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FCC Begins Crafting Net Neutrality Regulations
ceswiedler writes "The FCC has begun crafting rules for network neutrality. The full proposal hasn't been released yet, but according to their press release (warning, Microsoft Word document) carriers would not be allowed to 'prevent users from sending or receiving the lawful content,' 'running lawful applications,' or 'connecting and using ... lawful devices that do not harm the network.' There will be a three-month period for comments beginning January 14, followed by 2 months for replies, after which the FCC will issue its final guidelines." Reader Adrian Lopez notes that US Senator and former presidential candidate John McCain has introduced legislation that "would keep the FCC from enacting rules prohibiting broadband providers from selectively blocking or slowing Internet content and applications." McCain called the proposed net neutrality rules a "government takeover" of the Internet.
Update: 10/24 16:32 GMT by KD : jamie found a Reuters story reporting that the Sunlight Foundation has revealed John McCain to be Congress's biggest recipient of telco money over the last two years — "a total of $894,379..., more than twice the amount taken by the next-largest beneficiary, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev."
Update: 10/24 16:32 GMT by KD : jamie found a Reuters story reporting that the Sunlight Foundation has revealed John McCain to be Congress's biggest recipient of telco money over the last two years — "a total of $894,379..., more than twice the amount taken by the next-largest beneficiary, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev."
decides what is lawful?
Why, yes! I AM new here.
As usual McCain has no clue what he's going on about, surprise, surprise.
There is a war going on for your mind.
You're right! ;P
Among other advantages, you can get viruses a helluva lot quicker and easier opening windows docs on windows
Why, yes! I AM new here.
For all you federal employees, donate through the CFC: charity code 10437.
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist" -I guess I should leave then
This article was linked on the Drudge Report as "Julius [Caeser, implied] wants to regulate the internet."
I consider it, rather, a common carrier issue, akin to the situation we had with the railways 100 years ago - they were able to leverage their power over transit into other areas. You know, like how Microsoft used its OS dominance to destroy a rival in another field (web browsers). While all the networks are crying out that its a solution in need of a problem, the whole issue was raised because the telco's all started talking excitedly about how they could do all sorts of shady things, like double-dipping for bandwidth charges, that network neutrality would stop.
I'm a libertarian, and I support net neutrality, since oligopolies are market failures (see for example the price of cell phones in America over time). The actual implementation? Seems to actually have too many loopholes to me. They can, for example, tier service in order to deal with "net congestion". Hah.
I'm less concerned about the definition of Lawful than I am about the definition of Harmful. Law is at least ... a matter of law, even if I don't agree with it. How do courts determine whether something is or is not harmful to a network?
McCain called the proposed net neutrality rules a "government takeover" of the Internet.
Does he have a problem with that then? Is the Echelon not a government takeover? Is ACTA not a government takeover?
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
In case you'd assumed that a press release from a communications agency on the subject of the Internet would be a web page?
Oh I love this part.
"McCain protested the FCC's proposal that wireless broadband providers be included in the net neutrality rules. The wireless industry has "exploded over the past 20 years due to limited government regulation," McCain said in the statement."
Wireless has exploded in the past 20 years because the damn technology has only become feasable for mass market computing in the past 20 years.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Yeah. Next thing you know the feds will be trying to take over medicare.
Best Slashdot Co
This was not in the US, but a couple of years ago my ISP decided to throttle connections to MMOs, making these games practically unplayable. As I was tied into a 12 month contract which still had 8 months to go, this was extremely annoying. This is a practical and actual example which net neutrality laws would have prevented.
Even though .doc format remains an abysmally poor choice for a document produced by a government agency for public distribution, the days when non-Windows users would be inconvenienced by that are long gone.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Why is FCC doing its press releases in a proprietary vendor lock in format? Haven't they heard of ODF? We should demand FCC and all government agencies to release their documents in a vendor neutral or vendor agnostic format.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Somebody hasn't been paying attention. The FCC is already in charge of regulating communications. They've had guidelines for Net Neutrality since 2005. Now they are just going to take those existing guidelines & make them laws so that they can fine companies for not following them. None of this would have happened if said ISPs weren't getting hard-ons over trying to screw-over their customers both big (Google) & small (me & you).
There is a war going on for your mind.
The libertarian side of me gets really worried when the government gets involved in anything that says "neutrality" I'm sorry, but freedom of speech is freedom of speech...PERIOD! Do I like about 75% of the garbage on TV, radio or the internet? Hell no! But, I always side on freedom. No one is FORCING me to watch or listen to something I do not want to hear or see. When government gets involved, it usually screws everything up. Truer words were never spoken when someone said the scariest thing every said was... "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help". I don't want ANY regulation on speech, though, or expression. That includes the KKK, pro-gay, pro-abortion, anti-abortion, pro-religion, anti-religion or anything else. If you don't like it, don't watch, read or listen to it.
I wonder how they plan to enforce the "lawful uses"/"lawful content" clause. That could turn out to be a hole big enough to drive a truck through. What if the providers say that the only way to insure that legal content is available to to limit access to the few sites that they have vetted and partnered with.
I can fully understand giving ISPs the right a prevent DDOS and other attacks on the network, but the enforcement of what is lawful should be limited to that, and not be a license or directive to police the sites and protocols allowed on a network.
And if there were examples of this you would get some support but right now it is not a problem so any laws would cause more problems, see CAN-SPAM.
The 2005 guidelines are great and should be kept and maybe modified(4 years is a long time for the Internet), but they should be kept as a trip wire and if companies do start disregrading them then FCC or Congress should clamp down.
The proposed rules only apply to "lawful content", "lawful applications", "lawful services", and "lawful devices". I'm not sure what I think about this. By way of analogy, do we have laws for our public highway system that limits our use of the road based on what content we carry in our vehicles? Is our use of the roadway illegal if we intend to use something we're carrying for an evil purpose or application? I can see where my vehicle (device) might be unlawfully configured (over the maximum weight limit, for example), and that might be analogous to a lawful network device, but even then, only in so far as it affects use of the network itself, not in any other context.
Why do we need this automatic extension of contexts? It will mean that anything illegal in one context (say, money-laundering), is going to also be automatically illegal in the entirely different context of how it is being conveyed. It would not only be illegal to launder money, but if one uses the Internet, it would be additionally illegal to have merely conveyed instructions to do so.
That we will get all manner of unintended, unhappy side consequences out of this mixing of contexts seems almost guaranteed.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
the "government takeover" of the Internet (by the way Internet is an entity larger than USA and its government), by government takeover of the FCC, and indirectly government takeover of the Internet by disallowing anyone to prevent any illegal practices that might ensue.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
LOL, stop seeing conspiracies where there are none, any non-html page gets a warning because they need plugins which are often slow and unwieldy. Also .doc/.docx is a format for editable text not release documents, pdf/djvu (which if you take a look around tend to contain a warning) are much more appropriate.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
"Allowed to throttle content that is not legal". That loophole is big enough to pilot the Titanic through. That could easily be interpreted to block everything from p2p traffic to VOIP. This loophole would flat kill P2P in entirety and severely hurt VOIP and all with the ISP's having governments blessings. Many things are legal in one country and not in another.
This loophole needs removed in entirety for all such rules, I can guarantee you that any type of traffic you can think of is illegal, somewhere (Dutch trying to shutdown Swedish P2P, nazi artifacts illegal in France, most newspapers are illegal in certain hardline islamic countries and so on). The Internet is international by nature, it needs to be a neutral platform for the sake of international peace. If someone is breaking a local law (kiddie porn or the like), we already have plenty of laws to send them to prison as needed.
"lawful applications", "lawful services" and also be used for unlawful things.
...concidering the ISP legal-slime logic:
We're not supposed to drop 'legal' connections but we still don't want the high traffic users. We'll filter all high traffic connections. Configure the sandvine filters to increase latency 50% on P2P connections and website x. When the high traffic users complain say 'we're entitled to filter to remove 'illegal' connections. When they cry 'net neutrality' politely inform them that we comply with the rules because we aren't 'preventing users from sending or receiving lawful content', just hindering aka throttling.
McCain called the proposed net neutrality rules a "government takeover" of the Internet.
Somebody wake up grandpa.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Sure, those "large companies" can (and did) cut their infrastructure investments... but those investments were paid by public money.
You are not legally allowed to dig your own cables -- Easements were given by the government to the incumbents.
So, tell me again how the government ISN'T involved?
Personally, I don't like to bail on something I have already paid for, but I don't need the Internet "24/7" that much. I can easily deal with "web by mail" and UUCP, or even data transfer via "truck of tapes" again. Strangely enough, if hackers go that route, AND we control the "good stuff" -- that is, the good pirated music/videos and technical information, the "Internet" will go down that path instead.
Which puts the attempted controls by the "other" cartel at risk. Basically, the content cartel wants a centralized Internet, if there is an Internet at all. The delivery cartel wants to put road-blocks into that centralized Internet, to maximize their profits. The hackers are willing to Balkanize the Internet, screwing both of the cartels.
The "end-users" really want the product the hackers produce.
You tell me how this plays out...
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
You're suggesting we wait until it becomes a big problem and only at that point attempt to pass laws to stop it?
No, I'm sorry, the writing is already on the wall. Comcast started it here in the US. At least they started the "oh shit, look what is coming" fear.
Burying our heads in the sand now and just hoping it doesn't become a problem isn't the right answer here. And guidelines aren't enough to stop multi-billion dollar companies from making decisions that screw their customers.
Just look at how cable TV is now being threatened by internet sources (Hulu, Amazon VOD, etc, etc). Comcast, Time Warner Cable, etc, etc, have a lot of means to absolutely _crush_ the new web tv technology so their customers stay locked into very expensive cable tv plans. "Oh hey, looks like a few of our customers are dropping cable tv and their internet usage is spiking to that Hulu site. Lets just throttle all connections to Hulu and make it unplayable. We can just claim it is to stop congestion at prime time and keep customers using our cable service!"
And that doesn't even take much imagination at all, it's going to happen unless we tell the companies there are _legal_ repercussions to doing something like that. We have to tell them it's time to adapt or die, not squash new tech and continue business as usual since it is easier.
How about we _don't_ wait until customers get royally screwed any more than they have already and stop the obviously-coming-down-the-pike problem now?
McCain called the proposed net neutrality rules a "government takeover" of the Internet.
Mr. McCain, since the government pretty much invented the internet, please feel free to step in occasionally to make sure capitalism doesn't drive it back into the ground.
There are plenty of examples, you just choose to ignore them. The most blatant in recent years in the US was Comcast, who blocked P2P traffic across its network. They only backed down because the FCC threatened to consider additional regulation over the matter, which it has now chosen to do anyway.
And I suppose you've been deaf to the comments of nearly all major telecoms about how Google and other web sites are getting a "free ride?" On numerous occasions they've said they would like to charge web sites more to allow traffic to flow to them. It does not matter to them that Google pays their ISP and you pay yours, they're pushing for a system where you both pay both ISPs for the same traffic (which is typically referred to as 'double-dipping').
Then you've got the cellular data networks, which discriminate against practically all traffic that's not web-based.
I was one of those quintessential brats in the back seat of my parent's car mindlessly chanting the eternal question, "Are we there yet?". When addressing questions that incorporate government oversight of national infrastructures that are run by near monopolies there are no destination solutions. There are tentative, context sensitive solutions. The answer isn't unregulated free enterprise, nor is it heavy handed government control. IMHO the answer is the solution offered by mature democracies that have in place the institutions and laws that permit tentative solutions to be put in place then publicly monitored and honed.
What works in our modern, mature democracies are the checks and balances, supplemented by free speech, and, government and business oversight, that allow us to find a workable middle ground. I'm a liberal but I'm always glad for the common sense conservatives who try to limit government interference. Solving social problems by way of democratic institutions is a messy, contentious affair but, I think, modern history has amply demonstrated that the current crop of mature democracies are the best way to go and it's the somewhat efficient functioning of our institutions that allow us succeed more so than does any other form of government. We succeed because we have in place institutions that allow for open debate and venues to address things when they go wrong. We aren't there yet, but then we aren't ever gonna be so we might as well enjoy the ride given that we've got the best vehicle on the road.
just my loose change in a contentious debate
ideopath @ play
That's just silly. Just cause your Google fingers are broke, doesn't mean there haven't been many examples of exactly what NN laws are going to hopefully prevent.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Let's just step back, take a deep breath, and think about this for a second. Now repeat after me:
"The telecoms do no operate in a free market"
Phone and cable companies are basically giant collections of government granted local monopolies. I live in a large urban area that has about a million people within a 20 minute drive from my house, and yet I only have two crappy options for broadband. My situation is not unique.
These companies have guaranteed markets, and basically guaranteed profit. In exchange for that, they should be expected and legally required to provide a certain level of service. In regards to my internet connection, unless I'm doing something to actively harm the network, they've got no business telling me where I should or shouldn't get my packets from.
All that being said, I'm curious what innovation you've been seeing from the telcos that you think is so important to protect? These guys are basically dumb pipes. They just string the infrastructure across the land. They don't design and manufacture switches and servers, they just plug them in and connect them with wires. They don't design the web services that I use, nor do they create the content that I read. They don't make the movies that I watch, and they don't design the games that I play.
They, at best, provide the infrastructure that other people/companies use to innovate. If you can't see how placing arbitrary restrictions on that infrastructure can negatively affect those other people/companies, then you're not trying very hard.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
How can you sit there with a stright face (I assume you have a straight face) and say this is a government takeover of the internet?
All this is saying is that your ISP, which you have practically no choice of who it is (at best a choice between one DSL and one cable TV Co.) can't decide which websites you can visit at the full bandwidth you paid for.
Let me assume you are a republican and like to visit foxnews.com. What if your ISP got into marketing agreement with MSNBC and throttled its competitors, including foxnews.com, so much it became almost unusable. Would that be OK in your book?
The ISPs should not have the power to decide what web sites and net services you can reasonably visit/use. If there were true competition in the ISP market, then maybe so. But that is not the case, and probably will never be the case. That is why we need net neutrality regulations.
You are confused.
It's already _not_ a free market, it is entirely monopolistic, and built with _public_ funds to boot. Also, it's way more expensive than it should be with intentionally substandard connection speeds.
I'm not defending this particular tact by the FCC, just saying your -wait a minute have I just been trolled?
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
"'connecting and using ... lawful devices that do not harm the network.'"So, anything with a network card must be switched off, then? Malware, poor configuration, malicious intent all turn a connected device into a DoS device.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Let the Telcos choose (this does not apply to cable unfortunately)...
If they want to keep the protections that common carrier status affords them, then they must support net neutrality and remain essentially a dumb pipe. They used public land and massive tax incentives and subsidies to deploy the initial infrastructure (with the exception of FIOS, which I believe Verizon is eating the total cost, but still using public land, and in some cases tax breaks).
Or, if they do not want to implement neutrality in anyway, and they want to double dip on charging for bandwidth, discriminate on the types of traffic so that their own services do not have to compete etc, strip them of their protections, let every content company, every person who has been libeled, every politician who wants to shut down $x type of service/product/content and what not sue the telcos and ISPs into oblivion.
Seriously, the only reason telcos have protections is because they were just the intermediary carrying traffic between end points, and could not be held liable for what those entities did. But if they want to start manipulating the types of traffic and data, then they should be held liable for whatever that data contains.
For the record, I agree with the principles, I may not neccesarily agree with how the gov will implement them. Also, I did not vote, I was taught to vote my believes, not the lesser of 2 evils, and honestly, there is very little difference between them from my viewpoint.
How about this.. we have a public referendum on what the public wants. Sure the public can be swayed, but atleast the public as a whole will have some visibility in front of the politicians, as it is right now, the politicians only real view is of whatever the lobbying entities put in front of them.. he who has the money makes the rules I guess.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
Did your contract say that the ISP was allowed to monitor and shape traffic if they felt it may adversely affect their network? If not you should have been able to get out one some breach of contract clause. If they did say they might shape traffic and you didn't want them to do it then why did you agree to the contract?
I hate regulation. I'm so sick of Comcast regulating my Internet habits that I want my government to regulate Comcast. Net Neutrality is the least-regulation possible.
And the courts stopped Comcast under existing laws, so why the need for new laws that will just cause problems in the future when something does start happening?
In the event that companies do start charging major sites to carry the traffic then yes it should be passed. Until then they are passing laws that will give more examples of the government controlling what is on the Internet and does not solve a problem for the consumer.
I want more competition in the marketplace, I want a ISP(or series of ISP) that cater to gamers and delays P2P and videos during prime gaming hours.
Robert Mcdowell:
"Consumers are telling the marketplace that they don't want networks that operate merely as 'dumb pipes,'" he said. "Sometimes they want the added value and efficiency that comes from intelligence inside networks as well."
I wish I could interview politicians, "You just made that shit up didn't you?"
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
And for the thing between countries? Do you think the FCC has anything to say outside of the US? Dutch don't care about the FCC, neither do the Swedes, nor the French. Net neutrality needs to be fought for in every country, not just the US.
But didn't you sign the 1 year contract along with the agreement saying they could change the terms whenever they wanted? So, wouldn't that have been YOUR mistake... for being an ill-informed broadband consumer without any recourse when the provider changed the terms beyond your liking?
BUT WAIT... the government is here to protect you from your own stupid mistakes. YAY the govenrment!
"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" - Ronald Reagan
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
just what do you expect from the republicans. EVERY kind of move they made to control people's lives are disguised as 'for freedom'.
why the fuck arent highways being sold to whomever bids the highest for them, and they are let to discriminate against any and whomever they like and charge them whatever they like, for 'free market' and freedom ? why the fuck all the conservatives stop dead, when asked why arent we doing this ? wouldnt private companies run roads better ? isnt it scuttling investment to not allow private interests to build roads and run them ? and why the fuck shouldnt they be allowed who passes from their roads, and charge whomever they want, and whatever they want, because it is 'their' road ?
america needs to be get rid of republican ilk. they work against freedom of individuals by throwing them at the mercy of big private interests with every fucking move they make, and they dub this 'liberty'. LIBERTY WAS NOT MEANT AS 'BIG FISH COULD RULE SMALLER FISH' AND CALL THIS 'FREEDOM'.
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1406601&cid=29770311
Read radical news here
the corporations dont want to leave internet 'as it is'. they want to CHANGE it, so they will be able to run their networks as cable networks. this is why you need net neutrality rules. net neutrality rules are no different than rules that govern the highways -> no highway administration can decide who passes over the road or charge any traffic according to source, not the type and amount.
get a fucking brain and realize what's going on before purporting knee jerk alan greenspanist comments.
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1406601&cid=29770311
Read radical news here
fucking up of internet by american companies because they want to make it into a cable internet would incur SO much bigger a backlash from international economic community and get the internet out of usa's control and home ground SO fast that dumping of the dollar would be the least of your concerns.
Read radical news here
Seeing how in the UK, pretty much all ISPs, the same as banks and other service providers, have a clause saying they can change the terms at will, without government intervention to prevent this you are screwed no matter how informed you are. The whole point of such laws is to prevent service providers doing such things, and is not just a good thing, but is actually necessary to protect consumers from such unscrupulous behaviour, which tends to become the norm without such intervention.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-14-2009/rape-nuts
it has come to this point. because, you let those fucking republicans yelp on and on about 'letting businesses be'.
net neutrality is no different. its the freedom of internet being legalized. yet, same bastards oppose it with the same old barking.
Read radical news here
With comments like these:
http://blog.openinternet.gov/?p=1&cpage=128
I think it's game over for net neutrality in the USA.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
Once you establish that the FCC has the power to regulate the internet, even if the initial regulation is something you approve of, you're likely to find they start using that newly established power in ways you most decidedly do not approve of. Calling in the government to deal with something that is really only a potential (rather than actual) problem at this point is liable to end up being a long term loss for internet freedom.
Fictitious far right Republican response: Hell no, of course that's not right! That's Obama propaganda marketing! More evidence of him trying to destroy America from within the white house to turn us into a socialist state where the government decides how much money everybody can make, what we can eat and what we can watch! He needs to be stopped!
On the other hand, if the question was posed like so:
Fictitious far right Republican response: It doesn't matter, the government does not have the right to tell businesses how to operate! Businesses can get into any agreements that they want and the government has to stay out of it! If msbnc viewers don't like it they can change ISPs! Vote with your wallet, that's the American way!
McCain called the proposed net neutrality rules a "government takeover" of the Internet.
Keep the durned gub'ment out of my interwebs!
Except, you know, the part about how the gub'ment funded its invention and development, and made the internet widespread and accessible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet
Or watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zovJfeHj-Uc
I find it spectacular that McCain takes these positions with nary a sprinkle of what the people want. Who is advising him? And why doesn't he get some better people?
I support Net neutrality in the broader context but there are still very valid points to be made on the opposite side... yet, all we hear are sound bites that do not further the argument and worse, detract from the real provisions that make for a good governance.
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/johnmccain/2403704/John-McCain-technology-illiterate-doesnt-email-or-use-internet.html
Judges? Based on .. the law?
The problem with relying on judges is that you're more likely to get a ruling like Kelo than some noble defense of the Constitution. You know, Kelo, the one that declared, yes, governments can seize your private property and transfer it to other private citizens for "the public good".
There's a line in the Bible... "Put not your trust in princes"... that I think could easily apply to judges when it comes to your rights and the Constitution.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I used to see a heck of a lot more of that when there were easily a dozen or more local ISPs offering Internet access in my area. Once the telcos were allowed to cut them out of the picture, innovation has become non-existent.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
I need a simple analogy to explain net neutrality. Is this one adequate?
Imagine if the roads were owned by Comcast and AT&T. You pay a monthly fee to drive on the roads. Wal-mart and Target also pay a monthly fee to have the roads come to their stores. Under net neutrality, you and I drive at the same speed limit whether we go to Wal-mart or to Target.
Without net neutrality, Comcast and AT&T want to arbitrarily set the speed limit on their roads. They then want to tell Wal-mart and Target that they need to pay even more money to Comcast and AT&T or they'll lower the speed limit on the roads to their stores. Meaning, if Wal-mart doesn't pay the extra toll, then Comcast/AT&T will force Wal-mart customers to drive at 10mph to Wal-mart stores... Meanwhile, Target paid off Comcast/AT&T, which means that Target customers can drive at 60mh to Target stores.
Comcast did this; which is what put it into the medias eye.
Pay attention.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The courts were not involved, only the FCC. Comcast appealed, specifically citing that they don't believe the FCC had the right to enforce these restrictions on it. Only a month or two back did they sue the FCC over it, and the case is still pending. It's anything but clear that existing law covers this case, as the FCC's very ability to enforce these regulations is being called into question.
Of course, you're specifically against Net Neutrality and would actually prefer traffic discrimination. This case would be better solved by ISPs not overselling their bandwidth which would reduce latency by not saturating their lines, but it's an interesting idea.
I don't know. Accepting Sarah Palin as a running mate seems pretty clueless.
Just wanted to point out that you gave excellent background in the first two paragraphs, then argued against Libertarianism in the third. However, you debunked your own argument against Libertarainism in the fourth, proving what I've always believed... That yes, indeed, Libertarianism is the true Capitalism. And with Capitalism comes natural ups and downs, much like with the weather and nature.
In short, you try to argue against Libertarianism but end up proving it the best course of action by the end of your rant. Not sure if that was your intent, but it does say something.
That would be very funny if it werent' so true.
The FCC finally gets balls enough to put a stop to telco discrimination, and here comes big bad congress trying to de-fang them.
Looks like the FCC royally pissed off some special interests.
You seem to think it's the 50s all over again, not the 60s. And you're just as retarded as McCarthy was. Communism isn't a system of government! It's an economic system. Capitalism isn't a system of government! It's an economic system. Conflating the two results in the meaningless muddy thinking your post is full of.
You were dumb enough to bring up Nazism as an argument. I'll do you one better. Corporate control of government, also known as regulatory capture, has a name too. Mussolini himself named it fascism, in his own writings, and that's what it is. Guess what? That's what we're getting. The US is in no danger of becoming a Nazi state, any more than it's in danger of converting to a communist economy. It IS in danger of becoming a fascist state, and there you sit, advocating more corporate power.
The Internet is the greatest communication tool ever created by mankind and the FCC is moving to pass regulations to keep it that way, because the CEO of SBC went on the record claiming Google was stealing from them. It was a blatant lie, a venal attempt to charge people at both ends more money for the exact same service. The Internet is the greatest communication tool ever created and you DARE to use it to post polemics in favor of DESTROYING it?
You complete and utter fool. Stop typing. Stop talking. You don't deserve to use the Internet. You're so stupid you write "communism/socialism" as if they're the same thing. The Internet is about words, and you are a total failure at understanding words. Stop polluting the thoughts of people around you with your failure.
In the event that companies do start charging major sites to carry the traffic then yes it should be passed. Until then they are passing laws that will give more examples of the government controlling what is on the Internet and does not solve a problem for the consumer.
"Leave things alone until the free market fucks it up" is not a good way to pursue public policy.
Example: Credit Default Swaps and Mortgage Backed Securities
Not to mention your bald assertions that this will lead to "government controlling what is on the Internet and does not solve a problem for the consumer" make no sense at all. If you think that your net connection being subject to the whims of a corporation, with no recourse, isn't a problem, I can't help you to understand.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Similar sitation where I live. Actually there are four options for our household. (Five if no internet access is an option nowadays.) We have AT&T which may or may not (more on that below) allow me to operate the servers on the connection that supports my home-based work. Comcast which absolutely does not allow servers. A wireless provider which does not (despite offering a "business" plan with fixed IP addresses). And, finally, Covad which allows me to operate servers but with a lower bandwidth connection than I'd like and costs more than any of the other options. I would have additional options if we actually lived within the big city (Chicago) limits. (But it only takes one or two watches of the evening news by anyone with school-aged children to understand why that is not a reasonable option.)
The trouble with the telcos acting as providers of dumb pipes is that they cannot make as much money off that model. Look at what happened to banking. Taking customer deposits and lending them out didn't allow them to make billions in profits. So they got rid of the restrictions that prevented them from doing all the really profitable stuff -- like trading in derivatives -- and now they make money hand over fist.
If the telcos are restricted to being nothing more than electonic plumbers, they won't make the really big bucks. They drool over the ability to charge content providers a fee for delivering their content faster than someone who hasn't paid that fee. To the telcos, this would be innovation. It doesn't help the regular folks that use the Internet one iota (well movie streamers would benefit, I guess; big effin' deal.) But the innovation that the telcos are predicting would be prevented by Net Neutrality is not any technical innovation. (Cisco probably disagrees since they surely have equipment they're anxious to sell the telcos to assist them in their traffic management.) It's the new innovative ways they'll be able to suck money out of the pockets of the users of their pipes that'd be blocked by any net neutrality policy.
And $DEITY help us if the telcos were to begin designing the web services that people use. I occasionally visit AT&T's web site (most recently a couple of months ago) to see if switching to them would be possible. The site is almost impossible to navigate using anything other than IE. The information is difficult to find and understand. I have gotten two different web pages that purport to describe the service that I was interested in and after several visits I still can't figure out what's allowed. Calling them for more details was a completely useless exercise; they thought what I was looking for was available but could not point me to where I could confirm anything. (The people who you reach are totally oblivious as to what's on the company web site. It's really incredible. I'm told that the staff that mans the telco's phones experiences a very high turnover rate. That doesn't surprise me one bit.)
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Forget the lawful part. Who decides what's damaging to the network! Could an ISP suddenly declare that more than 1% usage of a pipe over the course of a month is considered damaging?
If you're sharing the upstream with over 9,000 other subscribers in your town, then of course 1% usage can be damaging.
Wish I had mod points.
Shouldn't libertarians support the free internet market, though?
What free internet market? In a free market with strong property rights, one is not free to pull cable over a non-subscriber's land to reach subscribers' premises.
It's basically what you have now: "Lawful" is rather clearly defined. I'm more worried about whimsical definitions of "harm". "Harmful" is plenty vague. Like all them VoIP packets "harming" the network, or "harming" the provider by blocking their spam and ads. Same old spit.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
What if the providers say that the only way to insure that legal content is available to to limit access to the few sites that they have vetted and partnered with.
It depends on where the final bill places the burden of proof: either on the subscriber to demonstrate that the content is lawful, or on the ISP to demonstrate that it is not.
Thanks, Republicans, for helping me figure out whether "Net Neutrality" is a good thing or a bad thing, without even having to find a definition. All one needs to do is figure out which side of the argument the Republicans are supporting. The opposite side is the one which is best for consumers. It's so easy!
So, who owns the land they'll need to dig up every other week to run the new guy's lines, and why should those landholders *let* them dig it up at the drop of a hat to run another set of lines?
Or are we going to let the current line owners hold the lines, and let everyone else lease them at "what the market will bear"?
"I want to be your competitor, but to do so I need to lease access to your lines. What do you mean you won't deal with me, or will charge enough I can't be real competition?"
I want a ISP(or series of ISP) that cater to gamers
Yes, having an actual choice of ISP is the dream. But it will never happen. EVER.
In the majority of markets in the US, there is one high-speed option. In most of the rest there might be two. Your dollar votes are meaningless if you don't have a candidate.
Situations like this cry out for regulation, because there is no alternative means of reining in bad market players.
Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
Here is the FCC's briefing to the courts on the case.
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-293573A1.pdf
It's not okay for "That damn Obama to take away muh guns!" But it IS okay for the government to give ISPs the power to strip away peoples' choice of what they want to do on the internet? I'll never understand Republicans.
No portion of this post may be rebroadcast without the express, written consent of Major League Baseball.
One could make a case that you have it backwards. Without net neutrality regulations, we'll see more co-op ISPs sprout up (like this one) out of need.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
how can you be a libertarian and be in favor of regulating private networks?
How can you reasonably call them private networks? They had plenty of public assistance/intervention to get them built.
Sure, but then don't sell me a 10 mbit pipe, if you're going to cut me off for using more than 100kb of it
You're sold a 100 kbps pipe burstable to 10 Mbps.
And once it actually starts happening then is the time to pass the law. Currently the guidelines and the threat of a law are preventing companies from enacting all these rumors while they it leaves inventors who are thinking of new ideas or new services can ignore them without a worry.
Until there is a problem or something beyond a bunch of people sitting around saying their may be a problem something in the future, this just a move by the FCC to get themselves in a place they have no business and probably cripple future ideas.
Few people have more than two ISPs to choose from. If they both have service agreements that say they can screw you whenever they feel like it, what the hell are you supposed to do? String your own wires?
When it comes to broadband, there is no free market. If there is no free market, there has to be regulation to protect the consumer.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
I'm not really sure how 4 major communications players absorbing every local/smaller wireless provider (most of whom were probably already paying the bigger providers for access) is "exploding." Sounds more like the market's proving that you need to already be the entrenched, big player to survive.
Talk about a strong market surviving off of limited gov't intervention...
There is no such thing as a market failure.
Citation needed.
Tweet, tweet.
Oh hell, anyone will play the game. They like to wait and see if they lose. Once they do they proclaim that they meant something else. I'm referring to slashdotters here. I saw this comment a minute ago. Looks like it's pretty good in combination with this anonymous one.
Since you brought it up: is Google in favor of a different flavor of net neutrality than what is in our best interests? I wouldn't think twice about adopting their version over ATT's, but their view of the internet is still different from ours.
My webcomic
What is it with the idiot, moron, Marxist
This is as far as I got.
The McCarthy era called. They want their red scare back.
Get a grip.
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
John McLame ( Yes I voted for him ) is a moron I doubt he even understands what the internet is let alone why its a bad thing for service providers to throttle down users bandwidth. Especially when they advertise much higher speeds than what users end up getting. Yes I know there is an End User Agreement that you have to agree to when you sign up with an ISP for internet access. But I still feel compelled to have some regulation that says no to the ISPs you cant do that. Some oversight is good I just would not like to see it balloon into this huge monolithic entity that ends up screwing us all. Net Neutrality should be exactly that neutral not controlled by a group of corps or govt bodies.
"Leave things alone until the government fucks it up" is not a good way to pursue public policy.
There, fixed that for you :-).
I have a contract for my net connection that says what I can do and can't do if that contract is broken then I legal action.
But you are skipping the main item, there is no example of a company going out there and blocking a one site in favor of another. if you don't understand why the government should not block free trade until there is a need so be it.
what the fuck else was i trying to say, pray tell me. and also please tell me what the fuck i am going to eat for lunch today. also, tell my next 5 years' fortune please.
you should learn not to put fucking words in people's mouths, if you want to be taken seriously, and responded to. this is why i havent responded to your blabberscrap, and you wont get another reply.
Read radical news here
I just shared my support for net neutrality with the FCC, and you can too! Go here: http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/ecfs2/upload/display?z=ydawa Enter 09-191 in the "Proceeding" text box, and fill out your contact info. Paste this, or a variation of it, or your own thoughts: I am very strongly in support of net neutrality, and hope the FCC enacts rules that will prohibit any internet provider from offering preferential internet access to some sources or types of data, and offering inferior access to other sources or types. I believe that the internet has been an engine of creativity in large part because of its openness and low barriers to entry. Without net neutrality, the internet may not be able to continue in its role as an economic driver and source of information and innovation.