Verizon Posts Message In Morse Code To Mock FCC's Net Neutrality Ruling

HughPickens.com writes: Chris Matyszczyk reports at Cnet that Verizon has posted a message to the FCC titled: FCC's 'Throwback Thursday' Move Imposes 1930s Rules on the Internet" written in Morse code. The first line of the release dated February 26, 1934 in old typewriter font (PDF) reads: "Today (Feb.26) the Federal Communications Commission approved an order urged by President Obama that imposes rules on broadband Internet services that were written in the era of the steam locomotive and the telegraph." The Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 along party lines in favor of new Internet service rules that prohibit blocking, slowing or prioritizing traffic. The rules, which have not yet been released, are opposed by cable and telephone companies that fear it will curb Internet growth and stifle payback on network investment. "It isn't a surprise that Verizon is a touch against Thursday's order. In 2012, it insisted that the very idea of Net neutrality squished its First and Fifth Amendment right," writes Matyszczyk. "I wonder, though, who will be attracted by this open mockery. Might this be a sign that Verizon doesn't think the fight is over at all?"

Comments

Verizon's 'Throwback Thursday' move...

[by (1706743)]

...imposes 2000s (1990s?) Internet access speed!

fees

[Anonymous Coward]

first complaint ive seen. they want to leave the average user with turtle slow speeds while charging out the ass for people and companies who can afford it. companies have gone from being reasonable 150yrs ago to outright blatant greed, and youre ridiculed if you speak out against it. fuck capitalism.

Re:fees

[Anonymous Coward]

So don't use Verizon...

No can do. Verizon is the only option in my town.

Re:fees

[Jane Q. Public]

fuck capitalism.

It has nothing to do with capitalism. It has everything to do with unregulated corporate greed. They are NOT the same things. The same kind of greed was seen very prominently in countries that called themselves Socialist and even Communist. So don't blame "capitalism" for it. It's cronyism, plain and simple.

And this is almost laughably wrong:

The rules, which have not yet been released, are opposed by cable and telephone companies that fear it will curb Internet growth and stifle payback on network investment.

I call BS. They don't "fear" it will do anything of the kind. What they fear is that it will put a stop to their monopolistic control, and monopolistic prices, and end their ability to pocket tax money given them for infrastructure.

I mean this literally: you can hardly believe a word they say anymore.

Re:fees

[Defenestrar]

Wow - a limited monopoly for a service necessary for modern life like telephone, power, water, and sewer? Sounds like a public utility to me.

Re:fees

[sabri]

Verizon is the only option in my town.

This is the real problem.

So-called "Net Neutrality" is a nothing but a bandage on a bullet wound, for two main reasons.

First of all, most internet users in the US of A have little choice between carriers. It's either cable, dsl or satellite. The cable market will be given to company A, and if lucky, company B for dsl. It is virtually impossible to start a new ISP under current regulations. This means that there is little to no incentive for incumbent operators to upgrade their networks.

In an ideal world, networks and subscriber access have sufficient bandwidth to accommodate all users. Yes, consumer cable/DSL will be oversubscribed a bit, but that will leave plenty of bandwidth for regular services, assuming a decent operator network. This is the real problem of the U.S. internet access market.

The second reason why I'm strongly against these regulations is that the government should keep its busy nose out of private companies' networks. If build a network, it is up to me to operate it the way I want to. If a subscriber does not like the way I operate my network, they are (should be) free to go elsewhere. Which is the part that is broken in the U.S.

So, what the FCC should really focus on is not so much the whining of Netflix regarding available ports on public peering exchanges, but to open up the broadband market to more competition. Works in Europe, works in Asia, works in Canada. Does not work in Mother Russia, for obvious reasons (in Russia, KGB^H^H^H internet connects to you).

In short, because the FCC is so defunct that they're unable to regulate a healthy competitive market, they force their big fat butt on the seat of the CEOs of current companies and tell them how to operate their networks.

Re:fees

[Archangel Michael]

No, it isn't a public utility. It is a "franchise agreement" between the Local Municipality and the Corporation. The fact that this is the way things have always been done doesn't mean it has to continue this way.

I propose that instead, we bring FIBER to a COLO, from where the citizens can CHOOSE (market forces) the options and features they desire from the multitude of companies that offer these services.

BY moving the issue of "last mile" ... to a COLO rather than neighborhood corner, it solves all sorts of market issues.

Re:fees

[Archangel Michael]

Actually, it has to do with Franchise agreements between _______ cable and the local municipalities, which is NOT Capitalism, but some bad version of utility.

Bring me fiber via local Municipality, and let me choose which set of services I can get, from whatever company that wants to offer for whatever price the market will bear. Municipal owned COLO that gives market access to any company that wants it.

Re:fees

[jythie]

This is not far off how it used to be. Years back Verizon DSL was covered under Title II. They provided the lines, but you could choose any one of dozens of ISPs to actually buy your service from. It was wonderful.

Re:fees

[Archangel Michael]

I could do it, if I had access to the Telco rights of way that were "franchised" away to the local Cable monopolies during the early part of the 80s. We are 35 years later, and haven't improved the delivery model.

Re:fees

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

I'm in Tulsa, OK. I live in a gated apartment building, and we only have access to AT&T. There is no coax in the entire complex, the management refuses to acknowledge this is illegal...even though I took them a print-out of the FCC's ruling from 2007 against these exclusivity contracts. I even offered to run cable from the front office back to my building for free if they would just get a run to the front office...they just look at me blankly like I'm talking in a foreign language. Even more ironic is right across the street is our state's first "local CLEC" that has fiber AND my apartment complex is spending millions on various cosmetic upgrades,..we're moving soon, and this is the major reason. DSL barely has enough up to support my job; with my work responsibilities increasing soon it won't be enough to have a max of 180k up. I've already had to turn down a couple of high-prestige projects for some remote stuff because of this.

I'm paying $85 a month to get a "business class" DSL, just so I can get around the "bandwidth caps" AT&T has imposed on it's consumer accounts. If I hadn't, my bill would average $400-$800 a month just from usage. Some might say this is my apartment's fault; but I have been told b y management here that just recently several AT&T drones have come in and flat-out lied to to them about "future upgrades" that don't even exist to get better speeds.

Re:fees

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

Sure, I'd agree IF the telco's hadn't taken BILLIONS of tax-payer money to do "upgrades". Instead they took that money and gave it to their lobbyists to fight against having to use that money for that. If they didn't want the FCC in their business, they shouldn't have accepted taxpayer money and then commit fraud with it.

Re:fees

[nehumanuscrede]

" If build a network, it is up to me to operate it the way I want to "

If you built a network using your own finances, then I say absolutely.

OTOH, if you take government subsidies ( The Universal Service Fund I think ) to help you build your network / infrastructure out with the conditions / goals of the USF, then you don't get to operate it completely by your own rules.

Eg:

Promote the availability of quality services at just, reasonable and affordable rates for all consumers
Increase nationwide access to advanced telecommunications services
Advance the availability of such services to all consumers, including those in low income, rural, insular, and high cost areas, at rates that are reasonably comparable to those charged in urban areas
Increase access to telecommunications and advanced services in schools, libraries and rural health care facilities
Provide equitable and non-discriminatory contributions from all providers of telecommunications services to the fund supporting universal service programs

Pay close attention to number three above. THIS scares the shit out of the big players who are in the broadband game. Currently they cherry pick where they build out their networks based on projected profit returns. They classify under Title II, they may lose that privilege.

That terrifies them as it eats deep into their already absurd profits.

Re:fees

[TheGratefulNet]

to show how much variation there is, I am also in the bay area and I have a year of 'intro deal' pricing where its less than $50 for 100meg down and 10meg up. no shit, either; I do get those speeds.

well, one caveat. I run openvpn almost 7x24 and this pisses comcast off, even though they won't ever say it. I get disconnected almost every hour on the hour. I work around it with my own form of creative network mgmt (...) and I'm annoyed by them, but its not stopping me.

note, when I don't run my vpn, I don't see the disconnects coming. strange, huh?

anyway, when the intro 12mo deal is over, I'll have to find some other service. there isn't much else to pick from! I once had clear.com (clearwire) - a semi-4g usb 'mifi' dongle that would give me acceptable connectivity without any house wiring. when I was short-term renting, that did the trick. neat little dongle, too. maybe I'll look into that again.

I just need to leave comcast (when my year is up) for 3mos, then I can reset the clock, get a new intro pkg and start again, but this time it probably will only be a 6mo special.

if you don't play these games, you get stuck for over $100/mo!

THIS is why comcast needs to be bitchslapped. and the others, too, but in my area, comcast is the only choice you get.

silicon valley - where we pretty much DID invent the internet - and we have a single vendor to pick from. sigh ;(

Re:fees

[jader3rd]

It has nothing to do with capitalism. It has everything to do with unregulated corporate greed. They are NOT the same things. The same kind of greed was seen very prominently in countries that called themselves Socialist and even Communist. So don't blame "capitalism" for it. It's cronyism, plain and simple.

That's actually everything to do with capitalism.

Your ignorance of history and economic systems is ... overwhelming.

If we're going to define capitalism as what was laid out by Adam Smith in On the Wealth of Nations (generally considered to be the founding document of capitalism), it certainly didn't praise corporate greed. Adam Smith takes a lot of time to bash on corporations, and how they need to be regulated. Not just that they need to be regulated, but exactly the manner in which they need to be.

Re:fees

[melchoir55]

I want Gigabit symmetrical with 1 TB of transfer for $50/mo.. This is absolutely 100% possible with current technology.

Then why don't you start a company that offers that service?

If you can do it profitably, you'll have investors falling all over themselves to give you money, since pretty much everyone will want your service....

I would love to start an ISP. I have the resources to lay fiber through certain municipal areas that aren't well covered. It would take 10 years to start seeing profit, but after that, its almost 100% profit. I would do it in a heartbeat if I could.

But guess what? In our great "free" market that the telcos are trying to protect, I can't. You see, the telecos have convinced (see: bribed) many municipalities into signing deals which prevent any competitor from moving in. Google is attempting to deploy fiber nationwide, but they are forced to first spend insane amounts of money in lobbying themselves in order to be able to do it (they are forced to do other things as well, but this is a big problem). There are big truckloads of money that would dump into infrastructure in a heartbeat. The problem is that no one legally can because of how totally f-ed up the market has become with lobby $$$.

It isn't about money.
The market isn't free. It is a duopoly, and it is corrupt.

Re:fees

[sydbarrett74]

Yeah, I remember those days with Cavalier DSL here in Richmond, VA. There was a fault in my circuit (laid in the 1920's) and Cavalier placed a service request with Verizon, who sat on it for weeks before I finally had to get the State Corporation Commission involved. Wonderful times, indeed.

Re:fees

[Jane Q. Public]

If we're going to define capitalism as what was laid out by Adam Smith in On the Wealth of Nations (generally considered to be the founding document of capitalism), it certainly didn't praise corporate greed. Adam Smith takes a lot of time to bash on corporations, and how they need to be regulated. Not just that they need to be regulated, but exactly the manner in which they need to be.

Agreed. If we're discussing "Adam Smith free-market capitalism", Smith laid out the need for a solid body of antitrust law way back then. He recognized that free markets could lead toward monopoly, but wrote that this is where the government's role started: to enforce antitrust laws, which keep everybody on the same level playing field.

Since the government has hardly been enforcing the antitrust idea AT ALL, much less well, the logical conclusion is that this situation is not Adam Smith free-market capitalism. Which is what most people mean when they say "capitalism", regardless of technical details.

But it's very obvious that over the last couple of decades, government has thrown much of the antitrust baby out with the other regulatory bathwater, as it were. Not very long ago at all, a merger like Comcast and TWC would have been just laughed at, and never considered at all. For very good reasons.

BUT... I also want to say that GP here still missed the point. The person I was replying to implied that the problem was capitalism. My reply was that the very same problem (and I'll say here: even worse) occurs in other systems. Therefore the root problem can't be capitalism, per se. It must be something else. The obvious "something else" is cronyism. GP essentially just said "bullshit" while making no argument of his own.

Re:fees

[Pfhorrest]

Adam Smith wrote about free markets. Capitalism is something above and beyond a free market, first written about by Marx, who argued it was an inevitable consequence of free market and used that to criticize free markets.

When you conflate free markets with capitalism you're buying into a little bit of Marxist ideology.

Re:fees

[Jack Griffin]

Australia is almost as big as the US. Our last govt* began a project to roll out fibre to everyone's house (well at least 97%) which would've given us all 1G fibre. Australia has a lot more empty space than the US and far sparser population. If we can do it, then the US should be able to piss it in.

*unfortunately our last govt lost the last election and the new govt knocked the project on the head, despite every independent analysis backing up the claim it was a net gain for the economy and would've returned a profit to the govt as an asset once complete. Ah politics. never let the facts get in the way of chance to score points, even if it means fucking over the country in the process.

Re:fees

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

I propose that instead, we bring FIBER to a COLO, from where the citizens can CHOOSE (market forces) the options and features they desire from the multitude of companies that offer these services.

That's how we do it in most of "socialist" Sweden. I.e. I have an "open city network" fibre to my house. ISPs are free to sell service on that fibre/network (for a small access fee that pays for the network infrastructure, now less than 10% of my montly fee). So I have a choice of eight different ISPs and pay about $40/month for 100/100Mbps + IP telephony (no subscription fee, but charged calls). I also get cable TV over the same fibre from a different company but that's extra, about $25 for the channels I get.

That's how you'd actually want it organised to enable a free market.

Re:fees

[robbyb20]

Wait, you had to get the government to help you? And you're complaining that the government is trying to help you again? Jesus Christ.

Old rules

[Anonymous Coward]

Old rules just suck. I mean, stuff like "Thou shall not kill"? How are we supposed to deal with terrorists with silly old rules like that?

Corporation != People

[Anonymous Coward]

The very fact that Verizon views themselves as having first and fifth amendment rights shows the ludicrous precedents Citizens United sets.

Verizon is just following Alinsky

[dbc]

When the fact are not on your side, use ridicule.

Stomp Feet

[Etherwalk]

...imposes 2000s (1990s?) Internet access speed!

More like they don't expect to win a real argument that the FCC's proposals are in any way bad, so they are trying to win by mocking the FCC.

It's a schoolyard bully's trick.

Re:Stomp Feet

[Defenestrar]

And it's the idiot bully's trick at that; the clever ones don't provoke the playground monitors.

And now, I would like to sincerely and heartily thank Verizon for the initial lawsuit provoking the playground monitor that made net neutrality a reality. I strongly encourage additional attention and noise to the issue for full on public utility regulation. Here's to moving the US into a First World nation with First World utilities like power, water, and real broadband - wired and wireless.

Re:Stomp Feet

[duckintheface]

" imposes rules on broadband Internet services that were written in the era of the steam locomotive and the telegraph."

Oh, you mean back in the days when giant corporations used their monopoly status to squeeze huge amounts of money out of their customers in the absence of competiton? Those days?

Re:Stomp Feet

[amiga3D]

It just drips Irony doesn't it?

Re:Stomp Feet

[SeaFox]

More like they don't expect to win a real argument that the FCC's proposals are in any way bad, so they are trying to win by mocking the FCC.

It's a schoolyard bully's trick.

The FCC should let'er rip and give Verizon their own 0.02 cents on the topic.

Re: Stomp Feet

[Oonushi]

It gets better:

In 2012, it insisted that the very idea of Net neutrality squished its First and Fifth Amendment right,"

Someone should tell Verizon that the Bill of Rights isn't to be taken seriously either since you know they were written just before the time of steam locomotives and the telegraph!

They wouldn't want to be hypocrites after all.

Re:Stomp Feet

[Maxo-Texas]

Of course... that article is dated before the ruling.

Today, the front page reads this way.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/...

I case you don't choose to read the ruling.
Let me summarize:

EFF LOVES THE RULING.

Re:Stomp Feet

[smaddox]

(the oft discussed "fast lane" has yet to actually happen)

I get about 5x lower bandwidth streaming movies from Amazon than from Netflix. I've stopped renting HD movies from Amazon because the buffering kills it. Netflix happens to have paid to AT&T (my ISP) to get preferred service [1].

Hmm... That sounds an awful lot like a "fast lane" to me.

[1] http://time.com/3059431/netfli...

Re:Stomp Feet

[foreverdisillusioned]

A couple years ago, youtube was extremely frustrating to watch on my DSL connection. Lots of buffering. I don't just mean one day youtube slow for some reason; this went on for several months and I basically gave up on youtube for a little while. Then I finally got around to googling the issue and I saw a bunch of people saying to use a VPN. So I did. Flawless performance from then on... this despite the VPN having significantly lower bandwidth than what I had through my ISP. Oh and my ISP was heavily pushing their own streaming on-demand video service at the time.

So tell me... what's YOUR explanation for what happened?

The problem with this sort of thing not being illegal is they really don't have to even tell people they are doing it. And if they're smart, they can and probably are taking measures to prevent people from realizing they're doing it--rotating out the customers they throttle, throttling only at certain times of day, etc.

So, that's my thesis. It has existed for quite a while, but it's growing and starting to involve third parties so that it really isn't possible to hide it any more. Oh yeah, and ISPs were throttling P2P users (not pirates--ANY use of p2p, like sharing ubuntu ISOS) a LONG time ago.

They fear it will curb internet growth?

[grimmjeeper]

Hardly. The only thing they fear is that they're going to lose their very lucrative revenue streams since they can't overcharge for prioritizing traffic any more.

Perhaps a little history is in order

[Jahoda]

The last time I checked, 1934 was the era of the diesel electric and the telex, not the "steam engine and the telegraph". But, distortions of reality are verizon's specialty.

Oh, the irony....

[NimbleSquirrel]

The irony here is that Verizon makes full use of it's Title II status in other areas (wired telephony and mobile voice), and has used Title II benefits to build its FiOS network. The same Title II status it is now protesting against.

To add more fuel to the irony fire, the FCC would not have had to vote on net neutrality at all if Verizon hadn't sued them in 2012 claiming violation of its First and Fifth Amendment rights.

So, Verizon forced the FCC to make a change, is now complaining that the the FCC has made that change, but behind the scenes has been profiting all along in other areas where that change is in place. Sorry, Verizon, no sympathy for you.

I love old laws

[jader3rd]

They are the best. Old laws were written way before all of the 'politics' which happens today. New laws are complex, and complexity is fraud. Some old laws are wrong, and have been thrown out, but if the longer the law has survived the better it is.

I have an idea!

[wezelboy]

I will pay my verizon bill in the 1930's equivalent. That should come out to be about $.08.