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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."'"
When Al Franken sounds the most rational, things have gotten WAY out of hand...
Way to go, Al. The stupidity of your colleagues was supposed to be a secret!
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
Good for him.
"Diplomacy is something you do until you find a rock." --Richard Pound
Those congresspeople are well paid (lobbied) to hold those confusing, illogical views and spout whatever uneducated claims they can to defend them.
...is the only person in the Senate who seems to have not been bought and sold by lobbyists.
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!
I agree this is not much of a surprise. I gotta ask, though. If not the government, exactly who has enough power to get the telecom industry to actually behave?
a bit off-topic, but it's worth noting that Senator Franken has a long history as leader on the forefront of new communications and broadcast technology.
some of his reports from his earlier journalism days are very informative, one might even say daring:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Al+Franken%27s+Mobile+Uplink+Unit+
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
I agree. The whole competition thing is bullshit. I wanted to change providers, and I just now realized that there isn't a single competing carrier where I live. I'm stuck with what I have. How the fuck am I supposed to vote with my wallet this way? Not have internet?
going to their local governments and demanding an end to the franchise agreements that have locked them into a crappy duopoly (at best).
Finished That For You.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
he promised strong Net Neutrality on his platform, and yet his Administration appoints the CableCo foxes to live in the FCC hen house.
sign this to demand Net Neutrality and to remove Tom Wheeler and other lobbyists out of the FCC!
Franken drew the map from memory BEFORE he was in office and during the campaign for office. He has served ONE term. He never spent tax payer money learning to draw the map.
Given how politicians are sold like products and put on an act to get elected, it makes him no different than anybody else--- EXCEPT he is not a lawyer which automatically makes him better.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
We need one more big surge of traffic, ideally starting Monday or Tuesday morning at around 10 AM Eastern, to get the Net Neutrality petition to 100k votes on time. I've been tracking the vote rate and it runs fastest on Tuesday, during the work day. We will get the most traction if as many people as possible promote the petition on their social network channels starting early this week. Please consider raising the issue and the petition on your social network channels to help generate the final surge in traffic we need to hit 100k signatures. The petition may not have as much legal authority as we would like, but at least it is a potent rhetorical device for Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn, the two FCC commissioners who are already raising opposition to allowing a fast lane.
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I lived in MN during his election and I even listened occasionally to his radio show. He was nothing like Rush Limbaugh and at least he bothered to look for facts instead of make them up on the spot. I didn't listen long enough to his show to find fault and it wasn't entertaining; but I read his book which was the most funny thing I've ever read (and why I knew who he was, I never heard of him otherwise.) I wouldn't blame the failure of that radio station on Franken; that is baseless, he quit the show to run for office. One could make equally baseless claims that Franken was keeping that radio station alive.
He didn't steal the election. I was a volunteer. I WAS THERE. No cheating. They video taped and disputed every single stupid thing no matter how pointless (for example, somebody who marked and wrote in the same person.) The GOP propaganda machine lied about the whole thing and their disrespect for the legal system got them into hot water with the judges -- the majority of which were REPUBLICAN judges!!! They let it drag out a year with no chance to win solely to stall because they are so partisan. Plus creating outrage is a good way to raise money-- for both parties, but in this situation 1 side was being quite unethical. Every ridiculous situation was fought in court with a republican majority of judges and they lost most of it (hey, I didn't say the democrat lawyers were perfect... they ARE lawyers...) It's pretty bad when the Republican judge makes comments about how sleazy the Republican lawyers are.
The debate in the senate is mostly BS. I spent years watching CSPAN in the background. We are so bad now it doesn't matter what is said because filibusters have DoS the senate. It's the fall of rome all over again; just waiting for the death count to rise (maybe the "accidents" will just turn into out right murders.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
In just about every category of politics, I lean more conservative than Slashdot's median. But I respect Al Franken than perhaps any other Congressman out there. Not because I agree with all of his positions, but because he seems to act with real integrity in striving to help the American people.
There's always an asterick and that leads to a note that says "well, you'll get 50mbps provided the rest of your neighborhood isn't trying to hit the pipe hard at the same time."
there is nothing wrong with it in principle. Even excellent road systems get congested during rush hours, even the best cellular networks shit their pants on the new year's eve at 23:59, even the best delivery companies experience massive delays around Xmas. The reason is that having huge capacity that goes mostly unused most of the time is expensive, you pay huge maintenance costs yet there is not much going on on the revenue side.
Actually this brings up an important distinction.
1) If your ISP advertises X Mbps, and the ISP makes a deal with Netflix to put in a separate exclusive pipe that provides enough total bandwidth to keep up with demand, and you still get X Mbps to everything else, then I don't know that I have a problem with it.
2) If the ISP advertises X Mbps and suddenly Netflix is the only thing that gets X Mbps and everything else is slower, or specific services have slowed significantly compared with other ISPs, that is a huge problem.
I'm not sure if #1 is possible especially considering that what an ISP advertises is always "up to X Mbps" and they can always secretly throttle so long as it's not enough to cause a lot of complaints. So if we have to sacrifice #1 in order to maintain #2, so be it.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
"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.
emt 377 emt 4
Satellite? They'd probably make your local provider look like a bargain, though.
This is correct.
To elaborate a bit, reserved bandwidth is not the same as shared bandwidth.
The bandwidth that companies buy is reserved bandwidth, which is guaranteed capacity allocated to you and nobody else. That kind of bandwidth is expensive - let's say $10/Mbps (it's more in small quantities, less in large quantities, but let's make the math easy). So if you want 100 Mbps guaranteed, it'll cost you $1000/month. plus circuit fees, etc. In return for that money, you "own" the bandwidth, it's guaranteed available when you need it, and there's a Service Level Agreement with penalties if it's not there. And the cost is buy because to satisfy 100 customers, the ISP has to build 10,000 Mbps of capacity and keep it available, with redundancy.
The bandwidth that consumers buy is shared bandwidth, which is a capacity shared by everyone in the network. So if you get "up to 100 Mbps" you should expect to get 100 Mbps most of the time, but there are no guarantees. But you pay perhaps $100/month for that bandwidth (depending on your ISP, certainly less than $1,000). The way the ISP can sell shared bandwidth more cheaply is that they have a user behavioral model that tells them that if they have 100 customers that their total usage on average will peak at 1,000 Mbps, because not everyone will be home, online, and using max bandwidth. So they only have to build 1,000 Mbps of capacity, and because there are no SLAs, they don't need the redundancy that committed bandwidth would have.
So they're spending 1/10th as much to provision the "same bandwidth" for consumers as businesses, because it's not the same bandwidth. And that means that you can't expect committed bandwidth (SLA's, guaranteed capacity) if you didn't pay for it - if you pay cheap prices, you get what you pay for.
And that's not a bad thing. For most consumers, paying 1/10th as much for bandwidth is a great deal, and the bandwidth is almost always there when they want it. And if the internet connection is down for a few hours, it's an inconvenience, but they'll survive. But for businesses that rely on being reliably online (or they're out of businesses) paying 10x as much is worth it for the guarantees.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
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.
emt 377 emt 4
Stop with the Netflix boogeyman. Netflix is 60% of prime-time traffic in the US-- there can thus mathematically be only one Netflix. Any law designed to solve any problem with Netflix will thus by definition not be relevant any other company. Netflix can't mathematically be on any single network and have even peering with any other network, which is the core of how all the little networks become "the Internet". Which is the basic problem-- there is no "the Internet", but maintaining the illusion of one requires certain agreements that we're all just making up as we go. Platitudes are unhelpful.
But Frankin is right, of course-- everyone debating the issues should at least understand them.
E pluribus unum
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?
Uhm, I'm not sure which Adam Smith you read, but my Capitalist Bible (Wealth of Nations) says that unless the government regulates them to ensure a level playing field, including for new players, then they will collude and the most established players will loot the customers and any smaller competition.
If your company isn't growing at 10% per year, stock will drop. 20% per year profit is great, but without growth, the stock price will drop. 0% per year with 20% gross revenue growth per year (and 0 profit growth) will probably trump actual returns for stock price.
It doesn't make sense, but that's how it works. So everyone kills for 10% growth per year, even if unsustainable and borderline illegal extortion.
Learn to love Alaska
Just imagine the hoopla and media sound bites if there were a Republican in the White House while the FCC was doing this.
No, it wouldn't even make the front 10 pages of the newspaper, becaues those would all be about the new invasion of Beckybeckystanistan.
Careful, you are pushing a lie in distinction between push traffic and pull traffic. Netflix traffic is traffic it generates a request for, it pulls traffic. End user traffic is the traffic the end user requests, it pulls for. There is also push traffic, unrequested traffic this is called advertising, generally packaged with requested traffic.
Stop spreading the lie that content producer generate lots of traffic. Content producers connect a server to the internet, the server quitely sits there doing not much of anything and generating little or no traffic. What happens next it the end user, uses the bandwidth they have paid for to access that server via the internet and get it to send the requested data to them, the 'END USER" generated the traffic.
Stop fucking lying liar, the end user the person who requests the content, the person who activates the server at the other end to send content, is in control, it is pull traffic, all controlled by the user who paid for their bandwidth.Netflixes traffic is their business traffic, the data their staff generates when they send emails, or request information from other servers on the internet. Making a server accessible and allowing end user to control the flow of data from that server to the end user is "END USER TRAFFIC" to and from.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I'm not sure I agree with that assessment. I know we often talk about peering meaning an equal amount of traffic, but that's largely historical baggage. The direction of traffic is essentially arbitrary when it comes to the cost of setting up a network. If you know you're going to have asymmetric data flow, you just use more channels in one direction than the other. AFAIK, such configurations are possible over most network links.
More to the point, it really doesn't matter which side is pushing and which side is pulling. Both parties benefit from a better experience for their customers, which in this particular case are the exact same people. And although both companies have a vested interest in ensuring that the customer experience is good, if anything, Comcast has the most to lose if it isn't (assuming the particular customer has any choice in ISPs whatsoever), because statistically speaking, most users blame the ISP first. :-)
Either way, when it comes to no-cost peering, what's actually important is not the traffic direction, but rather that both parties send approximately the same amount of traffic through the other one to another network—that is to say, that both parties get approximately the same benefit out of the link. In this case, both of those numbers would presumably be zero, because all of the traffic Netflix would push into Comcast's network would be destined for Comcast's customers, and thus would go across Comcast's network no matter what. And every byte Comcast sent across the link would be destined for Netflix's servers.
By that standard, assuming they configured the network to allow routing only to one another rather than through one another, then the relationship between Netflix and Comcast should have been a peering relationship. Anything else is extortion by Comcast, pure and simple. And if they didn't configure it that way, Comcast should probably be paying for the peering, because it seems much more likely that Comcast would benefit from routing traffic over Netflix's fat pipes than that Netflix would benefit from routing traffic over Comcast's clogged pipes. :-)
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
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.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Netflix is paying level 3, a tier 1 provider for access. All the tier 1's interconnect with each other for free (by definition) - they're basically the backbone of the internet for global transit.
Customers pay a consumer ISP, like comcast, for access to the internet, i.e. access to the tier 1 network. So both ends are paying for their connection, all they need is for both networks to be connected in a datacentre somewhere - both ISPs pay for their own equipment, and when that link gets congested, they add more/faster interconnect ports, paid for by the customers that are paying for their side of the link. And that's how it works basically everywhere except the US now.
Because Comcast, along with the other big US consumer ISPs are saying to netflix - a customer of another ISP altogether - 'nice traffic, shame if something happened to it.' And charging extra for a 'fast' path to their network. They've deliberately let the interconnect to level 3 become congested, and are refusing to upgrade it, affecting netflix and all other services that comcast customers request from level 3's network. Netflix offers to host their CDN cache servers inside comcast's network, so it does't have to all go via the level 3 interconnect, comcast refuse.
So basically comcast are singling out netflix, as a competitor to their own video services, and demanding money with menaces. Successfully.
Comcast's argument that more traffic comes in from level 3 than goes out - well duh, they're a retail ISP, and they provide much faster download connections than upload, and put restrictions on what services customers can put on that upload. Of course they're largely going to be seeing more traffic come in than go out. Netflix said they could change their client so as much traffic went up as came down, and comcast said that wouldn't make a difference, thus blowing that argument out of the water.
Given the natural and legally provisioned regional monopolies the cable companies in the US have got themselves, they've got their own customers over a barrel. They can let the interconnects go to shit, and the customers are stuck with it.
5 of the 6 permanently congested links to level 3's network are in the US. It's absolutely obvious that with the FCC unwilling to exert its existing regulatory authority, and congress' refusal to step in as it would be 'government regulating the internet', you have a textbook example of oligopoly abuse. Free markets cannot exist when monopolists abuse their market controlling power, and netflix is just the start. Enforcing regulation against monopolists abusing their position is the only practical, effective answer, and it's high time the FCC used its power to do just that.
Apply common carrier status to regional monopoly cable companies, and the sooner the better.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
So, um, you do realize that there's not actually a technical differentiation between an ISP and anyone else peering with someone on the Internet, yes? None. A peer is a peer is a peer. There's a lot of companies that don't "pay an ISP for their bandwidth" because they're peering directly with all the big (and plenty of small) network players. The idea that a small handful of companies are "internet service providers" and everyone else must buy from them has never been an accurate representation of how the Internet actually works. And *I* most certainly *do* know the details.
Do you also realize that even if Netflix doesn't have "an ISP," that they still have to transit their own traffic to whatever peering points they use, right? That's far from free. The only reason Netflix would pay "their ISP" to start with would be to move Netflix's traffic from wherever Netflix originates it, to one of their peering points where they peer with Comcast. Not having "an ISP" do that for them doesn't negate the need. The data just doesn't magically appear at a peering point somewhere.
Also, do you realize that it's quite possible that Netflix would actually peer with Comcast in places that were actually *good* for Comcast? Netflix, in general, seems to want to offload their data onto end user's ISP's networks as close to those users as possible, since that's how their users get the best quality service. Doing so means that transiting Netflix's traffic is actually *cheaper* for Comcast, because they don't have to haul it as far across their network to deliver it.
(This is why Netflix actually offers, to major ISPs, *free* servers that the ISP can put on their network in whatever locations they like, which will originate a large portion of Netflix's traffic. This means that the ISPs could put the sources of that traffic in the places that are cheapest and best for the ISP, at virtually no cost to them, and save them lots of money in the process (since they wouldn't have to transit the traffic from wherever they peer at. Hell, shove one of those in the same buildings that terminate all your customers in a major metro area, and you practically eliminate Netflix as a source of traffic on that ISP's backbone in that area...)
Now, I realize you're just trolling, but I'm posting just in case someone out there doesn't realize that and tries to take you seriously.
Really? REALLY?
So, Netflix pays to have a direct line installed to Comcast, thus circumventing Comcast's backbone provider, and saving Comcast the expense of paying for all that video bandwidth. The bill is picked up by Netflix. For some refuckulous reason, Comcast wants to CHARGE Netflix for this direct-peering arrangement, and when Netflix goes "dude... whut?" Comcast starts bawling about being "forced" to provide Netflix with "free bandwidth"? Hahahhhhahahahahaa.....
See, when I walk down the street to drop a note off at my neighbor's house, I am NOT "cheating" USPS and "forcing" them to provide me with a "free" delivery. I've gone and done the damn thing myself, at my own expense, if any.
What's happened here is that Netflix found that Comcast's backbone providers could not be trusted to move data reliably and equitably. Then they went and determined that it would also be damned cheaper to just run their own line to Comcast's network as well. This contributes to a multi-pathed Internet which circumvents the grievously centralized Internet that we have now, studded with gate-keepers who do nothing but impose obstacles and demand money to overcome them. The Powers That Be cannot have this. Although the peering benefits Comcast in this case, it sets a precedent which could cost them profit in the future. By failing to rise up and sabotage this aspect of network neutrality, Comcast would receive the scowls of their monopolist peers.
You'd probably run into this problem in many parts of the country. Hell, Comcast tried using the fact that they don't cover most of the area covered by Time Warner as justification for their merger, when this ought to reveal how noncompetitive they have always been.
No.
Netflix was already paying for transit. Comcast was already being paid by their customers as well. Comcast said 'hey that's a lot of traffic on the interconnect.' Netflix offered to (as they have done with many other ISPs) install cache servers on Comcast's network, which would have improved the service for Comcast customers without requiring Comcast to upgrade their infrastructure (which Comcast really should have done years ago anyway but why would they spend money on it when they can apparently use it as an excuse to extort more payments instead?)
That's not asking for free bandwidth, that's making a very generous offer to help an ISP conserve bandwidth. Bandwidth, we should note, that the ISP already contracted with its customers to provide. Netflix is not a party to that and has no obligation to help at all, but obviously they do have an interest in making their own users happy, which is what they were after.
If as an ISP you do not like their offer then fine, dont take them up on it. You still need to provide the bandwidth you have already sold, just like if they had made no offer. But trying to spin that as a shakedown for free bandwidth? Are you freaking kidding me?
That's not just propaganda it's horrible propaganda, anyone that understands what you are talking about is going to laugh in your face.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Senator Al Franken has a pretty good idea of what the term "net neutrality" means
We should subject our congressmen to quizzes more often. Let them explain their understanding of the problem to the press. I'd love to see them stuttering.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
So, I'm surprised no one has come up with this term yet to describe the vision of the FCC: Net Neuterality.
I'm sure it has Bob Barker's support.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011