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F.C.C., In Net Neutrality Turnaround, Plans To Allow Fast Lane
Dega704 (1454673) writes in with news of the latest FCC plan which seems to put another dagger in the heart of net neutrality. "The Federal Communications Commission will propose new rules that allow Internet service providers to offer a faster lane through which to send video and other content to consumers, as long as a content company is willing to pay for it, according to people briefed on the proposals. The proposed rules are a complete turnaround for the F.C.C. on the subject of so-called net neutrality, the principle that Internet users should have equal ability to see any content they choose, and that no content providers should be discriminated against in providing their offerings to consumers."
we are sold.
The rich get more privileges. Nothing to see here my fellow Americans. We love this shit. Fast lanes for the job creators. After all, we wouldn't have all of these jobs if we started impeding them. /s
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
...shame if something where to happen to it...
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
I hate to say it, but I told you so. I said it then, and I'll say it now. The moment Obama appointed yet... another... lobbyist to head the FCC, one who spent years as a cable company and telecom lobbyist:
Net... Neutrality... Was DEAD... PERIOD.
Need I remind all of you Obama-lovers of this little tid bit from no other website but ethics.change.gov:
http://change.gov/agenda/ethic...
"I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more than any other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists â" and won. They have not funded my campaign, they will not run my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president."
-- Barack Obama, Speech in Des Moines, IA
November 10, 2007
I informed you thusly...
From his Wikipedia page: "Prior to working at the FCC, Wheeler worked as a venture capitalist and lobbyist for the cable and wireless industry, with prior positions including President of the National Cable Television Association (NCTA) and CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA)."
When the FCC chairman used to be a lobbyist for the companies he's now regulating... well, what did we expect would happen? It shouldn't be surprising that he'd be in favor of pushing through regulations that are more favorable to his cronies.
My userid is prime!
The problem here isn't differentiated services - which can be valuable to a lot of us. The problem is that here in the US we have effective ISP monopolies or duopolies in nearly every region. Whenever your choice is so severely constrained you're going to get screwed at least a hundred different ways. Net neutrality isn't the worst of them - the crappy bandwidth levels are first in my personal book. The battle should be couched in terms of "we'll trade away net neutrality in exchange for getting rid of telecommunications and cable franchises." If I can get 18 different providers competing for my business, then some of them will offer net neutrality, some will offer more bandwidth, etc. Until there is competition we're always in the position of having to beg the government to not cave into the desires of megacorporations, which is always a losing battle in the long run.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
Ideally, net neutrality should be something that is passed into law by congress. Too bad that doesn't have a snowball's chance against a cash-fueled, industry sponsored flame thrower in hell.
It truly just became pay to play for actual content producers and hosts. Goodbye little guys. Right now, I get content from the internet pretty much as fast as I'm willing to pay for. Now, for the same amount of my money, does this mean the content I'm delivered is at the mercy of how much the companies serving it are willing to pay ISPs backbone peers?
How long until consumers are offered tiered internet to these sites, pay X to get the FB + GOOG + AAPL package, etc etc, pay Y for gaming, pay Z for streaming, if you're caught in violation you'll be automatically charged at the overage level (like cell phone providers).
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
The FCC has an open issue for this, 14-28 Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet
You can see existing comments here:
http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comme...
You can add your two cents here:
http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/uploa...
me: "i just created a new 'horoscope by phone' startup, and it's really popular! woohoo!"
at&t: "hey, we've noticed a lot of people are calling your new company. it would be a shame if 20% of your calls were to drop. would you like to pay us to not drop them?"
me: "WTF? your customers are calling me! THEY paid YOU already for their phone service! you can't just threaten me, that's extortion and a violation of the common carrier law!"
at&t: "oh yeah, nevermind. we'll wait until you start a website..."
http://kered.org
What happens if a customer uses a service that he/she only can reach through 2 jumps of peering and the service-provider (ex. Netflix) only has a contract with the first ISP in the chain?
The customer will be SOL, the small ISP's too, that's what. The small ISP's will be forced out of the market or bought out by bigger ones. Essentially this paves the way for a few big companies OWNING everything related to content distribution and access to the internet for which the customers will have to pay an extreme premium to use.
And what hope do the customers have? Google laying down more fiber?
--- Reality doesn't care about your opinions, it happens anyway and if you are in the way you'll get squished.
Only one reasonable response: Drop all your paid over-the-interent content subscriptions, and start pirating everything. Burn the media industry to the ground.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Last time I checked, consumers paid for their internet access.
This is the right for an ISP to throttle and establish even more monopolies and cartels where Googles and Netflixs and Facebooks of the world have more internet rights than others.
There needs to be some sort of internet bill of rights, some sort of privacy bill of rights in this country. As it is --- there are legitimate web sites that happen to be right-leaning sites that are censored by Google -- and while I am not personally very interested in those politics, we are at risk of a world where the Googles and Facebooks and Verizons and Time Warners are agents to enact the government's will and or censorship, while calling these companies "not the government" and denying that there is any free speech or privacy rights for the consumer and the citizen.
And Google and such advise the government, make campaign contributions, etc. --- are we sold down the river? Where is the silver lining or positive angle in all of this?
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
The big internet companies managed to turn net neutrality from something they didn't want into something they do. All they had to do was use all their lobbyists to lobby congress to change laws in their favor.
SHOCKING!!!
Now we are going to have the worst of both worlds. We have exactly the internet we didn't want and some more laws for our economy to waste GDP on lawyers and litigation.
If we really want internet freedom, we should be lobbying for actual competition in the ISP game. It may not be possible to have 10 ISPs all competing at the same time, with their own fiber cables, but we could have a system where the lines are owned by the public (rather than the telecoms), and the telecoms just compete for contracts to administer the network. If we didn't like how a company was doing business, it would be much easier to ditch them for a new company if we owned the pipes.
Unfortunately politicians are generally shitty and it takes a lot of public engagement to get them to actually do something correctly rather than way that benefits them the most when no one is paying attention (i.e. cheaply in the short term).
Can you imagine if some company bought all the highways in your area and then started charging higher fees in order to go in the passing lane but then started really gouging all the food deliveries to certain grocery stores?
People might even try to defend this by saying that it was the free market but the reality would be just like the highways, the government gave these same companies nearly 100 years of subsidies to build these networks and the expertise to maintain them.
Quite simply this infrastructure is quite simply a public good, the companies that are allowed to run it should only be able to run it at our pleasure. The moment they start to get greedy they should be thrown out and a the public good handed to another company to run properly.
Net neutrality is a wonderfully level playing field which old zombie corporations hate and fast lanes are 100% anti consumer.
in other words, net neutrality would remain, but content providers could pay to BOOST the speed at which the internet provider customers received their content
Which only lasts until the next increment in consumer connection speed is rolled out. Then the companies that pay get to use it, but - SURPRISE! - nobody else does.
If this proposal had gone into effect before broadband became common you'd be hooked to on your, say, 5 Mbps DSL line, trying to watch videos at 56 kbps.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Agreed. It's fine if the fast lane is 100x faster than the slow lane, as long as the slow lane can remain "good enough".
We put it up on We The People and The White House responded:
Absent net neutrality, the Internet could turn into a high-priced private toll road that would be inaccessible to the next generation of visionaries. The resulting decline in the development of advanced online apps and services would dampen demand for broadband and ultimately discourage investment in broadband infrastructure. An open Internet removes barriers to investment worldwide. ... It was also encouraging to see Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler, whom the President appointed to that post last year, reaffirm his commitment to a free and open Internet and pledge to use the authority granted by Congress to maintain a free and open Internet. The White House strongly supports the FCC and Chairman Wheeler in this effort.
I think we're going to need another petition, or perhaps a series of petitions that cover the front page of We The People, asking for Tom Wheeler to be executed ... sorry, that should read "terminated" ... you know what? either way. -- and for common carrier to be restored.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Do I vote for the Democrat that is going to blast me in the ass or the Republican that is blasting my ass?
I wouldn't even look to the court. The court merely read the law, which very plainly states that the FCC may not do what they tried to do. In essence, the law says:
The FCC must regulate common carriers according to a, b, and c.
The FCC may not regulate b or c in regard to anyone other than common carriers.
The FCC wanted to do B without C, so they claimed "ISPs are not common carriers, so we don't have to do C. ISPs are common carriers, so we're going to do B". That's ridiculous, you can't say they ARE common carriers and NOT common carriers at the same time. Therefore, the FCC can't make up net neutrality laws.
If and when we end up needing a net neutrality law, Congress will need to pass one. That should be pretty clear to anyone who has passed fourth grade civics, so I really don't see why the FCC tried to make up the law themselves in the first place. Any half-competent court would strike them down.
I see... you think "smart" means bringing a knife to a gun fight. Good for you.
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
Knowing how to work within the system to change the system seems brilliant to me.
If your position is "super PACs are overly powerful, and have been made legal, we want to roll back the law allowing them," forming a super PAC is perfectly logical. Yes, if they win, they're disbanded - but they've accomplished their goal, so they're fine with being disbanded.
From the Wikipedia:
"Regulatory capture is a form of political corruption that occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or special concerns of interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. Regulatory capture is a form of government failure; it creates an opening for firms to behave in ways injurious to the public (e.g., producing negative externalities). The agencies are called "captured agencies".
See also: "Exaggerated threat":
1) "If we don't invade Iraq, they're going to bake the yellow cakes and explode a nuke in New York City."
2) "If we don't bail out the financial sector, we're going to have a depression."
3) "If we don't allow companies to favor content, the US technology sector will grind to a halt."
If and when we end up needing a net neutrality law, Congress will need to pass one.
Hahaha, surely you're joking.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
The problem with the internet, especially cable, is that it is a natural monopoly. It's like most utitilities that require infrastructure to the home. It would be stupid to have 10 competing water companies, right? That's because there would be large amounts of redundant infrastructure. Therefore, it is better to have a highly regulated monopoly with pricing set to prevent monopolistic rents.
The current situation is that each cable company has a monopoly in most areas, with DSL providing a duopoly in some places. Obviously, monopolistic pricing occurs, with prices far above the free market rate for inferior service. But that isn't illegal! You have to show that they are acting in an anticompetitive manner, which is very difficult.
Even in the case of oligopilies, price fixing is legal as long as it is implicit: A company can signal to another by unilaterally raising prices in a way that would be irrational if non-cooperative behavior is assumed. Then the other company will raise their prices as well, to acheive a cooperative outcome with both companies making more money. Again, this isn't illegal, unless there is an explicitly communicated price-fixing agreement.
Thus, FTC antitrust stuff means fuck-all.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
What makes it bad and undemocratic is when the democratic principle of one-man one-vote is breached because some can contribute vastly more to 'their' PAC than others can to an opposing PAC.
Using the means available is their lawful right.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
In other words, you weren't prepared to put in a (relatively miniscule) amount of effort and time into learning how to use P2P effectively to obtain high-quality files. It's really not that hard once you gain a bit of experience, but you were lazy.
That's fine. Not everyone has the attitude of owning control over your media. You're free to stream as much as you want... until your streaming access is blocked because the media was taken offline for whatever reason or your net connection becomes conjested/offline/throttled due to the abandonment of net-neutrality. You could have of course had personal copies of the media for offline use if you had bothered to learn a bit about how to use P2P effectively... but hey, some people only learn once things go bad.
Like I can chose from who I buy power or DSL, including TV and telphone, even though there is only one power line and one telephone or fiber cable to my house.
But I live in a democracy mainly run by and for the people...
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
not sure if trolling...
Our system is corrupt from the inside out, and the only way to affect change is through large amounts of money (e.g., this very story). In order to change that system, one must necessarily put together a PAC, even if the change you're going for is to take money out of the system.
I see... you think "smart" means bringing a knife to a gun fight. Good for you.
Bring a knife to a gun fight... ...stab them while they're laughing.
FCC: can't make a decision on net neutrality. Lobbyists (big telcos) make it for them.
FAA: can't make a decision on small done policy. Lobbyists (defense contractors) make it for them.
SEC/FDIC: no regs for HFT. Lobbyists (banks) make it for them.
DOT: stalling on self driving cards and electric infrastructure. Lobbyists (auto, oil&gas) make it for them.
FDA: pot regs.... Nuff said...
See the pattern here?
If you pay attention to recent events, you'll see what happens in practice:
So in the end, Netflix subscribers end up paying more and Comcast receives more money.
And switching from Netflix to a smaller content provider has the problem that "smaller" doesn't just mean they have fewer subscribers, it means they have fewer content to choose from as well.
The FCC should just fucking go ahead and do C (i.e., make ISPs common carriers)!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"Left" means social authoritarianism. "Right" means corporate authoritarianism. Those of us who care in the slightest about freedom are fucked either way.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"Left" doesn't mean "freedom from opression by the rich and powerful". Never has. It means "authoritarianism".
Bullshit.It means "the other guys" to someone who self-identifies as "right," nothing more. ALL facets of the US political spectrum are high up on the "authoritarian" axis; even the libertarians who are too naive to know that their vaunted "unregulated paradise" would just be feudalism redux.
Basically the FCC is allowing fraud. Customers are paying for bandwidth and then the company is secretly throttling that bandwidth only for certain content.