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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.
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.
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
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
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.
this is the internet you fool
you get netflix and steal the rest
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.
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.
Since a) It takes 3/5 of the Senate to vote for cloture, and b) there are 53 Senators with the Democratic Party and 2 Independents that caucus with the Democrats, the answer is "a group of at least 5 Republican Senators".
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!
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.
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.
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!!!!
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.
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.
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 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...
#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
Since a) It takes 3/5 of the Senate to vote for cloture, and b) there are 53 Senators with the Democratic Party and 2 Independents that caucus with the Democrats, the answer is "a group of at least 5 Republican Senators".
Technically the answer is "whichever Senator said (s)he's going to filibuster [legislation]"
In other words, the Senate would be humming along just fine with 51 votes if mostly Republican Senators didn't keep filibustering everything.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
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."
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
I don't think you understand how monopolies work. The majority of Comcast's customers have no alternatives. Where are they going to go? Back to dial-up? There are at best one or two other providers in any given market for internet service, and *none* for cable television. So, Google, Facebook, et al say they won't accept connections from Comcast servers, then ... what? Comcast's customers stop using those companies' services, but don't switch providers. In retaliation, the peering providers that used to trade back all that traffic that those sites were generating stop doing that, so those companies lose even more traffic.
This is the point of a monopoly: they control access, and so they can control how the market functions.
"...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.
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.
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.