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Bill Would Ban Paid Prioritization By ISPs
jfruh writes In the opening days of the new U.S. Congress, a bill has been introduced in both the House and Senate enforcing Net neutrality, making it illegal for ISPs to accept payment to prioritize some traffic packets over others. But the sponsors are all Democrats, and with Republicans now in charge of both house of Congress, the chances of it passing seem slim.
But the sponsors are all Democrats, and with Republicans now in charge of both house of Congress, the chances of it passing seem slim.
WooHoo!
On another note, whenever those assholes work together, Watch out! Like when the PATRIOT act was passed. Or when the criminal Wall Street crooks were given a free ride and bonuses to boot at taxpayer expense.
And where were the Teabaggers then? Nowhere.
But there was plenty of those people condemning the Occupy Wall Street kids! Who were protesting against taxpayer money waste!
Fox News watching morons.
Depending on how they word the "paid for" portion this could be a better bills then most of the other bills. Provided that it allow customers to pay for and allow the ISPs to block some types of traffic.
Funny. Their actions would suggest they believe in pork barrels.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"That's because Republicans believe in the free market not communism."
Funny, the current bunch Ds are typically to the right of Reagan.
And no, the Rs aren't in favor of any kind of free market either. And "free markets" don't exist, ever - they are an imaginary construct much like "friction free inclined planes" in physics.
--
BMO
Credit where credits due, the actual bill itself (linked in the article) is only 4 pages in total and although IANAL it does seem to be straightforward and to the point. It also generously defines "edge provider" as
(A) any content, application, or service over the Internet; or
(B) a device used for accessing any content, application, or service over the Internet.
Maybe someone with a bit more knowledge can poke a hole in it, but in this age of 1000+ page bills that no-one seems to have the will to read it's a nice change.
I didn't know Bill Gates had the ability to control ISPs in this way.
I've not been a fan of previous "Net Neutrality" efforts, because they didn't seem likely to fix the problem. This, however, is great. It totally undercuts the ISP extortion racket, without trying to fix a technical problem.
The big ISPs can always find a loophole in any law that tries to prevent throttling by some technical rules - that's what engineers do: we game a system to maximize some value. Bad approach. By instead saying "do whatever, but you can't charge money for priority access simply removes the incentive to do it in the first place. Good approach.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Exactly, the free market. If you don't like what your broadband provider is doing, just switch to one of the many other offerings in your area!
If the Democrats wanted this to pass, they would have brought the bill to floor when they had a chance of it actually passing. Far too many in the Democratic party are in the pockets of those that won't let this pass, but by bringing it up now, it can look like the Republicans are the bad guys.
Which, they are. Both parties are opposed to net neutrality. But this bill is just there for grandstanding. The Democrats could have made net neutrality happen MANY times in the last few years, so this is just to try to smear team red, even though team blue agrees with them totally on this issue.
The Republicans believe in "free" market that helps the most powerful Corporations.
Oddly enough, Net Neutrality is about protecting and strengthening the free market such that it remains free and competitive.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
No, Net neutrality is a routing policy about how to prioritize packets that people can choose to implement.
Using the government to mandate it upon everyone, under threat of legal action, whether it's a good solution or not, is an entirely different issue.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
and with Republicans now in charge of both house of Congress, the chances of it passing seem slim.
To preface, this is not a partisan-based slam. This is a slam on our entire system. The fact that we accept something won't pass despite it being universally wanted by "the people" (not pronounced "corporations") shows our biggest hurdle that we as a country need to overcome. Not race/gender equality or financial disparity, but the ability of this country to be propelled forward by a system that is representative to the needs of the many, not the powerful.
This bill does nothing to address that problem.
Which is exactly why the ACA was passed in the 80s.
Seriously, what the fuck? Do any of you even remember Reagan?
I can't tell if you're intentionally being ironic or not, considering the vast majority of ISP offerings in any given area of the US are essentially monopolies.
a routing policy that protects and strengthens a competitive free market among internet based services and companies.
im well aware of what NN is.
and one aspect of its implications is that big fish cant pay for preferential treatment or an unfair advantage, allowing upstart "internet startups" a fair shot as taking on goliath. the task of a startup taking on an existing leviathan is hard enough on a level playing field, just by virtue of being a tiny nobody going against a big somebody, but its everyones interests to preevnt Goliath from stopping David from even born. And that is one aspect and implication of a sound NN policy.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
The chance of anything passing that doesn't 1) benefit corporations, or 2) benefit defense contractors and the military are very slim. I have to agree with other posters that the Republicans aren't the only ones to blame. Most politicians seem to be in bed with corporate America (Elizabeth Warren and some others seem to be rare exceptions).
really, its not that hard a concept to grasp why NN helps free market ideals.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
The problem of insuring that rent seekers don't destroy the value of an open Internet is a collective action problem because it's in each ISP's interest to tax the hell out of usage as heavily and as _opaquely_ as possible(i.e. suppress pricing feedback so consumers, even if they had a choice, wouldn't know when to exercise it), even if when all ISPs do this the overall wealth creation is less.
The solution to collective action problems is government. Government is therefore the ideal institution to impose net neutrality.
Net neutrality channels profiteering into a more transparent and efficient mode of economic activity. It's an extraordinarily simple rule, and so the regulatory cost is de minims.
If you want to refute the argument, you need to either 1) show that an open Internet is less efficient at generating wealth than one that is heavily tolled, or 2) show that the problem is not a collective action problem in actuality.
Obviously there are all kinds of theoretical approaches: dramatically open up radio spectrum so it becomes cheaper for new ISPs to enter the market, mandate transparency in tolling practices, etc, so that consumers can easily and rapidly switch ISPs. But that's a pipe dream.
In practice net neutrality is the simplest and cheapest way to address the problem. Maybe in 100 years things will be different and we can drop the rule.
So the dedicated traffic for LoL wont be allowed?
I guess West Coast players remain fucked.
http://boards.na.leagueoflegen...
Netflix offered to add hardware to solve the problem, and Verizon said no unless you pay.
So it was not a hardware problem
Comcast then went and did the same thing.
Netflix offered to pay for the hardware to fix it, the carriers said no. Took money without updating any hardware, and the problem was fixed overnight.
Peering my ass.
Imagine you have cell service where your access to the nearest tower is determined by how much you pay and you get dropped when higher priority customer wants access to a full cell.
Oh, it's the free market.... Tough Shit, right?
Nothing wrong with libs pulling the curtain back to reveal who on the votes on the opposite side of the moral spectrum. It's good showmanship. Don't worry the Bill will never see a vote.
Not sure where you were going with that, but the bridge to nowhere was sponsored by Republicans.
Then maybe you can list some Republicans who object to the currently widespread practice of cities forcing businesses and developers to provide more parking than the market wants and is willing to pay for of its own accord? Are there any true laissez-faire Republicans in Congress?
No, Republicans quickly turn into socialists whenever it benefits Big Oil.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
good call. that was a huge mistake on my part. Thanks for pointing that out.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Reagan was staunchly conservative when it came to the traditional issues of opposing labor unions, government regulation, and detente with the communists.
It can be argued, however, that many current liberals (whether or not stylized "neoliberal"), and particularly the dominant powers in the Democrat party, are to the right of Reagan when it comes to economic policies such as free trade, an independent central bank, a balanced budget[1], etc.
But that's a good thing, in my book. The default predisposition should be to support those things. That the Democratic Party does support those things in practice (despite all the rhetoric by both parties, and the hand waving by Republicans) makes it all the easier to vote Democrats into office.
[1] Vice President Cheney was fond of saying "deficits don't matter", and the GOP followed his lead for nearly 8 years. He got that idea from Reaganites and so-called supply-side economists.
the current bunch Ds are typically to the right of Reagan
Do any of you even remember Reagan?
What do you mean? We are awash in staunchly pro-life, tax cutting, government bashing, communist hating Democrats that want to aggressively expand military spending, appoint moderates like Rehnquist and Scalia, outlaw hiring of illegal immigrants and casually joke about nuking the Soviets on live radio.
You can't swing a cat without hitting one of these right wing Democrats.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
I believe you need a slight correction: Conservatives believe in the free market. Many republicans are not conservatives.
Love sees no species.
The free market requires that you can get your goods to the market. Allowing a cartel to stand in the way of getting your goods to market is anti free market, not pro free market.
It would be great if we could have an actual debate, on actual solutions, to actual problems.
Thing is though, on this and many other issues, the politicians/parties don't believe there's a problem, won't propose solutions, and try to shut down, derail, or otherwise prevent actual debate by distorting the issues.
I would love it if the debate were between Republicans proposing measures to actually increase real competition, versus Democrats proposing measures to prevent the various companies from screwing over their customers. A situation like that, where most of the politicians were actually advocating for what the average citizen wants/needs, would be pretty close to ideal, and the outcome would at least be a reasonably close solution.
At least the Democrats in this case are trying to suggest solutions. We need Republicans that recognize there's a problem and propose solutions, too.
Our state allows wealthy drivers to pay extra for the convenience and speed of the Express Lane. How is paid prioritization of Internet bandwidth any different?
Not sure where you were going with that, but the bridge to nowhere was sponsored by Republicans.
In this case, it doesn't matter if they're Republicans or Democrats. AT&T is a major purchaser of votes in Congress. This has no chance of passing. The people sponsoring it know that and are still doing it so they can campaign on it.
In other words, it's a dog-and-pony show.
It is beneath the dignity of the slashdot front page.
No, really.
He also expanded the size of government, raised taxes, granted amnesty to undocumented immigrants and benefited mostly from a monetary policy put in by Paul Volcker during the Carter Administration. If it hadn't been for the tough love policy re: the dollar and tightening money, there would have been no "Reagan Recovery".
Not to mention that he listened to astrologers and pissed in a diaper. He also invaded Grenada because he wanted to make sure he went down in history as a victorious wartime president. Who pissed in a diaper and talked to astrologers.
Fuck Ronald Reagan. I hope there's an afterlife just because I want him to be suffering in hell, where he certainly went after he fucked the United States for generations.
You are welcome on my lawn.
No, conservatives don't believe in any specific political ideology. Conservatives believe in slow to no change, preferring to err on policies that return us to the way things used to work.
In truth, the GOP is composed of right wing politicians, many of them extreme right wing. While they claim to support free enterprise, in reality they push for less government, which, as a side-effect, means fewer regulations for business. Don't be fooled, though, it's only a side-effect.
This.
And, if we put profits first, but make that "We The People"'s profit, net neutrality is not a partisan subject.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
No the bill be be poisoned by some paid for congressman/women by adding some stupid addition that has nothing to do with the actual bill. THEN the finger pointing will begin. Its there fault, not its your fault. and so goes another few years of political bullshit.
Jack of all trades,master of none
You need to vote for candidates that aren't owned by the financiers, and you have to stop reelecting the ones who are. It's pretty straight up.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
...Republicans quickly turn into socialists whenever it benefits Big Oil.
No. Both factions turn into 'socialists' whenever it benefits Big Business. Do not single out the republicans. You're just playing their game.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
If we addressed the real problem which is ISP monopolies we probably wouldn't have a problem with net neutrality.
The Official Site of 1337 Pwnage
And "free markets" don't exist, ever - they are an imaginary construct much like "friction free inclined planes" in physics.
Exactly. Adam Smith, the guy who invented the term in the 1700's, argued that it was the job of Government to do its best to regulate markets to keep them as "free" as possible. Previously, government action mostly consisted of helping the rich and connected build and protect their market monopolies. Sound familiar?
Nice try, but you're doing it wrong. I don't pay to send the internet.
Ending network neutrality would be more like you paying to ship me something overnight express, but unless I pay on top of what you already paid to send me the package, the package gets shipped media mail. No, you don't get your money back. Yes, you're paying for a service you have no hope of receiving.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
So if Netflix doesn't like a particular broadband provider they can switch to one of the many others currently connecting the same customer...
Or they could urge their customers to switch to one of the many better providers in their area...
Such revisionist history.
All history is revisionist. Anyone claiming otherwise is trying to sell you something.
But all can't buy edge/cache servers placed directly on a vast amount of ISP premises, which is in fact buying a faster pipe to the consumer (done today by CDNs and services that are big enough to in fact be their own CDN), should that be forbidden then? That would have significant negative impact on many services we take for granted today.
There's nothing wrong with buying a faster pipe to the consumer -- the problem is in buying priority on the existing pipe.
Think of it this way: net neutrality is about having a single set of speed laws that apply to everyone, no matter how much money they pay for insurance/tolls/etc.
On-Prem caching is more like moving some of your company's employees to the county where they work, so that they don't have to travel as many of the roads. Sure, not all companies can do this, but doing it eases the congestion for everyone, which is a good thing.
Healthcare reform, for example. The democrat solution is to just throw money at private insurance companies, when the rest of the developed world long ago set up some sort of universal public coverage system. The democrats are also quite happy to throw money at the military, though perhaps not to the same extent as the republicans.
Conservatives currenly consist of several conflicting ideologies - the political, social and economic conservatives - as described by Tony Perkins, who is himself all three with an emphesis on social. They are held unified by a common political party (republicans) and opponent (Democrats/liberals). This political situation lets them work effectively together even though their ideologies would otherwise conflict on some issues.
Step 1. Talk publicly about freedom, Step 2. Vote only to protect corporate freedom, Step 3. Get reelected and repeat.
Net Neutrality is broad issue that deserves our unyielding support. The Netflix/Comcast debacle is a corner case that is debatable in some respects.
But the sponsors are all Democrats, and with Republicans now in charge of both house of Congress, the chances of it passing seem slim.
Which is why they're introducing it now instead of in any of the last 11 sessions when it might have actually passed. It's a way for them to appear like heroes to their constituents, without actually accomplishing anything (or pissing off their corporate donors).
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
outlaw hiring of illegal immigrants
That's already illegal. It's just not enforced very well, and even when it is, they only prosecute the shell company used for labor by the big developers, who act all shocked that their subcontractors would have hired all those illegals. Even Tompkins Builders did it on a federal building in Richmond. Oh, look I found a reference.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Previously, government action mostly consisted of helping the rich and connected build and protect their market monopolies. Sound familiar?
Yep, sounds like Republicans to me. And Democrats. "Government" in the US means "government by the rich for the rich".
One of the problems is that there are two right-wing parties and no left wing at all. When Republicans froth at the mouth about socialism or communism they haven't a clue about what really is; they just think it's the same thing as government control, forgetting that their governments have been just as controlling as the other incompetents'.
Where the GOP went wrong was in getting into bed with the pro-lifer, fundamentalist, flat-earth, =3, bible-thumping loonies, who are further to the right than Hitler. They need to ditch those associations — a better choice would even have been the libertarians, who despite their own looney ideas on state control are far closer to the original Republican ideal or liberty than Oral Roberts or the Waco flakoes.
Which candidates would those be again?
While obvious in theory, the proposed solution lacks something in the practical application department.
There are two types of national-level candidate these days: owned and crackpot. Sometimes there is overlap.
At this point, I just vote for the candidate who is being paid by the special interests and corporations I dislike the least.
Let's face it. There's no mystery about why this has happened. Increased centralization, expanding governmental involvement, and the sheer growth in the population of the country mean that national campaigns are bigger prizes and more competitive than ever. That causes an arms race which requires a metric fuckton of money to fund campaigns.
Even if the politicians didn't work for corporations or special interests, the fact is that every national representative and especially senator is less and less beholden to any one individual as the population has grown. It's like representing a 100,000 man army on a board with one piece.
If the campaigns and parties can keep people neatly bundled into deliverable packages, you don't even need to care really what they want. Example, the African American population. They're so loyally Democratic, that the Democratic party takes them for granted and the Republicans don't even try. Is it any wonder that there's been little forward progress for that population since the Civil Rights era?
The only solution to this is to break down the responsibilities of a national government and its representatives in to pieces. If there was a right to life, socialist, pacifist, fiscally responsible, technologically inclined voter, and you let him vote for different people to specific specialties, we'd have representation what matched our real preferences. Instead, if he's really, really against abortion, he's now a Republican, despite his pacifism. Or if he was really, really a believer in social programs, he's now a Democrat. However, as you can see, neither party is a comfortable match for what he really believes.
We need to break the current federal government monopoly on every possible policy area, and add elected representation for smaller portfolios.
What about the small startup that wants to deploy a low latency service but can't afford to install a caching server on every street corner like the big corporations do? A paid prioritization scheme would be a good, low cost workaround for these little guys that want to deliver the same snappiness as the big players. Or what about real-time services like VoIP, medical appliances, games, etc that would benefit from prioritization?
The small startup that wants to deploy a low latency service needs to sign agreements with those who they want to provide that service to. Paid prioritization won't give them anything they don't already have, and would likely price them out of the market completely. Real-time services like VoIP aren't affected, as this is a different issue (as has been explained repeatedly, ad nauseum). Medical appliances? If they're depending on ping time or bandwidth for life-critical functions, that's a design flaw. Games? This goes back to your first scenario: games can already use Akamai/Azure/etc. which have local caching. If you discover you've suddenly become really big and those networks can't build out your support anymore... well, then you're no longer a little player and should be able to afford to install your own caching servers (which the last mile ISPs should be more than happy to install).
I'm not sure if you're intentionally conflating the issues, or just unclear what's going on at the technical level. Hopefully it's the second.
Instead of letting these business models work itself out, we want to quash any new innovation while totally ignoring the real problem - zero ISP competition.
You might want to quash any new innovation, but the rest of us want to limit abuse by entrenched players -- abuse which already exists and is well documented, which happens whenever they're not legislated to prevent it. This entrenchment is also used to limit ISP competition, as you can't start up a new ISP without navigating the loops and hurdles erected by the current players. Title II would actually level this playing field, and make things slightly easier for new ISPs, while limiting abuses by the entrenched players. This is because Title II doesn't actually place too many requirements on the service providers until they start building out expensive and complex solutions -- at which point navigating the rules becomes more expensive and complex, which richer and more complex companies should be able to manage with minimal difficulty. It's mostly about transparency and accountability -- the more you do that could hide abusive practices, the more closely you have to report your actions. You can see why the entrenched players don't like this option.
You know, it should raise some eye brows that the biggest proponents of NN are these tech giants like Google and Netflix. They want to regulate the ISPs to keep their own delivery costs down and protect their own bottom line - in the end they don't give any more of a shit about your 'Internet freedom' than the likes of Comcast and Verizon.
Why? Google and Netflix (and Blizzard and TekSavvy) want to regulate the ISPs to prevent double dipping and abuse of a shared resource. Of course they want to keep their own delivery costs down and protect their own bottom lines -- but that's a straw man here. Just as I should not have to pay Google, NetFlix, Comcast and Cox separately to receive one stream of data, neither should any other node on the Internet have to pay to send data over a network that I've already paid to receive. That would be like me paying a toll on a road to get to work, and then the road owners turning around and billing my employer to let me get to work as well -- and then turning around and also billing the separate entity(s) that own the on and offramps to that road. Once I've paid to use that road, other people who want to do business with me shouldn't have to pay for me to use that road as well.
See: the
lol.. you are so funny.
You know, none of that can possibly happen until people vote for politicians that will write the appropriate legislation, and then, if they did, then the problem is solved. See, that's the thing, none of you people think this shit through.
As for 'limiting' the feds, screw that. The corrupt locals are no better. You will just have a bunch of battling little fiefdoms, like in middle age Europe, leading right up to another world war. Travel would be impossible with the resulting border bureaucracies. Do you really want to relive in a pre-civil war USA? Well, maybe if you're a white male, with some property, I would suppose so. For me, there's no time like the present
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The republicans seems to think that you are getting what you paid for, that you are getting the speed and services you pay for so the fast lanes or prioritized access would have to be in addition to that.
There is the problem. Many people are saying this sucks, but not saying the right words. Of course it's hard to get proof your ISP is limiting your speeds to below the package plan they sold you, but start making accusations of fraud and deceptive business practices against them.
Tom Wheeler said when talking about fast lanes, that he didn't have a problem with them as long as the consumer doesn't get cheated. I agree with him, there should be no problem with prioritized packets as long as you are not slowed down or interfered with in order to deliver them. But as soon as you mention that, you get bombarded by idiots who cannot finish reading the comment trying to tell you how wrong you are because they refuse to read the as long as you are not slowed down in the process part.
Of course I think it's already taken care of and existing consumer protection laws would likely cover it. If an ISP slows your connection down to below what you purchase in order to favor someone else', they have committed fraud. and no, the "up to speed" qualifier does not exempt them from anything because the speed will never be faster than what they limit it to. A 2 meg connection will never be the 10 meg sold when they purposely limit it to 2 megs. IT can only be up to 2 meg.
Reality is insane enough without hyperbole, conspiracies, or racism. What AC posted would be much more effective if he left out things like claiming 9/11 was a nuclear attack.
The government will either molest your family or photograph them naked before you are allowed on a plane.
All of your internet and telephone data is being captured by the government.
Torture is de facto legal.
Not only are those things are openly done and accepted, they are explicitly approved of by the populace and questioning them gets you labeled as unamerican, at best.
Talk to your city council FFS. Congress has absolutely no constitutional authority over the issues of parking you just mentioned outside of Washington D.C and it has abdicated most of that to a "city government". Its all a local issues with your local politicians.
Do they not teach government and civics in school any more?
Who is allowing a cartel to stand in your way?
If you purchase 3 apples from me and I only give you 2, is that not fraud? If I constantly short you is that not deceptive business practices (check you state laws)? So if I sell you a contract to mow your yard all summer long when it needs mowed and mow it only once right before fall, did I not enter into both deceptive and fraudulent business practices? How about if I include the magic words, "up to" the end of summer?
So if anyone is selling you internet access and purposely failing to deliver it, how is that a free market? If you think that is happening right now, you probably should complain to the regulatory agencies that you are being cheated (again, check with your state plus the feds for those).
If someone says they're going to deliver a package and they're not, that's fraud.
If you pay for a certain level of service and your ISP doesn't deliver, that's also fraud.
No public policy, no Net Neutrality necessary.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
And when the "problem" can be described as "network provider asks a commercial data source to help pay for upgrading the network connection that the commercial data source is filling up at a profit for the commercial data source", it's not going to be considered a problem this law would help instead of hinder, by many people.
Cogent was willing to pay for the entire hardware cost to upgrade major last mile ISPs' connections to Cogent. The ISPs refused to take Cogent's money, instead demanding rents on top of that.
"deciding to fire practically every air traffic controller"
Um, no. He didn't decide shit. It was the law, and the controllers broke it.
Reagan pissed off the union leadership by getting so many union members to cross over and vote for him. He beat Carter so very badly; it was embarrassing.
So, they put his back against the wall pretty much the moment he came in. It was a win-win for the union leadership and their Democrat bosses. Either Reagan would back down and issue some executive order delaying the mandatory firing of striking Federal employees, or; they would score political points against a mean old Republican for firing hard working patriotic Americans just trying to keep us safe.
They ended up getting option B, and the thousands of dudes that gave up good jobs for that bit of political theater felt a bit screwed afterwards.
Funny. Their actions would suggest they believe in pork barrels.
Some conspiracy theorists claim that U.S. policy is controlled by Jewish bankers. Others say Muslims have too much influence over what they call "Dhimmicrats". Whenever I hear about pork barrel spending, it just reminds me of how wrong these conspiracy theorists are.
Obviously you weren't there.
He was president for 8 years. How could the government not grow if the country did? But in any case, Congress funds the size of government, and the deficit, not the President. And they beat him politically, a lot.
I was making minimum wage, $3.35 an hour, in 1983. Reagan's tax cut took my $125 weekly check to $135. That was a big deal for me. You guys can revise all you want about his 9 tax increases or whatever, I was there.
Cuba was in the process of taking over Grenada, and there were a lot of Americans there. But yeah, Reagan knew the difference between Grenada and Iraq.
Reagan knew enough to generally leave monetary policy alone. He didn't fuck it up like this current guy and one before him.
And also, his peed diaper was probably smarter than you.
Where have you been?
The Feds will withhold grant money, tax money; squeeze a whole state if they have to, until you get on board and comply.
It's cute the way you bring up constitutional authority in this day and age.
Personally, I'm in favor of community fiber. You can drum up support for that locally and actually stand a chance of accomplishing something. Whatever the feds do will be stuffed with pork and by the time it's signed into law, it will be contrary to the original stated purpose of the legislation. Hoping that the Dems or the GOP will actually do something for us is an exercise in futility. We have to try and get it done ourselves, or it isn't happening.
And how would this affect landline telephone service offered by Time Warner and Comcast? Would the law force them to prioritize my Vonage traffic?
When has that ever prevented anyone from objecting to something?
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Federal regulation of the internet? What could possibly go wrong?
The problem of the Comcasts and the TWCs of the world can be solved by abolishing government-granted cable monopolies. "Net neutrality" is a misguided attempt at trying to make a right out of two wrongs.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
So in other words, yes.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Funny this comes up now when the dems don't have power.
Oh well... likely their sponsors don't really like net neutrality either, but they can toss a bone to the electorate who cares and say... see we did something.
[...] there should be no problem with prioritized packets as long as you are not slowed down or interfered with in order to deliver them.
I did read your sentence to completion and I still vehemently disagree with it. At first I thought you were suggesting there be a fast lane as long as there is not a slow lane but, of course, that makes no sense. Then I figured out you are fine with a fast line paid by the sender as long as the slow lane meets some minimum bandwidth requirements. How can the customer complain since they are getting the extra fast line bandwidth "for free"?
One of the many obvious problems with this scheme is that it can quickly devolve to a situation that squeezes out all of the mom and pop content providers (the general public) who can't afford to pay for the fast lane. It reminds me a little of those idiotic "deals" from ISPs that let you lock in your current bandwidth and payment rate for life. As technology improves, increases in bandwidth should far exceed increases in costs.
I admit that in a static situation where my bandwidth to and from certain corporations suddenly increases is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. This seems to be the situation you envision. The problems start when the original static situation evolves over time. You can easily get into a situation where bandwidth to and from certain corporation is basically free while all other bandwidth is exorbitantly expensive. In the US, at least, the last mile is already a big corporate, unregulated rip-off. Why open the door to make it much much worse? The only way it could possibly be feasible would be for massive regulation of the minimum bandwidth and maximum fees of the slow lane. If the fast lane (and especially the slow lane) are unregulated then it will become a consumer nightmare. If you regulate it enough to work so consumers are not "slowed down or interfered with" going forward into the future then it will be a nightmare for everyone and the fast lane will be worth little.
I am also reminded of the RICO laws and things like civil forfeiture where the government can basically steal stuff from you without ever even charging you with a crime. Those bad laws were passed under the guise of "we are only going to use them on the really bad guys". Perhaps those were the intentions when those laws were passed but a few years down the road some police department reads the law carefully and figures out it can be used as a great way to raise sorely needed funding for the department. And, guess what? It is also legal. A rough rule of thumb is that any law that can be abused will be abused eventually. Why needlessly open up another channel for abuse when we gain nothing by doing so?
If you are a poor person on a sinking ship would you like a policy where the rich people get the fancy lifeboats and the poor people get lifeboats that were deemed adequate many years ago? Or would you prefer a policy where the poor and the rich are all put into the same lifeboats?
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
You know, none of that can possibly happen until people vote for politicians that will write the appropriate legislation, and then, if they did, then the problem is solved. See, that's the thing, none of you people think this shit through.
As for 'limiting' the feds, screw that. The corrupt locals are no better. You will just have a bunch of battling little fiefdoms, like in middle age Europe, leading right up to another world war. Travel would be impossible with the resulting border bureaucracies. Do you really want to relive in a pre-civil war USA? Well, maybe if you're a white male, with some property, I would suppose so. For me, there's no time like the present
Shens on "Local ones are no better". The scope of the havoc they can wreak is significantly smaller and more affordable than what can be done at the federal or even state level. They may still be power grubbing jerks, but at least the scope of it is reduced to the point that it doesn't affect the pockets of someone else that they aren't beholden to.
That said, I do think that the vast majority of people are currently "OK" with the option they have, so perhaps there wouldn't be any real change anyway.
"We're from the government, and we're here to help!"?
So in other words, yes.
"Yes, but only part of the story." You must be an elected official too.
Well, it hasn't ever worked out that way. All you get are border skirmishes and bigotry that invariably become global if not for an irresistible force to put the hammer down on all the dumbasses. All this crap I'm hearing sounds like typical Confederate sour grapes bullshit. It's been done before. And unfortunately it looks like it will be repeated again, and again. Whatever corruption you find in a representative government can be traced right back to the voters. That is where the problem is, and nowhere else. The government and the people in it are a reflection... if not a bit of a caricature.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
exactly, it makes all the equations come out easier if you assume the cow is perfect sphere.
Cheap storage VM.
Thank God your here, my house is on fire and I have to settle a contract dispute with the renter.
Cheap storage VM.
Please explain to me the marginal maintenance costs of an upgraded connection compared to the existing connection.
They might be called Republicans, but anyone supporting that project was a liberal underneath their costume.
See, this just shows the screwed up nature of calling the R the right and the D the left. Pro abortion rights? Rightist. Pro gun control? Leftist. Pro gay marriage? Rightist. Pro marijuana? Rightist.
You see, the "right" or "conservative" traditionally wants a smaller government with less control over people's daily lives. The "left" wants more and bigger government with more control over the population.
The current parties are both hybrids. One claims to want a smaller, leaner government with less control over _industry_ and _markets_ but more control over _lives_. The other wants bigger social spending and more control over _industry_ and _markets_ but to let the individual do pretty much what they want.
Many Democrats these days fiscally are more in favor of limiting spending than Reagan did, meanwhile wanting to infringe less on individual rights.
If we had anything other than this false dichotomy of a self-reinforcing two-party system we may just find a party in some amount of power that wants to get the government out of your office _and_ your bedroom as much as possible.
Title II does, though. If they are regulated under Title II then they can't have a monopoly on the utility poles.
What does Obama playing golf have to do with anything?
It's CONGRESS in TFA.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Opposite. Adam Smith called his strategy "hands off" and "laissez faire" has been a household term since.
Regulatory intervention is the opposite of hands off.
I voted in both elections that Reagan won.
That is enormous bullshit. Are you sure you were there?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
But by the time Reagan was done, your $135 weekly check only bought $117 worth of stuff.
And his astrologer was smarter than you. And more honest.
You are welcome on my lawn.
So sorry, but you paid for "up to overnight express"
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Err... what? The ACA, with the insurance mandate, was basically the Republican response to HilaryCare from the 90's. Of course, once the Democrats embraced it, the Republicans immediately disavowed having anything to do with it.
That is correct. Except the slow lane would be the lane with the speeds the customer purchased. For instance, suppose someone is poor or on a fixed income and decides to get the slowest broadband offering in their area because they just check email and facebook and occasionally look up a recipe. So this person gets a 1.5 meg line for $15 a month or something and other speeds are offered for $30 and up. Now suppose I want to stream video to them but I cannot reliably or with quality at those speeds, but I could if I had a fast lane to them. So I up my fees by 10 cents a customer and pay the ISP a small fee to speed up access between that person and my servers and now they can subscribe to my 24/7 streaming cat cam and pink ponies extravaganza. Now this person who could not previously use my service without doubling their internet costs can become my customer.
That's sort of a silly argument, one that relies on a reality which you think might happen rather than one that was proscribed. IMHO- It would be a fraudulent and deceptive act of business for an ISP to purposely limit the speeds of any connection to levels below what they are selling the customers. We are not entitled to anything more than what we are sold but we are entitled to what we are sold without the seller purposely limiting it for any reason.
NAh.. The slow lane would simply be the speeds the ISP sold you. I get people chiming in often who think they found the trump card with the "up to" qualifier on advertised speeds but that also fails. You see, if they sell you 10 meg service and purposely and intentionally limit that service to 2 megs, then the most you would have is up to 2 meg service. So deceptive bait and switch and outright fraud would be happening if they tried to pass 2 meg service off as 10 meg. The "up to" has to apply to limits in speeds outside their direct control like unusual congestion or equipment failure or something.
Seriously, if I was on a sinking ship, I do not think it would matter one bit whether I was rich or poor or whether the guy next to me was. Just get me on the life boat that isn't sinking. I do not need a crystal chandelier or champagne bar on it, just something that isn't sinking and somewhat protects me from the elements. If you think it matter, please by all means stay on the ship and discuss this with others who think it matters.
Nope. They are all probably using the one companies equipment in the exchange. But due to the law down here the other companies are allowed to use it along with the local lines.
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