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Congress Unhappy With FCC's Proposed Changes To Net Neutrality
Presto Vivace writes with news that the FCC's suggested net neutrality rules are facing opposition in Congress. "FCC chairman Tom Wheeler took the hot seat today in an oversight hearing before the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology to testify about current issues before his agency, including net neutrality. The overriding theme of the day? Pretty much everyone who spoke hates the rule the FCC narrowly approved for consideration last week — just for different reasons." Wheeler himself made some interesting comments in response to their questions:
"[He said] the agency recognizes that Internet providers would be disrupting a 'virtuous cycle' between the demand for free-flowing information on one hand and new investment in network upgrades on the other if they started charging companies like Google for better access to consumers. What's more, he said, the FCC would have the legal authority to intervene. 'If there is something that interferes with that virtuous cycle — which I believe paid prioritization does — then we can move against it,' Wheeler said, speaking loudly and slowly. A little later, in response to a question from Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Wheeler cited network equipment manufacturers who've argued that you can't create a fast lane without worsening service for some Internet users. 'That's at the heart of what you're talking about here,' Wheeler said. 'That would be commercially unreasonable under our proposal.'"
Here are instructions for how to send your comment to the FCC for those so inclined.
The cards are stacked against us, but if enough people ask them to reclassify Internet broadband as common carriers the FCC will cave and do the right thing.
send your comment to your elected officials in congress.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You can NOT have competition without regulation. What you have is a single monopoly.
This isn't selling 10 dollar t-shirts, it's infrastructure. How do you propose the market would solve thins? how would you want to ahve everyone who want to compete to have to dig up your yard and street?
You idea is foolish and naive at best. It flies in the face of history. There has NEVER been a similar situation that when unregulated goes well fore the consumer.
Read more history and less Fox.
TO anyone who has read the history of the markets, you statement look stupid.. no not stupid, fucking stupid.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Any ideas to get that competition thing going?
Personally, I support making the actual last mile wiring a public utility. Let ISPs share them.
Will do nothing but flap their lips. They cant even pass a bill they ALL agree on.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The internet should not fall under their purview. The FCC can regulate radio... we need something for that. We don't need them regulating the internet at all.
What we need are market forces. Competition. If the big ISPs had some they couldn't play games without threatening their market share.
That is how you regulate them. By letting customers vote with their feet.
What we need are market forces. Competition. If the big ISPs had some they couldn't play games without threatening their market share.
What competition? Even Google is being blocked from laying fibre. When cities have tried to break the stranglehold themselves the big ISPs tied it up in court until the attempt died.
Market forces dont work when mafia-like cartels can operate with impunity to protect their monopoly.
>Competition
Here in Concord NH, that Tea Potty Paradise, there is a duopoly
Expensive broadband that tops out at 15Mbps but with a company that sort-of caters to the consumer (no caps, no filtering of torrents, etc) - Fairpoint - a Verizon spinoff that was saddled with debt.
Or....
Comcast, a company that is mind-blowingly bad to deal with, has caps, will filter your torrents/other traffic, but has higher speeds.
Neither of which are really any good.
Competition? Where the fuck is it?
--
BMO
In other words, regulation?
The internet should not fall under their purview. The FCC can regulate radio... we need something for that. We don't need them regulating the internet at all.
What we need are market forces. Competition. If the big ISPs had some they couldn't play games without threatening their market share.
That is how you regulate them. By letting customers vote with their feet.
Are you a shill or just plain stupid? The result of letting the internet do it's own thing is exactly what is the problem. They're trying to create a two tier internet and slow down people who don't pay a premium for acceptable service.
And how is it exactly we're supposed to vote with our feet when there's like 2 internet providers (in a lot of cases just 1) available to any one location?
Sorry for the flame but... are you really that much of a dumba**? Market forces are the very thing making this damn traffic prioritization bullsh*t possible. The ISPs are the ones pushing this and doing everything in their power to prevent their regulation as common carrier. The barriers to entry ensure natural monopolies and the exploitative powers that come along with that. BTW. the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) are by definition the folks that should be responsible for this.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
And how is it exactly we're supposed to vote with our feet when there's like 2 internet providers (in a lot of cases just 1) available to any one location?
You can get DirecTV!
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Nice. Campaign contribution reform would remove some of the idiocracy, but so would your solution, much the same as telephone industry regulation that forced ATT to divest itself of the network of poles to level that playing field.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Venetian traders competed with Greek traders and there was no effective regulation between them besides mutual interest and some treaties.
I am not saying have no law or regulation of any kind. I am rather saying the regulation should be there to ensure a few basic features that if maintained ensure all other features that would be harder to manage.
Here is the regulation we need:
1. State and local governments must be required to allow communications cables to pass through their territory and connect to their residents without interference. A reasonable tax on those cables and leasing of the poles/underground pipes is acceptable however those taxes must not be so excessive that they cause companies not to lease the space in at all. This is the BIGGEST reason we don't have more competition right now. Leasing fees are very high and largely unaffordable for smaller companies.
The fee structure must scale with the business that leases the space. So if I want to put cable on 20 poles and I have 5 customers, I shouldn't be expected to pay AT&T rates for leasing every god damn pole in the city.
Furthermore, ISPs should be encouraged to both maintain their own cables and maintain the poles. As such, local governments would incur no expense because the ISPs would be paying for all upkeep.
2. Establish an internet integration cooperative that has two rules. First that anyone can join the network. Second that anyone inside the network must allow other groups in the network to connect to their network.
If a given organization doesn't want to allow a competitor to connect to the network then they're in breach and everyone else in the network can disconnect from them at will.
This system would self regulate. Yes, if any network became large enough then no one could afford to disconnect from them. However, if there are always lots of networks then no one can afford to disconnect.
3. Allow alternatives to the internet itself. Part of the reason we're getting this fast lane talk is that some organizations would like to bypass the internet entirely. Allow them to do that. The finance industry for example would likely like to have much of their communications flow over private proprietary cables. Same for the military. Same for the universities. Allow it. The more people running cable the better.
This includes private networks. Imagine if your neighborhood wanted to set up its own network that connected all the homes in your neighborhood together. The information and resources not being accessible outside your network. Allow it. Encourage it. The costs are meaningless. The cost of running a Cat5 cable around town with some weatherized switches spread about.
4. Require ISPs to cite the terms of their contracts in their advertisements. If they're slowing down traffic, then put that in the advertisement. Then customers can decide if they want to do business with them.
5. As to slowing down the traffic of other ISPs and not your own customers... that goes back to the trade organization I said we'd need. If a given ISP started filtering other member's traffic then they could have the same done to them in turn or other punitive actions.
Do the above and the internet would largely self regulate. Between the market forces and the trade organization most ISPs would understand that actions have reactions... and the ones that didn't understand would get crushed by competitors.
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In other words, tell the FCC to forget the regulatory creep.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Riddle me this... do you want the US postal service to run your internet?
People tend to hate comcast more then the Post Office, so... yes?
Riddle me this... do you want the US postal service to run your internet?
To be honest the post office has been stellar in terms of last-mile delivery. In fact, UPS and FedEx rely on USPS for many hard-to-reach delivery spots. USPS has relatively low rates for postage, and price increases have been incredibly low over time.
Compared to Comcast who has every incentive to screw me over repeatedly every year in order to get more profits and blame companies like Netflix/Hulu for poor performance, I'll take the USPS. Even if it means slower rates.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Wow. You really -are- stupid, that higher up post was not an anomaly. I'm sure a lot of people just passed over your comment with a sigh, but I'm going to do you a favor.
First, you seem to think that the US Postal service is somehow inept or inefficient, but you are wrong. NO ONE at the top floor of ANY competitor of the USPS agrees with you. Get some facts without page-view seeking bullshit, or Corporate Propaganda here:
http://www.rooseveltinstitute....
Second, you seem to think laws that prevent low-budget startups from ripping through our sidewalks are -ARCANE-. You better stay the hell outta my town.
Third, the last mile is absolutely pulbic infrastructure just like water and electricity (do you want the post office to bring you power?) , and Tacoma Click! is a perfect example of this done right. More than a dozen ISP's to pick from.
Finally, you are trying to find ideological solutions to technical problems and that means ALL OF YOUR IDEAS ARE STUPID. Wake up to the fact that you have manipulated into the world view you hold.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
I messaged mine. Back with SOPA, I stated it was a free speech issue. Hollywood shouldn't have the right to censor people. My senator sent out a form letter to everyone,"SOPA is not a free speech issue" after I messaged him. But later he recanted and messaged everyone that SOPA was a free speech issue.
God spoke to me
most of the regulation we need is on state and cities not on the ISPs themselves. The issue is that the local governments are interfering with the ability of ISPs to run cable. The result is that only large ISPs can run cable. Which means that the only ISPs running cable to your door are large ISPs. Those ISPs generally enjoy regional monopolies and therefore do not compete. And it is that lack of competition that allows this situation to occur.
So yes... regulation... but not on the ISPs. Government must be restrained from fucking up the system. That is my point.
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Do you remember having to count your minutes on long distance calls, because it was so expensive? Even local calls were more expensive than they are today, without even having to account for inflation. And none of it came with free text messaging. Perhaps you ought to read a little history yourself.
How do you explain the municipal ISPs (where they managed to get past the raft of lawsuits from ISPs) that are several times faster AND cheaper.
But if they go with actual fiber, the capabilities are for the most part dictated by the equipment at either end.
send your comment to your elected officials in congress.
...Along with a stack of non-sequential Ben Franklins... You just might get their attention.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
#1 is critically important. It is my understanding that getting land rights to put up poles and lay cable is the largest hurdle for many potential providers, to the point of making it cost prohibitive. And who is lobbying to keep it that way? The one provider already in the area. This must be fixed. I agree with you that a free-er (as opposed to completely free) market solution is the best. We just need some ground rules to ensure that competition can be made fair.
Too many people are looking to strong-arm the companies with strict regulation instead of looking at the situation and providing an environment in which the free market can work. We haven't really had a chance for the free market to work, and #1 is a great example of why, so we haven't seen what the free market can do in this sector.
Let's try the less-government solution first. If that doesn't work, then we can go to the more-government later. We can ALWAYS get more government later. It's excruciatingly difficult to go the other direction.
Love sees no species.
this is the internet you fool
you get netflix and steal the rest
Because fiber is hard? A pure fiber last mile with CWDM works without letting the muni's get into speeds protocols etc. Is it a lot of glass sure but it's a one time thing fiber from 40 years ago still works.
No sir I dont like it.
Why do I need to explain them? Their existence argues for my solution more then any other.
The point is that competition is good. Monopolies are bad.
If you want a local ISP to be run by your city or town, I have NO problem with that. Just don't forbid competition or force people to belong or pay for your service.
If your service is good then by out competing your rivals you will thrive.
If your service sucks or is expensive then people will drop it.
That is all I want. The ability to fire bad providers and hire good ones. Nothing more.
Let the customer decide on an individual basis what is and is not acceptable. And give them enough options that those decisions matter.
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They especially like butthair on popcorn.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Even all but the most insane Libertarians understand that some regulation is necessary to prevent bad outcomes. I once heard a speech by Ron Paul, of all people, defend environmental regulations on the grounds that one doesn't have the right to pollute their neighbor's air or water.
Network neutrality is that sort of regulation.
There do exist other sort of "gotcha" regulations like HIPAA that are so detailed as to be nothing more than a paperwork minefield designed to crank the costs of compliance through the roof for smaller players, while adding maybe the paperclip budget to the cost of the bigger ones, while generally serving little to no real-world purpose.
Enjoy having no progress of innovation on the internet ever again then...
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excellent point, all comments to the FCC are part of the public record.
A minority are opposed to the FCC's proposal to turn the internet into cable TV. The remainder are unhappy that the FCC's proposal doesn't directly sell everybody into indentured servitude to their local monopoly ISP.
Really? Poles and cables? The future is wireless. Actually, the present is wireless. Poles and cables for anything but electricity is archaic. Every time this topic comes up, it always boils down to the poles and cables. Get rid of the poles and cables and you get rid of 99% of this problem.
Then why is Google spending so much money on fiber to the home? As RF frequencies increase (since there's only so much bandwidth available at the lower frequencies - a 100Mhz channel at 900Mhz takes up relatively more spectrum than a 100Mhz channel at 10Ghz), cell sizes decrease due to lower propagation and penetration of the higher frequencies to a point where it takes a Wireless access point at every house (or possibly in every room in the house) to provide equivalent throughput to wired infrastructure.
1. Who is this "you all" which you're referring to?
2. What makes you think that "you all" want a government which is "tightly coupled to large corporations"?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
And none of it came with free text messaging. Perhaps you ought to read a little history yourself.
I had free SMS text messaging in 1993-95, before the telcos figured out that they could charge extra for a service that basically cost them nothing after the initial installation, as it only used unused bandwidth.
Perhaps you should read a little history yourself too.
Progress is better than regress, and you don't really need that much innovation to have dumb pipes.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Yeah, because ISPs are just blowing us away with "innovation" now.
The only place "innovation" has happened in the US TeleCom industry in the last decade has been in the legal and billing departments.
What you need is the gov't to come along as say "Hey our nation's telecommunications infrastructure is critical to the nation's security, so we're nationalizing it," and then they take it away from the telcos and sell access back to them. Job done.
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
Without the government, there would be NO last mile cable. They're the ones who use "eminent domain" to stop the crotchety old man on the corner from refusing to sell access at any price, and forcing homeowners to perpetually suffer ugly PVC pipes to stick out of their front lawns.
The government is already involved at this level. All they have to do is call that "last mile" a public utility rather than handing off monopolies to whoever gives them the best blowjob.
Explain why the government should do that.
By your same logic, the government could mow your lawn as well or paint your house. But I wouldn't hire them to do either.
Just because the government might be able to do something does not mean they should.
To the contrary, government should only do what they MUST do... if we put government in charge of everything they COULD do then they could chew your food for you as well.
I would just assume not have that happen though.
Explain why the government MUST do this... not whether or not they can.
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Right because if I say regulations need to be limited it means i really am advocating total anarchy with no government at all...
Which is MORONIC as if I suggested that because you wanted increased regulations that you wanted a police state.
Do you want a police state or was your argument stupid?
Pick one. Either it is valid to suggest you want a police state or it was foolish argument that you should apologize for making.
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How many ISP's would you say is reasonable to have hanging off those poles outside? There is only a finite amount of space available on those poles and they are rated to handle a specific amount of load. Who should be responsible for engineering this? How many companies do you want climbing up and down them, interfering with existing power and telco infrastructure? Who would pay for the pole change-outs necessary to accommodate all of this? The small ISP who wants to hang a cable or two?
Can the "small" ISP carry a sufficient amount of liability insurance for such an installation?
There are specific requirements for the construction and maintenance of overhead lines. In California, that's the PUC and General Order 95. Who would monitor and inspect for compliance when all these "small" ISPs start hanging stuff on the infrastructure?
I agree with you in principle, but there are a number of practical considerations beyond simply un-fucking the local government, who oftentimes don't even own the poles...the utility does with right-of-way authority granted by the state. Local governments are a small part of the overall problem.
Beware of the Leopard.
Riddle me this... do you want the US postal service to run your internet?
The answer would be yes.
As to how many ISPs per pole... The poles obviously have their rated limits. However, as more ISPs use the same pole the ability to upgrade the pole to something that takes a bigger load increases.
So I see no reason to limit them at all. If ten or twenty ISPs are on the same pole then there shouldn't be any need for an upgrade. The poles can certainly handle that load. Now if hundreds wanted to use the same pole we might have to go with a tunnel, pipe, or a bigger pole. Either way, if you had hundreds going through there the leasing fees paid by each would collectively be enough to afford whatever you needed.
So I see no reason to restrict them at all.
I do not think you'll get more then a dozen in any area simply because the economics of running that much redundant cable should probably make that prohibitive.
However, I will let the market decide how much cable it wants to run. I'm assuming that in rural areas you'll get two to four providers, in suburban ares you might get a dozen, in urban areas you might get fifty to a hundred.
It all works out to customers per square mile. If it is practical provide access to rural customers that might only have 100 customers per square mile then what happens in an urban area where there might be as many as a 500,000 people in a square mile.
You see... customers per square mile. That's the math.
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Yay, finally somebody responding intelligently to this John Galt idiot.
The idea that it is the inability to add new wires, and only due to regulations and not the cost, is what is stopping competion is so obviously blindingly wrong. He is just trying desperately to keep up his fantasy that the invisible hand always works with a ridiculous plea that somehow it is the eeeeevil gvmnt!!!!
Just so long as you know those municipal ISPs were made up of those government union people. And since they built out because the other telecoms refused to, they had no active competition (but didn't forbid it).
Yea right, you can keep believing that.
You really have no concept of reality, do you?
Because it would allow competion, stupid.
Just like your fantasy that somehow the it is ok for every competitor to add a new wire running to every house in the city, and that somehow the cost to them of doing this is zero.
Except it would work. The startup would only have to connect to the shared end of the fiber.
Your post pretty well covered the popular meme on Slashdot. In fact you really CAN influence FCC rule making, I have. I had the opportunity to observe several rounds of 2257 rule making and participating in one around. The FCC does in fact incorporate well reasoned comments into their rules. Chairman Wheeler KNOWS that the proposed rules have problems. He testified it has problems. The problem is, there's not currently a better proposal. "Pretend that they are telephone companies, call them common carriers" is the common refrain on Slashdot. Unfortunately regulating the entire year United States Internet is a little bit more complex than a headline. There's a REASON he isn't categorizing ISPs as telephone companies. If you want to participate directly, you will l need to find out what the problem is, why it doesn't work to just call them common carriers and think that's going to solve anything. What problems does that cause? It does cause real problems, that would really affect you. If you come to understand what those problems are then you can file comments and make a proposal to actually solve the problem. As I mentioned I've done the same with 2257. Actually understand the issues -understand why common carrier status is not by itself an answer and then you can propose actual solutions. The FCC does listen to actual solutions, they listened to mine. Mindlessly repeating a slogan doesn't help them come up with rules that actually work, though.
Ok, if they want to play hardball, I say let the free market decide - by the companies who are against it putting their money where their mouth is.
Google, Facebook, Apple, Netflix, etc should announce that any company demanding a fee for preferred bandwidth on their service will no longer be supported at ALL. If, say, Comcast starts charging for premium access, imagine how fast everyone would switch to AT&T or Verizon. Make the providers tout it as a feature instead of a weakness. They are all making money hand over fist as is (Comcast made $1.9B in net income last QUARTER) so gaining customer with the status quo would beat losing tons of slightly more profitable customers any daay.
DISH/Echostar is a good example of a company that plays this game well. They honestly don't give a shit about their customers (or employees) beyond the bottom line, but they do actually have the lowest prices because they are not afraid to play chicken with content providers (by dropping their channels during disputes) and haven't blinked yet...
With all due respect, you don't know anything about line construction. Do you want this hanging outside your house? While overstated, that is essentially what you'll end up with.
Beware of the Leopard.
Personally, I support making the actual last mile wiring a public utility. Let ISPs share them.
That is the wrong way to do it. The right way is to install a 6" wide publicly owned conduit. That is enough for thousands of fibers. Then let any bonded company pull fiber through it. The government should own the roads, not the trucks.
The 'market' is trying to destroy the internet by owning it all under one umbrella and dole out tiny bits to consumers for as absolutely much money as they can squeeze out of us. I have to wonder, do you actually know what a free market is? The ISP market is nothing like a free market situation. Neither is cable television, but although that is a different subject, it is still related due to the cable companies being major broadband players in this water sprinkler. (Not extensive enough to be called a pool.)
There's basically a few ways to handle this.
One: Let the companies do what they want. That will be an utter nightmare for consumers, and due to the growing necessity of the internet and all it's related data services, it would totally screw all of the populace of this country. Dumbest choice possible.
Two: Regulate the companies properly. Let's face it, they are really providing a necessary utility these days, just like power and water. Make them toe the line. The companies would hate this, but they get to stay in the game.
Three: Since it is a utility that the corporations have already shown they can't be trusted to manage, have it become ran by the government. Although the government isn't the most efficient organization, they also aren't trying to suck every last cent out of your cash anemic self as they don't have a profit motive. Expansion and improvement are likely to be slow, but then again, the corporations were already given massive bonuses in tax exemptions or write offs and many other ways by the government, and they still haven't delivered the very things they agreed to as a requirement for receiving that aid. For that matter, they've demanded several more times the previous largesses just to do what they were already supposed to have done. Looks like the government won't do any worse for the consumer than the companies are already screwing up.
What's the right choice? I couldn't really say, but the status quo of #1 has already proven it's a failure, so it at least is NOT the right choice. For the other two, I guess it really depends on how it's done.
I dunno... I ordered something by 2 day mail and it was shipped via USPS. It was shipped Thursday of last week. It's still not here. This is not uncommon. FedEx and UPS don't seem to have these problems.
I know, I know - anecdotal, one person - but it's is annoying to have people scream that USPS is the pinnacle of efficiency when 2 day shipping regularly turns into 4 and 5 days.
Love sees no species.
I am as much in favor of net neutrality as anyone, but I totally disagree with this decision.
It would completely stifle creativity - one of the big reasons you have the great content on cable TV is because those "data line owners" (like Comcast, Time Warner, Verison, AT&T, DirecTV, etc) have invested a lot of money in the independent cable channels. Which makes sense - it's in their interest to encourage content that is only available with a premium monthly fee on their service. The future of TV content is going to be premium monthly subscriptions or pay per episode/season/etc. The OTA networks are screwed now that there are so many ways so avoid watching the commercials that support them...
I tend to favor light regulation to ensure a level playing field, or alternatively a way to ensure a large enough pool of providers that customers have choices.
I really HATE the idea of reducing the market power of the end customer. It is my opinion that the current stream-of-consciousness rulemaking from the current FCC chair has that goal in mind. As things are progressing, with large content-providers being stuck with paying priority upcharge fees for the bandwidth and connectivity that THEY ALREADY PAY FOR, the ISPs (Comcast, TW, etc.) have another set of partners to collude with, without the need to satisfy the paying customers.
A plan that gives local ISPs a revenue stream other than their end customers is yet another erosion of the power of the customers in the marketplace, which is already so weak that we pay double or more for equivalent access than our international counterparts. Our market power is already severely limited by the lack of ISP choice in most communities, linked to the fact that there are only a few large providers nationwide.
I propose a rule requiring that an ISP's only source of income must be its customers. Is this "government regulation"? Or would it pass muster for the free market fundamentalists out there?
#1 is critically important. It is my understanding that getting land rights to put up poles and lay cable is the largest hurdle for many potential providers, to the point of making it cost prohibitive. And who is lobbying to keep it that way? The one provider already in the area. This must be fixed. I agree with you that a free-er (as opposed to completely free) market solution is the best. We just need some ground rules to ensure that competition can be made fair.
Too many people are looking to strong-arm the companies with strict regulation instead of looking at the situation and providing an environment in which the free market can work. We haven't really had a chance for the free market to work, and #1 is a great example of why, so we haven't seen what the free market can do in this sector.
Let's try the less-government solution first. If that doesn't work, then we can go to the more-government later. We can ALWAYS get more government later. It's excruciatingly difficult to go the other direction.
No, you idiot, because this: http://trillastravels.files.wo...
a handful of selfish greedy people are no match for millions of selfish, greedy people -u4ya
You're a moron. Don't speak in this forum when you're so obviously uninformed on the topic.
Say there's a pesky blog that keeps posting pointed, critical commentary at NBC-Comcast or at a cause they support. If you allow prioritizing of data, shockingly, that site's traffic might receive the lowest priority possible, or intermittent blockage. The Internet is the last bastion of the free flow of ideas. That should be protected, strongly. Because if there's an opportunity to abuse the privilege of prioritizing data, in order to increase profit or stifle dissenting voices, it most assuredly will be abused.
Here is an informative 3 minute video highlighting some of the ways to abuse data prioritization.
"Natural Monopolies" are an economic concept. These are industries in which the barriers to entry are so high that new competitors are blocked from entering. Infrastructure is commonly cited - power lines, power stations, the last mile infrastructure. The same goes for most infrastructure - telephone lines, cable lines, oil and gas pipelines, railroads.
So, there's no way to let customers vote with their feet in natural monopolies. There are no competitors. Hence the need for regulation to avoid the problem of monopolies, which is "monopoly pricing."
You obviously haven't lived or even traveled anywhere where there are mountains.
Newsflash: the world isn't flat, and radio signals have difficulty passing through hundreds (or thousands) of feet of solid rock.
There's no cell service where I live. Radio reception is fuzzy. I can barely get satellite TV due to the position of the mountains. My internet has to be DSL as Comcast will never run cable out here.
Okay... have fun with .5 megabits forever.
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You didn't explain why government must do it.
Very well, explain why government shouldn't paint your house or mow your lawn then?
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I cite a fact that contradicts your argument and you say I have a problem with reality?
Illogical and stupid.
You lose by default.
http://heeereswilly.ytmnd.com/
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So long as you admit that you are using government regulation to suppress competition we agree.
your argument seems to be that we have to prevent competition because you don't want a lot of wires on the pole.
Fine. Admit that.
Then own the consequences of your decision.
I would much rather have that rat's nest then gift one company with a monopoly or appoint some giant government body to run it for me.
Furthermore, it goes without saying that if we had that many ISPs operating in one area we could bury the cable. The reason we don't is because its too expensive to do that if you only have a couple companies running line. But if I have dozens or more then suddenly it becomes much more practical.
Come now... think. Use your fucking brain... I know it hurts... try anyway.
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Poles and cables? The future is wireless.
I just bought my house three years ago and wired it with cat 6. Wireless is for mobile devices, temporary connections, and people who want ease-of-install more than they want reliability or speed. I do this for a living; dropped connections cost me and my clients money. Wireless will probably not be the right answer for my workstations in my lifetime.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
"...you can't create a fast lane without worsening service for some Internet users. 'That's at the heart of what you're talking about here,' Wheeler said. 'That would be commercially unreasonable under our proposal.'"
This makes no sense at all. Is it just a bad summary? Waxman is citing testimony that internet fast lanes inevitably and necessarily degrade internet service for "non-premium" users, and Wheeler responds that the proposed regulation enables the FCC to prohibit that inevitable consequence of the system it creates?
"Yes, this regulation will degrade service, unavoidably. BUT! The regulation also says that we will make sure that this unavoidable consequence is prohibited, so it's all good!"
yeah! Like in the old days before regulation, when railroads were free and people could vote with their dollar! Oh wait, that turned out REALLY BADLY.
You sir, are repeated a mantra, an idealogy, which sounds good on paper and absolutely sucks when it hits the real world. The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is invisible, because it is a fairy tale. I repeat myself: Great Idea, Doesn't Exist In The Real World. The ISPs are GIGANTIC. The Free Market is dead. Taking away regulation would let them get WORSE. It would be a nightmare, on par with the railroad barons of old.
Funnily enough, in other civilized countries that actually regulate their ISPs and cell phone companies, they have a plentitude of choice, service is good, and people are really happy with the competition. You should go overseas, where you can just pop down to the store, buy a SIM card, pop it in your phone, and go forth with cheap cell service. Or you actually have more than one ISP to choose from and the speeds are decent.
Seriously, look where we are ranked in the world in speeds. Fucking Latvia and Lithuania are kicking our asses. Northern Europe is amazing... Why? Because they FUCKING REGULATE. So sick of hearing this deregulation free market Econ101 simplistic no context or real understanding bullshit.
Link, so you can look for yourself: http://www.netindex.com/
I do. The postal service is awesome. They're so awesome that we all take them for granted. That's how GOOD they are. They're fast, cheap, ubiquitous, and they get the job done. Better? They mosty fund themselves. The postal service is AMAZING, and they do a damn good job.
Better, I'd be happy with neighborhoods being able to get fat fiber, and spreading from there. Cooperatives ran by neighborhoods would be fine with me.
Don't put down the Postal Service. They've done a great job for a LONG time, in the face of budget cuts, email, and assholes in Congress fucking up their retirement to screw them on purpose so they can destroy them.
Don't insult.
I know what we can do. Perhaps we can call them Common Carriers, and force the big ISPs to rent lines to smaller ISPs. It worked incredibly well in the old days... More regulation on ISPs, we get more competition, and we KNOW IT WORKS.
Oh yeah, that's what we've been saying all along. Take your Less Governemnt ideology to somolia where it belongs.
Karmashock? Do you realize how often you go to Logical Fallacy: Black or White? It's bad logical thinking. You should look those up... https://yourlogicalfallacyis.c...
Karma? Logical Fallacy, Black or White. You sir, are acting like a troll of the highest order. You're also resorting to Ad Hominem attacks left and right, against everyone who's disagreeing with you. Then you claim to win. It's.... sad. Please Stop. Yes. Stop the Hyperbole.
What was that, Anonymous Coward? An empty and worthless insult without basis? thank you for your contribution to this discussion... everyone appreciates your utter lack of value.
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Well, they're actually irrelevant. I'm not sure if that's their fault but technology has generally made them irrelevant.
As to the merits of the postal system, they only have what they have because they have a government fiat. Why is it that people like you are always happy with government fiats but suddenly have a problem when a corporation has one?
What is the difference in your mind?
Why not just give me total dictatorial control over the internet. Personally.
What do you honestly think the difference is between giving it to a committee of faceless bureaucrats or just giving it to me?
Seriously... think about it.
How do you know I'm not on that committee?
How do you know that corporate X that you hate so much doesn't either have a seat or lots of influence on it?
Think it through. Giving the government control just means you've given whomever has control the power of the government.
Piss off a company what is the worst they can do?... Sue you? All that means is they can convince the government to come after you. But if the government is in charge directly they don't need to do that. They can just skip that step and go right after you.
I'd much rather this stay in private hands because they'll be less powerful and less able to get away with murder.
Look at the shit the government has gotten away with lately and ask if a corporation would get away with the same?
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Why would anyone need a fast lane if the internet is working?
Video streams at a small fraction of the speed of a good internet connection.
Obvious extortion is obvious.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Its something but its not enough.
The small carriers need to be able to lay their own cable or everyone is restricted to whatever the big ISPs provided. If the big isps are doing a bad job then everyone suffers for it.
Let the small operators compete at every level and the big operators will have to actually work to maintain their subscriber base.
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Regulation is like salt in the food. Maybe a little, if the ingredients aren't bringing enough on their own.
I am saying "less is more". Or do you think 2.5k pages of Affordable Care Act + 10k pages of follow-on regulatory suppository is a Good Time?
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
As someone who, over the past 20 years, has designed outside plant for literally every single major ISP in the country, his ideas are hilarious. It's like a plumber watching House M.D. & then telling a neurosurgeon that he could do it better. "They can just upgrade the poles!" "They can just bury everything they can't put on a pole!" "Who care about that gas line & power cable!"
There is a war going on for your mind.
I gather that would go down just as well as nationalising the healthcare system in the US would - people would scream "socialism", lawsuits would spring up faster than a teenage boy band taking viagra gets erections, and the whole thing would be bogged down for decades.
And arguably, good healthcare is far more important than internet access...
I am saying "less is more". Or do you think 2.5k pages of Affordable Care Act + 10k pages of follow-on regulatory suppository is a Good Time?
Is this homeopathic economics?
Wow, the lack of reading comprehension on the internet.
I just pointed out that YOU made that argument. I was myself not saying that an extreme was inevitable.
About a dozen times in this discussion when I've said we should have looser regulations, people have accused me of advocating anarchy. That is a fallacy. I have done no such thing.
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They were built using tax money as a loan, as voted for by the people in a democratic referendum (IIRC).
That would limit the competition to the huge players we already know and hate. Fiber gets expensive if you try to wire a metro area. It took the promise of a monopoly to get the first cable run normally, because otherwise, getting a return on the investment was in doubt.
Several people replied asking for more information. It's really cool that we, as a community, are wanting to engage beyond just a slogan or headline.
My main point was that in my experience the FCC does read comments and incorporate good ideas into the next round of rules. So my post was more about the FCC process than about net neutrality per se. I'm no expert on wholesale bandwidth, though I've run a SMALL hosting company for many years. I'd have to do some research myself before I'd be able to file a useful comments. There's also more to learn than can fit in a reasonable Slashdot post. That said, I can point people in the right direction to learn more. There's a lot to learn, so it will take some time.
The current proposal is informed by the existing comments. Many of the people who bothered to submit a comment to the FCC are knowledgeable about the issue and the direction that the FCC has been thinking about going. You can read comments others have made on various FCC filings here:
http://www.fcc.gov/comments
Specifically this one is relevant:
http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comme...
Of course there are plenty of less informative comments, too, but there will be some gold in there.
Webostingtalk.com is a forum about web hosting where operators of a lot of small mom-and-pop internet companies discuss these things, as well as people involved with larger operations. There are threads on WHT discussing things in more detail, from people who actually know the difference between single-mode fiber and multimode fiber, and why one might be deployed rather than the other, and what kinds of government policies might influence such choices.
The core problem, as I understand it, is that the thousands of pages of regulations for common carriers are all designed for very mature industries, like POTS. The FCC will say "for the next 20 years, you must provide exactly this grade of service at this cost". It takes a for years to get a new grade of service or a new price approved, so you don't change things every year - more like every 10-20 years. That almost works for railroads and copper phone lines - nothing much has changed in the last 20 years (or 100 years) in the realm of copper phone service - some of the lines are about 100 years old. Do you want your ISP to be providing the same service they did in 1994? Obviously that wouldn't work.
A great example is Google fiber - that would have been all kinds of illegal under a common carrier regulatory regime. That service is GIGABIT - 50X as fast as the competition, for about the same cost as the old cable or DSL. That's exactly the kind of progress we want to promote, not outlaw.
Let's say you wrote a new set of common-carrier style regulations for internet, rather than inheriting most of the POTS bureaucracy. You may recall that for Google Fiber, Google looked for cities where the government would get out of the way and let them get the damn thing built, ASAP. If the FCC were managing ISPs the way they do phone companies, Google wouldn't (couldn't) have deployed quickly in Provo, they would have had to chose a city in Costa Rica or somewhere instead.
Again, I'm not an expert on the wholesale or retail internet market. I commented on the 2257 rules because I did have a useful combination of expertise in that area - and the FCC implemented the suggestions I and others made.
Considering you can't even keep track of the posts and posters you're responding to (I didn't say anything about anarchy or police states, e.g.), much less avoid the most elementary logical flaws, you probably shouldn't be calling people moronic...
Aaah, the axiom of anarcho-capitalism. Disproven innumerable times by history, game theory and present reality, yet if you close your eyes, stick your fingers firmly in your ears and keep on repeating it like a mantra, nothing will seem to be wrong... until you wake op in an Orwellian dystopia.
Please read the first three sentences of my post. Alternatively, read the last three sentences. My post isn't about either common carriers or net neutrality, it's about the FCC rule making process.
If you're interested in my thoughts on those other topics, see the last four paragraphs of this other post:
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
>Just because you have a cable company and a DSL provider doesn't mean you have competition.
No shit. Isn't that what I said?
I have you foed because of your lack of reading comprehension.
--
BMO
My lawn and house are, by definition, on my property, and do not directly affect anything else.
Cables etc. either need to run on private property (requiring government involvement to keep the situation reasonable) or public property (requiring government decisions). If I am to have wired connectivity to extend a few miles to my ISP, it isn't going to be all on my property.
Right now, I get electricity, phone service, water, and natural gas delivered directly to my home. This is done by three regulated monopolies and a city department, all of which work well. I see no reason why last-mile data connections would work any differently.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I am saying "less is more". Or do you think 2.5k pages of Affordable Care Act + 10k pages of follow-on regulatory suppository is a Good Time?
Is this homeopathic economics?
Consumer heal thyself...
Thomas Sowell also said, "'Global warming' is just the latest in a long line of hysterical crusades to which we seem to be increasingly susceptible."
Welfare encourages people to fail. Regulation is a perversion. The world we live in is a cornucopia. Government is bad, Immunizations cause autism. My perspectives are shaped by an open mind, travel, dialogue, and experience, not fear and ignorance. The earth is flat.
I'm confused on the emphasis here.
Are you from LiveJournal?
Because your hangups are so profound you would probably have a breakdown before being able to serve on this evil government committee?
This is an inane argument. It makes me angry. This attitude weakens democracy. It reminds me of people that have never voted but bitch about their elected officials.
What the fuck?
Did they teach you that in civics class? I am pretty confident that the USPS and my municipal ISP are not "out to get me". In fact I am fairly confident that the majority of the people elected to the muni are good people with a sense of civil responsibility (i.e. public servants). Are there some bad eggs? Sure. The fact is we can still hold government more accountable than a Fortune 500 company. I own stock in my government, not Comcast
Maybe you should get some help. Can you show me on this doll where the government touched you?
So by your non sequitur argument... We don't need regulation of the Internet. The problem is that the major ISPs represent monopolies.
If only we had some way to break up these monopolies.or... oh wait, that would be regulation.
Personally, I support making the actual last mile wiring a public utility. Let ISPs share them.
That is the wrong way to do it. The right way is to install a 6" wide publicly owned conduit. That is enough for thousands of fibers. Then let any bonded company pull fiber through it. The government should own the roads, not the trucks.
Using your analogy:
FTTH would be the roads
Installers creating the physical connection would be road maintenance
ISP's would be the trucks/vehicles
Data would be the cargo
It's not just a matter of weight, it's also the tension and maintaining minimum clearance between cables. Not to mention a constant battle with providers claiming someone else's crew damaged their lines.
To get real competition going, you'll want more like 50-100 including some mon-n-pop shops. For that, you really need to lease a public utility line for them to share.
Note that the big package innovators like UPS and FedEx often use USPS for the last mile delivery because it's cheaper than doing it themselves.
The ubiquitous zip code used by all of them plus all those find the nearest whatever web forms was invented by USPS so they could automate sorting and routing.
I have had things damaged by all of the carriers in transit at one time or another. Only USPS didn't try to weasel out of the insurance.
I am as much in favor of net neutrality as anyone, but I totally disagree with this decision.
It would completely stifle creativity - one of the big reasons you have the great content on cable TV...
You lost me here.
What, you don't understand how not allowing cable/sat/telco companies to invest in cable-only TV shows would stifle creativity, or was it a lame attempt at sarcasm about how there's no good cable content?
By cable content, of course, I mean anything NOT broadcast on an over-the-air franchised network like NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, etc. So, all of the shows from AMC, IFC, FX, USA, A&E, TBS, HBO, Showtime, etc. ie. most of the interesting shows on TV today. And since those "cable" channels are only available from cable (or sat/telco, etc) providers, not OTA broadcast (and therefore also not limited to the same ridiculous censorship rules the broadcast networks have to follow), it's in the providers' interests to give you something you WANT that makes it worth paying for. Same model as Netflix and House of Cards.
Of course, this is also why the proposed merger of AT&T and DirecTV, and Comcast and TWC are also horrible for the same reason - few players means more consolidated control over content broadcasting, so it will be more in the hands of the tastes and whims of even fewer executives making the calls.
Have you checked the tracking? Are you sure they didn't just tell you "it's in the mail"?
Not trolling, but how would Google Fiber be illegal under common carrier?
Wifi is too unreliable and slow. Wireless will become a replacement when the latency is sub 10ms and virtual 0 packet-loss while maintain a constant speed.
If I'm transferring 1gb/s and suddenly someone else starts transferring and the available bandwidth drops to 500mb, I'm going to get hit with a mixture of packetloss and latency for the duration of the TCP receive window. Can't have that. VOIP calls to 911 should be reliable, even with other users consuming large amounts of bandwidth, and with no QoS. This will be infeasible with wifi for the foreseeable future.
If the US Postal ran our Internet, we'd have 10gb FTTH, if you want to use an appropriate analogy. US postal is about 1/2 the price of FedEx of UPS when it comes to small parcel Next Day or 2 day, and it comes with more basic features without paying extra. I've also had a better experience with USPS when shipping to friends and family, than FedEx or UPS. USPS is self sustaining without tax support.
That is enough for thousands of fibers
Understatement of the year, think high tens to hundreds of thousands. A little over 500,000 fibers can fit in a 6" pipe, assuming perfect packing. Even 1/2 full would be over 200k fibers. You can purchase 144 strand 1/4" diameter with a trace wire, for something like under $1/foot when you purchase more than 1km at a time.
I am not sure how practical that would be. I would not want to be the person fixing a cut on a main pipe like that. On the flip side of that, I would not want to be the person who cut the fiber because I see red and yellow flags right next to the orange. If you're off by even a few inches, expect a gas leak with a 1400v life wire sending sparks. F*ck'n Darwin your ass.
Must be poorly planned metro areas because fiber is profitable to farms and cabins, where you next neighbor is a mile away.
Explaining why the government should handle the last mile infrastructure is like explaining why the government should handle our justice system. Because somethings are best not left to the "freemarket".
Sure it's profitable if you have a contract signed in advance AND you can afford the up-front. That's the issue, you need big bux up front that pay back over time.
And as for planned, there's an old myth that one day the town founders hitched a plow to a hog and slapped his ass. Where he plowed, they paved.
The government handles our justice system because it involves the use of legal violence.
Comparing that to an ISP is moronic.
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The government handles our justice system because it involves the use of legal violence.
Comparing that to an ISP is moronic.
You'd do just as we defending the government growing all your food and feeding you. And at that point... communism.
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The idea behind treating them as common carriers is that the FCC would then be allowed to set the services they can offer, coverage areas, and what price they can charge*. It takes a few years to go through that process because it's based on calculating the company's cost, bickering about how much profit will be allowed, penalties for operating efficiently and making more profit than planned, etc. It's illegal to offer a regulated service that's not approved, and Google fiber wouldn't be approved.
There are many conditions of approval that Google fiber wouldn't meet. An obvious one is universal coverage - generally you can't just run service to places where a lot of people want to buy it. You have to run lines to each household in the sparsely populated areas if county, to neighborhoods where no customers have preregistered, etc. One can argue about whether or not that was good for copper phone lines, but it simply wouldn't have happened with gigabit fiber. Google would have gone to appropriate areas in Costa Rica or somewhere instead.
Assuming Google managed to work out some agreement about universal coverage, etc. figure that whole process should take 5-10 years and end up with Google running gigabit to all incorporated areas (city limits) whether or not any customers in the neighborhood want it. Those comprises might add 35% to the cost and two years to the deployment. So figure seven years in the approval process and two extra years deploying to different areas in different ways to meet FCC demands - it would be delayed by about nine years total. Nine years delay is "okay" when you're talking about upgrading POTS from party lines to dedicated lines. Nine years is a long time in internet time, though.
* For phone companies, the FCC used to set prices, but a few years ago they turned that over to state boards, so there are 50 negotiations and 50 approval processes required before improving service.
Unfortunately, the USPS is run by congress, which accounts for most of its problems.
Speaking of water the water utility is laying pipeline down the six mile rural road I live on. DSL and cable are only available for the first two miles. Is it possible to put fiber alongside the water pipeline? Satellite internet sucks.
Since there were no real alternatives available and both parties are pretty much the same thing with different labels, different talking heads putting their own particular spin on the same ideas, I guess US based slashdotters should have refrained from voting altogether. I mean both parties are right wing and the only difference is their public image. Care to enlighten the rest of us who you voted for?
Little white buttercup
Lift your right buttock up
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”