House Passes Amendment To Block Funds For Net Neutrality

Charliemopps sends this quote from the National Journal: "The House passed an amendment Thursday that would bar the Federal Communications Commission from using any funding to implement the network-neutrality order it approved in December. The amendment, approved on a 244-181 vote, was offered by Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., to legislation that would fund government agencies for the rest of fiscal year 2011. Walden and other critics of the FCC's net-neutrality order argue it will stifle innovation and investment in broadband. "

Comments

Thank your neighborhood republican

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank them again if years down the road you have to pay another $50 a month just so you can stream youtube and netflix to your computer.

Re:Thank your neighborhood republican

[sstamps]

The problem is, though, that Google/Netflix aren't the ones "using" (as in "consuming") the bandwidth as those who are complaining about it claim. They are producers. The ones who are "using" (as in "consuming") the bandwidth are the ISPs' USERS, who are requesting the content from Google/Netflix. It doesn't make any sense to bill content providers for bandwidth consumed by users.

Well, it does make sense if you look at it from a competitive angle.. one where the ISPs so complaining have a vested interest in competing content provider services.

Google, Netflix, and everyone else pay for their access to the internet. They pay a LOT already. If every ISP who carries their content at the behest of the ISP's own users/consumers could charge an extra "fee" to carry "popular" content, then there wouldn't be any "popular" content, except from each particular ISP.

This is why I believe that true "Net Neutrality" is where content providers and bandwidth providers should not be allowed to be the same entities -- they are simply an untenable conflict of interests waiting to happen. Indeed, this is why the internet grew explosively and prospered, because, for a long time, the bandwidth providers had little interest in content, and the old "walled garden" combo access/content providers died out like the dinosaurs they became (AOL/Prodigy/Compuserve/etc). That's all changed now. Companies like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T want to go back to that model, which might be lucrative for them, but it impacts the freedom of their customers, and the free market overall.

Re:Thank your neighborhood republican

[skids]

Most people already think both parties suck.

It's why they don't vote.

And it's a problem. What people need to learn is that they should pick the better party even if the difference is only marginal, and vote in that party's primaries to make that party better, and then do more than just vote to improve our aggregate level of intelligence when it comes to deciding who to give power to.

Just sitting there and saying "everything sucks" isn't going to get you anywhere.

The House, Not The House & The Senate

[WrongSizeGlass]

The Senate won't pass this so it's merely symbolic on the part of the House. Way to manage your time well, boys and girls. Now get back to work on real problems!

Re:The House, Not The House & The Senate

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Don't be so sure they won't pass it. It's an amendment, not a bill; IIRC, that means they would have to vote specifically to strip the amendment out before they vote on the entire bill, and I'm not at all confident that enough members of the thin (and historically spineless) Democratic majority in the Senate have the will for that fight. Adding riders to "must-pass" bills is a time-honored technique for sneaking all kinds of looniness into law.

Re:The usual.

[Black Parrot]

Sneaking an amendment into an appropriations bill. Everyone says it's an underhanded cheat, but it's just too *useful* to prohibit.

It's only an underhanded cheat when the other party does it.

Re:Just to be clear...

[hedwards]

And once the Republicans repeal the health care reform bill, they'll be replacing it with a new reform package, right? Just because the current idea sucks, does not mean that if it gets repealed we're guaranteed something better. At least with what we have we can fix it and adjust it as needed, whereas if we repeal it then we have to start over and every interest group and corporation is going to be eyeballing it to see what they can get slipped in.

Exasperating

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Does anyone else just feel worn out by all political BS in the U.S these days? I mean, it seems like Congress is nothing more than a group of professional trolls at this point. They never, ever seem capable of doing anything useful, or beneficial for the citizens of this country anymore. It's exhausting. Every single time a story pops up (on Slashdot or anywhere else) that involves politics or a political decision, you can basically just assume that it's going to screw over everyone in the country that isn't already a politician.

Being a U.S. citizen today feels just like playing the role of Sisiphus, consistently pushing a boulder uphill (trying to improve the world by being a responsible citizen, voting, jury duty, etc.) only to realize that you have to push it up again when you reach the top (Congress critters keep passing bills that fuck things up even more). It's exhausting, to keep reading about how those folks we elect to power just stumble around and fuck things up so badly....It's so consistent that it very nearly serves as a dataset to debunk that old meme of, "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence."

Our leaders are just fucking terrible. It's exhausting.

Re:Exasperating

[Nidi62]

Does anyone else just feel worn out by all political BS in the U.S these days? I mean, it seems like Congress is nothing more than a group of professional trolls at this point.

Politics HAS become a profession. You work in politics for years, make 6 figures per year, then retire to the lecture circuit, or work for one of your supporting corporations as a lobbyist. Back when this country was first founded, politics was a calling, a sacrifice. Representatives were lawyers, farmers, merchants, doctors. A couple months out of the year they would give up their time(and therefore their money) to go to the capital and legislate. But politics was not how they made their living. But we've gotten away from this. People no longer see public service as a sacrifice. They see it as a tool for personal enrichment, a way to gain power for their family, and(this is the worst part) a means to an end. That end is power and influence, both while in office and once out of it.

Basically, it's not the system that is broken. It is the people within it.