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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.
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!
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
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.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
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.
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.
... those heathen RIers defile theirs with tomatoes.)
(For the record, Maine "chowdah" is the real thing
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
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.
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...
e xts/LD167501.asp
p ?LD=1675
:) - Zapped.Info
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/billt
Leading page:
http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/bills/LD.as
Well...I've got some reading to do
It's important to know that I forgot what I thought I knew when I thought I knew it all:Now I don't even know whatIknow.
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.
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):
(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?