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Al Franken Says FCC Proposed Rules Are "The Opposite of Net Neutrality"
An anonymous reader writes "Senator Al Franken can be counted among the many who are at odds with the FCC's proposed net neutrality rules. From the article: 'Senator Al Franken has a pretty good idea of what the term "net neutrality" means—and that, he says, puts him head-and-shoulders above many of his colleagues in the U.S. Congress. "We literally have members of Congress—I've heard members of the House—say, 'We've had all this innovation on the Internet without net neutrality. Why do we need it now?'" he told TIME in an interview last week. "I want to say, 'Come on, just try to understand the idea. Or at least just don't give a speech if you don't know what you're saying. Please—it hurts my head."'"
If all our senators at least gave as much thought to issues as he does, we'd be in a much, much better place.
Are you kidding? Al Franken is one of the most intelligent, ethical, fair, and progressive-minded people in the Senate. It drives people like you crazy he's in there, doing good works, is loved and appreciated, and is there to stay.
If I happen to think Al Franken is a moron on the basis of past actions, does that mean I have to agree with the FCC? Ouch! Easier to re-examine Franken!
Or... you could just realize that it's possible for someone to agree with you on some topics and disagree with you on others. And it's even possible for someone who is not a moron to disagree with you. Personally, I disagree with Al Franken in far more areas than I agree with him, but I'm in complete agreement on this one.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
"and the ISP makes a deal with Netflix to put in a separate exclusive pipe"
You should have a problem with it.
Netflix's costs are higher than they should be.
ISPs should not be picking winners and losers.
As the ISP's customer, you are being defrauded.
It's extortion.
Netflix paid for their connection to the internet
The customer paid for their connection to the internet. The whole reason the customer pays for their connection is access to such sites.
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What variations?
Netflix was not a Comcast customer. ( they are now, because of extortion ).
The various Comcast customers are the Comcast customers. And they paid for access ( bandwidth ).
So, Netflix was not trying to get anything for free, they are providing a service on the web that is part of what makes it attractive for Comcast's customer's to pay them for *their* bandwidth ( to Netflix, among other destinations ). Netflix paid their ISP for their access to the internet.
Nothing more should be required.
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way to[sic] left for me
Which means that by the standards of most of the rest of the world, he's probably a little to the right of centre. I can't understand you Americans - what's exactly so terrible about a little bit of social justice and equality? That's all the left stand for. You've been so brainwashed by years of anti-communist propaganda that anything that even slightly whiffs of "the left" is automatically, viscerally rejected without any real thought. For whatever the left's faults might be, the right's are far, far worse. We've now had thirty-odd years of right-wing government across most of the developed western world, and where has it got us? The rich have got richer and the poor are poorer, and no-one is any happier. What a great system! How about considering a few mild alternatives, or at the very least some moderation?
Incidentally, this is why traditional ISPs like Comcast pay the backbone ISPs to carry their traffic, rather than being allowed to peer at no charge. They are essentially a leaf node in the graph, which means they benefit greatly from connecting to an upstream ISP, because such connections enable their customers to connect to the Internet. However, they don't provide any benefit to the upstream ISP, because the upstream ISP can't usefully route any traffic through Comcast to other ISPs.
The general rule is that backbone ISPs peer amongst themselves, but don't usually peer with traditional customer ISPs. Customer ISPs in the same region often peer with one other, because they're on the same level and can benefit from faster connectivity with one another and from having additional redundancy in their upstream connections. However, that peering only remains free so long as they route similar amounts of traffic over each other's upstream links. If the balance gets too skewed, they'll depeer each other.
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