‘Don’t kill the Internet,’ protesters urge Obama in Los Altos

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | July 23, 2014 | By Joe Garofoli

[Oldeconomybuyer]

While President Obama was raising hundreds of thousands of dollars at two Bay Area fundraisers Wednesdays, protesters urged him to keep a promise he made to ensure that the Internet remains a level playing field.

Back in 2007, then-candidate Obama said during a campaign stop at Google that as president he would “take a backseat to no one” in terms of his commitment to preserving net neutrality.

But Obama’s appointments to the Federal Communications Commission don’t back up that commitment. In May, three Democrats he appointed to the agency voted to allow broadband carriers to provide an online “fast lane” for those who want to pay for the privilege — thus creating a two-tiered Internet.

As former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, another Democrat, told us, Obama “seems to be in the back seat now. He may be in the rumble seat of the old Model-T. I don’t know where he is.”

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Liars lie.

[nascarnation]

Back in 2007, then-candidate Obama said during a campaign stop at Google that as president he would “take a backseat to no one” in terms of his commitment to preserving net neutrality rewarding crony capitalists.

[dforest]

Those people aren’t urging, they are begging, for good reason.

I bet they still don’t know they shouldn’t have voted for him

[dfwgator]

If more people subscribe to Netflix, that’s great for Netflix, but somebody has to pay for all that additional infrastructure necessary to carry Netflix movies across to Internet. And it sure isn’t going to be Netflix under Net Neutrality.

[2ndDivisionVet]

[gaijin]

If you want your internet, you can KEEP your internet, period.

Uh-huh.

[Chode]

fast lane? compared to what exactly???

[Steely Tom]

If more people subscribe to Netflix, that’s great for Netflix, but somebody has to pay for all that additional infrastructure necessary to carry Netflix movies across to Internet. And it sure isn’t going to be Netflix under Net Neutrality.

You might want to take a look at this: Netflix got worse on Verizon even after Netflix agreed to pay Verizon

[blueplum]

seriously, does this guy eat at the White House any more? I mean he’s spent the last three weeks flying around from plate of food to plate of food...

[Baynative]

Fools who voted for him are now going begging.

[no-s]

but somebody has to pay for all that additional infrastructure necessary to carry Netflix movies across to Internet.

If I buy bandwidth I expect to get that bandwidth all the way to the Internet. When Netflix buys bandwidth it's the same story. The Internet is the network between the ISP networks. The service providers are supposed to joining peering arrangements on those networks; they should exchange packets between themselves and settle their own costs without trying to tax other folks customers. If they route packets across their network from one isp to another, that's between ISPs, not ISP customers. Their peering agreements cover this issue.

Outfits like Verizon are just trying to exploit their customer base as an asset by charging an extra tax on certain packets. If they truly didn't provision enough capacity to handle customer commitment, especially after locking all those customers into contracts and committing to all those peering arrangements...whose fault is that exactly?

I should note that consumer ISP contracts tend to not guarantee bandwidth, somewhat in defiance of the actual advertising. I imagine Verizon executives imagine this absolves them of responsibility of ever actually delivering on the advertised bandwidth.

[Age of Reason]

All I know is, if it’s bad for the internet, I’m for it.

[publius911]

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