Obama FCC Caves On Net Neutrality

An anonymous reader writes "...the rule, which will be voted on during tomorrow's FCC meeting, falls drastically short of earlier pledges by President Obama and the FCC Chairman to protect the free and open Internet. The rule is so riddled with loopholes that it's become clear that this FCC chairman crafted it with the sole purpose of winning the endorsement of AT&T and cable lobbyists, and not defending the interests of the tens of millions of Internet users."

Comments

What a suprise

[AmonTheMetalhead]

Money rules this world...

Re:What a suprise

[oldspewey]

Yes

Re:What a suprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Kosh, is that you? I thought you died!

Re:What a suprise

[spun]

It would be illegal under your scheme to give real time or streaming applications priority. Try again. How about, "No Internet provider shall discriminate based on end-points." Discriminate by type of traffic, sure. Discriminate based on where it came from or where it is going, no.

Re:What a suprise

[sarhjinian]

Remember the kerfuffle when Ralph Nader wondered if Obama would become a metaphorical "Uncle Tom" to corporate interests? This is what he meant.

Re:What a suprise

[scubamage]

More importantly, what if a carrier network is carrying VoIP traffic? Your rule would make it illegal to give 911 calls priority over all other traffic, and would undermine the ideas of QoS. I agree with your rule in spirit, but it needs some amendments to be practical.

Re:What a suprise

[scubamage]

As someone who works for a telephony carrier, I can tell you for a fact that you we DO to handle QoS as well as the user. Its a regulatory requirement in the USA. First, most of the time any QoS markings placed on either a traditional or voip call get wiped out at the first hop, because users otherwise would start marking themselves as higher priority than other users. It's a basic security concern mentioned in most network books when they describe QoS. Then after you strip off that stuff, you usually start using DSCP markers and MPLS, and above that you've got routing decisions to go with different carriers to reach the destination based on the cost to use their lines. All of these decisions get modified when its an emergency call. And yes, those calls do get misrouted sometimes; and there's hell to pay for it. Just like any other regulatory call.

Re:What a suprise

[rivetgeek]

Yes we could've

Re:What a suprise

[NeverVotedBush]

And no we didn't.

Re:What a suprise

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Obama's job on the issue of "Net Neutrality" is much like Bush's ballyhooed "Healthy Forests" initiative: a back-stabbing lie, designed to surrender sovereignty to private corporations and enforce this degradation with the power of law.

America: Love your banana republic or leave it.

Re:What a suprise

[hairyfeet]

Oh but you are missing the sneakier way they are gonna get you...caps. I'm in one of the test markets for the new caps, which BTW are 36GB for residential, and 76GB for business. Now that is $106! for the bundle with basic cable and phone, or $180! for the "business" which is the same just with a higher cap. Now here is how they get you:

Vonage? Counts against the cap. Their VoIP? Don't. Linux and Mac updates? Count. Windows? Don't because they got "donated" a WSUS server. Anyone other than Netflix and Youtube? Counts. Their PPV along with Youtube and Netflix? Don't, and the only reason you are allowed Youtube and Netflix is they paid to put a local server. Starting to see a trend?

At $1.50 a GB and a low cap it really doesn't take much to "steer" your customer wherever you want them to go. Remember the days of the AOL walled garden? Well its about to be back boys and girls. Sure you can go where they don't want you to, but it will cost you out the ass. Stay in this nice little garden and we won't bend you over the barrel.

For all those that were "corporation yay!" you are about to get a taste of what uncontrolled greed is like, and you ain't gonna like it! We in the USA will be shuttled onto the short bus of the information superhighway while the rest of the world gets 100MBs+ lines and looks at us as the backwater that we are. I mean when the backwaters of fricking Romania have higher speeds than NYC and LA? Well something is VERY wrong here.

Re:What a suprise

[PopeRatzo]

will this regulation protect them and me?

No.

The only way to achieve net neutrality is to break up the big telcos. Telephone companies should not be broadband providers or content providers: period. Cable television companies should not be broadband providers, period. They have to spin off those divisions and keep them completely separate.

Yes, it's time to break up the telcos, yet again.

But that's not going to happen, so it's best to just assume the internet is going to become cable TV.

I'm hoping for research into (I forgot what they're called) "honeycomb" networks that are basically internets without a backbone. Sort of an amateur radio internet. I don't really care if I can stream video. I just want to be sure I can get wikileaks and Slashdot.

Re:Pitchforks

[Pojut]

No clue. yesterday, I was advocating Net Neutrality in a discussion here on Slashdot, and I continue to advocate for it. What the FCC is showing here, however, is not what I and other like-minded folks are advocating. I think the first post has it right...money runs things.

PS: Sincere apologies to those who told me to read up yesterday...now that I have, I can see why you're calling bullshit. Please note that my support of Net Neutrality stands, but not this version of it.

Re:Why would the Chair sellout?

[jbeaupre]

Your assumption is wrong: http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/genachowski/biography.html

Color me Stupid

[Sounder40]

Obama's net neutrality pledge was one of the reasons I voted for him after voting for Republican presidential candidates for so many years. (That, and attempting to right the wrong of voting for dubya--twice.) It is now clear to me that they are ALL a bunch of lying hypocrites. And that I'm just not as smart as I thought I was...

Re:Color me Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

The election went the way it did because Obama never puts up a fight over anything.

Re:Pitchforks

[Pojut]

The "all packets must be treated equally, no exceptions" version. You know...what Net Neutrality actually means.

Unsurprising...

[HerculesMO]

I've been reading Matt Taibbi's book, "Griftopia" (http://www.amazon.com/Griftopia-Machines-Vampire-Breaking-America/dp/0385529953), and having worked in finance for ~10 years, I'm coming to realize more and more that the powers that be -- corporations, CEOs, and everybody that's basically not *you* are the people who are going to run the US for the coming future. A leaked memo from Citigroup (http://www.scribd.com/doc/36059255/23321255-Citigroup-Mar-5-2006-Plutonomy-Report-Leaked-Citigroup-Memo-Part1) has already declared the US a Plutocracy (rule by the wealthy).

This is just another shot in the arm against a citizenry whose arms are already falling off from the shots before. The FCC coming up with a plan to (surprise surprise) support the plutocracy that we've already been labelled by Wall Street is not even a stretch any more. And while the Tea Party clamors about how government is trying to socialize everything, they miss that problem that the government has been co-opted in stealing America as a whole from the citizens themselves, and they are happy to have the folks in the Tea Party carry their banner without realizing what damage they are doing.

I am a bit demoralized nowadays about all this -- and I'd love to take action but I don't know how. So while we as nerds who normally argue, bitch, and complain can actually stand up and figure a way to do something about this (short of something 4chan would do), then I'd be all for it. Let's strategize. Let's plan. And let's execute in the perfect ways I know that we can do thousands of lines of code, deploying hundreds of servers, or anything else "IT" that we do.

I'm here to start the call to arms, I just don't know what to do after that.

Re:Unsurprising...

[nbauman]

I'm here to start the call to arms, I just don't know what to do after that.

I'll probably be blacklisted for saying this, but what the hell --

During most of the last century, we had an active, well-organized left in the U.S. Their simple method was to organize people to work together for their own interests against wealthier, more powerful organizations. They accomplished a lot -- getting negroes the right to vote in the south, building a union movement that guaranteed working people a better standard of living than they have today, Social Security, Medicare, a social safety net, and most of the progressive reforms we had then and are losing now. The left worked best by being militant, threatening liberal Democrats, Republicans and unions, and pushing them further to the left -- just as conservative extremists push them to the right today.

I once read a memo from one of Franklin D. Roosevelt's aides to his boss, about how, on the street corners of Harlem, Communist orators were attracting crowds, and if the government didn't respond to their needs, the Communists would become more influential. During the depression, in negro neighborhoods, when people were disposessed from their homes and their posessions put out on the sidewalks, the Communists would mobilize a crowd, march to the home, and move the families and their posessions back in. It seems clear that FDR was pushed to the left by the socialist and Communist movement.

The Communist Party had horrible problems, the worst of which was requiring its members to follow the Party line, even during Stalin's worst brutalities. (See George Orwell's Homage to Catalona.) But the Communists knew how to organize workers, including socialists and other allies (whom they often double-crossed), and they had a network that let them organize around the country (and the world).

If the FBI is to be believed, Communists organized the Highlander Folk School, which taught Martin Luther King how to organize, starting with the Montgomery bus boycott. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highlander_Research_and_Education_Center (This raises the question, "What was the FBI doing to guarantee negroes the right to vote during all those years?") If you want to know how to organize for change, a study of the civil rights movement is instructive.

Almost every Communist reached a point where he got disgusted and left the party. They often went on to use their organizing techniques to organize other political organizations, like the civil rights movement, the peace movement in the Vietnam war days, and the gay rights movement. Hold a meeting, collect names and phone numbers, call them all to remind them to show up at the next demonstration, and use your numbers to get attention. Demand fundamental change, not compromises. Large demonstrations were a good way to show your strength. The Communist Party was to politics what General Electric was to corporate management -- people worked there, learned, left, and spread their techniques everywhere.

The best thing the left did in this country was to push compromising politicians further to the left. Too bad we didn't have a Communist Party to push Obama to keep his promises and create a public option health plan. The most important message of the left is that we have to change the system, and we have to change it ourselves. We can't depend on leaders to do it for us. (People on the left saw through Obama a mile away.)

Eugene Debs said: "I am not a Labor Leader; I do not want you to follow me or anyone else; if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, some one else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition."

Look where Obama lead us.

Unfortunately, a lot of ex-Communists

Re:Pitchforks

[khr]

Some packets are more equal than others.

Re:Pitchforks

[countertrolling]

Two words... Dumb pipe... That's what we're supposed to be demanding here.

Why are you surprised?

[subreality]

The FCC was bought, sold, and paid for long ago. That's why the vast majority of our spectrum 'belongs' to megacorps, and only the thinnest little slivers are given back to us.

Can you imagine how much more useful WiFi would be if we had more than 3 non-conflicting channels that are completely trampled by microwave ovens? (OK, so there's also the 5GHz band, but I mean a nice big block, all in one clean band.) Cordless phones wouldn't conflict, wireless in-house TV distribution would have happened long ago, and more. Imagine if there was a decently sized band of relatively long-wavelength (sub-GHz), spectrum available that allowed a couple watts total / a few tens EIRP in a narrow beam. We could very easily set up private point to point links everywhere, instead of just barely getting them to work as it is now.

Or standards... The rest of the world uses DVB. The US gets ATSC, which is a mess of patents. Same deal with HD radio.

I'm not the least surprised that the FCC isn't protecting your interests, and is doing everything that keeps huge corporations in control of communications. It's what they do best.

Re:Why are you surprised?

[eepok]

I don't think people are surprised, but very let down. "Expect the worst, hope for the best", right? Everyone expects corporate money and influence to win, but hoped nonetheless that this guy they elected would take a stand or that the internet would be a bastion of relative freedom.

No one likes have having his hopes crushed.

Re:Backlash

[sageres]

Why not deregulate the industry and disallow the cable company monopolies (such as Comcast for example) out there so that we actually have competition? That way if any ISP decides to bill "multi-tier" approach, you can vote with your wallet?

Is it really so outrageous?

[guanxi]

I know it's a crazy thing to say around here, but owners of the telecommunication companies are just as deserving of having their needs served by government as the consumers of telecommunications services. Government doesn't exist to protect the rights of citizens who are consuming over those who are producing. I don't know much about this ruling, but in general a compromise between those interests is a good thing.

I know the corporations are the 'bad' guys, but you don't want government playing favorites. Maybe it will make you feel better to know that pension funds, which keep a great many of our elderly working class and middle class housed and fed, are among the largest owners of those corporations.

Again, maybe this ruling is different, but it wouldn't be a compromise if everyone was happy.

Re:Is it really so outrageous?

[chemicaldave]

Government doesn't exist to protect the rights of citizens who are consuming over those who are producing.

This is absurd. The government should exist to serve only the needs of people. Treating a corporation like any other citizen is ridiculous, especially when you promote the interests of a corporation over those of the actual people.

Re:Pitchforks

[scubamage]

The people of the USA could have stopped it if they were actually interested in performing their civic duty and not just in bread and circuses. Our political obligations don't end with voting. Do you seriously think that any anti-net neutrality legislation would be rubber-stamped if even 1000 people gathered outside of the capital and refused to leave until their voices were heard? 10,000? 100,000? A million? The country is a fading empire; history is repeating itself, and the country will fade just like Rome did.

Re:Backlash

[beakerMeep]

You mean regulate, right? There used to be a regulation the required telcos to sell their lines at wholesale to competitors but they removed that regulation so that telcos were as unregulated as cable companies (with regards to internet service).

The local monopolies these ISPs enjoy are not a regulation but rather a grant/partnership of various cities/towns/etc to the cable/telco operator as well as some natural monopolies due to the giants being the only ones with infrastructure. The kind of competition you are promoting is exactly what we need, but don't kid yourself that there are federal regulations that are creating these local monopolies.

Get Some Perspective!

[Arccot]

Could we actually get an article with some details, rather than an editorial about what the policy MIGHT contain?

Commenters here and at Huffington Post are seriously suggesting we have a second American Revolution because you didn't get everything you wanted on a Net Neturality policy change?

Jesus, get some perspective! I hope most of you realize that this is the first time Net Neturality is being tried in the US. At all. Anyone spending more than 5 minutes looking into Net Neutrality realize its a complex issue that can't be solved with "Don't discriminate." There are unintended consequences for any action they take.

You do realize that policies can be changed at a later date, right? They aren't written in stone. These policies make more sense than the alternative of doing nothing, and they make more sense than being heavy handed and creating more problems then they solve. If problems crop up, they can be dealt with.

Whiny geeks. FIX IT!

[dazedNconfuzed]

Is this "news for nerds" or "news for lusers"?

There is a tech solution. Invent it. Build it. Patent/open-source it. Sell it. Get it out there.

But DON'T just sit there whining that ulterior-motive politicians and bureaucrats won't do things your way.

One solution:
Build a cheap, open, legal, spread-spectrum, compact, no-setup, easy network relay box. Set broadcast power within legal no-license limits. Make a gazillion of them, plug 'em in wherever you can. Make a giant ad-hoc network. You know what I'm getting at.

Heck, this should already be in place between the innumerable cellphones & wireless routers out there. Get the ad-hoc network big enough, and the individual load should be minimal and the total disruptions minimal. TCP/IP is intended to circumvent network failures, so long as there is a path. Make a path.

And stop expecting powermongers to give you freedom.

Re:Victory For Freedom

[ZOmegaZ]

I hate to break it to the corporatist crowd, but the ISPs built those networks with our money, from government subsidies. They received those subsidies to enhance our national infrastructure. If monopolists have the same property rights as everyone else, the free market dies. And if monopolists control infrastructure without oversight to ensure equal access, democracy dies.

Gambling in Casablanca

[ThatsNotPudding]

I'm still glad he won, given the screamingly terrifying alternative, but we all knew Obama was a corporate camp-follower when as a Senator, he voted to give AT&T a free pass for gleefully breaking wiretapping laws when asked by the NSA (who seemingly answers to no one).