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US House Subcommittee Votes To Kill Net Neutrality
angry tapir writes "A US House of Representatives subcommittee has voted in favor of a resolution to throw out the US Federal Communications Commission's recently adopted net neutrality rules. The communications subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 15-8 along party lines for a resolution of disapproval that would overturn the FCC's rules."
you fools gave your houses to the right wing party. right wing parties anywhere around the world, always support corporations over people.
it doesnt matter what your reasons or excuses for voting for a right wing party. you may even be quite right and correct in your reasons. BUT, a right wing party will always support corporations over people, in every way they can. even their acts which appear pro-people, will end up being pro-corp in the long run.
Read radical news here
Walden added. "These regulations will cost jobs," he said.
I know, this is the standard-issue republican response to anything they don't like, but really could we have an explanation this time? Exactly how would net neutrality kill jobs?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
from TFA: "If the Republican-controlled House approves the resolution, it would then move to the Senate, where Democrats hold the majority. The Senate is unlikely to pass the resolution."
summary fails to mention how this vote probably won't actually go anywhere.
This is not surprising. With a mandate to repeal all of the worker's rights that where hard-won during the early 1900's, and legislating the idea that science is witch-craft, this is not unexpected.
We are entering a dark age.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
FTA: "The FCC lacks legal authority to pass the rules, and government intervention would hurt the Internet, said Representative Greg Walden, the subcommittee's chairman and an Oregon Republican. "The Internet works pretty well -- it's the government that doesn't," he said." He's against government involvement. That I understand. But he's admitting that he, as a member of the government, doesn't really understand the problem. He's admitted to being the problem, so why should he have his way?
"On the Internet, nobody can hear you being subtle." -Linus Torvalds
Republicans have just killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. The replacement goose's eggs are gold plated, cracked and spoiled.
Did you see where the summary said, "voted 15-8 along party lines"? How does that support your thesis that every politician comes from the same party?
Two competing parties and almost perfect "market efficiency", in that polling is so sophisticated that the parties have almost perfect knowledge of the electorate. Hotelling's Law says they they will end up being identical.
A corollary is that your vote is meaningless, since you have a choice between two sames. You cannot bring about change at the ballot box. The only ways to change things are:
Every story like this gives me even more motivation to get my degree. That way when the effects of all of this shitty legislation in favor of the super wealthy begins to really take effect I won't have a problem emigrating to another country.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
DeReggi told lawmakers he may want to block services like Netflix because they take up too much bandwidth for WiMax-based broadband.
I think that about sums it up.
As soon as Verizion pays full market rate for the land their cables go over and under then we can talk. Verizon and the others love it when government forces people to let them build under / across private property but they do not want to do anything in return for that access.
Republicans represent the interests of very very wealthy people. They are against changes, innovations, new ideas and anything that benefits anyone who isn't in the club. Because from a rich person's viewpoint, everyone is out to grab some of what they have. (oh, and I am not claiming that Democrats got it all right).
Similar to, if I want to take a toll road, which is less congested than the rest of the highway system.
I think the cause for concern is that without Net Neutrality you will no longer have any choice in the matter. If you wish to visit certain destinations the toll road is the only way. I guess it is like Pay-Per-View for the internet.
I'm sorry but there seems to be a discrepancy with regard to how representatives view NN. It is not a government regulation anymore than the first amendment 'regulates' that speech must be free. Likewise, NN 'regulates' that information must be unbiased. This notion of forced freedom as a form of regulation is probably the most far fetched form of 'regulation' that I have seen. But it should be clear that NN merely forces information to be unbiased. Regulation is a form of constriction on some greater pool. In other words, regulation selects a subset of options from a grand set. NN could not be regarded as regulation because it restricts corporate regulation. NN is, therefore, the antithesis of regulation.
Carl Sagan quotes get you an automatic +5 on all posts.
Can someone explain to me, in simple terms, why Net Neutrality is needed? What are we worried about?
I don't think most people care about paying more for more bandwidth. That's the situation that exists today. If you want 10Mpbs, you pay more than if you want 5 Mbps (to get more realistic rates, multiply by a factor of 10 if you live in Europe or Asia).
What we are worried about is the fact that ISPs, like Comcast, who in the content delivery business, are increasingly getting into the content creation business, by merging/buying the likes of NBC. Now Comcast has an incentive to manage it's network in such a way as to drive traffic to the content it owns. And because the courts and the FCC have rolled back the provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which forced Tier 1 networks to resell their lines to others to foster a competitive market, we still have monopoly and duopoly status for the majority of Americans.
If there was a competitive market in which I could select a different ISP if my current one started degrading it's competitor's (in the content creation business) traffic to me, then Network Neutrality regulations wouldn't be needed, because the market could keep Comcast, etc. honest (at least in theory).
But, if Comcast is my only choice, then if they start degrading traffic from Netflix, or CBS, so that I can only watch it in 240p, while NBC or Blockbuster Online (which they hypothetically own) comes through at 720p, that's a bad thing because I can't vote with my dollar.
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
Maybe this is something the ruling elite of de facto one-party states[*] can learn from. By alternating at the top, they could give the people the illusion of regime change without jeopardizing their own privileges.
In a one-party system, there's only one party to blame when things go bad (an economic downturn or a disastrous war). With two parties, you can play good cop/bad cop with popular discontent by installing the other party. It's only important that neither party would seek an end to their mutual political privileges but would only clash on the numeric details (a 5% vs. 10% tax cut).
[*] Countries where only one party officially exists or where one party overwhelming dominates each election.
Let's take Comcast and Netflix. Comcast hates Netflix because Comcast is also a content provider. They want you to pay $6 to watch their on-demand movies. With Netflix I can watch tons of movies for $6, and Comcast has to carry the traffic. Without Net Neutrality, Comcast would tell Netflix "you use too much bandwidth. We're going to throttle you down until your movies are unwatchable unless you start paying us a fee. That fee will increase until we make as much money from people watching your movies as we would if they bought them from our service".
Netflix would have to increase prices until no one would pay, thus forcing them out of business and all you would be left with is Comcast, which then jacks up the prices for their on-demand movies.
Net Neutrality provides choice.
Because every time Democrats do something bad, it's "both parties are equally corrupt." Every time the Repubs pull a fast one, it's "only the Right are corrupt."
I know right?! No one sticks up for the poor Republicans anymore. It's sad.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
Indeed. The corporations have owned Washington for many decades now. Even back in the 1950's, Ike Eisenhower warned that America's military-industrial complex had become too strong. Now look where we are: America has a military budget that's larger than that of all other countries combined, yet at the same time a substantial number of Americans live below the poverty line.
Even worse, many of our laws have now been drafted by lobbyists -- a fact that some of our politicians have even been happy to admit. The lobbyists continue to play the politicians and the politicians continue to play the people for whom the latter continue to vote. It's a vicious cycle that's only made worse by the poor state of America's educational system, which has been deteriorating for many decades. The electorate has now largely been reduced to a mass of ignorant, overly-religious, flag-waving zombie-consumers whose only purpose seems to be in making the rich richer.
Unfortunately, I'm not certain that there is much reason to believe that America can get out of this rut, which is like an extreme experiment in unbridled free-market capitalism that has gone badly wrong. The problem is that its people have wished this upon themselves. In this way America are kind of like Afghanistan; a country to which we've tried to introduce democracy, but whose citizens do not recognize the value of it and are thus not willing to fight for it, i.e. a horse that has been led to horse to water, but will not drink. Americans, of the other hand, had their freedom, but then gave it away willingly to the corporations... and continue to do so. Like the poor Afghans, they don't understand that their usual behavior is not in their best interest either.
Oh, well...
PS -- This is a bit of a rant, so go ahead and mod it down.
Note that since the USA defines the poverty line as a fraction of the median income, about the only way to prevent a substantial number of Americans living below the poverty line is to make sure that every American makes exactly the same income every year.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
His point was not that they have different party names, but that their policies are all but indistinguishable. Which is how it looks to me, too.
As a New Zealander, I have to say that the Democrats are more right wing than our current ruling right wing party. You have nothing as left as our left wing Labour party, who are not especially leftist, by NZ or world standards. I'm not sure I that most Americans appreciate just how right wing, conservative, pretty, ill-educated, reactionary, selfish, jingoistic, partisan, anti-intellectual, anti-science and anti-reason US politics appears from the external point of view. I look to politics in the UK, Australia, France, Germany. I understand what's going on there, it looks similar to what's going on here. I look at US politics and I'm thinking "What the.,..."
I really don't understand how a country that purports to be a democracy has allowed its political discourse to be so railroaded into one tiny spectrum of ideas. You have two parties which are largely indistinguishable. You change the name of the party in charge, but the ideas don't change. You guys really need to ditch first past the post elections - most of the rest of the world has already figured this out.
I'm not sure I that most Americans appreciate just how right wing, conservative, pretty, ill-educated, reactionary, selfish, jingoistic, partisan, anti-intellectual, anti-science and anti-reason US politics appears from the external point of view.
From your external point of view, or from the point of view that's been sold to you by your own media and politicians? I'm sure it's pleasing to imagine that you hold some privileged frame of reference, but maybe it's possible that the people telling you these things are telling you the things you want to hear, and the things they want you to believe.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
...who voted GOP/Libertarian, enjoy paying a lot more to Comcast or Time Warner for your high speed Internet access and throttled to death P2P bandwidth.
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
This is a vote for freedom. Freedom of the organizations that INVEST in the infrastructure to be the ones who get to decide how that infrastructure is used. Freedom for you to set the rules for the use of the thing which you built with your money and sweat.
What about MY freedom to use what I paid for? Ohh right, I get screwed because I'm an individual rather than a cooperation.
BTW, those networks you mentioned... built with our tax money, run on government mandated rights of way, and locked down by government granted monopolies.
You have freedom to use what you paid for within the terms of the usage agreement you've got with your provider. If they say "we may filter or traffic shape your traffic", then you're free to accept that or find some other carrier with preferable terms.
As for "built with your tax money". Not really. The network that was "built with your tax money" was a whole mess of 128kbps links that wouldn't even handle your iPad's traffic demands, let alone be a "network backbone".
And besides, EVEN IF there were subsidies, etc., (as the other AC replier mentioned), blame your congress-critters for not negotiating better terms before they gave your money away. EVEN IF your local municipality is granting a monopoly, blame your local town-board for doing so and not insisting that the cable provider accommodate competitive content providers on the outside plant.
I'm not sure I that most Americans appreciate just how right wing, conservative, pretty, ill-educated, reactionary, selfish, jingoistic, partisan, anti-intellectual, anti-science and anti-reason US politics appears from the external point of view.
From your external point of view, or from the point of view that's been sold to you by your own media and politicians? I'm sure it's pleasing to imagine that you hold some privileged frame of reference, but maybe it's possible that the people telling you these things are telling you the things you want to hear, and the things they want you to believe.
Unless you are looking at us from his point of view, you have no means by which to criticize his point of view. And as a matter of fact, most of what he says is true, something you'd realize if you looked at the U.S. system objectively. Our politicians ARE all right-wing. That's the only way that abortion of a "health care" plan could possibly have been passed last year. You know, the one that funnels billions of taxpayer dollars to the insurance companies? And the fact that all politicians in both parties will only ever talk about cutting taxes, never about the need with our huge deficits to, oh I dunno, INCREASE income to pay for things? Or how it's impossible to get elected in this country if you are an atheist or agnostic? And how those in both parties are all too eager to cut spending on education. Or how our "liberal" president is perpetuating the abomination that is Guantanamo? Or how no politician will get rid of the "Under God" clause in the Pledge of Allegiance (or even get rid of the Pledge at all)?
A true "liberal" would fix at one or more of the above, and we haven't had anything resembling a liberal in the White House since Carter. And he has somehow been demonized as "the worst president ever" when the evidence (if anyone bothered learning it) clearly says otherwise. So don't even try to claim we Americans aren't anti-intellectual or any of the other things claimed above. We're guilty of all of it.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
I can't speak for the GP, but as a Canadian I agree with the GP. My source(s) of information:
- I read news from sources in the Canada, the US, UK, and Germany. Somehow they all seem to make some level of sense, except for the American version.
- first hand opinions expressed by Americans on online fora. To name an example, I don't think you'd get a significant number of people from any other western country to have a Democracy vs Republic debate along the lines of what just happened in the parallel Utah thread. Sometimes I have to resign to just look in awe about the level of collective brainwashing that seems to be going on in the US.
Unfortunately, I'm not certain that there is much reason to believe that America can get out of this rut, which is like an extreme experiment in unbridled free-market capitalism that has gone badly wrong.
- can you point out any unbridled free-market capitalism for me please, because I fail to see any, where the government is intersecting its power with the desires of the companies, which kills competition and goes directly AGAINST any unbridled free-market capitalism?
I wouldn't mode you down based on your rant, I would mode you down based on this lie.
You can't handle the truth.
You have freedom to use what you paid for within the terms of the usage agreement you've got with your provider. If they say "we may filter or traffic shape your traffic", then you're free to accept that or find some other carrier with preferable terms.
"What? You're not a slave! Why, You have the choice of being told what you can & can't do here, or at my neighbor's plantation -- Or you can die, see, you have plenty of freedom."
You're correct about having the choice to accept draconian licensing terms or not have the Internet at all... I can go with a different provider, but the only other provider in town has shitty service & licensing too. The "freedom" you describe is the freedom of a catch-22. I suppose that I'm not supposed to complain about, or support legislation that combats, the bad business practices of the telecoms that put me in this position?
BTW, It's more profitable for them to have shitty service, more on that in a few...
And besides, EVEN IF there were subsidies, etc., (as the other AC replier mentioned), blame your congress-critters for not negotiating better terms before they gave your money away. EVEN IF your local municipality is granting a monopoly, blame your local town-board for doing so and not insisting that the cable provider accommodate competitive content providers on the outside plant.
Yeah, no. Although I do despise the corrupt congressmen, I ultimately blame the LOBBYISTS that pay the congress critters -- The Lobbyists that are funded by the Telecoms -- for making it financially beneficial for the congress critters to agree to the shitty terms... (Boy, some folks are clueless about how it all really works -- Money talks, bullshit walks.)
I have done all that's in my power to fix this -- One of the things I do is support network neutrality, but the corporate lobbyists have far more money than I do to donate (hint: Still in a recession -- I can eat, or use my $$ to fight a loosing battle against more powerful opponents who already have a history with their pocket politicians (the ones I need on my side to win).
So, in all actuality, I don't have much freedom of choice, I can either accept the crappy service & terms or not have any at all (Isn't 0Mbps WORSE than any crappy amount they decide to give me?)
Now that the consumer ISP monopoly / duopolies are in place they are turning their sights on the content producers (who already pay for their own access to the web, BTW). One way that an ISP can double dip is to force a content company to co-locate servers and charge them rent. The claim is that the servers are closer to the end users and therefore you get faster connections.
This is very true, you do get better connections, but it costs the content providers more (then they drive my bill up? so it ends up costing me more?). However, the co-location wouldn't be necessary if Comcast would run their links at less saturation -- Level3 tried to give them more hardware so they could do just this (Improve the Comcast service for everyone!), but Comcast refused... Comcast demands Co-Location instead of fixing the problem (It is a problem, come 5:00, my Internet speeds drop drastically). Comcast is holding my connection speed hostage -- Even when I paid to get faster service, the Netflix stream still sucked, and it will continue to suck unless Netflix/Level3 pays the ransom and co-locates servers with Comcast.
During the middle of the day my Netflix streaming on Comcast works almost acceptably... But when peak usage times hit, the streaming stutters all to hell because Comcast is dropping my Netflix packets (I pay both Comcast and Netflix to access them).
How does NN fit in? Well, if Comcast wasn't allowed to lower my Netflix traffic QoS so much (esp lower than their own competing Video service's priority) then their own Video delivery service would have to suck more... Comcast would have to fix the damn problem and
Is there a site or something that gives the vote records for subcommittees? If these articles are saying it was along party lines someone must have a list. If we can put names to decisions that's a lot more useful than blaming the entire party.
Assuming this was strictly on party lines here is the site of subcommittees, but some apparently didn't vote.
For the lazy here is the table of members. Take note of whether your representative is on the naughty list.
Republicans
Greg Walden (OR) Chair
Lee Terry (NE) Vice Chair
Cliff Stearns (FL)
John Shimkus (IL)
Mary Bono Mack (CA)
Mike Rogers (MI)
Brian Bilbray (CA)
Charlie Bass (NH)
Marsha Blackburn (TN)
Phil Gingrey (GA)
Steve Scalise (LA)
Bob Latta (OH)
Brett Guthrie (KY)
Adam Kinzinger (IL)
Joe Barton (TX)
Fred Upton (MI)
Democrats
Anna G. Eshoo (CA)
Edward J. Markey (MA)
Michael F. Doyle (PA)
Doris O. Matsui (CA)
Jane Harman (CA)
John Barrow (GA)
Edolphus Towns (NY)
Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ)
Bobby L. Rush (IL)
Diana DeGette (CO)
John D. Dingell (MI)
Henry A. Waxman (CA)
Ummm, no, not from my external point of view nor a view "sold" to me by "your own media and politicans". For a start, New Zealand is too small to produce all our own media for world stories, so it sources media from all over the world - BBC, CNN, Al Jazera et al. But personally, I don't watch a lot of TV news - I compare sources online and see what the US channels are putting out from their own feeds directly. It's mainly Fox & Glenn Beck that gives me an insight into how warped America has become. So if you want to blame the media for my point of view - blame your own. When I was revolted at Tea Party members hurling abuse at Muslim Americans in Orange County, that was entirely brought to me by YOUR media. MY media didn't cover it at all.
Furthermore, my point of view is not external. I have been to America before - admittedly, just the south, mainly Birmingham, for work and even then, that was quite a few years back. I have also lived with Americans before and seen and discussed their viewpoints and heard their comments on the difference between American politics and the rest of the western world's politics. In fact, one of the really interesting comments I got was from a lovely Bostonian girl who said the difference between democracy in the US and in NZ was that in the US, everyone was free to make all the money they wanted (regardless of whether they had any actual ability or chance to do so) whereas in NZ, it was more of a democracy of opportunity, where everyone (relative to the US) had the opportunity to succeed.
You say "I'm sure it's pleasing to imagine that you hold some privileged frame of reference". Well, I'm sure it pleases you to denigrate my point of view by imagining motives for me... but I wasn't claiming a privileged frame of reference, I was claiming that politics in the rest of the western world makes sense to me. I know, having talked to many other Australians, British, French and German people that we all share broadly similar views on how democracy should work and we all pretty much think American politics is mad. My claim wasn't that my point of view was right (although, knock that strawman over if it makes you feel better) but that represents a very common western view of American politics.
So to summarize your argument:
"The internet would have been better if AOL and Compuserve had incompatible competing networks and all internet services were provided by one of two mega corporations."
Yes. I agree, I would have felt much more comfortable with AOL guiding us into their glorious future.
P.S. Nobody interfered with AOL and Compuserve. They died all on their own.
You perhaps need to re-read what I wrote since you seem to have misunderstood it.
I didn't say that everyone else in the western world was right and America is all wrong. What I said was that I don't think American's understand how foreign and odd American politics appears to others in the western world.
I know that the US has a Communist party. It also has Green party, as most countries do. But, because you run First Past the Post elections, either of those left wing parties getting a significant number of votes would hand victory to the right by splitting the left wing vote. This is how Bush got elected when Ralph Nader ran. This was what I was complaining about - not that I want the US to lurch left, right or anywhere in fact. I would like American politics to be more representative whereas currently it clearly only represents a very narrow band of beliefs (the difference between the Democrats and Republicans is very slight, for example). The FFP electorial system will weed out any third parties which gain any kind of traction. This is exactly what New Zealand was like under FFP. When we switched to MMP we ended up with a parliament with largely centrist politicians, but with some representation for the far right, far left and Maori representatives. This is a good thing - it actually represents society, whereas FPP never will.
"However, if you just want to snobbishly compare cultures and declare yours superior" Ummm..... never mentioned culture. Again, reread what I wrote, it seems to have escaped you.
"And maybe read up a bit on where your iPad, Internet, and space age materials come from before you decide our whole country is anti-science." Did I say that America was antiscience? I said American POLITICS. I was pretty clear about that. You really need to read things more slowly and think a little more before responding - your brain's not keeping up. If you didn't get that my post was about the US political system then I despair for you.
Wow, that's the most ignorant post I've seen in a while.
The government didn't interfere with anyone's business model in creating the Internet. The ARPANet project was a public funded initiative to establish military command-and-control network. This allowed faster and more reliable communication in times of emergency and war. More and more research and educational facilities joined the network.
Eventually, commercial companies decided to expand on the network and provide services to the public. This started out as business networks and eventually home service. The AOL, CompuServe, Prodigy, and other service providers established and grew this market.
The market exploited and expanded a government supported project far beyond the original projects goals. What's not to like?
I have to admit I don't understand the business model that allows the internet to work.
Damn straight you don't. It's good that you know your own limitations, but you charge ahead blindly and make statements that... well... you wouldn't make if you did understand.
Why did the government do that and interfere with the marketplace.
Because there was no marketplace. It did not exist. Where there was just phone lines, the government funded some research to develop it into automated message forwarding sort of thing that grew up into the Internet. They didn't interfere, because there was nothing there to interfere with. Some eggheads had some ideas that something could do something cool, and the government gave them some cash with the expectation that it'd help the military.
I remember at the time that companies like AOL, Compuserve and Prodigy were attempting to start their own networks. If the government hadn't stepped in with the government supported service, mightn't those companies have succeed?
The "government supported service" otherwise known as "the internet", was started well before all those companies tried making their own network. Remember, these companies existed for the purpose of connecting people to the Internet. The reason that they started their own network is because they didn't want to pay THEIR ISP for bandwidth and hosting their own network was cheaper. But this was ultimately doomed because open and free systems are inherently better.
Woiuldn't competition between them have led to a better way of doing the internet?
No. It turns out that competition between EVERYONE is far better then competition between a couple of corporations. Go figure.
competing firms work hard to offer things the users want. They would have met these demands.
Except that EVERYONE IN THE WORLD being connected to the Internet out-competed their little private networks into the ground. They failed to meet the demands. Now, given time and a hell of a lot of money, sure Prodigy probably could have created something comparable to the Internet on the whole. But oh wait, the internet did all that for free or at a fraction of the price. So Prodigy didn't get the chance.
their network was free of viruses and malware?
Then it would have had to have been free of user-created content (which it was). And that's a horrible hollow shell of what the Internet is. Useless, really.
With the internet being "free" and everyone using the same protocol, there is no competition to see who can build the best network.
Think about this one again. If everyone can freely connect to everyone else, (using whatever protocols they want so that part is simply wrong but let's move on) then everyone is competing to have the best content. Every little website, service, bbs, vent server, torrent, and gizmo on the internet is in direct competition with everyone else. There is no "best network" because it's all the same network, interconnected.
But think the internet would be better if the government had not gotten involved.
Then the Internet would never have been made. You're arguing against government intervention in a completely balls to the walls wrong way. No, the government should not be in the business of regulating the Internet. Regulating the companies that provide a connection to the Internet may be a good idea though, since it looks like they're trying to suffocate the Internet.
These are extreme examples but reasonable regulation that leans towards favoring the citizens while not fucking the investors is absolutely required. Especially if you are talking about anything that leans towards a 'natural monopoly' like infrastructure. Free markets don't work with things like water pipes because you can't have 5 didn't companies running pipes all over the city to every house. And even if you did, (say you built a star trek water transporter beam) you'd still need safety regulation.