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Obama Is Threatening To Veto the GOP's Latest Assault On Net Neutrality (vice.com)
An anonymous reader cites a Motherboard article: President Obama has long been a vocal supporter of net neutrality. In a "
Statement of Administration Policy" (PDF) released Tuesday, Obama signaled that he intends to veto Republican-backed legislation that open internet advocates say could eviscerate federal net neutrality protections. Earlier this year, a GOP-controlled House subcommittee approved the "No Rate Regulation of Broadband Internet Access Act," (H.R. 2666) which net neutrality supporters say could severely undercut the Federal Communications Commission's ability to police the nation's largest cable and phone companies. The House bill would "undermine key provisions in the Federal Communications Commission's open internet order and harm the commission's ability to protect consumers while facilitating innovation and economic growth," said the Obama administration's statement. "If the President were presented with H.R. 2666, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill."Please do, Obama.
Which version of net neutrality is this bill going to do harm to? The American or European version?
Unlike some monstrosities, the text of the bill is short enough that you can read it and form your own opinion.
Here's the main part:
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Federal Communications Commission may not regulate the rates charged for broadband Internet access service.
Here are the exceptions:
Nothing in this Act shall be construed to affect the authority of the Commission to—
(1) condition receipt of universal service support under section 254 of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 254) by a provider of broadband Internet access service on the regulation of the rates charged by such provider for the supported service;
(2) enforce subpart Y of part 64 of title 47, Code of Federal Regulations (relating to truth-in-billing requirements); or
(3) enforce section 8.9 of title 47, Code of Federal Regulations (relating to paid prioritization).
So basically, it ensures the FCC can't attack things like free service offerings and doesn't price-fix services to prevent competition.
Sounds like a great bill, whose only flaw is that is doesn't go far enough to prevent the FCC from regulating the internet, but it's a good start.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
Wrong. Net neutrality ensures competition by equal availability. The packets from netflix are not more important than those from youtube or hulu, and net neutrality is about preventing paid performance advantage over common carrier networks aimed at capturing market share from competitors.
"No Rate Regulation of Broadband Internet Access Act" is a purposefully misleading name. I like John Oliver's suggestion of "Cable Company Fuckery" Act. What the GOP claim is that the FCC will regulate pricing by imposing net neutrality. In a way, they are correct, the FCC will regulate pricing by ensuring that the cable companies don't use their pseudo-monopolies to gouge customers for internet access. In most markets, consumers have at best two choices so they have to pay whatever the cable company will charge for crappy service. I see it in places like Topeka and Austin where Google is coming in with fiber. Suddenly the cable companies lower their prices AND start to offer higher speeds. Suddenly they start to put in fiber where they promised they would for a decade.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Unfortunately, the concept of Net Neutrality ruins such innovative business models.
Net Neutrality also stops "innovative" business models like charging people who live where there are few broadband choices a extortionate fee to enjoy Netflix while at the same time also charging Netflix to deliver that content to those people.
Net Neutrality does NOT disallow QoS. It stops ISPs from purposely throttling a competitor's data.
Unfortunately, the concept of Net Neutrality ruins such innovative business models.
Unfortunately, your puppydog and unicorn concept of the benevolent provider allowing for humanity to reach never before achieved levels of awesomness.
All it sounds like is an overall adoption of the phone carrier's unlimited data packages concept for everyone. So at home, we'll be throttled after a few Gb's, and if we want the "real unlimited" package, we can pay 2X the amount, and get 3 Gb before they throttle us.
Which in today's internet, the ads should take care of the unthrottled data after 3 or 4 page views.
In the end? If I want to keep the service I have now, it will only cost 4 times as much.
4. Profit!
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
There are multiple ways of looking at this. For me, I think hard-wired networks should be so robust that no set of user demand could ever saturate the possible bandwidth. That means massive upgrades should take place everywhere and ISPs would be competing solely on bandwidth. And, that also means taxpayer dollars spent on network upgrades should be spent on network upgrades. ISP's, however, (and specifically Verizon) have spent these taxpayer dollars largely on shareholder dividends without upgrading their infrastructure. They are working hard to protect their limited-bandwidth infrastructure from market influences that demand upgrades. Economically, it makes sense for Verizon to spend little on infrastructure upgrades if they can get rid of net neutrality because it means they can completely cripple competing services citing 'bandwidth limitations' while making sure their antiquated services (like cable TV) work better than the competition. As for wireless, net neutrality is somewhat tougher to support unless existing total bandwidth was always divided equally against existing customer bandwidth demands. The whole thing comes down to who controls what and who makes money. If we don't support the FCC on this one, we are essentially handing complete control of the Internet over to companies like Verizon. I would prefer we did the opposite and gave control of the Internet to individuals as much as possible.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
Wrong. The FCC is already prevented from setting rates for service. Net neutrality prevents paid sabotage from diluting the effect of service competition, and is required to ensure common carrier status for data links.
He should grow a pair ans say, "I will veto this, that is a promise."
Honestly, the repubs just utterly hate the american people, and prove it by constantly trying to pass this crap.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Worse than that. The ISP says that the packets from the ISP's video streaming service should be given priority over the packets from Netflix video streaming service unless Netflix wants to pay the ISP for better delivery, in case, "something might happen" to their packets during delivery.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Like you I read the bill and wonder why on earth the President would threaten to veto a bill which ensures that the Government can not mandate the rate people pay for service. Then I consider that this is FUD, and it all makes perfect sense.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
I don't read that passage as meaning that. The way I read it, the Act prevents the FCC from regulating broadband access pricing however, broadband access by definition in this bill doesn't include the very meaning of broadband access. If broadband has no interconnection, what is the point?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
"...extortionate fee to enjoy Netflix..." instead everyone has to pay more than they were because Netflix can't pick up part of the tab anymore. GREAT MOVE!
Got it. Boogeyman bad. But you're perfectly OK with Comcrap and Asinine Telephone & Telegraph monopolistically dictating utility rates in their respective fiefdoms.
Comcast Basic Internet Service: $49.99
YouTube: $3.99*
Netflix: $14.99*
Hulu: $6.99*
Comcast xWhoopDeDoo Streaming: Free!
* May require additional subscription fee
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Prioritizing packets can be done for both good and evil purposes.
We need this last mile provision as well as preventing companies who create and sell media be the ones to control the access to said media. Imagine if your home gas and electricity was through the same company and that company also happened to be a natural gas producer. Would it be fair for them to artificially inflate the cost of electricity to encourage the consumption of their other subsidiary's product?
Make it like natural gas or electricity. The supplier of the data and the provider of the service through the lines should be separate. The supplier of the lines can charge a connection and service fee, but not control at all what types or how much data passes through their pipe as long as it fits. Let the data providers compete over business while the lines themselves are charged for maintenance and upgrades.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
The packets that compose an email do not have the same time constraints of packets that compose a Netflix video stream.
NN can, in theory, allow packets to have different priorities based on the type of data, just not based on the source of that data.
Net Neutrality is really about truth in advertising
No. NN is about countering monopoly power. NN would not be necessary in a competitive market. Advertising is irrelevant if customers have no other choice.
Netflix, for example, could become its own ISP
Sure, and FedEx and UPS could each build their own set of roads.
*Prices valid for 1 year after which time you will have to call and threaten to cancel to pay any reasonable or competitive rate
*Offer valid only if you let us snoop on your browsing habits and share this information with other companies so they can try to sell you crap
*Rate includes 50% discount with automatic checking account electronic payments that we will screw up frequently which will be hard for you to contest since we already have the money
*Signal may be degraded and connections randomly dropped if you call customer service for any reason to encourage you not to call for any reason
*Technicians may sabotage competing connections for you and your neighbors if they have to come to your location to do installation
*Does not include rental equipment fees that are mandatory and not available to buy on the open market
*Does not include "HD" service which is poorly defined
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
That is government granted franchise agreement to the Cable Company.Government rules and regulations caused this mess, and everyone's idea of how to fix it is MORE government solutions.
The first thing you need to realize is.... laying cable or fiber, required for internet, is a natural monopoly. It is exacerbated by government regulation and only providing a limited number of entities access to "Rights of Way" required to put cables in the ground.
Preferably, the municipalities would just bring fibre to everyone, and access to communications would be like getting a Plain old Telephone or Electricity, or other utilities; then you could pick your ISP of choice, just like you call whoever you want on the Telephone.
Yeah, because BOTH the natural and the legal situation AND the lack of foresight by legislators this has created major entities, and realistically, they aren't going away, although I would like them to. Regulation is a good first step, since it's not going to be possible to eliminate these monopolies and have broad competition in the short run, without hurting everyone.
We need network neutrality as long as the monopolies and no competition continue to exist.
We should just accept the regulation and apply it only to providers WHO:
1. Own or partner with internet properties, such as competing video service companies above a certain size, and the neutrality protection rule applies to all companies in the same industry as their in-house service.
, AND
2. The operation of any broadband provider in a geographical region where there is not at least 1 competing service of a minimum size with medium of a similar level of mobility and reliability (Wireless not similar to Land) with these competitors offering service to any household in the market (Competitors that only service Urban areas do not count), and the competitors' service is either all 100 Megabits or higher, or within 10% deviation.
It is this myopic view that is really the fault of "there ought to be a law" crowd
Actually; it's more like Dear Federal government: YOU created this monster by giving special grants to incumbents and approving corporate mergers that resulted in a centralization of what used to be local ISPs into a few major companies. Now YOU tame your monster and work on a plan of putting permanent free-market checks against it.
By the way: 4G, Cable Internet, DSL, Satellite Internet, Fibre, and providers are NOT competitive with each other. There is competing technology there, Yes.
You only have true competition, when there are multiple providers with access to the same kind of service medium; such as multiple Fibre providers attempting to serve an entire market.
Comcast Cable Internet, Verizon Wireless, and ATT DSL are NOT competitors; They are monopolists with slight variations on a theme, and many people are only willing to be served by Zero or One landline broadband provider.
Yes, Simpletons. We ought to have 25 people selling the last mile - which of course all of them have to not only pay themselves a living wage, but pay the big carriers for the bandwidth they sell.
this will keep costs down and the gubment will be all mad and stuff cause they didn't pass a law.
Simpletons!
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
The first thing you need to realize is.... laying cable or fiber, required for internet, is a natural monopoly.
So are roads. My suggestion is to treat them like roads. We don't let FEDEX have a franchise agreement and build roads that only they can use.
Preferably, the municipalities would just bring fibre to everyone, and access to communications would be like getting a Plain old Telephone or Electricity, or other utilities; then you could pick your ISP of choice, just like you call whoever you want on the Telephone.
This is exactly what I am proposing.
Everything else is subject to real competition. I don't want, we don't need government restricting commerce because of some myopic view. I've had to deal with legislatively created monopolies that lived LONG past their usefulness simply because they were legislated into being. TelCo LATA lines (Geographic Boundaries) that separated people who lived across the street (literally), simply to divide the monopolies up in a "fair" way
The problem with Legislating is that when the technology surpasses are original grasp, we're left with that legacy for a very long time afterwards. AND That is often worse than the situation that precipitated the need for it in the first place.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Netflix did do video wrong; they really do stream it in real time like VoIP.
I think they were all but physically forced to do it wrong by copyright holders.
But if you are an ISP with enough traffic to Netflix, they'll deploy caching boxes into your POPs/datacenters For free.
It's just that the largest service providers who want to charge Netflix for the privilege of more bandwidth are unwilling to do that, while Mid-Sized providers such as local ISPs are very happy to do so, But due to "Industry consolidation"; (The US regulatory climate favors large providers and hurts small ISPs!), there are not that many providers left who prioritize maximizing the customer experience.
Actually the problem is the last mile, not at the Federal Level. Quite frankly, everything that follows is a result of that CONTINUING business model of Franchise Agreements at the local level.
The solution is local. We have no need for the Congress to be involved at all. And quite frankly, if you trust EITHER party to do what is right you just haven't been paying attention.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Municipal owned last mile to a COLO where you can buy service from anyone. Of course, you didn't actually read what I posted.
But by all means, keep promoting more government regulations to fix the problems government regulations caused, and expecting different results.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
This is a decent idea in itself but I'm not sure the increased competition would give enough motive to voluntarily enact net neutrality. For example, there's a lot of competition among cellular providers and data plans with zero-rated services (Facebook, Netflix etc) are still common. It's a big guy vs. little guy problem - data providers can safely collude with the big guy and few people will be upset. It still stifles competition, perhaps even moreso in the long term than more targeted or self-serving arrangements.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
If Netflix picks up part of the tab, they'll move the cost to their customers.
Basically, you do not want to make the hard decision now..so, you want to ameliorate the problem in the short term while making it worse in the long term.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
You didn't say how the last mile problem will be solved. It sounds like a...law...will be needed. :|
I agree.
That may be a reasonable practical solution, given the way our roads are owned and managed today.
However, I think it's worth pointing out that the reason we have this economic "last mile problem" isn't a consequence of "natural monopolies" or "big corporations", it exists because the inability of services to compete for last mile access customers right now. That is, last mile access is managed politically by city hall, not economically by the people who actually want service.
You mean like when government forces companies and people to invest in expensive ISDN and fiber infrastructure for the long term? You know, when ISDN is replaced rapidly by DSL, never recouping the investment, and the fiber technologies that were deployed "for the long term" turned out to be obsolete by the time fiber actually was commercially feasible? That happened where I used to live.
Corporations frequently think and plan long term. That's how all the new telecoms standards come about. Microsoft's, Apple's, and Google's software is planned years ahead. And many corporations plan a decade or two ahead. That's because today's stock price reflects that long term planning.
It is governments that are guilty of short term planning. Politicians don't care about spending too much because they don't have to; it's not their money. All they really care is getting reelected, and that means a short time horizon and a focus on fluff.
Please explain to me, how more laws fixing problems caused by existing laws is going to make things better, and not actually cause more problems than they solve?
My solution is simple, and would be VERY easy to implement on a small scale to show what it could do. Your solution proposes fixes for problems cause by government in the first place, in a "one size fits all" model that I can assure you doesn't fit ANYONE.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Technology Infrastructure has a lifespan of about 10 years, Max.
However, the pathways needed last forever. You can pull new fiber down existing conduit, provided you put the conduit in place when you pulled it the first time.
Give me a budget for a small town (mine would work) where I could build out a COLO facility, and put in conduit and fiber to every home, and I'll show you how well it would work. I'll bet that I could have most houses wanting High Speed Internet at a fraction of the cost of Cable. I'll bet I have 5 to 10 providers clambering for customers, offering specials and deals just to get them signed up. I'll even bet there develops new services/products that I can't even imagine now, developed to lure customers.
And I will even bet there is at least one "Unlimited, Net Neutral" carrier that tries to succeed but ultimately fails because its prices are too high because there aren't enough geeks whining about Net Neutrality that are also willing to pay for what they are whining for. And I suspect that is why they don't like my idea, because "There ought to be a law" is much easier solution .
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Exactly. My solution is initially hard, as you have to build the infrastructure right. But once that is done, everything becomes MUCH easier.
The Infrastructure can be built with Bonds and paid by property taxes, or taxes on service (when purchased) or both.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Exactly how my solutions solves that problem. Customers choose the service from ANY number of providers, as they see fit. Best fit solution.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Do you think Netflix gets their bandwidth for free? They pay to send their bits out just like customers pay to pull those bits in. The only difference is that Netflix is making money and impacting cable companies' TV revenues. Those cable companies want to use their ISP monopolies (or duopolies in some markets) to charge extra for streaming video (caps/overages) and to promote their own services (bundling pricing schemes/degrading streaming video connections). These companies don't like that the FCC is standing in their way instead of taking their bribes and stepping aside like government usually does.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
There is no need to continue reading.
Think of it like water. two or three individuals own all the water. For a fee they will let you attach a hose to get the water - then charge you for the water you use.
You want a bunch of folks to
A: Pay to attach hoses
B: Pay for the Water
C: Pass the cost of the water, Hose attachment, and wages for brokering it down to the end user.
Somehow "additional cost" is going to promote competition and lower pricing.
Then, your other fallback when challenged on that is State Regulation (which means the gubment stuck their heads in).
So essentially, you are talking out of both sides of your head.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
The term 'conflict of interest' does not come up enough in these discussions.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Thanks. No, seriously this time.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Imagine if your home gas and electricity was through the same company and that company also happened to be a natural gas producer.
I'm in California, in Silicon Valley. In my area (as with much of the state) the electric and gas utility are both PG&E. I get a single bill for both services, and the regulated rates are set by government approval of rate proposals generated by that company.
So it looks like exactly the doomsday market scenario you describe applies to me - and millions of others here on the Left Coast.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Geeks can band together and build their own "neutrality" based service
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
it exists because the inability of services to compete for last mile access customers right now.
Correct. But that is largely due to Franchise agreements that restrict competition for that last mile. Those agreements served their purpose during the early periods where CATV didn't offer but one service (TV). Now you have it competing with TriplePlay style services (Internet, Voice, TV). And many of these are irrelevant once you realize that two of the three services (perhaps all three) are just Internet.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I think hard-wired networks should be so robust that no set of user demand could ever saturate the possible bandwidth.
Unfortunately, the protocols don't work that way. In particular, things like file transfer over TCP and things like streaming over UDP, inherently break such scenarios.
TCP, used for file transfer (and other things that require reliable delivery of large amounts of data, where the delivery time is not critical but higher data rates are better), increases the bandwidth used until packets are saturating a bottleneck along the way - as detected by packet loss. Then they back off in a way that divides the bandwidth evenly among the streams passing through the tightest bottleneck, and constantly measures this by forcing packet drops on all traffic through the bottlenecked connection (and also keeps queues full, increasing latency unless the routers counter this with algorithms like "random early drop" (RED)).
Streams, on the other hand, require low latency and reliable delivery - but have a limited bandwidth and could care less if a packet delayed too much is discarded (and would PREFER it to be discarded, rather than delay ANOTHER packet later in the stream).
No matter how wide you make your backhaul and backbone pipes, as long as they're too small to carry ALL the traffic from ALL the last-mile drops (which would be prohibitively expensive), TCP will run up the consumption until links are saturated and packets are dropping. If you treat all the packets the same way, it will then break streaming media.
But if you treat the packets differently - giving streaming media connections, up to a bandwidth limit, priority routing but dropping delayed packets - they can play very well together.
Unfortunately, the same technology that enables this "traffic management" ALSO enables treating different company's packets differently. And that enables anticompetitive practices - both by ISPs that bundle internet service and services that are carried on it (giving them incentive to treat their OWN division's packets better than its competitors) and by ISP who want to use their gatekeeper position to make extra money by selling better treatment to packets from some services for extra money - and encouraging payment by making the default treatment too rotten for a service to be viable (in violation of what it means to sell "internet service" and perhaps common-carrier status in general).
The issue is not technical, but competitive: "Non-neutrality" can be good when applied equally to all packets of a set of packet and service types, regardless of source or destination, but becomes one or more of several kinds of improper business behavior (monopolistic, cartel-forming, tying, false advertising, ...) when applied to packets of equivalent services from different companies or people.
FCC is good at, and empowered to, handle technical stuff. The FTC, on the other hand, is explicitly empowered to handle anticompetitive stuff, and (as that's their sole power) has historically been willing to exercise it.
The FTC uses its hammer rarely. But it's a BIG hammer. Must ISPs and "content providers" be separate companies, to avoid conflicts of interest leading to performance degradation? Can they co-exist, but are limits required preventing the ISP from favoring the company's content services? Look what the FTC did to AT&T over whether local and long distance services needed to be separate companies, Standard Oil on drilling, refining, wholesale, and retail distribution, Microsoft on bundling Internet Explorer with Windows vs. Netscape's browser, etc.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Net Neutrality is a problem of the "last mile", the inability of the customer to SHOP for the service / price / quality of the products and services we wish to purchase
I agree.
You are wrong. Net neutrality has nothing to do with how much you pay for the pipe into your home, or who sells it to you. Net neutrality means that when you use that pipe the service provider does not differentiate unnecessarily based on the source of the data you access.
That means that an ISP that is also a content provider does not artificially limit your access to content from other providers in preference to its own. It does not mean that the ISP cannot allow unmetered access to some content based on certain criteria (like data rate) except if the criteria include monetary benefit to the ISP (like "you buy content from us, we won't charge you for the data...").
This law is correctly named, and it is very simple to understand. The FCC would be prohibited from regulating rates for broadband. That's what the title says. Net neutrality is not involved.
You only have true competition, when there are multiple providers with access to the same kind of service medium;
The competition comes from the same service; the medium is irrelevant. The internet and ebooks and e-magazines have put local magazine stores out of business. The medium is vary different, but the competition is very very real. And Amazon and other online stores have put a lot of brick-and-mortars out of business through competition. Medium, again, is very very different.
Customers who want broadband don't really care if the medium is cable or wireless if the service is the same. They don't care if the telephone they use is VoIP or copper pair, as long as the service they want is the same. The competition is medium-agnostic.
Netflix does pick up its part of the tab. They pay whatever they pay to their ISP for their connection. I pay what ever I pay for my connection to my ISP and there are parties that that my ISP and Netflix's ISP pay to connect them. The fact that my ISP wants Netflix to pay them to ensure their packets get delivered to me over the connection I am already paying them to deliver packets to me over is stupid. How about the ISP of ./ makes you pay to deliver your posts.
Time to offend someone
Your "innovative business model" makes no technical or economic sense for the customer.. Once you've paid for the high bandwidth, consistent latency you need for efficient streaming from any video service, your ISP may as well throw in better-than-necessary access to any email service.'
Your scenario only really make sense for customers who like the way old-fashioned cable TV works: choosing your provider and content as a package. If you only wanted Netflix and didn't want YouTube or Hulu, the Netflix-as-ISP model would give you that more cheaply.
But very few people like the way cable TV works. They live with it because their choices are limited.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Think about what you just said. You want to control the work of others, completely, via Legislation. Are you REALLY comfortable with that?
You're already marked Troll, and probably you are, because you can't be as stupid as you sound. But I'll bite anyway.
Yes. Yes. I am. I'm really really comfortable with that. See, there are assholes in the world who think it's fun to break capitalism. Some of them might even have pretentious names resembling that of Christian demi-gods. I'm perfectly comfortable with controlling everything that kind of asshole does, with legislation, backed up by jack-booted thugs. Because otherwise those assholes will fuck it up for the rest of us. And that's not cool.
Are you willing to let others decide what you can do with the fruits of YOUR labor simply because they don't like how you use/sell them?
Others already decide what to do with the fruits of my precious labor. I have to assign my copyright to the company as a condition of employment. Like 90% of all programmers in the world. So yeah, I'm fine with that. I am compensated for my labor. Just as ISPs are. But I'm not allowed to be a dick about who gets to use my software, and they aren't allowed to be a dick about who gets to use their hardware.
As it should be.
LOL - I loves me that partisan knee-jerk moderation! Let's see how many "overrated" mods I can get today in a desperate attempt to drown the post... ;)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Unfortunately your idea the the fix for Government created problems is more government created problems.
I know exactly what you mean, unfettered by regulations, the free market has always operated in everyone's best interest. It is amazing how we go for corrupt government actions, when there has never ever been corruption, greed or avarice on the free market.
You'd think that with the inherent advantages of the free market, some country would figure it out, and show the rest of the world, or watch them go bankrupt with their silly government shenanigans. The true invisible hand of the free market, should take over the world in a few years.
Tell me, did you orgasm when Martin Shkreli bought Turing and raised the price of Daraprim from $13.50 for one dose, to $750.00? You see, for all of your theoretical government is the source of all problems, there is a real problem for free marketeers. And that problem is reality.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Yes, Simpletons. We ought to have 25 people selling the last mile
Here's the libertarian version of network delivery - New York City:
http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-...
https://keithyorkcity.files.wo...
Lest we think it can't happen today - in India:
http://farm2.staticflickr.com/... By the way folks, don't use the many providers over one fiber stuff - to have one company put up the wire/fiber then force them to allow anyone to use and charge fo rit is about as anti-libertarian as you can get.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Municipal owned last mile to a COLO where you can buy service from anyone. Of course, you didn't actually read what I posted.
But by all means, keep promoting more government regulations to fix the problems government regulations caused, and expecting different results.
If I put up fiber, why shouhld I have ot allow anyone at all to have access to it, and undercut my business expenses I bought it, I put it up, and now some cutrate company that does nothing but move in and charge people for no work on their part?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
There is no need to continue reading.
Well Okay. Shouldn't you have wrote that after your last sentence, because I don't know what else you wrote?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
You didn't say how the last mile problem will be solved. It sounds like a...law...will be needed. :|
Life, life is just not so simple for these things. I don't know if anyone remembers Broadband over Power Line, or BPL. Probalby 6-7 years ago, Private industry figured out that "Hey! People have electrical wires runing from the power ples to their houses - last mile problem fixed. Then htey ran into some issues.
First off they were limited to DSL speeds. Then since power lines kinda make antennas, the digital signals on them ended up making for unwanted radio signals. These signals interfered with licensed services, such a Amateur Radio, and Transpolar airline flights.
So they tried notching out the affected frequencies. But if any of us paid attention in electronics class, a square wave, due to the rapid rise and fall times, is quite harminc rich, and you could notch the signal at the pole all you wanted to, the intermod and harmonics played hell still. The Regooolaytiuns R the evilz crowd actually wanted licensed devices to have to accept interference form unlicensed devices - which would still be a regulation, but hey, you know....
They even had a few test BPL systems put up.
But this shining example of the free market ended up failing. Turns out that the digital signal doesn't survive the trip through a transformer, the inductance tends to round off the edjes of those digital square waves. So get this - they ran the BPL down the High voltage wires, and tapped an isolator onto the line right at your house for the signal to get injected into your power. The possibility of getting some serious voltage into your house power if a parts failure.
But finally, what did them in was if a delivery truck, mobile transmitter, A truck driver with a CB radio, or even a couple kids with Walkie Talkies could bring down a neighborhood BPL internet.
tl:dr version - Libertatians often have awesome ideas that don't work at all.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
somebody PLEASE mod this guy up
C|N>K
VOIP and other time-sensitive packets must be prioritized over other packets or performance of those services won't be acceptable to users.
ISPs want to argue that, but it's not as relevant as it looks. Because QOS priorities really only matter if the network is congested. And, the ISP shouldn't have congested backbone links.
The car analogies the ISPs offer up are broken. It's not really about being able to have a faster than *normal* lane. Having a higher QOS priority is more like driving in a normal speed toll lane during rush hour because the the non-toll lanes are congested. But, outside of rush hour, when the non-toll lanes are running just as fast, there's no point to paying to drive in the toll lane. ISPs shouldn't have the congested links that are analogous to the rush hour though.
Much of the ISP's desire to do shaping seems to be about having intentionally under-provisioned links and then either charging a toll to "uncongest" or making a competitor's traffic suffer while the ISP's traffic doesn't.
I can't believe I'm feeding the troll, but dammit I'm a libertarian. As crazy as this might seem to you, libertarians do support government action when it is necessary to ensure a free market. You cannot have a free market when a cartel of companies control the media and the access. The problem is not that Comcast, Time Warner, and others want to control the distribution of their own work, they want to discourage the distribution of competing works. This is fundamentally no different than UAW workers vandalizing non-union made cars in parking lots because they own all the parking lots.
This is the biggest case of Black or White fallacy ever. There are a few degrees of government intervention in markets. It's not just monopolies and communism.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
The doomsday scenario is not that you have one provider, but if that provider had the power to increase electricity rates to encourage the use of natural gas while the same provider is doing fracking. It sounds like the government regulates their charged rates and something tells me they wouldn't allow the increase of electricity rates because PG&E wants to sell more gas.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Customers who want broadband don't really care if the medium is cable or wireless if the service is the same.
Nonsense..... We know wireless is always subject to interference and limitations that come from wireless; we need both landline and wireless for different applications. The fact is SERVICE IS NOT THE SAME, And Physics dictates that service cannot be made the same.
The competition comes from the same service; the medium is irrelevant.
No it isn't.... The change of medium is a step change. There MUST be competition within comparable medium to achieve efficient conditions for consumers.
The internet and ebooks and e-magazines have put local magazine stores out of business.
So what? Some methods of sale are superior to other mediums. They are competing technologies, not competing businesses. The shift from local magazine stores to electronic distribution doesn't reflect anything about the quality of the local magazine stores.
Their costs are different, and so are the costs of buying from them.
By the way, the Electronic magazine stores could be literally raping consumers and STILL be less expensive than local magazine stores due to the different costs of the different publication media.
The general practice in American capitalism is to be ever increasing income. Big biz is so good at this that they even buy (effectively) public offices to gain political favor on legislation designed to add another edge in their biz model. As we all know, this ultimately results in a widening rift between the rich and the poor. The rich keep getting richer (and thus can afford the ever increasing costs) while the poor get poorer (generally, and can afford fewer and fewer things). By allowing the 'net carriers to be free to do what they want, like charge per bandwidth, and allow each other monopolies (read: collusion) in 'their' areas of coverage, the rift will also widen for users here. The internet, like our nations roadways system and our military, has become a critical infrastructure need for our society. And, as such, may require fair government management. We just need a government agency that knows what they are doing!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
Suppose we have one law, which bans murder. The law has problems in that it allows all sorts of other things to happen. Therefore, according to you, a law to ban rape or armed robbery would be trying to fix a problem with the murder law, and therefore won't make things better and will cause more problems than it solves.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Eli Lilly decides to buy interstate 70 through Indianapolis. Okay, that could actually be good because Lilly might do a better job maintaining the motorway. But then they turn around and say that, since they own the road, their employees and delivery vehicles are allow to go 120Mph, regular folk must drive 55mph, and their competitors must restrict their speed to 25mph. Oh, and the CEO can go as fast as his European supercar can take him.
It's been done successfully in other countries. What makes the US such a special flower that it wouldn't work here? Because we love capitalism and hate the government for any and everything? Boo fucking hoo.
Founder & COO, Hayai India (hayai.in) / USA (hayaibroadband.com)
The only reason a content provider can artificially limit access to content from other providers is because access to the "last mile" is limited. If access to the last mile weren't limited, then if one provider attempts to limit access to the content from other providers, people would simply get their Internet access elsewhere. Therefore, Archangel Michael is right and you are wrong: net neutrality very much has to do with the last mile.
You could. But you don't have such a budget and you don't run a small town, and that's no accident. If you did, you'd have donors, lobbyists, unions, and corporations breathing down your neck, and you would end up making the choices that let you keep your job, not the choices that are objectively best for the public. That's how the political process works.
Because we love capitalism and hate the government for any and everything?
That's not why. The current situation is almost as far-removed from capitalism as you can get --- it's the opposite of capitalism, where the government creates a monopoly and incentivizes the monopolist to abuse their position, and doesn't do much to reign them in.
Perhaps, but most people don't seem to realize that despite the appearance of choice, they don't have a choice.
Especially when it comes to the ISP market.
And often when it's WAY past "too late".
In any case I've seen it referred to around here as "crony capitalism" and I neglected to add that modifier... but you may talking about something else entirely.
Founder & COO, Hayai India (hayai.in) / USA (hayaibroadband.com)