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

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

It's all speculation propagated by the AT&T Artificial Turf(TM) fanclub. The argument is that network neutrality will make the Internet "more expensive" to poor people because there won't be any discounts for the people who "want" all of their Internet traffic other than the ISP's walled garden to be degraded into the abyss.

The argument ignores the fact that the absence of network neutrality in the presence of a monopoly/duopoly landscape will only result in higher prices for the people who want the "no DPI" option (if it's available at all) rather than any sort of lower prices for anybody else.

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?

Har

[Alarindris]

saying they're concerned that new regulations would slow down investment in broadband networks

Any slower and the underground cables are going to start digging themselves up.

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

[Shakrai]

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'.

That's one way to read it. The other way to read it is the legitimate concern that potential investors have when people start throwing around ideas like forcing the ILECs/cableco's to open up their networks to companies that didn't help fund the roll out of those networks. Why should I invest my money to build out a broadband network when I can just wait a few years until Congress forces them to let me use it?

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

[microbox]

open up their networks to companies that didn't help fund the roll out of those networks

The taxpayer paid for the networks.

Re:slow down investment in broadband

[falconwolf]

Why should I invest my money to build out a broadband network when I can just wait a few years until Congress forces them to let me use it?

How can you roll out broadband when the incumbents enjoy a monopoly. How many people have a choice as to whom they get cable or landline phone service from? Governments granted these companies monopolies so even if a compeating cable, phone company, or combined company wanted to they could not install their own cable or fiber.

Quite simply there is no free market in these services and until there is the incumbents should be regulated.

Falcon

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.

Re:slow down investment in broadband

[SEE]

How can you roll out broadband when the incumbents enjoy a monopoly. How many people have a choice as to whom they get cable or landline phone service from? Governments granted these companies monopolies so even if a compeating cable, phone company, or combined company wanted to they could not install their own cable or fiber.
Legally, those monopolies were all voided thirteen years ago with the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

In practice, the political power structures in large urban areas tend to have, ahem, "mutually beneficial financial relationships" with the local cable providers. The result is that, for example, when competitors tried to lay cable in Philadelphia, they faced all sorts of barriers.

These same ties of money and power, of course, encourage the members of these urban power structures (like the members of the Congressional Black Caucus and leaders of "minority rights groups" discussed in the article) to oppose net neutrality.

Re:slow down investment in broadband

[grcumb]

The other way to read it is the legitimate concern that potential investors have when people start throwing around ideas like forcing the ILECs/cableco's to open up their networks to companies that didn't help fund the roll out of those networks. Why should I invest my money to build out a broadband network when I can just wait a few years until Congress forces them to let me use it?

I live and work in a country which recently introduced exactly these measures. The incumbent monopoly Internet provider has been fighting tooth and nail against what a past CEO called a 'cuckoo's egg' - a business that leverages someone else's infrastructure to compete directly with them.

On the face of it, it seems like a reasonable concern, but the moment you begin unpacking the implications, you realise that it's actually quite the opposite. Under the new law, network resources that are unlikely (or impossible) to duplicate are known as 'bottleneck resources'. The Telecommunications Regulator has the right to designate a particular carrier dominant in a given area, and to require them to negotiate in good faith with anyone who comes calling. In fact, the telco's license requires that they provide a 'reference contract' that other businesses can use to prepare themselves.

In practice, what happens is that, far from losing money, the telco actually gains. There are two main reasons for this:

• Income. The telco gets its tithe from all traffic that uses its resources. They have the right to ask a fair price, and thus are guaranteed not to lose money on their own traffic as well as everyone else's. Most notably, they profit more as the middleman, because the end-user support costs are borne by their competitor.
• Network Effects. Because more people are now encouraged to use the network, and because the competition makes it desirable to maximise the efficiency with which it's run, we end up with a larger pool of customers receiving better service than we would have otherwise.This, in turn, increases the value of the network as a whole, which increases its appeal to customers, and so on.[*]

Rather than reducing profits and creating burdensome regulatory overhead, enforced competition has the reverse effect. In truth, if the government is imposing anything on the telco, it's market forces. By requiring an open, competitive environment, they're allowing the Adam Smith-ian principles to apply themselves. This ensures that the network as a whole is run in the most efficient, most profitable manner possible.

And that is good for everyone.

-----------

[*] I live in a developing country where Internet reaches less than 15% of the population. This argument does not apply to the same extent in an already saturated market, though I suspect that it remains an influence.

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.

Write your congresscritters!

[toppavak]

The signers*:
Michael Arcuri (NY-27), Joe Baca (CA-43), John Barrow (GA-12), Sanford Bishop (GA-2), Tim Bishop (NY-1), Dan Boren (OK-2), Leonard Boswell (IA-3), Allen Boyd (FL-2), Robert Brady (PA-1), Bobby Bright (AL-2), G.K. Butterfield (NC-1), Dennis Cardoza (CA-18), Russ Carnahan (MO-3), Christopher Carney (PA-10), Travis Childers (MS-1), Donna Christensen (VI), William Lacy Clay (MO-1), Emanuel Cleaver (MO-5), Jim Costa (CA-20), Joseph Crowley (NY-7), Henry Cuellar (TX-28), Elijah Cummings (MD-7), Kathleen Dahlkemper (PA-3), Danny Davis (IL-7), Lincoln Davis (TN-4), Steve Driehaus (OH-1), Chaka Fattah (PA-2), Bill Foster (IL-14), Marcia Fudge (OH-11), Charlie Gonzalez (TX-20), Al Green (TX-9), Gene Green (TX-29), Parker Griffith (AL-5), Debbie Halvorson (IL-11), Alcee Hastings (FL-23), Baron Hill (IN-9), Tim Holden (PA-17), Sheila Jackson ,Lee (TX-18), Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX-30), Hank Johnson (GA-4), Suzanne Kosmas (FL-24), Frank Kratovil (MD-1), Rick Larsen (WA-2), Daniel Maffei (NY-25), Michael McMahon (NY-13), Gregory Meeks (NY-6), Charlie Melancon (LA-3), Michael Michaud (ME-2), Walt Minnick (ID-1), Dennis Moore (KS-3), Glenn Nye (VA-2), Ed Pastor (AZ-4), Solomon Ortiz (TX-27), Ed Perlmutter (CO-7), Nick Rahall (WV-3), Jared Polis (CO-2), Silvestre Reyes (TX-16), Mike Ross (AR-4), Loretta Sanchez (CA-47), Kurt Schrader (OR-5), Allyson Schwartz (PA-13), David Scott (GA-13), Heath Shuler (NC-11), Albio Sires (NJ-13), Zachary Space (OH-18), John Spratt (SC-5), John Tanner (TN-8), Bennie Thompson (MS-2), Paul Tonko (NY-21), Ed Towns (NY-10), Peter Welch (VT), Charlie Wilson (OH-6)

*List retrieved from:
http://www.precursorblog.com/content/72-house-democrats-letter-urges-fcc-avoid-tentative-conclusions-which-favor-government-regulation

Headline != article

[jd142]

"Democrats, Minority Groups Question Net Neutrality Push"

Except that's not true. The second sentence says that Democrats, including the President, generally support Net Neutrality. Also, the phrase "minority groups" is misleading because it is generally referred to groups of traditionally underrepresented peoples.

It's the equivalent of writing:

Slashdot supports Microsoft Windows 7 over Linux.

One of the people who works for Slashdot uses Windows 7 at home. Here is his story.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:How will this slow down investment in BB networ

[nxtw]

AT&T DSL (available in much of Ohio) has gone from 768/128 for $40/month and a one year agreement in 2002, to 6016/768 for $35/month with no one year agreement in 2007. AT&T never bothered to upgrade to ADSL2, so they can't offer speeds that are much higher than what they offer now. Only those who live in an area in which their IPTV service is available can get faster speeds (over VDSL.)

In the past 5 years or so, Time Warner/Road Runner (also available in much of Ohio) has increased the speed from 3 mbit to 7 mbit without any price increase, and have added "PowerBoost" - marketing term for a DOCSIS feature that provides a temporary burst of higher speeds. They also have a "Turbo" service which brings the speed up to 15 mbit.

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.

Yes and no

[Mark_in_Brazil]

Government parties against neutrality

Who would have ever thought.

Yes and no. The Obama Administration's official policy is strongly in favor of net neutrality.

My letter to my congressmen.

[Logger]

Time to get off our collective butts. Emails, Letters, and phone calls! Keep it short, sweet, clean, well reasoned, and SIMPLE. Remember their attention span isn't all that long. Here's my letter I just fired off to my senators and congressman.

Senator/Congress(man/woman) --------,

Please support net-neutrality.

When Cisco and cable/phone companies say "innovation" it is not my idea of innovation. Cisco means rather than competing with cheap, commodity hardware they can sell expensive traffic shaping hardware. The cable/phone companies mean rather than expanding their networks, they can reap more profit from the existing network. That may be an innovative way of generating profit, but it's not bringing innovative technology and services to the consumer.

Net-neutrality will protect truly innovative startup businesses like NetFlicks and Vonage from unfair and anti-competitive tatics by the cable/phone companies. Please support net-neutrality.

Sincerely,
----------

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?

Re:Apt analogy using telcos

[will_die]

However it would be wanted if you asked those same people:

"Should calls to the emergency call center be of the same priority as calls from telemarketers?"

Under the current proposals all ports and message types have to be treated at the same priority, so DoS attack would have the same priority as E-mail.

Re:Apt analogy using telcos

[dgatwood]

Under the current proposals all ports and message types have to be treated at the same priority, so DoS attack would have the same priority as E-mail.

That's not correct. HR3458 does not propose ANY specific regulations. It authorizes the FCC to create regulations and specifies a set of guiding principles for those regulations.

Further, it says that ISPs have the duty to:

'(1) not block, interfere with, discriminate against, impair, or degrade the ability of any person to use an Internet access service to access, use, send, post, receive, or offer any lawful content, application, or service through the Internet;

Emphasis mine. DOS attacks are presumptively not lawful until proven otherwise.

Finally, it leaves a specific exemption for any reasonable QoS.

(d) Reasonable Network Management- Nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit an Internet access provider from engaging in reasonable network management consistent with the policies and duties of nondiscrimination and openness set forth in this Act. For purposes of subsections (b)(1) and (b)(5), a network management practice is a reasonable practice only if it furthers a critically important interest, is narrowly tailored to further that interest, and is the means of furthering that interest that is the least restrictive, least discriminatory, and least constricting of consumer choice available. In determining whether a network management practice is reasonable, the Commission shall consider, among other factors, the particular network architecture or technology limitations of the provider.

Again, emphasis mine. You can pretty much skip everything not in bold and you'll get the gist of the paragraph.

In other words, injecting TCP resets into BitTorrent traffic: banned; throttling bandwidth of excessive users only during periods of heavy load on the network and only to the extent necessary to give reasonable bandwidth to people just browsing the web casually: allowed. For once, the government got the regulation almost exactly right.

And now a word from our sponsors

[dkleinsc]

Acuri (NY-27) $5000 from AT&T
Baca (CA-43) $5000 from AT&T
Barrow (GA-12) $5000 from National Cable & Telecommunications Assn
S Bishop (GA-2) $2750 from AT&T
T Bishop (NY-1) $2500 from Communications Workers of America, $2000 from AT&T, $1000 from Verizon
Boren (OK-2) $5000 from AT&T
Boswell (IA-3) $5000 from AT&T
Boyd (FL-2) $2500 from Verizon, $2500 from Comcast
Brady (PA-1) $5000 from National Cable & Telecommunications Assn
Bright (AL-2) $4000 from AT&T
Butterfield (NC-1) $5000 from AT&T
Cardoza (CA-18) $4500 from AT&T
Carnahan (MO-3) $6100 from Communications Workers of America
Carny (PA-10) $5000 from L3 Communications
Childers (MS-1) $5000 from AT&T
Christensen (VI) No obvious contribution reported yet
Clay (MO-1) $2500 from AT&T, $3000 from Verizon
Cleaver (MO-5) $2500 from Communications Workers of America
Costa (CA-20) $2000 from AT&T
Crowley (NY-7) $5000 from Comcast, $2500 from Verizon, $2000 from L3 Communications
Cuellar (TX-28) $1000 from Verizon
Cummings (MD-7) $1000 from AT&T
Dahlkemper (PA-3) $3000 from AT&T
Davis (IL-7) $5000 from AT&T
Davis (TN-4) $3000 from AT&T
Driehaus (OH-1) $1000 from AT&T
Fattah (PA-2) $1000 from AT&T, $1000 from Comcast
Foster (IL-14) $2000 from Comcast
Fudge (OH-11) $2000 from AT&T, $2500 from Communications Workers of America
Gonzalez (TX-20) $2000 from AT&T, $2000 from Comcast
Green (TX-9) $5000 from Communications Workers of America
Green (TX-29) $5000 from Communications Workers of America, $2500 from AT&T, $2500 from Comcast
Griffith (AL-5) $6500 from L3 Communications, $4500 from AT&T
Halvorson (IL-11) $7000 from AT&T, $3500 from Comcast
Hastings (FL-23) $5000 from AT&T
Hill (IN-9) $5000 from AT&T, $2500 from National Cable and Telecommunications Association
Holden (PA-17) $5000 from Communications Workers of America, $3000 from AT&T
Jackson (TX-18) $5000 from AT&T
Johnson (TX-30) $2000 from AT&T
Johnson (GA-4) $2500 from Communications Workers of America, $2000 from Verizon, $1000 from Comcast
Kosmas (FL-24) $4000 from Comcast
Kratovil (MD-1) $3500 L3 Communications, $3000 from AT&T, $3000 from Comcast
Larsen (WA-2) $1000 from Qwest, $1000 from Verizon
Maffei (NY-25) $4800 from Data Key Communications, $3000 from Verizon, $2750 from Time Warner
McMahon (NY-13) $4000 from AT&T, $2000 from Time Warner, $2000 from Verizon
Meeks (NY-6) $5000 from AT&T, $1000 from Verizon
Melancon (LA-3) $10000 from Comcast, $4000 from AT&T, $2500 from Communications Workers of America, $2000 from Time Warner
Michaud (ME-2) $4000 from AT&T, $1000 from Time Warner, $1000 from Qualcomm
Minnick (ID-1) $3500 from Comcast, $2000 from AT&T, $2000 from Verizon
Moore (KS-3) $2000 from AT&T, $1000 from Comcast, $1000 from Verizon
Nye (VA-2) $4800 from Cox Communications, $2000 from Verizon, $1500 from Communications Workers of America
Ortiz (TX-27) $3500 from AT&T, $1250 from Communications Workers of America, $1000 from Comcast
Pastor (AZ-4) $4000 from AT&T, $2000 from Verizon
Perlmutter (CO-7) $4500 from Qwest, $1000 from AT&T, $1000 from National Cable & Telecommunications Association, $1000 from Verizon
Polis (CO-2) No obvious contributions
Rahall (WV-3) $2500 from AT&T
Reyes (TX-16) $2000 from AT&T, $2000 from Verizon, $1000 from L3 Communications
Ross (AR-4) $5000 from AT&T, $4000 from Verizon
Sanchez (CA-47) $5000 from AT&T, $5000 from L3 Communications
Schrader (OR-5) $3000 from AT&T, $2000 from Qwest
Schwartz (PA-13) $2500 from National Cable and Telecommunications Association
Scott (GA-13) $3000 from AT&T, $2500 from Communications Workers of America, $2000 from Verizon
Shuler (NC-11) $4000 from AT&T, $1000 from Communications Workers of America
Sires (NJ-13) $5000 from AT&T, $3000 from Verizon, $2500 from

Re:And now a word from our sponsors

[The Longest Line]

The biggest surprise for me on that list is Jared Polis (CO-02). For those who don't know him, he's the dude who was behind ProFlowers.com and BlueMountainArts.com, as well as a flurry of other tech start-ups I can't recall. I just don't get it. He didn't take PAC money during his campaign (he mostly self-funded), so no overt telcom influence there that I'm aware of. And he's 100% safe for re-election in 2010, so it's not like he needs the money now. A tech entrepreneur against net neutrality. WTF?

Re:And now a word from our sponsors

[TheRaven64]

$5,000? That's all it takes to by a congressman? Seriously? Get all Slashdot readers who are US citizens to put in $2 and you could buy the whole government.

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.

Re:Net Neutrality must be forced on companies

[petrus4]

As far as I'm concerned, business shouldn't rightfully have anything to do with the Internet at all.

I remember the net before business came here. I also remember that when business came, government came after it. Then came spam.

The corporate world destroys everything it touches, one way or another. The profit motive leads ultimately to nothing but corruption and death.

It cannot be allowed to dictate the Internet. It's bad enough that the fucking suits exist; there must be some places where their rule is not recognised.

Re:How will this slow down investment in BB networ

[FooAtWFU]

"PowerBoost" (a basic token bucket scheme) is basically their way of saying "Here, look, you can use the Internets for browsing the Web and it will seem fast, but you're out of luck if you want to download anything big." Considering that downloadable video games and movies and such are substitutes for regular cable television service, it's not surprising that Time Warner would want to hobble those (while showing people it's fast for other stuff.)

Re:How will this slow down investment in BB networ

[nxtw]

IIRC, the boost is from 7 mbit to 15 mbit for those on the regular service, and 15 mbit to 22 mbit for those on the turbo service. With H.264, this is sufficient to stream higher quality video than provided by Time Warner's MPEG-2 services.

Re:How will this slow down investment in BB networ

[nxtw]

Correction - sufficient to stream higher quality video without the boost feature.

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.

here

[microbox]

enjoy

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?

Re:For Certain Crazy Values of The Fairness Doctri

[R2.0]

Let me hit all of your points, as you completely missed the mark.

First, yes, we all know that the original fairness doctrine applied to broadcasters. Considering that distributing content via the internet didn't even exist when it was in place, that's completely rational. What ISN'T rational is the belief that, if TFD were to be reinstated, that the internet would be ignored. The point that I was making is that, since there is a push among Democrats to reinstate TFD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine#Reinstatement_considered), it's likely that they are also thinking about the Internet as well.

As far as parsing between "broadcast medium" and the internet, the model is outmoded. Previously, differentiating between "broadcast" and "private" made sense regarding the radio spectrum. But now there's this medium that the FCC has _some_ control over, that isn't exactly like broadcasting and isn't like a private phone call, either. So we've started using a new model - content provider vs. service provider. In that sense, a new Fairness Doctrine\ne would apply to content providers, would it not?

Regarding my comparison, I'd compliment the straw man you set up, but for its idiocy. What do their radio shows have to do with internet traffic? If you thought I was just mistaken and talking about radio, I'd have thought my use of the words "throttle", "traffic", and "website" would have set you straight. But that's OK - I'll just use Alexa numbers instead.

rushlimbaugh.com - Rank: 5,710, Category: Arts > Radio
PRI.org - Rank: 166,719, Category: Arts > Radio

Yep - PRI is just crushing Rush on the web. But that's unfair, because PRI is a news service, and Rush is opinion. Alright, lets look at Pacifica Radio, which is unabashedly liberal.

pacifica.org - Rank: 1,647,109. Really putting teh beat down on Limbaugh, aren't they?

As for your last comment, it really gets down to the heart of it. In your dismissive recital of what we "all" think, you reveal how shallow your understanding really is. The ENTIRE reason Democrats have been pushing the return of TFD is the utter dominance of conservative talk radio. See the Wikipedia article I cited - it has quotes. Those quotes show that the goal is to get rid of conservative talk radio. How? By forcing broadcasters - aka content providers - to carry liberal shows as well. Which sucks in the ratings. So they're much more likely just to ditch political talk altogether.

How does this work on the internet? Well, since ATT/Comcast etc. are trying to be classified as "content providers" because they can make more money that way, that would make them responsible for political opinion that comes through their network. And by looking at those website stats, Pacifica could easily claim that ATT/Comcast has stepped over the threshold of neutrality, given that Rush's traffic is greater than Pacifica's by a couple orders of magnitude. Now, since the "content providers" can't force people to visit the Pacifica website, what to they do? The only practical course would be to throttle rushlimbaugh.com. Sure, people could get to it, but it would be so slow that it would have the effect of limiting the content.

None of that would be remotely as easy if the ATT/Comcast were forced to treat traffic equally regardless of the source. It's the Dems deal with the devil - they'll support the big ISP's effort to manipulate traffic to make money, because it also leaves an opening to manipulate traffic politically.

Re:i still don't understand the push for this

[grcumb]

furthermore, the internet has done exceptionally well so far without such rules. i think we're better off without them, in spite of the few incidences of filtering and blocking some providers have tried.

The Internet has done exceptionall well so far because of such rules. It blossomed where other networks (AOL, CompuServe et alia) died on the vine precisely because it is an agnostic end-to-end network by design. Recently, in response to moves to subvert these fundamental elements of the Internet, the Obama administration has decided that this set of general principles deserves to be formalised at the regulatory level. They're not proposing anything new, they're simply recognising what makes the Internet what it is.

Recently telcos have begun to realise that collusive, predatory practices serve their short-term interests better than the current open regime. The rise of Google has put the fear into them because it makes it vividly apparent that, unless they actually begin to run their businesses efficiently, someone who gets this whole Open thing is going to come along and eat their lunch.

The telcos don't fear regulation. They fear competition.

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.