Senate Set To Vote On the Repeal of Net Neutrality

An anonymous reader writes "The United States Senate will vote sometime today on the bill that would repeal the net neutrality laws that the FCC has put into place. The bill passed the US House back in April, so it only has to be approved by the Senate before it is sent to the President's desk. President Obama says that he will veto the bill. The debate over net neutrality has largely been split on party lines, with the Democratic party mostly being for keeping net neutrality laws in place, and the GOP looking to avoid them."

Comments

Another Kink

[masternerdguy]

Another kink in the armor of American freedom.

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

If your ISP isn't neutral, just switch to one of the many, many other ISPs that services your area; surely one of them will have policies you agree with. And if you only have one ISP, all you need to do is start another one. It's easy! Trust in the dread god Freem'Arkhet to handle everything!

Re:Another Kink

[masternerdguy]

I have two choices for ISP: ATT and Comcast.

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you only have one ISP, all you need to do is start another one. It's easy! Trust in the dread god Freem'Arkhet to handle everything!

????

AH, satire!

Well played, sir!

Re:Another Kink

[jellomizer]

Which way? For or against Net Neutrality?

Pro NN: Netflix and Google Win.
Anti NN: AT&T and Comcast Win.
Pro NN: The End User will end up paying more for service.
Anti NN: The End User will not have fare access to other services
Pro NN: You cannot offer a service with a connection that included internet as a secondary option... Lets say I am a Small provider and I am offering TCP/IP Streaming of services to customers using my infrastructure, my Infrastructure allows up to 1000mbs transfer and my internal network can handle it. But my Internet connection to the outside is more limited say peaking at 10mbs per customer (we need to keep the users balanced) Now I am breaking NN laws because I am offering my service faster to customers and internet access as a secondary service is slower.
Anti NN: ISP can decide who they want to slow down or block just because they are in competition with them. So lets block Vonage or Skype because it Interfears with their Telephone business. Or netflix or hulu.

Now without Net Neutrality a lot of companies wouldn't go too far to block too much just because it will piss off the customers and they switch. Only Comcast hates it customers so much to do this. For other companies they may be doing this for good reasons such as blocking or slowing down traffic to some sites that isn't evil or greedy.

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

Any legislation telling me that I can't kill people is a complete infringement upon my rights! How dare they make laws banning murder!

Re:Another Kink

[Tenebrousedge]

To paraphrase, with network neutrality content providers win. Without NN, service providers win. Both win at the consumer's expense, but it's a lot easier to find alternate content than alternate infrastructure. The demise of NAT should make it easier for all of us to be content providers; I'm looking forward to it.

I admit to not being able to follow your example. I myself cannot come up with a clear example of how equal access to networks (or other infrastructure) could be a bad thing. I suspect you may have a different definition of network neutrality than the rest of us; I believe the most commonly accepted phrasing would be "traffic should not be prioritized based on endpoints."

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

I have two choices for ISP: ATT and Comcast.

Wasn't AT&T one of the ISPs that decided to cooperate with the NSA on traffic monitoring? That would make it a good, politically correct, provider for GOP supporters.

Re:Another Kink

[swv3752]

Troll.

In most areas you have two regulated monopolies providing internet services. You might be lucky and have a third small player that is entirely beholden two one of the two big monopolies (thrid party DSL). Technically you have your cellular carrier as an option, but that will be expensive and limited.

So Yeah, you can go with the telephone company or the cable company. Lots of choice there, and both are and should be heavily regulated.

I sure don't want my cable company to have the option to limit or block Netflix and Hulu, or my phone company to limit or block Skype and Vonage and Google Talk.

Re:Another Kink

[CubicleView]

Where can you buy this kinky American freedom armor?

Re:Another Kink

[L4t3r4lu5]

Trust in the dread god Freem'Arkhet to handle everything!

If not, appeal to his wife; Courtney Cox.

Re:Another Kink

[telekon]

Don't worry, the GOP is completely fine with murder-neutrality laws. But net neutrality, that's a crime against Jeebus and Adam Smith!

Re:Another Kink

[telekon]

At the duty-free shop on your way out of the country. Unfortunately, it's not available to U.S. citizens.

Re:Another Kink

[Culture20]

And if you only have one ISP, all you need to do is start another one. It's easy! Trust in the dread god Freem'Arkhet to handle everything!

This would be insightful if many local governments weren't granting monopolies for cable/Internet service. Back when ISPs were modem based, there were start ups all over the place, and they were driving costs down while providing better service than the likes of AOL.

Re:Another Kink

[Olorion]

Net neutrality is about far, far more than some ISP's profits.

The death of net neutrality is the death of the last independent voice in U.S. politics. You doubt this? Remember the deafening shouts of "WMDs in Iraq !!!" from practically all the mainstream media channels. Where were the dissenting voices? Basically, only on the Internet.

If net neutrality dies, then companies like Comcast and AT&T will have the power to silence web sites they dislike. Since these are giant corporations, their agendas will of course align with those of the mainstream media, and all the protest sites will die. The U.S. media will have largely one voice, the voice of the one-percenters, and dissent will be silenced.

This outcome is undoubtedly the main intent of the one-percenters, especially in these days of the Occupy movement. The powers that be desperately need to kill net neutrality for the same reason that Mubarak tried to turn off the Internet during the occupation of Tahrir Square by the riff-raff. Our rulers know that good communication is essential to any successful revolution, and they are determined to cut off all possible channels of dissent.

Now perhaps you are one of the 1%, or work for them. Perhaps you like having a media landscape that rivals China's in its depth of censorship. But I don't.

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

That has little to do with local governmental policy and more to do with the fact that you could start up a dial-up ISP without actually owning any of the infrastructure, since the phone company already ran lines to everyone's house and you just used them.

Unfortunately, if you want to break the 56K barrier, you're going to need your own infrastructure, which provides a prohibitively high cost of entry.

Re:Another Kink

[kdemetter]

No, he seems to have a good grasp of what net neutrality stands for.

Net neutrality has advantages to the customer, but it also has disadvantages for service providers.

However, the point that companies won't go so far as to piss off customers, only works if there is a viable competition. If there isn't, then they will not think twice to screw over customers if it improves their profits.

But that's what i wonder : why is there no competition ? You would think that, if a company screws it's customers for long enough, someone would see a the market opportunity to do things differently. Why is this not the case ?

Now it comes down to surrendering your Internet connection to either a large corporation ( no net neutrality ) , or to the government ( net neutrality ).

Re:Another Kink

[need4mospd]

I dream of the day I'll actually have a second choice.

Re:Another Kink

[icebraining]

Whether the cables should be installed and owned by the companies, or by the city/state and then rented to any ISP at the same price is definitively a matter of local government policy.

Re:Another Kink

[DarkOx]

I call BS. I bet you more choices than that. I can almost say with certainly someone else can get you DSL access, even if it is using AT&T physical lines. I bet you can find one who will do it without PPOE and with favorable service terms as far as hosting as well.

Oh you are going to cry but I don't want pay $60+ for 1.5Mbit/384Kbps, Comcast and AT&T will sell me 20Mbps/15Mbps for that. Well yes they will but along with their caps, throttling, and other BS.

What most people really mean is I want first class service for Comcrap and AT&T'edoffs third rate service prices.

Re:Another Kink

[E IS mC(Square)]

>> Now without Net Neutrality a lot of companies wouldn't go too far to block too much just because it will piss off the customers and they switch.

Switch to what? The second option which does not exist? Not in my neighborhood at least. Comcast is the only choice for high speed cable internet.

Re:Another Kink

[phlinn]

And that is exactly what NN does, in one way or another.

Re:Another Kink

[mcgrew]

Oooh, kinky armor! Uh, do you mean "chink"? A chink in your armor can be deadly, a kink in your armor is only uncomfortable.

Re:Another Kink

[morari]

It's really not. Selling out areas to cable and telecoms hurts your population in the long run, as evidenced. Not having decent internet nowadays is more socially and economically crippling than not having telephone service. The government itself should be laying that cable for anyone to use. Cthulhu knows the cable/telecoms aren't doing it, despite having tons of subsidies literally thrown at them for decades. Infrastructure in general would be a great use of tax dollars. A lot better than any number of unwinnable, unethical wars for example. Then once you have this open platform for ISPs to work off of, private competition would [i]most[/i] likely take care of everything else. It seems to work throughout Europe, and it even worked here in the States for dial-up prices and service.

Re:Another Kink

[mcgrew]

Me too, but I think the GP was being sarcastic, especially with his nod to the Great American God Freem'Arkhet (described in the anti-Freem'Arkhet bible as "mammon").

The +5 funny might have tipped you off, as well.

Odd how the "free market" US has one or maybe two ISPs in any given town, while the "socialist" EU cities have multiple choices. But try to convince the T(ard) Party that maybe there are a few problems with their little green god and see how successful you are at it.

We're screwed, dude.

Re:Another Kink

[Curunir_wolf]

That's a pretty far-fetched bit of tin-foil-hattery you have there.

I'll do you one better. Allowing government to regulate the Internet will do exactly the same thing, but more easily, without requiring cooperation (just one government, not 2 or 3 ISPs and a few smaller ones), AND ... they've already started doing it.

Re:Another Kink

[NeutronCowboy]

Have you ever dealt with a carrier who uses ATT lines? It sucks. Any line problem - and there are many - will get fixed when ATT thinks it will help THEM. Which means basically never. Cost is entirely dependent on what ATT thinks it should charge resellers - in other words, it is guaranteed to be more expensive than the ATT offering, even if the service is exactly the same.

The only thing you can hope for is that the reseller is actually good, and you get something extra for paying substantially more for the same bandwidth. I use Speakeasy, and at least I get outstanding service.

But you're kidding yourself if you think that Speakeasy is actually in competition with ATT. Speakeasy exists at the mercy of ATT, and will be killed off in many ways if it ever becomes a threat to ATT's residential service. Which it kinda has, because you actually can't get residential-class DSL from Speakeasy anymore: I'm only around because they haven't canceled my contract yet. But my terms don't exist anymore, and the terms that are available are fundamentally different.

So from a technical offering, I don't have a choice - it's ATT only. From a service choice, I could get Sonic, but they're significantly more expensive. And that's it. Not even Comcast is offering anything in my area. Beats me why, but they don't.

So go suck on your choice, because it doesn't exist for a lot of people. And the choices that do exist are far too small to create anything resembling market pressures.

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

If its going over the AT&T lines then they still control the rules of the road ... you just pay more for better customer service.

Re:Another Kink

[mcgrew]

• Pro NN: Netflix and Google and YOU Win.
• Anti NN: AT&T and Comcast Win. You lose.
• Pro NN: The End User will end up paying more for service? Prove it; I simply don't believe it. They're not fighting against giving you extra for what you pay now, they're for giving you less for what you pay now. The statement "Pro NN: The End User will end up paying more" is utter bullshit.
• Anti NN: The End User will not have fare [did you mean "fair?"] access to other services? Why not? That makes no sense whatever; and in fact is the opposite of reality.
• Pro NN: You cannot offer a service with a connection that included internet as a secondary option? Bullshit. It doesn't say you can't offer tiered speeds at different prices, it says you can't throttle Google (or cut it off completely) and let Bing stream full speed. It doesn't say Comcast can't offer both internet and cable, and it doesn't say AT&T can't offer two speeds at two prices.

Now without Net Neutrality a lot of companies wouldn't go too far to block too much just because it will piss off the customers and they switch.

To whom? Without NN I'd have the choice of AT&T without Skype, or Comcast without Hulu. Both choices are completely unaceptable. NN favors the end user, non-NN only favors ISPs.

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you meant 'Another >chink in the armor' but a this may involve the .xxx TLD I'll let it slide....

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW, ad hominem attacks indicate the poster is a moron. ...but now I'm stuck in an infinite loop!

Re:Another Kink

[NeutronCowboy]

But that's what i wonder : why is there no competition ? You would think that, if a company screws it's customers for long enough, someone would see a the market opportunity to do things differently. Why is this not the case ?

Clearly no one explained natural monopolies to you. Here's how it goes: in certain markets, barriers to entry are so high that one of two things happen. One, people just don't bother entering it. Two, if they do enter it, the start-up costs are so high that they pretty much have to take out loans to enter it, which adds significantly to the initial running cost. During that time, the incumbent simply drops prices to their operating cost - or lower, depending on their cash reserves - waits until the competitor runs out of cash due to their inability to attract enough new customers, and then gobbles up the competitor for pennies on the dollar.

Which is exactly what is happening in the telcom industry. Even Google can't do a nationwide roll-out without bankrupting itself. ATT and Comcast, on the other hand, are operating on pure profit by now. So there's no incentive for anyone to enter the market, because the chances of even surviving long enough to make a profit are slim to none. The only reason Google is even marginally in it is because they understand the existential threat that the telecoms pose to it. Google only exists for as long as the telecoms, for whatever reason, cannot discriminate between their service and Google's service. As soon as they can, it's game over for Google.

Now it comes down to surrendering your Internet connection to either a large corporation ( no net neutrality ) , or to the government ( net neutrality ).

You really ought to not take your talking points from organizations that are actively lying to you. Net Neutrality explicitly means that no one, not even the government, has control over what services you can and cannot access through your Internet connection. The government regulating ISPs is not the same as the government telling you what you can do with your connection. It can be, but it doesn't have to be.

Re:Another Kink

[tepples]

it's a lot easier to find alternate content than alternate infrastructure

Not when Big Content sues those who make this alternate content, claiming unauthorized derivative works.

Re:Another Kink

[Captain.Abrecan]

Any business interfering with traffic in any way is wrong. Lays saying that companies can't interfere are a good thing. What, are you fucking handicapped or something?

Re:Another Kink

[gmack]

Not that far fetched. In Canada some years ago during a strike Telus (second largest telco in Canada) blocked the employee’s union's website. Telcos can never be trusted not to censor things they don't like.

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

Trust in the dread god Freem'Arkhet to handle everything!

If not, appeal to his wife; Courtney Cox.

Your mileage on that may vary owing to the fact that they separated in 2010. However, they are still friends -- probably because she threatened to kick his ass with her karate skills -- so who knows.

Re:Another Kink

[MobyDisk]

I'm sure that your arguments make perfect sense within some definition of network neutrality. If you could, please reply to this stating what you think network neutrality means because I would like to know how you came to your conclusions. Unfortunately, the term keeps getting hijacked by companies with a political agenda. Network neutrality is supposed to mean that ISPs cannot modify or shape internet traffic. And based on that simple rule, your conclusions are not correct. Let me explain:

Pro NN: Netflix and Google Win.
Anti NN: AT&T and Comcast Win.

No one "wins" if NN is repealed. Currently, we have NN and everyone is doing just fine. If we lose NN, AT&T and Comcast can cheat by blocking a site then charging an extra fees to get it back. This is how they plan to make money off of it, without having to upgrade their infrastructure. I think calling that "winning" is a bad idea, since nothing good comes out of it.

Pro NN: The End User will end up paying more for service.
Anti NN: The End User will not have fair access to other services

This is really the same issue as the first point. If we retain NN, the end user pays exactly what they are paying now. If NN is repealed, it means that ISPs can provide unfair access, then charge a special fee to get fair access back. It means the end user pays more to get the same thing. Or they just get unfair access.

Pro NN: You cannot offer a service with a connection that included internet as a secondary option... I am breaking NN laws because I am offering my service faster to customers and internet access as a secondary service is slower.

Network Neutrality does not state that you cannot offer a service faster to customers and internet access as a slower service. *All* networks are this way. The internet network is always faster than the external network.

Anti NN: ISP can decide who they want to slow down or block just because they are in competition with them. So lets block Vonage or Skype because it Interfears with their Telephone business. Or netflix or hulu.

This a the big ticket, but you only hit the smallest piece of it. Some other examples: ISPs could change advertisements on pages. Imagine a mom and pop advertises their local toy shop, but WalMart pays an ISP to remove those ads and replace them with ads for WalMart. Or an ISP alters pages that are critical critical about the ISP. Or perhaps they redirect websites that are critical of their political agenda to sites that are in favor of their view. Or even if they don't go this far, they could slow down sites that they don't like.

Based on your statements, I think that you believe Network Neutrality places rules on how fast internet is, and how much ISPs can charge for it. I've heard that version of it a lot on various anti-network-neutrality sites. I can assure that that it does not mean that, except to those lobbyists who are trying to redefine the term to make it sound bad. The politicians have made it look like a debate between two approaches, when it isn't a debate, it is simply hijacking a common sense rule.

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

No, conservatives want personal freedom to choose ISPs.

Being forced to use an ISP that cooperates with the NSA on traffic monitoring is like being forced to use an airline that cooperates with the TSA on x-ray scanning. That is a very liberal concept.

I'm quite sure that your comment was in regard to the DHS (Dept. of Homeland Security). Honestly, most conservatives are split on that issue. On one hand, it just made it legal for the government to do stuff that was already being done by civilians (ie a private investigator). On the other hand, giving the government more power is definitely a liberal concept.

Personally, as a loyal GOP member, I'm in favor of getting rid of half of the government organizations whose names start with "Department Of". DHS is no exception.

Re:Another Kink

[dpilot]

Nope, can't do it. I tried, I failed.

I was looking a while back at the National Broadband Map, and it indicated that I had choices in my area. I currently have Comcast, but DSL is available. My big beef is over the Terms Of Service, and all that is implied there. According to the National Broadband Map there was service from a local CLEC available to me. I looked at their website, and not only were their TOS fine, they actually provide support services to people who want their own domains, servers, etc.

Enter the fiber loophole...

I emailed them, inquiring about availability of their service. I received a negative response. My response was asking if this was a matter of waiting for DSLAM availability, or if there was some more fundamental problem.

Their response was that my service, somewhere on the way to my house, went through some fiber. That mere fact meant that the ILEC no longer has to be an ILEC and provide for CLECs. They have a legal monopoly on any potential ISP service to me.

Re:Another Kink

[nschubach]

Odd how the "free market" US has one or maybe two ISPs in any given town, while the "socialist" EU cities have multiple choices. But try to convince the T(ard) Party that maybe there are a few problems with their little green god and see how successful you are at it.

We're screwed, dude.

Well, we are screwed... but it's not because of the free market. We don't have a free market when it comes to communication. We have the FCC and other government forces that prevents you or I to use whatever ISP, radio band, or communication medium we want (that a truly free market would allow.) IMHO, the FCC was deprecated with the advent of spread spectrum technology.

(Also, it's pretty childish that people keep resorting to dysphemism when referring to the Tea Party.)

Re:Another Kink

[SirGarlon]

On the other hand, giving the government more power is definitely a liberal concept.

And giving corporations more power is definitely a conservative concept. Which is the lesser evil?

Re:Another Kink

[nschubach]

I think you just backup up the GP but opened by disagreeing with it.

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

Any legislation telling me that I can't kill people is a complete infringement upon my rights! How dare they make laws banning murder!

Normally, I don't shop for companies to murder me, but I think I can make this metaphor work:

Let's say that you and I are diabetic and living together, and we hire a company to bring only healthy food to our door to eat. It goes well for a month, but then they switch to only bringing only pasta and candy, which we can't eat.

You call the police, and say that the company is trying to murder you. I simply switch to a different company.

Re:Another Kink

[Olorion]

> That's a pretty far-fetched bit of tin-foil-hattery you have there.

This is what a member of the 1% would say, of course. Perhaps you are one of them, or perhaps their propaganda has so crippled your brain that you fail to see what is in front of your eyes.

As hard as you try, you cannot ignore the evidence. Why were the mainstream media so unified in their "WMDs in Iraq" message? Anyone who looked impartially at the issue was *easily* able to say that was nonsense. But apparently none of the major media saw the truth -- despite their reputation for supposedly good investigative journalism. Could all of them have been incompetent, all at the same time? Very, very unlikely. The most probable conclusion is that they were deliberately lying to us.

These days, only a fool can still believe that our media is free.

The evidence of media dominance by the 1% is blindingly obvious. So it follows that they will want to crush as many alternative voices as possible, especially those on the Internet. The death of net neutrality will silence them.

Re:Another Kink

[MobyDisk]

It would seem far fetched if it hadn't happened already, and if they weren't asking for this ability. When someone asks for a law granting them some power, it is reasonable to assume they will use it. I have been meaning to compile a list of network neutrality violations for a while now, but we have had cases where ISPs have blocked or modified content. They come-up on Slashdot on occasion. We had common carrier laws long before the internet because historically freight carriers and phone companies did stuff like this. So this is not far fetched, it is history, it has happened.

Allowing government to regulate the Internet will do exactly the same thing

This extreme oversimplification has to stop. We aren't "giving the government the ability to regulate the internet" we are "restricting the ability for corporations to interfere with the internet." You are oversimplifying things so far that they actually mean the opposite. If we oversimplified every law to "giving the government the ability to regulate X" then we could argue against every single law. We shouldn't have laws telling companies that it is illegal to sell poisonous foods because that would be giving the government the ability to regulate food, and I don't want the government to tell me what food I can eat! We shouldn't have laws that make trespassing illegal because that would be giving the government the ability to regulate where I can go!

Also note, that we are talking about monopolies here. So the argument against government interference doesn't apply. The government has created this mess by screwing up telecommunications law to the point where no one could switch to a neutral ISP even if they wanted to.

The reality is that ISPs are trying to control the flow of content over the internet for their own profit. We have had network neutrality protections in place since before the internet existed (they were called "Common carrier" laws) because of historical violations of the same type, and they have served us well. We should not allow the protections to be removed under the guise that no one would bother to violate them.

Re:Another Kink

[Americano]

Of the two alternatives in your false dichotomy, giving corporations more power is certainly the lesser evil.

Why? Because Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle don't have legal authority to kick in your doors and imprison you, or execute you if you don't like their policies and refuse to do business with them. Try arguing that line of reasoning ("I don't like your policies, and so I don't do business with you!") next time you're tossed in jail for having a joint on you during a traffic stop. The government most certainly does have the authority to kick in your doors and imprison you, and you're very unlikely to win your case on due process grounds.

Of course, this *is* a false dichotomy; one can be conservative without favoring giving more power to corporations. One can also be liberal without favoring giving more power to the government. Let's not conflate the terms "liberal" and "conservative" with "Democrat" and "Republican," because they're not the same.

Re:Another Kink

[Joce640k]

Another kink in the armor of American freedom.

The "vote" is a sham. This has already been bought and paid for.

Re:Another Kink

[Runaway1956]

Assuming that both of those are "broadband", then you have one more choice than I have. My choices are limited to a dial up ISP, and a "broadband" DSL line - max speed 1 MB.

Rest assured, I understand your point. AC is very lucky to have all those choices, while the rest of us are ignored and passed over with every infrastructure "upgrade".

Re:Another Kink

[Americano]

Odd how the "free market" US has one or maybe two ISPs in any given town

It's not odd at all, when you consider that cable and telephone services (i.e., the companies that are also the typical ISPs) have historically been granted monopoly status by local government to provide service to an area.

Please show your work: why, exactly, would you expect free market levels of choice in a segment of the market where government regularly interferes & grants legal monopolies to specific players?

Re:Another Kink

[Curunir_wolf]

Yes, the media is entirely compromised, there's no denying that. Why, just looking at all the made-up PR they generated to drum up support for carpet bombing and droning Libya makes it obvious.

But as far as cutting off access to any network, only governments have done that, and there is plenty of it going on. Yet somehow you're willing to go ahead and provide the government with even more control over it. That really seems to defy common sense.

As hard as you try, you cannot ignore the evidence.

Well, you did. Must not be so hard.

Re:Another Kink

[M. Baranczak]

Where can you buy this kinky American freedom armor?

There's an on-line store that sells those. Unfortunately, my ISP is blocking it.

Re:Another Kink

[Americano]

Clearly no one explained natural monopolies to you.

You overlooked point three about monopolies, and in my mind, the one that's most relevant to net neutrality: Cable & telephone providers are not "natural" monopolies - they are government-sanctioned monopolies given sole authority to provide service to an area by local government. These are the companies we are also relying on to provide us with internet service today.

Unfortunately, the government has screwed us into a scenario of limited choice; it now falls to the government to tell the companies they're forcing us to do business with that those companies may not throttle or limit our access to a service we are paying for. Imagine if your electric company said "Well, we're only going to let you draw enough current to operate a hair dryer because you run your dishwasher during peak hours."

Re:Another Kink

[c0mpliant]

Your argument seems to be based on the fact that the government is a static thing, its not, its a representative of the people elected by the people. Corporations are not representatives of the people and do not have the interests of the people in their interests. It doesn't often times conflict with their modus operandi to conflict with the people but their interests lie with their stock holders and we have seen time and time again that they will do very bad things in the name of making profit. The idea that "the market" will decide to buy their products or not is also a fallacy, with the size of corporations and the power they hold they often times leave consumers no choice.

In the United States especially, corporations are seen more and more as an individual and that is a very scary prospect. Private organisations should NEVER hold more power than the representatives of the people and anyone who thinks the other way around hasn't fully thought through what they are proposing

Re:Another Kink

[Curunir_wolf]

This extreme oversimplification has to stop. We aren't "giving the government the ability to regulate the internet" we are "restricting the ability for corporations to interfere with the internet." You are oversimplifying things so far that they actually mean the opposite.

It's not an oversimplification, because the regulations are far-reaching and quite specific. There are several provisions obviously included to appease a few corporations, and several that fail to protect consumers as content creators, and actually make it more difficult and likely more expensive for them. I suggest that you go read the rules before claiming that it's not "giving the government the ability to regulate the internet".

Re:Another Kink

[Olorion]

> Yet somehow you're willing to go ahead and provide the government with even more control over [the Internet].

False. To me, net neutrality means nobody controls the Internet, and that is as it should be.

Why are you so anxious to kill net neutrality, giving Comcast and AT&T almost dictatorial powers over what websites their customers can see? If net neutrality dies, the Great Firewall of Comcast will rival the Great Firewall of China.

Re:Another Kink

[The Moof]

I call BS. I bet you more choices than that.

Actually, when everyone rolled out their bandwidth caps, I checked into this. And no, I do not have more choices than that. It was AT&T, various AT&T resellers, Comcast, and a Covad reseller.

The Covad resellers were charging ~$100/mo for 3M/512k service. I accepted the fact I was going to be paying more, but nearly 4 times more is a bit much. I also got the feeling from talking with them that they didn't want to offer residential service, and their online information was either extremely out of date or missing altogether (generally not a good sign for an ISP).

Re:Another Kink

[mcgrew]

We don't have a free market when it comes to communication

That's why I put "free market" in quotes.

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

Some conservatives are in favor of privatizing prisons, traffic stops, and even the kicking in of doors. When people mention "giving corporations too much power" nowadays, examples such as Blackwater quickly come to mind, where a corporation was given the authority to use violence with no due process. "It isn't horrible yet, so it isn't a horrible idea" isn't a very good argument.

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

You're seriously blaming the current situation on the free market?

I don't know whether to laugh at you or pity you for your distorted view of reality. The history of the Internet in the USA is all about government interference. From subsidies to help the existing players consolidate their positions to regulations that the big guys can afford to follow but are cost-prohibitive to anyone trying to enter the market, and now lately telling the DNS servers who they can and cannot index, what we have is about as far from a free market as it's possible to get.

So obviously the solution to the problem is to get the government involved. They'll fix everything!

Re:Another Kink

[Americano]

Your argument seems to be based on the fact that the government is a static thing, its not, its a representative of the people elected by the people.

Certainly elected by the people. Representing the people? That's debatable.

Corporations are not representatives of the people and do not have the interests of the people in their interests.

This would explain the massive proliferation of companies whose sole business is murdering innocent civilians, right? Corporations are made up of people - often the same people they do business with, and who live right alongside customers of that corporation. And any corporation without the interests of its customers (the people) at heart is not going to remain in business long, barring government force (e.g., granted monopoly status, or restrictive regulations which raise barriers to entry into a market.)

Corporations are responsive, as well. A small-but-vocal minority of people have been lobbying for marijuana legalization for years. A small-but-vocal minority of people have been lobbying for tuna companies to require dolphin-safe fishing practices for years. Who achieved their aims first? If you hit a corporation in its pocket book, it adjusts its policies, or it dies. Try not paying your taxes, let me know how that works out for you when they toss you in a federal prison.

What you're doing is arguing that a few large multinational corporations going rogue undermines the very concept of the free market, when in fact the vast majority of those corporations went rogue because people trusted the government (Hello, SEC!) to regulate, monitor, and oversee these companies and ensure that they weren't doing anything too risky, or corrupt. The government failed in that responsibility, and a few large corporations were caught with their pants down. What about the - literally - millions of small and mid-sized corporations that make up the bulk of the economy, and who have largely run their operations ethically and honestly? If the market was as inherently dangerous and corrupt and inhuman as you seem to think, then it would be newsworthy only when a business operated ethically - not when a few business behave badly.

The idea that "the market" will decide to buy their products or not is also a fallacy, with the size of corporations and the power they hold they often times leave consumers no choice.

Give me an example of what you mean by this. What products, specifically, are you unable to find an alternative for?

Private organisations should NEVER hold more power than the representatives of the people and anyone who thinks the other way around hasn't fully thought through what they are proposing.

I agree - but I answered your either/or question as it was posed - either the government, or corporations, get more power - then pointed out it was a false dichotomy. I'm all for power (and thus freedom) residing where it should: with the people, and with as-local-as-possible government where appropriate. But given the choice between giving power to the government, or leaving the power up to the "free market" to work out a practical solution to... I'd choose free market in many (perhaps even most) instances, because the "free market" can't (legally) deprive me of life and liberty if I disagree with its solution. The government can.

Re:Another Kink

[rpresser]

A *liberal* concept? Hast thou forgotten which President *created* the TSA and the DHS?

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

Pro NN: Netflix and Google Win.

Win over who? Who loses? I have a Netflix account, but I use Hulu, too. Vudu is a great service and so are torrents. I use Google, but I use Yahoo, too. Who loses? What are you talking about? Do you even know?

Re:Another Kink

[Paracelcus]

Where have you been living these past 10 years?
Freedom?
Freedom to do what? Where? Free what?
This is government by bribery, lobbyists, and the largest criminal organization in world history!
If there ever was "freedom" it was always for the few at the expense of the many!

There are darker things on the horizon than you can imagine.

Re:Another Kink

[JasterBobaMereel]

You have a free market, anyone is free to install their own copper or fibre to your property, and charge you accordingly (they won't because it would maker thier service prohibitively expensive), anyone is free to use your current line provider's lines, and your current provider is free to charge what they like for them

This means in practical terms that you are stuck with whoever provides your lines ...

Regulation in the EU means your line provider has to let other use their lines, only charge a "reasonable" amount, and gets a fixed reasonable fee direct from the customer for doing so (which means they actually maintain it)

The Free Market only works if you have a choice, but companies know the best way of maximising profits is to remove your choice ...

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

They could do that before net neutrality. But they didn't. This is a solution in search of a non-existent problem. More regulation and red tape to fix something that isn't even happening. What a waste of time and money!

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

There are ISPs that don't cooperate with NSA traffic mirroring?

Re:Another Kink

[Curunir_wolf]

False. To me, net neutrality means nobody controls the Internet, and that is as it should be.

It should, but the Feds are already interfering with it too much. This rule-making by unelected bureaucrats is just the foot in the door. Next up is PROTECT-IP, and E-PARASITE, then ACTA, then more and more control. What good is it to prevent the ISPs from blocking content when the the big content providers can take out whoever they want, practically at will.

Why are you so anxious to kill net neutrality

Actually, I want real network neutrality. I don't trust the government to provide it, they have proven to be entirely untrustworthy in that regard. I don't trust the ISPs, either, but every time there has been a problem with them blocking or throttling anything, it didn't last very long once people started complaining. When was last time a Federal agency was that responsive? And if this 155 page rule from the FCC turns out to cause problems, how long before anything is done about it?

Re:Another Kink

[vux984]

Oh you are going to cry but I don't want pay $60+ for 1.5Mbit/384Kbps, Comcast and AT&T will sell me 20Mbps/15Mbps for that. Well yes they will but along with their caps, throttling, and other BS.

If your complaining that the car you bought has a speed limiter that won't let it go over 300kph; you don't solve the problem by buying a car that costs the same with a top speed of 150kph... but hey, at least there is no speed limiter.

1.5Mbit/384kbps at the same price is actually worse than throttling and caps. You move slower than you would throttled ALL the time, and you can't pull enough data to hit the old caps now anyway.

Re:Another Kink

[NeutronCowboy]

Good point. To some extent, I see it as a combination of the two: the current telecoms are monopolies both through the nature of their market and through government fiat. My main beef is that people who don't have a clue about how telecoms operate think that all it would take is to remove the government from the market, and everything will be rainbows and unicorn farts. Instead, it will be even worse, because the government would then have officially said that it has no business regulating telecoms.

Re:Another Kink

[NeutronCowboy]

This a the big ticket, but you only hit the smallest piece of it. Some other examples: ISPs could change advertisements on pages. Imagine a mom and pop advertises their local toy shop, but WalMart pays an ISP to remove those ads and replace them with ads for WalMart. Or an ISP alters pages that are critical critical about the ISP. Or perhaps they redirect websites that are critical of their political agenda to sites that are in favor of their view. Or even if they don't go this far, they could slow down sites that they don't like.

Based on your statements, I think that you believe Network Neutrality places rules on how fast internet is, and how much ISPs can charge for it. I've heard that version of it a lot on various anti-network-neutrality sites. I can assure that that it does not mean that, except to those lobbyists who are trying to redefine the term to make it sound bad. The politicians have made it look like a debate between two approaches, when it isn't a debate, it is simply hijacking a common sense rule.

This. This. This. I have no idea why people think that ISPs without the constraint of Net Neutrality will simply stick to a little bit of bandwidth shaping and differential bandwidth pricing.

Re:Another Kink

[Fned]

...which becomes logarithmically more difficult as the number of creators increases.

Re:Another Kink

[residieu]

Do European ISP each dig up the roads and put their own cables through everywhere? Or is there some form of regulation that makes the cable owners lease them out on reasonable terms?

Re:Another Kink

[MobyDisk]

Thanks for the link.

First, assume for a moment that I agree with you on the quality of the regulations as written - who do you think should enforce Network Neutrality then? Is this regulation bad enough to throw-out the entire thing and let a few monopolies control everyone's access to information?

Second, you say:

It's not an oversimplification, because the regulations are far-reaching and quite specific.

But the regulations you linked to har hardly far reaching or overly specific. I'm looking through them now, since the last time I looked into this it was still the "FCC's four principles."

If your goal is to convince people that allowing ISPs unchecked control over the internet is better than allowing the government to limit their power, this document sure isn't helping that point. It even cites network neutrality violations in there.

At the top-level, it has a summary of what they want:

i. Transparency. Fixed and mobile broadband providers must disclose the network
management practices, performance characteristics, and terms and conditions of their
broadband services;
ii. No blocking. Fixed broadband providers may not block lawful content, applications,
services, or non-harmful devices; mobile broadband providers may not block lawful
websites, or block applications that compete with their voice or video telephony
services; and
iii. No unreasonable discrimination. Fixed broadband providers may not unreasonably
discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic.

That looks simple, clear, and reasonable. Then follows explanation, history, and justifications. The include examples of network neutrality violations, and the harm that they cause. Then on page 30 they go into more detail about the scope of the rules and definitions of broadband, internet access, etc. I'm impressed considering a government body made this. It reads like a judge's opinion in a lot of ways, tying together logic and law. It gets more specific as you go along, but I don't see it being too specific. Compare this to the thousands of pages that legislation usually is, and this looks very pleasing by comparison!

But I think you have drifed from your original point in the process of trying to shoot down this legislation. You said it contains:

...several [regulations] that fail to protect consumers as content creators, and actually make it more difficult and likely more expensive for them

Okay, so here you are complaining that the FCC regulations don't offer enough protection. Yet you advocated getting the government out of the way. So do you want to be protected from an ISP modifying your content, or do you not care? Personally, I'll take limited protections over none at all. If thatis the compromise we must make, then so bet it.

Let us get back to the original point Olorion brought-up. ISPs are seeking power that would allow them to silence people on the internet. You think that the FCC regulations are more heavy handed than the problem we are trying to fix, and I propose that we agree to disagree there. Yet from your criticism of the FCC, you seem to still want protections. So who should write them and how should they be enforced?

Re:Another Kink

[CrimsonAvenger]

Why were the mainstream media so unified in their "WMDs in Iraq" message? Anyone who looked impartially at the issue was *easily* able to say that was nonsense.

And yet...

We recovered WMD's from Iraq. Remember, chemical weapons are WMD's too.

Don't let the "WMD = nukular weapon" idea blind you to reality.

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

Netflix, Jamendo, YouTube, a shit-ton of fan-made derivative works on sites like deviantArt, etc

It's increasingly rare and difficult to police copyright infringement, and a vast body of infringing works exist without repercussion. But are you seriously suggesting that copyright lawsuits are more expensive to the end user than the cost of finding or constructing alternate infrastructure? And is that an argument against Network Neutrality?

Re:Another Kink

[ichthus]

Try not paying your taxes, let me know how that works out for you when they toss you in a federal prison.

Well, you could go to prison, or you could actually be appointed to the position of Secretary of the Treasury.

Re:Another Kink

[Vancorps]

I'm sorry, how does saying that ISPs can't throttle based on the end point giving the government MORE control? It sure sounds like it gives them less control. When DPI tools are no longer in place it becomes increasingly difficult for the government to control who has access to what. You might want to check on your definitely of net neutrality.

Re:Another Kink

[LearnToSpell]

Because Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle don't have legal authority to kick in your doors and imprison you

Careful with that one.

Re:Another Kink

[Grishnakh]

So you're saying you need government regulation to ensure a free market for consumers? Watch out, you're going to make some Teabaggers' heads explode.

Re:Another Kink

[scot4875]

Dude, I know of no liberals in my circle who are happy with expansion of the DHS or NSA traffic monitoring. Quit trying to brand bad things as "the other guy's doing" and just agree that it's a bad thing.

Also, "giving the government more power" is not a liberal concept; it's a common mischaracterization of liberal goals by someone who clearly doesn't understand those goals.

--Jeremy

Re:Another Kink

[cayenne8]

Not having decent internet nowadays is more socially and economically crippling than not having telephone service.

Really? Seriously?

I mean..don't get me wrong....I go into withdrawls when I am without internet connectivity, but it is ONLY really for mostly entertainment, and convenience.

I really would not suffer at ALL if it went down tomorrow. Sure, I'd not be able to have to quickly email anyone, but I could easily start phoning them again (assuming txt went out too).

If you're alluding to FaceBook. I don't have an account...and have not suffered socially at all because of it. I have a ton of friends, and we all interact mostly daily or weekly at the very least. We often get together and spend time in meatspace, which is what I call true social interaction.

I don't see it hurting me economically not having internet connectivity at home, with the possible exception that I'd lose a bit of money having to buy things locally and pay sales tax,but shy of that, I don't see how it would cripple me if home connectivity disappeared tomorrow.

Re:Another Kink

[kheldan]

I have two choices..

Then you are a wealthy man. I'd have to move somewhere else. It's either Comcast or nothing. I can't even get dialup above 33.6K here even if I had wired phone service!

Re:Another Kink

[Grishnakh]

Citation needed. The only "chemical weapons" recovered in Iraq were some old, non-functional munitions that Saddam's army had forgotten about.

Re:Another Kink

[cayenne8]

Pro NN: The End User will end up paying more for service.

Ok, you lost me on this one....

So, you're saying that if they defeat net neutrality, I'm going to get my monthly ISP fees reduced substantially?

How's that going to happen?

Re:Another Kink

[scot4875]

Except that there are no other companies to switch to in most areas. Or if there are, they will only deliver half a meal per day for the same cost as the one delivering 3 full servings of pasta and candy.

The metaphor was already pretty strained, and it really doesn't prove jack shit. I think the main thing we can agree on is that restricted choice is bad, and that right now we have *very* restricted choice.

--Jeremy

Re:Another Kink

[scot4875]

So, because you can't point out anything specific, we can just assume that you're against this because it's a government action? You're going to ask someone to go through the entire document to point out that what you CLAIM is in there isn't actually in there? Would fit with your typical MO.

Basically, you're claiming there's a teapot somewhere out there orbiting the sun. It's up to YOU to prove that it's there. If you can't do that, you're full of shit.

--Jeremy

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

Except they were starting up because the government wouldn't let the phone company kick the upstarts off their lines...

Re:Another Kink

[unrtst]

I agree with your sentiment, but I thought it interesting how easily this paragraph could be run through sed and be just as valid as what you said...

This would explain the massive proliferation of companies whose sole business is murdering innocent civilians, right? Corporations are made up of people - often the same people they do business with, and who live right alongside customers of that corporation. And any corporation without the interests of its customers (the people) at heart is not going to remain in business long, barring government force (e.g., granted monopoly status, or restrictive regulations which raise barriers to entry into a market.)

This would explain the massive proliferation of governments whose sole purpose is murdering innocent civilians, right? Governments are made up of people - often the same people they govern, and who live right alongside citizens of that government. And any government without the interests of its constituents (the people) at heart is not going to remain in power long, barring corporate contributions (e.g. a well funded dictatorship, or oppressive actions which raise barriers to entry for a new political party.) :-)

What *I* would argue is that corporations and the US government are in bed with each other and are trying to undermine BOTH the free market and the democracy. The false dichotomy here, and between rebpulican/democrat etc, serve well to keep most people distracted from the fact that they are one and the same. I'm not proposing no government and/or no big companies... but I am all for small government and small companies and less corporate influence on the government and less government contributions to corporations. The one area I would like to see an increase in regulation is on imports - I'm all for making (for example) Chinese goods cost as much once they're on our soil as they would cost to make them here (via tarriffs, etc), which would actually support the growth of new/small companies here and increase jobs here as they would be able to compete.

Re:Another Kink

[Olorion]

Actually, I want real network neutrality. I don't trust the government to provide it, they have proven to be entirely untrustworthy in that regard.

The U.S. government is only potentially an enemy of the Internet (and I will fight any encroachment on our freedoms). Whereas Comcast et al have already declared their intention to block websites when they are given the to power to do so: that threat is how they plan to extort some revenue from independent sites. Given a potential menace and an actual, proven one, I'll take the lesser of two evils.

I don't trust the ISPs, either, but every time there has been a problem with them blocking or throttling anything, it didn't last very long once people started complaining.

The blockages didn't last because the ISPs probably broke the law. If their actions ever became legal due to the death of net neutrality, look out. Do you really think our freedoms will be protected by the Great Firewall of Comcast?

Re:Another Kink

[geniusj]

Sonic is expensive? I beg to differ.

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems such sentiments are few and far between on Slashdot lately... Why can the anti-capitalists not see that what we have isn't anywhere near a free market?

Re:Another Kink

[geniusj]

When you say AT&T resellers, what do you mean? Are they ISPs using AT&Ts lines? If so, that still gets you around the bandwidth caps.

Re:Another Kink

[Shatrat]

The USA has similar regulation.
http://transition.fcc.gov/telecom.html
The company I work for sells thousands of circuits on Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC) facilities (lines).
The prices are regulated and they are required to provide the same level of service, and the FCC can and frequently does fine them if they do not. The actual level of service is generally more dependent on how good you are at gaming their ticketing system than who is leasing the line, in reality.

Re:Another Kink

[Americano]

This would explain the massive proliferation of governments whose sole purpose is murdering innocent civilians, right? Governments are made up of people - often the same people they govern, and who live right alongside citizens of that government.

Here's the major difference between what I said about corporations, and the s/corporation/government/g twist: governments, by their very nature, are established with the sole legal right, authority, and sanction to do violence on behalf of its citizenry. A corporation cannot - legally - lock up an offender, even somebody who is stealing their stuff. They must petition the government, using appropriate legal mechanisms, to intervene and use force on their behalf. Any corporation that started trying to run its own prison & judicial system would be put out of existence in moments by the government.

The fact that the government is legally entitled to use force on its own citizens (law enforcement) and on other people (via the military) is exactly why granting more power to the government is, as I said, "more evil" than granting more power to corporations (which essentially means that the corporations, in a free market, must establish their power in the market by producing goods people wish to voluntarily buy, at a price people wish to voluntarily part with.) The government can point a gun at you and say "Go buy health insurance." A corporation can urge you to, suggest that you do so, take out billion dollar advertising deals to convince you to buy health insurance, but they cannot, at the end of the day, threaten you with force if you do not.

And this is WHY corporations are in bed with the government, as you rightly note. They see that for the small cost of lobbying... they can force people to become their customers, and eliminate competitive threats. The government has the power to do this, which is the reason why government should have severely constrained powers, and any powers granted to the government should not be granted on a whim. Decentralize the authority as much as possible, and you've created conditions for personal freedom. Centralize authority, and you end up with an increasingly draconian collusion of government & industry, resulting in interference in the freedoms of citizens.

Of the two (granting government more power, or granting corporations more power), neither is a "good" thing, but I've at least got a chance with the unarmed con man... not so much with the guy pointing a pistol at my head.

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. The lines could never have been laid without government. The barrier to entry rises geometrically with every property line the lines would cross, as the value of the lines increase with each customer and each landowner would demand that a higher price for ROW - the company would have to either eat that ever-rising price or spread it to their customers, so the price of service would rise out of reach. And that's not even considering the landowners that would block the lines for non-commercial reasons.

But you knew that, you just ignore it so that you can 'refute' natural monopolies.

Re:Another Kink

[mcgrew]

I have no idea who lays European fiber and cable. If I had my way, CWLP would run the local cable company. If my electric bill gets too high, or if there are a lot of outages, or custmer service turns bad, the Mayor loses his job. So we wind up with the lowest electric rates in the state, the best uptime, and the best customer service. I feel sorry for folks who are stuck with a corporate electric company.

Hell, I'm not sure who layed the cable in my own town.

Re:Another Kink

[desdinova 216]

freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose - K. Kristofferson

Re:Another Kink

[MozeeToby]

The government itself should be laying that cable for anyone to use.

Ehh, I don't know about that. Why doesn't the government just lay quality conduit whenever they tear up the roads, then when the next big thing comes along it's just a cable pull away. Most places tear up most roads every 10 years or less, you'd have conduit run on every major road in the US within a decade and all the arguments for community monopolies disappear.

Re:Another Kink

[osu-neko]

No, conservatives want personal freedom to choose ISPs.

No, conservatives give lip service to the concept, while promoting policies to ensure it won't be an option. The Republican Party in particular favors policies that lead to a centrally-planned economy, the only difference between their concept and the Soviet one being that the central planning occurs in a boardroom instead of a committee room. Both of these extremes deny people the free market freedom that most liberals favor, but conservatives see everything in black and white, so if you don't take it to their extreme, you must be a "socialist" advocating the opposite extreme. They can't even tell that you're arguing for a different position than either of the idiotic extremes.

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, we can agree that the metaphor was already pretty strained.

The real question is... could an ISP ever find a way to interfere with traffic in a way that benefits the consumer? I think the question is unanswered today. The only thing I can think of that would come close was NetZero, who served highly targeted ads at customers to bring their total bill down to Zero (hence the name). The service kind of sucked, but since it was free, they got 1,000,000 signups in just 6 months.

I don't think the Netzero model was great, but it wasn't a crime. It was successful, but not nearly successful enough to eliminate every other standard ISP.

You are worried that it won't be a new small company, but instead one of the megacorps will do this. Well, in my town of 90,000 people, there are at least 3 other relatively-unknown high speed ISPs available besides the big two (Comcast and AT&T). If one of the big 2 suddenly started doing something like NetZero, people would flock to those other small high speed ISPs. Suddenly the world has changed from very little choice.

Face it: Net Neutrality interferes with the market in such a way that some choices are no longer legal. NetZero and other crazy ISP schemes would not be possible without the Net Neutrality law. You may call these "crazy choices", but they are choices, and Net Neutrality takes them away.

After all that, I do agree with you. Restricted choice is bad, and that is why Net Neutrality is bad.

Re:Another Kink

[oldmac31310]

You mean 'chink' not 'kink'.

Re:Another Kink

[PopeRatzo]

Of course, this *is* a false dichotomy; one can be conservative without favoring giving more power to corporations.

Citation please.

Just one contemporary example.

Of the two alternatives in your false dichotomy, giving corporations more power is certainly the lesser evil.

The false dichotomy comes from the fact that corporations currently run government. Every single law passed by the Federal legislature and every state legislature is written by lobbyists. Just look at Europe and the US to see that every government is putting the banks, which are all corporations, ahead of their people or their own sovereignty. When we hear about how the EU is going to "bail out Greece" what that means is that they're going to bail out the banks to whom Greece owes money. When they talk about "bailing out Italy" they're talking about bailing out the banks to whom Italy owes money. The reason these banks need to be bailed out? Because they played with the previous money governments gave them and blew it all at the roulette table. When you hear about the "TARP bailouts", it was bank holding corporations that got bailed out, and not just bailed out, but made whole to the tune of 100 cents on the dollar. It was unthinkable that a banker might have to take 90 cents on the dollar for the money they lost playing roulette.

No, because of three decades of increasing corporate power, there is not a government on earth that has as much power as that which is concentrated in the hands of transnational corporations.

And no, guns don't represent power when the people holding the guns are wholly owned and take their orders from corporations.

In theory, there is no false dichotomy between "government" and "corporations". Government is the only institution that can possibly be a counterbalance, a check, on the power of corporations, and now it's too late. The Supreme Court of the US basically said, "Corporations are super-citizens". Instead of being 3/5 of a citizen, a corporations is 500million/1 of a citizen And corporations are golems, virtual machines which share no properties with human beings, simply capital aggregated. What's good for them has nothing to do with what's good for human beings.

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

Private organisations should NEVER hold more power than the representatives of the people and anyone who thinks the other way around hasn't fully thought through what they are proposing

Private organizations only have power as long as people keep buying their stuff. Governments hold power until a coup occurs.

If you feel like corporations have power of you, just think of the mass exodus of customers from MySpace and NetFlix, once they stopped providing services in a way that customers liked. Surviving in the business world is hard. Yet government programs are forced upon us. This is why horrible government programs overrun by fraud (ie Medicare) are still in operation.

Even the university that I went to allowed my to opt out of services that I didn't use for a refund. Right now, 40% of my income goes to taxes of some type (income + sales tax). That is a huge amount of money in my budget that I can not legally opt out of. The other 60% goes towards things I buy (housing, food, entertainment), and even though large corporations get a decent chunk, I can easily identify what I get in return for that money. I can't say the same for the 40% to the government.

Re:Another Kink

[Americano]

Did you click the wrong "reply" link? Because your response seems at best tangentially related to anything I said.

I said: These companies are monopolies now because the government granted them monopoly status - the government decided to limit competition in these utilities, and now it's up to them to try and regulate in a fashion that might not be necessary had there been a real competitive market.

You said: "WRONG. These companies wouldn't even exist without the government."

I'm not sure how that "wrong" fits in with your point that is, essentially, agreeing with my statement that the government had a (heavy) hand in constructing the non-competitive communications landscape we have today.

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

No, government regulation is the reason for this. Businesses HAVE used force - legally to break unions, for example. In West Virgina mines hired mercenaries to assassinate union leaders with no negative effect on who bought coal from them in the early 20th. Steel companies hired the Pinkertons to find and physically intimidate union leaders. Regulation put a stop (well, at least ameliorated) to companies enforcing for themselves.

It's easy to forget that it hasn't always been like it is today, or how bad it can get unless you keep large companies leashed - to say it can't happen, or that companies DON'T abuse power because of market forces independent of the desires of the market as expressed through representational government is at best naive, and is usually dishonest.

Unregulated free-market capitalism would behave the same way organized crime would behave if freed of the constraints of law.

Re:Another Kink

[Alsee]

Have faith. Some day you will have two internet providers to choose from.
Then you'll get to choose from a cartel menu of grilled shitburger with a side order of abuse, or fried shitburger with a side order of abuse.

Would you like fries with that? Only twice the price! It's got over ten times the recommended daily limit of lead and mercury included free!

-

Re:Another Kink

[uigrad_2000]

A *liberal* concept? Hast thou forgotten which President *created* the TSA and the DHS?

Nope, I remember. It was the least conservative republican president that I've experienced. I also remember a very liberal congress going along with it at the time. In fact, Ernest Hollings (D) was the one who introduced the bill to the senate.

Looking at the TSA today, with it's $8.1 billion budget, and very few successes, I think it is certainly time to reconsider its usefulness. I doubt you listen to Rush Limbaugh, but he despises the TSA as much as anyone, and I've never heard anyone accuse him of being a liberal.

Re:Another Kink

[mwehle]

This has certainly been my experience in San Francisco. For years I dealt with a reseller who leased ATT lines, but he honestly told me himself that when I moved to a new location and had trouble with the lines that there was little he could do, and ATT would be pretty unresponsive unless I was their customer. Suggesting there's a plethora of choices for telecomm providers even in a large metropolitan area like the San Francisco Bay Area seems like a troll.

Re:Another Kink

[SleazyRidr]

No one's preventing you from moving to a neighborhood with better connectivity.

Re:Another Kink

[u-235-sentinel]

I have two choices for ISP: ATT and Comcast.

Wasn't AT&T one of the ISPs that decided to cooperate with the NSA on traffic monitoring? That would make it a good, politically correct, provider for GOP supporters.

And Concast was the other one who terminates people's internet access for a year because they were experiencing a full and rich media experience from the internet. That's what happens when people watch shows like "The Event" from web sites like NBC.com (and yes I know NBC.com is now a Concast company ::grinz::)

Ironic...

Re:Another Kink

[Pseudonym]

This would explain the massive proliferation of companies whose sole business is murdering innocent civilians, right?

Massive proliferation? Well, it depends what you think of as "massive". Sole business? Of course not; there's no money in that.

Apart from those quibbles, that's an apt description of more than a few military contractors, natural resource corporations, and other industrial polluters. Admittedly, most of the deaths aren't happening in the US. And it's technically negligent homicide rather than murder, or at least it would be if multinational corporations didn't have clever legal (and not-exactly-legal) tricks to avoid charges in countries with less-finely-developed legal systems.

Re:Another Kink

[Pseudonym]

If you feel like corporations have power of you, just think of the mass exodus of customers from MySpace and NetFlix, once they stopped providing services in a way that customers liked.

In the case of internet access (which is, after all, what TFA is about), it is a basic utility. You can't really live in the modern world without it, and many areas have a monopoly (or effective cartel) on who provides that utility, and the economics are such that it is uneconomical for anyone else to enter that market.

In the case of myspace and Netflix, there was somewhere for disgruntled customers to go. Not everyone has that option by virtue of what postcode they happen to be in.

You can always move. But then, you can always move countries if you don't like your government.

Re:Another Kink

[Black Parrot]

Some conservatives are in favor of privatizing prisons, traffic stops, and even the kicking in of doors.

There's that myth of American politics again.

These aren't "conservative" issues, they're issues for the party that pretends to be conservative (to lure people into voting against their own self interests) but is in fact simply looking out for the rich. The Republican "base" is billionaires.

Anything that puts public money in their pockets is "conservative" policy under the American myth, and anything that taxes them for the good of the Republic is "liberal" policy under that same myth.

And BTW... where were the phalanxes of baton-wielding policemen during the Tea Party protests? Oh, wait, those people weren't any threat to the unlimited ability of the rich to get richer, so mayors didn't see any need to find excuses to evict them or beat them up.

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn, that's good enough to go in the next D&D campaign.
The chaotic neutral god of commerce and freedom, Fremm'Arkhet.
The uncaring and uncounted god. Destroying and fostering, His is the race to the bottom.
Favored weapon: Gold coins... shaped into shurikens.

Re:Another Kink

[Shotgun]

I believe in the Tea Party precepts, and my head isn't exploding. In fact, I think it is unconstitutional for the government to be using the power of imminent domain to allow these companies to put in the lines. The government should own and maintain the lines, because they are a glorified postal road. If someone's property must be taken for the public good, then that property should be continued to be controlled by the government.

Now, try sucking on that.

Re:Another Kink

[Trogre]

I mostly agree with what you say, but we are now seeing governments effectively bought by corporations who are writing laws to benefit only them. So you can right now be slapped with ludicrous fines for copyright infringement. How long until imprisonment is on the cards too? Then there's the business laws, that make small computer programming businesses so difficult as to be unfeasible.

Re:Another Kink

[Grishnakh]

You're not a very good TPer if you believe the government should be owning and maintaining the last-mile infrastructure. The TPers don't even think the government should be running the Post Office.

Re:Another Kink

[morari]

Really? Seriously?

Yes, seriously... and without ever alluding to Facebook. Why ever you even brought that one up.

Communication, news, research and education, shopping, job searches and applications, etc. People denied internet access are being held back in a huge way and it'll only get worse as time goes on and society becomes more dependent upon it. Time Warner refusing to run cable two or three miles down a road because there are only a dozen houses on it is downright criminal when they've received kickbacks to do just that on every bill ever since being granted an exclusive monopoly in the area.

Re:Another Kink

[grcumb]

This would explain the massive proliferation of governments whose sole purpose is murdering innocent civilians, right? Governments are made up of people - often the same people they govern, and who live right alongside citizens of that government.

Here's the major difference between what I said about corporations, and the s/corporation/government/g twist: governments, by their very nature, are established with the sole legal right, authority, and sanction to do violence on behalf of its citizenry.

Oh, you poor, naive young thing.

Did it never occur to you to wonder why the government's monopoly on punishment came about? It's because that power used to rest in the hands of the companies, and countless people suffered as a result.

Of the two (granting government more power, or granting corporations more power), neither is a "good" thing, but I've at least got a chance with the unarmed con man... not so much with the guy pointing a pistol at my head.

The private sector is just as capable of holding a gun to your head as the government. Moreso, even, if you hamstring the government and give all the power back to the corporations.

Re:Another Kink

[Shotgun]

They shouldn't.
There's a difference between owning a store and owning the public square.

Re:Another Kink

[BigBen4141]

I firmly believe it is foolish to hold that agents of corporations do not do these things and far worse on a daily basis around the world.

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

[citation needed]

Re:Another Kink

[Deliveranc3]

I kind of resent you pushing Google as some kind of white knight in the communications space. They're doing a pretty good job in many areas but they don't have a perfectly open goal they're chasing.

Obviously you're right about running wires, unless some kind of line renting system is implemented it's expensive.
Same for radio frequencies (GSM,CDMA,) super high cost to buy spectrum, the big companies just gobble it up... needs to be regulated into seperately owned chunks and significant free(as in libre) bandwidth.

Finally yes, Google >ul>can

do a nationwide rollout without bankrupting itself. It's just not where the money is, when people understand the power of SIP and move to online phoning Google wants to be THERE. And of course the customers aren't the customers, the government, law enforcement, etc. pay big money. Communications companies end up deploying privacy destroying systems. Google probably gets some of it's tax loopholes through schemes like that.

We all know what we want, a phone that you plug your sim in and it doesn't matter who you are you get unlimited bandwidth (enough to stream video to your screen) and decent latency.

There's more than enough WIRE and FREQUENCY to make this happen, so someone's shit the bed.

Re:Another Kink

[Deliveranc3]

It really is good VS evil. We need to put up a permanent wall against tiered service. They're going to keep attacking it and they only need to win once for the freedom of speech on the internet to be compromised and everyone to hurtle towards some horrible fascism.

Conservatives, in my experience, are more likely to attack network neutrality. Seems like Icarus heading to the mind control sun.

Oh just had a thought, you know how conservatives can't say the word "taxes" properly. How about they start working on giving people more hours for a while, not just more money.
P.S. Occupy protests rule! Eliabeth Warren for Vice-President (Dem). And good luck to my southern neighbors in this their election year!!!!

Re:Another Kink

[owlstead]

That did not materialize for cable in NL though, only for telephone lines. This is particularly stupid since coax can transport much much more than telephone, even with VDSL. Rolling out Fiber to the Home is much to expensive to compete with cable. Fortunately, I only need/expect fast enough ADSL with high uptime (and with my tether on my android phone, I've got a rather speedy backup anyway).\

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

Very well put.

Re:Another Kink

[Anguirel]

Many companies only accept resumes online. Several businesses only exist online. A large segment of the gaming industry is online-only at this point. My company prefers to use Video Conference via internet rather than phone-based conference calls. I have a long-distance girlfriend (she's gone back to school in another state) -- that relationship is much easier to maintain via Skype than phone calls (though we did the phone-route previously). I talk to my parents and my brother via Skype or Google Talk regularly (though we also use the phone). The video aspects of that are pretty cool for not missing out on elements of my niece's early life.

If I lost phone service, I could switch over all of that to pure internet-based calling. I couldn't switch all of that to phone-service. Yes, I'd say loss of internet would be much more crippling, economically and socially, than loss of phone service at this point.

Re:Another Kink

[eobanb]

This would explain the massive proliferation of companies whose sole business is murdering innocent civilians, right?

I guess you've never heard of Union Carbide, United Fruit, etc.

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, you could start a new ISP.... unless you move to my area where Time Warner holds a state government supported monopoly on broadband and wideband.

Re:Another Kink

[Americano]

Citation please.

How do corporations achieve power of any sort? There are two mechanisms:

1) By producing goods that satisfy a need people have, and selling it to those people at a profitable price point; if they do this successfully for some time, they develop a brand image, which can give them a certain amount of goodwill and respect from consumers, based on a history of success. This is "earned" power, which is voluntarily given by customers who happen to appreciate the work that a corporation is doing. And it ends the moment that corporation stops pleasing its customers.

2) By lobbying the government to grant them power - unearned advantages in the form of "buying" the writing of specific laws relevant to their industry that benefit themselves while harming consumers, and competition. This ends... well, never. Unless the government can no longer grant these sorts of powers to the corporations, no matter how much money they spend on lobbying.

If you eliminate the means by why corporations achieve these extortionary ends - by say, strictly curtailing the power of government to GRANT these extortionary "favors," it's hard to argue that limiting the scope, invasiveness and power of the government amounts to "granting power to the corporations."

Of course, this requires that voters & consumers be educated, and that elected representatives possess a shred of integrity; if neither is willing to develop or exercise those faculties - with voters penalizing candidates who have whored themselves out to special interests by not voting for them, and politicians not whoring themselves out to special interests - then as Thomas Jefferson reputedly opined, we get the government we deserve.

Re:Another Kink

[PopeRatzo]

How do corporations achieve power of any sort? There are two mechanisms:

Man, you left some out.

For example, corporation can achieve power buy purchasing its competitors, something only government can prevent. In that case they have produced nothing. A corporation can achieve power through purchasing intellectual property. In this case, they have produced nothing. A corporation can achieve power through marketing. Again, without producing anything.

Of course, this requires that voters & consumers be educated, and that elected representatives possess a shred of integrity; if neither is willing to develop or exercise those faculties - with voters penalizing candidates who have whored themselves out to special interests by not voting for them, and politicians not whoring themselves out to special interests - then as Thomas Jefferson reputedly opined, we get the government we deserve.

It's more complicated than that, Americano. They system as it stands, propelled by the Supreme Court decisions, allows for unlimited financial involvement in elections by corporations (something that does not exist for individuals). By having elections that are entirely financed through contributions, where money equals speech, you have a situation where anyone who wants to achieve elected office has to first court powerful corporate entities (with very rare exceptions). Then, like it or not, you have elected officials who are completely beholden to their financial benefactors. By creating an environment of the year-round campaign, there is never a time when an elected official does not need to ask his benefactors for money. Again, government is the only entity that can solve this problem, by campaign finance reform, public financing of elections, and constitutional amendment stating that money does NOT equal speech and corporations are NOT people.

Jefferson, who you quote, and the other founding fathers were pretty smart guys, very good writers. Very specific guys. If they had wanted money to equal speech, they could have easily have put that into the constitution. It is not intuitive that money should equal speech. Second, they could have easily have stated in the constitution that corporations are people. They were very specific about enumerating which rights could not be infringed by the government, and no where did they mention any "right" of corporations to do or have or say anything at all. And yes, there were examples of powerful corporations around in the last part of the 18th century.

Re:Another Kink

[rpresser]

So fine, you've debunked that the president responsible can be called conservative, and you've provided one more example of a non-liberal who dislikes the TSA. You've taken the sting out of my retort. I still take extreme exception with your branding the TSA, DHS, and other such government invasions as LIBERAL concepts. That's just plain bullshit.

Re:Another Kink

[thejynxed]

Say that giving more power to corporations is less evil to the people who had their doors kicked in and their vehicle trunks opened by the RIAA thugs a few years back. Say it to the people who have lost their homes due to fraudulent foreclosure paperwork by mortgage companies. I wonder which one would punch you in the nuts first.

Not so false when reality smacks in you the nuts.

Re:Another Kink

[the_one(2)]

You don't think it would hurt the Greece economy and the Greeks if they simply let the banks fail? Sometimes I hate the internet.

Re:Another Kink

[PopeRatzo]

You don't think it would hurt the Greece economy and the Greeks if they simply let the banks fail?

Sure it would cause some pain, but it would be less pain and it would be over quicker than simply re-mortgaging the future of Greece so that bankers get covered for the money that they gambled away.

Why should bankers be guaranteed never to lose money? Why should their risk be put on the shoulders of the Greek people? Why should their sovereign rights be taken away in order to force a bailout that they don't even want?

Re:Another Kink

[Anonymous Coward]

The proper solution would be to bail the banks and make sure it never happens again by splitting companies that are to big to fail and putting more stringent regulation in place. Letting the banks fail would have severe and far reaching consequences that would hurt the entire world economy.

Re:Another Kink

[Paracelcus]

I thought it was Joplin?

Re:Another Kink

[desdinova 216]

look at the songwriting credits.

Re:Another Kink

[Walter Carver]

Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle don't have legal authority to kick in your doors and imprison you, or execute you

For now. Give them enough power and they'll do that.

Remember the East India Company? They had their own private army.

Slight problem in summary

[dkleinsc]

The debate over net neutrality has largely been split on party lines, with the Democratic party mostly being for keeping net neutrality laws in place, and the GOP looking to avoid them.

They aren't laws right now, they're regulations. In a conflict between laws and regulations, laws win.

Re:Slight problem in summary

[roninmagus]

Thank you. I came here to say just that. It's more than a "slight problem" also, as to me it represents the complete misunderstanding of the issue at hand. It's not that those "evil GOP want to take over your internetz" as is usually framed. It's that "those evil GOP want lawmakers to make the laws and not more FCC decrees." That's not to say they're for or against it, IMO. They want to stop un-elected bodies from making judgements such as this. While I am for net neutrality, Obama should call this for what it is instead of using a populist tactic to fool people into thinking he's looking out for their good. I do not support beurocrats making up laws we all have to abide by.

Re:Slight problem in summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see...
Regulator aka bureaucrat familiar with the industry (supposed to be an expert) he or she is regulating

Law maker aka at best a laymen having their opinion on matters formed by 22 year old legislative aids and lobbyists

I can see why law makers are the vastly superior option here

Re:Slight problem in summary

[Anonymous Coward]

If your legislator votes differently on this than you would have, you have a recourse. Specifically, vote them out of office. With an appointed bureaucrat, you can't do that. That's why laws should be made by elected officials.

Re:Slight problem in summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, the bureaucrats familiar with the industry always do the best job creating regulation. You know, just like the department of homeland security with the TSA....

Re:Slight problem in summary

[jthill]

And laws Congress writes aren't supreme right now. You might as well say things the Lieutenant tells you to do aren't orders right now. Regulations have the force of law. Agencies have the authority to write them because Congress handed them that authority, and Congress had that authority because we handed it to them. Your daddy didn't teach you this? Didn't care enough to check whether the schools did?

Re:Slight problem in summary

[icebraining]

If the bureaucrat is appointed by the officials, changing them would also mean a change of bureaucrat.

Re:Slight problem in summary

[skids]

I do not support beurocrats making up laws we all have to abide by.

...because we'd all be so much better off if it took an act of congress to decide exactly how much rat feces can be in our hamburger.

We have an executive branch for a reason: to go do what congress said to. This job includes working out the details.

Re:Slight problem in summary

[morari]

It's so cute that you think your vote matters. Ignorance is bliss, huh?

Re:Slight problem in summary

[dkleinsc]

Agencies have the authority to write them because Congress handed them that authority, and Congress had that authority because we handed it to them.

And authority that Congress giveth, Congress can taketh away. That's my point. Even if Obama vetoes, if Congress had the votes, they could override the veto and force Obama and the FCC to comply. Or they could defund the FCC entirely.

Re:Slight problem in summary

[Anonymous Coward]

The Republicans are against all forms of regulation, period. It has become a religion for them (quite literally - they are starting to talk about how America is God's Chosen Country, and America is best when it is purely Capitalist, as Capitalism is our Founding Father's ideology; it's nonsense, but that's the tone now).

Re:Slight problem in summary

[Baron von Daren]

That’s ludicrous. You actually expect legislators have the time to personally attend to every facet of governance? Even if they randomly voted devoid of any knowledge or research on the subjects they would never have the time. Regulatory bodies are extensions of the representative process. In other words, elect competent and ethical politicians, and ideally they appoint competent officials to aid them in the process of maintaining a stable society.

People need to remove their fantastical ideological blinders and take a good look at the real world. As I’ve probably said on /. before, the nations with potent governments and strong regulatory infrastructures are the nations that have the most prosperous markets and offer the most personal liberty. Nations that have impotent and ‘small’ governments (e.g. Afghanistan, Hattie, Somalia, etc.) are not gardens of personal liberty and commerce.

The government may be flawed, but it is, regulatory bodies included, pretty much your only advocate against amalgamated, self-interested power. The invisible hand is a fantasy and it will not save us. When you take the referee out of the game, people and corporations cheat. Competition alone, even where it actually exists, is insufficient to keep massively powerful entities honest. We aren’t talking about two ice cream venders on either side of the street in a small town. We are talking about titanic multinational conglomerates enmeshed in a complex global economy and enshrouded in a labyrinth externalities. In this kind of global economic environment it’s pretty unrealistic to place the burden of regulating markets solely on the back of consumers. Consumers certainly have power, but not nearly enough, and this doesn’t even broach the issue of visibility into a staggeringly complex marketplace.

Re:Slight problem in summary

[MobyDisk]

That's not true. Common carrier laws have been in place for *hundreds of years*. The US actually inherited them from British commonlaw, back when they were concerned that freight carriers could mess with cargo. This only became a problem when the courts ruled that voice calls sent over the internet is not a voice call.

Re:Slight problem in summary

[Palshife]

They aren't laws right now, they're regulations. In a conflict between laws and regulations, laws win.

True, but in a conflict between a bill and the president's veto, the veto wins (unless Congress overrides, like that'll happen).

Re:Slight problem in summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Regulator aka frequently a member of the industry with lots of industry ties, with no accountability to the public.

Law maker aka guy who loses his job if he pisses off too many voters, and has lots of other industries he can pleasure for campaign funds, should this one be too unpopular with the public.

So it depends whether you like regulatory capture completely across the board, or bought legislation everywhere except the hot-button issues of the day. Pretty much the same thing, but once a decade or so, enough people will be riled that legislators can be scared out of doing something -- it never happens to regulators.

Re:Slight problem in summary

[Sprouticus]

The law allows the FCC to regulate NN. This law would repeal that ability. So yes, the laws in place allow NN.

Re:Slight problem in summary

[scot4875]

No they aren't. They trot out the "regulation bad!" line whenever it suits them, then they try to pass stuff like Prop 26. Republicans can't claim a principled stance on government regulation at all.

--Jeremy

Re:Slight problem in summary

[tnk1]

That is a big, big misunderstanding of how big the bureaucracy is and the ability of any single administration to change it.

There are two sorts of bureaucrats: appointees and career

The appointees are usually the top levels, and those *will* change with each election usually. The problem is that they don't have as much power as their positions might suggest. The fact is that since appointees are changed relatively frequently, AND that their tenure is related to politics, this situation tends to limit their ability to really shake things up in any government agency.

The career bureaucrats, on the other hand, are government employees. They are ably represented by the civil service unions, they may not always be paid the best, but their benefits and job security are second to none. Some have probably been doing the same job for decades, and almost all of them have gone through at least a few rounds of political appointees at the top. Some of the higher ranked ones have actually worked with Congress and other agencies longer than their political appointee bosses. Collectively, they *are* the agency, and the more of them there are, the harder it is to make quick changes. As the government gets bigger, there are more and more career bureaucrats and more and denser regulation.

In other words, the appointees have the power to ram though certain pet projects and focused initiatives, but they are powerless to do anything widespread without the cooperation of the career bureaucrats. Even if the appointee's initiative is viewed positively, in an agency big enough, it's like changing course for a particularly sluggish supertanker. And if the initiative relates to anything like job or benefit cuts, you can expect it to move even more slowly.

So, no, most bureaucrats are very well insulated from changes in political appointees at the top. Indeed, the career of a J. Edgar Hoover shows how a higher level career bureaucrat could become almost immune from political currents though their grip on the long term destiny of their agencies that shorter term political appointees could never have.

Re:Slight problem in summary

[jthill]

All right, let's try this in short words.

They aren't laws right now

They have the force of law right now. If you are an ISP you must do what they say, when they say it. Congress must take them off the books the same way they take their own laws off the books. They did that here. Every FCC commissioner has, in every real sense, far greater power within his mandate than any Congressman or Senator. To get a unanimous vote in the FCC, to make or revoke a rule, a commissioner need only persuade four people. Count them: four.

The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffic

[Chrisq]

The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffic. Nobody would complain about FTP traffic being slowed during busy bursts to avoid interfering with voice traffic. It is the stated aim of some ISPs to throttle back certain sites unless you pay a premium. So Microsoft could agree to pay certain ISPs to advertise bing while at the same time making google very slow and barely usable. They could also undermine free sites by charging the provider to allow customers reasonable access, meaning that they have a charge to pass on somewhere. The end result will be the end of the free to access internet.

Put on a good show guys!

[GeneralTurgidson]

Obama really needs to look like the good guy when he vetoes the bill!

Re:Put on a good show guys!

[masternerdguy]

I hope thats all this is. I really do.

Re:Put on a good show guys!

[bhlowe]

Exactly. The President is going to veto it, so its all hand waving and posturing.

This is simply one of the few "good news" stories that the Democrats have, so it is trotted out by the huffpo crowd as a crowning achievement to prevent an immanent evil.

Anyone who remembers a fractional T1 for $600/mo from Covad/AT&T and is now on ComCast business at 35Mbps at $89/mo should be thrilled with the state of things. Wake me up when I am actually dissatisfied or disenfranchised.

Wait... which is which?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now which one is the Republocrats and which the Demicans? er...

noooooo

[Anonymous Coward]

This really grinds my gears.

I'll start my own damn internet... with hookers and booze!

Re:noooooo

[Anonymous Coward]

don't forget the blackjack

Re:noooooo

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact....forget the internet!

Re:noooooo

[Anonymous Coward]

So just like the regular Internet?

Re:noooooo

[Anonymous Coward]

This really grinds my gears.

I'll start my own damn internet... with hookers and booze!

you know what... I don't even care about the internet or the booze...

Please repeal!

[Brewmastre]

I'm all in favour of net neutrality, but I'm sorry, no private company could possibly screw up things as bad as when the government gets involved and starts "regulating". If the US government were a company it would have gone out of business long ago...but as things stand, that may happen son enough.

Re:Please repeal!

[RazzleFrog]

Some despite the fact that private companies have pretty much destroyed our economy you are ok with them controlling the internet, too?

Re:Please repeal!

[Anonymous Coward]

I know, right? That's why food contamination actually got worse after we passed the Pure Food And Drug Act.

Wait, did I say "worse"? Sorry, I meant "better".

You're taking "government will always handle everything worse than any private company" as an article of faith not backed by evidence. Sorry, I'm not religious in that particular manner.

Re:Please repeal!

[scharkalvin]

In general I'm against the government adding senseless regulations, but in THIS case the regulation IS necessary. It's actually a requirement that all traffic be treated equal. How would you like it if the post office told you that from now on unless you put two extra stamps on each of your letters they would add a week to the delivery time of your first class mail?

Re:Please repeal!

[Anonymous Coward]

What children Americans are. You are the government, you elect it and you control it, but rather than debate and decide what to do, you just give up and ask a corporations to run you country.

Re:Please repeal!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm all in favour of net neutrality, but I'm sorry, no private company could possibly screw up things as bad as when the government gets involved and starts "regulating". If the US government were a company it would have gone out of business long ago...but as things stand, that may happen son enough.

Well, you've stated a philosophical stance and I don't care about your philosophy.

I think that this issue is more important than that. Thanks for sharing, I guess.

Re:Please repeal!

[jellie]

Oh right, because private companies would do such a good job to ensure net neutrality. I mean, who's supposed to ensure that content gatekeepers don't create tiered services? ISPs? Uh huh...

Sometimes you just need to admit that government regulations are necessary. No FDA? You can go back to the days before Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" and Frances Oldham Kelsey. How about the EPA? Not sure why people oppose the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. And if the US government were a company, you might have been bankrupt long ago.

Re:Please repeal!

[Anonymous Coward]

>the fact that private companies have pretty much destroyed our economy

Private companies ARE our economy, comrade.

Re:Please repeal!

[FooAtWFU]

See, that's a question of your political world-view. You could also say that "despite the fact that the government has pretty much destroyed our economy, you are okay with them controlling the Internet, too?" (Let's play the Blame Game! We can bring in stories about how, for every bubbly subprime mortgage the private economy bought, federal housing agencies bought two. Little things like that. We can blame political risk and the healthcare package for increasing the expected costs of hiring people, perpetuating unemployment.)

The problem with government regulations is that even though there are things I'd like them to do, I don't necessarily trust them to do it right. Net Neutrality? It might be a net win, maybe. I certainly hope so. Incumbent telecom monopolies trying to protect their television revenues against YouTube and Netflix are hardly friends to the consumer. (The new financial regulations, on the other hand, are a poorly-thought-out unclear loopholey reactionary mess which are extraordinarily unlikely to prevent the next crisis but likely to increase meaningless compliance paperwork costs.)

Re:Please repeal!

[FooAtWFU]

I thought about mentioning that too, but decided to give the Commie mutant traitor the benefit of the doubt. He may be referring to some companies in the economy destroying themselves and damaging other parts of the economy.

Of course, I'm not sure how banks and Comcast have any meaningful characteristics in common.

Re:Please repeal!

[LoudNoiseElitist]

You can't seriously believe that Americans have control of their government.

Re:Please repeal!

[Anonymous Coward]

We all destroyed the economy: the private companies that followed the capitalist charter that we endorse every time we vote; the democratic government that failed to protect us from things that we don't understand; and the private individuals who bought ridiculously cheap goods, borrowed stupidly large sums of "interest-free" money and took out outrageously large mortgages many times their salary.

If you want a more controlling, socialist government and have never borrowed money then I apologise for denigrating you. I'm also impressed at your reading ability, the majority of Chinese can't read English...

Re:Please repeal!

[deathguppie]

Net Neutrality is about stopping companies from being able to regulate Internet traffic. Thus many would contend that in effect NN is de-regulation.

Re:Please repeal!

[RazzleFrog]

The you tell me what the third choice is. You let the corporations rule and enslave the world or you let a flawed government (pretty much controlled by the corporations) that is theoretically overthrown every 4 years or so try to rule and enslave the world.

The problem isn't government but the lack of qualified people to run it.

Re:Please repeal!

[RazzleFrog]

And what's your point? You think that just because they "ARE" the economy they can't self-destruct and take us with them? The problem is when they self-destruct the captains don't go down with the ship. Do you really think Corzine is going to have problems paying his mortgage after driving MF Global into the ground? Or Richard Fuld from Lehman Brothers?

Unless you are one of those obscenely overpaid executives I don't understand why you would ever take their side.

Re:Please repeal!

[RazzleFrog]

Different level of regulation. Government regulates companies from regulating their traffic.

Re:Please repeal!

[Coisiche]

Unless you are one of those obscenely overpaid executives I don't understand why you would ever take their side.

Who would have thought that so many of them have /. accounts?

Re:Please repeal!

[DarwinSurvivor]

That's a stupid analogy. First of all, the post office already DOES that. The more you pay, the faster it gets there. Second of all, ISP's also already do this. The more you pay, the faster your connection.

Re:Please repeal!

[phlinn]

Governments work by force "Do this or else". Corporations work by persuasaion "if you Do this for us, we will do something else for you". There is a major difference in kind there, even if the "something else" is the only realistic choice you have to live. People who think corporations can rule or enslave people without the explicit efforts of government haven't actually been paying attention. American slavery would NOT have existed without the government decreeing that you can have a property right over people.

Re:Please repeal!

[Attila Dimedici]

I just read an article about how environmental issues were resolved before the EPA was created. I am not sure how accurate his portrayal is. However, it is actually a way that could work. So, the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act may have actually allowed companies to get away with polluting where they would otherwise been sued to bankruptcy. Additionally, a man was sent to jail for cleaning up an illegal dump because it violated the Clean Water Act.

Re:Please repeal!

[MimeticLie]

Except that puts the burden of enforcement on individuals. I know I certainly don't have the resources to stand up to a major corporation in court, do you?

Under the system you're suggesting, environmental enforcement would only happen if the victim was tremendously wealthy or the damage was so egregious that a lawyer could smell a massive payoff (which, of course, would be eaten up almost entirely by attorney's fees). I can't really think of a way your proposal could benefit massive polluters more.

Re:Please repeal!

[Rockoon]

Unless you are one of those obscenely overpaid executives I don't understand why you would ever take their side.

We recognize that the problem is the government bending over for corporations, not the corporations themselves.

You claim that you need to be protected from corporations, but you are advocating taking away your personal right to choose and giving it to the government... the government that bends over for corporations.

So now instead of being fucked by corporations, you now have no right to choose and are still going to get fucked by corporations.

I am completely fucking amazed that in one breath you can so thoroughly denounce government bailouts and then a moment later advocate that corporations be more tightly integrated with government... are you fucking stupid?

Re:Please repeal!

[TheRaven64]

You could also say that "despite the fact that the government has pretty much destroyed our economy, you are okay with them controlling the Internet, too?"

When most of the damage that the government did was through removing regulations... yes. Especially since we're not talking about the government controlling the Internet, we're talking about the government imposing limits on how much private enterprises can control it.

Re:Please repeal!

[Curunir_wolf]

You're taking "government will always handle everything worse than any private company" as an article of faith not backed by evidence.

Wait... there's no evidence?

Re:Please repeal!

[Attila Dimedici]

You mean more than the current system where they pollute for years, then when the EPA comes after them, they declare bankruptcy and leave the property for someone else to clean up?

Re:Please repeal!

[mcgrew]

I'm all in favour of net neutrality, but I'm sorry, no private company could possibly screw up things as bad as when the government gets involved and starts "regulating".

You want government vs "free" market? Let me tell you about Illinois electric companies. My provider, CWLP, is government owned and operated. Ten miles away they have the corporate Amerin.

My electric bills are half of Amerin customers. Amerin's customer service is abysmal, CWLP's is excellent. CWLP has the best uptime in the state, the lowest rates in the state, and is not only completely self-supporting, but eases our taxes here because it makes a profit that goes straight to the city government.

In March of 2006 two F2 (almost F3) tornados ripped through here and completely destroyed the electrical infrastructure in the southern part of town. My neighborhood didn't have a single pole left. My power was back on in a week. It was a couple of years before all evidence of the tornados was gone.

In June of that year an F1 passed through Cahokia, 100 miles south, where I used to live. They have Amerin. I visited my friend Jeff a month after that tornado, and the only evidence a tornado had been there was that he still didn't have any electricity, a FULL MONTH LATER. The poles and wires were up, but had no power.

See, Jeff has no recourse. He can't just switch to a different electric company and he can't vote against Amerin's CEO. So Amerin can fuck him over any way it wants; the only thing that keeps Amerin in check at all is the (how you put it) "regulating".

If I get bad customer service, frequent outages, or high bills the Mayor will lose his job next election.

Sorry, son, but you've swallowed toxic corporate bullshit. You believe a lie. Wake up.

Re:Please repeal!

[mcgrew]

Who would have ever thought that people who swallow bullshit corporate media propaganda that completely opposes reason and logic would have slashdot accounts? Anyone earning less than $300k per year in the tea party is, IMO, a complete moron.

Re:Please repeal!

[GungaDan]

They are also in a very real sense our government. So what's your point?

Re:Please repeal!

[geoffrobinson]

I think the "necessary" category should be reserved for things that are currently ongoing problems, not anticipated problems.

Re:Please repeal!

[artor3]

You're seriously citing a Free Republic post and an American Spectator article called "EPA Jackboots" as sources? Rush Limbaugh is more reliable.

Oh, and that lovely conservative lie about Mr. Pozsgai is bunk. Here's the truth of what happened.

Mr. Pozsgai wanted to build a 12000 sq ft garage on some land near his business. He hired an engineer to survey the site. That engineer warned him that the site met the government's definition of wetlands, and he would need a permit before filling the land. He hired another engineer for a second opinion, and then a third. Each told him the same thing. Note that he had not yet bought the land. He could have just accepted the law at this point, and only been out the cost of the surveys.

Instead he purchased the site, negotiating a 20% discount because he wouldn't be able to build there. He then immediately began an illegal filling operation. The Army Corps of Engineers came out and warned him to stop, in writing and in person. He claimed that the site was already like that, and he had been fixing it. However, the Corps came out again the next month, and found even more landfill than before. They warned him to stop it, and gave him a cease and desist letter. They came out again the next month, and the month after that, each time finding more landfill and each time telling Mr. Pozsgai to cut it out. This went on for over a year, from April of 1987 to May of 1988.

In May of '88, witnesses living next door reported hundreds of dump trucks showing up to pour more landfill into the wetlands. The Army Corps of Engineers installed a video camera and captured footage of another 25 such dump trucks pooring landfill into the site, completely demolishing Mr. Pozsgai's claim that he was trying to clean up existing dumping. He was brought to trial, where he did not even bother to deny the dumping anymore. Instead, he claimed that since the phrase "wetlands" isn't explicitly mentioned in the Clean Water Act, wetlands must not count as water! This defense was understandably rejected, and he was sentenced to 3 years in a minimum security prison.

Re:Please repeal!

[MobyDisk]

I get your point but your example could be improved. How about:

How would you like it if the post office told you that from now on unless you put two extra stamps on letters that go to certain recipients of their choosing, that each of your letters they would add a week to the delivery time of your first class mail?

The issue is largely about *unequal* treatment. And the issue is also on the receiver's end:

How would you like it if the post office told you that from now on, unless you paid them a fee, letters that came from certain recipients of their choosing, would add a week to the receipt time of your first class mail?

And it still isn't as gripping as network neutrality, because I can send letters through other means. There are other mail and freight carriers.

Re:Please repeal!

[mcgrew]

Too bad the parent commenter doesn't have an account, the comment was insightful. Posting anonymously almost guarantees that the comment won't be seen. Pity.

Re:Please repeal!

[RazzleFrog]

I denounced government bailouts? I don't remember saying that or commenting on the bailouts at all. The bailouts were a necessary evil and things would have been far worse without them.

The problem is I have no control over the corporations and never will. Our only hope is to create a big enough stink that the politicians realize that their constituency, the ones that vote them in, are pissed. Corporations right now have no incentive to be anything but greedy. There was a time many decades ago when if a business acted "evil" you could vote with your dollar and move your business but because of massive mergers and consolidation in the market all that's left is choosing between evils.

For example, try buying a cell phone without supporting some evil megalithic company. It's just not possible.

Re:Please repeal!

[mcgrew]

You can't seriously believe that Americans have control of their government.

One percent of Americans do.

Re:Please repeal!

[Curunir_wolf]

Oh right, because private companies would do such a good job to ensure net neutrality. I mean, who's supposed to ensure that content gatekeepers don't create tiered services? ISPs? Uh huh...

Sometimes you just need to admit that government regulations are necessary. No FDA? You can go back to the days before Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" and Frances Oldham Kelsey. How about the EPA? Not sure why people oppose the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. And if the US government were a company, you might have been bankrupt long ago.

Maybe. But, then, the FDA now works for the Big Pharma and Big Ag and all the latest regulations are about protecting them and reducing consumer choice. Clean air and clean water are, of course, great to have, but even if the delta smelt is more important that some of the richest farm land in Southern California (not to mention all the farmers), it's not even clear that turning all that farm land into desert is going to do anything for the little smelts anyway.

In any case, if you really want to ever have a voice in government, it's probably better that these things are decided by representative that are accountable to the voters, rather than unelected bureaucrats. If you actually read the regulations that the FCC wrote, you might be less inclined to defend them.

Re:Please repeal!

[nonewmsgs]

the government didn't decree people are property...at least not until Dred Scott v. Sandford,in 1857.

Re:Please repeal!

[phlinn]

So, someone wouldn't have been accused of theft for freeing a slave and running away with it? Maybe the federal government wouldn't have gotten involved, but there were sure as hell governments actively protecting slave owners.

Re:Please repeal!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Especially since we're not talking about the government controlling the Internet, we're talking about the government imposing limits on how much private enterprises can control it."

Sorry, that is the most idiotic thing I have ever read. Government intervention is effectively authorizing the use of force against fellow citizens. Whether that force is used to coerce an action force "limits" doesn't matter, it is still an immoral use of force.

NN sounds like an awesome idea on the surface level, but the moment it is debated it ceases to exist.

Re:Please repeal!

[MimeticLie]

And you think that an individual citizen has a greater chance of collecting that money? The problems you make reference to are real, but your solution does nothing to help them.

Re:Please repeal!

[jellie]

I don't doubt that the FDA works for Big Pharma. But I would much rather have Margaret Hamburg running the FDA than a bunch of politicians influenced by industry lobbyists. Many legislators, especially Republicans, are pushing for "faster" (weakened) approval processes for drugs and medical devices. They point to the fact that drugs take ~15 years to develop and get approved. I'm a med student, and I'd gladly have the FDA make rules requiring pharmaceutical companies prove their drugs are safe and effective, their manufacturing practices follow GMP, and the ingredients are what they claim to be.

I'm not defending the FCC's net neutrality position. But I don't want to make sweeping generalizations, because sometimes unelected bureaucrats are better than politicians who have no idea what they're talking about. I don't like some of Obama's appointees, particularly those involved in financial matters, but it's hard to find politicians more qualified than Hamburg, Lisa P. Jackson, Steven Chu, and Elizabeth Warren (had she not been blocked).

Re:Please repeal!

[NeutronCowboy]

American slavery would NOT have existed without the government decreeing that you can have a property right over people.

Considering that slavery existed long before central governments decreed it as the natural order of things, I think you might be overstating your case just a bit there. Or do you really think that without government, there would be no slaves? I'd then like to introduce you to the business side of my firestick while I ask you to do a bit of work for me.

Re:Please repeal!

[Attila Dimedici]

I think that the individual citizen has a greater chance of acting before the company has made enough return on the pollution to make it worth doing.

Re:Please repeal!

[TheRaven64]

Government intervention preventing you from stealing from or killing your fellow citizens is also effectively authorising the use of force against fellow citizens. Whether that force is used to coerce an action force "limits" doesn't matter, it is still an immoral use of force, by your reasoning. And yet you call my post the most idiotic thing you've read? I get the feeling that I've just been trolled...

Re:Please repeal!

[CrimsonAvenger]

The you tell me what the third choice is. You let the corporations rule and enslave the world or you let a flawed government (pretty much controlled by the corporations) that is theoretically overthrown every 4 years or so try to rule and enslave the world.

You're obviously unaware that the "corporation" is a government creation.

Before the government invented the corporation, what you had were businesses and partnerships, and things like that.

And the OWNERS were liable for the actions of the business/partnership.

The corporation was an invention by the government that divorced legal liability from the owners - now, the corporation is legally liable, but the owners of the corporation (and employees, like the CEO) are not liable.

Now, it's a fair question as to whether you think that the benefits of incorporation (government creation) are worth the price (lack of legal liability).

Certainly, some things would be much harder without the corporation (remember, if you own stock, YOU are on OWNER, and would be liable (slightly) if the company you owned stock in did something bad).

On the other hand, it would be almost impossible to concentrate the vast amount of power that so annoys so many people about major corporations without that government grant of incorporation to grant the owners legal immunity.

So, which do you prefer? Government action (directly), or government action (via the corporation)? Or the third choice, which limits governments (and thus corporations)....

Re:Please repeal!

[Grishnakh]

No, it's actually a pretty good analogy. Yes, the USPS has several levels of service: bulk mail (which only bulk mailers get access to), First Class, Parcel Post, Priority, and Express (and then some pricey international services I won't get into, let's just look at domestic services). If you want to send your letter the slowest and cheapest way, you send it First Class. If you want it to get there at about the same time but want to pay more (or you're sending a package over the 13 oz. 1st class limit), you send it Priority. (If you want to save a few cents and double the time, you can choose Parcel Post.) If you want it there really fast, you send it Express and pay a lot.

So, theoretically, there's several tiers of service. As you said, ISPs already do this too: as a customer, you can pay different rates at many/most ISPs and get different speeds: faster downloads for more money.

However, one thing the USPS does NOT do is discriminate between senders. It doesn't matter if you're company A or company B, if you send a First Class letter, your cost is the same (there are some exceptions based on volume however; high-volume senders get a minor discount, and people who stand in line at the Post Office get the highest prices).

The main place the analogy fails is who pays: with postal service, the sender is the one who pays for the service; the receiver gets his mail for free. With ISP service, the customers are both senders and receivers, though the bulk of their traffic is reception; you're just paying for access to the system. From the ISP's point-of-view, they only have control over one part of the network: the part between the backbones and their customers (and we're mostly talking about residential/private customers here, also smaller businesses). Most websites, especially larger ones, are connected to the internet through different companies to the backbones, and the ISPs have no control over that. The ISP's job is to deliver data to and from the backbone from your residential connection, and that's it.

Without Net Neutrality, what's going to happen is that the ISPs are going to start demanding that certain websites pay them or else their packets won't be delivered, or will be delivered very slowly. To attempt a relation to our prior USPS analogy, it'd be like the USPS demanding that you (a residential customer receiving mail) pay them extra money, or else they're going to look through all your mail and intentionally delay any bills you might receive, so that you'll receive them all late. And if you don't pay them an extra Netflix fee, they'll hold all your Netflix movies too because Netflix competes with their crappy "USPS Movies2Go" service.

Re:Please repeal!

[iluvcapra]

Terms like "always" and "never" impose very heavy burdens of proof.

Re:Please repeal!

[Magius_AR]

Electric companies are a rather poor example since they're a government-enforced monopoly. Induce competition and see how long it takes them to get your power back. Electric supplier competition here in Maryland has certainly driven down my electric bill. And I can bounce back and forth between whomever I wish.

Re:Please repeal!

[mcgrew]

Electric companies are a rather poor example since they're a government-enforced monopoly.

No different than a cable company, most of which have government sponsored monopolies. Yes, I would prefer to be able to choose between as many ISPs (and electric companies!) as I can cell phone companies, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

Re:Please repeal!

[DarwinSurvivor]

Ah, I missed that "letters" and "first class mail" were separate things, I though you were talking about first class letters. Makes a lot more sense now.

Re:Please repeal!

[scot4875]

Us: "Please stop polluting our water supply."

Corporations: "No. It hurts our bottom line."

Damn, I guess we're all out of options since government will just make things worse.

--Jeremy

Re:Please repeal!

[Grishnakh]

Sorry, I kinda mixed up the two. Letters usually are sent by first-class mail, though you can also send (small) parcels. You can also send them Priority or Express.

Re:Please repeal!

[Black Parrot]

I'm all in favour of net neutrality, but I'm sorry, no private company could possibly screw up things as bad as when the government gets involved and starts "regulating".

So, did California get Enron'd before you were born?

Or are you just jerking your knee to the tune of a political mantra?

Re:Please repeal!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Wake up" does not mean "completely change all of your opinions to match mine". And yes, that IS what you meant.

Re:Please repeal!

[wolfemi1]

Good explanation! I feel though that it should be noted that his neighbors reported Pozsgai because THEIR PROPERTIES WERE FLOODING as a result of him filling in the wetlands: http://www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/facts/fact15.html

Re:Please repeal!

[Alsee]

If I may contribute to your post, here's a link to the Third Circuit United States Court of Appeals ruling which explains Mr. Pozsgai's behavior in detail.

There are a few more details from the case I'd like to point out. Mr. Pozsgai himself stated in that the police came to his property in August 1987 and showed him the EPA order to cease and desist dumping landfill on the property. In December 1987 the EPA sent Mr. Pozsgai an umpteenth letter which, aside from yet again informing him his activities were illegal, also informed him that he could remedy the situation and get permission to proceed with his landfill if he merely obtained a Water Quality Certification from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources.

But my favorite part is how on August 26 1988 a Court issued a temporary restraining order explicitly ordering him to cease. And how Mr. Pozsgai flagrantly defied that court order two days later, when he was videoed dumping 25 additional truckloads on the property and personally driving a bulldozer leveling the fill.

But of course only a wildly biased treehugger commie liberal would pay any attention to "facts" from the court record. A true conservative will go by the FreeRepublic account.

-

Re:Please repeal!

[sjames]

That just proves the point. They're such terrible stewards of anything that they can't even stop themselves from shitting on their own plates. That's not a great recommendation for letting them look after society.

Re:Please repeal!

[Pence128]

Different level of regulation. Government regulates companies from regulating your traffic.

FTFY

Re:Please repeal!

[Magius_AR]

Well, it'd be a worthy goal to pursue. I could get behind breaking up the monopoly sooner than more useless government regulation. Do whatever it takes to force competition (rather than trying to blacklist the "evil acts we can foresee monopolies doing" and letting them continue business as usual: namely, finding evil things we haven't thought of blacklisting). We play a losing game with regulation -- it's only as good as what we haven't thought of yet. And in the end, we're still dependent upon a relatively bloated, inefficient, corrupt government to enforce it. Competition can regulate itself much more efficiently and impartially if we let it (by creating/bolstering a competitive environment).

Re:Please repeal!

[mcgrew]

Look what happened when they deregulated banking (repeal of Glass-Stegall) -- the present economic "Great Recession". Look what happened when California deregulated electricity supplies -- blackouts and brownouts.

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[muon-catalyzed]

Parent needs mod up!

Crap, Pure Crap

[w3bd4wg]

Why do these people feel the need to make laws about the internet? Net Neutrality should be a simple thing. Keep your dam hands off the internet and stop controlling innovation. Laws should not control these type of innovations. These people are so very short sited and have only desire to profit from nothingness. Charge for faster speeds to X, etc. Companies want to have an internet monoploly. Its what all businesses want to do. Cheat and scam to the top. This will never work. The internet will evolve past it. High level encryption and encrypted routes. Where is my packet going? None of your dam business. Lazy, ineffective, and stupid. Politicians are clueless about technology and this is why any law they create will fail. I bet you even the Net Neutrality bill is FUBAR. Prolly has loop holes and bull written in it. These guys need SIMPLE one sentenance rules created by technologists. The internet commandments. I wish people where smarter and cared about this. The general population is so lame. Too bad people just wanna see their netflix and youporn. How many critical processes will be effected by crap QOS rules put in place by ISPs? It may just be more consumer oriented now but what happends when the higher level providers get even more greedy? Crap, Pure Crap

Re:Crap, Pure Crap

[LoudNoiseElitist]

I've read this like three times now, and I'm still not sure what side you're on.

Re:Crap, Pure Crap

[mcgrew]

Laws should not control these type of innovations. These people are so very short sited [sic] and have only desire to profit from nothingness.

Why does it seem that the right-wing anti-government drones can't handle homophones?

Prolly has loop holes... Too bad people just wanna...

*sigh*. You're the reason government is screwed; our education system is abysmal.

Re:Crap, Pure Crap

[geekoid]

^This

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[Anonymous Coward]

> Nobody would complain about FTP traffic being slowed during busy bursts

Yes we would and we actively avoid ISPs who would do that.

Would you be content with your phone call to Aunt Thelma being given lower priority than someone's call for a pizza order? After all he has greater urgency...

If you don't like Net Neutrality,

[Anonymous Coward]

then you're free to build and maintain your own Internet.

Re:If you don't like Net Neutrality,

[shellster_dude]

Which the government will immediately decide, with no congressional oversight, that they have the right to control and regulate.

Re:If you don't like Net Neutrality,

[mlingojones]

That's not how it works. The reason they can do that with this Internet is that they were the ones who invented it in the first place.

Re:If you don't like Net Neutrality,

[DarwinSurvivor]

They are not, and cannot, controlling the internet. They are controlling their PIECE of the internet. The only leverage the US has on the internet is that ICANN is on their soil and most countries have the infrastructure already in place to replace ICANN within a week should the US pull a stunt with it.

Re:If you don't like Net Neutrality,

[phlinn]

Actually, no. That is in no way their justification for regulation.

Re:If you don't like Net Neutrality,

[mlingojones]

What's the practical distinction to US citizens, though? We access the whole Internet through US-based ISPs, and the US government can impose regulations on ISPs, so as far as I'm concerned the government has the ability to control the Internet.

Of course, I would much rather have them in control than the ISPs themselves...

Re:If you don't like Net Neutrality,

[DarwinSurvivor]

Nothing, as the US is *their* part of the internet. My point is that they are not controlling OTHER countries' internet (Canada, Europe, Asia, etc). Just clearing up a technicality is all.

Both sides are in the wrong here

[MikeRT]

The simplest way to handle net neutrality would be for the Department of Justice to threaten the ISPs with federal false advertising and related charges if they degrade services provided by content providers who won't pay them for the "privilege" of accessing paying ISP users.

Oh wait, who am I kidding. This is a government that has argued that if we had stricter gun control in place, the ATF wouldn't have conducted Operation Fast and Furious.

The fcc makes rules

[Anonymous Coward]

The FCC has rulemaking power, it does not have lawmaking power. The FCC issued rules, not laws, so Congress is voting on the repeal of the FCC rules(in short removing part of its rulemaking power), not existing law.

LAN vs Internet Neutrality

[morgauxo]

I'll take net neutrality laws as they have been written any day over letting the ISPs just do as they please. After all, the broadband ones are all old entrenched telecom and media companies that already do discriminate between content. At the very least they pretty much all throttle P2P which contrary to some people's opinions can and is used for plenty of good, non-pirate things.

On the other hand... why can't we have laws which distinguish between a provider's LAN services and the internet? When TV service comes through the modem on what is essentially a big LAN, usually a 10.x.x.x network and the internet comes through as a tunnel on that LAN then I think net neutrality laws should be applied to what comes through the tunnel, not the whole LAN connection. The LAN belongs to the ISP, the Internet does not.

In other words, when I connect to the internet I expect to be able to reach Google, Bing or some other competitior, NetFlix, some big corporate website or somebody's personal page all equally (as far as my ISPs connection is concerned, obviously they will each have different providers and capacity). If however the ISP has some kind of assurance in place that the other services on their LAN aren't being 'squeezed out' by the Internet tunnel that is fine with me.

Then again, with an ever faster Internet traditional TV and phone services become pretty obsolete. Using that whole LAN for Internet access and plugging my computer into my TV sounds just fine to me and I haven't had use for a landline in years.

Re:LAN vs Internet Neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

Because then "premium services" will become "co-hosted on the ISP's premium network" and "basic internet services may suffer degraded performance". So you end up with Bing working at full speed while Google gets kneecapped because Microsoft could pay more protection money. It's a loophole big enough to drive a series of tubes through.

Re:LAN vs Internet Neutrality

[Attila Dimedici]

I'll take net neutrality laws as they have been written any day over letting the ISPs just do as they please.

What laws are those? As far as I was aware Congress has passed no such laws. As far as the FCC regulations go, there is some question as to whether Congress has ever granted the FCC the power to impose such regulations. This really brings up the problem I have with our current governmental structure. A review of the law that FCC bases its claim to have the power to impose such regulation on seems to indicate that Congress never intended to give the FCC such power (even if they actually did so), since no one had even thought of such regulations being necessary when the law was passed. Too many laws are passed with vague provisions intended to be fleshed out by some faceless, practically unfireable bureaucrat at a later date.

Re:LAN vs Internet Neutrality

[Dwedit]

What about those servers from Content Delivery Network companies? Like Akamai. Major websites use these to give a faster experience to the customers. Often times they actually sit inside your ISP's datacenters. Is that the provider's LAN, or is it the internet?

Re:LAN vs Internet Neutrality

[JesseMcDonald]

If the service provider doesn't need to pass the request on to anyone else, but can fulfill it internally, then it's on the service provider's LAN, not the Internet.

So far as I know, no one has proposed banning CDNs or similar edge-network co-location schemes, even though they have more or less the same effect as prioritizing upstream bandwidth according to the content provider's ability/willingness to pay. Somehow people have an easier time seeing that it's wrong to dictate to ISPs regarding the operation of their own networks when actual servers are involved.

The only support I would lend to "network neutrality" relates to truth-in-advertising; namely, the advertised performance of the connection must measured against sites which have not made special arrangements with the ISP, including but not limited to prioritization or co-location. The "boosted" services can be advertised separately, but they can't count toward your Internet connection speed.

Re:LAN vs Internet Neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with different rules for LAN would be that suddenly the sites that pay to be inside the LAN are a whole lot faster than the ones outside the LAN and nothing would limit exclusivity rules. To some extent this actually already happens with leasing CDN's, the end points can be located at ISP buildings, the nice thing is though, you can get bandwidth from a CDN relatively easily.

Re:LAN vs Internet Neutrality

[Black Parrot]

As far as the FCC regulations go, there is some question as to whether Congress has ever granted the FCC the power to impose such regulations.

Hasn't that question already been weighed in court?

Re:LAN vs Internet Neutrality

[Attila Dimedici]

Yes and the court concluded that the FCC had no such authority. The FCC went back and diddled around a little and came out with this new rule, claiming to base it on a provision of the law that they failed to bring up in the previous case. Personally, this is starting to look like a pattern of contempt for Constitutional limits on the power of the President. The Obama Administration recently announced that they were going to offer states a waiver from the No Child Left Behind Act if they met certain conditions. The problem is that there is no provision in the NCLB (or any other law) for the President to offer waivers from its requirements.

Re:LAN vs Internet Neutrality

[morgauxo]

No. If 'Bing' is coming through my web browser on my computer then it is coming through the internet tunnel. By my proposal the ISP still couldn't give it an advantage over Google.

However... telephone service (if I chose to purchase it) or Video on Demand come through the same physical pipe (the cable line) but not through the internet tunnel. If the cable provider is 'innocently' protecting their premium services then I would expect there to be something in place that would protect my phone conversation or my Video on Demand from becoming choppy just because someone is downloading something large over the internet.

Now, if my cable provider, and the cablebox manufacturer cut a deal with Microsoft that brought Bing to my cablebox AND they implemented it such that the traffic came in through the main 10.x.x.x connection rather than the internet tunnel then Bing could get an advantage over Google. I'm not too worried about that though because every attempt to bring the internet to TV has flopped. Searching Bing on a cable box would likely do the same.

Re:LAN vs Internet Neutrality

[morgauxo]

Maybe I didn't describe what I was proposing well enough. When you have cable you have one wire (or with the latest version of Docsis there may be a bundle of wires). Internally, your cable modem connects to a LAN through this wire. Usually it is something in the 10.x.x.x ip range. Telephone (VoIP) and Internet are streamed over this LAN. I'm not sure how digital TV and Video on Demand come through. I don't think regular digital cable TV uses IP although I am not sure. Maybe VOD does? If so then I'm sure it's on that same 10.x.x.x LAN.

Your internet connection arrives through a tunnel on that 10.x.x.x LAN. The modem separates this out before it gets to your computer. Your computer sees a public IP address (assuming you aren't using a router). Your computer is 'unaware' that what is doing comes over a 10.x.x.x LAN. My proposal is that the cable company gets to chose how it balances the different services on that LAN. They would not get to interfere with the balance of connections within the internet tunnel. So... Google, Bing, Netflix, Amazon, Joe little guy, etc... they all get the same equal access to your internet tunnel.

Re:LAN vs Internet Neutrality

[morgauxo]

I think a good test for that is that co-location adds to the service that uses it. Customers can only benefit from that. Penalizing the competition by slowing down their packets is different because It hurts the consumer. If we were talking about tangible objects, not digital things it would be like the difference between competing by building more/better factories vs sabotaging the factories of your competitors.

Re:LAN vs Internet Neutrality

[morgauxo]

You can't pay to be inside the LAN. Customer's computers don't have direct access to the LAN, being there would be pointless. The only way a service could be in the LAN would be if it were built into the modem or the cable boxes.

Re:LAN vs Internet Neutrality

[JesseMcDonald]

The upstream bandwidth is the ISP's resource to allocate as they see fit. If they want to reserve a part of it for prioritized services, that's their business, provided that part isn't included in the advertised Internet speed, and the advertisement is accurate. Customers benefit just as much from additional bandwidth for selected services, over and above their advertised Internet speed, as they do from co-location. Provided the non-prioritized competitor can make use of the advertised Internet bandwidth, there is no "sabotage".

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[Anonymous Coward]

"Nobody would complain about FTP traffic being slowed during busy bursts to avoid interfering with voice traffic"

I would. Your call is not more important than my data.

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[Verteiron]

Yes, the solution is simply to switch ISPs- oh, wait, most people in the US have only two broadband providers available at most, and they both have abhorrent neutrality practices.

I can't start my own ISP because the barrier to entry is impossibly high and the current ISPs have state or city-granted monopolies on internet/phone/cable service.

Free market theory doesn't work when the market isn't free.

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue in this case isn't a lack of sufficient infrastructure to support the traffic due to over-adoption and excessive usage. The problem is there is a lack of sufficient infrastructure due to inaction by the providers to develop it. The writing has been on the walls for YEARS and the continued boom of data has surprised no one. Service providers have been more interested in pushing their content, restrictions and padding bottom lines than in developing an infrastructure to properly support their customers.

For that reason alone, I say screw slowing ANY traffic down. Address the 800-pound gorilla of infrastructure underdevelopment and then come back to me and whine about how your service needs to traffic shape to survive (which is a legitimate discussion, but not for the forced reason that has brought it to the forefront).

Re:OMFG!

[Anonymous Coward]

and what would you like them to do about the economy?

-our government spends more on "defense" then all other countries combined.
-our government carries more public debt then any other country.
-our citizens carry more private debt then any other country.
-our country consumes more oil then any other country, and if you take out china from the list, we consume more oil then all other countries combined.
-our government has promised more in entitlements and safety nets then all other countries combined.
-our government's budget is the largest on the planet.
-our deficit each year, is the largest on the planet. ...80% of the economy is small and medium business. The riskiest thing a small and medium business can do in this day and age?

hire employees.

Once more...

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how, even in something that has nothing to do with Microsoft, you find a way to take a jab at them. Good ol' SlashDot comments. In fact, didn't Google and MS say that they supported Net Neutrality?

Re:OMFG!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are these wastes of humanity wasting time on crap like this instead of pulling their heads out of their arses and dealing with the economy?

Honestly, Our Congress is a complete and utter joke, they are an embarrassment to the united states, and to every single American citizen. None of the congressmen that claim they are on the side of the people have the balls to call out the scumbags in there which makes them just as scumbaggy.

But then the president does not have the balls to do it either, so I guess every single one of them are spineless.

Americans voted for them. To be fair it's like voting for lesser of the two evils. You're gonna get screwed either way.

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[Anonymous Coward]

I would complain about ftp being slowed-down due to voice bursts interfering with my ftp use.
I use ftp far more than voice, and voice uses far more bandwidth than my paltry 4gb ftp download.

If I pay for 40Mbit/S, I demand my 40Mbit/S without interruption, slow-downs or re-prioritizing of packets. In other words, don't fuck with my traffic, period.

Re:OMFG!

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama is issuing executive actions once a week now at least until the end of the year. I'd hardly call that "not having the balls to do it".

Net Nuetrality Laws?

[Bartles]

There are no net neutrality laws in place. Calling it a law implies that it was passed by the legislature, and signed by the executive. Net neutrality "laws" are nothing more than a decree issued by a federal agency that has too much power.

Re:Net Nuetrality Laws?

[geekoid]

Regulation, and no, they do not have too much power. In fact, they have too little power. That's why they have to stop everything, and start fining everyone when 1 person rights a letter to the congress person because someone might have cause half a second look at Janet Jackson's breast.

The FCC didn't want to react in that way, they were forced to.

Lacking is a common definition

[sohmc]

Back when google was cool and actually believed in "do no evil", it supported net neutrality the way most people understand it.

Ask the common geek, I would assume many of them would agree the following should be defined as Net Neutrality:
* Treat all data equally, regardless of source. (e.g. data from Bob's Video Shack would be treated the same as Netflix)
* Do not block services (e.g. BitTorrent should not be blocked)
* Do not block web sites (e.g. Comcast/NBC should not block access to ABC/CBS/etc)
* and probably a few I'm forgetting.

If an ISP wants to charge more for bandwidth, that's understandable. It's a limited resource.

But I shouldn't have to pay more to visit netflix just because 75% of the traffic goes there. I already paid for the bandwidth!

The problem I see is that corporations who control content and access are trying to define "Net Neutrality", when really they are defining a set of policies to make them more money. Maybe before putting together regulations and laws, IETF can get together a RFC of what Net Neutrality should be.

Re:Lacking is a common definition

[Anonymous Coward]

Google lost all credibility in the issue when they changed their tune for mobile net access. I.e. the future.

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[Anonymous Coward]

now, really. was your comment actually necessary?

Re:OMFG!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad example.
THIS is a matter of public policy and belongs in the public forum.
The example you want about to use about wasting time would be the motion to affirm "in God we trust" as a national motto.
THAT is a silly waste of time.

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[drinkypoo]

There's two options available to me... hughesnet or a local WISP that doesn't allow bittorrent because they use a CDMA technology that can't handle a bunch of BT users. The best speed I can buy is 1.5 Mbps. And Pac Bell promised to have DSL everywhere by 2000 :D

Slashdotters aren't really on any side

[Anonymous Coward]

They just like to whine. They're opposite to all sides. Whatever happens, they complain about it.

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[Anonymous Coward]

Me too. What a stupid generalization. Plenty of people rightfully expect to receive what they pay for, and expect not to be discriminated against because their ISP deems their work less important.

Bill number?

[OhHellWithIt]

I wish TFA or the people who post articles about pending legislation would include the @#%^ bill number! It looks like this one is H.J.RES.37, in case any of you feel like writing your senator. (It would be delightful if we could slashdot Congress.)

Re:If only...

[Attila Dimedici]

That's not true. Planned Parenthood runs on the blood of dead babies and they are strongly opposed by Republicans and vehemently supported by Democrats.

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[mcgrew]

Nobody would complain about FTP traffic being slowed during busy bursts to avoid interfering with voice traffic.

I don't know about nobody, but I'd complain. I'm on two-tier AT&T and paying extra for double speed. Throttle ME and I'll be as pissed off as if I'd bought a two pound bag of potatos and found that it only had a pound of potatos in it.

"You get what you pay for?" Not always. But you usually pay for what you get.

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[TheRaven64]

Nobody would complain about FTP traffic being slowed during busy bursts to avoid interfering with voice traffic

As you've phrased it, several people would. What they probably wouldn't complain about is respecting the flags in the packet header that tell you whether the packet cares more about throughput, latency, or jitter, and assigning them to the correct queues as appropriate. Voice is typically under 10KB/s, so making it higher priority has very little impact on something like FTP, which can be transferring over 1MB/s easily. If, however, a VoIP packet is delayed by 100ms, the end user will notice. If an FTP packet is delayed by this much, the user probably won't. If the jitter between VoIP packets is high, the user will notice. If the jitter between FTP packets is high, no one will care.

If an ISP decides that one type of traffic is more important than another, users will care. If an ISP decides that different types of traffic are equally important, but in different ways, then that's advantageous. FTP traffic wants lots of bandwidth, live streaming (voice or video) wants low jitter, teleconferencing (voice or video) wants low latency and low jitter.

Re:If only...

[Anonymous Coward]

Planned Parenthood is not a big corporation.
Open mouth, insert foot.

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[Miamicanes]

The problem is that the whole issue of net neutrality is misframed. We don't necessarily need or want "net" neutrality. What needs to be absolutely sacrosanct is LAST MILE NEUTRALITY. We should all have the absolute, inalienable right to have our network traffic handled with absolute neutrality between our endpoint device (router, phone, whatever) and the nearest peering point where access is available on open, equal, and neutral terms to all (ie, not "free", but if AT&T pays $N per month for a 1U rack slot and the right to run a single fiber to it, anybody else should be able to do exactly the same thing for exactly the same price.

To keep carriers able to blur the line between last-mile and "internet" service honest (say, a carrier like Verizon that bundles "free" internet access with 2gb cap with the cost of monthly wireless service, but charges 1c/meg wholesale costs to anybody who peers privately with them), VPN traffic should be the one exception that enjoys special protected status and by law can be neither favored nor throttled relative to traffic of the network's most favored provider. In other words, Verizon would be perfectly free to throttle Netflix in favor of Blockbuster, or Google in favor of Bing, but if they did, VPN traffic would have to be given exactly the same priority as their otherwise-favored Blockbuster and Bing traffic. This would empower consumers to do an end run around the carriers by purchasing VPN service from some thirdparty with traffic policies they happen to like better. In the long run it probably wouldn't matter much, but like legislatively-mandated equal access to landline phone networks, it would nevertheless create opportunities for niche (if expensive) services that otherwise wouldn't exist at all.

The truth is, hardcore last-mile neutrality isn't necessarily about lower prices for Joe Sixpack -- it's about enabling services for Slashdot users that otherwise wouldn't be available because they don't neatly align with the business plans of AT&T, Verizon, or Comcast. It's about being able to do an end run around them and enjoy services they aren't themselves necessarily interested in selling you, or allowing you to buy from others.

(example: if you're moderately wealthy, live in the middle of Georgia farm country or exurban Dallas "Horse Country" and want broadband, a company like Covad will happily twist AT&T's arm and force them -- at slightly exorbitant cost -- to provision wholesale dry copper between the nearest central office and your house and give you what you want, even if AT&T itself would tell you it simply can't be done and broadband isn't available in your neighborhood).

Because "chink" means something else

[tepples]

Is there an alternative to "chink" that hasn't become a slur against Chinese people?

Re:Because "chink" means something else

[SpeZek]

It's fine in context, nobody should be offended by its proper use. Don't be niggardly with your vocabulary as long as you use each word correctly.

Re:Because "chink" means something else

[mcgrew]

chink 1 (chngk)
n.
A narrow opening, such as a crack or fissure.
tr.v. chinked, chinkÂing, chinks
1. To make narrow openings in.
2. To fill narrow openings in.

"Chink in the armor" has nothing whatever to do with the Chinese. You would refuse to use the word "spade" because it can also mean a black person, besides a certain type of digging tool?

Ever heard the phrase "call a spade a spade?" That phrasee has nothing to do with black people, just as "chink in the armor" has nothing to do with Chinese people.

Re:Because "chink" means something else

[Anonymous Coward]

Notch?

No question about it...

[cpotoso]

Republicans are evil. Unfortunately the democrats are just plain incompetent. Sigh!

Re:No question about it...

[geekoid]

not incompetent, the lack the desire to do what is required by evil would me more apt.

Evil requires everyone saying the same thing, doing the same thing, and having the same narrow minded thinking and pushing that think on others,.

The Dems. Let people have a wider scope of views; which is a better reflection of the nation.

Re:No question about it...

[Grishnakh]

Since when do Dems let people have a wider scope of views? Dems just have a different group of constituents they pander to, but they still fight for the corporations. Look at Obama: he's enforcing federal marijuana laws with a zeal that Bush never had.

Re:No question about it...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Dems are not really incompetent, but they are about 50% evil in number. This means that Evil outweighs Good by 3 to 1 in Congress.

Re:No question about it...

[Anonymous Coward]

quite frankly, both parties are evil.... its just a choice of which evil you prefer to deal with

It does not matter

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no economic orientation, nor government structure, that can protect people from corruption.

So long as humans are capable of attaining any measure of power over other humans, that power will be abused. Humans are like that.

Carry on.

Socialism, but forget Net Neutrality

[Kamiza Ikioi]

Yeah, it's bold faced socialism, but having subsidized guaranteed Internet for as many as possible is the best plus for people. The other issues matter, but the access issue, even to a heavily regulated connection, is better than nothing. This is why I think the change from rural telephone access to rural broadband access is the real win for everyone.

I've long since abandoned the idea of "Neutrality". Net Neutrality is all about dividing up never increasing pie into larger and smaller pieces. It's about market share of something artificially set up as a limited resource.

I'm behind the idea of an Internet policy of "no person left behind". I'm less concerned about Comcast giving preferential treatment to Netflix than I am to rural school children and their parents having competitively priced broadband in the first place. We also need a national policy standard on speed the same way we have a national policy standard on gas mileage.

We are falling drastically behind other countries that have fiber as their last mile. At 1000Mb+, throttling for most services approaches irrelevancy. The highest total bandwidth service currently, Netflix, is insignificant traffic on fiber.

Rather than arguing over dividing up low bandwidth, we need to push to increase bandwidth by upgrading aging last mile networks.

Re:Socialism, but forget Net Neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you think that socialism (social democracy) is MUCH better in terms of welfare than unleashed capitalism?

Re:Socialism, but forget Net Neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

>At 1000Mb+, throttling for most services approaches irrelevancy. The highest total bandwidth service currently, Netflix, is insignificant traffic on fiber.

There's an interesting point under the surface, here. First, though - upgrading to fiber won't solve the problem of the switching mesh behind the fiber. We still do all our logic on silicon, and will for the forseeable future unless you've got some awesome femtosecond-pulse photonic logic rings in your pocket. Which would be great. But your point about gigabit to the home, that's what I find interesting. See, Net Neutrality or no, your fastest content will be delivered from cache or proxy. I do some work on an expensive and large network where I hear a lot more explosions than car alarms, if you get me. The vast majority of user requested content represents a small fraction of distinct files.

I have a hard time not tripping over my tongue. What I mean is fiber or copper or whatever, you'd see a profound improvement in local network access speeds if the ISPs cached more content, like, say, Netflix and YouTube. And the cost for storage is small, and the power to pull and push magnetics is fairly small, especially within a rack. If your really big ISPs had to pay extra for specific content that was highly requested, they'd see immediate financial benefit in paying for more caching space compared to increased bandwidth costs (which currently you really only see in satellite infrastructures).

Get it? Net Neutrality probably is the only thing keeping large service providers from pushing against preposterous Intellectual Property laws like those restricting where data can be hosted. I find that deeply amusing.

Re:Socialism, but forget Net Neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Net Neutrality is about letting customers divide the pie, democratically, voting (so to speak) with their clicks and dollars. It is not Net Neutrality but the telecom monopolies/oligopolies (depending on location) and the local governments that grant these monopolies/oligopolies, that keep the pie from increasing.

I agree that we need a push to upgrade the infrastructure and agree with minimum bandwidth standards. Perhaps an infrastructure bill could only give funding to localities if they don't grant monopolies and allow telecom competition? Perhaps the bandwidth standards could be the way to measure success of the subsidy - otherwise, we'll just have telecoms companies pocketing public money again without building anything.

Re:Socialism, but forget Net Neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

it's bold faced socialism

Bald. Bald-faced. Not bold faced.

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[Pope]

Why is voice traffic suddenly a priority over FTP? You want QoS for voice to be higher, do it at your own end.

Email and call your Senators now

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

let them know this is not going un-noticed and how you feel about the long term issues and whether the government should be more deeply involved in keeping the recording and movie industrie's profits intact. There are laws and courts handling those things now.

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[dkleinsc]

In addition, thanks to the problem of peering, it doesn't even have to be your ISP causing the problem. It can be the ISP controlling any link in the chain between me and whatever I'm trying to communicate with.

For instance, if I get my Internet access via Fabulous Inc (who is net neutral, cheap, fast, etc), and I'm trying to reach, say, slashdot.org, to do that I might connect to Fabulous who connects to BS&S who connects to slashdot.org. I didn't choose to make use of BS&S's lines, Linux.org did. So if BS&S decides to not play fair, it doesn't matter what ISP I choose, because the only way to get to slashdot.org is to go through BS&S, and BS&S is throttling or blocking slashdot.org.

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[bill_mcgonigle]

I can't start my own ISP because the barrier to entry is impossibly high and the current ISPs have state or city-granted monopolies on internet/phone/cable service.

Oh, wait, I know, instead of repealing these bad laws, let's make more bad laws to paper over them!

P.S. You win the thread.

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[bill_mcgonigle]

I didn't choose to make use of BS&S's lines, Linux.org did.

Yes, but if linux.org had a choice of providers (say that competition wasn't regulated out of existence) then why would they ever stick with BS&S in this case?

When there's choice, the providers have to play fairly.

But millions of end-users making informed choices can't be better than whatever scheme a few central planners in DC dream up, right?

Okay, one more time

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a content provider. I want my content provided at the fastest speed possible because that is what makes me the most money.
I am an ISP. I want to provide services over my pipe via tcp/ip and I want to throttle content and services based on what makes me the most money.

HOW IS THIS CONFUSING?

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[antdude]

For me, I can go back to 3 kB/sec dial-up, get expensive and crappy satelite services, etc. No DSL (20K ft.), FIOS (even though available in my city, but not my neighborhood/hill), etc.

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[tlhIngan]

If an ISP decides that one type of traffic is more important than another, users will care.

True, but that's not the point of net neutrality. The whole point is like traffic is treated indiscriminately.

For example, imagine if Apple pays your iSP to throttle Google and all the Android sites, but to make all the iPhone sites come in blazingly fast?

Or, more conventionally, if Microsoft paid for Bing and other Microsoft services to be fast, and Google to be slow?

Or, Sony pays for their PSN gaming service to be as fast as possible, and to stuff Xbox Live to dialup speeds?

Of what has happened - Netflix gets throttled, ISP's on video service is free and clear. (In Canada, it got really bad - as part of UBB - Netflix users paid $$$, but Bell/Rogers's service was truly unlimited).

That's what network neutrality's about.

"Network Manage" all you want, but be transparent about it and fair. An ISP shall not use this ability to promote one service over their competitors.

I E-mailed my senators

[Scarred Intellect]

In response to the currently open bill regarding repealing the FCC's rules on Net Neutrality:

Sen. <LASTNAME>,

I am not sure what your current stance is on Net Neutrality, but as a citizen in your state I urge you to vote this down. Net neutrality is a good thing. In it's most basic form, net neutrality keeps the internet AS IT IS NOW; removing net neutrality will allow ISP's to regulate traffic based on content provider (suppose Microsoft pays Comcast a fee; in return, Comcast is legally allowed to restrict/slow traffic from competing providers such as Google and Yahoo). This is not NECESSARILY what will happen, but with money and profits motivating, is pretty much the only foreseeable consequence of repealing net neutrality, if not with Microsoft/Google/Yahoo necessarily, then with others.

Ending net neutrality could open the doors to other services doing the same: cellular phone providers providing less reliable service to phone calls to other networks, for instance.

The internet started open, it needs to remain open. Many people are simply unaware of this issue due to the technological nature of it, but speaking with anyone as to whether to keep the internet as is or allow restrictions based on who the content provider is, almost everyone will see the sense in keeping the internet as-is.

There is no benefit FOR THE PEOPLE of ending net neutrality. It only benefits corporations and profits.

I again strongly urge you to MAINTAIN NET NEUTRALITY.

Thank you for your time,

My name

I know I'm not totally 100% correct on everything, but it gets the point across. Hopefully it gets read and enough are sent in that it gets noticed before they vote.

Cap or throttle

[tommy8]

Do you think ISPs will get rid of unlimited broadband and cap or throttle like wireless companies like verizon have done with data packages?

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[CCurzon]

No you wouldn't, at least not the way parent is meaning. A few extra milliseconds between packets in an FTP connection aren't noticeable. Do that in a VoIP call and you get jitter and echo. Get the packets out of order and your FTP download will still be good, while in a VoIP call will they will be dropped and you won't hear the other person. I have seen that only a few missing or late packets will cause a lot of hassle in VoIP, and I believe there are other applications and protocols that would be affected.

Slowing traffic that doesn't care to make way for traffic that does is good. Slowing down traffic "just because" is, as you very rightly pointed out" really bad.

Joke

[sexconker]

Have any of you actually read that net neutrality shit that they're talking about repealing?

The law so many people are vehemently defending explicitly allows ISPs to pull the same sort of bullshit that Comcast was doing when people started crying about net neutrality in the first place. What was passed as net neutrality was a joke. And now Congress is wasting time pretending they want to repeal it.

It's all a fucking distraction, and you're all fucking falling for it.

Re:Joke

[Fned]

Law?

Passed?

I thought this was about FCC regulations...

Re:Joke

[sexconker]

Law?

Passed?

I thought this was about FCC regulations...

It's not legislation passed by congress, but it is law - it is a written rule enforced by a governmental agency. And it was passed by the head dipshits in that agency.

No surprises here

[TheWoozle]

Not really surprised; after all, this is the same US House of Representatives majority that believes the reason we don't have more jobs is that businesses aren't allowed to poison us as much as they'd like.

Re:No surprises here

[CrimsonAvenger]

Not really surprised; after all, this is the same US House of Representatives majority that believes the reason we don't have more jobs is that businesses aren't allowed to poison us as much as they'd like.

Actually, this isn't about the House of Representatives at all. It's about the Senate.

You remember, the one controlled by the Democrats....

Top-of-mind awareness

[tepples]

"Chink in the armor" has nothing whatever to do with the Chinese. You would refuse to use the word "spade" because it can also mean a black person, besides a certain type of digging tool?

No, because there's a difference, and it is called top-of-mind awareness. Unlike "chink", "spade" lacks TOMA against the general public; people think of the tool or the card suit before they think of an obsolete slur against the African diaspora.

Re:Top-of-mind awareness

[mcgrew]

"Spade" is far from obsolete. Rent "Gran Torino". Kowalski, who's an old non-PC curmudgeon, uses that exact slur against a group of young blacks (as well as calling his Asian friend Tran "zipperhead" and "gook", his Irish friend "Mick", and his Italian friend "dego").

Anyone who thinks "chink in the armor" is a Chinaman wearing chain mail is woefully ignorant; pathetically ignorant, especially since I don't know a single person who's predjudiced against the Chinese, although I know a lot of rednecks who hate blacks and call them "nigger", "coon", and "spade". Anyone who substitutes "kink" for "chink" is pitifully PC. What ever happened to "sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never harm me"? Especially when it's obvious that the "slur" doesn't have anything whatever to do with you?

This is incredibly stupid bullshit. I'm of Irish descent, and dammit, I'm proud to be a Mick! PC is one of the things about our society I detest.

Boom, down it goes!

[Anonymous Coward]

The resolution number was actually S.J.Res.6, and the vote on the motion to proceed to consideration of it failed on a not quite party line vote 54-46 just now. DOA in the Senate.

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[TheRaven64]

An ISP shall not use this ability to promote one service over their competitors.

That's where it gets tricky though. For example, Skype obfuscates its traffic to get through firewalls. If you have a traffic management rule that prioritises SIP traffic, and you run a SIP to POTS gateway, then are you prioritising your own traffic over your competitor's? Are you now required to treat Skype traffic the same as SIP traffic? What about Jingle? Does prioritising RTMP over HTTP count as penalising HTML5 video sites in favour of Flash ones?

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[Antimatter3009]

Exactly. Filtering by type of traffic? Ok. Filtering by source or destination of traffic? Not ok.

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[dkleinsc]

But then I can just add another link to the chain to demolish that counterargument. Let's now say I connect to Fabulous Inc connects to BS&S connects to JustPlainSuper Inc connects to slashdot.org. I didn't choose BS&S, slashdot.org didn't choose BS&S, but both of us are affected by what BS&S does because Fabulous has no other cost effective way to reach JustPlainSuper.

Additional details

[Venotar]

The resolution number was actually S.J.Res.6, and the vote on the motion to proceed to consideration of it failed on a not quite party line vote 54-46 just now. DOA in the Senate.

http://www.npr.org/2011/11/10/142213971/senate-halts-gop-bid-to-repeal-net-neutrality-rules [npr.org]
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/10/idUS211494328220111110

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[Anonymous Coward]

"Nobody would complain about FTP traffic being slowed during busy bursts to avoid interfering with voice traffic."

Many of us would and are complaining about this very thing. Aside from the fears about different sites being given preference, a fear is that different protocols and services will as well. This is a problem because this will essentially allow ISP's to dictate which services will be supported on the Internet. Remember the Internet is not just websites but there are various protocols being used for different services.

Imagine if AT&T decides that Skype traffic is suddenly congesting its network, but AT&T VOIP service which uses a different protocol isn't. Suddenly AT&T throttles the hell out of Skype services but AT&T is running smooth. Maybe to allow the, according to AT&T, small group of Skype users to get unthrottled Skype service they have to pay an additional small fee. This becomes a big issue, particularly with new services or programs that people may intend to develop.

Do you really think Bittorrent would have ever took off if Comcast was allowed to throttle its traffic from the get go? Yea you can debate if it was a good or bad thing, but recognize that services like Napster, etc. were some of the main reasons many people started getting online in the early 2000's.

Sorry man, I'm probably preaching to the choir on this one, but I wanted to clear this part up and add to the conversation.

It just failed by 52-46

[yuhong]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/senate-votes-down-anti-net-neutrality-resolution.ars?comments=1#comments-bar

Re:It just failed by 52-46

[VocationalZero]

also, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/10/idUS211494328220111110

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[scot4875]

When there's choice, the providers have to play fairly.

But millions of end-users making informed choices can't be better than whatever scheme a few central planners in DC dream up, right?

That would be awesome. Unfortunately, in the real world, we will never have choice in a natural monopoly situation, OR have end-users making informed choices in ANY situation.

--Jeremy

Re:$50

[Grishnakh]

That's a good point, and it'd be typical of Obama: talk tough on some issue, say things the majority is in favor of, and then when it comes time to actually follow through, he does the opposite, and then blames the Republicans. "They wouldn't work with me, so I had to give them everything they wanted!"

I'm for the concept of net neutrality, but

[Quila]

I think current laws can be tweaked to ensure it. Two example worries:

ISPs will interfere with competing services: Use current laws against anti-competitive behavior, give FTC authority to step in quickly so it doesn't take a ten-year lawsuit to resolve such practices.

ISPs will throttle or cut off users for using their "unlimited" bandwidth: Use consumer fraud laws, FTC can require full disclosure in simple terms, penalize companies that defraud customers this way.

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget that they will be able to shut down all our pirate sites. NOOOOOOO!!!!!

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[bill_mcgonigle]

That would be awesome. Unfortunately, in the real world, we will never have choice in a natural monopoly situation

If it's natural, then it doesn't need to be enforced.

OR have end-users making informed choices in ANY situation.

Why would *you* make such bad choices?

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[fa2k]

Nobody would complain about FTP traffic being slowed during busy bursts to avoid interfering with voice traffic.

There are two distinct cases: a) if I pay for 5 Mbit/s and my FTP downloads are being slowed to an average rate of 4.8 Mbit/s I would maybe complain. b) if my FTP speed varies between 3 Mbit/s and 7 Mbit/s over periods of a few seconds because other people are loading web pages, but averages at 5 Mbit/s then that's a well managed network.

(a) can't be fixed by "net neutrality" because that just screws it up for everyone instead of just for the FTP user. The problem is a too great oversubscription factor. So my point is that shaping based on protocol is fine. Another poitn is that the overall share should be the same for each user. I shouldn't be able to run my FTP downloads on a VOIP port and take out the neighbourhood's internet.

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[RatherBeAnonymous]

Voice is a priority over FTP because it matters not one whit if your download takes 30 seconds longer. It does matter if a packet of voice data takes 100 ms longer. Setting QoS options on your router makes little difference if the ISP's upstream connection is saturated, so QoS only works right when it is done in the middle. QoS is a good thing that I want to see more of. Net Neutrality is NOT about QoS. Net neutrality is about ISPs' prejudicial use of traffic shaping to selectively promote or degrade services. Net neutrality is about not allowing ISP's to leverage their local monopolies to extort more money from customers and content providers.

the issues is that big ISPs also provide content

[Chirs]

My cable company is also my ISP. They don't like Netflix, and are launching their own streaming network video service to compete. Because they're my ISP, they could give their own service priority treatment over their Internet access and this would be allowable under your proposed rules.

The problem is that even if I don't subscribe to their service, my Internet packets get slowed down because someone else's video streaming packets get priority. This would cause their video streaming service to be beautifully smooth and fast at the cost of *everyone's* Internet connectivity, thus basically allowing them to leverage the fact that they're the ISP to compete against Netflix in a way that is arguably unfair.

Added to that, they can do things like not count traffic to their own services against the monthly cap. I'm actually okay with that since I don't generally hit the caps anyway and there is a real cost to going outside their network--but the cost is nowhere near what they charge.

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't allowing them to filter by type of traffic also allow them to, for example, throttle the bittorrent protocol?

So Glad

[sethmeisterg]

I'm SO glad these useless sacks of shit in Congress are spending their time wisely, passing measures aimed at increasing job growth and not petty bullshit that they know will get vetoed. These fuckers need to be swept out in the next election.

Re:The problem isn't equal treatment of all traffi

[Anonymous Coward]

You are right on the ball!

Fanwork ban

[tepples]

Netflix

I was under the impression that only films distributed by a major distributor got into Netflix streaming.

YouTube

Witness the takedown of Dirty Spaceman.

a shit-ton of fan-made derivative works on sites like deviantArt

See "Fanwork Ban" on TV Tropes.

And is that an argument against Network Neutrality?

A repeal of network neutrality could easily get rolled into one of the more draconian copyright bills that have been making the rounds in the U.S. Congress because "network neutrality benefits dirty pirates".

Re:the issues is that big ISPs also provide conten

[adolf]

On the other hand:

I use ATT UVerse, just for Interwebs these days, but I used to also have home phone and TV service from them.

If at any time my premium TV service or telephone service (which are both completely IP-based and on the same VDSL loop) were interrupted by my own or anyone else's Internet usage, I'd be very, very pissed.

That said, while I'm generally in favor of the concept of net neutrality, I do not know how to draw the line so that it is also fair and reasonable: I'd also be very pissed if any prioritization were to unduly limit my Netflix viewing.

Perhaps fortunately, it really doesn't seem to be an issue in my area: I can consistently achieve the maximum theoretical provisioned bandwidth on my VDSL line 24x7 using just a single TCP connection, except in instances where things are very plainly limited near/at the remote host. So it appears that both AT&T's network and those that they peer with seem to have ample capacity for whatever folks want to do.

And as long as that's the case: Who cares?

ISP's start as government supported monopolies

[Dragon Bait]

If your ISP isn't neutral, just switch to one of the many, many other ISPs that services your area; surely one of them will have policies you agree with. And if you only have one ISP, all you need to do is start another one. It's easy! Trust in the dread god Freem'Arkhet to handle everything!

Most ISP's start as either telephone companies or cable companies: both of which are government created (or supported) monopolies. As such they really aren't part of the "free" market.

As a free market advocate, I have no qualms with the government stepping in and slapping telecos and cable companies.

net neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

SENMACE six point rule.

1. If there is profit to be had from commerce on the Internet then Congress must act
                    to be sure only the Senmace reap it. [Create access gates and collect dollars to use the net).
                  Think the billions to be made and gotten from the governed by limiting licensing to the Internet
                  gates to the 1% SENMACE few and by taxing the 99% many. After all, that is what the
                  Commerce Clause is all about.

2. If there is an opportunity to direct propaganda the Congress must act to enable it because
                  unmonitored, surveillance free, public discourse might expose propaganda and interfere with its
                    intentions. Think propaganda could be rendered ineffective if websites conveying contrary
                    messages were allowed to interfere with the directed and intended messages of propaganda. It
                    takes accurate repetition for propaganda to work (money making war machines, monopoly
                    enabling exploitative powers in Tax Free Copyright and Patent lobby benefit Inventories, etc.).

3. If there is an opportunity to deny free benefits to the governed public then Congress must act to
                  stop such benefits. Congress must forbid unlimited, fair gated, public access to the Internet.
                  Think marketing can be done and people's habits and preferences traced under guise of security.

4. If there is a possibility insider corruption, abuse of political power, or infringement of human rights
          would be exposed by an open, uncontrolled Internet, then congress must act to stop it.

5. If there is a way to deny open access to education on the Internet, then Congress must act to block it,
                because only the worthy 1% are allowed a complete education and everyone has to pay a huge
                price for their share of education. Education and access are the lifetime marks of an aristocrat.
6. If Internet could be used to allow open access to “research findings discovered as a result of federal
                research grant work (institutes, colleges, universities, non profits) Congress must act to stop it.

Net Neutrality should never happen!

[Anonymous Coward]

Invasion Of Privacy The Government should butt out of these stupid ideas! Soon the next thing will be that there working on as well will be One World Government!
Ridiculous Future for 2012 etc! They should concentrate on the kids of this evil generation instead Hacker's are ruining this future! They will ruin anyone's trust!

Re:the issues is that big ISPs also provide conten

[morgauxo]

"they could give their own service priority treatment "

Only if it isn't coming through the internet tunnel. That would mean their service isn't available at your computer. It is only available at some sort of proprietary device you get from the cable company, most likely your cable box. We have that already today, it's called Video On Demand.

Also, they wouldn't be able to specifically slow down Netflix or any other internet site. If the services coming through the cable box start noticeably slowing down your internet connection on a regular basis then switch providers (if you can). Otherwise.. turn off your cable box while you use the internet. This is something that the public would notice and vote with their money if the cable company abuses it as doing so would slow down the user's entire internet connection. It is not like say.. favoring content on their own website over that of Netflix where most ignorant users would just assume Netflix's servers suck and stop using Netflix.