Slashdot Mirror
AT&T Pretends To Love Net Neutrality, Joins Tomorrow's Protest With A Straight Face (techdirt.com)
Karl Bode, writing for TechDirt: You'd be hard pressed to find a bigger enemy of net neutrality than the fine folks at AT&T. The company has a history of all manner of anti-competitive assaults on the open and competitive internet, from blocking customer access to Apple FaceTime unless users subscribed to more expensive plans, to exempting its own content from arbitrary and unnecessary usage caps while penalizing streaming competitors. AT&T also played a starring role in ensuring the FCC's 2010 net neutrality rules were flimsy garbage, and sued to overturn the agency's tougher, 2015 rules. So it's with a combination of amusement and awe to see the company's top lobbying and policy head, Bob Quinn, pen a missive over at the AT&T website proudly proclaiming the company will be joining tomorrow's "day of action protest" in support of keeping the existing rules intact. According to Quinn, the company still opposes the FCC's popular 2015 consumer protections, but wanted to participate in the protest because that's just how much the sweethearts at AT&T adore the open internet.
You're gonna have a bad time.
Maybe you should all sit down and have a long, long think about what it means when an enemy of Network Neutrality finds the "Network Neutrality" that the FCC passed of use to them...
All along, what the FCC provided was never what people thought of when they said they supported Network Neutrality, and furthermore (as with most giant regulatory packages) greatly favors large ISP's over small ones.
If you are protesting the FCC Network Neutrality rules you are supporting AT&T. It's that simple.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'll bet this is nothing more than a bargaining chip - AT&T can probably make or break the FCC's repeal of Title II. They want the FTC and DoJ to approve their acquisition of Time Warner. But the Chief Executive has previously suggested he would see the merger blocked, and of late has been agitating against some of the key content producers.
No, they're not really helping "the good guys" but for once the enemy of my enemy may be my ally in this fight, if only incidentally.
At least, until the TW acquisition is approved. Then they'll accept whatever conditions, which probably include backing off Title II and Net Neutrality support.
g=
It was in fact AT&T lobbyists/consultants that wrote the Net Neutrality regulations.
Consider AT&T's position in the ISP market for a moment and you realize that this was all about their DSL bandwidth limitations and how that twisted copper pair can't deliver HD content let alone 4K content at any price level to most of their customers. They can't keep their competitors from delivering high bandwidth, but they can prevent their competitors from optimizing the cost of doing so with selective practices.
Imagine cable companies offering "Base DSL speeds + ultra fast netflix, amazon, hbo, etc" for the same price as AT&T's crap service. It wold obliterate AT&T as an ISP.
"His name was James Damore."
I've said it before, will say it again: Call your Congress thing and tell them there'll be blood at the polls if they don't save NN. And make sure they know you're voting in their primary. Most of 'em can only lose in a primary.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Wow I wonder how Karl found that article that matches his viewpoint so closely, oh yeah, he wrote it. I mean we all know AT&T is bad, some things about the current net neutrality laws are good, some are so flimsy they are worthless and other bits are bad (that is just how government works).
But isn't there some type of ethics where the /. editors won't post crap by the same person who wrote the article?
Actually, it's definitely not that simple. Even if you discount the possibility that this is nothing more than a cynical PR stunt by a net neutrality hating AT&T all it implies is that AT&T prefers to the status quo to what they are anticipating from Trump and Pai's alternative. That does not necessarily preclude them from hating the current regulations as well, just that they might be picking what they see as the lesser of two evils. The real issue here, at least for AT&T et al, isn't really net neutrality, it's whether they get regulated by the mostly toothless FCC, as is currently (and somewhat questionably) the case, or the FTC as Trump and Pai want. Whether they win that battle or not, you can pretty much guarantee they are going to get right back onto trying to scupper net neutrality (which TFS even states they are still opposed to) again.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
How do you figure? Is there any information available on Netflix getting priority? My understanding is that they are able to deliver HD content thanks to their network of AWS hosts and CDN hosts.
Not all internet traffic is created equal
You what? I'll have you know my cat video packets are just as important as your tele-surgery packets. Everything for everyone!
This is almost certainly calculated to add to the confusion about whether "Net Neutrality" refers to unregulated capitalism in the internet domain (what AT&T is hoping you're going to think it means), or FCC regulations specifically crafted to ensure neutral treatment of content by the carriers (what techies think it means).
You may notice that on occasion conflicting or competing bills show up in congress that have the same name, pretty much banking on the same principle. In those cases, calling your congressman to "support X" actually does nothing at all because the name is ambiguous.
Well, so then it shouldn't be surprising that they want ISPs to come under the heavy-handed supervision of the FCC.
You don't seriously think that a company that has been manipulating Congress for a century isn't fully capable of using any net neutrality legislation or FCC market interference to its advantage?
dumbest shill shit I've read all week
The problem you are describing can only exists because of crappy infrastructure and ISP lock in. It's funny how other countries doesn't have this problem - because most of them actually have a competitive market.
And talking about how NN takes power away from the individual is laughable when you look at how it works right now. Most consumers doesn't have any power at all since they have no choices in what ISP to use.
The thing is, without NN there will be no new Netflix's for example because the cost of entering the market will be too high. Or for that matter, the ISP can throttle traffic to sites that they find questionable. There is no end to all the shenanigans they can do with the traffic without NN.
In the end it all boils down to that there is almost no choice for the consumers which the ISP's milk for all it's worth and a bit more.
--- Reality doesn't care about your opinions, it happens anyway and if you are in the way you'll get squished.
The problem i see is letting companies grow and consolidate so much that they start destroying other companies and form drug-like cartels like cable and phone companies already do.
You what? I'll have you know my cat video packets are just as important as your tele-surgery packets. Everything for everyone!
The telesurgery argument doesn't even pass the laugh test.
There is already a great option for those that want priority for their traffic, guaranteed delivery, etc, etc: Dedicated point-to-point networks & leased lines.
Dedicated point-to-point networks aren't even that expensive, and you get a large number of guarantees you do not get with the public internet, including little things like better security, confidentiality, and reliability. You don't have to worry about somebody firing up a DOS attack & flooding a network branch during the surgery, and so on. It's the internet equivalent of sending a donated organ via courier on a private jet & helicopter instead of dumping it in a post box - you have a much greater ability to guarantee success.
In a somewhat similar fashion, Wall Street uses dedicated point-to-point network links for their trading because it's more appropriate for their needs.
Net Neutrality is about the fact that I've paid to have packets delivered to my network, and the FCC wants to allow an ISP to ensure those packets are delivered late (if at all) because of their point of origin. It's like paying for next-day shipping, and having the package delayed a week and then shredded because it originated in an Amazon warehouse. If it came from a Walmart warehouse, it comes on time and in good condition.
That's the problem: I paid to have the packets delivered to me, the ISP's should have no right to deny or degrade the service I paid for, for any reason.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Mod up. Net neutrality will just push the cost of infrastructure to the tax payer, this why the ISP with some of the worst infrastructure is all on board now.
AT&T Pretends To Love Net Neutrality, Joins Tomorrow's Protest With A Straight Face
You shouldn't anthromorphize corporations. They hate that.
And let's never forget that AT&T was the first, and most eager, company to cooperate with the government in installing equipment to capture everything flowing through their part of the internet backbone.
Too late.
When Net Neutrality goes into effect Hulu and Netflix will be downgraded to match, or equal, the same service level as everything else.
Which is a good thing.
You AT&T service would not be effected by Net Neutrality since those are not on the internet
Yes, and so?
Net Neutrality, like almost any new law, takes power away from the individual.
How do you figure that?
Go ahead. Keep telling yourself that.
OK, I will.
I fail to see how preventing companies from abusing their position as communications carriers is a bad thing.
This entire problem is so easily avoided, too, if only companies didn't have megabucks to throw into keeping the problem form being solved.
Companies that provide internet service are telecommunications carriers, and should be treated as such.
Companies that produce content that goes over those carriers are not.
The fact that companies insist on conflating these two very different roles is the fundamental source of confusion.
Except that's laughable too. A dedicated network or leased lines are fine if you're in one single spot and need to talk to one other single spot, but if you're say a specialist in the UK and trying to do telesurgery around the world, running dedicated lines going to be unfathomably expensive.
The big issue everyone likes to overlook (usually intentionally to muddy the waters and confuse things) is that "network neutrality" has a few different levels. First, there's the absolutely 100% pure neutral networks. This is the raw definition that zealots espouse because they're idiots and don't want to look past their ideals. Under this definition, bittorrent traffic, email spam and other high-capacity but low-value packets are going to end up flooding the entire network. Nobody really wants that.
Then there's packet shaping. This is saying "VOIP packets are more important that bittorrent packets" and similar. This is what most internet users and websites and the such actually want when they say network neutrality. Each person may have a different idea of how the shaping should be done, but almost everybody wants it in one form or another.
But then there's the what AT&T and others want: They want to be able to say "My VOIP packets are more important than your VOIP packets." And of course their definition of important isn't based on the value of the packets, its based on the dollar amount of the contract they've made with each VOIP provider. That is, they want the ability to charge/extort VOIP providers in order to provide better service, above and beyond whatever they're already paying for basic connectivity.
And to make it even worse, as if it needed to be, they can (and want to) do this kind of prioritization against VOIP providers they don't have any other business arrangements with. So if I'm a VOIP provider who purchases my internet access through Verizon, and you're a user of my service but your internet access is through AT&T.. AT&T can still de-prioritize me unless I also pay them off in addition to paying for my Verizon service. So now to be a VOIP provider, not only do I have to buy large bandwidth from my local ISP, I also have to effectively pay "prioritization" fees to literally every single other provider in the country.
(and obviously all of my arguments apply to any protocol.. VOIP vs bittorrent is just a common illustrative dichotomy since most people at least recognize the names of both protocols and understand their relative importance in the world.)
So along comes net neutrality, where everyone needs to be equal and it will be governed by our government. That means tax payer dollars being spent to extend line to areas with low amounts of users that isn't financially possible for AT&T to do.
Uh, no, that's not remotely what it means.
Network neutrality means the delivery of my packets, either from me or to me, will not be degraded or interfered with, regardless of their origin or destination, by my ISP or any other network provider between me and the other endpoint. It especially means that no network may extort money from me before they'll agree to stop degrading delivery of my packets. Net neutrality codifies what engineers always tried to do with the Internet for the past 30+ years: best speed delivery for all traffic, before asshole MBAs decided to fuck it all up for more money. That's all net neutrality means.
Net neutrality does not have anything to do with net availability. That's a whole different problem, for which the American people were robbed of $300 billion, as documented in excruciating detail by Bruce Kushnick.
Really, I think the system we have been using all along has been fine. There are enough watchdogs and the advent of social media calls out ISP's pretty much the second they start doing some funny business that the bad PR makes them reverse their positions.
No, there aren't, and no, they don't. Netflix caved in to Comcast's extortion demands and has been paying them Mafia-style protection money since 2014, despite that bullshit being widely publicized. "The system" is not remotely fine anymore. It was fine before 2014. Now it's not. Not as long as ISPs are allowed to extort money from Internet services who are not their customers. (Lack of enforcement of net neutrality rules is yet another problem to be fought, if net neutrality can be preserved at all.)
Hulu and Netflix should be given the same priority as say, Dailymotion. Why should DM (and the people who use it) get screwed just because its not the most popular streaming site on the planet?
But Hulu and Netflix (and DM) all should also be given priority over say, bittorrent. This is called traffic shaping (or sometimes QoS) and most people want this to happen even though, by strictest definition, its not "neutral."
Of course there's absolutely no reason why a law couldn't be written to effectively say "protocol-based traffic shaping is fine but provider-based or user-based prioritization is not fine." Just because "net neutrality" is a catchy phrase doesn't mean we have to accept it as an strictest-sense-all-or-nothing rule. We're can aim for a middle-ground point that allows for necessary shaping practices without also allowing significant abusive practices.
I don't know what you're talking about. Most countries are fighting this same battle. The difference is that most countries (at least most developed countries) lean more toward protecting peoples' rights rather than corporate profits, a strong difference from the US mentality, so quite often NN rules just got implemented right away with little obstruction. It has little or nothing to do with competition in most countries. Just those damned socialist governments protecting peoples' rights like the commies they are.
I haven't read through it all, but Wikipedia has a fairly extensive list of countries and the state of their net neutrality fights. I mean its Wikipedia and who knows how current those entries are (I see some with 2011 dates.. which may mean its been sitting since then or it may mean the wiki just hasn't been updated.) But at the very least, it should give you a place to start further research if you really care about the state of NN around the world.
Infrastructure is one of the things our taxes should pay for. The taxpayers are already paying for it anyway - they just write the checks to AT&T instead of Uncle Sam. In today's society, internet access is as essential as a car or a telephone. You don't get on without it. It's effectively a tax, but we have for-profit companies administering it, skimming their cut off the top. The competition that normally leads to efficiency in a free market doesn't exist when discussing infrastructure. And it's not due to government meddling, it's due to the shared nature of infrastructure itself. If we could somehow alter physical reality to allow 20 sets of roads, comm lines, etc to exist on top of each other... then maybe we could have meaningful competition in infrastructure.
It sure is a good thing that you and Rockoon show up in every net neutrality article to tell us how the telecos love net neutralitt, after we've watched them obviously resist and fight it with paid shills for years
So you losers lost the net neutrality fight, and now you're here to try to trick people into thinking that it was what your overlords wanted all along?
So, you've made it clear that you don't think that government action can have any positive effect on this situation. What is your alternative? Because the only one I see is that we're just going to be thrown to the wolves.
There are no levels of net neutrality. You're just lumping net neutrality (source based) in with Quality of Service (type based). Two different things with different discussions and very VERY different implications.
Nothing in the net neutrality legislation ever had any impact on quality of service controls.
all it implies is that AT&T prefers to the status quo to what they are anticipating from Trump and Pai's alternative
Or they know that this won't make a difference and are getting some free PR spin in the process. There's nothing to suggest that they prefer what there is now to what Trump will bring.
Right now their Uverse internet service has to give Hulu and Netflix priority because their customers demand it.
Customers are demanding nothing of the sort, and the ISPs are definitely not giving priority to the biggest horder of traffic on their networks.
What customers demand is fast internet, or internet at the advertised speeds. No one has ever demanded that their Netflix should be faster than Hulu, and why would they, asking for such a thing shows a fundamental lack of understanding of how the internet works.
Meant for this to be a reply to rockoon, not to AC, my bad.
Actually if you read more than the first sentence, I was explicitly outlining that distinction.
But there are numbskulls on both sides.. On the NN favoring side are people who are only going to be happy with full neutrality, including type-based neutrality. And on the other side are people who use type-based neutrality as a scare tactic (all those evil pirates with their downloads will block your VOIP calls!)
So what you're saying is exactly my point: We need QoS and other type-based shaping, so we don't get 100% "net neutrality" by the strictest definition. Yet at the same time we don't really want other forms of shaping (such as source-based.)
Also, the current legislation isn't the problem. The current legislation is (mostly) working find, minus a few edge cases like zero rating that try to jump through some loopholes. The problem is that the current legislation is quite likely to be revoked under Pai and the republican administration, and we need to focus this discussion on whatever new rules they come up with (which, barring significant public backlash, will likely be along the lines of "incumbents can do whatever they want and everyone else has the 'freedom' to go offline if they don't like it.")