Democrats, Minority Groups Question Net Neutrality Push

uuddlrlrab writes "A group of 72 Democratic lawmakers is the latest to question the US Federal Communications Commission's move to create new net neutrality regulations. Democrats, including US President Barack Obama, have generally supported new rules that would prohibit broadband providers from selectively blocking or slowing Web content, but the group of 72 members of the House of Representatives sent a letter Thursday to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, saying they're concerned that new regulations would slow down investment in broadband networks. A coalition of minority groups made their objections known as well, saying, 'We are concerned that some of the proposed regulations on the Internet could, as applied, inhibit the goal of universal access and leave disenfranchised communities further behind.' This follows news from earlier in the week that similar letters were sent by a group of 44 tech companies and a group of 18 Republican senators." It's worth noting that the FCC is receiving letters in support of the net neutrality regulations as well. One such is from a group of internet pioneers, which includes Vint Cerf and Stephen Crocker.

Comments

Government parties against neutrality

[nurb432]

Who would have ever thought.

Re:Government parties against neutrality

[cjfs]

Definitely does fit in the current political climate, complete with just making stuff up left and right.

Opponents of net neutrality rules say there have been few examples of broadband providers blocking or slowing traffic.

So what's the problem with restricting if if there have only been "few examples" of it?

In light of the growth and innovation in new applications that the current [regulatory] regime has enabled, as compared to the limited evidence demonstrating any tangible harm, we would urge you to avoid tentative conclusions which favor government regulation

So what do they consider tangible harm and what's the evidence of it being "limited"? The article and letter could use about 15 [citation needed] tags. I can't seem to find anything to back up the "could slow investments in broadband and slow minorities' access to telemedicine, distance learning and other services" either.

Re:Government parties against neutrality

[postbigbang]

These are utilities and common carriers. They're supposed to work for US. Instead, the propaganda pushes have become obtuse. They threaten to slow down expenditure-- slowing down broadband speed and reach. In fact, what happens is that the vacuum breeds ISP investment in areas the current crop of jerks don't want to reach. The BPL initiative starts. Sat from Hughes gets cheaper. Even gas companies figure out how to get into the broadband business.

The group of Democrats that have been suckered in by the propaganda become their stooges, once again. They won't learn. But why should they as long as their own campaign finances are good.... filled and lined by the telcos?

Orwell

[Pharmboy]

So all internet traffic is equal, but some traffic *should* be more equal than others?

slow down investment in broadband

[nurb432]

I read that as 'if we cant control content distribution and restrict our competition, and screw our own customers out of more money, we don't want any part of it'.

I hate to support the federal government, but that is what the FCC is there for, to watch out for us citizens, not the corporations.

Re:slow down investment in broadband

[Anonymous Coward]

Because, I dunno, the taxpayers AND subscribers already paid massive amounts a decade ago and have been paying more and more since then all the while the rest of the world (ok, Europe, Japan, and Korea) enjoys faster internet connections at lower rates?

Re:slow down investment in broadband

[dgatwood]

There can be no free market in these services until government lays down the cable itself and leases it in a nondiscriminatory fashion to any ISP that wants to set up shop in a community. Only when the colossal startup infrastructure cost is taken out of the picture completely can competition be even slightly practical outside of large cities.

How will this slow down investment in BB networks?

[Bob-o-Matic!]

I have been a subscriber to Armstrong OneWire for cable internet for the last 5 years and the bandwidth has not changed at all. You would think that the price would drop, but it has remained constant, too.

Where I live in Ohio there is no incentive to invest in BB networks. There is no real competition.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

How investment slows down...

[Qzukk]

"We don't want to invest in speeding up the network, so if the government blocks us from investing in slowing down the network, no investment will get done!"

Re:How investment slows down...

[moxsam]

Nicely said. That's their attitude, IMHO.

Apt analogy using telcos

[taumeson]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the case for Net Neutrality could easily be made by asking everyone opposed to it the following question:

"Do you support the ability for telephone companies to charge you different rates based on who you're calling instead of long distance charges?"

I would think it's a pretty obvious "no". We don't want the telephone company charging us different rates for calling Papa John's pizza instead of Domino's, right? We certainly don't want to get charged a different rate for calling one radio station over another (you know Clear Channel would want to work out some kind of deal).

Why does it seem logical to allow for broadband companies to pull this kind of stunt?

It's about the Fairness Doctrine and control

[R2.0]

"A coalition of minority groups made their objections known as well, saying, 'We are concerned that some of the proposed regulations on the Internet could, as applied, inhibit the goal of universal access and leave disenfranchised communities further behind.'"

Bullshit - "disenfranchised communities" (read "minority")being served now. The reason they are not going into those areas is lack of profit. So how is leaving the ISP's alone going to help that? Or how will net neutrality hurt it?

Of course, there could be another reason. Net Neutrality move ISP's closer to common carrier status. The effect of this will be to LESSEN the amount of pressure these politicians can bring on behalf of their "constituency". If the ISP's are treated as content providers, then the Fairness Doctrine will have more impact when it gets reapplied - they can try to force ATT, Comcast, L3, etc. to manipulate their traffic in a way that promotes "fairness". So the carriers could be forced to, say, throttle traffic from Rush Limbaugh's website so that its traffic level matches, say, Public Radio International (PRI). Or the NRA's website until it matches the Brady campaign.

But if Net Neutrality is the policy, that becomes harder - they'd be saying, in effect, that ISP's could control political speech, but NOT commercial speech. That wouldn't even make it past the District court, much less through appeals and SCOTUS. Net Neutrality would hobble a Fairness Doctrine for the internet, and THAT's why this group doesn't want it.

Re:It's about the Fairness Doctrine and control

[dgatwood]

That's absurd. The fairness doctrine will never be applied to ISPs. It covers ONLY broadcast TV and radio, and only because of limited spectrum. It doesn't even cover content providers like print media, much less ISPs. There's no way that anyone could possibly get it expanded to cover ISPs.

And even if they did, in order to get bandwidth restrictions put in place, they would have to prove that traffic was being unfairly altered in such a way that limited access to one side of the issues. The fairness doctrine requires equal access to the content, not equal viewing of that content. It would no more allow them to reduce bandwidth for a right wing site than it would allow them to force people to keep their radios turned on while a Democrat gives a rebuttal to a Republican State of the Union address.

BTW, the FCC commissioner who suggested this absurdity is a Republican-appointed commissioner who was formerly a paid lobbyist for telecom companies. His comments should be carefully weighed against his biases. I suspect that if you follow the money, you'll find that the Democrats who are fighting against network neutrality are similarly beholden to such telecom special interests.

Re:It's about the Fairness Doctrine and control

[sumdumass]

There is a way to solve the issues without ever going to those points. A simple law that says no ISP can purposely limits traffic on their networks to speeds below what was advertised and sold to the customers sending or receiving the internet traffic.

That eliminates the entire idea of slowing others traffic down in expectancy of payments as well as slowing services down in order to promote their own services. Maybe add something about not being able to exclude communication protocols or tier them and make sure all speeds are accurately advertised and presented to the customer.

This will eliminate ISP's selling 1.5 meg bandwidth potential as 3 megs and slowing customers down when traffic gets heavy. It will also allow devoid Cable operators the opportunity to slow you tube and other sites like Hulu down in preference to selling channels on their outside systems. If they do not deliver their speeds, then people will demand an alternative.

It also allows companies to sell 3 meg services and offer 8 megs when the network is light on traffic. People will see that as getting more but not going below what they purchased.

Where's the receipt?

[Anonymous Coward]

All that public land? Where's the receipt.

The wires were laid down with government workers.

Where's the receipt.

Personal property of US citizens have been overcome by the right of way of these companies who use OUR land to make THEIR profit.

Where's my cut?

Thieves.

You are like Napoleon "I see no ships!". That's because you're not looking. Because you daren't.

For Certain Crazy Values of The Fairness Doctrine

[weston]

If the ISP's are treated as content providers, then the Fairness Doctrine will have more impact when it gets reapplied - they can try to force ATT, Comcast, L3, etc. to manipulate their traffic in a way that promotes "fairness". So the carriers could be forced to, say, throttle traffic from Rush Limbaugh's website so that its traffic level matches, say, Public Radio International (PRI). Or the NRA's website until it matches the Brady campaign.

This assumes a construction of a new "Fairness Doctrine" that bears little resemblance to the old one, which essentially required broadcast media to give time to opposing views as they reached certain editorial thresholds as partisan outlets.

The web isn't really a broadcast medium, and it's already very easy to publish an opposing point of view on it. There's not much of a way TFD could be brought to bear.

throttle traffic from Rush Limbaugh's website so that its traffic level matches, say, Public Radio International

"As of 2006 Arbitron ratings indicated that The Rush Limbaugh Show had a minimum weekly audience of 13.5 million listeners."

"According to the 2002 Arbitron ratings, 15.2 million people listened to PRI programming each week."

I guess that'd really suck for Rush.

Which brings up a point: We all know that by and large The Media(TM) isn't just liberal, it has a radical liberal agenda, right?

If that's the case, shouldn't The Fairness Doctrine actually benefit conservatives far more than it benefits liberals?

Re:Net Neutrality must be forced on companies

[bnenning]

The profit motive leads ultimately to nothing but corruption and death.

How do you think the computer you typed that on came to exist?

That's interesting, a -1 disagree moderation.

[weston]

Funny, both my posts on this topic have been downmodded.

Remember folks, slashdot doesn't have a -1 "disagree" moderation, and I'm sure that if I've said something particularly stupid, it should be a piece of cake to refute me and help your own case rather than skulking around trying to sink arguments you don't like with negative moderation.