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Democrats Pan Google-Verizon Net Neutrality Proposal
GovTechGuy writes "Four House Democrats wrote to the Federal Communications Commission, urging them to write strict net neutrality rules and reject the framework put forward by Google and Verizon. The lawmakers, including Rep. Anna Eshoo, who represents the district containing Google HQ, said the Google-Verizon proposal increases the pressure on the FCC to come up with actual net neutrality rules, and characterize the deal as harmful to consumers and beneficial for the corporations. In particular, the letter took issue with two pieces of the Verizon-Google proposal: exemptions for managed services and wireless services from strict net-neutrality rules."
They're finally realizing that you can't let corporations have their way with the internet? Hopefully, this leads to a reversal that grants the FCC the proper powers to uphold these rules should they actually make the climb.
From the way I see it, if these politicians actually had the will to put their foot down on net neutrality then Google wouldn't even have to compromise and cut deals.
But what do I know.
I remember back in my day we fought tooth and nail to keep the government _away_ from controlling the Internet. Now apparently it's fashionable to want them controlling it, but only for "good" purposes. I'm sure they'll keep their hands off except to ensure the evil corporations don't screw the noble consumer over, though. Government's pretty good at that kind of thing. Incorruptible and efficient beyond reproach, that's what the government is.
The lack of neutrality for managed services is going to put an increased burden on IT companies. It will increase the costs where cloud services are already being proven to NOT lower costs.
The fact of the matter is that True Net Neutrality is beneficial to every company EXCEPT ISPs. ISPs being a set than includes broadband, T1, DSL and any provider as well as the increasing role mobile providers take. Basically a set of companies that receive quite a bit in government money ALREADY to fund construction of network infrastructure.
It isn't wrong. They wrote a fucking letter that says we don't like what Verizon and Google have proposed. It doesn't have any proposal of what the FCC policy should be. Just that Google and Verizon's shouldn't be adopted.
The closest they get is saying what concepts should be central in the policy that is adopted.
Since this is slashdot, we can make this a car analogy. Google and Verizon have designed and built a vehicle. They have presented it and it could be sent to the manufacturing line. These democrats have said "don't build it!" and instead are proposing that the factory make cars that have 4 tires, a steering wheel, some seats, and an engine. 4 cylinder? *shrug!* Comfy seats? Eh, if you like.
It would be one thing for a private organization to protest the Google/Verizon proposal. But these people are in the practice of legislation. If they object, why haven't they and their staff managed to come up with a proposal of their own? Its only been, you know, years.
I don't expect morality, equality, consistency, or justice from the law. I expect only legality.
...doesn't exist yet.
When the internet first started...
There was no "cloud".
There was no streaming video.
There was no bittorrent.
There were no VPNs, no work-at-home over the net.
There wasn't even a web - though that came fairly quickly.
The internet was conceived as an open-ended transport mechanism, with no plans or constraints as to the data being transported, though there were some thoughts about QOS, recognizing that some data had to get there quickly, some reliably, some not particularly either.
Commercial deployments of anything, not just the internet, generally aren't open-ended. They tend to plan things, up-front, and put just as much thought into billing as they do into the rest of the job. (Ever see how much cell phone plumbing is dedicated to billing, as opposed to merely shuttling customers' data?)
The best reason for net neutrality is something we haven't done yet, something no company has planned for, and very likely something that would be hindered by default, because it doesn't fit into current plans. (Or can you say, "disruption not desired!"?)
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Managed services are a good idea, if they are run on top of a neutral network. As long as that physical network is developed by an unbiased entity and resold fairly with no oversubscription, ISPs should be free to carve out as much bandwidth as they can pay for. As demand increases, regardless of content, investment in additional capacity will follow.
The problem with the existing situation is that as long as the ISPs own the underlying physical network, the "manages services" aren't running on top of the Internet, but rather the Internet is transformed into a "managed service". There is no incentive whatsoever for the ISPs to invest in additional capacity beyond what they require for their own services, so investment in the Internet is dead, and its value for future innovation is lost.
If you let them, they'll take away a few more of those pesky freedoms or yours, and then have the gall to send you a non-contestable tax bill for their trouble. Wait, so you are arguing that I should have the freedom to have throttled Internet but not the freedom to have the ability to choose unfiltered open Internet? What freedom do I lose when the government-created monopolies are prevented from abusing their monopolies to screw their customers?
You do not understand the insights of the modern (anti-conservative) right wing and their Tea Party intellectual shock troops. Government is always evil in everything it does and private corporations never do wrong. This revelation frees you from needing to study such boring and old fashioned things as "facts" or "evidence" or to engage in elitist "rational thought".
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj