Maine Passes a Net Neutrality Resolution

Spamicles writes "Maine has become the first state in the US to pass legislation on net neutrality. The resolution, LD 1675, recognizes the importance of 'full, fair and non-discriminatory access to the Internet' and instructs the Public Advocate to study what can be done to protect the rights of Maine Internet users. A 2005 decision by the Federal Communications Commission put in jeopardy net neutrality principles that had been in place since the inception of the Internet." Maine's resolution may be more symbolic than effective. This isn't the first time Maine has been out in front of other states on a controversial issue.

Comments

and you thought maine was only for lobsters!

[joeldg]

and you thought Maine was only for lobsters!
of course Maine in front of the pack, all that seafood is good for the brain..
(of course the butter and chowders do slow you down a bit in other areas).

Congrats Maine, we (the net) salute you!

Re:and you thought maine was only for lobsters!

[morari]

I believe they prefer "chowda" throughout New England...

Re:and you thought maine was only for lobsters!

[Joe the Lesser]

As a Mainer I must remind you of our motto, Dirigo, meaning 'I lead'.

And hopefully our folksy saying "As goes Maine, so goes the nation" will hold fruit with this issue, ayuh.

Re:and you thought maine was only for lobsters!

[Dragonslicer]

Amusingly enough, the Google ads for the article are for a couple sites that sell lobsters.

Stories like this actually make me proud of my home state. Maine has had a good streak of independence for quite a few years now. It's nice seeing independent, reasonable thought maintaining its presence.

Re:and you thought maine was only for lobsters!

[walt-sjc]

Keep in mind that Maine has NO next generation broadband. No FIOS. And it won't get it, EVER. Verizon is selling off it's Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine lines to Fairpoint, whose motto is "128K DSL is the wave of the future." The closest FTTP type deployment in Maine is in Lewiston / Auburn via Oxford Networks, who's idea is to use fiber to deploy 2M MAX service (which is slower than available cable / DSL). Business users only have a 1M option. The brilliant Oxford Networks execs are running around wondering why nobody is buying...

So yeah. Go Maine. Unfortunately it doesn't mean jack shit because the available broadband is pathetic.

Did you comment?

[mcrbids]

Your voice means NOTHING if you don't submit it via the proper channels. If you care about your politicians, then VOTE. If you care about FCC decisions, then COMMENT. It's your civic duty. When people argue politics with me, my first question is: "In the last election, did you vote?". If the answer is no, then I refuse to discuss politics, after telling them "I don't care what you think, your opinion doesn't matter!".

I commented to the FCC, and I sincerely hope you did, too. Here's my comment to the FCC, first posted to slashdot here. Here's what I wrote:



Airwaves belong to everyone. Although transmission is regulated,
reception is open and unrestricted. And the only purpose of the
regulation is to ensure that the openness of the medium is preserved
and the utility of the radio space is not compromised.

This is as it should be. Everybody benefits when the utility of a
common resource is preserved. Otherwise, the phenomenon of the
"Tragedy of the Commons" rears its ugly head. Here, overly agressive
private consumption of a public resource causes a compromise of the
utility of the common resource, to the detriment of all, including
the private individuals hogging the resource!

The Internet is, by definition, a shared resource. It's a peering
agreement based on communications protocols which enable all of its
parts to cooperate together, seamlessly, for the public benefit. Any
part can access any other part as though all parts were local. It's
the first, truly open, global communications system whose immense
potential for benefiting humankind has barely begun.

It is now up to you, here, to declare for our progeny, that this
shared, common resource shall remain open and free for the benefit of
all, to ensure its use, utility, and power so that everybody can benefit.

Balkanizing this public medium with an "unequal" internet, where the
common carriers of the traffic are free to degrade access to portions
of the network not in their personal interest, serves only to pillage
the utility of the common good. It provides enhanced short-term
profits for the pillager, but degrades the overall utility of the
network.

Please, please please, follow the forefathers before you who have
declared that this land be preserved for the common good, and those
who declared that the roads be preserved for the common good, and
those who have declared that the nation's power grid and telephone
grid be regulated to preserve their utility for the common good.

The utility of the Internet should be preserved. Please, please, keep it neutral.

Re:Did you comment?

[Greg_D]

It doesn't matter whether someone didn't vote last time. What matters is that they still have the right to vote NEXT time, and by ignoring them politically, you're isolating your voice as well as the potential for their own unique perspective to be added to the mix. If everyone you spoke to about matters told you to fuck off, sooner or later you'd take the hint.

Well, unless you're a stalker or a husband. That's what we have the 2nd amendment and rolling pins for.

Re:Did you comment?

[FlynnMP3]

Actually, your voice does matter even if you don't use the right channels.

Public opinion does matter, just not as much. Especially in the context you and the GP seem to be soapboxing on. Criminal activity, and thus opinion in some cases, does matter. That particular bent can effect change by getting somebody else do to the political work for you. Usually to the criminal's derision. As long as we are talking about the law, let's talk about those persons that are above it. Their opinion matters very much. So much so that it upsets the very foundations on which our country was built.

And need I remind you that our country was founded by people who _didn't_ go through the proper channels. They got so fed up with the old guard (sometimes not even a figure of speech) that they left. Took their little balls and bats and just freaking left and founded another nation. I mean, if they had just left comments and pleaded with those in power they could of effected change. Cowards!

Enough sarcasm for you? This country is run by big businesses, special interest groups, and those who have absolutely no interest in changing anything that will affect their political positions. And to top it all off, now the entertainment industry is using their influence over the apathetic (which they helped create) to make changes beneficial to them.

Who wants to secede?

Ya think?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maine's resolution may be more symbolic than effective.

Ya think? Maine can prevent ISPs from being asses with pipes inside Maine. Good for Maine.

Unfortunately Maine isn't exactly the center of the Internet, nor is it really likely to be. And once the pipes leave Maine, there's nothing to prevent the ISP from throttling everything coming to and from Maine to crap.

So good for Maine for taking a stand, even though it probably won't amount to anything. The ISPs will just do their throttling outside of Maine, and do all their business in Maine via a subsidiary company so it remains nice and legal.

Re:Ya think?

[im_thatoneguy]

It's more than symbolic it's the start of a legislation patchwork policy. If there is something that large corporations hate more than just about anything else it's legislative patchwork because it costs them a lot of money.

When it comes to mass production it will often cost more to design a product or service which conforms to two different standards than just implement the stricter standard in all of your products.

If even 25% of the states in the US implemented a Net Neutrality Resolution the cost to ISPs to ensure that packets originating and ending in a Net Neutral state would be significantly higher than just abandoning QoS nation wide. And if someone like Google moved into your state then ISPs would need to know which datacenter IP range they need to throttle and which they can leave alone.

If you bounce your packet through a Net Neutral state and it is throttled while in the state, they've broken the law. Can you imagine how difficult it would be to ensure that every packet you send and receive didn't pass through a state with a net neutrality law?

Behold the beauty of de facto legislation. One of the first real gems of globalization.

Re:Ya think?

[Kadin2048]

Agreed. I'm not sure if Maine necessarily has the clout to really affect anything directly, except maybe for preventing monkey business conducted at the head-ends by ISPs in Maine (thinking about it, I assume this is where you'd want to do the packet-shaping if you wanted to fudge service, so maybe it's not totally toothless). However, if they can encourage other states to do it -- particularly states where there are big peering points or other key infrastructure -- then it could, if the laws are drafted well, effectively regulate all traffic.

I think regulation like this can swing both ways: it shows the power of individual states' legislatures in potentially effecting great things. However, it can also show how a state law, if very poorly written, could adversely affect large swaths of the network, if it commanded the information-carriers to act in a certain way. (Although I think they'd be able to dodge some very onerous state laws on interstate-commerce grounds.)

Re:Ya think?

[jonwil]

QoS is fine and ISPs should be allowed to apply QoS to their traffic to give priority to, say, VoIP over, say, BitTorrent. Taking away the rights of ISPs to apply QoS

The 2 issues that the "anti-net neutrality" crowd should be focusing on are:
1.When ISPs give preferential treatment to, say, CableCo VoIP over, say, Vonage. Or give preferential treatment to a customer who pays extra for the privilege.
and 2.When ISPs deliberatly limit the speeds of certain data (based on network protocols, port numbers, source and destination address or whatever else) so that that data can never go at the full speed of whatever broadband link you have.

Civil War v2.0?

[erroneus]

You know, more and more we are seeing states resisting things the federal government is doing. (You know, things like the new ID thing.) And more and more, we see the states attempting to take action where the federal government is either ignoring the problem... you know, issues like net neutrality and illegal immigration. (Do open document format issues fit in there somewhere? They should...)

It seems that not only is the federal government not acting with the interests of the people (I know, it's not news to anyone) but the state governments are actually becoming a lot more relevant than ever before.

I know that when we think of politics and elections, many people think of presidents and US house of representatives and the US senate. But clearly, since state level policies and law making are becoming more relevant, people should start paying additional attention to their state government elections as well.

Re:Civil War v2.0?

[mcrbids]

You know, more and more we are seeing states resisting things the federal government is doing.

BZZZZZTTT!!!

What this post reflects is a young understanding of something that's been going on as long as there have been states. It's why there ARE states - the term "state" can literally mean "country", and the "United States of America" can be literally read as "United Countries of America". It's a "body politic".

If you'd paid attention in history class, you'd remember that once upon a time, each state printed their own money, and had their own laws. They were, quite literally, separate nations until they united under the Constitution of the United States. This isn't new, and a modicum of research will reveal this.

Remember the (ahem) Civil War? Wasn't that a good case of states resisting what the federal government is doing?

Re:Civil War v2.0?

[omeomi]

It's why there ARE states - the term "state" can literally mean "country"

Somewhat ironically, the 50 states in the US, however, are not states in that sense...

They were, quite literally, separate nations until they united under the Constitution of the United States. This isn't new, and a modicum of research will reveal this.

Their relative influence over American life, however, has gone up and down quite a bit over the years. The GP seems to be pointing out that state independence is on a bit of an upswing. He's probably right about that.

Re:Civil War v2.0?

[TehZorroness]

I agree entirely and have also noticed this. What I am not sure about is if it is the Bush administration, or if by replacing him, we'll just open up a new can of worms. It's a chilling feeling, I know, but I'm quite sure that when bush is gone, the world won't suddenly be a dandy place.

Our federal government fails miserably to realize that there are more issues then just Iraq. For example: healthcare, global warming, net neutrality, outsourcing, corruption, the patent system, gun control, our education system, and endless others. These ALL need to be addressed IMMEDIATELY and SIMULTANEOUSLY. Right now, our federal government is having a terrible time multitasking. Until the Iraq war ends in 10+ years, I don't expect to see anything fixed (but lets all continue paying our taxes). The level of incompetence found in our government today is just astounding.

Each day the reality grows more and more grim. If we ended up in a situation where a succession were to take place, I would join in a heartbeat. Even if it failed, it would teach the government what happens when it doesn't do it's job. (keep in mind that other then the issue of nullification, the Confederate States of America were fundamentally the same as the USA. They broke away over ideals, not for radical change in government).

Re:Civil War v2.0?

[Kadin2048]

I won't speak for the GP, but I am not historically ignorant, and I don't think that his post should be blown off like you seem so keen on doing.

Throughout U.S. history there are identifiable patterns or periods when power has shifted between the States and the Federal government -- although the overwhelming theme has been from the former to the latter, there have been some periods where the reverse has occurred. I think it's entirely possible that the current uber-Federalism has reached the end of its rope with the public, and we're starting to see a loss of patience for highly centralized government, and a desire to decentralize some authority back out to the States. People want more accountability, and it's just not clear that the Federal government is in a position to provide it.

Although it's not a total non sequitur, I'm not sure that bringing up the Civil War is really relevant to the discussion; it's nearly impossible to have a rational discussion of the Civil War without getting wrapped up in the historically-related (and still partially unresolved) issues of agrarian-vs-industrial economies, slavery, and 19th century politics. (Particularly slavery -- it's hardly worth even trying to discuss the abstract issue of states' rights when anyone on the states' side of the argument is going to be called pro-slavery. It's like Nazism; it just stops the discussion.)

Re:Civil War v2.0?

[aldheorte]

It's good someone battles for states' rights, even if it falls to the states themselves, because neither party supports states' right anymore. The Bush administration gained power by suing in federal court to block a state court's ruling on a state issue, thus losing for the Republicans at the national level all credibility in championing states' rights, which used to differentiate the Republicans strongly from Democrats. In their heedless and desperate grab for power both then and after 9/11, they lost their party identity.

Get the states mad enough and they can call a Constitutional Convention and effectively rewrite the Constitution to strip the federal government of power. Whether the federal government would allow this or use the military to prevent it (and whether the military would obey) becomes an interesting question after the events circa 1865, when the fundamental notion of states participating voluntarily in a union shattered, for better or for worse depending with high correlation on your latitude with respect to the Mason-Dixon line.

Re:Civil War v2.0?

[wellingj]

How dare you even mention Godwin's Law... You Godwin's Law Natzi!

And it's a good way to start a bar fight.

[Kadin2048]

We do, but it's not all the same ... order chowder in Rhode Island and you'll get a very different product than in Maine.

(For the record, Maine "chowdah" is the real thing ... those heathen RIers defile theirs with tomatoes.)

Wish I still lived there.

[Kadin2048]

It's a pity that the economy in Maine is so messed up, because they do seem to have a state government with an unusual amount of backbone. I moved south a few years ago, and while I partially regret it and would love to move back, the numbers are just dismal.

As a state is has one of the highest tax burdens (as percent of income). IIRC it's up close to 15% going to the state, and second only to Vermont. (Although looking at newer stats they may have cut it down some.) And that's on top of Federal taxes. That wouldn't be too bad if you could get a high paying job -- you can buy a lot of property, inland anyway, for the cost of a townhouse in other parts of the country -- but except for a meager high-tech area down around Portland (National Semi has what I think is their prototype fab there), the job market is in tough shape.

Leaving Northern New England was one of the saddest things I ever did, but by moving to the Mid-Atlantic region I got an almost 50% pay increase -- even factoring in the ridiculous cost-of-living and the necessity (as far as I'm concerned) of running the A/C most of the time. Still, every time I hear a story like this, I can't help but cheer a little. And then feel vaguely dirty for so blatantly selling out.

Re:Wish I still lived there.

[spikedvodka]

Ayuah, Maine sure is great, and honestly, This is one of those times that I'm proud to be from Maine. Even if I only make less than $30k a year. My wife, son, and I can still live comfortably on that and her teaching salary.

And I sure have to agree with you, as a rule Maine's congress-critters have a backbone. I might not agree with all that they do, but that's life. As for the tax rate, they're trying to lower it by re-organizing schools, as well as other things. we'll see how that goes.

Net Neutrality Resolution

[Zapped.Info]

Perhaps now the best thing would be to contact your representative legislators and let them know that Maine has set an example that should be followed...HOWEVER...and this is a BIG HOWEVER...

We should be careful before celebrating and actually READ the resolution. I must admit that I have not read the resolution and while everything looks great on the surface, sometimes, we the people, end up getting duped into thinking our rights have been preserved when in fact they were diminished. I doubt that is the case here, but we should read the resolution with magnifying glasses before celebrating and promoting it.

Here is the bill text from Maine's website which must be behind the times because the leading page still reads, "Not yet determined"

http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/bills/billte xts/LD167501.asp

Leading page:
http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/bills/LD.asp ?LD=1675

Well...I've got some reading to do :) - Zapped.Info

Re:Net Neutrality Resolution -- seems good to me

[olden]

Call me weird, anti-/. or something, but I've read the bill (it's not that long, really), and it seems actually quite good.

Some interesting bits (my interpretation, IANAL etc; check the real stuff if you're into legalese):

• ISPs can still block spam/porn/attacks... as long as the customer is clearly notified of such filtering and can opt out

• However ISPs aren't allowed to, say, collect money from content providers for 'improved' service... bye Goodmail! :-)

• ISPs can implement some QoS (good!) but only based on the type of service, not its source/destination/ownership/content... In sync with this post by jonwil, who I fully agree with.

• Users can attach to their PC any device they want unless it "substantially degrade[s]" others' service -- Hello Wi-Fi sharing? :-]
  (this however certainly doesn't shield you from trouble if your line is used for illegal stuff)

All in all, seems pretty well-thought. Good job Maine. I can't see a nasty flaw, loophole, unnecessary burden put on ISPs or end-users...; did anyone spot some problem I missed?

Hannah Pingree (Maine state rep) rules!

[Mark_in_Brazil]

As an expat from Maine who still pays some attention to what goes on in his home state, I have already been a fan of state Rep Hannah Pingree for some time. She was the sponsor of an early law requiring a paper trail (and originally, but not in the final version passed, open source software) in electronic voting machines. I wrote about it here. Well, I went to the title page of the legislation, and there's Representative PINGREE from North Haven as one of the co-sponsors.
Additionally, Rep. Pingree has become the majority leader in the Maine state legislature. I am a fan of Ms. Pingree's work and look forward to following her political career. I'm torn, though. She seems to be effective in the state legislature, but since Tom Allen has announced he will run for Senate against Susan Collins, that leaves Allen's first district US House seat available. I've heard rumors that both Hannah Pingree and her mother, Chellie Pingree, were both considering running for that seat. Much as I like Hannah's work in the state legislature, I start to wonder if she couldn't get some stuff done on the Federal level. I'd like to have somebody with a background like Hannah Pingree's (voting machine legislation and net neutrality being the two "nerd issues" relevant to this discussion, but there are others on which I agree with Ms. Pingree) representing Maine in DC.
What kills me is the fact that, although I identify with Maine and still have a clue what's going on in Maine, I have to vote absentee in Federal elections (Congress, Senate, President) in the district in California that was the last place I lived in the USA. Even though I lived for 8 years in California, I do not identify as strongly with the state (it was a great place to live, but I'm from Maine) and, despite it getting a lot more media attention, I am not really up on California state legislation and politics. I don't need to be, because since I'm an expat, I only get to vote in Federal elections, but I really wish I could vote in the state with which I identify instead of the last place I happened to live before leaving the USA.
I recently found out that friend of mine from childhood and adolescence is now a state rep in Maine. I just saw him a few weeks ago at my 20 year high school reunion. I didn't know about LD 1675 when I saw him, but I've already shot him an e-mail asking him about it. I'm almost sure he would vote the way I would. Even if I didn't know him and like him from when we were kids, he seems to be a politician I could like based on the issues and based on his way of doing things. Anyway, I'm following legislative and political goings-on in Maine in part because Maine is my home state, but also because Hannah Pingree (and, it turns out, a friend from my childhood) is doing things there that make me proud to be a "Downeastah."

Ayuh.