Posted on 10/21/2009 5:43:57 PM PDT by Kaslin
First Amendment: Diversity czar Mark Lloyd's FCC votes Thursday on the issue of net neutrality. Advertised as providing access to all, it will do to the information superhighway what Lloyd proposed for talk radio.
Not much was said when $7.2 billion was included in the stimulus bill "to accelerate broadband deployment in unserved and underserved areas and to strategic institutions that are likely to create jobs or provide significant public benefits." The administration has big plans for the Internet — like controlling it.
Susan Crawford, the so-called Internet czar, told the Wall Street Journal in April that the broadband billions are a "down payment on future government investments in the Internet." Like in the auto industry?
Speaking to the Brookings Institution on Sept. 21, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski stressed in Orwellian newspeak the need for net neutrality rules: "I am convinced that there are few goals more essential in the communications landscape than preserving and maintaining an open and robust Internet."
In the name of providing access to the downtrodden victims of corporate greed, the FCC proposes to take unto itself the power to regulate how Internet providers manage their networks and serve their customers. The FCC would decide how and what information could flow through the Internet.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Its amazing how our founding fathers and we have so much in common. Their words , even today, provide guidance for us. I just hope it doesn’t go that far.
This article does little to enlighten us on the subject.
Net Neutrality essentially tells broadband providers that they must let all traffic cross their network at the same speed without discriminating against any particular content. I don’t think that is the same thing as the government controlling content.
If the Obama administration is planning to regulate the internet in a way that it controls content, that is a different matter and is not net neutrality.
Verizon (for example) had a monopoly on local phone service and vastly overcharged for it. Their cash cow is getting killed by independent VOIP providers. There is nothing that Verizon would like more than to provide faster more reliable VOIP and overcharge for it and throttle other VOIP traffic.
It would be like having a car company privately build all the local roads in your area and allowing only their own cars to use the regular lanes and go up to full speed. Other makes and models would need to drive on the shoulder.
For things like local utilities where it isn’t financially feasible to have multiple companies lay wire (especially in rural areas), government regulation demanding neutrality is important.
If the Obama administration is planned to suppress voices on the internet (which wouldn’t surprise me), this article did little to document that and it is a separate issue from net neutrality.
Disagree.
Umm...where has there been a problem with this that needs ‘solving’ by the government? What makes you think that the government will make things ‘fair’?
Why would you give the Obama administration or any administration the power to decide what was ‘neutral’?
Are they doing this? Is ANYONE doing this? Why are we 'solving' a problem before it's become a problem?
Let's stop beating around the bush here. What people really want here and why they support this crap is because they want their p2p file sharing to be as fast as possible.
In actuality, what will happen here is the same with all government regulations. Unintended consequences. This time, they will be diminished levels of service for everyone across the board and higher costs for that service.
Why the hell anyone would advocate for this claptrap is beyond me.
As far as I know it is true this is not based on them already having done it. This is based on the CEOs of some of these ISPs seriously talking about putting up toll booths on the Internet, degrading service unless the provider (VOIP, video, etc.) pays extra.
The other half of net neutrality is basically honesty in advertising, not quietly degrading the advertised service because a user has exceeded some unknown traffic cap. Put it all up front and charge for high traffic if necessary. They're doing this because they still want to be able to offer "unlimited" high-speed Internet, but not actually provide that service.
Sure, they all want to protect dying business models. But they know they can't get away with stuff like that.
Put it all up front and charge for high traffic if necessary. They're doing this because they still want to be able to offer "unlimited" high-speed Internet, but not actually provide that service.
All that's going to do is drive the price up and cap levels lower than the 'invisible' cap is now. They'll now have a hard cap and several different service levels, with the lowest level being the exact same price as the one we have now. So, we'll have degraded service across the board.
So, instead of habitual high bandwidth users having some of their traffic (torrents) throttled, we'll all be throttled by default. But at least everyone will feel better about themselves for sticking it to the man...
Then the answer is, open up competition so that you can tell any company that does this, "Buh-Bye."
I hate the Net Neutrality Bill, but on the other hand, I love the Net Neutrality Bill ...
I’m already in compliance...
Just remember, there is no problem so great that the government can’t make it even worse.
Having the Gub'mint enter here to solve a problem that doesn't yet exist (torrent/bandwidth stomping) guarantees that the Gub'mint is now moved in.
Part of providing net access the "under served population" will be to monitor/control content through control of the ISP's.
after all, 'they' already rulled over the ISP's in the first place.
The question is whether they're doing it already and we just don't know.
They'll now have a hard cap and several different service levels, with the lowest level being the exact same price as the one we have now. So, we'll have degraded service across the board.
Why? They say less than five percent of users are responsible, so find out what they're using and charge them more. We already have tiers of service with low, medium and high speed, so all that needs to get added is a traffic factor. Currently they have no right to complain when somebody uses all of the bandwidth they pay for, yet such users are summarily cut off. That is fraud, but the average user doesn't have the resources to fight it.
Come on. Really?
Why? They say less than five percent of users are responsible, so find out what they're using and charge them more.
We need the government to regulate that? Why? If they wanted to provide those users with more or charge them more, they can certainly do that now. There's nothing stopping them. But they'd rather throttle their traffic. If less than 5% are doing this and they're limiting the traffic for those users, then what the heck do we care about it to make a law for? We're going to change what 95% of people have just to regulate the way companies treat 5% of their customers? Why?
As for the pricing and the business model, none of these companies are going to lower the price of their current lowest priced offering. (I work in the industry, strangely in a sector that really would be adversely affected if these kinds of 'problems' that we are trying to 'solve' actually did exist.) They can't lower that price, as it would cut into the bottom line. A service provider will never do that. So, the lowest cost offering they have now will be capped.
The humorous thing is that when capping everyone, they will make the caps low, which will stop people on the lowest tier plans from watching all the youtube videos and downloading stuff that we're so righteously trying to protect now. That is, unless they pony up the dough to get a better plan. Funny how that works, eh? By putting these 'evil corporations' in line, we're actually empowering them to charge us a lot more for the basic services we are used to.
Why would they do this? Why the hell wouldn't they? It opens up a whole new revenue stream and cuts their expansion costs on updating their network. It's win-win for them.
And all this to solve an imaginary problem that doesn't exist. Or maybe might somehow exist now, but we don't know about it, which begs the question: if we haven't noticed it, is it really a problem even if they are doing it?
If less than 5% are doing this and they're limiting the traffic for those users, then what the heck do we care about it to make a law for?
Because of their often monopoly position in an area they can arbitrarily violate user contracts and engage in false advertising. When they say 7 Mb/s that means 7 Mb/s. They try to hide the fact that they'll penalize you if you actually use what they advertise. Remember, what we know now about capping is only because people discovered the undisclosed caps, not because the companies freely admitted they were doing it.
The humorous thing is that when capping everyone, they will make the caps low, which will stop people on the lowest tier plans from watching all the youtube videos and downloading stuff that we're so righteously trying to protect now
Most people will never get close to the proposed caps I've seen. It would take a serious P2P downloader to go that far.
And as far as government regulation, there's the fact that the government has been in this from the beginning. The government started the Internet. The government granted these monopolies. The government gave billions in money, tax breaks and other considerations to these companies on the promise of 40 Mb/s to the curb years ago, and it hasn't materialized. So when they complain "these downloaders are taxing the system" I wonder what happened to all that upgrade money, remember their promises, and feel no pity.
There is no connection whatsoever. A radio station has a fixed number of broadcast hours and decides which content will be broadcast according to the desires of the listeners. The fairness doctrine changes that and gives viewers what they don't want.
And ISP is supposed to blindly flow ALL traffic. There is no such thing as "fairness" when you don't even know what the content is. Free Republic traffic gets the same priority as the PMSNBC not because that's mandated that our views be broadcast, but because the Internet doesn't care, it's neutral.
Famous last words. They're not going to give up a possible revenue stream. In a few years, you'll be screaming for more government regulation to stop these companies from raping you for more and more money.
I wonder what happened to all that upgrade money, remember their promises, and feel no pity.
You'll feel plenty of something when you look at your internet bill after all is said and done. All to solve something that isn't even a real problem...
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