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Legislation Would Prohibit ISPs From Throttling Online Video Services
Dega704 sends this story from Ars:
"A Senate bill called the 'Consumer Choice in Online Video Act' (PDF) takes aim at many of the tactics Internet service providers can use to overcharge customers and degrade the quality of rival online video services. Submitted yesterday by U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), the 63-page bill provides a comprehensive look at the potential ways in which ISPs can limit consumer choice, and it boots the Federal Communications Commission's power to prevent bad outcomes. 'It shall be unlawful for a designated Internet service provider to engage in unfair methods of competition or unfair or deceptive acts or practices, the purpose or effect of which are to hinder significantly or to prevent an online video distributor from providing video programming to a consumer,' the bill states. A little more specifically, it would be illegal to 'block, degrade, or otherwise impair any content provided by an online video distributor' or 'provide benefits in the transmission of the video content of any company affiliated with the Internet service provider through specialized services or other means.' Those provisions overlap a bit with the FCC's authority under its own net neutrality law, the Open Internet Order, which already prevents the blockage of websites and services. However, Verizon is in court attempting to kill that law, and there is a real possibility that it could be limited in some way. The Consumer Choice in Online Video Act could provide a hedge against that possible outcome."
Too many Dems are in bed with Hollywood and too many Repubs will scream about socialism because it places limitations on big business.
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
Should be illegal to 'block, degrade, or otherwise impair ANY content'
Just who owns the networks, that Senator Rockefeller and his esteemed colleagues are trying to regulate? Do they belong to The People[TM], or to the Internet Service Providers competing with each other?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Why only online video services? What about my torrents?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
When you see a bill titled "Consumer Choice in..." you'd better look real close at the fine print and last minute riders. It's probably not going to deliver what you expect; see CISPA, Patriot Act...
I also don't want Verizon intentionally de-prioritizing my Vonage VoIP traffic, for example. Or a cable company that's tied to CNN.com making MSNBC.com's images load slower to make the site seem less appealing to read from.
What we need is a very stiff, broader law that says, in a nutshell: ISPs provide bandwidth, period. In selling Internet Access, you're not allowed to block, degrade, or de-prioritize select traffic based on the type or source of said traffic. You're not allowed to effect the same by over-prioritizing preferred sources or types of traffic. Legitimate QoS for the purposes of improving overall customer experience is ok, but the QoS rules have to be (a) publicly details to your consumers, and (b) optional, with a zero-cost option to disable the QoS-prioritization of a given customer's in- or out- bound traffic.
Prohibiting 'provide benefits in the transmission of the video content of any company affiliated with the Internet service provider through specialized services or other means.' would kill those Netflix buffer servers netflix wants to install on ISP's.
I'm against throttling as much as the next guy, but I do see the need to manage bandwidth on a large scale.
I'd think any ban on streaming video throttling should allow throttling down to a minimum of the video's bitrate +20%.
If you are streaming an hour long 10GB video, does it matter if it buffers in 10 minutes or 48 minutes? As long as there are no service interruptions the experience to the user would be exactly the same.
nothing in this section shall affect any contract, understanding, or arrangement that was entered into on or before December 1, 2013.
Forget all this half-assed farting around.
Just return the law to the state it was before the 2005 Brand X SCOTUS ruling that neutered network neutrality.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Legislation Would Prohibit ISPs From Throttling Online Video Services
I'm willing to bet it either:
A. Won't pass.
B. Has more holes than swiss cheese.
C. Passes with so many addons that the original bill loses it's power.
(yes I'm too damn lazy to read the bill atm)
Come on, when's the last time that any big company had a law actually effect how they do business?
Those provisions overlap a bit with the FCC's authority under its own net neutrality law, the Open Internet Order, which already prevents the blockage of websites and services. However, Verizon is in court attempting to kill that law, and there is a real possibility that it could be limited in some way. The Consumer Choice in Online Video Act could provide a hedge against that possible outcome."
We now pass a bunch of redundant laws so that it is harder to repeal them? As a software person, I am horrified.
Why just video? There are all sorts of underhanded profit to be made by cable companies and telecoms entering unrelated markets, and then intentionally degrading the performance of their competitors. I'm not sure what's so special about video; they've done this with VoIP phone service and a host of other products. Full network neutrality legislation is the answer; this seems like a weird patch for the benefit of a single industry who lobbied hard.
Who missed the payment to that prick Rockefeller? Come on guys. You had one job - buy off enough Congressmen and Senators so we don't have to worry about this net neutrality crap. Now we're going to have to double his fee and go through all the political theater so he can save face.
How about managing bandwidth by setting throughput and/or total transfer limits, and then letting me use it on whatever kind of data I want to? It's nobody's business what kind of data I'm sending through the pipe I paid for.
Imagine an ISP/television provider that uses their IP network to deliver both services. It sure sounds like this would prohibit them from prioritizing the IPTV traffic.
So much for watching that World Cup match; your neighbor has p0rn to torrent!
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Republicans will never allow their paying customers, being the ISP's, to lose revenue.
Should be illegal to 'block, degrade, or otherwise impair ANY content'
It wouldn't be a problem if one could just download the entire movie instead of this streaming horseshit. Streaming is just to make Disney comfortable that no one is downloading their precious rip-offs of ancient legends and folk tales - streaming makes the old farts comfortable.
You know, Roku or whoever puts a Gig of memory in the device, they download a huge chunk at a low priority (like when you're getting food, drinks, take a piss, ...) and then watch away.
But nooooo, the content providers can't stand the though of a big cache because someone might steal their content! Oh nos!
What should be floated is
The Following methods of shaping an ISP client shall be allowed
1 measures designed to limit bandwidth served to what is contractually required.
2 Caching of In Network Content or measures designed to identify in network "nodes" so that CLIENT SOFTWARE can choose in network nodes.
3 Protocol Preference measures as long as ANY Client or server will benefit
All other measures shall result in a fine not less than 25% of the ISPs Gross income (to include all sources ie advertising and Content Company/Parent Company income) and this must be paid in CASH with a weekly added fine of 5% (compounded monthly).
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Pork? Bullshit? Seems to be a bunch of bullshit to me.
This is why cities ought to own the copper and let individual households or neighborhoods choose who gets to deliver content over those wires.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
His profile doesn't seem to have Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon listed as major contributors, so I'd guess this man is honestly trying to do something for his constituents. It's also worth noting that he is doing this in spite of Verizon being a major source of funding. Also related and notable, he is retiring at the end of the current Congress -- he came out in favor of gay marriage this year too, and in West Virginia that probably means something. I get the impression he's trying to leave a good legacy, and it's nice to see that.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
There's a huge opportunity for improvement by applying programming ideas to the legislative process (version control, "parsing" the laws to find duplicate code, conflicts, etc. -- legalese seems a lot more like a programming language than regular English, by the way)... The hard part would be getting the lawyers to care.
Also, you're doing it wrong.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
For mobile internet customers it'll mean degraded service and exploding traffic bills, as telcos have been re-encoding videos to be "more suitable" for devices with small screens and not that much processing power.
Not that I condone the practice of meddling with data streams like that (and worse; inserting ads and whatnot), but I expect a lot of people will be miffed that their "user experience" of using mobile internet services will be changed by this bill.
REAL STORY:
That we are still discussing this topic in 2013 is why Apple hasn't released the Apple TV yet.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comcast was sued for throttling P2P traffic in the past ( http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Comcast-Settles-Throttling-Class-Action-106097 ). Why is it ok to throttle traffic now?
What we need is a way to measure the money put into legislation like this. Perhaps a "kickstarter" for political action.
NetFlix probably hasn't put much into the political process. The ISPs have made more campaign donations, so this legislation is pretty-well doomed from the start.
We need a website where people can pledge donations to candidates who vote for or against specific legislation, sort of like Kickstarter for laws. Unlike kickstarter, people (corporations, too!) could pledge a specific amount either "for" or "against" a specific law. This would give lawmakers an easier and much more efficient way of judging which laws are most valuable to society.
This would also make political advocacy more efficient. Rather than donating to PACs or lobbyists, the public could send money directly to the pockets of the legislators involved. In economics-speech, It adds "liquidity" to this particular market - eliminating middlemen (who are only rent-seekers) and passing the savings along to the end-user.
The "invisible hand" of economics is often touted as the most modern and efficient way to solve a complex problem, yet we labor under an antiquated 250-year-old political system which is slow and inefficient.
Let's upgrade to more modern methods. We need a kickstarter system for laws.
anything
FTFY
Repubs will scream about *anything* end of story.
You are dead wrong about "Hollywood's" opposition to this bill. It is the copyright organizations, not filmmakers who lobby against this.
This is a good bill. Just accept it. Just b/c its not perfect doesn't mean it should go forward.
Democrats *will* vote for it. Enough GOP'ers might let it pass the House.
That's my challenge. Watch this bill. Watch ***ANY BILL*** and it is always GOP obstructionists.
Overall, this is a step in the right direction.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Well with http/2 using ssl by default why not just deliver all video over an encrypted channel. If it all looks the same it makes traffic shaping much harder (especially if you use your own dns).
Get a web developer
This is bullshit. I'm pretty sure that this legislation's single purpose is to weaken network neutrality further by removing specific cases where monetary interests apply.
The bill being discussed is a very limited form of the Network Neutrality concept.
> given how many copyright violations ...
By that metric, http and https do not deserve protection either. Consider the many many sites that have "pirated" movies, images, lyrics, term papers, basic research available through those protocols.
I find your ragging on the torrent protocol based on the content moved by it disturbing. But you've hit the inference on the head, though: netflix and youtube have a lot of money riding on "neutrality" for their content. Bittorrent does not.
What we need is a mandatory uniform labeling and advertising requirement for internet access services.
We have nutrition labels telling us what is in food.
Whe have labels telling us exactly what is and not included when we buy a car.
There can be perfectly legitimate reasons for internet access providers to block or prioritize traffic. Consumers may even want to pay for a cheaper plan that has more limitations.
As long as it is simple and easy for a consumer to compare and see what they are buying, the government doesn't need to be involved in what internet access services can and can not be sold. If we ever get to a point where internet access impacts consumer safety, there may be a minor role for ensuring specific sites and services are accessible - but there really isn't any reason to treat the internet any differently than a myriad of more mature industries.
Creating a rule specifically addressing video services is a bad law, and is crony capitalism. A few generations ago, the American voting public would have understood this and punished politicians that tried to make an end run....now we are all just a mob that opportunistic politicians cater to based on whatever is the fad of the momement. We are getting the government we deserve.
The answer to this problem is simple. Get Weights and Measures involved. Have them randomly test internet connections over a variety of ports to a variety of destinations. If the ISP is found lacking force them to refund the different to the customer. Just like if they were selling gas and the gas pump were over reporting.
The alternative would be to have the ISPs charge per MB delivered. We'd see them beefing up the trunks to their remotes pretty damned quickly then. Suddenly file shares and Netflix users would be their best friends instead of what they are today... annoying, unprofitable problems.
They dont need to degrade anything. I just paid a $50 overage fine to att DSL for watching too much Netflix.
You're watching a streaming video. Unless you want to watch it at high speed, then what's wrong with throttling the traffic to a speed just fast enough to prevent buffering? There's no need to stream an entire 90 minute movie in 10 minutes to whatever device you're watching it on. So let them throttle you so I can download my pirated Hurt Locker at 20mbps. K thx.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZz3a9pK7pE
you are a dumb expendable animal - which you have proved by your post
I guess the Rockefellers were right - Humanity is fucking retarded, can easily be fooled, and humanity deserves it's demise.
The only genuine thing about him is the rfid he wants in your body.
"any content provided by an online video distributor'"
So if I were to torrent a video, or video chat with someone, I would be a video provider, and couldn't have any of my content slowed?
If left like that, this is going to get messy. Most likely they will require you to buy a 100k licence to be protected as video distributor.
Why does this take 63 pages?
...as there are many legit uses of it, but that's probably the most that can be said legally until copyright violations come down to more reasonable levels.
Don't expect that until copyright duration comes down to more reasonable levels. Otherwise screw them.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
...the 63-page bill provides a comprehensive look at the potential ways in which ISPs can limit consumer choice, and it boots the Federal Communications Commission's power to prevent bad outcomes.
Is that a typo? "Boots" (gets rid of) or "boosts" (bolsters) the FCC's authority on this issue? I would think having non-discrimination laws for online video services would give official recognition to the FCC's power... unless these powers would only be usable by someone else, in which case who do I complain to when the providers do get caught.
How about we call it...umm.... network neutrality?
Considering that everything government does is the opposite of what it says:
"Affordable Care Act" = Unaffordable Higher Premiums for Everyone Who didn't Already Qualify for Medicaid Act
"Patriot Act" = UnAmerican Orwellian Surveillance, Torture, and Secret Tribunal Act
"No Child Left Behind" = No Child Gets Ahead
"War on Drugs" = well, you get the point...
So. What hides behind the cute title "Consumer Choice in Online Video Act?"
That I'm right, and you don't like it, doesn't mean I'm a troll.
Now a 3rd option is in my area. Haven't noticed any throtteling on Netflix or Youtube. Even a test torrent worked just fine.
Part of the problem is that the government defines "competition" (especially in communication regulation, ever since the initial rollout of analog cellphone service) as starting with two competitors. It writes regulations that stop pushing for competition at two.
As I understand it, with two "competitors", rational pricing optmization algorithms actually drive them to splitting the customer base about equally with a high profit margin. No collusion is necessary - the price and market share transmit enough information to drive the effect.
With four or more you're virtually certain to get somebody squeezed into a small market share but still able to survive. His best strategy, near term, is to compete with a low price or better price:performance ratio and grab market share. This starts a price or price:performance war that drives the market price toward cost plus a livable profit margin and/or makes the better service necessary for market survival. By the time this settles out the little guy is usually a big enough guy that he doesn't get squeezed out.
With three competitors the high profit / low service level equilibrium is somewhat unstable, so it might go any of several ways (three gougers, squeeze out the little guy, or {usually} the price/service war).
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
And speed limits stop people from speeding.
(This is a post about enforcement. Laws that aren't be enforced may as well not exist.)
You can gaurantee that the cable companies are already trying to figure out who they need to write big fat cheques to in order to kill this bill dead. The #1 threat for the cable companies is that people will replace cable (or premium expensive channel tiers) with video from online sources (either free or non-free, legal or non-legal)
Those provisions overlap a bit with the FCC's authority under its own net neutrality law, the Open Internet Order,
Unless we've amended the Constitution while I was sleeping. The Open Internet Order is a regulation, one that many people (Verizon) dispute they have the statutory authority to issue. The courts will eventually solve that question, though Congress could render the whole matter moot by passing an actual law and/or granting the FCC clear authority to act in this area.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I'll tell you why it's just video.... because Google cares about video, and google spends a TON on lobbying.
Which is really quite sick if you think about it. This is just another example of money buying laws. Sure, I agree with it, but.... It's still just money buying our laws.
Want your representatives to represent YOu instead of money? Get money out of politics. http://www.wolf-pac.com/
Quid pro quo for including DRM in the new standard.
Piecemeal legislation to ensure content providers can deliver from many sources and guaruntee many bidders for copyrighted movies and sporting events. Do you wonder if anyone will tackle the privacy issue?
They must be indebted to us for their jobs AND wealth or they will feel no obligation to us.
15TW = 15,000 Nuclear Reactors. (Approx. one accident a month.)
Most of these "copyright violations" are for works that are published with DRM. Violating these copyrights isn't comparable to what anyone would normally think of as copyright violation, or that anyone had even heard of 20 years ago. These are a radical new type of copyright we're talking about here, where there are legal prohibitions against playing lawfully purchased copies too.
While I do agree that market forces can affect change when health competition is widely available, in this specific case I do not agree that "the market" is the answer.
The reason is simple. ;)
ALL American ISP are happy to fuck every single customer in order to get more money.
The are ALL willing to kill bandwidth from competing application and services from companies not willing to pay the gate keeper. It has been reported that ISP have negotiated such things among themselves.
For things like Power, Water, Gas and Internet, which we consider to be basic living standard items we do need regulation. We do need protection from companies fucking us over.
People always complain about the "government getting in the way of business", but that is false thinking. The entire idea of government is people getting together and putting rules together that should make society better. To ensure predators dont eat all the lambs. To make sure things dont suck.
Whether or not it works that way anymore is not the point
The fact that Congress thinks they have a solution, and furthermore that their solution took 63 pages to explain, tells me it's a stupid fucking idea. Business throttles content, customers get pissed, customers leave, business changes or succumbs to competition. Problem solved.
Netflix is cutting into our profits and we need them to effectively lobby against anybody who has the audacity to shill a better entertainment value that doesn't include paying for sports networks regardless of whether you want them or not. In other words, pay up or be throttled by our monopoly.
Wouldn't data caps fall under this? I play PS3 and mostly watch TV shows from Amazon on a roku.. and my bandwidth is butting up to the cap every month.