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The FCC May Decide Not To Regulate Broadband
This morning the Washington Post reported that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is leaning toward letting the telecomms have their way — not asserting greater authority to regulate the Internet by reclassifying broadband as a Title II service. The blogs are atwitter (HuffPo, StopTheCap) that not voting to apply Title II regulation to Internet carriers is tantamount to giving up on net neutrality — which has been a centerpiece of the Obama administration's tech policy. The Post paraphrases its sources, who are reading the chairman's mind, that Genachowski believes "the current regulatory framework would lead to constant legal challenges to the FCC's authority every time it attempted to pursue a broadband policy." The FCC will say only that the chairman has made no decision yet.
If carrier neutrality won't be regulated then I want all government/carrier deals to be outlawed. I want to be able to sign up with anyone who is willing to toss me a line.
Now Comcast gets to decide what websites I can visit and at what speed. Or, alternately, I can go to the one other alternative I have (AT&T) and let THEM decide what websites I can visit and at what speed.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Here is a good direct opinion piece to point to your congress critter: "Comcast Can Censor This Blog Post ... With FCC's Permission?" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marvin-ammori/ten-things-comcast-will-b_b_560897.html
Try to impress on them the notion of what if Comcast should decide not to be supportive of your their reelection webpage?
"the current regulatory framework would lead to constant legal challenges to the FCC's authority every time it attempted to pursue a broadband policy."
And... so?
"Something's good for consumers but unpopular with service providers; because the service providers might be bitchy let's not do it."
What? The *point* of the FCC is *exactly* to suffer being that middle man.
Gary (-;
This is disastrous. I don't even know where to begin...
While there will undoubtedly be some competition by way of cable companies vs. DSL/fiber providers (pushing video/television and what-not), on both sides there will be hefty opposition against bandwidth sinks like like Hulu and Youtube. I can see it now: "Comcast Cable is now offering unlimited bandwidth! Experience our 6mbps* high-speed Internet for a low fee of only $45.00/month! Some restrictions apply! *Certain content may not be available at full speed, such as YouTube, Hulu, and non-Comcast partners. YouTube is available at full-speed for an additional fee of $1.99/month; Hulu is available for $3.49/month; non-Comcast partners are available for a low monthly fee per site. Please see full price list for details. Comcast partners include sports sites such as NHL.com and NFL.com, as well as networks such as Comedy Central and Syfy. Switch to Comcast today to see these sites at full-speed! (Television network sites are available for $1.99/month)"
And really, nothing can stop them from doing that. They can throttle BitTorrent traffic, slow down competitors' sites, or even detect streaming media and throttle it down.
Plus, micropayments via web games such as Farmville and MMOs have proven to be a good source of income. Maybe they'll offer to unthrottle BitTorrent traffic for a "low low price of $1.99/week".
Yeah, net neutrality is a bunch of bull. If you want fast sites, you need to *pay* for fast sites, you communist. Don't expect handouts like "unlimited internet"; hell, even roads have tolls!
The 'fairness' doctrine is complete BS. It leads to straw man-type arguments and too much liability for broadcasters.
And net neutrality is -completely- different than the fairness doctrine. All net neutrality does it make sure that broadband providers can't give preferential treatment or throttle connections.
What needs to happen is taxpayers must rise against ISPs taking public land without giving the public what it wants. Want to throttle? Don't use public land. If you don't use public land, you don't have to follow what the public wants. But most if not all ISPs do use public land and so the public needs to have a say on what goes on there.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I mean, just look at the banks.
(Or forestry in the 1980s. Or the savings and loan arena in the 1980s. Or AT&T in the 19th Century...)
US is not a democracy. I'm not sure what it is -- people run for election to represent the people, they make certain promises, and express what their position is on various issues to appeal to the masses.
They get elected, and then they vote in a manner that is diametrical opposite to the sales pitch they gave to get elected.
Because they have a multi-year term, there's absolutely nothing the people they represent can do to revoke or cancel the benefits of having won the election based on their unfulfilled contract with their constitutents, when they start to go wrong.
Or they 'sell' the choice of how they'll represent their people to the highest bidder. So in exchange for personal favor X, they falsely represent that the people want Y, in order to secure that favor, and they do it on every single vote.
I compare it to a corporate board of directors hiring a candidate with a 2 year non-revokable contract to be CEO, so the new employee can't be removed, limited, or rendered powerless, as long as they don't do anything actually illegal, and very high salary, based on a 5 minute interview, with very limited background information being available (other than their claimed positions on certain governance issues).
Of course the moment the deal is done, they can do whatever they want, including managing the company very badly.
"...not voting to apply Title II regulation to Internet carriers is tantamount to giving up on net neutrality -- which has been a centerpiece of the Obama administration's tech policy."
As one who bought the hype and strongly advocated for Obama, let me say I think this sentence is under-broad. From Gitmo to torture to open government to bringing everyone to the table on health care, the story has been the same.
The author mentions giving up on netneut, a centerpiece of tech policy. I think giving up on things has been a centerpiece all Obama policy.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
I agree that in a strictly linear tax system there would have to be a subsidy for the poor to offset the discriminatory effect of the taxation. And anyway I find nonlinear taxation to be fair as long as it increases for the rich rather than the opposite. But taxation with thousands of exceptions doesn't seem fair to anyone.
Bruce Perens.
Unlikely, my politician is already in Comcast's pocket. Why would comcast censor their own politician? :(
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
I'm sorry, but that's just flat out incorrect. And worse, it's counterproductive.
Do our regulatory structures need serious reform? Are there areas we are extremely ineffective at regulating? Do companies often find ways to wiggle around stringent regulations? Have politicians gutted good regulations for ideological or fund-raising reasons? Yes yes yes and yes. But to argue that there is "no such thing" as government regulation anymore is to deny evidence all around us. Look at our environment, specifically air and drinking water quality. Look at workplace safety, medical procedures and drugs, automobiles, construction, fishery management, etc etc etc. Now compare them to countries that really don't have any enforced regulations or periods in history where the US didn't; the difference is profound. If you want to see what "no regulations" looks like, go live in Africa or southeast Asia for a while. Then come back and we'll talk.
To say that regulation is dead is to just give up on the idea that we can improve our regulatory systems. It's the same cynical bullshit we see all the time on slashdot. If there's one reason we don't have perfect regulation, it's that people sat around moaning about how it's impossible.
Just because you sold your soul to the devil that needn't make you a teetotaler. --The Devil and Daniel Webster
No it doesn't. If you look at how much government people use, it is the poor who end up sapping the most.
Are you kidding me. 95% of the benefits that government provide is so that rich can make more money.
* Law & Order/Military - protect the resources of the rich
* Social Security - proactive law & order
* Infrastructure - pooling resources on infrastructure so those with property (the rich) can make more money.
* Education - create low level employees that can make money for the rich.
Hyperbole
Irony
No, I'm not serious.
*BEGIN EMOTIONAL AND FRUSTRATED RANT*
No, scratch that, I think I actually am. If admitting you have a problem is the first step, then let's go ahead and just admit that the FCC is utterly useless. I've got a few dozen dead miners' ghosts who'd like to talk about the uselessness of OSHA, and the line of people who would like to talk about the toothlessness of the EPA begins in Galveston and is expected to run through Pensacola.
The plutocracy we currently have is exactly a dictatorship of the rich. I've been fighting the good fight since before Reagan and it has been a flood of crap from James Watt through Glenn Beck. It has been one long slide down and back.
The Bill of Rights stands in tatters. We measure our national debt in trillions. We're so deeply in bed with various murderous dictators around the world I can't even say the words "Land of the Free, Home of the Brave" with a straight face any more. We're torturing prisoners. Our cops are shooting unarmed, handcuffed, face-down pleading men in the back. Texas has disappeared Thomas Jefferson from their civics curriculum. We're so afraid of terrorists we think strip-searching everyone is a good idea. I routinely, day in and day out, hear my fellow citizens argue that women with terminal breast cancer should be left to die in the street, and that only children who can afford it should have access to health care.
Land of the Free, Home of the Brave? I don't even recognize my country any more. We've become a small, cowardly people with no heart, and the justifiable laughingstock of the civilized world.
So in my darker moments, Bruce, yeah, every so often I'm tempted to say "Frack it. Give 'em what they want." America didn't quit smoking until pretty much everyone knew at least one close friend or family member who died hacking up bloody bits of lung cancer in the 70s. Maybe that's what it's gonna take for us to learn. Maybe when someone in every family has been left to die of a curable disease in the gutter, maybe when real unemployment hits 50 percent and stays there, maybe when we go back to the bad old days of Dickens' worst dream, maybe then we'll wake up and start to deal with these issues.
And then I see my kids, and I see their future, and I ease off the "Lethal Weapon" Martin Riggs crazy throttle.
*END RANT*
No, Bruce, I'm not serious. Yes, Bruce, I would dearly love to see the FCC rediscover their mandate and begin fighting the good fight. But if the choice is the FCC as a telco sock puppet, or no FCC at all...
I can't say I'd miss them.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Where on earth do you think that money comes from?
How much do you think your stocks will be worth if the workers in those companies are sick or can't get to their offices because the roads are in disrepair and the police can't protect them from robbers? How long do you think your land will stay yours when the mob come to take it from you? And just how much do you think your nice pile of shiny dollar bills wil be worth if you don't have a strong economy and government - paid for by taxes - to back it up?
So yeh, you might never meet a policeman in your life, your mansion might be totally self sufficient and you might travel around in your own private helicopter, but the richer you are the more you've benefitted from the society that tax has paid for and the more you have to lose if you try to weasel your way out of paying some back.