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Justice Department Opposes Net Neutrality
thornomad writes "I was saddened (though not surprised) to read that the Justice Department opposes net neutrality saying that it could 'hamper development of the internet.' While it may seem counter-intuitive to me, they argue that allowing ISPs to provide different levels of service/speed for different content will benefit consumers. They did promise to 'continue to monitor and enforce any anticompetitive conduct to ensure a competitive broadband marketplace' — not that anyone was worried about that."
Maybe they understand the issue, but oppose (or see no reason for) government intervention, like I do. And like all the supposed libertarians on /. should.
My brain asplodes. -OJ
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and not about the consumer, or the "development of teh internets".
when a company charges consumers different prices for the same thing (bandwidth) based on usage patterns (and not some characteristics of the service), that strongly implies the company is using (in)elasticity of demand to extract larger profits than a competitive market would allow them to. that implies monopoly-like power and, while is good for the company, it is bad for everyone else.
the real question is why then would the government propose laws that will encourage monopoly and enhance profits of the few large players in the game. what is the deal -- more control over internet usage? easier access to information about users of the internets? both? more?
They did promise to "continue to monitor and enforce any anticompetitive conduct to ensure a competitive broadband marketplace"
It kept Microsoft in check. Why, in 1999 Windows was $89 and Microsoft Windows was pretty much a monopoly, and the users had no real choice in the marketplace, and the bundled MSIE was being forced on users, knocking competitors out of the market - they were leveraging a monopoly to gain market share in another market. It was choose Windows, or you couldn't interoperate with anyone.
Now, thanks to the harsh antitrust rulings against Microsoft, Windows is now only $299, MSIE comes bundled with the OS, and you get the Microsoft sidebar with live/msn search integration whether you want it or not, and Windows is hardly the only choice for the average consumer.
Of course I expect the DoJ to monitor broadband providers to ensure they play fair.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
It's called peering. I read some time ago that Yahoo only payed for half of its bandwidth. What that means is that only half of its traffic goes over their transit links. The other half (at the time) is peered directly to eyeball networks (aka ISP's) so it can bypass backbone networks. The outcome of this is that it gets lower ping times and more bandwidth to these networks. We *want* peering. Peering is good.
like this one in San Francisco, California:
,
http://sf.meraki.net/overview
I mean really. It is deplorable that the product of a publicly funded project (ARPANET) could be privatized in this fashion. So if the big telcos and cable companies think that they can eat our lunch, just let them try. Hopefully, the more they try to lock it down, the faster their business models will be commoditized by mesh networks.
It's not so much the Justice Dept as it is the Decider, really. The Decider wants the telcos to be able to make $lots, and so he gives the politicals running Justice their marching orders.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
You mean like how I pay Comcast through the nose so I can get legal downloads like Zelda Retrospective DVD (alt link) NOW, but instead I'm plodding along at 30KB/sec because Comcast is throttling me?
Sorry, poor torrent service is a pet peeve of mine. Otherwise I agree with both of you completely.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
So how's that 'ol freenet project coming along? Is there a mesh wireless network plugin I can use? Can everyone just buy 2 wireless cards and create one really ginormous ad hoc network?
Get a web developer
Here is the question: Should the road builder be forced to open up his private roadways to the public, at no cost, even though he spent $X Billion of his own money building the roads?
That's about as far off as you can be. To go along with your original UPS/FedEx/etc idea...
You order a package from Amazon. Amazon ships it to you via UPS. Along the way, UPS takes your package along a toll road. The toll operator looks inside the truck, sees an Amazon package, wants to force the truck to take the slow lanes unless Amazon pays a toll in addition to the toll UPS is paying. Should that be allowed?
They want control of the content. It's the new facisism taking over your life. It will feed you their adds, their news, and try to remake your life to benefit them. Wake up!
The DoJ seems to have become and arm of corporate america. Freedom was nice while it lasted. Bye!
And when pray tell, was this?!?!
I hate to feel the trolls, but, then again I think.....some people might actually believe this shit.
Get it straight...the internet was not developed for, nor designed to be there for business, nor family safe entertainment. Perhaps you are thinking about AOL before it was on the internet? That was not the internet...that was a private network....
The internet is not for business....business, like anyone else is welcome to use it, but, it is something that is and should remain a way for everyone connected, to be a true 'peer' to every other user with a computer hooked to the network. The little guy needs the same voice as the big guys.....and when you do this, well, chances are you might hear, read or see something you don't agree with...
It is a tool for the adult world...it is a freedom that must be preserved to give people a free voice to express themselves. If you don't like little Johnny seeing some parts of it...it is up to YOU as a parent to regulate their access. It is not right to muzzle the adult world for your lack of desire to police what your kids see and do on it.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Well it's a very Blurry line.
Tax Incentives / Breaks.. Spend 30 minutes poking around on google you'll be sick.
Indirectly like the fact that Verizon got a huge tax windfall in PA for signing a contract to lay fiber to distribute internet to 98% of the state by 1998. Wait.. what year is it? I don't think verizon should have to do anything you ask them to as a consumer, if you don't like the service, don't buy it; however, they do have a contractual obligation, and they did sign up for that, so they had better either deliver, or pay the price, somehow. I actually had to MOVE so I could get broad band, and I lived only 2 miles outside of a moderately sized 'big-small-town.' I don't think as a rule they should be required to lease lines out in general to last miles, but given the circumstances of their contract with PA, I think they should in those cases have to sign at least someone up for a last mile in 98% of the places they have a mainline, if they don't want to carry it themselves I mean. If it wasn't feasible, they shouldn't have signed the agreement. End of story. I do think that it is their own right to regulate their own traffic if they are indeed providing the service. You can't have any such thing as an SLA without being able to somehow control the service... I'd pay a tax for government internet, as long as I get what I paid for. I somehow don't see them being able to do it though, so lets just make sure the private companies do what they say they'll do like any other business.
Speak for yourself.
First, the DoJ just said that it was legal to offer non-neutral services. It said that it is legal because it is. You can be pissed off at the DoJ for saying it, but not saying it wouldn't make it any less true. The legislator is responsible for passing net neutrality laws, not the DoJ. The DoJ couldn't "mandate" net neutrality even if they wanted to.
Second, the whole 'net neutrality' debate is descended into the heights of ideological idiocracy. I would swear listening to the two sides that taking a step in one direction or the other will lead to all good thing or all evil.
The simple truth is that there are good reasons to have 'net neutrality', and good reasons why it sucks. Giving bandwidth owners the ability to delay certain packs comes with both consequences and rewards. Throttling Bit Torrent is very good for some people, and very bad for others. So how about we quit this mindless ideological spouting and talk about the real costs and benefits?
God forbid, if we stepped back from ideological rhetoric we might even find a solution that is not one extreme or another and that balances bandwidth providers fear of filling up their series of tubes (the internet is not a dump truck!) with consumer fears that AT&T is going to kill VOIP without telling anyone.
well said. I'm glad my little post has been able to get this discussion rolling.
The fact that the ISP sector has received all these Billions in tax breaks and cash supplements, and then produced nothing near what they promised, is a travesty. That they are not being brutally legislated against is criminal.
Japan is one of the most successful 'privatized broadband' countries in the world. Japanese netizens have enough bandwidth (this is a normal home connection) to watch high-quality, streaming TV. Not some crappy youtube stream either; but stage6 HD at full stream. They built a very strong Copper framework originally, using government and private funds. It started out very much like how the US system was put together. BUT, Japan has laws are in place that force the ISP's to share access over their networks. The ISP's have to share at reasonable and useful rates, not some exorbitant rate that kicks out competitors. We've tried to get this allowed in the US, but the laws have been seriously lackluster.
These laws are considered the key reason that Japan has been so successful in spurring competition in it's ISP sector. It's also considered the key reason that there is so much Fibre infrastructure being laid down. Companies want to compete, so now that everyone has crazy-awesome DSL, and the multitude of competitors have dropped prices to their bare minimum, the ISP's are laying down Fibre-to-the-Home. But the issue is not cut and dry... completely privately-owned Fibre infrastructure isn't covered by the 'full competition' laws, so there is a big legal battle going on right now in Japan because all of the ISPs that lay down the Fibre want to keep that investment for themselves. They don't want to let competitors onto their wire... They paid for it, why shouldn't they get to be the main profiteers of it?
Ultimately, it's really a moral question. Trying to equate it to economics merely gets in the way. Should we, consciously and forcefully, tell these ISPs to take a hike? Should we tell them, as a country, that if they want to play the ISP game, they much be willing to share the wires at commodity rates?
I personally feel that the benefits of all should outweigh the benefits of the ISPs, which is why I support Net Neutrality. I come to this decision because I firmly believe that competitive environments are more important that the property rights of ISPs, and I willingly choose that helping spur the benefit of American internet companies is more important that keeping high the profits of American ISPs.
- DaftShadow
Well, this is getting a bit off topic - but OK.
.com each year. That's a fiat transfer of roughly $6.97 from you and me to Verisign every year for each of the 60,000,000+ names in .com. That works out to very roughly $400,000,000 per year. Add in similar situations for .org, .net and you come up with half a billion $ each year.
There are several indicators that suggest that the actual cost to provide a domain name registration at the registry level is only a few cents per year (I estimate that it is less than $0.03).
ICANN requires that Verisign receive more than $7 for each name in
Even if I'm off by an order of magnitude, i.e. that it's merely $50,000,000 a year, we're still talking about a lot of money that is being pumped.
Now, ICANN is run by incumbent registries, registrars, and business interests that like the status quo. They set domain name price floors (the registry fee), sales terms (such as UDRP, whois, and terms of 1 to 10 years in one year increments), as well as decide who may and who may not sell names in that marketplace, who must be used as resellers, and, on top of it all, ICANN extracts an override on all sales. It looks like and smells like a combination of insiders who restrain the trade of domain names. Illegal?
And remember, at least with telcos who engage in non net-neutral practices and with Microsoft, at least you and I, in theory, can buy stock and have a say in what they do (in theory.) In ICANN we don't even have that theory because ICANN has eliminated any real form of public role in its decision making processes.
"The internet is not for business....business, like anyone else is welcome to use it, but, it is something that is and should remain a way for everyone connected, to be a true 'peer' to every other user with a computer hooked to the network. The little guy needs the same voice as the big guys.....and when you do this, well, chances are you might hear, read or see something you don't agree with..."
And this is different from the Telephone or the Telegraph how? Everyone here is talking about the Internet like it's some holy object. It's not. It's a network put togther by agreements between business, academia, and government. It may not exclusively be for anyone one of them, but lets not delude ourselves into thinking there would be an internet without any of the three. Your vaunted freedom comes from the fee you pay each month, just like my vaunted freedom to call anyone on the phone comes from my bill.* The extent of the governments involvement and my right is a phone and service under fair terms. Not a guarentee to have free phone service, any more than I'm guarenteed a newspaper, nor a voice in it.
*And that's the extent of my freedom. No more.