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FCC Public Comment Period For Net Neutrality Ends Tomorrow, July 15

Posted by samzenpus on from the use-your-outside-voice dept.

samzenpus (5) writes "The deadline for the FCC's public comment period on their proposed net neutrality rule is coming up fast. The final day to let the FCC know what you think is tomorrow, July 15. A total of 647,000 comments have already been sent. Google, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon and other tech companies are making a final push for net neutrality saying that the FCC decision, "shifts the balance from the consumers' freedom of choice to the broadband Internet access providers' gatekeeping decisions." The Consumerist has a guide to help you through the comment process, so make sure your voice is heard."

69 comments

  1. Next up: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    FCC private bribery period against net neutrality to begin July 16th.

    1. Re:Next up: by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 1

      No that started long ago, it's more of an auction.

    2. Re:Next up: by frovingslosh · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It is important to get in your comments before the former telecommunication lobbyists at the FCC go ahead and do what they have announced they intend to do, give the telecommunication companies the right to charge the Internet companies that you already pay a monthly fee to gain access to . That way they can pretend that they considered all sides of the issue before they let the telecommunication monopolies gouge the suppliers (and indirectly, you)

      --
      I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
    3. Re:Next up: by stephanruby · · Score: 1

      FCC private bribery period against net neutrality to begin July 16th.

      When the head of the FCC is already the top former lobbyist of the industry, then you've got to think the bribery period already ended.

    4. Re:Next up: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      FCC private bribery period against net neutrality to begin July 16th.

      When the head of the FCC is already the top former lobbyist of the industry, then you've got to think the bribery period already ended.

      The bribery period never ends...

    5. Re:Next up: by davester666 · · Score: 1

      More of a monthly installment plan while in office, followed by a monthly installment plan once they leave.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    6. Re:Next up: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, in a auction, only the winner pays.
      In this game, everybody pays.

  2. Don't forget to comment by AndrewBuck · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One of those comments was mine and I encourage others to do the same. The FCC may very well ignore the comments, but the more that there are the more it will show people how corrupt they are. Ignoring 50 comments is one thing, ignoring 650,000 comments is another thing entirely, especially when almost every single one of those comments is opposed to the policy they are proposing.

    Make your voice heard, and even if not heard by the FCC, then let it be heard by your fellow citizens that the FCC won't listen to us anymore. Our government is corrupt but most people don't realize the extent to which it is corrupt. This is a good way to show them.

    -AndrewBuck

    1. Re:Don't forget to comment by zlives · · Score: 0

      +1, also commented

    2. Re:Don't forget to comment by Mr.123 · · Score: 2

      Also commented a few weeks ago. My senator (NY) sent me a couple of follow up emails since. They're canned emails, but at least someone is reading them.

    3. Re:Don't forget to comment by Presto+Vivace · · Score: 1

      As was said above, the more comments there are, the more difficult it will be to ignore them. Every now and then we win one. Let us at least try.

    4. Re:Don't forget to comment by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Tom Wheeler has already assured me that he is a strong supporter of the Open Internet, and will fight to keep the internet open. He even thanked me for sharing my views with him. Now I feel warm and fuzzy.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    5. Re:Don't forget to comment by Kelbear · · Score: 2

      That's a very important point to make, people give up on writing to their politicians because they always get canned responses, but those canned responses (at least in NJ) are relevant to the point of my letters, which meant that a staffer read the letter, understood my position, and had to pull up the relevant response template.

      In the process of doing so, the staffer adds my position to the politician's mail summary to get a sense of where their voter base stands (as only a few voters bother to even write). This doesn't necessarily mean the politician will do what I want, but in their own self-interest they'll weigh the cost of votes from going against their base, against the lobbyist's campaign contribution buying access to substitute votes, thus their mental calculation is still impacted by my letter.

    6. Re:Don't forget to comment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I would be very disappointed if foreign governments have not provided feedback on this issue.

      For example, the Australian government and ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) have regularly had the likes of Adobe and Apple in court for "price gouging" - charging substantially more in Australia for the same digital assets that are provided in the US. (e.g.: Apple charging USD2.99 for something in Australia that's USD0.99 in the US; Adobe charging USD2000 for something that is less than USD300 in the US). If net neutrality is killed, or neutered, it sets a very bad precedent for all telecommunications customers around the world. Plus it sets up the conditions needed for digital asset providers to price gouge with no recourse - "We have to charge more for our digital products in your country because we have to pay more to the telcos for bandwidth to get there."

    7. Re:Don't forget to comment by Vitriol+Angst · · Score: 1

      There are likely another 650,000 who WOULD send FCC a comment but they've learned long time ago that the Corporatocracy doesn't care about public comments.

      This is just a pretense of the dog and pony show, and the only metric they care about is; "How far can we push before the Pitchforks and Torches" metric.

      --
      >>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
    8. Re:Don't forget to comment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If people are too lazy to sit at their computers and type a brief message detailing their opposition, despite it's dubious utility, then they really get what they deserve.

    9. Re:Don't forget to comment by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · · Score: 1

      I figure it is much like writing my congress critters in that they don't care what I have to say and if I get a response it will probably be patronizing one. At least when it is a congress critter and they send out door knockers I can let them know of the poor experience of receiving a patronizing letter back. Worst example was one of my state reps who sent me a letter thanking me for my support of X when I was actually against X. At least he went door to door himself so I got to let him know what I really thought. I figure that the FCC head will get on TV and explain that an overwhelming of Americans support the new regulations that disallow net-neutrality but at least I made an effort. Also I have contacted my congress critters encouraging them to put forward legislation mandating it but who knows what will come out of that sausage factory.

      --
      Time to offend someone
  3. Dumb question... by nebaz · · Score: 1

    When the FCC proposed net neutrality regulations earlier, which seemed to actually be net neutrality rules, they were sued and the courts said that they didn't have the power to implement these regulations. The regulations going forward, are these the "fast lane" type regulations? If so, the same companies will clearly not sue, but don't they still lack the power to implement these regulations?

    --
    Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
    1. Re:Dumb question... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      The FCC can force this on internet companies by reclassifying their status. The courts agreed with Verizon because internet service providers are classed as information services, which doesn't allow the FCC to regulate them the same way they do other things. It's really a question of whether ISPs are "information services" or if companies like Google and sites like Slashdot are the information services, and Verizon, AT&T, etc are utilities for access to such. It's like asking whether the electric company provides light in your home.

    2. Re:Dumb question... by timrod · · Score: 1

      From what I understand, they have not yet released the new proposed regulations. They're only going to do so once the public comment period passes, and there will still be multiple commentary periods after this one before anything is actually put into force.

      Personally, I don't think they're going to try to continue with the "fast lane". Tom Wheeler may be a former lobbyist, but I think even he has realized that no one wants a "fast lane", as evidenced by 600,000+ comments from the public and members of his own commission speaking out against it as a terrible idea. Tom Wheeler also doesn't want to be known as the FCC chairman who wasted millions of taxpayer dollars defending the lawsuits from Google, Netflix, the EFF, etc if he tries to pass a fast lane.

    3. Re:Dumb question... by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      It's like asking whether the electric company provides light in your home.

      When the electric company sells CFL at a huge discount, I think the answer to this question can honestly be "yes". See here for a $0.99 bulb that appears on Amazon.com for $6.50 (0.01 plus $6.49 shipping).

  4. Re:Win or lose the government will find a way by AndrewBuck · · Score: 4, Informative

    Way to repeat the industry propaganda. Net neutrality does not say anything at all about the upgrades you carry out, all it says is that whether or not the upgrades are done, you can't priveledge one customer over another because that person paid you to speed their traffic and slow others.

    -AndrewBuck

  5. Re:Win or lose the government will find a way by petrus4 · · Score: 2

    Better that, than what the likes of Verizon want. While they are not always, in this particular debate, the Randian demographic are my enemies. This is one case where the corporations have to be stopped, and I am entirely willing to see government or any other available means employed in order to do so.

  6. Misrepresentation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The fundamental problem is that TCP has a notion of "fairness" that is broken and exploitable. Fix that, and most of the pain (and corporate opportunity for tiered gain) goes away. For those interested, try and wrap your head around Flow Rate Fairness. If you want to do more than add some more noise to the Aye vs. Nay shouting, read up and say something sensible, or at least mention the paper to the FCC.

  7. Sick Joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The whole thing is a deception. It's an attempt by government to seize control over Internet communications.

    Net Neutrality originally meant: leave the internet alone, it's been working fine for years.

    Then corporations start to throttle back our bandwidth, and instead of the courts charing them with selling a fraud, or deceptive trade practices, the FCC and Obama come in with a plan to give government control over the internet, and require the ISPs to log your internet activity and just give it to police whenever they ask for it. And of course Mr. Obama and the FCC call this plan "Net Neutrality".

    That's right, they gave it the same name, but it has a completely different meaning.

    1. Re:Sick Joke by AndrewBuck · · Score: 3, Informative

      Wow, yet another industry shill posting as AC to spread propaganda. I think you are the 4th or 5th one in this thread.

      In answer to your misinformation...

      Net Neutrality originally meant: leave the internet alone, it's been working fine for years.

      Yep, and it still does mean that. You can claim it means whatever you want, but the people areguing for common carrier status want exactly this, and nothing more.

      Then corporations start to throttle back our bandwidth, and instead of the courts charing them with selling a fraud, or deceptive trade practices

      I would be very happy to see them do this, unfortunately it would be a tough case to make because they always weasel language into the contract you sign with them saying they can "regulate speed for QOS reasons" and that your speed is "up to" some threshold, etc.

      the FCC and Obama come in with a plan to give government control over the internet, and require the ISPs to log your internet activity and just give it to police whenever they ask for it. And of course Mr. Obama and the FCC call this plan "Net Neutrality".

      This is just ludicrous. In what way is saying to ISPs "you can't discriminate based on who sends the traffic, you have to treat it all equally" equal to "governemnt control over the internet" in the pejorative sense you are intending for it to mean. I guess the government would have some control as all regulations are a form of control, but that is not what you meant. The people arguing for net neutrality want all players to have the same access to the public internet without large entites paying to prevent their data from getting through, so why would they want the government to do exactly the same thing. You were just trying to scare people into doing what the giant corps want, which is to let them screw their customers over by forcing them to pay for a connection and then pay again to make it not suck. Furthermore, your comment about logging on the internet is pretty funny in light of the Snowden leaks. Why would they need to pass a law to "log the internet" when they have been doing exactly that for years. Just more phony scaremongering to confuse people who are not well informed.

      That's right, they gave it the same name, but it has a completely different meaning.

      Nope, that was just the big ISPs and their paid shills who post AC on sites like slashdot. Go crawl back into the hole you came out of. To quote Woodie Guthrie "all you facists are bound to lose". You might win on this one and get the two tiered internet your paymasters want, but the people are slowly learning how badly they are being screwed over and eventually they will wake up and take action.

      -AndrewBuck

  8. Political Absurdism by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 4, Informative

    Quick, do you vote "yes" or "no" on the Jabberwocky?

    This is the most lucid summary I've seen of the current "debate". Quoting:

    The things that bug me most about the net neutrality debate are:

    0) The whole slow lane/fast lane conception is just wrong. Internet traffic looks nothing like vehicle traffic. On roads, you have only a few lanes to put cars in. On the internet, it's more like you break up the cars and trucks into atoms (packets), mix them all together, pour them through various choke points and reassemble them at their destination no matter in what order they arrive.

    Traffic management at these levels IS needed, and managed at a e2e level by a TCP-friendly protocol (generally), and at a router level by queue management schemes like "Drop Tail". Massive improvements to drop tail, fixing what is known as "bufferbloat" with better "active queue management" (AQM) and packet scheduling schemes (FQ) such as codel, fq_codel, RED, and PIE are being considered by the IETF to better manage congestion, and the net result of these techniques is vastly reduced latency across the chokepoints, vastly improved levels of service for latency sensitive services (such as voice, gaming, and videoconferencing), with only the fattest flows losing some packets and thus slowing down - regardless of who is sending them. Politics doesn't enter into it. Any individual can make their own links better, as can any isp, and vendor.

    Some links:

    http://tools.ietf.org/html/dra...
    https://datatracker.ietf.org/d...
    http://tools.ietf.org/html/dra...
    http://tools.ietf.org/html/dra...

    Furthermore individual packets can be marked by the endpoints to indicate their relative needs. This is called QoS, and the primary technique is "diffserv".

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

    There are plenty of problems with diffserv in general, but they are very different from thinking about "fast or slow" lanes, which are rather difficult to implement compared to any of the techniques noted above. You have to have a database of every ip address you wish to manipulate accessed in real time, on every packet, in order to implement the lanes.

    IF ONLY I could see in the typical network neutrality debater a sane understanding and discussion of simple AQM, packet scheduling, and QoS techniques, I would be extremely comforted in the idea that sane legislation would emerge. But I've been waiting 10 years for that to happen.

    We have tested, and have deployed these algorithms to dramatic reductions in latency and increased throughput on consumer grade hardware, various isps and manufacturers have standardized on various versions, (docsis 3.1 is pie, free.fr uses fq_codel, as does streamboost, as do nearly all the open source routing projects such as openwrt)

    I really wish those debating net neutrality actually try - or at least be aware of - these technical solutions to the congestion problems they seek to solve with legislation. I wouldn't mind at all legal mandates to have aqm on, by default. :)

    It makes a huge difference, on all technologies available today:

    https://www.bufferbloat.net/pr...

    See also the bufferbloat mailing lists.

    1) if we want true neutrality, restrictive rules by the ISPs regarding their customers hosting services of their own have to go - and nobody's been making THAT point, which irks me significantly. In an age where you have, say, gbit fiber to your business, it makes quite a lot of sense from a security

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    1. Re:Political Absurdism by Charliemopps · · Score: 2

      I've read that and its total hosrseshit written by a guy that knows nothing of how enterprise networking operates. I know he's saying stuff that you want to believe is true and accurate but the fact of the matter is, he doesn't even know what the real problem is!

      Netflix IS a real problem. Something needs to be done, but Netflix has successfully turned this into a "Net Neutrality" debate... and unfortunately for us all, LOST. There are a dozen different ways of fixing the Netflix problem... most of which would cost Netflix money, so they oppose them. Keep in mind, Netflix doesn't give a damned about Net Neutrality, they care about money, just like any other corporation on earth. They could change their business model tomorrow to one that wasn't crushing the ISP's infrastructure but they have time and again refused to do so.

    2. Re:Political Absurdism by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      its total hosrseshit written by a guy that knows nothing of how enterprise networking operates.

      heh - the guy is one of the leading experts on computer networking. I notice you don't even have a link to your CV on your user page. Wanna be specific?

      They could change their business model tomorrow to one that wasn't crushing the ISP's infrastructure but they have time and again refused to do so.

      You mean like offering settlement-free peering and free content caches to ISP's?

          https://www.netflix.com/openco...

      C'mon, the ISP's don't want to charge customers for what they're using or let Netflix compete with their video on demand services, and the Tier-2 ISP's don't want to give Netflix settlement-free equal access when they're stuck between a bellicose ISP and Netflix (but are generally willing to give them a lower QoS quality).

      Wait, do you work for Verizon?

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    3. Re:Political Absurdism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then how do you explain the Level 3 data? The major ISPs got caught red-handed throttling Netflix traffic until the extortion was paid (Comcast in this case). Days later everything was running smooth as a baby's ass. So how can you seriously make an argument that all the blame lies on Netflix' shoulders when the ISP's customers are paying for the bandwidth to receive the content?

      Let's say there was a burden. If the ISPs aren't willing to upgrade their networks then their business model is the problem, not how the internet works. And according to the data it looks like the ISPs infrastructure isn't that bad off anyway, they were simple messing with the traffic to extort payments from content providers.

      TL;DR: WTF are you talking about?

      http://blog.level3.com/global-...

    4. Re:Political Absurdism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He (charliemopps) has said in the past that he works for a smaller ISP. They're probably cash strapped so equipment costs are most likely a major cost center for them. Of course that doesn't make the whole rant against content providers (like Netflix) hold any water.

      Given everything we now know about the motives of the larger ISPs, the picture is much clearer on how they plan to use net neutrality as a new revenue source. For smaller ISPs it's probably different; it's a matter of survival so they need to simply adapt a better business model or die. Crying and moaning about Netflix isn't going to do much.

    5. Re:Political Absurdism by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      I agree with some of the earlier post that net neutrality is not well understood by the public, or the legislators. But it's not the whole picture. There's a gut-level understanding of net neutrality that people like but have difficulty expressing.

      To me, the fundamental issue is that company X, when it is operating as a network provider, can not favor its own services and media or that of its friends in preference to company Y's services and media. That is Comcast should never make Netflix (or Hulu, or Youtube, or AT&T U-verse media) have lower performance than other equivalent services from Comcast (except of course in cases where the Comcast media is stored relatively local and thus can be provided more efficiently for technical reasons). So an internet service provider side of the business must be kept independent of the rest of the business, or else be split off.

      On the other hand, Comcast should not be required to provide all traffic for no cost. If some new company or paradigm comes along that doubles their bandwidth then the cost shouldn't be born by Comcast, but by the new providers AND by the customers who want that bandwidth. A problem here is the single price model that is not really charging end users for what they're actually using but which was naively assuming every user has similar usage patterns (there are multiple prices of course but they are usually based on speed and not quantity of data).

    6. Re:Political Absurdism by geekoid · · Score: 1

      wrong.
      Netflix pays for their bandwidth. I pay for mine. Now Verizon, AT&T and others want to get paid a third time.

      " Netflix doesn't give a damned about Net Neutrality,"
      And AT&T, doesn't? Verizon? Google?

      "they care about money"
      well dur. But both of those aren't opposite.
      You notice companies that will make money either way are still jumping in and saying AT&T and verizon is wrong?

      " They could change their business model tomorrow to one that wasn't crushing the ISP's infrastructure "
      it' snot, and the people already pay the ISPs. IF they can't handles it, then they need to get the fuck out of the kitchen.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    7. Re:Political Absurdism by interkin3tic · · Score: 2

      Along those same lines my second grader's report on the civil war was just fucking garbage. I mean, it barely mentioned the manifold reasons behind the civil war. It focused on slavery and BARELY hinted at federalism at all, or the cultural divide. It was only one page long too!

      In seriousness, the point of a metaphor in politics is to dumb something down to a point where people who are ignorant on the issue can be motivated to act in a certain way. "Ignorant" here including myself, I don't really understand QoS (without looking it up on wiki that is). To expect a public discussion to be accurate on anything remotely technical is asking for dissapointment. Or is an attempt to confuse voters into apathy.

    8. Re:Political Absurdism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe I'm missing something but if I pay for a 10Mb/s connection, it doesn't matter if a fancy new paradigm comes along that requires a tripling of that rate to consume their content. All I expect is to receive is data at a max of 10Mb/s. Which Comcast is supplying to me (and supposedly all others on the network) at an agreed-to price per month. To receive the new paradigm rate, Comcast can upgrade their equipment to reliably supply 30Mb/s to all their customers and charge appropriately for users to receive paradigm content.

      It seems to me that's entirely a Comcast business model problem, not a paradigm problem.

    9. Re:Political Absurdism by Zak3056 · · Score: 1

      Then how do you explain the Level 3 data? The major ISPs got caught red-handed throttling Netflix traffic until the extortion was paid (Comcast in this case). Days later everything was running smooth as a baby's ass. So how can you seriously make an argument that all the blame lies on Netflix' shoulders when the ISP's customers are paying for the bandwidth to receive the content?

      Let's say there was a burden. If the ISPs aren't willing to upgrade their networks then their business model is the problem, not how the internet works. And according to the data it looks like the ISPs infrastructure isn't that bad off anyway, they were simple messing with the traffic to extort payments from content providers.

      TL;DR: WTF are you talking about?

      http://blog.level3.com/global-...

      Are you seriously suggesting that congested ports -> Netflix pays for their own direct interconnects -> uncongested ports somehow proves that Netflix was being throttled? Because, frankly, it suggests the opposite to me (i.e. moving lots of traffic to a different interconnect freed up capacity on the original). Your own link shows the general congestion: see this graph.

      You can, quite easily, make the argument that Comcast (or Verizon, or whoever the peer in question is) let that situation fester until it resulted in their "winning" a new customer (Netflix) from level3, but certainly not that their traffic was being treated differently from anyone else's.

      --
      What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
    10. Re:Political Absurdism by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      That is Comcast should never make Netflix (or Hulu, or Youtube, or AT&T U-verse media) have lower performance than other equivalent services from Comcast (except of course in cases where the Comcast media is stored relatively local and thus can be provided more efficiently for technical reasons).

      The problem with that is that Comcast's "equivalent service" (On-Demand) uses technically different delivery mechanisms than Netflix service. On Demand appears as a regular cable channel to the end user. In fact, until a few months ago, Comcast in this area delivered it as an unencrypted channel, and anyone with an ATV with clearQAM could view it. This was after they changed to encrypting all but a very few cable channels.

      So, that's why a clogged pipe to Netflix wasn't also a clogged pipe to On Demand. And net neutrality won't change that at all. Nor would forcing Comcast to divest of the ISP part of the service.

    11. Re:Political Absurdism by Charliemopps · · Score: 1

      I see you're falling for netflix's marketing.

      Look at their rules governing use of those peers. You can't use them to deliver content outside of their immediate geographical area. Which are only in major cities (NewYork, Chicago, etc...) which are not where congestion problems are. Congestion problems are in rural Tennessee... Kansas, etc...

      On top of that, the majority of the problem is NOT at the peer. Where the ISPs are really getting screwed is in the last mile. Upgrading that is insanely expensive. We're talking millions... If there are hundreds of people off that remote... fine, that's doable. But many remotes at that distance only have a few dozen people on them tops. If you've got 50 people paying $30/month are you going to spend millions of dollars to upgrade that device? No, of course not. But that doesn't matter, most people don't all get on the internet all at the same time and pegging their bandwidth... and along comes Netflix...

      If Netflixed alloed local caching, with their own software... problem solved. The codes already out there, they could patch it over night. But they refuse.

    12. Re:Political Absurdism by Charliemopps · · Score: 1

      Then how do you explain the Level 3 data? The major ISPs got caught red-handed throttling Netflix traffic until the extortion was paid (Comcast in this case). Days later everything was running smooth as a baby's ass. So how can you seriously make an argument that all the blame lies on Netflix' shoulders when the ISP's customers are paying for the bandwidth to receive the content?

      Let's say there was a burden. If the ISPs aren't willing to upgrade their networks then their business model is the problem, not how the internet works. And according to the data it looks like the ISPs infrastructure isn't that bad off anyway, they were simple messing with the traffic to extort payments from content providers.

      TL;DR: WTF are you talking about?

      http://blog.level3.com/global-...

      Are you seriously suggesting that congested ports -> Netflix pays for their own direct interconnects -> uncongested ports somehow proves that Netflix was being throttled? Because, frankly, it suggests the opposite to me (i.e. moving lots of traffic to a different interconnect freed up capacity on the original). Your own link shows the general congestion: see this graph.

      You can, quite easily, make the argument that Comcast (or Verizon, or whoever the peer in question is) let that situation fester until it resulted in their "winning" a new customer (Netflix) from level3, but certainly not that their traffic was being treated differently from anyone else's.

      This is standard in these contract negotiations. I work with them from time to time.
      "Pay up or we're shutting you off!"
      well... we're working on some stuff...
      *throttle to 20%*
      woaaaa there guys, we were just kidding, where do we sign?

      You might not like it, but that's HOW it's done in the industry. The ISPs treat each other in the same way. I'd agree that the FCC should regulate this market better. Software vendors do the same sort of things.

    13. Re:Political Absurdism by Charliemopps · · Score: 1

      I agree with some of the earlier post that net neutrality is not well understood by the public, or the legislators. But it's not the whole picture. There's a gut-level understanding of net neutrality that people like but have difficulty expressing.

      To me, the fundamental issue is that company X, when it is operating as a network provider, can not favor its own services and media or that of its friends in preference to company Y's services and media. That is Comcast should never make Netflix (or Hulu, or Youtube, or AT&T U-verse media) have lower performance than other equivalent services from Comcast (except of course in cases where the Comcast media is stored relatively local and thus can be provided more efficiently for technical reasons). So an internet service provider side of the business must be kept independent of the rest of the business, or else be split off.

      On the other hand, Comcast should not be required to provide all traffic for no cost. If some new company or paradigm comes along that doubles their bandwidth then the cost shouldn't be born by Comcast, but by the new providers AND by the customers who want that bandwidth. A problem here is the single price model that is not really charging end users for what they're actually using but which was naively assuming every user has similar usage patterns (there are multiple prices of course but they are usually based on speed and not quantity of data).

      You're right, as far as I'm concerned net neutrality should be a given. The problem is, the netflix issue doesn't have to be about that. There are other ways to solve that problem but Netflix has steered the argument into a corner. Fix NETFLIX, don't torpedo the internet to do it.

    14. Re:Political Absurdism by Charliemopps · · Score: 1

      Right, all the cable channels flow in one set band... internets on another. Entirely different services.

    15. Re:Political Absurdism by Zak3056 · · Score: 1

      The problem with your position is that L3's own data shows the port at over 100% utilization. They're not being throttled, they're trying to shove ten pounds of shit into a five pound bag.

      Like I said, you can point fingers at whoever the peer is for letting the situation fester, but L3's own data suggests this was passive aggressive rather than active malice.

      --
      What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
    16. Re:Political Absurdism by Charliemopps · · Score: 1

      wrong.
      Netflix pays for their bandwidth. I pay for mine. Now Verizon, AT&T and others want to get paid a third time.

      Well, so this is hard to answer... Of course they want to get paid 2 or 3 or 4 times for the same product. They are greedy companies.
      But they didn't go out and try to do that. Netlfix refused to deliver their content in a responsible manner. They tried a few different ways to make Netflixes poor business practices "cost" netflix money... Netflix fought and won... then they tried charging for peering... and it stuck. Then the ISPs thought... hey, this is a new business model! I, personally, fully support net neutrality but even if it were codified into law, something would have to be done about Netflix and its irresponsible behavior. They are effectively DDOSing the ISPs network every Friday/Saturday evening. You can whine and complain that everyone should have fiber and 1gig connections and point at other countries... but you live HERE, and someone has to pay for that upgrade. If you want everyone to be able to use full bandwidth at the same time 24/7 then either your bills going up but a factor of 10 (i.e. pay for a commercial line), or your speeds going down to dialup speeds.

      " Netflix doesn't give a damned about Net Neutrality,"
      And AT&T, doesn't? Verizon? Google?

      No they don't. What's your point? If YOU care about Net Neutrality, fix Netflix... then the ISPs wont have as much of an incentive to pursue this. Netflix really is hurting the ISPs... I see the data every day. It's huge problem for them.

      IF they can't handles it, then they need to get the fuck out of the kitchen.

      Trust me, they will. I work for an ISP and watch rural exchanges get given away for free to other ISPs to relive themselves of the financial burden. Sometimes they just walk away from the city all together. I can't really get into where... that stuff is under NDA. But it does happen. I even saw a cable company PAY another company to take an exchange because they were under franchise agreement. It costs a lot of money to keep up a copper network in a 30k person city. Then you get local governments threatening to install fiber only in the business park (the only profitable part of town)? Hell no...

    17. Re:Political Absurdism by Charliemopps · · Score: 1

      Wait, do you work for Verizon?

      I missed this question. Sorry!
      No!
      But I do work for a large(ish) ISP.
      Never for Verizon, but I did apply once. They offered me a job, but their HR department was so incredibly inept I turned them down. I interviewed with 100 other people in some kind of crazy game show style test interview thing. Most insane noensense I've ever been through in an interview... that was a LONG Time ago though.

      I'll not reveal my current employer but I doubt you'd have heard of them. I did work for AT&T about 10yrs ago. That's a crazy place to work. It's like working for the government. No one works, everyones union, you spend more time dealing with union nonsense than you do working. At least... thats what it was like back then.

    18. Re:Political Absurdism by complete+loony · · Score: 1

      QoS and traffic management can help you cope with a bottleneck and still get some important traffic through. But it can only work by choosing which traffic to drop. Who should decide what traffic is most important? What if your customers start using a new high bandwidth service? Why do you get to decide that this traffic is unimportant and should be dropped?

      There is only one equitable solution to this problem. Upgrade the network so that the choke point no longer exists and no traffic needs to be dropped at all. This may mean laying more fiber, upgrading routers, or striking a deal with the biggest producers of data so they can completely bypass the choke point.

      But there are often at least two companies involved in the negotiations, (Netflix, Comcast, Cogent, Verizon, ...) and none of them want to pay for the upgrades. So what do you do then? Should we force ISP's to upgrade network links at their expense, passing the costs on to their customers? (IMHO, yes). Or should ISP's be able to strong arm everyone else to pay for the upgrades?

      That is the fundamental argument.

      --
      09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
    19. Re:Political Absurdism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For the record...

      "1) if we want true neutrality, restrictive rules by the ISPs regarding their customers hosting services of their own have to go - and nobody's been making THAT point, which irks me significantly."

      My name ain't nobody, and I sent 53 pages of that point to the FCC via the Kansas Attorney General. Of course it tooks pictures of children holding picket signs in Utah to get google to back off to the point of 'non-commercial server/service hosting allowed'. Which I consider a technical part1 sherman antitrust violation, but whatever...

      http://www.wired.com/2013/07/google-neutrality/

    20. Re:Political Absurdism by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      . If you've got 50 people paying $30/month are you going to spend millions of dollars to upgrade that device? No, of course not. But that doesn't matter, most people don't all get on the internet all at the same time and pegging their bandwidth... and along comes Netflix...

      So, customers are using much more of the service, increasing costs, and you don't want to charge them for what they're using? That seems like the problem right there. I'd love for my electric company to give me all the power I can use for a fixed cost, but boy would they get screwed on that deal.

      If Netflixed alloed local caching, with their own software... problem solved. The codes already out there, they could patch it over night. But they refuse.

      Why is an Open Connect appliance not viable as a cache?

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  9. The devil you know by zeroryoko1974 · · Score: 1

    The devil you know vs the devil you don't. Both sides are the devil and we know them equally well, the Government and the Corporations

  10. Google Doodle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Google obviously cares about this issue. At the same time Google is a large organization with disparate divisions that don't always communicate well. If you're on Google's side in this (that the FCC's proposed regulation is too weak, I believe), you should email the Google Doodle team at proposals@google.com suggesting that they doodle it on the homepage. The doodle's increase traffic to certain sites significantly, and raise awareness of issues in a way that a post on Slashdot (unfortunately) can't. I've already emailed them and hope more do. Just an Idea.

  11. What's the point... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not like they even care what you have to say. It will pass and there's nothing you can do about it. That's what you get for allowing Lobbying and what not in the US.

  12. Wrong by bussdriver · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Like most every political issue in the dysfunctional USA discourse, we have multiple off topic debates created as distractions from the real issues. Some of it promoted intentionally. I wouldn't expect comcast to stop at merely paying bums off the street to fill up public comment time at the FCC (as they have done, proving they have no respect for democracy.)

    This is not about technical packet routing but the policies beyond the technical issues. Comcast purposely screwing up NetFlix in order to make them pay and then pass that onto their customers as a Comcast tax. You pay for bandwidth, NetFlix pays for bandwidth. If both of you use the full amount of bandwidth you are promised and PAY FOR and the ISPs can't deliver on their marketed promises... then that is a legal issue for the ISPs making the false claims.

    This is also an issue of corporations playing favoritism with those packets. It doesn't matter if your car is broken down into atoms and sent in one big data flow -- when the corporation IDs all the atoms for your car and does not like your destination then slows down only your atoms... it doesn't matter what technical router issues they can dream up as an excuse for intentional discrimination which is not based upon neutral technical issues (like SIP needing priority.) That is smokescreen for their real agenda... to turn internet into cable TV.

    --
    Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
  13. The FCC needs to classify ISP's as common carriers by Presto+Vivace · · Score: 2

    for those who might be interested in a sample comment, my comment to the FCC.

  14. FTFY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "FCC Public PLACATION Period For Net Neutrality Ends Tomorrow, July 15"

  15. Re:Win or lose the government will find a way by AndrewBuck · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Again with the propaganda. Analogies are useful, but only to a point and your analogy has gone past the point. You are perfectly allowed to pay more to get a bigger pipe or lower latency today; that already exists, just go shopping for bandwidth and you will see many options. What you are not allowed to do is pay more to make sure your competitors have a smaller pipe, or higher latency.

    To use your analogy, you are allowed to spend as much as you want and buy as big of an engine as you want, but you are not allowed to spend money to make sure the guy you are racing against has a smaller engine.

    I really do wonder what the motivation for all these AC posts is. Are they just misunderstanding the issue and posting anon because they are afraid of being downmodded, or are they paid industry shills whose job is not to win the argument, just to muddy the water enough that people get confused?

    -AndrewBuck

  16. Re:The FCC needs to classify ISP's as common carri by AndrewBuck · · Score: 2

    Interesting idea sharing your actual comment. Here is mine (link is to a small pdf from the fcc site showing the text of the comment):

    http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/docum...

    Others are welcome to read the comment to get ideas for what to write but I don't recommend copy-pasting my comment as your own. Write it in your own words and say why it affects you personally. Getting 20 real, independantly written comments with personal stories matters more than getting 100 copy pasted comments. These orgs are used to getting hundreds of identical comments from groups like moveon.org and such which encourage people to "write their representatives, and to make it easy for you here is what to write..." and those are too easy to ignore.

    -AndrewBuck

  17. The worst thing about all this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...is that all that will happen if Net Neutrality wins the day again is the big companies will try again in a few months, just as they already tried many times before this. Eventually, everyone will be too fatigued from these gotta-fight-it episodes, and then it will be all over.

    How many times do we have to tell them "no" before the decision gets locked and we don't have to repeat this again?

  18. True impact? by Dega704 · · Score: 1

    I most definitely left a comment and I would do it again, but at the same time my pessimistic side wonders how much weight our comments carry compared to the opinions of the FCC commissioners' golf buddies from the ISPs.

  19. Re:The FCC needs to classify ISP's as common carri by Vitriol+Angst · · Score: 1

    "too easy to ignore" -- well I'm sure there is also a lot of "ballot stuffing" from astroturf groups and opinion shapers -- but I figure that the FCC wants to quietly pass a ruling and then cash in when they work as million dollar "consultants" for the industry they just gave a big fat kiss.

    --
    >>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
  20. fcc.gov slashdotted? by dbreeze · · Score: 1

    Took me several attempts to finally get my comment submitted and I still can't verify the filing status..... i hope all of you are givin' 'em hell.....
    Tell me if i need to amend/edit my comment...

    begin"
    This quote from consumerist.com expresses my view fairly well....
    "There was a time, not very long ago, that Internet access was viewed as a luxury. The same was once true for running water, sewage, heat, electricity, and telephone landline service. But as use of each of these services evolved into essential utilities, regulators recognized that standards were needed to try to ensure equitable and safe access.

    Reclassifying broadband as a telecommunications service isn’t simply about working out a way to create net neutrality rules that stick; it’s about recognizing the reality that broadband is an integral and essential utility relied upon by both individual citizens and the companies they patronize and for whom they work. "

    Here's an insight I would add...
    I remember an interview shortly after the OKC bombing in which a reporter located a southern militia leader to get some insight into the cause of that trajedy. One of the last questions the reporter asked was "...where is the next Timothy McVeigh?". The militia leader thought for a moment, and then replied, "I can't tell you where the next McVeigh is, but I can tell you how to find him...... Keep tightening the screws on the American people..."

    The "occupy movement" was but a foreshadow of a revolution waiting. Many of us have remained on the sideline largely because we have some confidence that the information we need to make intelligent decisions is still available to those who seek it. Once I, and many others, perceive that the free flow of information has been infringed upon, you will see a sleeping giant rise from its slumber and go forth to remove those who chose to disturb it and prosecute and confine those so deserving. Anyone who subjugates my God-given, constitutionally-enumerated rights to their love of money deserves prosecution and confinement.
    Don't screw this up.....
    "end

    --
    When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law he tore his robes.2Kings22:11
  21. Re:Next up: 9:50PM (PDT) - GCC site down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Figures.

  22. Re:Next up: 9:50PM (PDT) - "FCC" site down by ebusinessmedia1 · · Score: 1

    It still figures!

  23. Slow Website by Jaysu · · Score: 1

    I am unable to post because the website will not load. I have tried several times this morning. Is anyone else having trouble?

    --
    It has been said that 63% of all statistics are made up
  24. does not work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nice coding FCC

    "could not inspect JDBC autocommit mode"

  25. SITE DOWN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The FCC comment site has been sluggish to down all morning.

  26. Deadline has been extended by Aleeb · · Score: 1

    The FCC extended the comment deadline, allowing comments to be filed until midnight Friday, July 18. https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_pub... (Needless to say, this will result in a thrash about whether that's the midnight at the beginning or the end of Friday, July 18.)