
People like to whine about gasoline prices, but Americans are still paying far less than most of the rest of the world. And it's still cheaper per gallon that a lot of other things they consume. They're getting screwed worse in other ways and don't even realize it or even care. It's frustrating sometimes to see all this ignorance and to see this disdain for the people on the part of the politicians.
So a good friend of mine works for the phone company here in my region. His attitude toward net neutrality is the same as the "former"CEO. I can understand their side of the story though.
Let's say that your company spent BILLIONS of dollars rolling out new Fibre across the nation and then you were told that you cannot charge for access to that net?
Deregulation isn't always a bad thing but in this case i think it will destroy many a business that can't or won't pay to play with the big-boys.
Call your reps my fellow Americans, this is still our country!
When AT&T merged with Bellsouth, they agreed to Net Neutrality for 30 months. I'll bet, because this is the pattern with the ILECs and particularly SBC and AT&T (SBC and AT&T merged), that they do their darnedest to get tollbooth legislation in before the window ends. Why? Why not wait? Because these guys just absolutely do things that way. If they do something above-board and honest, it leaves them with a bad taste in their mouths.
I give that legislation (if it passes) 29 months from the merger date. If we get past 30 months, it'll never pass.
Well, all you Americans tell me that your country is special because you have a magic written constitution. And in this it says that Americans must always be allowed to carry guns.
Your comentators all give the reason for this as a means of defending yourselves against government tyranny. So, when are you going to start using them and justify the clause? Or do we have to come over and do it for you?
Some 20 years ago, I had lunch with Ed. Sat right next to him. I was a snot-nosed new hire and he was pumping me full of "Bell Juice".
Anyway, he told me his biggest dream was to reunite AT&T. I thought "yeah, right", but looking back, it is clear that he was going to do anything he could to make his dream a reality. He did it.
Not that I think AT&T remerging was a good idea, but I admire his tenacity.
That said, I wish AT&T was broken up again. It's really annoying when I'm having DSL problems, which AT&T Internet Services can't seem to fix, so they blame the phone company (Also AT&T) and my telephone (Again, carrying the AT&T brand label). When I point out to the manager that they're all AT&T, and why can't they get together and fix the problem, I was told "big companies don't work that way". AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!!!
Including CmdrTaco? This is obviously a joke, so please don't take those quotes seriously ...
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
IT's OUR country, NOT yours. Last time I checked, the USA liberated Europe TWICE. If you don't clean up the problem you have with muslims, don't look for us to kick them out. We'll sit this one out.
Unfortunately my non-AT&T ISP throttles my bandwidth to any page than mentions AT&T. It took me 30 minutes just to post this.
You want access to public easements to run your fiber? You play by common carrier rules. The public owns that land and are granting you temporary, paid rights to use it and reserve the right to revoke it at any time, including seizing ownership of anything on that land. You lose temporary rights when you start serving yourself instead of serving the public.
If you don't like the rules, don't play them. Other companies will step up where you fail and provide the service the public demands and deserves.
I say we pay any company that doesn't want to be regulated and commit to net neutrality can pull out now at no cost. The amount of money invested into providing internet service for the public will be tallied and then all cuts and grants given to the company for the purpose of providing internet services will be subtracted from that tally, along with any profits the company gained through providing internet services to the public. If the final number is above 0 then that means the company hasn't made a net profit and so the government will give them the balance, otherwise they get to walk away with a bit of extra coin in their pocket. Then the government can either run the internet itself or give it to a private company that will follow a few simple rules. I'm sure there are many companies that would leap at the chance to get their hands on all of that cabling.
Let's pray to God Oh heavenly father, bless all us rich people especially AT&T and energy for we are better than everyone else and people with more money are better than those without money... may all the poor burn in hell and rich people go to heaven in your rich name...AMEN
Maybe it was when the courts broke up their happy family? Now that they got it back together they are out for revenge? AT&T Part VI: Ma Bell Lives?
s/©//g
which is: ubiquitous encryption. Developers need to get behind initiatives
like BTNS (do a google search). Encrypt everything, and what is your
service provider going to do? This is a test, there is a response, but
it's even more difficult that protocol filtering.
We have a problem, this air neutrality thing. Air -- made of oxygen and other gasses -- is a valuable commodity. We all pay for it, since it's cheaper for us to pollute recklessly, but we don't. Why can't we charge for it? Neutral air is a threat to our economy and the basis of our great nation.
I think I was just born in the wrong time. I don't understand the motivation for our economy, for our government, for our mass media. It seems like we have lost sight of what really gives life importance, and I miss that vision of clarity of that importance I had during childhood. C'est la vie, but how does the story end?
technical writing / development
Let's put apart the issue of whether net neutrality would be good / bad for the Internet. Do we want the government involved in regulating the Internet ? HELL NO! It is government regulation that made AT&T what it is today. Regulating for net neutrality would be like curing a burn with a flamethrower.
\u262D = \u5350
Cause he's right and it's a good idea.
It's called AOL, and people voted against it with their dollars.
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Mussolini
and a generally crotchety old fart, I agree that net neutrality is a bad thing. Text on ports 25, 80 and 110 should be given the highest priority.
I don't give a shit if you can't download your 4.7GB HD Paris Hilton stripogram video at 500KB/s. I mean really, it is not important. The internet was not designed to be a high definition video distribution service, get over it people.
Looking at it another way, video is one of the most inefficient forms of digital communication. One frame of video contains but a fraction of one word, yet is thousands of times more data than a whole word of text. Want to know the ultimate video compression codec is? It's called a transcript. On frame of HD video probably contains the same amount of data as the entire text of War and Peace, yet virtually no information.
A picture is worth a thousand words? Not anymore... A picture is worth a fraction of a word - or 24 frames is worth about 3 words.
OK, then there's music... have you people not heard of FM radio? It is pretty amazing, free high quality music (no DRM!).
Concerened about net neutrality? Well then stop downloading terabytes of cheap porn and bad movies asshole. You'll find the problem disappears.
P2P music and movie file sharers should be throttled... throttled with a hickory switch until they are covered in welts, just maybe we can beat some sense into them.
Browsing for text information and multiplayer gaming can only benefit if these move and music sharing twits arte throttled and throttled hard.
Try connecting to the internet at 28.8Kbps for a while and you just might begin to understand what bandwidth really means and why when there is a bottleneck the fluff should be cast aside.
AT&T and all the big telcos can have their net neutrality repealed. In return, AT&T and all the telcos will give back all of the government's money, adjusted for inflation and bearing the prime rate of interest, that was given to them as investments, tax breaks, and other "incentives" to build up their network. Shake on it?
I can't think of much less funny than the prospect of something analogous to this. Shitbags like Whitacre should be called out for their disgustingly open money grabs. As should their associated bagshits in Congress. Make it loud and clear: the US pioneered the internet, and users here expect, nay DEMAND, that our TAXPAYER FINANCED public networks be available under the most non-descriminatory conditions that can be arranged. This is not negotiable.
While Whitacre and his ilk are busy partying away megamillions, and brazenly demanding even more even though little has been done since 2000 to extend broadband reach here, other countries are passing us by to benefit from our investments.
A modest suggestion: AT&T, try plowing a billion or two back into the infrastructure in this country instead of whining for the ability to double/triple dip on connection charges, and you'll likely notice that your market grows without customers wanting to tar/feather/dismember you and piss on your grave.
Perscriptio in manibus tabellariorum est.
One of my clients wanted an explanation of the net neutrality debate. I told her to consider a place where everyone rode buses (Internet) to get to their destination and there were several different bus services (ISPs). Most bus services offered monthly passes to ride the bus as much as you wanted and buses had individual speed limits set by the individual bus companies. Some people paid extra for passes on higher speed buses. Some budget-conscious people bought less expensive passes for slower speed or less reliable bus services. A few bus services had passes with monthly limits on number of miles. Some bus services sold unlimited monthly passes, but secretly only gave slow buses to customers who rode the bus too much
Now imagine someone had a free public library (Google) that was very popular, so popular in fact that more and more bus passengers wanted to go to that library. Bus companies found that they were carrying lots and lots of people to the library who were using their unlimited monthly passes.
Now also imagine that a store opens that gives away free books. Books are heavy and when people bring home huge books on the bus, the bus runs slower and costs more for the bus company.... but the customer gets it all for their flat-rate monthly pass.
So the bus companies are having to drive more miles and carry heavier loads than they planned... they aren't making money with the flat-rate monthly passes. What should they do?
Network neutrality says a bus company needs to raise the rates on the monthly passes, use mileage limits, or go to tiered services with different rates for different capacities because all destinations they carry people to should be treated equally (neutrality). What AT&T wants to do, is charge the LIBRARY and the STORE for causing so many people to take the bus to their location and for giving away free books that are heavy and more expensive for the buses to carry.
And the problem is there are not enough bus services available to each person... many only have a limited choice of 1 or 2 decent ones (cable, DSL), with lots of REALLY slow ones (dialup).
it is about to end soon, so there is legislation to keep it.
So there isn't any change, despite what you seem to be hearing.
And NN is about not caring what you're carrying. Although it could be argued that QoS is advantageous, what do I care if someone is playing HL2 with low ping when I want to send an email? I'm paying as much per byte as the gamer but they're getting a better service from it.
Anyway, one way around it would be to tunnel my email over the HL/VOIP/Whatever express port. Kind of like when SOAP happened: http was no longer web pages but a gaping hole in your security.
So even QoS isn't justified unless it is sold as a separate channel: e.g. get basic broadband @4Mb/s and for another 5% get a VOIP channel @64kbs. Or, using traffic shaping, but 4Mb/s with a guarantee of 1Mb/s.
TFA, looks like a serious article - listing quotes repeated in slashdot story. Curious
about the accompanying video I click on that. Well surprise! That "video" is a PARODY (funny).
Am I missing something here?
Republicans attack Democrats, Democrats attack Republicans, Microsoft attacks OSS, Iran attacks Israel and US policies, Rosie attacks the Donald, blah, blah, blah...
To post news without editorializing in the post? Slashdot loves net neutrality, we all know. Even if I agree it's a good idea, I can still do without the "More information on AT&T's attitude problem..."
Makes me wish you could moderate OPs or at least give some sort of direct feedback of the same sort.
are 7000 0sers
we need Gore to run for President. He created the internet; so, I'd expect him to protect it.
Why is it getting warm in here?
Kudos to you for making your biases clear. I wish more of others would do the same.
As for GM, Ford and Chrysler the negative effects of the unions extend way beyond financially hijacking the company's future. The unions also lobbied for, and won, workplace rules that placed rigid limits on worker flexibility. So for example at a Toyota or Nissan factory every worker on the floor is expected to spend some time on every machine in the plant so they'll know how to work it to fill in for someone else if they're out sick/vacation...etc. It also helps break up the mind numbing and physically dangerous repetitious monotony of the job. With the American factories this was until say 5 or 6 years ago strictly forbidden. If a manager tried to get the guy who say put the fenders on to move over to the job of putting the doors on a union steward could be called to "remind" the manager that wasn't allowed and threaten stronger action if the manager didn't listen. This hamstrings management's ability to RUN THE DAMN COMPANY.
ALL autoworkers in this country make more than an honest buck. Both the ones working for the Japanese companies and the American companies. The American autoworkers at the moment have the edge on benefits. Of course these benefits aren't going to last much longer as all of the big three are heading towards bankruptcy. What has to be remembered here is these are factory laborers. They're not doing brilliant work here. Its the equivalent of putting sandwiches together at Burger King or McDonalds. Every step of their jobs has already been planed out for them for maximum efficiency and profitability. Its mind and soul killing work. When Henry Ford first created the assembly line he had to pay so much originally because turnover was so high and it wasn't because of physical injuries either. It was just so MONOTONOUS that it was driving people crazy. Its a little better now but the fundamental point of the work hasn't changed, just about ANYONE can do the job. Its extremely simple. Its physical work not mental. This is why wages should not be so high. Simple supply and demand. There's a lot of supply of workers and limited demand. The unions have disconnected that reality from the American part of the industry and thats a big part of the reason why GM, Ford and Chrysler are suffering.
Another thing that should be mentioned is that this isn't the kind of work you should aim to have for life. It pays well for a reason, its dangerous. Make what you need so you can go to school and get a much safer less strenuous occupation or at the very least have enough awareness of your surroundings to move to a company that isn't repeatedly teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Don't forget the results of deregulating the power grid.
But I'm sure once the general public starts to feel the effects of it, they'll blame Canada for that too.
You can't take the sky from me...
What its about is ISPs faced with the rapid growth of sites like YouTube which their network just cant handle.
They have 3 options:
1.They can increase their prices so that they can afford to expand their network so it can handle the increased amount of multimedia traffic.
2.They can introduce limits on how much you can download so that your $x per month only includes 10GB of transfers or 5GB of transfers or whatever.
or 3.They can throttle access to the high bandwidth multimedia sites unless those sites are willing to pay money to the ISP to cover the fact that the ISPs network cant handle the traffic.
The ISPs don't want to pick option 1 because they would loose customers to other ISPs who didnt pick option 1 (or with networks that aren't yet congested enough for the ISP to need to pick an option)
They don't want to pick option 2 either because most consumers don't have a clue how much bandwidth they are using or how much data they are transferring (unlike, say, phone calls where costs are based on how long you are on the phone which is an easy thing to measure). So if ISPs start setting limits, they would loose customers who would think "I don't want to be hit with a bill at the end of the month and I don't have a clue how much I am downloading so I will find an ISP that has no such restrictions"
So, ISPs faced with increasingly congested networks want to be able to throttle back speeds to known high bandwidth sites. That or have the site pay up to get better treatment.
Anyone who says net neutrality is about QoS or common carrier or anything else is wrong. The issue at stake here is simply that ISPs want to throttle high bandwidth sites and protocols unless they are paid money by the owners of those sites.
They hate us 'cause we're *over *there -- we've been bombing San Antonio for 10 years. I'm suggesting we listen to our enemies and the CIA when it teaches about blowback...
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
This Internet's like a great big pussy just waiting to get fucked. I should've come here years ago.
Apologies to the worthy script. None are offered to Ed "cuz" he sounds more like a gangster than the leader of one of the world's largest companies. Shame!
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
'cause the barriers to entry in this market are so incredibly high that you often have no choice. If two providers (the cable and DSL co for a region) do this, that's sufficient.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
You can't take the sky from me...
I am all for deregulation (ya ya mod me down), but AT&T needs to expect that if the market becomes deregulated, that means anybody should be able to lay line down and offer services.
If AT&T starts double (and triple dipping) Google (just an example) could come in, lay down a combination of fiber and wireless and offers a services that are pro network neutrality.
Then the market could let consumers decide which one they want. Instead of government bureaucrats in a city trying to second guess a thousand miles away.
Remember those flash cartoons during the early days of the Napster "pirating" issue with Metallica and the Napster Bad cartoons? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster_Bad!. Huge piles of money in the background and big companies screaming that net neutrality bad ...
Bark less. Wag more.
You seem to think that when people claim that "we" went to war for oil, that means that the US went to war for cheaper oil for its citizens. That is not what we mean. We mean that the rich and powerful took us to war to procure a reliable source of oil to sell to US citizens for outrageous profits. See the difference? There is no we. There is them getting rich, and you getting fucked.
And it's not just oil. We have outsourced much of our armed services to private contractors. The military industrial complex is having a field day, and making record profits. Citizens are scared into accepting all sorts of draconian restrictions. Huge bundles of cash simply disappear. The wealthy and well connected profit. And we lose rather than gain security.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Where pointing out that the emperor has no clothes gets you modded "Offtopic."
Drink your Kook-Aid, YeeHaW_Jelte, and stop steering the conversation toward the truth.
You've been warned.
I don't care why you're posting AC
...sure would be a shame if anything were to happen to that telephone pole of yours that's sitting on my property. You wanna talk free market, let's talk about how much that piece of my real estate you're using is worth.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
The core problem is that general use of the internet is slowly requiring more and more bandwidth as sites get fancier and more media heavy. Then there's VOIP and other web applications. Gone are the days of mostly text websites with a few pictures or maybe some Flash. It's not specific sites like YouTube that are the problem.
The ISPs and governments need to start facing the facts that the Internet in general is starting to require more and more bandwidth period. They need to upgrade their hardware and stop talking about laying fiber across the continent, and just do it already.
The Internet is evolving to strain the infrastructure originally put in place for it. The solution is not to stifle that growth, but to upgrade infrastructure to keep pace or even prepare for the future of video on demand and whatever other fun stuff comes next.
This is not accurate. The pension plans were created voluntarily by the car companies, who feared that union-controlled plans was a threat to the autonomy of business owners. From Malcolm Gladwell's article in the New Yorker:
Unions certainly have their faults, but in this case the car companies have only themselves to blame. What is really scary is the way the story that the unions forced the automakers into a bad deal has become accepted as fact.
It's sad, but IMHO everyone is so busy shooting at the wrong demon that we're ignoring the REAL monster: monopoly access to last-mile infrastructure.
Everyone's favorite example of why we need net neutrality is "we have two real choices for internet access: cable and DSL, both of which are run by big greedy companies that want to create walled gardens and extort sites like Google into paying for access". The thing is, that situation only exists BECAUSE in many parts of the country, you can choose between cable and DSL, but can't choose the company that's actually sitting at the other end of your local loop and providing your access to the internet itself. If cable and DSL were forced to sell local-loop access under open, content-neutral pricing and forced to decouple TV and local phone service from access to the cable/line itself (so you could have DSL without phone service, and/or cable internet without TV), our problems would largely be solved. OK, maybe not the problems faced by people who still don't quite understand the difference between "AOL" and "The Internet", or who think the internet begins and ends at Internet Explorer, but at least the problems of the reasonably-urban Slashdot technorati elite (because as a group, we WILL pay $20/month more to use an ISP whose upstream access is provided by multiple companies with promiscuous private peering of their own).
Force unbundled open access to last-mile infrastructure, and the whole issue of net neutrality becomes moot, and the problem solves itself. There's so much fiber, owned by so many competing parties, sitting in the ground right now that NOBODY could truly create an impenetrable walled garden or strip determined internet users of an escape route as long as small ISPs are guaranteed access to a full-speed connection between their rack at the NAP and the end user (who SHOULD have the ability to prioritize data from other sources if desired, since there are plenty of situations where it would be useful and desirable for end users... as long as THEY, not the last-mile provider, can set the priorities).
So Google will be available to cable users only? I don't see how that helps Google or regular consumers. And then you have to assume that the other major ISPs won't just match AT&T's offer (there's a good chance they'll do just that).
That solution will just split up the internet as far as consumers are concerned. Here's the sites you can get through AT&T: {__,__,__,...}; here's the sites you can get through Comcast: (__,__,__,...}; here's the sites you can get through Verizon: {__,__,__,...}; etc.
(IANAL)
And in other news ... AT&T has leaked information about their plans to buy the US interstate roadway system. "Not only will we be able to charge high tolls for all traffic when they enter and when they exit, but we'll also be able to charge all the cities for access ramp rights. That way we can get overpaid many times for the same thing, just like we do in the telecommunications sector. Highway neutrality is over."
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Hehehe ... let's try to leave Gladwell's article out of this. The blogosphere tore him a new one on that piece -- just check his crappy blog for his attempt to defend it.
But as for the substance of your claim, I don't see how it contradicts my position. The employer, we can agree, offered the company pension as a counterplan to the union pension, and the union accepted this as a valid substitution. Having a job-related pension was the union's idea. My point was that they could have simply used their clout to demand higher wages, and then applied that money to their own retirement accounts, held completely separately from the employer. No, the "Toledo area collective" plan doesn't count. That's still tied to Toledo area employment, with an added layer of unnecessary outside control.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Net neatrality is in the media, but unfortunately not the way we would like. Rather than being covered by reporters who would (hopefully) make some attempt at valid coverage, it is simply covered by the ISPs themselves, who have a vested interest in getting rid of net neatrality.
Example: Who here lives in the midwest and has Mediacom for their ISP? In Iowa and a number of other midwestern states, Mediacom is the big cable company, providing Internet and Television (and they are your only choice, unless you live in an area that can provide DSL). Mediacom (of course) runs commercials about itself on all of its channels for free whenever it feels like it. They are CONSTANTLY running a commercial about net neatrality, in which they do NOTHING but attempt to scare people into it without providing any real information. They never devote even one word to explaining what it is or what it means. Instead, they just make this lie (I'm probably not quite word for word, but I'm 95% there... this is almost exactly what they say, and the last sentence is the exact ending.):
"Net neatrality is a scheme by which the big business multimillion dollar corporations can take more of your money. Just remember: Net neatrality means YOU pay!" (emphasis NOT added by me) Oh, I should also point out that while making this lie, they show a picture of an executive throwing himself down on his bed with money literally raining down all over him.So yeah, I don't even know what to do about this sort of thing. The companies that control the Internet control the content on it, and when they are willing to constantly bombard users with blatant lies... I just don't know what you do about that or how you combat it. Sure, we can all talk about it freely on slashdot, but how do you tell Joe Voter to wake up and fight this if the only thing he sees are lying, one sided commercials every night when he watches his five hours of (corporate provided) TV. All I can say is that this situation really sucks for us.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
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Thank you for the link to Gladwell's blog. I did peruse the comments; from what I could tell, they took issue with his characterization of the dependency ratio - not with his historical account of the creation of the pension plans. So your summary is accurate:
But then you say:
Maybe they could have negotiated this - although,if the union were free to demand higher wages, I should think they would already have done so. Regardless, higher wages in the 1950s would not produce an unfunded liability for the car companies today. The car companies, not the unions, remain responsible for choosing to implement a pay-as-you-go system in the 1950s, then underfunding it. I don't see how the unions can be blamed for that.
And seeing which politicians are willing to sell out America on issues like this has given me a good idea of who not to vote for.
Sadly, the list is pretty damn long at this point.
It sounds like you're saying a simple market doesn't solve the problem of providing bandwidth supply to meet demand.
This might be the case, but I'm skeptical of the reasoning. I have yet to be convinced that telco ISPs really don't have the money to invest in their infrastructure -- are they really spending all their revenues on maintenance? I think they're just hoping to get away without providing additional service or have someone else subsidize this so they don't have to give up their margins.
Not to mention that approach #3 on your list (anti-net-neutrality) suffers from essentially the same problems that #1 and #2 do from the ISPs perspective -- if one ISP does it and consumers hate it, those that don't do it will gain customers.
Of course, that would be the market at work. Which is why some ISPs are looking to skirt the issue via collusion and legislation. In places where there even IS a market with more than 1-2 providers, which is the real reason I think markets won't solve this problem.
If there *IS* any place where the problem is legitimate and can be solved, I think it's either with option #1, where the ISPs suck it up and do what it takes to invest in keeping current.... or it's in the peering agreements between ISPs. I mean, hell... why should Google/YouTube be involved in this? As everyone and their dog points out, Google already pays their ISP (let's call them GISP), and probably quite handsomly. The mismatch comes between the balance of traffic flowing between the GISP and the rest of the ISPs between GISP and the consumer. If that peering agreement presents a problem for the other ISPs, then they ought to work it out with GISP. Google has nothing to do with it -- they already bought their bandwidth.
Tweet, tweet.
"And all Iraqi military and civilian personnel should listen carefully to this warning. In any conflict, your fate will depend on your action. Do not destroy oil wells, a source of wealth"
George W. Bush, March 17, 2003
And you obviously need to watch this educational video. Pay attention to the part starting at 2:22.
You can't take the sky from me...
Net Neutrality is Net Stupidity, literally and figuratively.
All I can do is shake my head these days when I hear stuff like this being touted as "free market". I am a fan of the free market, but what the free-market-absolutists don't understand is that the market isn't naturally free: it needs regulation to ensure that it stays free. Just like we need regulation to ensure that people are free.
If the market was naturally free there would be no need for government at all. I'm sure some hyper-libertarian just stood up and cheered. But the fact is that without any regulation whatsoever free markets disappear: no really, go check out what happens when there is no regulation in less developed countries: a small number of powerful people exercise their wonderful freedom in the truly free market to wrest control from everyone else and pretty soon you've got abusive monopolies and terriffic exploitation everywhere.
Sorry: but we need regulation to make sure the market stays competitive and free. This is the hightest calling of government, methinks: to ensure that the playing field does not get too tilted. This is what network neutrality is about. AT&T wants to be free enough to tilt everything so dramatically in their favor that others can no longer compete.
Anyone else remember when you could only rent your phones from an AT&T store? And there were only a handful of featureless models to choose from? And there were no technological advances in telephony for ages? Yeah: that's the "free market" that AT&T promotes.
Cheers.
When is /. going to start their own BBS? Then we can avoid this whole intarweb thing. Make it such that subscribers get to read the stories 3 days before non-subscribers. The money received from the subscribers would go to pay for the inbound modem lines and news wire fees.
Yeah... screw the man. Oh wait... we would still have to use phone lines...
Hold on, I'll think of something...
Ramen
See subject.
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
You can't take the sky from me...
The quotes attributed to 'Big Ed' are from a fake speech, and the video of the speech is obviously fake... read the first comment on the blog, and follow the link embedded in the subject line.
You might want to complete that quote:
(my emphasis)
Say - you don't suppose the interest in Iraq's oil might have something to do with funding the rebuilding of Iraq?
Cute video. Some simple truths. And a really simplistic view of world politics. But it was entertaining. I'm thinking it goes over real well in propaganda circles.
Rebuilding what was shocked and awed is part of the cost of doing business, but it's not the motivation.
You can't take the sky from me...
This is a parody quote from a Net-Neutrality site, he did not say that ??
Neo-conservatives drove America into Iraq in the hope that they would create a new democracy in Iraq that would inspire other Arab citizens in the region to overthrow their tyrannical governments and establish western style democracies with western style "free markets". I think that most neo-conservatives, including Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and Feith actually believed this. I really do. And if they did believe these things, then it shows something truly scary about them, that they are profoundly detached from reality.
I remember hearing numerous neo-conservative opinion pieces before the war that promised that Americans would be welcomed in Iraq, and that the power of the free market would unlock Iraq's economy and change it into a modern democracy. However, any reasonably intelligent citizen with some knowledge of Iraq would realize that it was a repressive regime run by the Sunnis (20% of the population) which ruled over the Shiites and the Kurds (80% of the population). If you remove the Sunnis from power, then it is likely that the Shiites and Kurds would seek revenge. And it is easy to predict that the Sunnis, who have little oil in their normal territory, would be fearful of losing power, and would use their considerable military might to prevent the Shiites and the Kurds from gaining power in a stable country. This really should have been obvious to any informed person. Why then was it not obvious to the neo-conservatives?
I would argue that these "oversights" indicate that the neo-conservatives are like members of a cult, obsessed with their groups set of ideas to the exclusion of reality. They truly believe that market forces will solve the worlds problems, while at the same time making them wealthy. They believe that being selfish also serves the interests of society best. While there is some amount of truth to this assumption, overall it is not true.
Neo-conservatives live in their own isolated world, where they only hear the opinions of other neo-conservatives. They reinforce each others' views, increasing their certainties of their own world views. They live in a world of balance sheets, of profits and losses, of money. They rely more on profit margins than on real world facts to make their decisions. They ascribe almost mystical meaning to profits, believing that increasing profits always increase the well-being of society. They are extremists who take academic fields like econometrics from being merely utilitarian to being the sole means of managing a society. God help us if they gain complete power.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Ma Bell, the NEW AT&T.
This issue isn't about how much I must pay my ISP for decent net connectivity.
This issue is about how much Google must pay my ISP for decent net connectivity.
AND this issue is also about how much you must pay Google's ISP for a decent connection as well. Don't forget that part.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.