US Lawmakers Propose New Net Neutrality Bill

An anonymous reader brings news that Net Neutrality legislation is making another comeback. A new bill, sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), would make ISPs who fail to provide service in a non-discriminatory manner subject to anti-trust violations. From the NYTimes: "'The bill squarely addresses the issue of the enormous market power of the telephone and cable companies as the providers of 98 percent of the broadband service in the country,' said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge. But broadband providers and some congressional Republicans have argued that net neutrality legislation isn't necessary. The broadband market is becoming more competitive and net neutrality regulations could hamper investment in broadband networks, some Republicans said during a hearing this week."

Comments

Not necessary?

[rukkyg]

If you think a law isn't necessary, and a bunch of other people do, then why wouldn't you just approve it? From your perspective, the law would have no effect, positive or negative. To the other people, you look like you agree with them. Win-Win.

Therefore I conclude, that large companies and congressional Republicans are lying. Of course, that was really my thought before I read this article.

Re:Not necessary?

[JustKidding]

Indeed. Ofcourse, when they argue that it would "hamper investments in networks", they mean that the providers won't be able to extort money from content providers *and* consumers at the same time, money which, obviously, would be spend on improving the network.

I would think not having such a bill would hamper investments. There is much money to be made in creating an artificially low supply of bandwidth.

Re:Not necessary?

[m.ducharme]

Passing unnecessary laws just to make people happy is inefficient, and causes the system to become over-burdened as people try to game the new law for their own benefit, can cause unintended consequences in relation to other, more well-established laws (over-riding certain parts of an older bill, for example).

Let me ask you this, do you think it's a great idea to add a new procedure/function/module to a piece of software, that definitely interacts with the previously written and tested code, if you think that new code is unnecessary, just to make a PHB happy?

For the record, I do think net neutrality laws are necessary. I don't think however, that unnecessary laws are harmless.

Re:Not necessary?

[m.ducharme]

I was going to write a long, thoughtful post in reply to yours, then I noticed the Ayn Rand quote in your sig. Sorry, I don't argue with religious fanatics.

Re:Not necessary?

[RingDev]

If I'm an investor, I'd be less likely to put my money into a company constructing infrastructure resources that aren't in their power to control So you wouldn't consider investing in Power companies? Or Oil/Gas production companies? or telecoms? You're cutting out an awful lot of highly profitable and stable investment opportunities. But I guess if you prefer the unregulated industries, there are a whole lot of penny stock options for you. I've got some SCO shares for sale if you'd like ;)

Just trying to follow the dots here.

You are an investor.
Your local ISP provides an investment oppertunity.
Your local ISP has a near monopoly on the market.
The federal government passes a law the limits your ISP's behavior.
Your local ISP is still a near monopoly.
Your local ISP needs to improve it's infrastructure to meet consumer demand and follow the new limitations.
Your local ISP now has a reason to seek more investors.
Your local ISP now has more hard assets, a greater total value, a higher market cap, and still next to no competition.

So yeah, maybe there is a year in there where profit margins are cut slightly to offset the cost of improving the infrastructure, but the end result is that the consumers don't get screwed, there are more investment opportunities, and your investment's growth likely remains stable or increases.

Other than a slight change in investment value in the time between the need for money and the acquisition of assets, it really doesn't look (to my armchair forecasting) to be a major problem.

(Similarly, you'd be less likely to put your money in a bank that has a zero percent interest rate, solely for the convenience of using ATM machines.) But would you invest in a consumer bank that did not have ATM's? Probably not, because even though it is your investment that gets them off the ground, it is the consumers who pay to keep it going. And if the bank does not provide the services that the consumers demand, it's going to be unprofitable, which is going to make your investment next to worthless in short order.

-Rick

Re:Not necessary?

[Jason Levine]

In general, my "keep government small and out of our lives" sensibilities would be opposed to a Network Neutrality bill. I'd be afraid that they would muck things up too much. However, the only thing worse than government interference is giant corporations run amok. At least the government (somewhat) answers to the public. Giant corporations answer only to shareholders. In the case of ISPs, they also hold near-monopoly power. Want a broadband Internet connection? You can go with the Cable Company or the Phone Company. Don't like that the Cable Company is blocking bittorrent? What about the Phone Company who has decided that Slashdot will be slowed to dial-up speeds unless Slashdot pays the Phone Company for the right to reach the Phone Company's users? Don't like either? Well, either pick the lesser of two evils or go back to dial-up. The Giant ISP Companies have already either made my examples real (bittorrent throttling) or have threatened to do it (Ed Whittacre's "content providers are using my pipes for free" speeches). If they had their way, you would pay them for access to the Internet and then Internet sites would have to pay them for access to you. Our only hope against these giant companies is the government.

Re:Not necessary?

[Em Adespoton]

Here's the missing piece of your argument:

The broadband market is becoming more competitive and net neutrality regulations could hamper investment in broadband networks, some Republicans said during a hearing this week. It's easy to argue the market is becoming more competitive when the starting point is 0. It's also true that net neutrality regulations could hamper investment in the 1 or 2 broadband networks currently in place -- because people would be investing in the alternative networks instead.

Talk about one-sided arguments. This is why unnecessary laws != net neutrality laws, and why net neutrality laws are necessary.

Competition

[77Punker]

I don't know about their dream world, but I live in a metropolitan area with 1.1 million people. When I got broadband 8 years ago, Road Runner was the only option.
There's DSL now, but it costs the same price for much lower speed. I'd like to have options, and I'm moving across the country to Tempe soon. Hopefully things are better there.

Parse these lies

[PopeRatzo]

The broadband market is becoming more competitive and net neutrality regulations could hamper investment in broadband networks, some Republicans said during a hearing this week

One would think that after a while it would get to be a chore to have to lie day after day to millions of people, but I guess the payback for "some Republicans" is great enough that their willing to step up to the challenge.

And I guess they're being rewarded richly enough by their corporate masters that they are able to say things like "hamper investment in broadband networks".

It's just like when the GOP say that "additional regulations will stop businesses from growing or adding jobs". The periods in our history when we had the most stringent regulations (and the highest taxes) also happened to be periods of greatest economic and job growth, as well as the strongest and most wealthy middle class.

We have to face that the Republicans, and their "small government Conservativism" have been nothing but a mouthpiece for greedy corporatists who want to make a fast buck at the expense of the rest of us and at the expense of America's well-being.

Re:Parse these lies

[maxume]

Yes, the Carter era was a bonanza compared to the Reagan-Bush I years (things were pretty good under Clinton, but his economic policies were closer to Reagan than, say, Kennedy or Johnson).

It's a ridiculous simplification to attribute the presence or lack of economic success to the man in office at the time, because there are policies that take many years to take effect or unwind, but the idea that taxing wealthy people at 90% is smart is just silly. Wealthy people pay ~25% taxes on their income at the moment, that could easily go north of 35% without really hurting anything, but there is a good debate somewhere near 50%.

Re:Parse these lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Your So Wrong.

First time poster, long term reader.

"The periods in our history when we had the most stringent regulations (and the highest taxes) also happened to be periods of greatest economic and job growth, as well as the strongest and most wealthy middle class."

Its well noted that reducing taxes on those that actually pay the bills in your country increases the amount of tax that they pay, i.e people stop running from the tax man and just start paying it because its less than the risk of getting caught.

People who earn under 100k a year pay a disproportionate amount of tax compared to the services they use. Most of your countries tax spending is footed by the rich. And why should they subsidize your lifestyle? Why don't you go to graduate school? Or develop an innovation?

Regulations only serve to raise prices. Increasing taxes or costs of running just either

A: Forces companies to increase prices to mitigate losses, driving up the price of the commodity and increasing costs to consumers

or

B: Forces companies to leave that sector of business reducingc competition, decreasing stakeholders in the sector and allowing higher market prices.

Do not confuse Deregulation with Giving a Governement Ordered Monopoly. Deregulation reduces overhead on ALL companies in a sector, otherwise its not really deregulation, its just being a dirty politician. Startups get taxed on profits just like middle and upper size companies.

"...hamper investment in broadband networks..."

Who is going to pay for consumer level data networks? If a company makes an investment, and thats precisely what infrastructure is, then that company has to make a profit on that investment, they are legally obliged to. Or the government can build it, and push your defecit up even more. Pick one.

But honestly. Above all. Why would you work harder, earn more money, if you were being taxed hardcore?

In your great depression, your total taxes added up to ninety four percent.

NINETY FOUR PERCENT.

NINE FOUR.

Plus, protectionist stratagies i.e the Smoot Tariff BS, only ever destroyed your economy, and allowed the soviets to become the big grain producer.

Taxes do not equal a better middle class. How can taxes equal more wealth? That just doesnt logically make sense, at all, ever. Your problem, just like ours, and everyone else's, is inflation.

The reason your middle class is being wasted is because you've eroded the worth of your dollar to one percent of its value from the 20th century. The rich have more equity and a higher cash flow, so thus can better make use of the liquidity available from the central banks. You can't print money at increasing percentages year on year and not expect a consequence.

I have never understood people's belief that politicians, who have no economic training, can actually solve economic issues. There no better than you or me. The majority dont objectively decide wether what is fed to them is the real deal or not. They are POPULISTS. Populists goals are to remain popular, that is all.

Don't preach understanding of basic economics without reading anything. Hating against companies achieves nothing. It's sad that a twenty-one year old psych nurse from Australia knows more about economics and YOUR history than you.

Re:Parse these lies

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

One would think that after a while it would get to be a chore to have to lie day after day to millions of people, but I guess the payback for "some Republicans" is great enough that their willing to step up to the challenge.

I think you are right about the majority of Republicans. They've just been bought. However, some actually do believe that stuff. It is typical Republican mantra to say "Government bad. Business good." "All regulation bad. All deregulation good." "The free market solves all ills." So I can see that there might actually be a few Republicans who honestly believe that the free market is solving this problem, but I do think that most of the Republican opposition is simply because the big providers paid them enough to oppose it.

Re:Parse these lies

[SydShamino]

Most of your countries tax spending is footed by the rich. And why should they subsidize your lifestyle? The rich depend on public-school-educated police officers to keep them safe at home.
The rich depend on public-school-educated employees to make them money.
The rich depend on public-school-educated workers to build the products they buy with their money.
The rich depend on public-school-educated professionals to fill their prescriptions.
The rich depend on public-financed road networks to move their products.
The rich depend on public-financed communication networks (like the subsidized phone system and the government-funded internet) to enable their businesses.
The rich depend on public-financed military to protect their business interests overseas.
The rich depend on public-financed military to protect their country from invasion.
The rich depend on public-financed social, medical, and economic safety nets to prevent the type of discontent among the poor that create revolution.

The poor depend on many of the above to survive, but, in absence of those things, the poor who have nothing to lose would revolt and restructure their society to provide them. Eliminating the safety nets and social programs would make things very bad for the poor for a time, then make things better after the revolution. Eliminating the safety nets and social programs would make things better for the rich for a time, then make things much, much worse after the revolution.

The rich have gotten far more out of the system than the poor, and they have far more to lose if the system breaks down. It is only and truly fair that they pay their fair share to fund it. That fair share, proportionally, is much larger percentage of their income.

Re:Parse these lies

[Colonel Korn]

You make a lot of dramatically incorrect assertions, many of which are figures that are simply wrong, but let's focus just on this:

"Regulations only serve to raise prices."

The last major deregulation we had in the US was an energy deregulation that led to tripling of power costs in California and frequent blackouts due to massive collusion among energy suppliers. $20 billion was flat out stolen from Californians, but since the Texan energy companies that did the stealing were controlled by friends of Mr. Bush, the federal government refused to look into taking that $20 billion back. If California hadn't voted against Bush in the election, things might have been different, but things weren't different.

Funny question: have you heard of Enron?

Even if this passes, it wont necessarily help

[jonwil]

Even if this passes, it wont necessarily help. The lawyers for the big telcos/cable companies will spend the next decade in courtrooms coast to coast trying to argue for their interpretation of what "provide service in a non-discriminatory manner" actually means.

competitive my ass..

[bleh-of-the-huns]

Competition is supposed to bring down the prices of products.. yet all I have seen in the last 6 months is 3 rate hikes (verizon fios)... and I have plenty of options..... oh wait, no I don't.. I have Cable (Comcast can go F themselves into oblivion so thats not an option), and Fios (if I was to include TV then I also have DTV or Dish as an option)..

A duopoly is not competitive, and I have no options for DSL or any other landline based solution other then dialup. Sat internet is not an option, too much latency

RIAA, MPAA...

[craagz]

..will want to get this law voted in so that all ISPs will have the ability to throttle P2P traffic through selective blocking of trackers.

Re:RIAA, MPAA...

[MBGMorden]

Wha? This law would actually PREVENT that, not encourage it. Selective blocking of trackers is treating some sites differently than others. That's a no-no under a net neutral mentality.

Worded less politely, net neutrality boils down to the customer saying to the ISP:

"I pay you for bandwidth. Nothing more. Shut the fuck up and let me spend that bandwidth how and where I please.".

I can't believe it's even an issue in people's minds. If Comcast built a huge toll road that lead to a dead end, nobody would drive on it and their stockholders would throw mad fits. It would be a blessing if the Google Sushi Bar opened next to the road serving up the best sushi in the state for low prices. People would actually pay to use their road now. You'd think they'd be happy, but no Comcast wants to charge the travelers AND charge the Google Sushi Bar every time someone wants to turn into their restaurant. Or, if they don't pay up, they'll still let people go there, but only 3 cars every hour. You're welcome to go to the brand new Comcast Sushi Bar across the street though.

That's pretty much the situation that we're looking at, and it needs to be stopped, by law if necessary (and I've heard enough rumblings from the telecoms to believe it is now necessary). Claiming it'll "hinder investment" is just asinine. Of course companies would build more networks if they could unfairly extort money from people. That doesn't make it right.

Huh?

[dreamchaser]

What does his race have to do with his position as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee?

From the TFA, which you apparantly didn't read:

'Conyers and Lofgren were cosponsors of a similar bill introduced in 2006, when Republicans held a majority in the House. With significant Republican opposition, the 2006 bill died, but Democrats were elected to the majority late that year.

"Americans have come to expect the Internet to be open to everyone," Conyers said in a statement. "The Internet was designed without centralized control, without gatekeepers for content and services. If we allow companies with monopoly or duopoly power to control how the Internet operates, network providers could have the power to choose what content is available."'

While Conyers has at times made efforts in Congress that reflect his consituency, he appears to be acting as the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee should be acting. I am actually not a fan of his (I tend to be far more conservative than he), but your vaguely racist comment made me scratch my head and say 'Huh?'.

I'll reserve further judgement until I've had a chance to read the text of the bill.

Competitive market?

[rkhalloran]

For most markets, you have either cable or DSL. In large markets, you probably have both. In some VERY major markets (Bos-Wash metroplex, California, etc), you may have fiber-optic and cable.

Outside of that last group, you really don't have a choice of providers, so you're stuck with whatever crappy TOS they give you. Just look at the recent news about Comcast throttling P2P, and now talking about monthly traffic caps. Guess how long that would last if they actually *DID* have competition for customers?

Sadly, the prospects of this bill getting anywhere in the current whores-for-corporations Congress is about nil, but it probably looks good for Conyers' re-election campaign.

Like those pesky Banking Regulations!

[FatSean]

You know, the ones repealed and/or not passed in the late 80's and 90's in order to help the economy grow...which then led to shady banking practices that begat our current 'credit crunch'.

Yeah, I've heard this story before. I like the regulations, they are necessary for capitalism to work in the real world.

Re:Like those pesky Banking Regulations!

[DesScorp]

"You know, the ones repealed and/or not passed in the late 80's and 90's in order to help the economy grow...which then led to shady banking practices that begat our current 'credit crunch'."

Wow, put on the hipwaders. The bullshit is thick today.

Our current "credit crunch" had nothing to do with banking deregulation of the late 80's and early 90's. It has everything to do with three issues.

One, the subprime mess. That's the fault of people buying houses they knew they couldn't afford, and banks lending them money they couldn't pay back. But why were the banks lending them that money, then? Because politicians decided that it wasn't fair that people with bad credit couldn't get home loans, so they created laws authorizing subprime mortgages, and indeed pressed banks to give these loans to "disadvantaged" borrowers. That's right, your beloved government regulations helped create this mess. And now these same politicians are promising to spend taxpayer funds to bail out these irresponsible people and banks, while people that played by the rules... the ones that only bought houses they knew they could afford, or when they couldn't, rented instead... well, your beloved regulators are about to stab those people in the back. The ones that played by the rules? Suckers and chumps, apparently, because they could have gone hog wild and let Uncle Sugar bail them out. THATS the fruits of your nanny regulation, not true free market economics.

The other two reasons are strictly because of monetary policy, not banking regulation. The Fed decided on too much liquidity, and the Bush Adminstration adopted a weak dollar policy, mainly because of complaints by people much like you that "our trade deficit is too high! Get the Chinese to buy more from US!". So Bush bought into that fraudulent thinking that if we made our domestic products cheaper via a weak dollar, foreign countries would come running to buy more of our products (never mind that in the US, throughout 400 years of our history, has had a trade deficit for 350+ of those years, and it hasn't retarded our economic growth. The trade deficit is a useless measure of overall economic health).

"I like the regulations, they are necessary for capitalism to work in the real world"

Ahh, the old bullshit that capitalism isn't "efficient" enough without government regulation.

The only thing capitalism needs to work "in the real world" is a seller that has something a buyer wants, and a buyer that has the means to pay for that product or service. Period. Regulation that does anything other than prevent fraud is nothing more than a drag on markets.

Re:Like those pesky Banking Regulations!

[hunterx11]

The only thing capitalism needs to work "in the real world" is a seller that has something a buyer wants, and a buyer that has the means to pay for that product or service. Period. Regulation that does anything other than prevent fraud is nothing more than a drag on markets. There is no categorical necessity that we prevent any evil at all "in the real world", but that isn't some sort of normative argument that we shouldn't do so, either. Regulation that promotes social welfare may be a drag on the markets, but this is acceptable if human beings are deemed more valuable than the market.

Explain this, then

[Travoltus]

Show me one time in American history where conservatism (economic laissez-faire, in particular) has served us well.

We de-regulated banks and got the Great Depression - that is, that whole economic collapse thing from unstable banks long before your Smoot-Hawley boogeyman ever came along. Oh and how was that Soviet grain production going around the 1970s? Compared to socialist America, I mean.

Tell us, what ruin came of America from the New Deal? Oh noes, that preceded a nice long run of American prosperity. Which ironically ended with unregulated corporatism.

How's that de-regulation doing for the airlines and energy industries? Oh, my.
http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/105023/Expect-a-Jolt-When-Opening-the-Electric-Bill

And what about those S&L's?

Oh yeah, we're doing great with de-regulation.

Okay now name me one successful first world country on the planet that uses laissez-faire economics. Show me one. Just one. I'm waiting.

More competitive? Don't make me laugh ...

[rnturn]

... and spill my coffee.

``The broadband market is becoming more competitive and net neutrality regulations could hamper investment in broadband networks...''

Oh really. In my town we have all of two options for "broadband": Comcast and At&T. Want a business class line from either of those? Prepare to pay through the nose. And I haven't checked out whether this is true with Comcast because, well, they're Comcast, but from AT&T a business class line is no indication that you'll be able to run servers on your broadband connection. You just get to pay more.

These two have a captive market so they have little to no incentive to make a better offereing. Heck, from what I understand the area that we moved away from nearly eight years ago still doesn't even offer ADSL. And when we moved it was two years past its supposedly scheduled installation in the local office. So that is ten years for that area. So just how would net neutrality keep AT&T from installing updated equipment in their local office?

There was a promising alternative to those two: a wireless provider that included a plan for small businesses for a pretty decent connection -- same bandwidth for upload and download -- for a price much lower than either of the two biggies. The catch? Well it turns out all that inbound bandwidth I'd get with a business class connection would be wasted since the local manager decided to prohibit businesses from running their own servers. I'll try again in a year and hope that their management has gotten smarter. Until then, we'll struggle along with our IDSL connection from Covad.

I never thought I'd wind up living in a country that's turning out to be such a technological backwater.

Good regulation, bad regulation

[davide marney]

The proper function of government is not to pick market winners and losers, but to look out for the common interests of the people. Most can agree that an open, freely competitive environment has a better chance at meeting our common interests than a closed, noncompetitive environment. (The catastrophic history of communism, alone, should be evidence enough of the truth of this proposition.)

Do we have an open, freely competitive market for telecommunications services in the US? The answer is clearly, no. We have a marginally competitive market composed of government-granted monopolies.

The problem isn't that we have "too much" government regulation. Without a grant of monopoly -- a government regulation -- the network operators wouldn't have a network to operate in the first place. The problem is we have the wrong kind of regulations. The government shouldn't be granting monopolies in the first place. Rather, it should be setting interoperability standards and requirements that keep the market as open and freely competitive as possible.

Seen in this light, then, these bills are a welcome addition. They at least set a standard for openness and nondiscrimination, which is a good thing for a government to be doing.

Re:Motivation not what people are thinking?

[cornjones]

most white people almost never think about race. For most black people, even (or maybe especially) those in the middle class, race is always on their mind. I know, i get yelled at this everytime i bring it up but if it isn't on the mind of most white people and it is always on the mind of most black people, doesn't that infer that racial discrimination may be more because it is so forefront in the minds of the black community?

holey run on batman....