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NYTimes Editorial Board: The FCC Wants To Let Telecoms Cash In on the Internet (nytimes.com)
The New York Times' Editorial Board writes: The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission wants to let Comcast, Verizon and other broadband companies turn the internet into a latter-day version of cable TV, in which they decide what customers can watch and how much they pay for that content. That's essentially what would happen under the proposal by the chairman, Ajit Pai, to abandon the commission's network neutrality rules, which prevent telecom companies from interfering with how their customers use the internet. Net neutrality prevents those companies from having companies like Amazon pay a fee to get their content delivered more quickly than their rivals', and from having the firms throttle other services and websites, even blocking customer access to, say, Netflix or an online newspaper. Under Mr. Pai's proposal, telecom companies would effectively be allowed to sell you a basic internet plan that might include only limited access to Google and email. For Facebook and Twitter you might need a slightly more expensive deluxe plan. The premium plan might include access to Netflix and Amazon. Oh, and by the way, media businesses eager to gain more users could pay broadband companies to be included in their enhanced basic or deluxe plans. Further reading: Associated Press fact check: Net-neutrality claims leave out key context; The death of the Internet.
This model smacks of 1990's style thinking.
Do they think Amazon and Google won't start building out their own 'internets'? Do they think that this type of fragmentation and duplication of efforts would be anything but harmful for consumers?
This isn't free market capitalism. This is crony capitalism.
You're confusing toll roads with member-only access to a building.
If NYTimes requires people to pay to view their articles, it's their business.
But without net neutrality, it would give that power to the ISPs and completely fragment and destroy American's internet access.
#DeleteFacebook
We need strong, caring, logical people to join the U.S. government. One way to help that happen is to take the money out of being elected. Could there be free TV channels for those who qualify and are trying to make themselves known before an election?
Another way is to pass a law that says anyone who tries to influence legislation must make all documents public, and must have no personal involvement with lawmakers or their staff.
Glad I got on about '92-'93 while it was still a bit of the old "wild west" and anything went.
I guess you couldn't expect it to last forever...it caught the govt types off guard and it took a long time for them to catch up to it.
I guess they'll be happy letting the corporate world do what they really never seemed to be able to do and kill it for the masses.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Personally if I was them, I would not want this. They'll lose their carrier status and will be responsible for the content viewed
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
I've said it before, and will continue to say it.
If the Internet goes "walled garden" i.e. AOL style unless you pony up more money, I will just go without.
Give me a dumb pipe where I can do what I please, thank you very much.
I still maintain the lawsuits will fly if this gets repealed, tying it up in court for years (and hopefully long enough where there will be a different administration in the WH)
AT&T blocked access to Apple's FaceTime for customers on their unlimited cellular data plan in 2012. Are you being willfully ignorant, or are you the regular kind of stupid? https://arstechnica.com/tech-p...
So, what will ISP's do with VPN users? I pay $5/mo for mine, and connect through another country. I am effectively able to bypass all of this nickle-and-dime filtering about to happen.
ISP's will therefore need to charge a HUGE premium on VPN users.
This is truly the death of the free internet.
It seems to me that the last-mile providers are trying to charge three time for their service:
First, when you buy internet access you're paying for access at 50/mbps (or whatever speed I want). It seems like this should give you access to the pipe at that speed.
Second, the content providers are paying thousands (millions?) of dollars for their "upload" access. They are contracting with Level 3, or buying their own fiber to provide their content.
And now thirdly, the ISPs want to charge the content providers additional fees to deliver their content (initially, it will be fees for "faster", next it will be fees for "not slowing it down" and finally, the fee will be for "delivery").
The water utility analogy (sorry, no cars), is that if you first bought water from a water supplier (not your local utility), then the local water company charged you for a pipe that could deliver 100 gallons per hour, then the utility charged you for delivering the water that you've bought from the supplier, and finally, the local utility charged the company that supplied the water a fee for delivering it.
Internet Access: 40.00/Mo @ 500Gb
Modem Rental: $10.00/Mo - Mandatory Use of Modem
Modem Insurance Fee: $1.00/Mo
Extra Computer Fee: $10.00/Mo/PC -Must use our router
NetFlix Fee: $10.00/Mo/client
Social Network Package Fee: $4.00/Mo
Email Fee: $2.00/Mo
VPN Fee:$50.00/Mo
VoIP Fee: $50.00/Mo
Skype Fee: $5.00/Mo
Non-Approved Browser Fee: $5.00/Mo
Non-Approved Application Fee: $4.00/Mo/application
Non-Approved OS Fee: $10.00/Mo
Mandatory AntiVirus Fee: $4.00/Mo
Blocked: Bittorrent, SSH, Non-Approved VPN, Non-Approved OS, Non-Approved Routers, Non-Approved Sites
Early Payment Fee: $1.00
Late Payment Fee: $10.00
Early Termination Fee: $100
Fee Payment Fee: $1.00
Fee Payment Fee Recovery Fee: $1.00
Fee Payment Fee Recovery Fee Surcharge: $1.00
Fee Payment Fee Recovery Fee Surcharge Levy: $1.00
Fee Payment Fee Recovery Fee Surcharge Levy Premium: $1.00
Excess Data Fee: $20.00/Gb
Unused Data Fee: $0.10/Gb
Paper Bill Fee: $1.00/pg
I never said such a thing. All they need is to keep ISPs classified as common carriers, otherwise trouble will follow.
http://bigthink.com/design-for...
#DeleteFacebook
If you want a free and open internet, the very, very LAST thing anyone should desire is government regulation. The internet has been as free and open as it's been so far precisely *because* there has been no government regulation
To be more precise, you do not want under the control of *ANY* bit entity.
Be it governments, or be it huge corporation.
And here liese the problem...
If it's so terrible, why hasn't all those bad things already happened?
...because it took some time for the big corporation to be big enough and vertically integrated to be able to pull off easily the kind of shit that forced the creation of net neutrality regulations.
There's a difference between what was once just a bunch of universities communicating with each other on equal grounds, and a huge corporation basically having a monopoly on internet over a whole region and deciding what every one will be able to see or not.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
When Obama decreed Net Neutrality he of course fucked it up. Instead of getting new laws passed, he simply had the FCC implement rules treating them like Common Carriers.
Instead of getting new laws passed? How exactly was he supposed to do that with a congress that stated in no uncertain terms - and backed it up with their actions - that they would not work with him on anything? Stop pretending that this is a bipartisan fuck up. It's not. One party, and one party alone, has been pushing for the end of Net Neutrality, and now that that party has full control of congress and the white house, guess what we got? Hint: it's not new laws to preserve Net Neutrality.
It's really a shame, because Canada is going full Net Neutrality and actually listening to what consumers want, and not the corporate greedheads.
(caveat: I indirectly own shares in many telecom firms, and have worked for them in the past)
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Prior to the rules being adopted, some two years back, had ISP's actually done this thing you fear?
Yes they had and there is proof. They didn't charge their subscribers they extorted money from companies wanting to get to their subscribers. "It would be a shame if everyone of our internet subscribers constantly got **buffering** screens when trying to stream content from your site. If you pay us a % of your revenue we'll make sure that doesn't happen."
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
When Comcast started charging Netflix for content to be delivered to Netflix customers who already pay both Comcast and Netflix to wat cg Netflix content.
That's what changed. Sips want to charge content providers for delivering content. You want to use Facebook that's extra. You want to use AMAZON over Wal-Mart that's extra for this isp. Want to visit foxnew.com instead of msnbc.com. That's going to cost Comcast customers extra. Comcast owns manic so all of their content doesn't count againistt you. But fox is extra.
That is exactly what Obama prevented. But morons don't seem to realize the difference between content providers and distribution
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Wow.
Do you know the internet never would've even happened without the government right?
CompuServe, Delpha, Genie -- LOTS of companies were offering "internet-like" services back in the 80s. Want to know where they all are? In the garbage.
Capitalism...the premise of everything "good" only happens via competition (and w/o the Government) -- never could develop the internet. The technology was all there - but let's face it - no Board of Execs would every have bought into the idea of a cooperative agency.
When Al Gore suggested it - they thought he was a nut.
You also probably don't want to own ANY comcast / telecom stock. They're all going to tank...the question is when.
Everyone thinks telecoms can charge more for that last mile service. The problem is that their model is that of a cable company.
Cable companies (generally speaking) do NOT provide content. They PAY for content. ABC, CBS, Comedy Central, etc....they PAY for that. The stuff that is offered for free is "The Shark Vacuum cleaner channel". No one wants it.
These telecoms think they can charge Netflix/Google? But without Google (for most people) and you aren't offering an internet service anymore - all you're offering is an end of cable (perhaps with videos of a "Shark Vacuum Cleaner").
Finally...this "removal of roadblocks" works BOTH ways. Finally Google can run fiber out to Comcast's best (most profitable) areas and charge whatever they want?
Competition? Google can slow Comcast's content in that area to whatever they want. Are you going to pay comcast for an internet that isn't responsive? Or are you going to switch to Google Fiber?
I tell people this. Most don't believe me. That's fine. But I wouldn't own any telecom stock.
Thus far, ISPs haven't been given free range to do what they want. While most of us would agree this is a "Good Thing(tm)", the fact that this keeps coming up indicates that some powerful people think otherwise, and we don't really have any counter data to show them other than what we think will happen ( and given the companies involved, it's almost assured that will happen ).
So at this point, given how much the FCC isn't listening to anyone but their corporate sponsors, I'm kinda of the mind to let them do it. Let them give the ISPs free reign, that will generate a TON of data for us to use later. Then, when congress gets involved and enshrines net neutrality in law, we'll know precisely why and be able to point to historical examples.
Given laws are painful to create and pass, while FCC regulations are seemingly easy to overturn, I'm kinda digging the idea of creating a net neutrality law anyway.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Do you realize it's perfectly possible to approve of someone's specific actions without approving of the person or the rest of their actions? That you can approve of something that someone did because something needed to be done, even though it wasn't the best way to go about it? Sometimes it's not about how they go about it, but that they're doing it for the right reasons.
Something needed to be done to protect the people. People are bad at realizing how bad things can get unless they see it. People need net neutrality, the principle, even if they don't realize it.
No, it wasn't. Paying an extortionist for the rest of your life is not a resolution. What people always miss is that the government is ALREADY involved in that it gave the power these telcos turned ISP's have in the first place by granting them exclusive rights of way. If you want to make it right then the infrastructure needs to be taken back and given to a third party to maintain much like the electric grid was when it was deregulated.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Do you realize it's perfectly possible to approve of someone's specific actions without approving of the person or the rest of their actions?
Of course. This doesn't really have anything to do with who did it. The only "person" issue here is that if one person who is President can do it, then the next one who is President can undo it the same way. I think there's a saying for that: "sauce for the goose". That seems to upset some people (who have mod points today), but it's a fact.
That you can approve of something that someone did because something needed to be done, even though it wasn't the best way to go about it?
No, sorry, but the ends do not justify the means. especially when we are talking about the government. Assuming that "something must be done" justifies bypassing the correct process is a dangerous thing. "'Something must be done' about all the Japanese living in the US now that we are at war with Japan. I know, I think the best way to handle it is to put them in internment camps..." "'Something must be done' about the potential entry of the US into our war in Asia, and I think the best way to handle it is to bomb the hell out of the US Pacific fleet while they are at anchor in Honolulu." "Something must be done" about hackers and intellectual property violators ... "Something must be done" has led to some very very bad laws and actions.
Sometimes it's not about how they go about it, but that they're doing it for the right reasons.
Do you really want a government that operates under the premise that "it doesn't matter how we go about it, it only matters that we did it for 'the right reasons', in our opinion"? Do you not understand what kind of abuses that can lead to?
"Well, we think Xenx is doing something illegal, and that's bad. We searched his house without a warrant, but we did it for what we thought were the right reasons." "For the right reasons" is right next to "something must be done" at the bottom of the list of excuses for government doing things the wrong way.
People need net neutrality, the principle, even if they don't realize it.
Problems with that excuse. First, government isn't mother and father, providing for us things we don't know we need. Second, there is a right way to do this, and "fiat" wasn't it. And third, laws are not principles, they are laws that try to enact principles but never seem quite able to avoid unintended effects.
"Principles by fiat" is a particularly bad way to govern from the Executive branch, especially when the Legislative branch has already provided their guidance in the form of laws.
Now, stop acting like the FCC undoing their regulations on net neutrality means that there are no and can never be any net neutrality regulation. Forcing congress's hand and moving the regulation to the right place isn't destroying the net as we know it. Companies that didn't do everything everyone is dreaming up before the FCC started controlling the internet won't suddenly start doing it when they stop.
Ah yes, "toll lanes." The lanes whose very existence slows down the rest of the freeway so that some other folks can pay to go faster.
Meanwhile, folks who don't pay find that they're closing slower, and that's the beauty of it it: Make a situation worse so that someone will be willing to also pay you to make it better. That's what you get in a society when the almighty dollar is valued higher than anything else.
Interesting that you absolve the GOP of any need to work across the aisle themselves, and put more weight on the nine months of unassailable congressional majorities the Democrats had than on the six years of majorities that the GOP had after that. They could have put through a law enshrining some form of Net Neutrality at any point in time. With all the time they spent voting to repeal the ACA and not giving nominees hearings or votes, I'm sure that they could have found a way to get something like that passed if it were something they cared about.