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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."
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.
They're trying to get it passed by a bunch of conservatives. "Net Equality" reminds them of communism and sharing, which they don't like. "Net Neutrality" on the other hand, reminds them of Swiss bankers, which every rich conservative likes. Neutrality is a much easier sell than equality.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
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%.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
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.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
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.
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.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
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.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday