Posted on 10/23/2009 5:44:21 AM PDT by opentalk
U.S. Senator John McCain has introduced legislation that would block the U.S. Federal Communications Commission from creating new net neutrality rules, on the same day that the FCC took the first step toward doing so.
McCain on Thursday introduced the Internet Freedom Act, which would keep the FCC from enacting rules prohibiting broadband providers from selectively blocking or slowing Internet content and applications. Net neutrality rules would create "onerous federal regulation," McCain said in a written statement.
McCain protested the FCC's proposal that wireless broadband providers be included in the net neutrality rules. The wireless industry has "exploded over the past 20 years due to limited government regulation," McCain said in the statement.
(Excerpt) Read more at pcworld.com ...
Well at least he’s good for something. :-)
One of the first things these commie bastards would do is kill this website. Once regulation starts, it just gets bigger.
Go McCain.
These stupid rules will result in ISPs imposing outright usage caps on customers. We are already seeing this with Comcast. When the net neutrality people complained that Comcast was throttling certain types of traffic, Comcast responded by imposing a 250GB a month cap.
The reason the cap was put in place was because Comcast was not allowed to manage traffic on their own network, so a blanket cap was imposed, thus "managing" all types of traffic.
Well he is running for reelection.
On the other hand, Net Neutrality would prevent ISPs from throttling access to websites they didn’t agree with, including political websites like this one. When an upstream provider (your ISP’s provider) slows your access to FR because they don’t agree with it politically, what recourse do you have? There aren’t that many big telecom providers. If they decide that Kos and Huffington Post and their ilk get immediate access, and conservative sites get buried behind 4 full-page flash ads with no “skip” button, then whose message is going to get out?
You're right, they are already talking about pay czar limiting salaries of more institutions even though they did not take bail out $.
once they get Internet, it will be on to radio
Look at the bright side. Dingy Harry will block this bill and that will put another nail in his coffin.
I’ve always said he wasn’t all bad.
Thank you, Senator McCain.
Running for reelection? Losing the Presidential bid to the Lyin’ King not good enough for him? LOL.
RINOs OUT!
I haven’t forgotten that McQueeg has his own ideas about what is and isn’t acceptable speech on the net.
What does a 250GB a month translate to in internet usage?
The normal activity noted when we check our internet connection and see bytes sent and received including the bytes exchanged just by being connected? Or the actual uploading and downloading when we do when we buy somthing, upload docs, post to boards, check email etc.
I have become so skeptical I think McCain’s bill would probably support net neutrality while pretending not to. He did not have a problem with government control over free speech in the past. Why would he now?
Yes indeed! And WHENEVER somebody found out something that was damaging about the Lyin’ King during the campaign, WHO was the FIRST one out there DEFENDING him????
Good Grief!
Establish our own.
I do not know the details of how Comcast counts bytes and how they relate to hitting the cap. I do know though (and I am sure most people here do as well) that when you upload or download anything on any network, there are a lot of bytes used in network overhead. If these are counted against your usage as well, then... well... ouch!
This is already the law currently. Most ISPs operate under common carrier rules and cannot engage in such blocking.
Major ouch!!!
This seems no different than limiting the time we watch television, listen to the radio, or talk on the phone. (My own unexpert opinion, of course)
This net nuetrality sounds like a solution to a problem that does not yet exist. Hence it is not conservative to back it.
Also if my phone company messes with my internet, I’ll drop them for the cable company or vice versa.
MMMMMM,,,MMMMMMMMMMM,,,MMMMMMMMM ,,,,,,,,,,,,, can you say Rin0 !!!!!!
The ISPs have been threatening to implement bandwidth throttling based on content. This law is intended to preempt that.
Doing a bit more research, I find that McCain wants to let ISPs start controlling which traffic gets highest priority over network links. And, AT&T (one of those ISPs) gave McCain close to a quarter million dollars for his campaign.
Sure, it’s a great idea to keep government out of private business as a general principle, but sometimes the businesses (oligopolies in this case) collaborate to screw the consumer, and the government (as a representative of the public) has to step in and stop them. I support Net Neutrality, and would be behind a WELL-CRAFTED bill enforcing existing Neutrality requirements. What I don’t trust is the current administration creating a non-partisan, non-”trojan horse” Neutrality bill.
Then, you buy up cheap domain names, and distribute it out through a “tree.”
Every time they shut down one domain, you mirror the site on another, and you just roll to the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next.
When they come for your servers, you take off their heads.
Isn’t this the same mccain that brought us mccain-feingold?
This smells.
Uh no.. the FCC’s actions are intended to preempt that. This law intended to preempt the FCC.
Yes, that’s what I meant. Sorry. The Net Neutrality law intends to prevent content throttling. McCain’s bill is intended to thwart the FCC, and to support content throttling (whether implicitly or explicitly, I don’t know).
Well, darned if the old fool isn’t right every once in a while.
When McCain introduces what you think is a good bill, watch out, he’s got his own he wants to introduce later.
The competition in the telecom industry is fierce. There is no "oligopoly". When bandwidth demands become greater than the infrastructure can accommodate, who will finance the updates?
I generally don’t have any use for McCain, but when he is right, as he is in this case, I will applaud and support his efforts.
I have comcast - what does it mean by imposing a cap? How does it affect me when I log on?
It’s always the way government regulations start. Under the guise that it’s for the better for all of us. Then the fines and more regulations and more fines and less and less freedom.
Why regulate something that doesn’t need regulating? Only one reason and that’s control.
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