Republican Lawmaker Introduces Net Neutrality Legislation (variety.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Variety: Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) introduced net neutrality legislation on Tuesday that prohibits internet providers from blocking and throttling content, but does not address whether ISPs can create so-called "fast lanes" of traffic for sites willing to pay for it. The legislation also would require that ISPs disclose their terms of service, and ensure that federal law preempts any state efforts to establish rules of the road for internet traffic. "A lot of our innovators are saying, 'Let's go with things we have agreement on, and other things can be addressed later,'" Blackburn told Variety. She said that she was "very hopeful" about the prospects for the legislation because "an open internet and preserving that open internet is what people want to see happen. Let's preserve it. Let's nail it down. Let's stop the ping-ponging from one FCC commission to another. This is something where the Congress should act." Blackburn chairs a House subcommittee on communications and technology.

Comments

It will get changed

[thaylin]

They will keep the preemption rules and gut the rest making it so there is no NN

Re:It will get changed

[pots]

They don't need to change anything, allowing fast lanes is enough to kill it. This law is scarier than what the FCC did - the GOP seems to be backpedaling on their anti-net neutrality stance lately. Rather than trying to paint neutrality as bad, they're trying to pivot into something like, "We just didn't like how it was being implemented." If they can successfully frame it in that context, and pass a law like this one which kills net neutrality while claiming to protect it, then enough people may believe them to stifle dissent.

Re:It will get changed

[MangoCats]

I'm missing the distinction between throttling and fast-lanes?

Will there be a guaranteed minimum bandwidth? If not, then anyone not in the fast-lanes is effectively being throttled.

Re:It will get changed

[Opportunist]

So? Given his honesty record I'd believe him telling me he's having a heart attack after three independent coroners come to the same conclusion at the autopsy.

Re:It will get changed

[SuricouRaven]

It's like condoms sizes: the company will sell, fast, extra fast, superfast and ultrafast.

Re:It will get changed

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Although this is not the way that it is probably implemented in the law (or intended) there is a theoretical difference. A 100Mbps connection with throttling sometimes runs at sub-100Mbps (intentionally). A 100Mbps connection with fast-lanes sometimes runs at 1 Gbps. Of course, it means the same thing, just a change in promised speed and phrasing.

Re:It will get changed

[JohnFen]

The head of the FCC is a straight-up liar.

Re:It will get changed

[Obfuscant]

A 100Mbps connection with throttling sometimes runs at sub-100Mbps (intentionally).

A 100Mbps connection WITHOUT throttling sometimes runs at sub-100Mbps, too.

A 100Mbps connection with fast-lanes sometimes runs at 1 Gbps.

Why yes, fast-lanes can override the laws of physics and the hardware used to provide service. I'm fascinated with your concept here. To whom do I pay for my "fast lane service" so I can turn my 100Mbps switch into a gigabit one? Will it also enable jumbo frames? Does "fast-lane gigabit" squeeze all those bits into the same two pairs that 100Mbps uses, or does it magically change the 100Mbps hardware so it uses all four?

Since it is my hardware, I guess I just pay myself for "fast-lanes" and I'll see a 10x improvement in bandwidth.

Re:It will get changed

[interkin3tic]

Edit: Ah, reading fail, the author in NRO was being sarcastic there, paying lip service to "both sides have their faults including conservatives sometimes." Maybe they're right to declare us as enemies if I can't even skim well enough to catch a stupid joke.

Re:It will get changed

[Altrag]

http://www.psychologyofgames.com/2010/03/framing-and-world-of-warcrafts-rest-system/

The difference is in the sales pitch. One sounds like you're getting screwed, the other sounds like you're getting extra value for your money. The person selling it hasn't changed anything except their wording.

Re:It will get changed

[Altrag]

I should clarify one thing with respect to ISPs specifically though in that there is one short-term difference: Calling it "throttling" would mean that they could immediately start cutting into your existing bandwidth whereas if they call it a "fast lane," it means they can't really remove what you have now but you'll stop getting improvements without paying the extra fast lane fees.

But once the service upgrade rollouts have been completed to the extent that normal service is noticeably behind "fast lane" service, the models will revert to being effectively identical.

Re:It will get changed

[Rakarra]

However both allow your ISP to sell an "Up to 1Gbps*** connection for only $129/month!!! *** 1Gbps speed only applies to the following content

This is probably how it should be done -- users who need more bandwidth pay more.

Re:It will get changed

[Altrag]

Presumably the 100Mbps connection is limited based on their subscription rather than technological limitations in the GP's example. No physics need be broken, only the souls of kittens when Verizon's executives come up with these plans.

Re:It will get changed

[Obfuscant]

No physics need be broken, only the souls of kittens when Verizon's executives come up with these plans.

Yeah, Verizon is really going to start sending you gigabit data even though you're paying for 100Mbps just because Netflix pays them money for a "fast-lane" on the Verizon network.

"Fast lanes" are not gigabit feeds to the customer over megabit hardware. The cable modem I have that can manage 60Mbps isn't going to go into 13x hyper-mode when a fast-lane provider shows up. Fast lanes means that the Netflix traffic will get priority on your 100Mbps hardware, but you ain't getting hyper-speed for free. You're doing four things at the same time while watching Netflix, well, if there's a choice between a Netflix packet or someone else's going down your pipe Netflix wins.

Re:It will get changed

[Agripa]

I'm missing the distinction between throttling and fast-lanes?

It is the same difference as when the government cannot constitutionally fine you so instead taxes everybody and then gives the favored rebates on their taxes.

Re:It will get changed

[DedTV]

The difference between fast lanes and throttling is, if you have paid for an advertised 10mbps internet connection and an ISP decides or is paid to serve traffic from sites/apps that compete with Amazon at 56k while leaving Amazon the full 10mbps, that's throttling. If you're paying for 10mbps connection and Amazon pays your ISP to allow traffic from their sites/apps to be fed to you at 50mbps, while their competitors and everyone else gets served at the advertised 10mbps, that's a fast-lane.

There's also a couple core 'fast-lane' scenarios.

One, a company could partner with an ISP, or an ISP could decide on their own to host servers locally on their network(s) to ensure optimum performance. This used to happen quite often in the early days of the internet when ISPs routinely hosted game, email and Usenet servers. Today it could be used for things like Netflix just as readily.
Another option is ISPs could simply exempt certain traffic from bandwidth caps.
While another is that certain traffic could be prioritized over other traffic. This could apply to everything from weather and traffic alerts to Disney's video service streams so that they aren't slowed by network congestion.

Thottling also has several potential implementations. There's the previous Amazon example I mentioned where companies essentially pay an ISP to sabotage the performance of their competitors, but there's also blanket throttling of things like bittorrent and Usenet traffic under the presumed mission of curbing piracy.

Re:It will get changed

[Altrag]

And if your modem could do 1gbps but you only pay for 100mbps connection, they're also not going to give you 10x speed you didn't pay for even if the equipment technically supports it.

And yes, them sending you gigabit data because Netflix pays for a "fast lane" is exactly the system they want to set up. That's the whole point of the scheme. Most people don't really notice much of a difference between 20 and 50mbps, nor do they notice much difference between the 720p and 1080p those speeds support (or whatever mbps makes that difference) -- and even if they notice it they certainly don't care enough to pay an extra $10 or $20/mo.

But Netflix definitely will notice if they can push 1080p while their competitors can only push 720p over the same end-user connection. So since you won't pay more on your end, this gives the ISPs a way to convince Netflix to pay themselves to essentially subsidize your bandwidth (at least for the bits coming from Netflix' servers.) And as long as the ISPs keep the cost to Netflix below what Netflix thinks they'd otherwise lose to their competition, it works out in the ISPs favor. It even works out in your favor -- if you're satisfied using Netflix and only Netflix for your streaming needs.

Hell in that aspect, it even kind of works out in Netflix' favor by killing their competition for them, though they're the ones paying through the teeth for it with money they could otherwise be using to actually out-compete their rivals via investment and innovation rather than by having an artificial barrier thrown in that makes it harder for competition to enter the market in the first place.

So then who does it hurt? Why are people getting their panties in a bunch?
1) It hurts everyone except Netflix. All those companies that aren't big enough to afford a fast lane. Any entrepreneur who might have a good idea for a Netflix competitor but ends up spending more paying off Verizon and Comcast and AT&T than actual development on their product.

2) It hurts anyone who likes a free market. Sure canning NN removes one barrier to entry for new ISPs, but they have lots and lots of other ones to fall back on. At the same time though its also adding a significant barrier to entry for any company that wants to use (rather than supply) an internet connection. So trading a near-irrelevant benefit in a single market against a massive benefit in many other markets.

3) It hurts innovation in general. This is pure capitalist theory now: Less competition means less need for innovation. Improving a service is expensive. If there's no competition to beat then there's really no need to bother improving and therefore companies just won't. Or at least any "improvements" they make will be geared explicitly to lowering cost rather than improving actual service in a way that benefits the customer to any great degree.

Re: Ajit's head gonna explode

[Anonymous Coward]

Net neutrality should have been implemented via the legislative process in the first place. Anything of substance that is done by means of executive or regulatory action can be easily undone by a new administration.

The right way

[Anonymous Coward]

Passing a law is the right way to do it. This way we'll have a stable requirement and not some 'regulation' that can be changed at the whim of any given administration. We don't need ISP to be regulated as utilities, we simply need the right neutrality laws. If this happens, we'll all be in a better place.

Re:The right way

[zifn4b]

We don't need ISP to be regulated as utilities

I disagree. The internet is a critical part of the backbone of our consumption-based economy. If there are not safe guards in place for the internet as a public utility to protect the market then we are at risk of damaging the entire economic market (possibly causing yet another recession) in order to provide special treatment to a small amount of participants namely Comcast, AT&T and Time Warner.

This IS a public concern over the general welfare for all people and all businesses the same as clean drinking water and electricity is. It must be protected to provide for the general welfare of everyone not just a few special interests.

Re:The right way

[dehachel12]

> clean drinking water
Some people disagree on this. Usually people with a lot of money.

Re:The right way

[pots]

The point of the law which put the FCC in charge of identifying and enforcing common carrier status was to ensure that the law would stay current even as technology changed. Our current situation is not a regulatory failure: The current FCC has not failed in this task, they are applying the law in exactly way that congress wants them to (i.e.: they are killing net neutrality, because congress wants them to. Pai has always been clear about his stance on net neutrality, well before he was nominated by the president and confirmed by the senate).

Making a new law, one which can not adapt to future technologies, does not solve this problem. This particular law, which doesn't even fully address current technology, does not solve this problem. The only thing that can solve this problem is ensuring that the people in congress are not horrible. That's it. That's the only thing.

Re:The right way

[SlaveToTheGrind]

The internet is a critical part of the backbone of our consumption-based economy.

Wait. So your argument for NN is that people must have guaranteed snappy access to the site of their choice so we make sure they don't lose the ability to... buy stuff online at a frenzied pace?

Wow. Power to the people, d00d.

Re:The right way

[Hal_Porter]

clean drinking water

Some people disagree on this. Usually people with a lot of money.

A lot of countries have a right to a lot stuff - food, water, a job etc in theory but in practice they get nothing. E.g. the USSR, North Korea etc.

Meanwhile there are lot of countries which have few rights to those things but in practice people tend not to die of of thirst of famine.

Basically countries which only grant negative rights (freedom from X) tend to outperform ones that grant extensive positive rights (right to X) for for negative and positive rights.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:The right way

[Solandri]

"The Internet" does not need to be regulated as a utility. Heck, "the Internet" shouldn't be regulated at all. None of the reasons you give justify making Internet service a utility. In fact, contrary to your rationale, the reason that there are so few participants is entirely the fault of local governments awarding local monopolies to a select few companies.

The cable carrying information into your house should be regulated as a utility. This covers cable TV, phone service, Internet service. It should be regulated not because of the Internet or TV channels or phone services. It should be regulated because the lines for these services have to pass through public easements, and it's in The Public's best interest to have as few physical lines as possible on telephone poles, in underground easements, and leading up to their home. The optimal solution to this problem is a single line leading to each home which carries all these services.

As such the contract to install and maintain this line should be awarded to a single company, which due to its monopolistic nature should be regulated as a utility and prohibited from providing service over the line. Companies wishing to provide service, be it Internet, TV channels, phone service, alarm monitoring, or whatever future information transmission application (holovision, smellovision, whatever), should all be allowed to transmit that information over that line for a fixed, regulated fee, but the company maintaining the line is prohibited from providing any of these services so there is no conflict of interest. This is how we do electric, gas, and long distance phone service. One company maintains all the lines and pipes in an area, but you can buy your electricity, gas, and long distance phone service from hundreds if not thousands of different suppliers.

The fact that (1) there will be a monopoly contract to maintain the line to each home, and (2) that line will pass through public easements is enough to justify regulating it as a utility.

Re:The right way

[Quirkz]

The only thing that can solve this problem is ensuring that the people in congress are not horrible. That's it. That's the only thing.

Unfortunately, I think you've replaced a difficult problem with an impossible one. It's probably easier to fix NN now and pass another bill later than it is to fix congress. Among other things:

- Congress starts with a very small pool of self-selected applicants, so you're picking from at best a dozen volunteers.
- Applicants who want any chance of winning have to be affiliated with things that bring them money or visibility, so they're already aligned with some kind of big money.
- It's a mostly two-party system, so the candidate has to align with a party and play games to stay in its good graces.
- Regardless of the candidate, the party behind them is mostly made up of the same people and only slowly changes.
- There are thousands of critical issues, and the odds that you'll find a candidate who's not terrible about even three of your top four is unlikely. More likely your choice is between mostly undifferentiated party lines, and you have to pick The One Issue and give up dozens of lesser ones.
- Congress is limited by location, so even if you're really motivated, and you can get everyone you know really motivated, or even a whole town really motivated, at best that affects a small handful of races, but that spirit by definition can't leave the state. The other 520-odd members (98%+) are out of your control.
- The two-party system basically guarantees that your definition of "not terrible" is at odds with roughly 50% of the population. Allowing for other parties and difference of opinion, it's more likely that you can't even get 25% of a group to agree on what "not terrible" means.

So, all told I'd rather that they pass something useful now than they wait for an impossible perfection later.

Re:The right way

[dcw3]

"We don't need ISP to be regulated as utilities"

Unless there is a fair competitive marketplace you do need regulation. Currently, you can't start a business and run fiber to peoples homes. The only competition is satellite, which most don't find acceptable due to latency, and 4G, which doesn't cut it. More than 50 million homes have only a single broadband provider available. So these are local monopolies w/o competition. They are virtual utilities and need to be regulated as such.

Re:The right way

[jellomizer]

Being how the internet has embedded itself as a critical infrastructure for our personal lives and our economy. It is important that ISP are properly regulated so they realize the importance they carry.
Imagine a Power Utility cutting power or browning out a Solar Cell manufacture, or a community who is against how they generate power. That is why Utilities have a lot of regulation. Because they are vital to the community, and we can't allow such companies to just do anything they want like other businesses, because a few people can make a wide ranging bad decision hurting the community, without any recourse from that community.

The same issue is with ISP. We can not treat them like a Utility company if in most areas we can choose from dozen of ISP's Where competition will keep them honest. Much like back in the 1990's with dial up internet. Sure you had big names such as AOL and MSN. But even in rural areas we had BBS's becoming dial up ISP's, all with their own features and pricing. My first ISP (Called Cow Land BBS) you would pay $20 by calling a 1-900 number and I got something like 20 hours of usage, that would last me 3 or 4 months (14.4k modem) and 200k would be considered a big file. 2Meg downloads for a game like Doom was considered a big investment. But we had options back then today I have one good option and 2 other poor ones. Cable Modem (Spectrum) and Cell (ATT and Verizon) the Cell service with these two carriers actually reach my house, but they come and go, and they are way too expensive for home use. So if Spectrum decides to block a site or make it unable I am powerless to do much about it. Because ISP are not treated like a utility.
 

Re:The right way

[PopeRatzo]

The Internet grew from a research network to the economic powerhouse it is today precisely because it was free and very lightly regulated.

And now it's regulated by Comcast.

Re:The right way

[Mashiki]

This IS a public concern over the general welfare for all people and all businesses the same as clean drinking water and electricity is. It must be protected to provide for the general welfare of everyone not just a few special interests.

The only part of the internet that should be regulated as a utility is the "last mile" or "the pole to your home." Anything else is generally overkill, and the market can handle the rest if competition is healthy. Ask yourself this, if tomorrow comcast, AT&T, and so on could no longer hold local monopolies because the "pole to home" is classed as a utility and you can get access from *any* ISP, how much do you think things would change as companies tried to position themselves better?

Right, you can already see it can't you? ISP's would suddenly start positioning themselves based on what they want to offer, people who cared about x thing would shift to those other companies in an instant.

Re:The right way

[MangoCats]

Getting the regulations out of the hands of the Executive Branch's appointees and into the muck of the Legislature and Supreme Court will go a long way to stabilizing the playing field.

The internet has been "a big deal" for 20 years, I think we should be able to craft some sensible legislation about it by now.

Re:The right way

[MangoCats]

ISPs are the new interstate highway system. I don't think the progress in commerce since Eisenhower was attributable to the toll roads that are a part of our highway system, it was the free access high speed long distance arteries.

Re:The right way

[cyberchondriac]

Wrong. When nearly all banking and bill paying is now done online (which the creditors push hard for), when corporations use the Internet for their communications for everything , it becomes a critical element to living. People can't live without money to buy to gas, electricity and food.

Re:The right way

[Archangel Michael]

The only thing that can solve this problem is ensuring that the people in congress are not horrible.

That is by far the weakest argument that makes assumptions that are provably false. I've proposed (many times on /.) a much better fix, by removing the previous government regulations that caused this in the first place, namely franchise agreements.

If Local municipalities treated last mile like infrastructure and allowed any number of service providers access to the last mile customer, it would solve this problem (and other problems we don't even know we have) without having to control the idiots in both the (D) and (R) parties that only gain power by taking it from us with draconian regulations of private networks.

My solution doesn't require people in congress to do anything, they can be the horrible people that they always will be, because that would be irrelevant.

Re:The right way

[Howitzer86]

The internet is a critical part of the backbone of our consumption-based economy.

This can change. That change starts with our leaders - declaring with action if not words - that affordable broadband access is not a human right, nor necessary. Objectively, it's arguable. Sometimes I take an online class, but facilities are available for doing that without broadband, and schools can adjust their instructional material to compensate for ever narrower bandwidth. As for everything else, chatting, reading, online shopping, bills, you don't really need much speed for that. While I sympathize, your 4k videos will just have to come from large networks and the providers themselves. It's just too bad that the "next Netflix" will get shut out.

Re:The right way

[Mashiki]

Apparently the failure mode of libertarianism is government action. Comcast paid for that last mile, and you're just going to socialize it? Chalk up another episode of lying hypocrisy from Mashiki.

You mean Comcast paid for it with either/and/or full monopoly rights, zero taxes, heavy government investment(state/local/city) in many cases. In other words, in most cases it's via your tax dollars not their dollars and on top of that they fight tooth and nail against any form of competition, including filing lawsuits against startups trying to gain "right-of-way" access on the same poles.

Chalk up another episode of the AC comment stalker, that show's they're as deranged two days ago as they are today.

Re:The right way

[Archangel Michael]

Unless there is a fair competitive marketplace you do need regulation.

You are correct, 100%.

But my question is, why is the natural choice regulation and not making the marketplace fair and competitive?

Keep in mind government regulation caused this problem in the first place, and you're betting the solution is more of the same thinking that caused this .

https://alliswel.us/image/1722...

Re:The right way

[Anonymous Coward]

freedom from pollution ? right to clean water ? is it now a positive or a negative right ?

Re:The right way

[dcw3]

I'd be fine with making them fair and competitive if you can find a way for them to not need to all run wires through my front lawn. It already gets painted every time someone down the street needs work or digs a hole...gas, water, cable and phone companies, seems like my lawn is every color but green.

Re:The right way

[thinkwaitfast]

Instant gratification doesn't work with a 3 second delay.

Re:The right way

[thinkwaitfast]

So you're OK with paying for Internet by the Kb, like you pay by the kWh for electric?

Works for me. This was the norm in most places until recently

Re:The right way

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

This is how we do electric, gas...really? There is, per Wikipedia, a total of 16 current states that have a "deregulated electricity market" concerning electricity, and around 28 for gas. Even in those states, only specific areas have any choice. No location has "thousands of different suppliers" for energy.

Other than that, I totally agree with you; your approach of the public easement is one of the most fundamentally sound ones I've seen so far. In most places, at least for copper lines, the companies that laid those lines don't even exist anymore.

Re:The right way

[pots]

"Weakest argument" "provably false" ... thems some big words there. I don't even know what assumptions you're talking about, so let's just assume that you're right about everything, and that you can "prove" whatever that is. Great. It's irrelevant.

The person that I was replying to was suggesting replacing a law which was designed to adapt to circumstances, with one that isn't. The issue is the longevity of the solution, and nothing other than vigilance can address that problem.

Re:The right way

[Dragonslicer]

Passing a law is the right way to do it. This way we'll have a stable requirement and not some 'regulation' that can be changed at the whim of any given administration. We don't need ISP to be regulated as utilities, we simply need the right neutrality laws. If this happens, we'll all be in a better place.

Regulations can't be "changed at [a] whim". There's a well-defined process that an agency must follow before changing existing regulations (this has been in the news a few times this year, when agencies tried reversing policies from the previous administration without following the process defined by Congress).

It's not even a completely unreasonable argument to say that it's easier for Congress to repeal a law than it is for an executive agency to change a regulation.

Re:The right way

[JohnFen]

We don't need ISP to be regulated as utilities

I emphatically disagree. Internet service is, by any common-sense definition, a utility and should be regulated as such.

Re:The right way

[Obfuscant]

You mean Comcast paid for it with either/and/or full monopoly rights, zero taxes, heavy government investment(state/local/city) in many cases.

While at one point in time Comcast may have had an exclusive franchise for cable television service to an area, they no longer do. Even when they did, they did not pay "zero taxes". They paid corporate taxes on income, AND they paid franchise fees for use of the rights-of-way. AND those franchises often had a lot of freebie stuff written in, like free Internet/cable for schools and government, PEG channels and studios (sometimes with staff to run them).

and on top of that they fight tooth and nail against any form of competition,

Of course they do. What company just rolls over and lets the competition come in unfettered? If you run a car repair service and follow all the laws that your city has laid out for such businesses, would you just ignore a new competitor that did everything they could to avoid all those laws, and that was explicitly trying to poach your most profitable services? Of course not.

Re:The right way

[Obfuscant]

by removing the previous government regulations that caused this in the first place, namely franchise agreements.

Franchise agreements are the means by which a company gains access to the public rights-of-way. You want those agreements removed? Replaced by what, a free-for-all system where the first truck to the pole gets all the space? And the government gets nothing in return for this access?

If Local municipalities treated last mile like infrastructure and allowed any number of service providers access to the last mile customer,

They already have this. All they need to do is get a franchise to get access to the rights-of-way. The city gets a fee to maintain the common hardware (poles, e.g.), the company gets access to the right-of-way, and then the customer gets to decide who runs wires or whatever from those poles to his house.

No, getting rid of franchise agreements is not the solution, nor are they the problem. The problem is that it costs a lot of money to compete, no matter what, and you can't solve that easily.

Re:The right way

[Obfuscant]

Currently, you can't start a business and run fiber to peoples homes.

Why not? We just had a story a week ago about a company called "Layer 3", which does exactly that.

The only competition is satellite,

Uhhh, no.

So these are local monopolies w/o competition. They are virtual utilities and need to be regulated as such.

The only car company that makes a car I find acceptable is Chevrolet. Therefor, they must be regulated as a virtual monopoly.

Re:The right way

[dgatwood]

All of these things are pretty easy to fix. Just convince your state legislature to call for a constitutional convention in which you add an amendment such that for each political party with more than 1% of the registered voters in a state, that party's candidate for Congress will be chosen from the party's pool of registered voters by a pseudorandom number generator, and no other candidates will be allowed to run in the election except by write-in. Statistically speaking, we would have better outcomes, because instead of picking people who want power for themselves, we would instead merely be picking people who do not shirk their civic duty.

Re: The right way

[Jesus H Rolle]

Choose the one that helps you win the argument.

Re:The right way

[Archangel Michael]

That doesn't answer the actual question. It was an interrogatory. The assumption you make, is that more rules are always better. Better than asking more pointed questions that get at the real source of the issue, and solving THAT problem.

Again the problem is solvable without draconian rules and regulations that won't do whatever you think it will do.

Look, I'm all for solving the problem, but solving it correctly rather than bloated bureaucracy, I support letting PEOPLE actually decide which kind of internet they want, rather than having some idiot or the other idiot telling the rest of us how we're supposed to like it.

Re:The right way

[Altrag]

Passing a good law is the right way to do it.

FTFY. Unfortunately the law being proposed sounds like its anything but good. At least for consumers.

Re:The right way

[Altrag]

Its a pretty good argument really. "The Economy!" is a pretty popular topic in politics and there's never been a politician who said "I want the economy to suffer." At least not in public. And people buying lots of crap they don't need actually does stimulate the economy (unlike say giving massive tax cuts to corporations in the hope that this time trickle down will work even though it never has before..)

But aside from that, the internet is a critical part of the backbone of much of our world these days, from government services to entertainment to learning to (yes) buying lots of crap we don't need. But things like "entertainment" and "learning" aren't really important to policymakers these days, so the buying crap argument is pretty much the strongest.

Re:The right way

[Altrag]

What company just rolls over and lets the competition come in unfettered?

None. But the proper capitalist way to deal with competition is by beating them, not by crying to the government and having the competition banned via regulation (while at the same time decrying all of the regulation in your industry because hypocrisy.)

a new competitor that did everything they could to avoid all those laws

Who said the new competitors were avoiding any laws? Obviously not counting any laws that give you a monopoly while you're claiming you need more freedom to fleece your customers due to the "highly competitive" market. Because hypocrisy.

explicitly trying to poach your most profitable services?

Yes. That's how capitalism works. If you don't like it, then out-compete them. If you can't out-compete them then its time to GTFO and let the better company try their hand at the game. The fact that our government props up these failing monopolies rather than letting competition thrive should be a rallying point for both the right and the left. But unfortunately rhetoric and feelings outweighs facts and reality these days so as long as the Verizon guy gets the most air time to tell his sob story about not being able to afford a fourth private jet, his opinion stands and everyone else gets screwed.

Re:The right way

[Altrag]

I believe you forgot to engage your brain on that one.

"Regulated by Comcast" doesn't imply Comcast is suddenly a government entity. GP was being tongue-in-cheek and implying that Comcast now has control over your usage where the FCC did before (at least in that one specific form of usage anyway.)

That works.. if there is any real competition in the market. And there simply isn't, much as Comcast and Verizon love to tote out that one neighborhood in New York where you legitimately have the choice between like 8 ISPs instead of just 2 (or even one.)

But hey.. whether you'd prefer to trust Comcast who's entire purpose for existing is to take as much of your money as possible while providing as little service as possible (ie: maximize income and minimize costs,) or you'd prefer to trust the FCC who's purpose for existing is to make sure Comcast (and others) don't break too much shit in their quest to take your money.. is up to you I guess.

Not that it seems to matter what you prefer anyway. According to all reports, NN is supported by a large majority of the American people, and yet Ajit Pai was installed specifically to revoke it and did so with the full support of the Republican congress who at this point seem to have just given up any pretense of working for their constituents.

Re:The right way

[SlaveToTheGrind]

I rather thought the debate here was over whether the internet is a critical public utility, not whether there's an argument that might manipulate politicians into giving you what you want.

Re:The right way

[Obfuscant]

But the proper capitalist way to deal with competition is by beating them,

Oh, please. You can't beat the competition when you're hamstrung by requirements that they are ignoring.

not by crying to the government and having the competition banned via regulation (while at the same time decrying all of the regulation in your industry because hypocrisy.)

It is not hypocritical in the least to say that you are overregulated but that if you are going to have to meet the regulations then your competitor needs to meet them, too. It's patently absurd for any company to let their competitors off the hook for the costs of meeting legal requirements while they're still paying that price, just because they think the regulations are onerous. It is STUPID for any businessman to say "I'll pay those costs but I don't think my competitor should."

Obviously not counting any laws that give you a monopoly

There are no laws that give anyone in the ISP business a monopoly. Not a single damn one. But there are laws that create contracts that the incumbent has to fulfill that the competitors don't want to, and that's when lawsuits get filed.

Yes. That's how capitalism works.

No, that isn't. "Capitalism" is not the government competing against private business while still regulating that business. It's not one party to a contract requiring services from the other and then going into business without having to do the same things.

If you can't out-compete them then its time to GTFO and let the better company try their hand at the game.

It's not a better company. It's a company that isn't being held to the same rules, that doesn't have to provide the services that you do, and doesn't have the costs that you are required to have.

When a city "creates competition" by competing against an incumbent, they don't have to pay themselves a franchise fee for access to the rights-of-way, they get city services to do things that the incumbent has to pay for himself, they have no investors that need to get a return on that investment, they don't have to provide the coverage or services that the incumbent has to, and they don't have corporate taxes to worry about. That's not "capitalism". That's outright unfair competition, and the legal system is the exact right recourse to deal with it.

Re:The right way

[cyberchondriac]

Then you weren't really responding to my original argument. I never claimed you "couldn't pay bills" w/o the Internet, as you say, I said the Internet was a critical element to living, financially. Because when I mentioned corporations in my argument, I meant all, including the banks which are corporations.
As an individual, you can still pay your bills via check or cash in person, but the banks themselves use the Internet more than any other medium. I suppose they could go back to using Western Union, but that would be like trying to go back 20 years, with the volume of transactions that are common today. That would affect everyone adversely. It would screw up our entire financial system. The other ACs get that, but not you.

Re:The right way

[zifn4b]

Wait. So your argument for NN is that people must have guaranteed snappy access to the site of their choice

No and you obviously don't understand the internet or network neutrality. If a portion of the internet network is saturated then the sites that should be slow would be based on network topology and other circumstances not because of artificial throttling. Network Neutrality does not constitute an SLA. It doesn't guarantee a level of service. What it does guarantee is that ISP's can't create selective bottlenecks based on specific content and/or party.

The issue of quality of service can be sorted by the free market provided that we allow for adequate competition (a completely different topic). In a free market of choice and competition, consumers would give business to the better consumer choice. If a company is interested in making money, they would be compelled to do what it necessary to be competitive just like any other business.

Re:The right way

[zifn4b]

No, it's about the right to get to any bank to pay your bills online. The right to get to any job site to apply for jobs. The right to consume media (video, music, books, etc.) from any online vendor.

You are not entitled to access content on the internet. However, your ISP for some fee provides you access to the internet and they advertise different speeds of access to said internet. That access only applies to the network segment between you and the ISP's network. Once you leave the ISP's network, you leave the ISP's jurisdiction. The internet is a medium that allows you to get to content on the internet. The internet connects different parties together in much the same way as a highway or town market. Your dealings with the parties in the framework are between you and the other party. The terms of your ability to access what the other party has to offer is agreed upon by you and the other party. For example, the ISP has nothing to do with accessing your bank account or pay walls to access content that is not provided by the ISP. It's shocking how much people do not understand these concepts after 25 years. smh

Re:The right way

[SlaveToTheGrind]

Hmmm, why so eager to change the subject? The focus of your post and mine was on your silly proposition about an inalienable right to online consumption.

Re:The right way

[cyberchondriac]

Firstly, To be clear, I have no contention that a lack of net neutrality will result in the death of the Internet. I was responding simply to your line that life could continue fine without it. I harbor no illusions that the Internet dies or the world ends because NN is repealed. Besides, it'll be a proper law before long anyway.

I was singularly addressing your contention that the world can operate fine without an Internet, it is not necessary to sustain life. Technically, if you're being that pedantic, yes. Are you really being that pedantic? Technically, we don't need money to "survive". If that's where this is headed, then nevermind.

But in modern society, anyway, people need money to buy things like food and gas and have a roof over their head, and today, all *major* money transactions at the back end - Nat'l and Int'l commerce that is, are conducted via the internet, which in turn affects everything below.

So if it's within your ability, try to actually imagine what happens if Wells Fargo is unable to transfer funds between them and Beneficial or Citizens Bank. It's critical that banks be able to communicate and transfer funds quickly, because otherwise people's paychecks don't get processed and bills don't get credited. Maybe mortgages aren't processed.
Okay, so you write out your check, on your account with Citizens, and send it to your mortgage company, who use Ameribank. But they can't process thousands of transactions a day anymore, they've had to resort to the postal service again, or telephone/fax for lesser transactions; it all gets backed up. Delays occur, accounts go into arrears. You don't get paid, or your car gets repossessed, or you lose your home.
Wholesalers can't do business with retailers. Without these transactions occurring, grocery stores cannot pay distributors. Transportation comes to a crawl. Food becomes scarce. Commodities become scarce. Prices skyrocket.

Perhaps you'd prefer to go "off the grid" and build a log cabin somewhere, and live off the land. If you can successfully swing that, you rock; you're right, you don't need the Internet to survive. Most people can't, and without being able to make money and use it to pay for basic needs, they won't survive.

Re:The right way

[Altrag]

One leads to the other. Once you've decided on your point of view then you need to figure out how to frame it in order to sell it to others.. unless you happen to be one of the very few folk capable of implementing major changes unilaterally.

Re:The right way

[skam240]

OHHHHHH, bureaucracy! So net neutrality must be bad!

How about a system that lets PEOPLE compete competitively with multi-billion dollar corporations? Entry into the market place can be easily restricted to those with large amounts of money without net neutrality.

Re:The right way

[Altrag]

Regulation comes from government.

Hence why its tongue-in-cheek and not literal.

A business can't regulate itself

No. But it can control what service it provides to its customers, which is what the GP was referring to. I'm sure you'd have figured that out if you'd actually gone ahead and turned on your brain as I recommended.

that made it into the economic powerhouse it is today

No, being neutral made it into an economic powerhouse. NN rules were imposed specifically because the major ISPs were starting to intentionally break neutrality and the FCC at the time decided that was a bad idea and put a stop to it.

Comcast is now able to run THEIR network as they see fit,

Yeah, and how they see fit is going to be "screw over the customer as much as possible because the only competition is doing the same thing so our customers don't really have a choice." As long as they don't fuck it up so bad that people start cutting off their internet service completely, they're laughing all the way to the bank. In the meantime the rest of society gets to suffer greatly. Or at least go back to 90's AOL-style "curated" internet services which is pretty close to suffering.

If you don't like Comcast service, don't buy it.

And instead.. just don't use the internet? In 2017? What fucking planet do you think this is?

If you don't like the choice of ISPs in your area, move.

To where exactly? Most of the US is served by Comcast, Verizon and/or AT&T and there's precious few places with options besides those three (and even in most of the places with a different brand -- they're also a local monopoly and probably doing the same shit as much as they can manage.) I guess Canada's always available.

And of course that's not counting the fact that its not fucking easy, or even possible, for most people to uproot their entire life and move halfway across the country in the vein hope that Comcast in Arizona is somehow less shitty than Comcast in Delaware.

You have no right to tell another person or a group of people who own a businesses what to do or how to run their business

No, I don't. But the government does. One of the downsides of being a major, close-to-essential service is that you get subject to stronger oversight. Yes that breaks pure capitalist philosophy but who the fuck cares? If its better for society then its worth it for such an important service. You could apply the exact same argument to your phone company, your water company, your gas company, etc. All of those systems are regulated more than simply "do whatever the fuck you want" because modern society simply doesn't function if they're able to fuck people over too much in the name of profit.

Except the report that said Trump won the presidency

What does that have to do with anything?

where he ran on repealing Net Neutrality

No he didn't. He ran on racism and tax cuts for the middle class. At least he's still going strong on one of those.

I can't even find much mention of NN related to Trump prior to the recent bullshit and most of what I have found sounds like if he thought about it at all, it was purely in the context of "anything Obama did needs to be undone," rather than because he cared about the issue to any great degree.

their Democrat weighted polls said Trump would lose too

You mean like those Trump-hating lefties over at Fox News? Nobody expected Trump to win.

That's what believing fake polls from fake news outlets will get you.

Being wrong and being fake is not the same thing. Or at

Re:The right way

[SlaveToTheGrind]

Most definitely. But that has no bearing on whether the position you're selling is actually correct.

Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[91degrees]

There are several high bandwidth services (e.g. video and music streaming); that probably aren't an issue for home broadband but are for mobile users.

If they want to pay the bandwidth charges for me using their service then I'm okay with that. It is a benefit to the consumer, and allows for premium service providers to flourish.

The caveat though, is that this also should be neutral. No business should be allowed exclusivity. If Apple music is allowed to pay for bandwidth, then spotify should be allowed to on exactly the same terms, as should completely different businesses such as trading information companies.

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about this, the receiver of the data should pay. After all, THEY ARE THE ONES WHO REQUESTED IT. Oh right, they don't have/won't pay more $$$ for the privilege. Oh wait, THEY ARE ALREADY PAYING BY THE BYTE AND THE BANDWIDTH. The ISPs already have multiple tiers with multiple bandwidths, data usages and other restrictions. They want to get more money for the same service, but raising rates is seen as greedy.

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[mwvdlee]

Then government also shouldn't make it artificially hard, or even impossible, for other providers to offer competing services, which is what they are doing now.

If Acme ISP is the only providers that is legally allowed to operate in your neighborhood, then government should butt in to ensure they don't abuse their government-provided artificial monopoly.

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[dehachel12]

>government interference.
not always a bad thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[Smidge204]

The difficulty is when, say, Verizon's own streaming service is zero-rated and doesn't count towards your speed or data caps, but all other services do.

Even if all third parties have "equal access" to pay for extra data or whatever, the service provider is offering competing services and is able to avoid those costs, reducing competitiveness.
=Smidge=

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[jbmartin6]

I agree the "fast lane" is a non-issue. The fast lane already exists, it is called money. As in money for faster network links, faster servers, faster CDNs, and colocation agreements.

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[zifn4b]

Here we go again. Trying to tell people how to run their companies, and whom they can do business with.

Absolutely no. We are supporting a level playing field for all businesses to have the same opportunities to grow and thrive not just the few people that had cash to buy politicians to create legal precedent for their special interest.

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[omnichad]

But those could also easily be argued to not be "Internet" access, as it's all on Verizon's internal network - even if that service comes on the same wire. I don't think we need to worry about that just yet. I'd settle for NN just on the open Internet.

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[omnichad]

Government imposed neutrality is more neutral than what you describe. Internet is still a nearly de facto monopoly. If they can't play nice, they're going to get regulated.

Re: Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[kenh]

Then government also shouldn't make it artificially hard, or even impossible, for other providers to offer competing services, which is what they are doing now.

Try to differentiate between local government and the federal government - it is your local government that awarded cable companies and telcos monopolies on providing service in an area to encourage them to invest in infrastructure to provide those services.

If Acme ISP is the only providers that is legally allowed to operate in your neighborhood, then government should butt in to ensure they don't abuse their government-provided artificial monopoly.

A regulation that prohibits blocking or throttling of any traffic is fine, few would object to that regulation.

Allowing Netflix to pay my isp to zero rate their traffic does nothing to speed up or slow down competitors traffic, it is purely a billing/accounting issue.

Allowing Netflix to park a caching server at my ISPs head office to provide better service to Netflix customers does nothing to speed up or slow down competitors traffic.

Depending on the implementation, allowing Netflix to pay for 'priority' service could lead to effectively throttling competitors service, but it would also throttle every other service equally as the priority service 'steals' available bandwidth from all other services.

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[rickb928]

There is no 'level playing field' for businesses without either a static, mature, saturated market, or, as is usually the case, external intervention, aka government regulation.

Pretending that somehow it's unfair for the cable or telephone company to deny access to the infrastructure needed to deliver competitive Internet service to municipal customers is missing a point made just above - it's your local government that granted monopoly access to those poles and/or conduits, and it is local government that could undo that and let competitors get access to customers. That changes the game.

Wireless however could change the game. Watch T-Mobile enter the 'cable TV' game. And that begins the transformation of TV, media, and Internet in America. Gigabit LTE, Band 71, and pricing is the most likely means to disrupt the ISP business, and do so nationwide. And the others to scramble to usurp all the 600MHz spectrum they can possibly steal, to catch up. Via government mandate. It won't be 'fair' not to...

Wait for the empire to strike back. It will.

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[syn3rg]

Your power company doesn't give a shit what brand of TV you have, it provides power regardless. This is neutrality.

- So you're OK with paying for Internet by the Kb, like you pay by the kWh for electric?

- And you're OK with ISP's capping your bandwidth, like your electric provider caps you at 100A (US)?

- And you're also OK with commercial interests paying more for better throughput (US: 480v, 3-phase) than you (US: 240v, single phase)?

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[Maritz]

If you supported a level playing field, then facebook and twitter would also get classified as monopolies/utilities

Uh, no.

Why the fuck, pray tell, would that be?

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[Maritz]

You're wasting your time. You have to let the moron witness the consequences, after which they will claim to never have held this opinion at all.

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[syn3rg]

I was pointing out how power companies do, in fact, limit access to their product and one should beware the law of unintended consequences. Also, I have competition in the ISP space; I carry it in my pocket.

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[rickb928]

Facebook and Twitter are susceptible to competition. Yes, they are. Watch.

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[Archangel Michael]

Not always a good idea ... (franchise agreements)

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[thegarbz]

The government should butt out. That would be neutrality. What you're proposing is government interference.

Oh dear. You do realise that the phrase "net neutrality" is about the "net" not the "government" right? I mean net is literally the first word. Speaking of I'm going to put a tool booth up in front of your driveway. You think no regulation should exist and public utilities should be free to the corporate whims? Well you can pay me for leaving your property.

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[91degrees]

Yes, I'll grant you, this is an issue that I haven't addressed. Lack of competition in the US telecoms market is a serious problem.

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[91degrees]

If that's the service you want then you can still get that.

I want, in addition to this, a dedicated connection to another service. I don't care how I get connected. If they lay a specific cable to do it, that's fine. If they take advantage of spare bandwidth on existing cables, I'm okay with that.

Re: Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[SuricouRaven]

"Allowing Netflix to pay my isp to zero rate their traffic does nothing to speed up or slow down competitors traffic, it is purely a billing/accounting issue."

It does create a perverse incentive, though. If the ISPs regular, bog-standard service is perfectly good for Netflix, and their caps are so generous that very few customers ever run into them, why would Netflix pay up for zero rating? But if the ISP decides to just hold off on upgrades for a while and instead reduce the caps and over-utilise their backbone, then the regular tier service will become just bad enough that the likes of netflix will have no choice but to pay up for zero-rating and priority tagging.

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[SuricouRaven]

They are also not essential services that are absolutely required to participate in society - no matter how hard Facebook tries to make that the case, it's still perfectly possible to live a facebook-free life. This is not the case for internet access. It's the portal to job-searching and applying, to your local and state government offices, to shopping, to finance. Living without the internet is very difficult indeed.

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[Dragonslicer]

Facebook and Twitter are susceptible to competition. Yes, they are. Watch.

You don't even really need to wait to find out. From what I've heard, they've both already been replaced in the teenager market.

Re: Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[rahvin112]

Franchise monopoly provider agreements were struck down by the Supreme court Decades ago and are not a relevant excuse for anything your are trying to argue. They aren't enforceable and that I'm aware of have never been enforced. Anyone that tried to enforce one would have the agreement immediately tossed.

Franchise provider agreements are a red hearing. The reason you don't see overbuilding is the expense and return make it unprofitable. Communication services at the local level are a natural monopoly and should be regulated as such just like your gas and power lines.

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[rahvin112]

Fast lane is not a non-issue because as soon as paid fast lanes for packet routing are allowed it becomes an incentive for the ISP to impose packet filtering that slows down the rest of the traffic to induce more people to "buy" the fast lane access.

Creating a "fast lane" is not any different than creating a slow lane and forcing everyone into the slow lane until they pay to be in the fast lane. ISP's should not be able to consider packet or service content in their routing and priority decisions where it's targeted at particular providers. This is exactly what Comcast, Verizon and ATT want to do, charge companies like Google or Netflix or have the link be slow enough to frustrate the people using those services so they will switch to whoever paid money.

It gives these ISPs the ability to use their monopoly position to influence markets and prevent competition in related services. It should be regulated.

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[91degrees]

They pay for transit to a certain point. The recipient pays for the last mile.

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[jbmartin6]

The ISP already artificially squelches your connection speed unless you pay them more. It's the same equipment and software on both sides, yet for $50 more you can get, say, 500 Mbs instead of 100 Mbs. Why should you care if they are doing the same to Netflix? All that would do is shift some of the profits around the supply chain, a pretty common occurrence.

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[Smidge204]

But those could also easily be argued to not be "Internet" access, as it's all on Verizon's internal network

But the competing service is coming in over the internet connection, and is being (in this scenario) actively tampered with to make it less competitive. That's a problem.

I don't think we need to worry about that just yet

It's already happened. It's already happening. At what point do you start to worry about it?
=Smidge=

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[omnichad]

That depends on if the last mile is saturated. If your link is capable of more than your "up to" bandwidth rating, then that may not happen.

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[Smidge204]

I don't understand what you're saying.

I can stream a movie from Verizon's VOD service, or from Netflix, Amazon, Youtube etc. It's safe to assume that if I choose one service I won't be using another at the same time, so it's not like my choice will affect the "last mile" bandwidth at all.

However, Verizon can and will deliberately hinder traffic from all services other than its own unless an extortion fee is paid. This makes the competing services less competitive - Poorer service for higher price - than Verizon's through artificial and underhanded means.

So I'm not at all clear what it is you think "may not happen" ... because if you think traffic tampering and charging fees only to third party providers won't happen, it already does. It's called Zero-Rating, and it's been allowed to happen because there's some legal wiggle room in how cell phone traffic is treated. Without NN you can expect it to become the norm for all internet access.
=Smidge=

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[omnichad]

If you're streaming from Verizon's internal network, you can argue that it's not Internet at all. The last mile is being used for Internet AND a private network - just like cable companies that use SDV over the same wire. Especially if that specific Verizon server doesn't serve public-facing users. That was the point. It wouldn't even be zero-rating - it would just be a separate service.

Everything you're saying isn't relevant to what I was getting at.

Re:Fast lanes are okay, with a caveat...

[Smidge204]

It's because what you're getting at is nonsensical from a a technical perspective. It's a distinction without a difference, especially form the end user's perspective. Remember that it's not merely providing an internal service that competes with an external one, it's deliberately leveraging the fact that you are the gatekeeper to competing third party services to give yourself a competitive advantage.

That's assuming that the videos (in this very specific example) are actually hosted by Verizon, on Verizon hardware, and is located physically near the consumers. If that's not the case it makes this considerably worse for your viewpoint because that's apparently all it's based on.

The security guard to your gated condo complex controls access to your home. Imagine if he decides to start operating his own pizza delivery service, and deliberately stalling deliveries of competing pizza places at the gate and charging them a gate toll (thus making their pizzas both cold and more expensive by the time they get to you). Does anything seem ethically or legally dubious about this situation? Does it matter if he bakes the pizzas right in the guard booth?

Difficulty: If you move out of the condo complex, your options are either another condo complex where the guards do exactly the same thing or a remote cabin with miles of swerving unpaved roads to access it. If you're lucky.
=Smidge=

It'll never pass.

[Nutria]

Let's go with things we have agreement on, and other things can be addressed later is too rational, and Democrats will block it because it was introduced by a Republican.

Re:It'll never pass.

[zifn4b]

Let's go with things we have agreement on, and other things can be addressed later is too rational, and Democrats will block it because it was introduced by a Republican.

Negative. The problem here is that when two sides of a negotiating table have such radically different points of view, the set of things that are mutually agreed upon can be very small if anything at all. Drafting up an agreement based on those points alone can have disastrous ripple effects. In this case, the stakes are very high because the outcome of this issue will affect every American citizen and that is something that is not to be taken lightly. The problem, as is typical in many negotiating situations, one party is purely motivated by self interest while the other party is (hopefully) attempting to find a win/win scenario or at the very least a reasonable compromise.

Re:It'll never pass.

[stdarg]

How does preventing ISPs from blocking and throttling content benefit only Republicans and not Democrats? Doesn't make sense.

Re:It'll never pass.

[mwvdlee]

It doesn't prevent blocking or throttling anything. As long as "fast lanes" are allowed, nothing stops the ISP's from making the non-fast lane effectively blocked or however throttled they want. The bill plays word-games to appease gullible idiots.

Re:It'll never pass.

[asylumx]

I think the point is that the pros and cons of the bill unfortunately don't matter, only the D or R next to the sponsor's name.

Re:It'll never pass.

[dcw3]

How does preventing ISPs from blocking and throttling content benefit only Republicans and not Democrats? Doesn't make sense.

It doesn't, but Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon's lobbyists have been contributing to all of the Rs. And for what it's worth, I've been a lifelong R, who finds the whole lobbying thing revolting.

Re:It'll never pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the democrats will block it because it's a carefully tailored smokescreen. Look who is introducing this bill and her history in regards to the internet and ISPs.

It supposedly outlaws throttling and blocking, but allows for "fast lanes". That isn't net neutrality.

Re:It'll never pass.

[atrex]

The crux is in the wording.

"No blocking" - this part is ok
"No throttling" - well, this part is actually iffy, because without the other half "No throttling or prioritization" they can just say "Hey, we're not throttling anyone, we're just prioritizing some content above everyone else's. It's not our fault that there's not enough room in the pipe for that other stuff."
"Of content" - what kind of content? Every kind? Or is it the "Lawful Content" a lot of ISPs have put in their statements recently? Who determines what is and is not "Lawful Content"? Is encrypted VPN traffic "Lawful Content"? The ISP can't determine what's traveling over it, it could be anything. Is BitTorrent "Lawful Content"? Is reddit? Is 4chan? Is porn? By leaving the terminology ambiguous is opens the path to outright censorship.

Re:It'll never pass.

[SuricouRaven]

It also plays better with the R's standard 'all regulation is oppression' ideology. Their reflexive reaction to any form of government action is to oppose it, until given a reason otherwise. It doesn't need to be much of a reason though, as their libertarian claims are largely a show and will be thrown aside the moment they become inconvenient.

Our ISP's best buddy

[sasparillascott]

This lady introduced the bill in the Senate that blew away the Internet privacy protections from our ISP's (so they couldn't monitor, catalog and monetize what you do on the internet) - which was the 1st thing the Trump Admin did after getting into office. I believe her state is the home of some big ISP. I.E. this is something the big ISP's want.

The process was, the FCC (led by former Verizon corporate lawyer Ajit Pai) throws away the Net Neutrality - causing fear and some panic. Marsha and the other lobbied Republican members of congress ride to the rescue with new "Net Neutrality" legislation - which is anything but. And gets us maybe a little ways back towards Net Neutrality, but outlaws states doing their own Net Neutrality etc. (biggest threats to this huge new profit center for Comcast), they declare victory and we're screwed.

This needs to be blocked and let the FCC's recent changes get slapped down in court.

Re: Our ISP's best buddy

[kenh]

Why would the FCC rollback of FCC regulations be 'slapped down' in court?

The Net Neutrality regulations implemented less than 2 years ago were done outside of the legislative branch, the regulations did not originate in Congress and were not signed into law by the President.

Re: Our ISP's best buddy

[oh_my_080980980]

LMOL go study how government works moron. Laws passed by Congress need to be operationally defined by the different government agencies. They are not step by step instructions. Also, the different government agencies have authority granted to them by law. What often happens, is when a government agencies enacts a rule, certain groups raise objections and it goes to the courts to decide if these rules are lawful.

That's how government works.

Also, you cannot unilaterally undue rules. There would need to be justification for the change. As yet, the FCC has yet to present evidence for the change.

Re: Our ISP's best buddy

[Mashiki]

Also, you cannot unilaterally undue rules. There would need to be justification for the change. As yet, the FCC has yet to present evidence for the change.

You absolutely can unilaterally undue rules and regulations. You absolutely cannot undue laws. You understand so little how governments are actually supposed to function is scary. The entire point you're trying to present is fiat by executive order AKA how a dictatorship/junta/non-democracy works.

Re: Our ISP's best buddy

[Dragonslicer]

Also, you cannot unilaterally undue rules. There would need to be justification for the change. As yet, the FCC has yet to present evidence for the change.

You absolutely can unilaterally undue rules and regulations.

"Unilaterally", yes. The only party that is needed to undo a regulation is the agency that created it in the first place. I think what the GP meant was an agency cannot undo a regulation "at will". There is a defined process that must be followed, which, if I remember correctly, includes providing justification for the change. The justification being connected to reality, however, is probably not a requirement.

You absolutely cannot undue laws.

Huh? Congress repeals laws quite frequently. What do you think the whole argument this year about the ACA was?

Re: Our ISP's best buddy

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Changes in existing federal regulations have to go through a process and be justified, usually by new research/evidence. You wouldn't want the federal government to have too much arbitrary power, would you?

Re:Our ISP's best buddy

[fafalone]

It doesn't get us a little way back towards NN. It's far more sinister. MAYBE some ISP abuses like fast lanes could have been pursued by the FTC, but this law explicitly makes all the things that NN was supposed to prevent legal, making that impossible. Make no mistake, this is No Net Neutrality codified into law, with a fake title, it's more accurately titled as the "Open Internet Destruction Act".

Re: Our ISP's best buddy

[Mashiki]

I think what the GP meant was an agency cannot undo a regulation "at will". There is a defined process that must be followed, which, if I remember correctly, includes providing justification for the change.

Not actually true. Any regulation can be undone without any justification given, that's pretty much the point of a regulation. Unless it's a regulation with regards to law, in which case it's a different beast.

Huh? Congress repeals laws quite frequently. What do you think the whole argument this year about the ACA was?

I wasn't clear, an individual can't "undue" the law. It requires the courts or congress, senate and so on to do that.

Re: Our ISP's best buddy

[Dragonslicer]

Not actually true. Any regulation can be undone without any justification given, that's pretty much the point of a regulation. Unless it's a regulation with regards to law, in which case it's a different beast.

I don't understand this. All regulations are with regards to the law that granted the agency the authority to enact regulations for the purpose of enforcing the law.

And if an agency can change regulations whenever it wants, how did a court block the EPA from delaying the implementation of a regulation?

Hold hearings

[cold fjord]

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) should hold hearings on the matter. Then we can see if everyone agrees:

- Wired infrastructure providers
- Wireless infrastructure providers
- Content providers
- Services companies
- Hosting providers
- Security companies
- Regulatory agencies
- Schools & universities
- Government institutions
- Business users
- Individual users
- User groups
- Others

Hmmm .... just heard on the radio that "net neutrality" might hurt the porn industry. . . that could be worth some votes.

Re:Hold hearings

[Megol]

Hmmm .... just heard on the radio that "net neutrality" might hurt the porn industry. . . that could be worth some votes.

Ah, that would explain why Ted Cruz is against it.

Re:Hold hearings

[Megol]

Now that's lame. And wrong. And stupid.

Fake Net Neutrality according to dslreports

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Tennessee-Rep-Marsha-Blackburn-Unveils-Fake-Net-Neutrality-Law-140921

Enter Marsha Blackburn, who for years has rubber stamped every whim of sector giants like AT&T and Comcast.

Blackburn has consistently fought against net neutrality. She has also vigorously defended protectionist state laws, written by companies like AT&T and Verizon, that restrict towns and cities from building their own broadband infrastructure (or in some cases striking public/private partnerships). Even in locations these incumbent ISPs refuse to serve (such as her home state of Tennessee, one of the least connected states in the nation). Such laws have one function: protecting incumbent ISP revenues from consumers tired of entrenched duopolies.

Yet now she insists her Open Internet Preservation Act (pdf) will help protect the open internet, despite the fact it blatantly ignores all manner of potential violations, from zero rating and interconnection to paid prioritization deals. The bill also attempts to pre-empt state efforts to protect net neutrality, since again, the real goal is to prevent tougher rules -- not protect consumers.

Throttling vs Fast Lanes?

[BlueCoder]

Someone please define what they are thinking. How can you not throttle and yet have fast lanes?

I'm thinking this is just double speak and is sponsored by the broadband companies in order to block state legislation.

I'm not against certain efforts to add priority levels to internet traffic like specifically for playing games but it would have to be paid by customers to the ISP's.

Re:Throttling vs Fast Lanes?

[Solandri]

• Throttling is when you have the bandwidth, but you artificially withhold it from a particular service. If there's plenty of LTE bandwidth to stream Hulu, but AT&T degrades Hulu service to try to make their DirecTV Now service appear better, that is throttling.
• Fast lanes prioritize one type of traffic over another. If AT&T prioritizes their DirecTV Now service, then Hulu will work fine over LTE, up until so many people in a cell are using LTE that more bandwidth is being demanded than the tower can provide. Then the people streaming Hulu over LTE will suffer dropouts before the people streaming DirecTV Now over LTE.

Fast lanes result in throttling only if there is insufficient bandwidth. If an ISP's full bandwidth isn't being used however, it does not result in throttling. As such, there is unlikely to be an incentive to pay for fast lanes on landline (cable, fiber, high-speed DSL) service. The low-bandwidth services (cellular, low-speed DSL) are another matter.

So no, fast lanes do not automatically result in throttling, and it's disingenuous to argue that they do.

The reason to hate fast lanes is that it creates a disincentive for the service provider to solve the problem of insufficient bandwidth by adding more bandwidth. As I stated, it's not likely to be a problem for high bandwidth services, only low bandwidth services. Hence, fast lanes create an incentive to reduce bandwidth. If having limited bandwidth and doing nothing means Internet sites will pay them for fast lanes, while spending money to add more bandwidth means nobody will want to pay them for fast lanes, the obvious choice for ISPs is to stop increasing bandwidth. This is contrary to the end-customer's best interest, and thus should be prohibited.

(The free market advocate like me would argue that some companies will choose to add bandwidth, while others will choose fast lanes. And the end-customer can decide which service to get, resulting in the market finding the optimal solution. Maybe adding bandwidth will be so much more expensive that fast lanes are a better solution. The problem with the free market argument here is that there is no free market. Most Americans only have a single choice of cable ISP or DSL provider because their local government has awarded that company a local monopoly. So they have no choice, no opportunity to switch to a different company trying to solve the bandwidth problem a different way, no free market.)

De facto ban on "fast lanes" if you can read

[omnichad]

prohibits internet providers from blocking and throttling content, but does not address whether ISPs can create so-called "fast lanes" of traffic for sites willing to pay for it.

If you can't throttle, how do you give priority to the fast lane? It's addressed.

Re:De facto ban on "fast lanes" if you can read

[Hodr]

That depends on if you see a qualitative difference between slowing down traffic from a specific source, like Netflix servers or giving priority (which is only ever "faster" over saturated links) to specific sources to the slight detriment of all other non-prioritized traffic.

One of those will always be to the measurable detriment of the target, the other has no target and should have minimal detriment to any particular entity.

And if it gets to the point where the network is always saturated (I.E. everything except fast-lane services are slow) then people will complain about the overall quality of the network, which they do today anyways because ISPs will never be willing to invest enough to fully satisfy demand even with strict network neutrality rules in place..

Re:De facto ban on "fast lanes" if you can read

[omnichad]

to the slight detriment of all other non-prioritized traffic.

Even a slight detriment is still a throttle. There is no slippery slope - it's all or nothing. If even one thing is reduced in speed a tiny amount to make way for a paid priority, then you are throttling.

Re:De facto ban on "fast lanes" if you can read

[SuricouRaven]

Perverse incentive, though. If the ISP invests in a fast, high-capacity infrastructure, what is the motivation for any company to pay for priority service? The incentive is for ISPs to hold back investment a bit, just enough to make sure that their standard tier service is not good enough.

Re:Everything old is ...

[omnichad]

What I don't get is people on Slashdot who have no memory of this. I get why consumers don't remember - it really didn't make national news back then in any understandable way. These boards have been full of people claiming that NN was never a thought in any form until 2015 - and the people claiming this seem to have lower UIDs.

Re:Keep the bad parts

[dehachel12]

Shouldn't 'the right thing' be usually very clear?

Don't trust her...

[The-Forge]

Don't trust Blackburn. It's already leaking out that Comcast's lawyers are the ones writing this legislation. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qvw8k5/comcast-fcc-net-neutrality-law

Re:Don't trust her...

[Carcass666]

Yah, this is the author of the "Internet 'Freedom' Act" (quoting intentional) and opponent of municipal broadband. She has stood against attempts to enforce any level of privacy requirements on ISP's. She is the Ajit Pai of the Senate. Speaking of which.... Fuck Ajit Pai. And fuck Marsha Blackburn too.

Re:Don't trust her...

[Carcass666]

She is the Ajit Pai of the House.

FTFY. Only reason she even gets elected is because the R by her name plays well to her extremely gerrymandered district that contains the rich suburbs of Nashville and a vast swath of farmland that extends westward across a third of the state.

Doh! Thanks... My dystopian reality filter is interfering with basic civics knowledge...

Oh, GOP...

[Somebody Is Using My]

The Republican party is in a bad place. After a disastrous year, they are desperate for a win... any win. It's why they are pushing so strongly for the tax bill, even though many of them recognize how terribly flawed it is - not only from an social and economic perspective, but also from a political one: the tax plan will cost them votes. But, they fear, not having passed any significant legislation will cost them more. So we get the this tax plan.

And yet, here we have a perfect opportunity for them to pass some major legislation that would not only be incredibly popular (some 70% of the country support Net Neutrality) but would be fairly easy to get through Congress. It has support on both sides of the aisle. It wouldn't even require much work: just enshrine the already-written pre-Ajit Pai rules as law. It is quite possible that they could have gotten this law passed in mere days.

The Republican party would have been seen as working for the people, standing up against huge telecoms, and able to work and lead the country as a whole rather than satisfying a small base. It would have been a home-run, a Christmas Miracle. It would have been that desperately needed success the GOP has been selling its soul for.

And then they go and do this.

Oh, GOP.

Re:Oh, GOP...

[JackieBrown]

It doesn't matter what they do. People like you will see any bill by the Rs as a sell out to ISPs no matter what is in the bill. And even if they did somehow make a bill that totally destroyed the ISPs, you'd write it off as self serving and an obvious attempt to buy votes. (I've seen that on here already for stuff that Trump has pushed forward that we agreed with. Post after post saying not to trust it. Or that it must benefit him in some way we can't see. )

Re:Oh, GOP...

[Somebody Is Using My]

Actually, I think the point of my post was that the Republicans could have gotten an easy win - that people on both sides of the aisle would have supported them - if they had simply reversed the recent FCC rulings back to where we were at the end of 2016.

Would it have been self-serving? Yes, in the sense that politicians need to win the favor of voters. Would I have been thrilled it was a Republican bill? No, because the GOP would use this victory as proof they had the mandate of the people and probably would try to force other, more unpalatable policies down this country's throat. But would I have opposed it simply because it was a Republican bill? No, because ultimately a reversal to the Tom Wheeler rules - imperfect as they were - would be far, far better than where we are now.

And given that the vast majority of the American electorate is appalled by the changes made by Ajit Pai, I think that this is the case for most Americans.

This was an incredible opportunity for the Republican party... and they missed it. Again.

Re:Oh, GOP...

[Anonymous Coward]

If past is prologue, then people have a right to view R-sponsored bills carefully, and look for the hidden (or no so hidden, like in the tax bill) giveaways and angles that benefit corporations/donors rather than customers/voters. This is a bed the Republicans made for themselves. Instead of complaining that R-sponsored bills keep getting the stinkeye, why don't you insist on your R congress members start putting out legislation that doesn't obviously benefit corporations or donors, and instead favors the voting public in their districts?

Re:Oh, GOP...

[JackieBrown]

D.

Jesus H Christ

[Lisandro]

They'll end up introducing the same regulations Obama put in with a different name. Go GOP.

Oh, Dear, what have we done!

[Miles_O'Toole]

Having gone exactly counter to the clearly-expressed wishes of about three out of four Americans, Republicans understand it is now time to muddy the waters.

This farce of a bill will no doubt have more holes in it than a fat boy's belt.

Re:Keep the bad parts

[nucrash]

You would think so, but reality is often far more convoluted than theory. Theories are nice and clean until you start building in exceptions. This is no different that a program. You code based on a simple function, but as you add features, exceptions, business logic, and error handling; your code becomes this monstrosity where you begin to wonder what the original intent was in the first place.

Net Neutrality is in the same way not as clear cut as you might think. That's not to say that I am not in favor of Net Neutrality. I am. Yet there are some things that clearly benefit from lower latency such as voice communications or video to video conversations or even remotely controlling devices from afar. Even electronic gaming and our own stock market would pay for a lower level ping if given the opportunity.

"Fast lanes" == throttling

[peppepz]

In order to implement "fast lanes", an ISP must throttle non-"fast lane" packets, which is a negation of net neutrality.

Moreover, how would a "fast lane" be defined? If the "fast lane" is defined by the kind of traffic, then the ISP would have to inspect its customers' packets in order to determine the application-level exchange that they are part of, and this again would violate net neutrality (and the customers' privacy, but we already know that that battle is lost). And more importantly, such inspection would be impossible with TLS, which means that a protocol-based "fast lane" wouldn't work with most of the Internet.
It is possible for "fast lanes" to be defined by the packets' destination IP address, which would mean that the ISP could, say, slow down packets going to and from Vimeo in order to speed up packets going to and from YouTube. And since only large video providers would be important enough to be part of a destination-based "fast lane" option on an ISP's network, this would be unfair against small players and market newcomers, and of course a violation of net neutrality.

This law proposal seems to me at best damage control by a party that received a larger-than-expected backlash from what they perceived to be just ordinary lobby service, and at worst an attempt to enshrine in law the negation of net neutrality. I'll be happy to be proved wrong.

Re:"Fast lanes" == throttling

[bluefoxlucid]

In order to implement "fast lanes", an ISP must throttle non-"fast lane" packets, which is a negation of net neutrality.

Comcast sells you 20Mbit, 50Mbit, or a 200Mbit connection. Then they have that Boost thing, so you start downloading a file and grab the first 100MB at like 500Mbit/s.

I imagine it'd be like that: you never get less than your baseline service, and they can't throttle a particular service (netflix, google, etc.) below your baseline service. 200Mbit means you get 200Mbit to Google, to Netflix, to Spotify, to everything; getting more doesn't violate your contract.

Of course, I imagine things being done in a way that makes sense, and the GOP has shown they have no sense.

Solving governemnt overeach with more rules.

[jellomizer]

The biggest issues that the GOP had with Net Neutrality is it goes against their idea of having government control over business.
However we are starting to see what I expected to see. 1 simple to follow rule being overturned being replaced with many complicated rules.

She's just trying to keep her job

[damn_registrars]

She voted with all her GOP colleagues on the deeply unpopular tax bill, and now she's trying to show that she cares about her constituents - rather than just her owners. We'll see if this is enough to keep her in her seat come November.

Re:She's just trying to keep her job

[dcw3]

The last time Tenn voted more than 50% for a D president was in 76 when Gerald Ford was hated for pardoning Nixon.

Re:She's just trying to keep her job

[damn_registrars]

That's irrelevant. When average Americans start to realize how disgustingly expensive this new tax plan is going to be for them, the GOP will be struggling to distance themselves from it quickly enough to not lose their jobs in the November 2018 elections. While the GOP was clever enough to time this bill so that most people won't have filed their taxes under it before the 2018 elections, enough people will have read the worst parts of it by then that it will be exposed for how terrible it is and how much more so many people will end up paying in taxes in 2019.

Re:She's just trying to keep her job

[damn_registrars]

You're joking, right? What Trump showed was that if you keep doing outrageous things you can get the media and the American public to forget the last outrageous thing you did. Couple that to the fact that he had the good fortune of running against the only eligible candidate in the country who was capable of losing to him, and you see how we got to this disaster. Hell he could have turned the "crooked hillary" rhetoric down to a less-deafening 7 or 8 and still won based solely on the number of people who were already lining up to vote against anyone whose last name was Clinton.

Re:She's just trying to keep her job

[dcw3]

"That's irrelevant."

If you believe that, then you're uninformed or a flat out moron.

"When average Americans start to realize how disgustingly expensive this new tax plan is going to be for them,..."

We'll all see how things pan out over the next year as this tax plan is implemented. Vote with your wallet.

Re:She's just trying to keep her job

[damn_registrars]

"That's irrelevant."

If you believe that, then you're uninformed or a flat out moron.

You have not made an argument for the record of how Tennessee voters vote for the president as being somehow significant to the upcoming midterm election. Calling me names does not help your case.

"When average Americans start to realize how disgustingly expensive this new tax plan is going to be for them,..."

We'll all see how things pan out over the next year as this tax plan is implemented. Vote with your wallet.

Many Americans will find they actually take home less once they have paid their taxes under this plan. Pay more, get less - not usually a popular platform. This is likely why the GOP waited so long to introduce their terrible tax bill, so that the worst parts won't kick in until after the 2018 midterms are over. The smartest of the GOP critters are already announcing their "retirement" now so that they won't have this albatross around their necks next November.

Re:Keep the bad parts

[rickb928]

Stock brokers (HFT machine, to be honest and exact) pay REAL MONEY to be closer and closer to the exchange data centers, where milliseconds mean money. They reroute fiber to save feet of transit. They don't play on the same Internet we do. And brokers out there in the wild will buy the best, absolutely.

If the ISPs want to make money, they ought to be selling 'business-class' (HA!) connections to the few who would pay for them, with lowered latency and all, though I'm getting 15ms on the 5GHz WiFi band through my CenturyLink DSL to their email server, which is hard to beat for that loop. Getting out the door to Bloomberg or Schwab isn't going to be much faster than that on public Internet. Even playing with Ethernet to the home won't do much more. If you're a trader, you're not dealing with seconds, but minutes.

And day traders or active traders are the epitome of asynchronous information brokers. Knowing what to do 15 seconds before the herd figures it out makes you money. Second place is losing money.

Last-mile access and competition solves this. It will result in uniformly average performance, but it will be uniform, as competitors sell better, then get matched by incumbents, then everyone realizes they can't differentiate if they are using the same last mile and the same NAPs. But without competition the monopolists do what they want, essentially walking the thin line between pissing off their customer base and encouraging regulation, either by fiat or competition. Of course, owning the last mile pretty much limits customer redress to fiat. That's government for those of you not inclined to understand statism on its face.

fast lanes exist and always have

[banbeans]

Even with the fcc rules fast lanes existed.
Google paid for fiber directly into the larger isps backbones. The bought dark fiber than pay to have it terminated at the isps major and some not so major pops.
Netflix paid to have cache boxes installed and fiber directly to comcast.
Many of the acceleration and distribution networks pay for cache boxes and have direct fiber connections to all the large pops of even the midsize isp networks.
The FCC ruling did not change that at all.

The only regs needed on this

[laurencetux]

1 whenever there is not a signed SLA in effect and as a minimum an ISP must provide not less than 75% of advertised speed/bandwidth 90% of the time or better (so if you advertise up to 20MPS speed 90% of the time all of your users should have not less than 15MPS available all the way to the next peer)

2 any bandwidth shaping or service restrictions must be part of a signed and notarized contract (copies to be on file in the local office and original STAMPED copy to be on file at the corporate office).

3 any ISP that owns directly or indirectly any content service may only promote said content as part of a "bonus"
where any future charges for said service must require an affirmative action on the part of the client to begin (any free %service% package must automatically cancel at the end of the promo period unless the client performs a clear action like checking a box on a physical bill or checking a box in an electronically presented bill)

Re:The only regs needed on this

[ryanmc1]

source?

Re:The only regs needed on this

[ryanmc1]

Oh sorry, I just realised these are suggestions. I thought this was existing law. my bad.

Change

[JBMcB]

If there are not safe guards in place for the internet as a public utility to protect the market then we are at risk of damaging the entire economic market (possibly causing yet another recession) in order to provide special treatment to a small amount of participants namely Comcast, AT&T and Time Warner.

The problem is that traditional utilities are pretty much stable. Water distributions systems haven't changed significantly in 80 years. Ditto the electrical system. The internet changes rapidly. Delivery systems change. Services change. Protocols change. The only thing that is significantly similar is TCP/IP, BGP and DNS.

So how do you regulate that without killing off any potential improvements that run afoul of said regulation?

You leave it alone until something is obviously broken, then you pass a law to fix it.

This isn't a small detail, it's monumentally important. Can you imagine what the computer industry would look like if some bureaucrat decided that, in 1982, a "home computer" would be defined as a 6502 CPU with 128K of RAM, and anything else would be disallowed? Or that CP/M would be the standardized OS? Makes it easier to regulate the market and protect consumers when everything is standardized.

Re:Change

[Dragonslicer]

The problem is that traditional utilities are pretty much stable. Water distributions systems haven't changed significantly in 80 years. Ditto the electrical system. The internet changes rapidly. Delivery systems change. Services change. Protocols change. The only thing that is significantly similar is TCP/IP, BGP and DNS.

When was the last time the physical infrastructure of the phone and cable system was changed? Certainly more recently than 80 years, but at this point it isn't significantly less stable than the electric lines.

Re:Keep the bad parts

[MangoCats]

But, is HFT a game that's even worth playing - for society at large?

Is there anything (significant) about HFT that doesn't just concentrate wealth into fewer hands?

Re: Ajit's head gonna explode

[makerfixer]

Yeah, total trick. Heâ(TM)s trying to add the requirements to the current telecom provider rules instead of reclassifying as common carriers. Since common carriers is the goal of net neutrality and the net neutrality was a Trojan horse... his legislation is horrible. The goal is to put ISPs under a whole new set of rules, right? Promise not to use them and then immediately go back on your word and regulate the hell out of the internet. How dare someone try to take their shiny issue away by solving it.

Ugh, they are focusing on the wrong things

[dbrueck]

I'd much rather see the focus be on:

- cracking down on ISPs that use anti-competitive behavior
- ensuring that advertised speeds are generally achievable
- forcing providers to be clear and up front about any blocking, throttling, etc. that they do

If somebody wants to provide fast lines or blocking or whatever, then I don't see how it's the government's place to try to force things one way or the other - those are things that some consumers actually want in certain scenarios. Those things aren't inherently good or bad, they just become bad when they aren't disclosed, or when consumers have no alternatives available.

Re:Ugh, they are focusing on the wrong things

[damnitalready]

This.

Fix the b.s. that enables the cable companies to be monopolies, that prevents the people from constructing their own ISPs by way of their municipalities. You (major ISPs) don't have to do right by the customer, but no longer will you be protected by the government when the customer decides to go another route.

See how quickly all this NN becomes irrelevant when towns construct their own fiber networks.

Let free markets be free markets. Don't tell companies how to run their businesses, but don't protect them from competition either. NN is a band-aid.

Re:State's Rights!!!

[JackieBrown]

Federal power when it comes to rolling back net neutrality!!!
State's rights when it comes to guns, abortion and everything else!!!

- Republicans

Ok. Both points you listed are consistent with each other.

I am really curious on your thought process here. The way you phrased your first point makes me wonder if you do not understand the issue or if you are trying to deliberately use doublespeak here.

It's interesting that you think the federal government giving up power is against states rights.

Re:Keep the bad parts

[rickb928]

NO, but it's the game.

Again

[XSportSeeker]

There is only one single thing needed in the law, proposal, act or regulation that is absolutely necessary, you can write it down, and only accept when it’s included there: Internet Service Providers are forbidden by law from discriminating types of data that goes through their services. Period.

It is this simple. Nothing open to interpretation, no double speak, no pretense.

If this is not explicitly there in the proposal, it’s bullshit. In this particular case it’s at best fluff... everything she is proposing there is already guaranteed. At worst, it could be opening an opportunity for anyone to block or reduce access to whatever they consider unlawful content, unlawful Internet traffic and “harmful devices”... it’s broad and clearly has some second intentions embedded there.

By the way, get ready people... you can bet that with the corporation friendly environment that this administration has created, SOPA will come back full force. This bullshit Open Internet Preservation Act might be the start of it.

Re:Again

[cmseagle]

Internet Service Providers are forbidden by law from discriminating types of data that goes through their services. Period.

So my ISP should treat my VOIP packets exactly the same as my Netflix packets? If they "discriminate" against the Netflix data it'll improve the quality of my VOIP experience while having an insignificant impact on my Netflix experience.

The problem with the hardline version of Net Neutrality is that it ignores the real world importance of traffic shaping in providing a quality user experience. The more it's perpetuated, the more effective it is as a strawman for those saying "Look! This is why Net Neutrality doesn't make any sense!" There are scenarios where it's totally reasonable to prioritize types of data, and ISPs should be transparent about when they do so. ISPs shouldn't be prioritizing sources of data, however.

Re:Keep the bad parts

[rickb928]

But the goal isn't to agitate for changes. It is to make changes.

Re: Keep the bad parts

[Type44Q]

Spoken like a person who gave up hope that her government can do the right thing.

It's easier just to say "student of history."

deluded anarchist

[Tenebrousedge]

We get it, you're an anarchist who doesn't believe in market failures. That others are resistant to your lies is unsurprising.

Re:deluded anarchist

[Tenebrousedge]

Pretending that franchise agreements are the biggest barrier to entry is disingenuous. You're an anarchist because you believe in a fictitious form of government.

Re:deluded anarchist

[Archangel Michael]

I aspire to goals greater than where we are, rather than succumbing to the ever encroaching tyranny of the state.

Re:deluded anarchist

[Tenebrousedge]

Marxists have some lovely rhetoric too. Still doesn't mean the goal is achievable, or even a good idea. Non-coercive government is an oxymoron.

Government interference is just a cherry

[rsilvergun]

very large cake that is the cable monopoly.

it's _hard_ to get set up as a last mile ISP. Google couldn't do it. The capital investment is huge but the existing providers are already in profit mode. Comcast admitted in their SEC filing that it costs them $9/mo to sell you broadband. Good luck getting a new provider in that market.Your capital investment is too high relative to your competition's ability to cut prices. You're competition can just drop their prices until you're out of business while you're busy trying to make up for the billions you spent running cable.

It's the same reason why nobody can compete with Windows/Office. The entrenched player has too strong a position.

Re: Keep the bad parts

[gfxguy]

No, because you've got it backwards. Netflix isn't "pushing" anything - neither is slashdot. The customers of Netflix are pulling content, and those customers are also ALREADY PAYING their providers for bandwidth. Those providers shouldn't be able to charge Netflix for the bandwidth the provider's customers are already paying for.

I think the root of this thread has it wrong, though. If a provider is providing the speeds it claims, then Netflix should have no problems playing. Outside of that, if the provider wants to provide "fast" (or "faster") lanes for an upcharge, then I really have no problem with that as long as providers are providing the speeds they advertise to their customers.

Make it a consumer choice?

[bigpat]

How about instead of allowing telecoms to make business arrangements to speed up or slow down communications, let the FCC establish minimum standards of bandwidth and latency as well as minimum standards of interconnectivity with other networks based on averages of network traffic generated by users. And regulating peering technicalities should also represent the public interest in maintaining a reliable communication network.

And then give the telecoms options to provide so called "fast lanes" or faster service to customers that want to pay for it. Customers should be given the choice if they want to pay more for lower latency. And eventually minimum standards should be increased, in the way that the FCC eventually required higher quality TV broadcasts once the technology caught up.

For this fast lane approach to work to move the technology forward then it has to represent people paying for service that is actually faster and better and not just paying not to get throttled back.

Hell no

[brickhouse98]

Fuck her with a rusty pole. Anyone that's been paying attention knows she's in the ISP's pocket and has been for years. I wouldn't trust her to look after a puppy let alone introduce legislation on net neutrality.

Define "fast lane"

[Shotgun]

Isn't that the came as co-location or even a content distribution network?

Re:Keep the bad parts

[thinkwaitfast]

I wish I could pay less to get a lower speed. I don't play games and any video I watch is generally set at 144x144 to save bandwidth. But my only option is 5mps with the cable company constantly trying to sell me 10mps.

Re:Keep the bad parts

[FuzzyDaddy2]

There's nothing in the net neutrality regulations that prevented that. They could sell different speeds to end users, they just couldn't modify speeds based on the where the traffic was coming from or going.

Re:Keep the bad parts

[Dragonslicer]

Net Neutrality is in the same way not as clear cut as you might think. That's not to say that I am not in favor of Net Neutrality. I am. Yet there are some things that clearly benefit from lower latency such as voice communications or video to video conversations or even remotely controlling devices from afar. Even electronic gaming and our own stock market would pay for a lower level ping if given the opportunity.

Fortunately, none of those things are a Net Neutrality issue. The principle doesn't prevent QoS rules, such as prioritizing traffic that requires lower latency; it only prevents discrimination based on source/destination, which would allow the ISP to use its monopoly position to damage other markets.

Re:State's Rights!!!

[SuricouRaven]

Under Bush: "Federal authority on marriage! We must defend not allow states to redefine it!"
Under Obama: "States rights on marriage! Do not allow the tyranny of the supreme court to violate our freedom!"

Maybe politicians just claim 'states rights' when it's convenient for whatever position they are advocating at the time?

Re: Keep the bad parts

[Dragonslicer]

If a provider is providing the speeds it claims, then Netflix should have no problems playing. Outside of that, if the provider wants to provide "fast" (or "faster") lanes for an upcharge, then I really have no problem with that as long as providers are providing the speeds they advertise to their customers.

Except that providing a "fast lane" for companies who pay is functionally the same as throttling companies that don't pay. That's a big part of what Net Neutrality is meant to prevent.

Re:Keep the bad parts

[rahvin112]

The NN regulations were extremely light handed, they expressly permitted QOS and packet inspection and threw in a huge waiver and about network maintenance. What the regulations did was give the government a way to intervene of an ISP or backbone provider was discriminating on package based on the service they provide. For example, providing not interference with video streaming when it originates with the ISP's own service and slowing down and deprioritizing video packets from other providers.

These regulations were implemented because Verizon, ATT and Comcast had begun to give services they controlled better access, eliminated caps and other prioritization that made their own provided service better and degraded others. The biggest example being Comcast's games with Netflix early on. Without NN these same people will block any upstart streaming provider from providing good service. They will do this to try to eliminate competition to a product they offer.

This is the heart of NN, ISP's and backbones deciding the winners and losers in internet provided business. Once they gain that power they gain the ability to toll these independent services and that will effect everyone using the network.

Lubbock, TX

[hawk]

Note, however, Lubbock, TX.

Economists love to study it, as it has two competing power grids--and not coincidentally, about the lowest electric prices in the country.

I spoke to another Economist who actually plotted electric prices by distance from lubbock: the closer to it, the greater the threat of the other company expanding there . . .

doc hawk

Re:Lubbock, TX

[Altrag]

Why would economists spend much time studying that? Other than for some self-congratulatory theory masturbation? It sounds like a free market doing what a free market is supposed to do.

The trouble with that sort of free market is that it means you have to run (and maintain) two sets of wires everywhere. That's a trade-off most places aren't willing to make because its expensive and ugly. And if you want even more competition.. say 10 or 20 competing grids.. you'd have more wires running down your streets than you'd have street..

Re:Lubbock, TX

[hawk]

Quite simply, it is a functional competitive market in an industry usually put forth as a "natural monopoly." Data, rather than supposition.

And the experience in Lubbock shows that it's not too "expensive and ugly".

It's not the only example of a perfectly obvious assumption turning out to be wrong. Lighthouses, for example, have long been offered as an example of a "public good" that only makes sense for a government to provide. However, when you actually look a the data, most were privately constructed by ports to compete with other potential ports. Where would you dock, the lit one or the dark one? :)

And while

hawkI'm at it, bimbo joints also fascinate us for reasons other than the obvious. It's the only example I know of where the same "job" in the same location can have both a positive and negative wage on the same day (strippers are paid by the house off-peak, but pay for stage time during prime hours).

Re:Lubbock, TX

[Altrag]

an industry usually put forth as a "natural monopoly."

Many things we consider "natural monopolies" aren't technically natural monopolies in the same way that say, a river flowing through the town is (you can't just build a second river in most instances, no matter how much time and money you have available. At least not without some major consequences to the flow of the original river, the source you're pulling your new river from, or any number of other issues that go well beyond simply looking ugly.)

But there are still things we call "natural" monopolies simply because the cost (not just monetary but the total cost to environment, aesthetics, quality of life, whatever) is so high that nobody really wants to duplicate the work. Roads are a perfect example: Do you really want 4 people building individual roads in front of your house? So your quiet little street essentially has the capacity of an 8 lane highway with all of the extra land wasted and such that goes with it? Probably not.

Wires are similar. Two sets of wires probably isn't much more noticeable than one set after they're already in place. And maintenance costs after the fact are comparatively small relative to the initial installation costs. But at some point it means two separate companies had to pay for two separate full sets of infrastructure (or a company and the taxpayers.. or hell maybe the taxpayers footed the bill for both sets? I'm assuming at least one company..) And it means the citizens at the time were subjected to having their streets torn up twice in order to plant poles and lay wire.

And if you start getting 5 or 6 or 10 competitors? That's a hell of a lot of wires running everywhere. Two might not be significantly more bothersome than one (I mean most poles will already be carrying two or three wires for power, phone, cable, whatever..) But 10 wires? That's definitely going to start getting noticeable. And I'm just talking about the pole-to-pole runs. The pole-to-house runs means your yard may have to have up to 10 separate lines running across it. It would get very ugly very fast.

I mean its great for Lubbock and all.. but unless those economists think they can figure out a way to scale it to the entire country, there's really not much to see there beyond a happy quirk of history that wouldn't be easy (or at least not cheap) to repeat.

Re:Lubbock, TX

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

Why would you need "more wires"? In a properly created distribution and generation system, the distribution part would be a separate entity from the generation. The distribution system should be a public utility, maintained by the local governmental service sector, and paid upkeep via an end-user usage-based tax per kilowatt hour. All a "new" electrical generation competitor should have to do is plug into the grid and start selling. In this system, even a single-household solar grid could be brought in as a "electrical provider", and entire neighborhoods could pool together as a generating utility in such a scheme.

This would be as bought as "free market" as you could get, allowing true competition without any real "lock-outs" due to the physical distribution system.

Fast-Lane? Throttle? What's the difference?

[DRJR]

They sound the same to me: one data stream will be slower than another data stream.

Re:Keep the bad parts

[JohnFen]

Yet there are some things that clearly benefit from lower latency such as voice communications or video to video conversations or even remotely controlling devices from afar.

Yep, and net neutrality in no way prevents quality-of-service prioritization to accommodate those sorts of things. What net neutrality prevents is prioritizing traffic based on who it's coming from or going to, rather than what sort of traffic it is.

You've always been able to, and will always be able to, prioritize traffic according to type, regardless of NN.

All you need to know about Marsha Blackburn...

[bl968]

Sector: Communications/Electronics
Total: $1,132,199
Individuals: $261,100
PACs: $871,099

Telecom Services: $268,499

She's no friend of Net Neutrality...

Re:Everything old is ...

[eaglesrule]

What I don't get is people on Slashdot who have no memory of this.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" --Upton Sinclair

Re:Keep the bad parts

[dgatwood]

Net Neutrality is in the same way not as clear cut as you might think. That's not to say that I am not in favor of Net Neutrality. I am. Yet there are some things that clearly benefit from lower latency such as voice communications or video to video conversations or even remotely controlling devices from afar. Even electronic gaming and our own stock market would pay for a lower level ping if given the opportunity.

It actually is clear cut. The problem lies in your definition of net neutrality, which is subtly, but critically incorrect.

Net neutrality is unconcerned with protocols or ports or types of traffic. It is unconcerned with traffic shaping that affects latency, so long is it is done uniformly. Net neutrality means one thing, and one thing only: all traffic of a given type must be treated equally without regard to its source/destination on the Internet. This means:

• Giving higher priority to VoIP and streaming media over downloads is fine.
• Giving higher priority to the ISP's VoIP service but not to Skype or FaceTime is not.
• Throttling BitTorrent traffic is fine.
• Throttling BitTorrent traffic but not throttling the ISP's competing P2P service is not.
• Limiting bandwidth to Netflix is fine (but awful).
• Limiting bandwidth to Netflix while allowing the ISP's video-on-demand service to run at full speed is not.
• Giving higher speed to Netflix is fine.
• Giving higher speed to Netflix without giving it to YouTube is not.
• Selling higher speed to someone who is not your customer is inherently not.

With that definition, no exceptions should even be considered. Unfortunately, if the summary above is correct, this definition is almost the precise opposite of what Congress is now proposing, which allows all of the bad things that Net Neutrality is intended to prevent, while preventing lots of perfectly valid things that ISPs do to keep the spice flowing.

Re:Keep the bad parts

[Bartles]

Decades of experience says you're wrong.

Re:Keep the bad parts

[Bartles]

Isn't Netflix an end user, just a really big one?

Re:Keep the bad parts

[Altrag]

Depends who you want it to be right for. We (as members of the general population) tend to think "right" means "benefits society," since that in turn benefits us.

People at the top tend to think "right" should mean "benefits myself and if it helps someone else then great if it hurts everyone else then still calling worth."

Unfortunately, the people at the top get to choose which meaning gets applied, almost by definition of "the top." Which is great for them, and sadly most people would make the same choice in the same situation.. but most people will never be in that situation so we're continually getting screwed in order to benefit the 1% (or 0.1% at times.) One of the government's jobs (at least in the US) is of course to protect the people but they're so wrapped up in partisan hatred and corporate bribery that they've forgotten which side they're supposed to be on and we now live in a world where corporations are "persons" and actual humans are just "workers" or "taxpayers" or "consumers."

Re: Keep the bad parts

[gfxguy]

I get what you're saying, but there are always going to be companies that legitimately highly value bandwidth.... even the U.S. government, military, research facilities.... as long as it's not pulling bandwidth from the other customers, I don't have a problem with it - it's like the express toll lane on the highway. I use it if I really "need" it (like commuting home to go see my daughter's play at school, in my case); otherwise the people that are willing to pay extra to use it all the time aren't really taking away from the other commuters when the lane was added for that specific purpose.

It's really a lot more complicated, though, isn't it? Because if my Netflix isn't playing well, it might have nothing to do with my internet access, but Netflix's - and if that's the case, then they should be adding more servers and bandwidth on their end, and they shouldn't jack up the price because part of the existing cost is already to pay for internet service, and if they are getting that many more customers they should be getting that much more money to increase bandwidth. But if the problem is that someone paying for "fast lane" service is causing Netflix's to be reduced, then I agree that's a problem - but again, the problem is between Netflix and it's provider, or the ISP customers and their providers for not providing the agreed upon bandwidth.

Re: Keep the bad parts

[gfxguy]

Yes, that's true. They can give me an "up to," if they want, but they should also give me an "at least." At least X, up to Y. This is the kind of thing that has nothing to do with NN, though. If the customers in my neighborhood are all on at once, and that causes me to not be able to watch something, or worse, not be able to work from home, then I shouldn't have to pay that month. That's their incentive to make sure the neighborhood is covered.

Re:Keep the bad parts

[Altrag]

Nobody's claiming that video games having lower latency is bad.

What they're claiming is that EA being able to pay an extra $100k/mo to get ultrafast speeds for their latest Battlefield revision means they have a distinct competitive advantage over my FieldBattle offering even if my game is objectively better, simply because I can't afford that kind of extortion while EA can.

If both games were equally prioritized over say, bittorrent and FTP traffic then great nobody's complaining about that (beyond a few hard-line NN zealots who don't even think simple traffic shaping should be done..) Its when your game is prioritized over my game for purely financial (rather than technical) reasons that we start getting pissy about it.

And that's exactly what these companies have been trying to do for over a decade now, and exactly what Tom Wheeler was trying to prevent, and exactly what the companies will start doing again now that NN is gone, give or take a grace period as they're probably not stupid enough to start abusing us until the whole debate has had time to fall out of the public eye.

Re:Keep the bad parts

[Altrag]

Well HFT destroyed the stock market, so its definitely not worth playing unless you're also an HFT.

You can still buy stable stocks and ride them out long-term to get slightly better return on investment than a simple savings bond or whatever, but there's no way you can trade your way to a fortune anymore beyond pure dumb luck -- the HFTs have spotted any trend you're following and outbid you before your screen has even finished loading if you do your own trading, and calling up a broker where the latency is measured in minutes at best is just laughable.

Re:More like deluded statist

[Tenebrousedge]

Government is defined as a monopoly on violence.And yes, the collective capacity for violence exceeds the individual one by many orders of magnitude. The lapse in your sanity is where you imagine that violence can be removed from the human condition, when we cannot eliminate it from maximum security prisons. Violence is the birthright of mankind. Ceding that right to a political structure is the foundation of civilization.

Libertarians are evil, egotistical, or idiotic, non exclusively.

Re:State's Rights!!!

[JackieBrown]

Agreed. I was merely trying to figure out the point the grandposter was making.

Politicians flip it to when they want the feds in control and compare whatever state's rights issue to slavery.

Re:Keep the bad parts

[aquacrayfish]

Undoing accidental moderation - parent comment strikes at the heart of the matter (whether you think a specific entity should be in charge of keeping things in check is a tangential matter).

Re:Keep the bad parts

[FuzzyDaddy2]

Netflix is not an end user of my Verizon FIOS account. That's just me. Net neutrality meant Verizon couldn't throttle netflix (over, say, Amazon) when I was accessing the website.

Whatever deal Netflix has for there own internet access would affect the amount of traffic they can generate. While I don't think former net neutrality would prevent their provider(s) from selectively blocking some individual customers, they have the market power to prevent that without federal regulation.

Re:Keep the bad parts

[rickb928]

Wrong that the goal isn't to make changes, but to merely agitate?

Interesting. I gotta work this out.