Obama Picks Net Neutrality Backer As FCC Chief

Ripit writes "President Obama on Tuesday nominated Julius Genachowski as the nation's top telecommunications regulator, picking a campaign adviser who has divided his career between Washington, D.C., political jobs and working as an Internet executive. Genachowski is likely to continue the Democratic push for more Net neutrality regulations, which are opposed by some conservatives and telecommunications providers. He was a top Obama technology adviser and aided in crafting a technology platform that supported Net neutrality rules."

Comments

And then...

[spykemail]

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the sentiment behind net neutrality. But rather than just regulating, which we know never goes wrong, why not foster a more competitive market as well? I hear that sometimes helps keep capitalism from sucking.

Re:And then...

[spykemail]

Have you heard of monopolies? Granted it's not that bad thanks to competing technologies but it's still pretty darn bad in many local markets. When was the last time you started a telecommunications company? I hear the tubes can be pretty expensive~

Re:And then...

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

But rather than just regulating, which we know never goes wrong

Oh yeah, just what we need these days, more de-regulation. Do you live under a rock, or have you not noticed an economic depression lately that is caused by total lack of regulation?

why not foster a more competitive market as well?

Competitive market in what? If you propose to let data carriers compete with one another freely, they'll go to bed with big corporations and media companies faster than you can see the dollar signs in their CEOs' eyes. Then loss of net neutrality ensues. If you propose competition between companies that produce said data, then fair enough I suppose.

Re:And then...

[ByOhTek]

The funny thing is, that's the goal of the regulation.

Regulation that encourages competition is a good thing. Lack of net neutrality would force people to pay extra charges to the various telcos to compete, which would reduce competition.

Telcos are already charging their customers, they shouldn't double dip and charge those their customers want to access as well.

Re:And then...

[erroneus]

The problem with the current broadband market is the cherry picking and exclusivity of many areas. While some areas are rich with broadband while others are lucky to have dialup.

Internet service needs to be treated as a utility just like electric power and telephone service. There are plenty of working regulations for telephone and power service and we know from recent history and current events when regulations are removed "to bring about competition" right? Texas and California deregulated power and now Texas and California have VERY high energy rates! That's higher, not lower, even when there is supposedly competition present. The monopoly abuses of phone companies are well documented and while there is some level of competition in phone, there are a lot of nonsense costs associated with phone services abusing customers of every form of phone service.

Capitalism is viewed by many as "that which the market will bear." This lends itself to how much nonsense and abuse the market will bear which is the condition we see today.

Right now, everyone is scrambling for ways to make profit from everything imaginable and if that means erecting some sort of toll gate system on the public interenet, then that is what they are prepared to do unless they are regulated as a utility. You should see the mess that is the ATM (Automated Teller Machine) processing industry. If you wonder why ATM fees are so high, you have to know that there are several links in the processing chain and that everyone in that chain pushes their small fees that ultimately amount to large fees. If the internet were to adopt this model, you'd be paying $2/hr to post on slashdot.

Re:And then...

[flitty]

What I would prefer, is if the Pipes were open pipes. The Recovery package should have included money to buy up all of the laid fiber/cable and open it up to competition.

Here in Utah, Utopia is the open fiber that any ISP can use to give you access, and it works wonderfully. Most fiber is approx $50/month, and if you don't like your provider, you can switch without needing a new wire run to your house. If internet access worked this way, Net Neutrality would be unnecessary, but it doesn't, so it's required so Ma Bell doesn't get any bright ideas about which content it should start filtering.

Re:And then...

[magamiako1]

It was given to them by local governments. At least, around here it was. Comcast had an essential monopoly in Baltimore county for many, many years. It made it impossible for any competing ISP to step in and grab market in this county.

Guess what? The surrounding ISPs/cable companies went out of business because of this.

Re:And then...

[Polumna]

I'm afraid you're actually quite wrong, there. The president's job is to do what he was elected to do. Given that the president's entire campaign was based around the word 'change,' you might want to consider that the majority of voters apparently agreed. Therefore it could easily be argued that Obama's job, literally, IS to change that which America has become.

Sorry, I guess I'm just blind.

Re:And then...

[FireStormZ]

"The president's job is to do what he was elected to do"

Ummm no, the presidents Job is clearly defined in the constitution, modified by laws from congress and vetted by the supreme court. If the presidents job is to 'do what he was elected to do' than all this complaining about Buh is off mark, after all he was only doing what voters put him in office to do. The idea that because President Obama got 5.4 out of 10 people to vote for him he has cart blanch to make 'change' is disturbing. He is just a man and the constitution is bigger than him.

Re:And then...

[Polumna]

Regardless of what ANY presidential candidate campaigns on, he IS restricted to the Constitutionally delineated duties and privileges of the Presidency.

I just KNEW someone was going to call me out on that... If and when Obama, or any president, were to do something unconstitutional, I can guarantee to you that I will either be calling for their impeachment or arguing for an amendment to the Constitution. That's the beauty of the living document, after all.

Which means that making fundamental change in our society (such as altering the economy and political system from a Capitalistic Representative Republic to a Socialistic Single Party System.) is literally prohibited from even attempting. Not that "The One" won't try it. The "stimulus" package is one such totally unconstitutional example.

Also, reading the Constitution right here, I note that it has these mechanisms for change built right into it. On the other hand, I don't see anything referring to how many parties there should be, or one single reference to capitalism being the One True American Way. I also don't see any way to hold the President responsible for said fundamental changes, when any change he makes has to be at least approved, if not written, by the Congress. (And at least the way I read Article 1, Section 8, Congress can go as socialistic as the people want it to... good old "general Welfare") I can see disagreeing with the stimulus package. I am very curious to know which elements of it you see conflicting with what words in the Constitution?

For the sake of continuing the argument, I'll pick an obviously unconstitutional act: the suspension of Habeas Corpus. It's right there, Article 1 Section 9. Only in cases of rebellion or invasion. (You'll have to join me in the reasonable assumption that the Founders didn't mean "when we invade another country.") I do not blame Bush for this. I blame him for ratifying it. I blame every single person in Congress who voted to make it possible. I assume from your position, you would have to agree?

Re:And then...

[theaceoffire]

If Obama follows the Constitution, that would be the biggest change seen in many years.

Re:And then...

[fl!ptop]

who is going to pay for those DSL upgrades?

from the FCC's website:

Because telephones provide a vital link to emergency services, to government services and to surrounding communities, it has been our nation's policy to promote telephone service to all households since this service began in the 1930s. The USF helps to make phone service affordable and available to all Americans, including consumers with low incomes, those living in areas where the costs of providing telephone service is high, schools and libraries and rural health care providers. Congress has mandated that all telephone companies providing interstate service must contribute to the USF. Although not required to do so by the government, many carriers choose to pass their contribution costs on to their customers in the form of a line item, often called the "Federal Universal Service Fee" or "Universal Connectivity Fee."

could high-speed internet access someday be interpreted to be a "vital link...to government services?" maybe.

there are options for us rural dwellers. there's satellite, which is somewhat expensive and not very fast. there's also the cellular network. an aircard in combination with a wireless router works well, if you can get a signal at your house. some companies offer wireless broadband over the 5.8 spectrum, but you more-or-less need line-of-site to the tower for that. another possibility is broadband-over-powerlines, but i think they suffer from the same fate as dsl, requiring the user be within a certain distance of their "box."

any way you slice it, rural customers will be out of luck for some time to come.

Re:And then...

[Fallen Seraph]

Spoken like a man who has absolutely no idea how our nation's network infrastructure works.

Ever heard of the "last mile"? The reason many areas in the US have broadband providers holding local monopolies is because running cable to homes is one of the most expensive undertakings you can make. To say that other providers should run cable to homes to compete for a market would be to say "They should spend millions on construction and infrastructure for a slim chance at succeeding in the local market." It's just not cost effective, and it's difficult to justify to investors. Additionally, in many areas there just isn't sufficient interest to warrant this investment because the local population doesn't see the appeal of broadband, even just for upgrading phone lines for DSL.

In my area we have both Fios and Cable broadband, but one of my coworkers, who lives in Queens in NYC, doesn't have any broadband access, because he lives on the other side of a highway, and neither the cable company nor the phone company are willing to run wires a block for him and his neighbors, despite very vocal arguments. But you wanna tell me they'd be willing to spring for thousands of square miles for a population that's still primarily indifferent to the technology? I doubt it.

It's unfortunate, but broadband is very much an "if you build it they will come" technology, where the consumer often doesn't see the benefit of it until they've actually used it. This makes for a very precarious investment for communications companies, and is one of the biggest obstacles to improving our infrastructure.

The real new threat from ISP's

[elrous0]

Thanks to recent efforts by the RIAA/MPAA, the threat now isn't just that ISP's will throttle P2P, it's that they will outright BLOCK it (and any sites related to it). Their counterpart in the UK has already succeeded in this effort with most of their ISP's, and you can bet it will happen here too soon. If this guy doesn't step in with some legal protections (and threats) for these ISP's, the days of typing www.thepiratebay.org into your browser and getting any message besides "This site has been blocked for copyright infringement" are numbered.

The inevitable car analogy

[jlmale0]

While that is a particularly emotional analogy, it's far from a perfect fit. In the naive case, proponents of tiered service argue that the internet is just a bunch of roads (sorry, not pipes in this case). And while we all get to ride cars, some people are in fire engines and ambulances. Voice traffic gets to be so blessed because it can be used for 911 calls.

Implementation is, of course, another matter entirely, and I do not pretend that it will only be restricted to voice or 'necessary' services. But calling tiered service 'discriminatory' or 'racist' is fallacious and needlessly confuses the issue.

Re:Just like arsenic keeps you healthy

[MobyDisk]

The government didn't force anyone to make bad loans. If you are a loan officer and you made a bad loan, it isn't because the government held a gun to your back.

It is amazing how on one hand you hear "The government made the banks do it through regulation" and on the other you hear "Deregulation of banks made them do stupid things!" Which is it? Did the government tell them to make the loans? Or did the government fail to tell them not to make the loans?

Neither: The banks made loans based on their own flawed risk calculations and poor valuation of future property values. Capitalism is based on the power of greed, but it assumes that the greedy ones are also smart. In this case, they weren't.

Re:Just like arsenic keeps you healthy

[Joe the Lesser]

Subprime loans were not forced or mandated by regulations. They were sought after by the banking institutions who lobbied for them.

Re:Just like arsenic keeps you healthy

[Joe the Lesser]

On top of my point, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may have been encouraged to lend to lower credit families, but the crisis would have happened even if they didn't exist because the other unregulated institutions went about it with much more gusto.

Fannie and Freddie's subprime loans were shown to be on the more respectable end as opposed to the other banks who pushed their mortgage brokers to get loans no matter what the risk.

The only thing Fannie and Freddie really shows is that the government endorsed the practice, but the fat cats of Wall Street made Fannie and Freddie's bad loans look likes child's play.

The Correct Post Office Analogy

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

The internet is not and never has been a bunch of "roads". The internet is a series of interconnected post offices. Sure, there are "roads", the fibre and wires and cables that carry signals. But that's not what the internet is, just like the roads and the warehouses and the green vans are not what the post office is. The post office is a service that delivers post.

When I subscribe to an ISP, I am not paying to drive on their "information superhighway". I am paying them to deliver packets from to other IP addresses, and to deliver packets from other IP addresses to me. This is the internet. This is the way it has always been and this is the way it is as it scales upwards from users to ISPs, to Telcos.

Now big Telcos want to turn around to companies like Google and Twitter who are making money and charge them more for deliveries simply because they are deemed able to afford it. In addition, they also want to charge you more for delivering your packets to and from these companies sites. This is bullshit and everyone with half a brain knows that it cannot be allowed to stand.

When I pay for a stamp and post my letter, I don't expect the post office to turn around and say; "Oh, you're sending correspondence to your great uncle? Suit you sir. But I'm afraid that will cost you a bit extra owing to the fact that your great uncle is a man of some means. You'll have to buy a special stamp." Or "Hmmm sir. It seems your business made quite a lot of money last year, and management feels you can afford to pay an extra few pence for deliveries." Is this acceptable? Can anyone justify that?

And don't give me bullshit about "international stamps, etc". That's not what this is about. True, bandwidth corresponds to charging by weight, but on the internet, there are no foreign countries. Every computer is a local one. If you want to separate sites in Europe from one in the States then you may as well just shut the whole network down altogether, because you will have irreparably broken it.

Can anyone give one morsel of justification for why delivering my packets to google.com should cost more or less than delivering to slashdot.org? Do I give a flying fiddlers what kind of "tubes" were used to send them? Do I weep for the packets waiting milliseconds in the queue while mine is processed? Do I contemplate the strain on networks caused by shameless charlatans like myself who actually use the bandwidth they paid for? No, because the whole point of a post office is that I don't have to care how you get my letter there, I just pay you to do it.

Packets are packets are packets. IPs are IPS are IPs. Data is Data is Data. There are no tubes, no roads, no cars, no tiers, no premium IPs or domain names. Net neutrality is the only sane answer.

Re:Just like arsenic keeps you healthy

[furby076]

Agreed. The gov't reduced regulations to give the banks more flexibility - they didn't tell the banks to shoot the country in the foot.

The banking industry complained regulations were too restrictive and they couldn't get people into homes - so the Clinton administration made it easier by pushing Congress to remove a lot of these regulations. The banking industry, & republicans loved this on a business level (more sales, less rules). The democrats loved this on a "we are helping the little guy buy a home" level. Nothing was wrong with that...except as history has proven over and over and over again if you give people the opportunity they will do whatever it takes to gain power/money even at the expense of other people. There are way too many sales people, and their managers who demand this, who just want to "SELL SELL SELL". How many times have we heard this on tv shows or movies "SELL SELL SELL"...you think that is a myth? It's "SELL no matter what" attitude.

There is a local jewelry store (been around for over 30 years) in Philadelphia. They have an insane commercial that says "if you really love her, you can't let the economy stop you. Buy her that diamond because if you love her she is worth it and so is that diamond".... as opposed to saying "You want to get married, the economy is tough, we can help you by getting you and affordable ring. Oh and we can upgrade it down the road for you" Again sales people just want to sell and they don't care about you.

Order of blame:
Banks who abused the system
Gov't who didn't monitor the system
People who got into those stupid loans.

Why do I put "People" on the bottom of the list? It is similar to the Stanley Milgram experiment. Given an authoratative figure people will do what they are told even if it is known to be wrong. Authoratative figure = real estate agent (with a LICENSE) & mortgage officer (with a LICENSE) in nice suits telling their customers "don't worry we know what we are doing with years of experience and fancy computer programs that say you CAN do this."

Re:Just like arsenic keeps you healthy

[furby076]

The CRA wasn't about getting loans to minorities who couldn't afford it; the CRA was about getting loans to minorities who COULD afford it but were being discriminated against. There were many minorities who could afford these loans and were being told they couldn't get the loan on spec. This was sometimes done by unconscious racism or conscious racism by people who didn't want "colored folk" from moving into their community

Now if some mortgage underwriter took this law to mean "give people who can't afford mortgages a mortgage" or "Hey now i have an excuse to sell an extra mortgage and raise my commission" that is not the fault of the gov't that is the fault of the mortgage underwriter who abused the system (shocker).

"High risk borrowers" is a very loose statement. It's akin to saying "How much do I love you? I love you THIS much". The science of mortgage lending is more art then science - if you don't believe me speak to someone who is or was in the lending industry...oh wait, you are.
So before talking about "pesky facts" make sure you don't skew them.

Not for nothing, this statement...

The pressure to make more loans to minorities (read: to borrowers with weak credit histories) became relentless.

...Is extremely racist.

Re:Just like arsenic keeps you healthy

[dkleinsc]

First off, your source is not appropriate for a serious argument. It's an op/ed by a columnist with accusations of plagiarism to his name, not a news article.

The loans that caused the vast majority of the current mess were issued by mortgage brokers (firms like Countrywide Financial, Ameriquest Mortgage, and Ditech), not banks. Brokers are not held to the CRA standards. The idea that the CRA caused this mess has been debunked repeatedly by every study done on the subject. If you want some real sources on this, I'd suggest studies put out by a university, the Federal Reserve, or the US Treasury Department.

Some real reasons behind the arguments about the CRA:
1. Banks have hated the CRA for a long time. They were trying to dodge it or get rid of it back in the 1990's as well.
2. Conservatives oppose most government regulation on principle.
3. By blaming the CRA, it absolved the bankers of any role in creating the problem.
4. It creates an image of a foreclosed subprime homes is owned by a black person in a bad urban neighborhood. In reality, the areas with the most subprime loans are in suburbs near LA, San Diego, Denver, and Miami. In short, racism.