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The Telcos' Secret Anti-Net Neutrality Strategy
NoMoreHelio writes "The political blog ThinkProgress lays out big telecom's plan to attack net neutality. The blog obtained a secret PowerPoint presentation from a telecommunications industry front group (PPT) that outlines the industry strategy for defending against regulatory attempts by the FCC. The industry plans to partner with two conservative 'astroturfing' groups, best known for their work seeding the Tea Party movement. Today's revelation from ThinkProgress comes as Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) joined various telecom-funded front groups to unveil an anti-net neutrality bill."
This isn't so much about Net Neutrality as it is about them not wanting the government to have control of the situation. It wouldn't matter what the government wanted to do, the Telecoms want to be the ones in charge.
They favor small government when it helps big business. They favor new legislation when it helps big business. They are experts at fooling average hard-working folks into voting against their own best interests.
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Government cannot go around telling people what they must do with their property, that's central planning, and it makes it impossible for private owners to regulate how their property is used efficiently.
And I never said that they should go around telling people what they can do with their property. I'm absolutely opposed to government control, however, if they are going to take my money, I should have a say what it is used for. The internet implies neutrality by definition. When we paid these millions of dollars to telecoms we weren't wanting non-neutral internet connections because such things were nearly impossible with the technology level. However, with deep packet inspection and the like, its becoming a threat.
If a company wants to not use public land and public funding, fine, do whatever you want. However, the moment you use public land or public funding, you should be subjected to the will of the people. The will of the people is pro-net neutrality, and the lack of net neutrality has almost no positives and many negatives.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
here is a clue - Don't offer unlimited bandwidth if you can't handle it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
No, it is pure propaganda that network neutrality would affect any of the above very reasonable engineering decisions.
That being said, you should really re-examine your business model if p2p is filling your transit from a small percentage of your customers. That is an engineering problem with your sale of unlimited services without adequate feed.
a handful of selfish greedy people are no match for millions of selfish, greedy people -u4ya
1. Create sea of regulation preventing competition from entering telecom business.
2. Achieve government-sanctioned monopoly on said services.
3. Screw over users.
4. Prevent users from regulating against being screwed in the name of freedom.
5. Profit
They didn't turn the Internet over for the common good. It was dragged from their bleeding hands by thousands of BBS sysops turned ISP and their subscribers. Aided by rogue backbone networks like UUNet and whipped into action by Jack Rickard, we tore up the Internet Acceptable Use Provisions and stopped paying the outrageous amounts they charged for admission to their exclusive little club. Since then the Internet has been ours, not the government's or that of the government-funded academic and research groups that we took it from. Internet 2 is a way for them to get back control. So is Net Neutrality. If you think the telecoms are a problem and government management would be an improvement, you need to find a friend who'll lend you a few grey cells.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
You guys seriously want to have a bunch of bureaucrats go in and regulate something that has been so successful and has provided so much information and knowledge...
I've been involved with the internet since the very early days when it was a government project. A big part of why the internet has been so successful is because the military and government did a pretty decent job building it. So you're okay letting government design and build it, but suddenly they can't handle oversight.
Corporations are not the solution, corporations are the problem. Without the government having the ability to enforce fair dealing, corporate interests are going to stomp all over consumers. Maybe you remember what happened when we let the banking industry self-regulate. Or did that little episode not make it on to Fox News? It'll be that on the internet.
What's really interesting is how often corporate interests are lining up with the "grassroots" organizers of the tea party.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
You sold the users unlimited bandwidth, either deliver it, or change your business model. The mistaken belief that your profit margins are your right, and that you have the retroactive authority to restrict what your users do with what you have sold them, is the reason that this whole mess has started. Business changes, if you are unwilling to adapt, that is one thing, but coming back and trying to force after the fact restrictions on what you have sold your customers is unethical at best.
Why do you get to decide that some users traffic is less important than others? Did they get any say in the matter? Are they currently under contract?
If you cannot provide what you have sold, tell your customers that and let them find other providers, but to deceitfully and silently degrade some customers service because they are lower margin than others, is reprehensible.
a handful of selfish greedy people are no match for millions of selfish, greedy people -u4ya
Perhaps if the infrastructure were not owned by monopolies, your points would have more validity. However, when companies lobby for and are granted monopolies over infrastructure *and* services, they then become subject to greater regulation and scrutiny, because normal market forces such as customers switching to another provider often are no longer possible.
From an ordinary user standpoint, once upon a time you actually could choose between many different ISP's because *you* dialed *them*. Can I dial any ISP I want over Cable, or DSL, or fiber, or whatever?
That's the problem in the US today. Infrastructure has been tied to service, leaving most folks with very little choice and the market forces hogtied by government granted monopolies.
There are plenty of examples throughout the world where there is good competition at the ISP level, with consumers benefiting from better infrastructure, services, and prices. And the great majority of it is from introducing competition, not allowing monopolies to get larger and larger.
Net Neutrality probably wouldn't even be on the radar if infrastructure and services were not tied together in government granted monopolies.