FCC To Propose Net Neutrality Rules

wiredog writes "From The Washington Post comes news that the FCC is preparing to propose net neutrality rules on Monday. Quoting: '[FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski] will discuss the rules Monday during a keynote speech at The Brookings Institute. He isn't expected to drill into many details, but the proposal will specifically be for an additional guideline on how operators like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast can control what goes on their networks. That additional guideline would prevent the operators from discriminating, or act as gatekeepers, of Web content and services. ... The agency is expected to review what traffic management is reasonable and what practices are discriminatory. The guidelines are known as "principals" at the agency, which some public interest groups have sought to codify so that they would clearly be enforceable.'"

Comments

Just one question:

[Penguinisto]

Define "reasonable" - reasonable according to the end-user (okay, somewhat geeky end-user), or "reasonable" to Comcast, Verizon, AT&T...

Re:Just one question:

[Jurily]

Define "reasonable" - reasonable according to the end-user (okay, somewhat geeky end-user), or "reasonable" to Comcast, Verizon, AT&T...

Here's my take: if you provide service to the end-user, you only take money from the end-user. When providing said service, you don't look at where a packet is coming from, only where it goes.

If your network can't handle it, you upgrade your network.

Re:Just one question:

[bennomatic]

Totally agreed. And beyond that, don't look at the type of packet. You're providing a data pipe, and that's it. If it's VOIP or P2P or constant video streaming from a service that competes with one of your own, sell the bandwidth that you can afford to sell, and if you can't afford to sell it raise the price and get ready for competition.

And speaking of competition, all this net neutrality stuff would go away if there were any real competition. Almost all markets are duopolies, with basically the telco and the cable company providing the only two options. If they are going to give lip service to a level playing field, then they need to allow other providers in on that action.

Re:Just one question:

[bigngamer92]

"If it's VOIP or P2P or constant video streaming"

Personally I would rather them downgrade the P2P priority so that my Skype call doesn't break up. Traffic shaping in moderation is a good thing.

My initial prediction....

[NecroPuppy]

The operators will think that any level of control they have is insufficient and the users will think that any level of control the operators have is far too much.

Backdoor for fairness doctrine

[Saint Stephen]

I know this is going to modded troll, but you know how Congress always tacks on stuff to bills, nobody will dispute that.

I heard a warning in November (from Republicans of course) that the Fairness Doctrine, trying to legislate the content of the internet and talk radio, would come under the guise of Net Neutrality.

I bet a dollar and a nickel that debate will somehow come out of this bill.

Re:Backdoor for fairness doctrine

[Mr2001]

I heard a warning in November (from Republicans of course) that the Fairness Doctrine, trying to legislate the content of the internet and talk radio, would come under the guise of Net Neutrality.

Republicans spreading FUD against a proposal (net neutrality) that favors consumers over big business? What a shocker!

The fairness doctrine has never had anything to do with the internet, BTW. There aren't even any serious proposals to bring it back for radio, much less apply it to the internet.

Re:Backdoor for fairness doctrine

[Mr2001]

The Democrat party is all about silencing the opposition.

Anyone who has paid any attention to politics in the past 9 years knows how ridiculous that statement is, and also knows how to correctly spell "the Democratic Party". But more importantly, even the fairness doctrine that conservatives dread so much (even though no one is trying to bring it back) was never about silencing opposition. It was about providing a balance of viewpoints -- you know, like Fox News claims to do.

BTW, your second link requires paid registration. I'm amused that you're paying to hear conspiracy theories when there are already plenty online for free.

Re:Backdoor for fairness doctrine

[horatio]

Troll? No, because I had the same thought - and wondered if this was a step in that direction. I don't think it is, but to your point: don't believe the Republicans. Believe the words of the FCC diversity czar himself, Mark Lloyd. Among other things, he believes the first amendment is an exaggeration:

"It should be clear by now that my focus here is not freedom of speech or the press," [Lloyd] said. "This freedom is all too often an exaggeration. At the very least, blind references to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the critical examination of other communications policies." (http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/53055)

Notice he first says that his focus is not freedom of speech, but then dismisses it as unimportant and irrelevant. Lloyd apparently, by his own words (read the rest of the article in which he outlines his plan) believes the federal government, through the FCC and other satellite offices should be carefully controlling not just ownership (which in itself is an issue) but also the *content* of the media.

Re:Backdoor for fairness doctrine

[HitoGuy]

I almost bought your argument until you linked to the Rush Limbaugh site. You DO realize he's like the Rob Enderle of Republicans, right?

Re:Backdoor for fairness doctrine

[Rising Ape]

It's not exactly healthy for the only voices to be heard are those who can afford to make themselves heard, i.e. big businesses. It sounds to me like it's the left who have been silenced, if what you say is true.

Less of an issue with the internet, of course, with its much lower barrier to entry.

Re:Backdoor for fairness doctrine

[Anonymous Coward]

Because he's correct - FCC is not there to guarantee freedom of expression. Far from it. FCC is there to guarantee that *communication* stuff works - to follow the rules of communication as outlined in the law. And to put it simply, communication fails when Comcast or Verizon start to filter one content over another.

Now, Net Neutrality law would specify the meximum amount of filtering that the companies can do. What type of policies are allowed and not allowed under that law. And FCC *job* is then to enforce that law so that Comcast doesn't say "Microsoft payed us 30m for bing and google didn't so, Bing will be 100% of speed and Google will get a 300bit/s connection".

Now people just need to stop trolling and bullshitting. Gov't is there to prevent monopolies from dictating terms to you - that's one of its jobs. Stop pretending that "free market" will fix it, because it will not. Once you have a monopoly, the monopoly needs to be handed down rules from the top or it will just do what it wants with respect to competition (see Microsoft and Netspace, as an example from yonder days). Hell, free market fails as badly as communism. Or will you want to compete with the mafia in the garbage collection business?

Re:Backdoor for fairness doctrine

[Mr2001]

It mandates, under government authority, that you give an "equal" block of airtime to someone in opposition to your programming, whether or not your listeners want it. It's Big Brother on the radio.

Actually, it's the opposite of Big Brother. Read 1984 again; it sounds like you missed the point entirely.

Your only alternative is to turn the radio off.

No, you have other alternatives: change the station, listen to internet or satellite radio, do something else for a while, or even (gasp!) just listen to a dissenting opinion once in a while.

That's regulating speech and micromanaging private enterprise.

No, it's not regulating speech, it's regulating the use of one particular forum (the public airwaves). The First Amendment doesn't entitle you to say whatever you like on the radio any more than it entitles you to say whatever you like on your neighbor's lawn.

And as for the sure-to-come argument that "the airways belong to the public"... stations paid a lot of money for the rights to those airwaves so that they could put a product on them that would make a profit.

They paid for the right to broadcast on those frequencies, but their use is subject to certain terms, which they knew when they paid for it.

BTW, radio was still profitable when the fairness doctrine was in effect.

Let the listeners decide what they want to hear. If something isn't making money, it's off the air. Period. That's how broadcasting works.

Sometimes people decide they don't want to hear the truth, they just want to sit in an echo chamber. It may be profitable to provide an echo chamber, but unfortunately it isn't very healthy for a democracy. We the people have every right to decide that we don't want our airwaves used in such a way.

Re:Backdoor for fairness doctrine

[diamondmagic]

That's like saying "it isn't healthy to ignore flat-earthers so we need to force you to listen to them!" If customers don't want to listen to left talk-show hosts, you must not force them to. They have been tried, a small few do manage to make it, but the truth is the demand just isn't there.

The Constitution says "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"

or more simply, "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom...of the press"

That means no regulation, period. The media has the freedom to allocate whatever time they like, it's spelled out in the first amendment.

Plus, broadcast time is limited - it is an economic good. You seriously think forcing radio stations to put one side on won't abridge the freedom of people on the other side? The first amendment only says what the government must not do, and it must not tell the media what choices to make. Who gets air time and who doesn't is the decision of the owners, not the government.

Instead of crying out there is no opposition on most radio stations, think, why is there no demand for opposition? Perhaps because there are other outlets? Television and radio are largely substitutable goods (though, of course, not entirely). If there was really such a strong demand for left radio, wouldn't more left radio stations stay in business? I don't know why you think big business is on the side of talk radio, considering nearly all the giant corporations are in favor of government bailouts and some regulations, donating far more to the left too.

I have made the the common sense point, constitutional point, the economical point, and the factual point, I don't know how much clearer this argument can be made.

wrong approach, as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

Another layer of regulation by people who barely know what they are talking about.
How much and where packets get routed should be responsibility of the ISP.
Why that leads to problems for the user? because we have de facto oligopolies in telecommunication. Instead we ought to have a state controlled infrastructure, which is built mantained, proportionally according to the use, by a variety of private companies. This would let even very small companies get into the biz, thus permitting real competition. Then we would see how much can ISP throttle stuff before losing a customer, or how much an ISP can collect and profile customers or bend to the demands of the intellectual property industr... er, mafia.

Applied to cellphone communication the same formula would cut the number of antennas and optimize energy and radiation, for obvious reasons.
When i see supposedly competing phone and net companies owned by the same banks run same ads and offer the same formulas i wonder why the net is not way worse than it is already.

Net Neutrality

[irc.limerick]

Finally, maybe wireless providers will be forced to allow VOIP apps on their data network. Why is it that if Comcast decided to block Skype, people would be up in arms, but a cell phone provider blocking the same service is considered legitimate? People need to wake up to the fact that cell phone networks are no longer just phone services. It's not a matter of allowing competitors to use their network. It's about letting the consumer use their DATA network which they pay just as much for as the phone network as they please. If I have a certain amount of data allocated to me, I should be allowed to USE that data, as far as their network and costs are concerned, what I use it for doesn't make the slightest difference.

Re:Cannot believe...

[wizardforce]

just because they say they're going to do it is no guarantee that it will benefit us. the real problems which allow these carriers to be discriminative still exist. that is to say that local monopolies, fraud and such still exist.

Re:"emberassing"

[hedwards]

Because he's an incompetent hypocritical blow hard that inexplicably has more power than many congress people and no accountability at all.

Re:DON'T believe it, then

[hedwards]

Right, as opposed to now, where we give all that money directly to the corporations and nobody else benefits. I'm constantly amazed at how us crafty Americans aren't happy until we're paying at least 4x what everybody else is paying for something while getting the lowest quality possible. I'm sure that will show those socialists who's superior to whom.