Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Bill Would Ban Paid Prioritization By ISPs

Posted by samzenpus on from the treating-it-all-the-same dept.

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.

18 of 216 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Fuck the libs! by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  2. Re:Fuck the libs! by bmo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "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

  3. Gloriously Short Bill by jacks+smirking+reven · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Gloriously Short Bill by jfengel · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's short only because it's telling the FCC to do the real work. The key bit is:

      Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Commission shall promulgate regulations that...

      A lot of major laws are like that. The law itself grants some kind of authority to an executive branch department, and they come up with the regulations that implement that authority. That can often run into many thousands of pages, and they can change literally every single day. Regulated industries often have employees whose sole job it is to ensure that they're in compliance with the regulations.

      This isn't necessarily a bad thing. The Congress aren't experts in the domain. The executive branch employees are (or at least, are supposed to be). They work with the industry experts to clarify all of the corner cases and vaguenesses that make up any complex issue. And the issues are complex; they often seem simple to outsiders but only because they don't know what they're looking at. The same thing probably happens in your job.

      The departments aren't completely unsupervised. They report, ultimately, to Presidential appointees, who have to be approved by Congress and produce regular reports to the Congress. And when things go wrong, they get hauled in front of Congress to explain themselves.

      Er, digression aside... what would have happened were the bill to pass (it won't) is that the FCC would produce a lengthy set of regulations, which would surely provoke all kinds of outrage as the actual nitty-gritty details are less pleasant than the overall sentiment. In fact, I'd say that they're aware that it won't pass, which is why they get to make it so vague. Real bills, the kind where they want to strictly limit the authority of the departments to get exactly what they want, are the result of compromises within the legislature and are usually much more detailed. You can get the details in legislation or in regulation; the former is more permanent and the latter is more flexible, which can be good or bad depending on your point of view of the matter at hand. But there will be details, and they're going to be voluminous.

  4. Proper Net Neutrality by lgw · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  5. Fuck the libs! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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!

  6. Democrats don't want this to pass by cfalcon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Democrats don't want this to pass by cdrudge · · Score: 5, Informative

      It was introduced in the middle of last year in the House, where it was summarily sent to a subcommittee to die. It had no chance as a bill with zero Republican sponsors ever passing the House, just as it will quickly die in this Congress.

    2. Re:Democrats don't want this to pass by Lendrick · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's actually a fairly reasonable thing to ask, from a technological and price standpoint.

  7. Re:Better bill than the other net neutrality bills by Shatrat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This still doesn't address the real problem, when an ISP degrades traffic which competes with their other revenue streams. I.E. a cable company degrading netflix traffic or a telephone company degrading skype.

    --
    09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
  8. Fuck the libs! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Republicans believe in "free" market that helps the most powerful Corporations.

  9. Re:Fuck the libs! by dywolf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  10. This is what's wrong... by Last_Available_Usern · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  11. Re:Fuck the libs! by dywolf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  12. Re:Yay partisanship! by mrchaotica · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You're right, failing to uphold net neutrality and reform immigration is not what we should be upset about. Failing to punish NSA treason, close Gitmo and protect the environment (all issues that did exist during the Democrat supermajority) is what we should be upset about!

    --

    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  13. Re:Fuck the libs! by JeffOwl · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not sure where you were going with that, but the bridge to nowhere was sponsored by Republicans.

  14. Re:Fuck the libs! by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  15. Re:Forget these bills by fustakrakich · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've been watching this crap for over 50 years, it only becomes more obvious with each election. The last 15 have only been a steepening of the curve. But you go ahead, keep working against the truth of this business, it's your job.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”