Posted on 10/04/2008 1:23:32 PM PDT by GOPGuide
US presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama have released their technology policies, differing on whether "Net neutrality" rules should be imposed on telecommunications companies and on the breadth of their aspirations for the American public.
Mr Obama said Net neutrality rules – which would prevent telcos giving priority to certain types of Internet traffic over others – were needed to ensure freedom of expression on the Internet and to prevent "a two-tier Internet in which websites with the best relationships with network providers can get the fastest access to consumers".
The debate over Net neutrality has international implications, pitting the economic interests of telcos against those of media companies and other website owners. Concerns over telcos' behaviour came to the fore this year, when Comcast, a large Internet service provider, was accused of "throttling" peer-to-peer traffic, such as video sharing services, on its network.
Mr McCain said he did not believe in "prescriptive regulation like 'Net neutrality"' but rather believed "an open marketplace with a variety of consumer choices is the best deterrent against unfair practices".
Mr Obama's policy, which was better received by Internet commentators in the US, was the more adventurous – flagging new experiments in e-democracy and promising to open-up government decision- making using "blogs, wikis and social networking tools".
The public would have an opportunity to read and comment online on all non-emergency legislation for five days before it was signed into law and Cabinet officials would have to hold "periodic online town hall meetings" to answer questions and discuss issues.
Both candidates fretted over the state of broadband in the US. "As a country, we have ensured that every American has access to a telephone service and electricity, regardless of economic status, and Obama will do likewise for broadband Internet access," Mr Obama said.
He promised to change the Universal Service Fund – the US equivalent of the Telecommunications Service Obligation – to support "affordable broadband, with a specific focus on reaching previously unserved communities".
Mr McCain also promised to "pursue high-speed Internet access for all Americans", but by sponsoring a "Community Broadband Bill" that would let local governments build infrastructure in competition to private providers. He said he would also support government-backed loans or low-interest bonds to help provide services in "under-served areas where the market is not working".
While Mr Obama opened his technology policy statement with an inspirational quote: "Let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age", Mr McCain's policy document only moved off taxation on page two.
Both candidates backed a reform of the patent system and talked up the importance of science education, Mr McCain noting that the number of computer science graduates had halved during the past eight years.
One Kiwi company that could stand to gain from an Obama presidency is Auckland's Orion Health, which develops software to help healthcare providers manage clinical records. It has just committed $9.6 million to a software development project aimed at achieving its goal of becoming, within the next few years, New Zealand's first software company with revenues of more than $100 million.
Mr Obama promised to spend US$50 billion over five years "to move the US healthcare system to broad adoption of standards-based electronic health information, including electronic health records" – music to Orion's ears.
Obamadon of Ramadan bring this kind of change
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH-2Fwx5RU0&feature=related
BTT
Net neutrality - is that anything like the “Fairness Doctrine”?
How about “net neutering”? Would that be a better description?
> One Kiwi company that could stand to gain from an Obama presidency is Auckland’s Orion Health, which develops software to help healthcare providers manage clinical records. It has just committed $9.6 million to a software development project aimed at achieving its goal of becoming, within the next few years, New Zealand’s first software company with revenues of more than $100 million.
Darn good software from a jolly clever Kiwi innovator — if you Yanks are lucky enough to get your hands on this technology you might find that you have fewer medical misadventures and resultantly fewer medical malpractise suits.
One of Baraq Hussein mohammed 0bama’s first missions will be to silence the FR.
“Net neutrality - is that anything like the “Fairness Doctrine”?”
Probably, I don’t know enough about it other than Obama and the left are for it, and the GOP is against it.
Any conservative techies want to explain the implications of this proposal by Osama?
“Net Neutrality” is a buzzword which a certain class of hipster liberal get their panties all in a knot over. I still fail to understand how anyone could give 2 cents about such a non-issue, yet there are people out there so out of touch with reality that this seems important to them.
“The debate over Net neutrality has international implications, pitting the economic interests of telcos against those of media companies and other website owners.”
The myth of “net-neutrality” is that it is between the “big guys” and the “little guys”.
The fact is that Goggle (wears blinders) and the media companies have a business model that requires that those who build and maintain the telecommunication backbone (telecoms and cable outfits) must extract 95% of the revenue needed to do that from YOU, their residential customer, while Goggle and the media companies are free to reap their huge profits from the telecommunications backbone that YOU are largely paying for. “Net neutrality” simply means that Goggle thinks that it, a multi-billion dollar profit center, should be treated no differently than you; and more, that you should supply most of the revenue that makes the backbone have the capacities that make Goggle’s more advanced products possible.
The further myth is that YOU would pay more if the backbone providers charged Goggle more.
The fact is that YOU are not Goggle’s customers. Its customers are its advertisers; to whom it (Goggle) would raise its rates if the backbone providers raised their rates on huge profit centers like Goggle.
The “net neutrality” debate is NOT inherently “political” except in the sense that one class of businesses are predominately liberal - Goggle and the media companies - and they want the government to skew Internet arrangements in favor of their business model.
Backbone providers have every inherent right to charge different classes of customers different rates, as all segments of business and industry has, and just as Goggle itself does with different products and services and for different advertisers.
So why do liberals support Net Neutrality?
If the left is for it, I am inclined to oppose it.
Ping!
The way I understand it, net neutrality is a good thing. It keeps the carriers from deciding what sites you can and cannot access. Google is the classic example. Everyone in the world uses Google. The carrier’s position is that Google gets all the benefits of the bandwidth they offer and none of the cost. On the other hand, the consumer pays for a speed tier of access that, with net neutrality, makes it possible to for him/her to use Google’s services as often as he/she wants. It’s like the telephone company being neutral about who you call on your telephone.
Hope this makes sense.
The net affords the average joes the ability to voice his or her opinions and the free exchange of ideas. Something the socialists will not have!
“On the other hand, the consumer pays for a speed tier of access that, with net neutrality, makes it possible to for him/her to use Google’s services as often as he/she wants. It’s like the telephone company being neutral about who you call on your telephone.”
But won’t NN drive up costs for smaller websites that need bandwidth?
Sure Google can afford to pay fees for bandwith, but what about small blogs?
No. Net neutrality is actually in place right now. Net neutrality is the status quo. So no, the costs for small websites would remain unchanged.
The carriers want to take us back to a day approximately 15 years ago when we had to pay by the minute and later by the megabyte transfer for our Internet dialup access. Now the carriers want that if we transfer a lot of data, we pay higher prices. And that’s OK in an area where the market provides choices. But if your only choices for high speed access are the telco and the cable company you end up paying for the amount of data. Then Google ends up paying for the data they send. The carrier makes money on both ends and you have no choice because there is no third choice. Anyone else in a telco territory that provides high speed Internet is reselling so they will be bound by the same rate structure. That is not competition.
And, there is no third choice that will provide Internet access at the now familiar speed tiers that we have now because that third choice does not exist.
That’s why we need net neutrality.
The Telcos/Cable units would like to be able to charge those websites who put lots of packets on the Internet (like Google) to make more money. Google already does that when it pays for bandwidth. The Telcos would like to be able to charge a ‘premium’ on top of that so that they get a piece of Google business.
So the Telcos charge you to get you packets to and from the Internet, the Telcos charge Google to get its packets to and from the Internet. That is the current situtation and what ‘Net Neutrality’ wants to preserve.
Get rid of ‘Net Neutrality’ and then the Telcos can charge Google (and FreeRepublic) an additional ‘premium’ to get their packets to and from the Internet. I guess that by that logic that even though Sears has lots of phone lines to take telephone orders, and you pay for your own phone line - that the Telcos should be able to charge Sears a premium on top of what they already pay since all of telephone orders they get over the Telco phone lines truly burdern the Telco infrastructure. Shouldn’t the Telcos get some additional compensation since Sears had nothing to do with building all those Central Offices, remote switching stations, local and long distance wires, etc.
Free marketers will tell you to just switch (you and Google) your high-speed Internet provider. I am sure for many that this will be as easy as changing your Electric Power provider.
The Telcos make their money transfering Internet packets, not whose Internet packets they transfer... Net Neutrality just keeps it the way it is today.
dvwjr
Incidentally, the FCC tariffs Internet as a long distance product. That’s why so many of the regional telcos were so hot to get into the long distance market several years ago. They never ever got into long distance to make money off people calling home. There is no money to be made on 5 cent a minute long distance. They wanted into long distance so they could carry data across LATAs. This is just the next step.
Abolishing net neutrality is akin to you paying per minute to make your long distance call home and your mom paying per minute on her end for answering your long distance call.
“So why do liberals support Net Neutrality?”
Because the have the erroneous notion that because Goggle and the media companies are Liberal, like them, that they are not big capitalists, like the telecoms and cable companies.
So, they can operate in their mythical mental framework as if Goggle is not a multi-billion dollar capitalist company running a multi-billion dollar profit center, and therefore should be treated just like little ole you - “neutrality”, instead of the capitalist profit center it really is.
Only the MSM will have 1st amendment rights?
But how does Obama intend to legislate web sites in Finland and Bavaria off the web?
Fascism on the March.
We don't care what Obama does, we still will prevail.
Teleos can pound sand.
“Net neutrality - is that anything like the “Fairness Doctrine”?”
No, at the going rate of things if the Internet Providers have their way then, for example, FR would have to pay your provider some money for you accessing this site and the data traversing FR’s provider and yours, plus the providers in between. So in theory FR’s cost of operating would go up. IF the Internet Providers are not making enough money from their customer, then they need to charge more.
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