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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.
Net Neutrality? more liek net BRUTALITY am i rite?
seriously, who writes this crap?
Dear AT&T,
How much for the Slashdot / Reddit / Gmail / Gaming Bandwidth package? Just planning ahead...
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.
Okay... so let's say I'm an ISP. I don't shape any traffic. A small percentage of my customers are slamming my transit connection with p2p traffic. What if I setup peering connections to large content providers (google, Netflix, Directv, yahoo, large hosting company networks, voip providers, etc)? Now all non-peered BitTorrent traffic will go through the transit link where is could get clogged up. All the sites the most of my non-peering users are interested in get nice fast connectivity. I also setup an alternate network for my own VoIP services -- no QoS, but traffic gets routed off congested points on my network.
If an ISP does this, are they violating net neutrality? Does the government get to tell me which networks I peer with? Is peering now a *bad* thing if the government has too much control over the "neutrality"?
I wonder what completely wrong definition they'll assign "net neutrality" to?
Given that their first 2 scare lines involved the phrase "government takeover", I think they'll take a similar route...
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
They elected GWB twice, it seems they can get plenty done.
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.
While I am for net-neutrality, and we do need some form of regulation on the internet to keep the providers fair and clean, do not, and I repeat, do not assume that the government is pushing net neutrality for the purpose of helping you. There have been many times in the United States where our government will push something like Social Security, saying "This is to help the widows with children", which, yes, is a noble cause that many can't argue with. But look at it now, it is a system used to hook the societal leeches and give paychecks to fat-asses who are too lazy to get up and work.
I'm a bit curious who you think receives Social Security checks. You got the survivor and child benefit correct, but the only other two benefits are a retirement benefit available at age 62 (that's a reduced benefit; you don't get the unreduced benefit until age 66 or 67 depending on when you were born) and a total disability benefit which generally requires a year or two worth of paperwork to prove that your disability is severe enough to end your working life.
I think it's somewhat arguable whether or not the survivor benefit is strictly necessary in this day and age. But I'm curious how these social security benefits which you can only get at the end of your working lifetime are "a system used to hook the societal leeches and give paychecks to fat-asses who are too lazy to get up and work."
Do you think that Social Security is welfare? It isn't.
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
The regulation would be to keep things the same. To prevent things from getting worse. Not to change the internet.
Sent from my PDP-11
The FCC under Obama says "Net Neutrality good"
The FCC is playing it's own political game. Broadband Reports has been covering it for quite awhile now. Essentially they plan on ignoring the recommendation of their own study groups. The studies they've done have concluded that "open access" (i.e: Verizon/Time Warner/etc are forced to let competitors use their fiber and copper plants) is the best way to increase competition. They have ignored these studies in favor of moving forward with a "third way" that won't do anything to address the mono/duolopy of ISPs.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
For far too long now, the GOP SOP has been "Corps good. Privatize the public commons, better!"
And that should be a reason for supporting net neutrality. We've given the telecoms tons of money, tons of land, etc. its a myth that all these ISPs got to be so large because of their own work and its the big evil government who is regulating them. That is completely false. It is the big evil government who said "here have a few million dollars, 'modernize' America, give it internet access" and then handed out public land left and right so its citizens could have internet access. However, now the internet access is no longer internet access but rather dumbed-down media portals in essence.
If it was privatized we sure wouldn't have these huge ISPs who can conspire to block net neutrality but instead smaller, regional companies competing for your business.
Really, if arguing from liberal, conservative, libertarian, green or just about any other political ideology, net neutrality in the US makes sense for the majority of ISPs.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
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.
That kind of tenuous reasoning could lead to people organizing and shutting down big corpulent wastes of money like HEW, the EPA, etc.
And if public money has gone to National Public Radio (a certain amount has and can be documented) where's my open mike?
Except that the internet is not and has never been "the same". If the internet was kept "the same" we'd be having this conversation on Usenet over a period of days while we each waited for the UUCP batch job to run and update the posts.
Do you think that we would have seen all of this innovation on the internet if it had been regulated since day one? Regulation tends to protect the status quo. I'm not sure if it's really the way we want to go with regards to the internet. I've maintained for awhile now that it would be better to remove the legal/regulatory barriers that keep new upstarts from entering the ISP market. I would much rather see a multitude of companies competing for my business than a regulated duopoly that buys off regulators to protect it's business model.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
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
Did anyone notice where this story came from? Think Progress, the far-left-liberal group.
Recently a bill was introduced in the House that would provide the FCC the ability to regulate ISPs, it was written by Free Press, a badly misnamed organization dedicated to regulating an over-use of free speech, and, among other things, criminalizing private media ownership in favor of "democratic" collective ownership, regulating bloggers, reporters, instituting government-funded reporting and journalism, and re-introducing the fairness doctrine. Woa! And government doesn't want to regulate ISPs, they just need to? Nothing bad could come of this? Seriously?
Since when were ISPs bad? They provide a great service to many people. Remember what the Internet is. It's a network of privately owned computers, linked together. Each individual has the say as to what happens with their computers and their network, each individual has every right to say how to route their data. Engineering and internal self-regulation has always solved more problems than outside regulation done by force. This is how the Internet has always operated, why are we now criminalizing this idea of Internet freedom?
Wonder what the public key field is for?
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
Look up Common Carrier sometime (how about now? I dare you to learn). Net neutrality is not a new and exotic concept, and it is not unreasonable or out of line with how business is done in other industries right now.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
They are against government doing things for other people. Note that they blaim Obama for the rescue plan, that was enacted by Bush and the result of republican policies, the neo-conservative movement started with Reagan.
First, the name calling makes you sound like a five year old... I know you think you're being funny, but it just comes off as snarky, at best, every time it gets used.
/shock), which, yeah, pissed off fiscally conservative people even further. The last few years of Bush pushed them over the edge, causing them to turn on Bush... but where are the Bush fiscal policy bashers from the left now that Obama is in power? Seems as though they disappeared when their side "won" even though Obama is exacerbating Bush's bad fiscal policies that they supposedly disagreed with. For as much as the left criticizes the Tea Party people for being, uh, late to the party, it seems as though the left has completely abandoned it once they gained the White House.
Second, learn some history. The neo-con movement didn't start with Reagan, it started in the 1950s and 60s, as international interventionalist Democrats split with their own party and joined in with the Republicans. In fact, that's where the whole "neo" part about them being conservatives comes in... they were a "new kind of conservative."
Third, I'm sure you're up on your talking points, but most Tea Party people are as just as opposed to Bush's role in the bailouts as they are Obama's. In fact, many Republicans who voted for TARP are facing a similar backlash to incumbant Democrats (see McCain getting a serious challenge from Hayworth, Bob Bennett getting the boot in the Utah Republican primary last week, Crist leaving the GOP in Florida when it became apparent that Republicans wouldn't support him in the primary, etc).
But also, let's not forget that Obama voted for TARP himself (which makes him as bad as Bush), and then he went on to create even more bailouts and a giant new entitlement that we obviously can't afford (CBO projections continue to increase as of this week
It is like financial regulation, the banks are dead against that, but want very strict laws that enable them to collect on debts. Freedom is me telling you what I can do and you can't.
Big banks are all FOR financial regulation. It raises the bar on new competition trying to get their foot in the door. You don't think the big banks actually suffer, do you? It's kinda like how Microsoft is all for software patents (which are another type of government regulation) - it makes it harder for the little guy to compete and does absolutely nothing to hinder the big guys, whom generally take a Mutally Assured Destruction approach with each other (I won't sue you for violating my software patents if you don't sue me for violating yours).
Look at the SEC and what good their regulation did. They totally ignored Bernie Madoff (under Bush) and Enron (under Clinton), giving regular folks a false sense of security in the market. If there was no SEC, people wouldn't have a default assumption that the market isn't rigged and they would invest more carefully. Likewise, that FDA stamp on your meat doesn't mean the FDA inspected that piece, just that the facillities met requirements the day the FDA showed up. Ditto for your local health departments inspections of restaurants. In fact, "crappy" chain restaurants like McDonalds are FAR more rigorous than your local Dept of Health when it comes to food safety inspections (at least back when I was a manager in the mid 90s, corporate inspects 4 times a year, one of which is a surprise inspection, compared to once a year for the state, which notifies you that you'll be inspected "sometime this month" before showing up). BigChainFood wants to protect its brand from bad franchisees, the Health Department wants to do the minimum to meet their job requirement.
Back to the topic of Net Neutrality, I've never seen a single definition th
Stop Koolaid Politics
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
Yay! So I can ban all those filthy niggers nips and spics from my Quikkkie*Mart!
Except no, we know this is wrong and there are laws against it.
For the same reason telcoms shouldn't be allowed to arbitrarily throttle traffic based on who is sending it to who and for what purpose.
Telcoms can state that I can connect at 2Mb/s for up to 100GB up, 20GB down a month with bursts of up to 1GB/hour up, 500MB down. (And they better should be serving me that! No excuses.)
They shouldn't be able to say what I can do with that bandwidth, if I want to spend all day watching youtubes video or chatting over skype is my business only.
And don't bring the "free market", most people have no choice of ISP or only 2 ISP that are equally bad.
But... the future refused to change.
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.
I keep hearing that the GOP = Big Business, when big business have given more to the Democratic Party over time than to the GOP. While there is certainly support in business for the Republicans, there is certainly no shortage of support for Democrats in the halls of commerce, either. Goldman Sachs is practically the in-house fundraiser for the DNC. Each of the largest megabanks... Citi, Bank of America, etc.. has very close ties to major Democratic politicians like Chuck Schumer, Chris Dodd, and ... I think you get the picture.
While your narrative plays well at Democratic Underground, Daily Kos, etc, those Wascawy Demokwats are even more deeply buried in the bosom of "big business". The RIAA is big business. As is Google. As is Apple. As is HP. The quintessential "big business" is GM, and guess who was eager to have government buy them? Hmm?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Except for the ones in states where that is restricted or outlawed at the behest of the telcos.
Are you old enough to remember how close we came to having several of the Great Lakes become completely dead bodies of water?
Before the EPA stepped in, the Cuyahoga River, which runs through Cleveland actually caught fire. Today, thanks in largest part to the EPA, you can fish for snook, redbreast, sunfish or tarpon. If you've been to Cleveland in the last ten years, you'll find that the river no longer smells like creosote.
Since the EPA, the air in ever major American city, with the possible exception of Huston, has improved considerably. There were days here in Chicago when you could see green, stinking smog hanging over the entire downtown area. The Chicago River was a stinking mess, with factories and mills up and down the river dumping waste into it.
Today, living on the river is highly desirable and there is even sport fishing on the river. People can enjoy eating lunch along the river and you no longer have to hold your nose like you did twenty years ago.
If you want an example of what happens when there is insufficient, weak regulations on industry, you might have seen a little story in the paper sometime last week about an accident in the Gulf of Mexico, which, by the way, is not even in the top ten of oil spills. Yet. At what point do you think the "invisible hand of the free market" would have acted to clean up those environmental disaster?
If you can point to an example of a place where unregulated industry led to a healthy, prosperous, happy society, please do. Otherwise, you are just spouting nonsense.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I don't know. There have been AT&T trucks blocking my alley for the past week and all their work seems to take place on poles standing in the alley, not on people's property.
And to me it has less to do with the public property that the telcos have appropriated than the fact that they have glommed onto an internet that was developed entirely with public money and turned it into their own private playground.
Just remember, private industry would have never created the Internet that we use today. Can you even imagine for a second how that conversation would have gone? "How much will we charge per email? You want to use an open source what?"
It's a shame so many people seem to have forgotten where the Internet came from. They think it's some great gift that AT&T has given us so we can subscribe to U-Verse and play World of Warcraft.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It hasn't been "We the people" since about 1865. The imperial federal government decided that states could no longer rule themselves and took over. Since then the imperial federal government has been at war with "We the people". They started taking our money in 1913 with the addition of the 16th amendment. Then they tried to subdue us by removing our booze in 1920 with the 18th amendment. This failed but then they succeeded later in 1972 when Richard Nixon started the war on the people. Then in 2001, Bush gave us the Patriot act. Finally in 2010 they completed the assault on "We the people" by making it so that if you were to rebel or even think about it and propagandize about it they would revoke your American citizenship and strip you of all civil liberties including your Miranda right and label you a combatant and keep you imprisoned indefinitely. That being the "terrorist expatriation act".
So no, the government hasn't been "us" for a long time. That and the fact that all the Supreme Court Justices are from NYC and attended either Harvard or Yale should tell you something about the ruling elite in this country.
So I'm going to get back to work so I can pay my taxes which pay for two foreign wars I don't believe in, an auto company I think should have gone under, the mortgages of half the people in this country and the police force that makes it so I can't even smoke a joint on the weekends without fear of being put in jail. Oh and if I miss report my taxes they'll also put me in jail. Oh and if during my commute I get into the music on the radio and don't watch my speed I'll end up in court as well. Luckily when I get home I can watch TV and play video games; well censored TV with no expletives because my government doesn't think its appropriate. Oh and nothing with skin, because the human body is so offensive. Oh and no salt or sugar either.