“The U.S. House of Representatives definitively rejected the concept of Net neutrality on Thursday, dealing a bitter blow to Internet companies like Amazon.com, eBay and Google that had engaged in a last-minute lobbying campaign to support it. By a 269-152 vote that fell largely along party lines, the House Republican leadership mustered enough votes to reject a Democrat-backed amendment that would have enshrined stiff Net neutrality regulations into federal law and prevented broadband providers from treating some Internet sites differently from others,” Declan McCullagh reports for CNET News. “Of the 421 House members who participated in the vote that took place around 6:30 p.m. PT, the vast majority of Net neutrality supporters were Democrats. Republicans represented most of the opposition.”
“At issue is a lengthy measure called the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement (COPE) Act, which a House committee approved in April. Its Republican backers, along with broadband providers such as Verizon and AT&T, say it has sufficient Net neutrality protections for consumers, and more extensive rules would discourage investment in wiring American homes with higher-speed connections,” McCullagh reports. “Defenders of the COPE Act, largely Republicans, dismissed worries about Net neutrality as fear mongering. ‘I want a vibrant Internet just like they do,’ said Rep. Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican. ‘Our disagreement is about how to achieve that. They say let the government dictate it…I urge my colleagues to reject government regulation of the Internet.'”
“While the debate over Net neutrality started over whether broadband providers could block certain Web sites, it has moved on to whether they should be permitted to create a ‘fast lane’ that could be reserved for video or other specialized content,” McCullagh reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We don’t presume to know the best way to get there, but we support the concept of “Net Neutrality” especially as it pertains to preventing the idea of ISP’s blocking or otherwise impeding sites that don’t pay the ISP to ensure equal access. That said, we usually prefer the government to be hands-off wherever possible, Laissez-faire, except in cases where the free market obviously cannot adequately self-regulate (antitrust, for just one example). Regulations are static and the marketplace is fluid, so extensive regulations can have unintended, unforeseen results down the road. We sincerely hope that there are enough forces in place and/or that the balances adjust in such a manner as to keep the ‘Net neutral. What do you think?
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Related articles:
Google posts call to action on ‘net neutrality’ – June 09, 2006
That’s it, MDN. Make sure you back down to toe the party line.
Losers.
leggo my internet. I don’t want the government involved…not their place.
People are going to think it’s censorship, but it’s not. Nothing is being eliminated by the government, nor is the government saying anything should be blocked. This bill will allow the market to dictate the types of ISPs that exist– that is, people will sign up for the ISP that gives them what they want. Some will certainly want 100% open, some heavily restricted, if they have children, for instance.
Interesting to see how this plays out with time.
The notion that Comcast et. al. could start charging large internet sites (google, yahoo, msn, iTunes, etc) just seems outlandish, and can only end up hurting consumers, in my opinion. If they start charging Google, then Google passes those charges along to us.
If Comcast et. al. is worried about supporting the desire for increased bandwidth while still turning a profit, it seems far simpler and easier to just charge the end user a little more each month for the increased bandwidth. or they could offer a tiered solution to end-users depending on how much bandwidth users intend to use.
If somebody wants to stream movies, then perhaps they need a 6Mbps connection, which would be one rate. You could have rates at 3Mbps, 1.5Mbps, and so forth. This just seems a lot more rational to me than charging content providers. That’s like taxing companies for being successful.
Republicans are an endangered species.
This is a tough issue. I want to have access to everything with out restrictions. But it s the right of the company to provide the product that they can sell the best. What we need is a consumer movement that says give me net neutrality or I will find an ISP that will!
It is almost universally bad when the government gets involved.
Net Neutrality just SUCKS MDN, wake up.. You would be allowing some Govt Entity to decide what amount of bandwidth is fair. Nothing is ever fair. If I pay for a certain amount of bandwidth from company xyz, thats what I should get. It SHOULD NOT be based on whether some Govt bureaucrat thinks my amount of bandwidth is fair..
The Govt is already doing to much to interfere in daily lives, determining whether xyz company should get this amount of bandwidth is just dumb, because they rarely get anything else right, how would this help other than to limit growth..
If I run company JOE. Why should I invest in broadband upgrades or infrastructure improvements if some bureaucrat is going to decide how I can implement it or dole it out and not get fair market value for what I provide.
So what’s your take on the situation nuflux? Brave of you to stick your neck out and tell us straight away.
Gutless wonder
I think MDN’s worship of the Republicans is severely tested by this result.
nuflux,
MDN never endorsed a specific bill – Google did. I think MDN is being realistic, prudent, and honest about their position. Clearly, the Laissez-faire approach is preferred by many people – even some Dems.
Regulations often sound good until you see their consequences.
MDN supports Net Neutrality. I do, too. The question remains, what’s really the best way to keep the ‘Net neutral?
Drop your party affiliation, pretend to be Independent, and tell us all what you think should be done since you seem to think that you know what to do.
I don’t think the practice of saying “pay me more or else I slow you down” legally qualifies as extortion, but it seems very close to me. I do think that it will not stand up to a court challenge on anti-trust grounds (restraint of interstate commerce).
What scares me the most is that Lamar Smith (R-Tex) seems to be involved deeply. HE IS A NUT JOB!
All this is? ISP’s trying to get a bigger share of porn money.
I am glad they will make google pay, this is going to be GOOD for the consumers.
The title “Net Neutrality” is just an innocent looking terminology to make ordinary humans believe it is a good thing.
with net neutrality, a hindu or a russian in china can compete against americans and drive us into poverty.
Net neutrality is BAD.
Money rules! True democracy drools!
“What we need is a consumer movement that says give me net neutrality or I will find an ISP that will!”
Well put, Bobby Skinner!
Every company, Every person is paying someone for access to the internet. The companies that provide this are spending billions to expand and maintain that infrastructure..
Comcast is paying someone else for access to other lines, its all inter-connected (thus the Internet)
Having some bureaucrat in washington decide who gets how much bandwidth is just dumb…
DP…Read the other thread on the subject.
Most people here have no idea what HR 5252 actually does, what the proposed Democratic amendment would do, or even who sponsored either.
HR 5252 IS government regulation any way you slice it. This who “gov’t regulation is bad” meme is just a smokescreen by Repubs who want to draw attn away from the fact that they’re creating a two-tiered internet, and basically handing control over to providers to levy fees on certain types of access. In other words, PRIVATIZING the internet entirely.
“The title “Net Neutrality” is just an innocent looking terminology to make ordinary humans believe it is a good thing”
Sorta like “Patriot Act”
The problem with your take, MDN, (IMHO) is that the major backbone providers constitutte a an oligopoly and is thus less responsive to market forces.
I’m for the government staying out as much as is possible. Everything they touch turns into crap. Over regulation isn’t ever going to solve anything. People can say what they will about big business and their influence on the marketplace, but I’d rather be at their mercy than at the mercy of the federal government any day of the week.
nuflux,
“Gov’t regulation is bad” is not “just a smokescreen.”
Please prove the following MDN statement false:
Regulations are static and the marketplace is fluid, so extensive regulations can have unintended, unforeseen results down the road.
That is exactly why I want the gov’t to keep out of it. Have you seen who we’ve elected? They aren’t the brightest – most couldn’t make it it the real world. That’s why they run for office. I don’t trust them or anyone else to create rules that will achieve the intended results and not hinder innovation and progress in unknown ways.
JBR–then you should be against the COPE Act in its entirety.
This government needs to spend less time debating what goes on inside my bedroom, my pants and my internet, and more time debating this stupid goddamned war.
We the consumer already pay for different tiers of internet connection speed. This entire thing is because they want more money because they feel sites like Itunes will take away buisness from their soon to be release IP TV and other new TV on demand. How will they regulate out of country websites? how will one little website pay EVERY SINGLE ISP in the entire country? this entire thing is a disaster and if it gets passed the internet as we know it will fall apart.
Bork,
Please read HR 5252–anyone against more government intervention should be against the act in its entirety. That’s what I meant when I said that government regulation is a smokescreen. Furthermore, as someone else upthread pointed out, this is not a “free market” initiative. This is an initiative to concentrate a great deal of power w/r/t access in a few powerful hands.
Would you put the federal highway system in a few corporate hands, to charge more or less as they please to use certain roads? Of course you wouldn’t.
Republicans are turning into communists every day, they want to control everything.
For those of you that weren’t alive before the internet, please remember that this is a vast structure that government, education and industry all worked on. The government has a vested interest in keeping the infrastructure open. Latecomers like Comcast, AT&T, Verison, Microsoft, etc. should not be able to come in and throw their weight around to restrict bandwidth.
To Gengel, who said “leggo my internet” and that it’s not the government’s place to get involved: The government was involved well before you, my friend. It is their place.
I understand MDN’s stance on extra government interference. However, that has to be tempered. The government is also there to serve the people – not big business, and not corporate interests. It seems that the majority vote on this, as well as many other issues these days, is done with a big corporate interest standing their, hand-in-hand with the lawmakers. Big Business doesn’t need protected, and that’s not really the purpose of our government.
I’m sure that there are others here that have been using the internet for a long time – well before many people had ever even heard of it. We surfed with Lynx before IE, Netscape, Firefox and Safari, even before Mosaic. We’ve seen a great many attempts to limit the internet, to tax it, and to make money at it. If we don’t do something about these new possible limits by companies, we will feel it for a long, long time.
I never said I was in favor of this bill did I? I just simply said government regulation is bad enough as it is without making it even more excessive. I agree with MDN’s take, the less government involvement in this the better. That’s all.
As any knee-jerk Lib will tell you, it’s very easy to run around screaming “there oughta be a law!” It’s another thing entirely to craft and get a good law passed. Very rare. It only really works for 10 Commandment-type stuff in reality. Even then, it’s flawed, because people aren’t perfect.
Michael,
Bravo! Standing O.
I agree with you 100%.
“As any knee-jerk Lib will tell you….”
keep your short-bus drivel to yourself
Net neutrality isn’t about regulation, it’s about preventing consumer abuse by the very few companies that can provide “last mile” service to one’s home and/or business. The huge barriers to entry that limit competition legitimize government’s right to regulate in a limited fashion.
In one sense, huge companies like Google, Amazon, and eBay should be against net neutrality, because they can all afford to pay AND because that fact would limit competition. The fact that they are lining up in favor of net neutrality despite those facts should be an indicator of how troublesome continued non-regulation will be in the future.
1. What is wrong with net access as it is?
2. Exactly what changes will this legilation allow to the net?
3. Is this a step toward filtered internet access as it exists in China???
4. Total government control is ((IMHO) just as bad as a totally unrestrained free market (M$ is example #1 of tyranical, predatory business gone unregulated) Does this change open us up to “market controls” that will deny me choices?
5. Could reverting to a dial up access bypass some corportaion’s attempts to limit/affect my internet access?
Government in fact, gets a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong. Corporations get a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong.
This knee jerk government is universally bad way of thinking is more dogma than anything based on fact. My government does a fine job of getting roads built, providing health care (better health care than the US private system), running schools (separate boards), collecting garbage, maintaining infrastructure, etc, etc.
I’ve been in business long enough and seen other businesses in action to know that their level of competence or incompetence varies great from great to terrible.
Business isn’t in business to be fair and unless there’s laws to manage the inherent greed in all of us you end up with a doggy-eat-dog kind of society.
If Americans actually took time to look around, they’d see that there are many societies which feature heavy government involvement that are ironically much healthier on the whole than the US in terms of emotional, physical and economic well-being. There are some countries with heavy government involvement that are a complete mess just as there are some countries that are free for all Laissez-faire and are a mess as well.
Net Neutrality is just another example of the divisions in American society which leaves some living in Third World conditions and others living in mansions and middle getting relentlessly squeezed to the margins.
This is like cell phone providers selling you a phone then blocking some of the phones features so they can sell you workarounds to allow you to have equivalent features to the ones they just blocked.
This is a money grab by Internet providers, pure and simple.
I don’t understand these people against net neutrality saying “I don’t want the government to decide how much bandwidth I can have!” I don’t know how anyone gets the idea that that has anything to do with the question.
I pay for a certain amount of bandwidth into my home via broadband connection. What I want, and what net neutrality guarantees, is that I can use that bandwidth equally well to get data whatever site I want. Removing this protection means that my broadband provider now has the right to tell me, “We will sell you this much bandwidth, but only to get data from sites we approve”. Other sites (i.e., those that haven’t ponied up the extortion money to the telco) can be degraded or blocked entirely. How on earth is that a good thing?
And come off this nonsense about “Well if you don’t like it get a different broadband provider! Marketplace will reward those who give you want!” Where I live now I have, at most, a choice of 2 providers (both of whom are pushing the elimination of net neutrality). Where I used to live I was too far from a phone repeater, so I couldn’t get DSL and therefore had an option of only ONE provider. This latter situation is very common, especially in less urban areas of the country. So, if my sole area broadband source has decided that they ain’t gonna let me get data from my favorite video site at faster than a trickle because they have a contract with a competing site, what exactly am I supposed to do??
Magic word: “get”, as in “Do you get it, now????”
Oh great, after screwing up healthcare, power supplies and telephone systems with privatization scams now they want to get their greedy grubby paws on the internet, one of the last few places where there is a degree of freedom (a word Americans increasingly don’t understand). Net Neutrality is only a bad idea because there should be no need for it at all–Big business hates that which they cannot control.
I liked this post of mine so much, why not copy and paste it over here…
Wake up peeps, its You vs. the State, not Liberal vs. Conservative, and especially not DemoRats vs RepubliCons, they are fake divisions designed to play off of each other…. i.e., Nixon opened the doors to Communist China, and Clinton got NAFTA passed. Think about it. Oh yea, someone did make an interesting prediction concerning the North American economy(in a different thread)… I’m guessing the new currency will be called the “Aero”, replacing the dollar they are now destroying on purpose. Just ask Gates or Buffet who, over the past year, have cashed in their dollars for Euros, they know what’s coming.
Sometimes we need the government to help counter balance the weight of Huge/Big Business. Sadly the government is mostly filled with people who couldn’t get a real job, and who will gladly represent the highest bidder, who is very rarely an average constituent. Hell, with malleable voting machines, who cares what the average voter wants? Show me the money.
P.S Michael . . . .
As any knee-jerk Lib will tell you, it’s very easy to run around screaming “there oughta be a law!” It’s another thing entirely to craft and get a good law passed. Very rare. It only really works for 10 Commandment-type stuff in reality. Even then, it’s flawed, because people aren’t perfect.
Isn’t his whole discussion about some big corporate interests saying exactly “there ought to be a law” . . . .and getting it?
OK, for you “business knows everything best” types, here is how the “not neutral” internet will work:
COMCAST, TimeWarner, SPRINT, LEVEL3 or whoever will start a music/movie download store or a search engine, etc of their own brand or partnership. If you choose to use that service you will get priority access to those sites running on their pipes. High speed and great service. If you choose iTunes or Google or some competitors brand, you will get the slow as shit pipe full of contention and traffic and spam.
You will no longer get to choose the service you want without paying extra. No level playing field – it is all tailored thru the eyes of the infrastructure providers *not* thru the customer choice of the best providers of a particular service.
This is akin to having private ownership of interstate highways and letting only freight shipped on trucks owned by the highway owner on those highways. Everyone else gets to go the backroads.
infrastructure owners should never be allowed to be content providers – but the FCC has been kissing that behind for a long time
This is all about money. The infrastructure companies are about to double dip on internet service. First, the consumer pays them for service. Then the content providers have to pay them to carry their content, in addition to the charges they’re already paying at least one infrastructure company for their connection.
Why would the consumer pay the infrastructure companies in the first place if there were no available content?
The result will not be a two-tiered internet. It will be a fragmented internet, with infrastructure companies blocking, filtering and restricting content. How this is different from what China does escapes me. Actually, I take that back–China is completely open about the fact that they filter content. It doesn’t appear to be happening openly in the US…
Consumers should hope that these pending restrictions spur innovation. The only hope for a free and open internet in the US is a new delivery model that bypasses the currently entrenched infrastructure providers. Content providers should jump at the chance to provide services on a free “seperate but equal” network, even without the ability to reach the people on the current “captive” network.
Irony of ironies. MDN magic word is “dark”. As in the darknet is coming, and it will be a haven for the rest of us.
We have this problem because of the monopolies once granted to the regional telephone companies. Sins of the fathers, ya know? If you ask me, the best answer is to do nothing. We sure can’t depend on the Senate to fix this problem, and I’m personally disappointed in Pickering (MS).
These days the Republicans are hardly “hands off.” They’re “hands off of rich corporations” but they’d love to legislate your private life, right down to who you should love!
Typical GOP bullsh*t. Get people all worked up over non-issues like flag burning, civil unions while they pass crap like this to pay back their corporate and trade association contributors.
The last 6 years has seen an energy bill largely written by utility & oil companies, a prescription drug bill written largely by big Pharma, a bankruptcy reform bill authored of, by and for bankers and Wall Street. Why should you be surprised that the telecommunications industry wants to largely author the bill that is going to determine how you use the telephone, access the internet, get TV, etc.?
Forget left vs right & Democrat vs Republican, it’s way beyond all of that. The K-Street Boys (paid lobbyists) have been having a field day with this Congress and Bush is more than happy to go along. If you don’t have money to put in the till you will not be getting much love up on the hill. It’s that simple– monied interests have drowned out the voice of the voter.
You only have one recourse– election day. On election day you had better demand a paper ballot or a receipt, because the Diebold machines you will be using are running Windows and can very easily be hacked with no paper trail. After Florida 2000, tons of money was spent to replace a variety of voting methods with computer based machines (read Windows). Methods to quickly hack these machines without a trail of evidence has been widely distributed on the internet.
If your election officials will not offer you a paper ballot you can request to make an affidavit on the spot at your polling place. This is a legal document that puts on hard copy paper who you voted for. You are entitled to write one of these under the law. The deal should be this: no receipt on the machine means you request a paper ballot. If no paper ballot is available you request to make an affidavit on the spot. If they give you grief call your state government to report the incident.
Here is a link to a list of links of every state’s election laws.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/1/162120/619
Know your rights, protect your vote and make your voice heard.
Regulation IS the way to go- Whether folks realize it or not, what we want is an unregulated portal to the internet. Does anyone follow that? It’s about regulation to make sure that the portal we use is not colorred by the service provider. Since service providers have monopolies in many areas, there will be little choice without someone seting rules in the end users best interest.
If I want to use iChatAV, I don’t want Timewarner degrading my signal to push me to some timewarner ShitVision service, what is what this is all about. It’s about a small business being able to have a website and not be extorted to have people access it.
slaves don’t need free and open access to the internet.
Whenever you allow a body to put some type of filtering on anyone’s means of communication, then you are allowing censoring.
A southern cable company, after pressure from their customers, slows the connection rate of all incoming sites focused on abortion or any other non-Christian views. A college professor using that southern ISP wants to create a website for helping the emotional needs of local gays, but is blocked completely.
Now, the large service companies can bring all Democratic, foreign, competitive or any other topic they don’t care for to a complete halt. It is analogous to AT&T monitoring your conversation and disconnecting the line if they don’t like what you are talking about.
A couple of decades ago when the internet was for military email and a novelty for geeks, then there would probably be no problem with such restrictions. But as it became more popular, the internet grew with the understanding that it would be a place for open exchange of information. It is now the most popular form of communication worldwide. With this law, the internet remains free but the vast majority of the “on ramps” will be privately controlled and regulated without government interference. The US government has NO RIGHT to effect world communication.
I agree that at times large government can be too intrusive, such as telling me that my love and devotion to my same-sex lover is not equal to someone else’s.
The government allowing private companies to regulate content IS government interference. If they would have said nothing, the internet would still be free and unregulated. The Republicans with their large corporate buddies CONTROL the internet. However direct or indirect, it is STILL CONTROL!!!
Why don’t we go burn some books at the public library?!
Let’s kick those black families out of the neighborhood.!
Refuse business licenses to gays.
If you do not want a country that cherishes LIBERTY, being able to be free from the oppression of the people in control, then go find another country.
LIBERAL is NOT a bad idea – IT’S THE AMERICAN WAY.
It’s the reason we separated from England.
It’s the reason we fought Hitler.
It’s the reason we fought Saddam Hussein.
DAMN REPUBLICANS! If you are not ready to defend the rights and freedoms of EVERY CITIZEN, the weak and the poor, the ones that disagree with your way of life, to be free from the oppressive companies and politicians, then you are NO AMERICAN! Don’t spread your Nazi ideas hiding behind MY FLAG!!
Hitler raped his country at gunpoint. Republicans do it with their AMEX cards and corporate jets. Rape is rape – forced control over another – regardless what type of threat or means are used.
It’s time the US citizens took their government back from corporations and their bigoted Republican minions!!! If we don’t do something NOW, we get what we deserve.
“Laissez-faire, except in cases where the free market obviously cannot adequately self-regulate”
Huh? So the governmrnt of the people, for the people and by the people is subverted to private ownershit.
“The free market obviously cannot adequately self-regulate” is how the statement should read—unless of-course you believe in the troglodytic notion “the free market is democracy” in which case voting is merely governemnt interferece in the flow of goods and people are merely chattel.
Darkness, I believe you are right on the money. When there doesn’t seem to be a clear-cut solution to a problem, look to the money. The infrastructure companies are wanting to double-dip because they are green with envy of the valuation of the Googles, Amazons, Yahoo, et al. They are like, “Why should these content providers be making more money than us?” Look at the public statements CEOs make about the situation. You’ll see that pattern of greed and envy in what they say.
What gets me is that they are acting like Google is connected to the net for free. Heck, my company’s bill to provide hosting to my clients is well into the thousands. That’s for several web and dns servers to be connected to a nice pipe provided by Sprint. My colleague’s hosting company is much, much larger than mine and his bill is a whole magnitude larger just to have internet access to be able to provide hosting. So just imagine how much Google pays these guys to keep their server farms connected. It’s insane. And now these same companies want to come back and say pay more. I don’t think so. Why can’t the infrastructures use the money the large content providers and consumers pay to invest in improving and maintaining the infrastructure.
It’s extortion, plain and simple. These infrastructure companies have some influential lobbyists. The public will just have to take whatever it’s served.
Last point, how much do you think it costs Sprint, Comcast, Time Warner and friends to provide you service (marketing and taxes included)? According to the last report I read, it was in the neighborhood of 79 to 99 cents per Mbps per customer. So if you have a 5 Mbps connection from your cable provider, it costs them about $4.00 to serve you but you get charged $45 per month.
Now digest that.
Read the bill.
This should not be about Republican vs. Democrat.
Although I am a Republican, I actually DID want this bill to pass.
I cannot imagine that we want the government stepping in to enforce a tax on sites such as Google even more than they already are simply because they are popular.
The bill would have prevented Comcast from having the right to block access to iTunes (and every other popular, or unpopular site) because Apple did not pay an extra tax to Comcast to grant access.
IF we had unlimited free choice in choosing a Broadband provider, then the forces of the freemarket would ensure that we get what we want and there would be no need for this bill. However, at least in my area, we only get to choose from a limited menu when it comes to broadband providers which skews the market in favor of the provider, not the consumer.
I want the freedom to both go wherever I want to go on the net without killing my choices through taxation.
Dems and Liberals don’t often seem to realize that Senators and Congresspeople are generally below-average intellects, not Gods.
The less government does, the better. Trust me. I’ve seen much over many years. The people in Gov’t are not the best the country has to offer – those people are making cash and taking vacations and playing golf in the sunshine, not begging Joe Six Pack for his vote every time election day rolls around.
Our goal as voters should always be gridlock in Gov’t. It’s the best situation for which we can ever hope.
Republican morons need to research before they put words on the internet.
If you people only knew what you were talking about, or had any intelligence… God can only imagine. You only showing how high your I.Q. is and how much s%$t for brains you have. Jerks.
From: “Net Neutrality” SUCKS!
Jun 09, 06 – 02:17 pm
“Net neutrality” is a retarded, ANTI-consumer initiative by some major corporations (i.e., Google, Amazon, etc.) interested in fleecing other major corporations (i.e., telcos, etc.), to the detriment of consumers. Telcos have every right to charge whatever they want to whoever they want for services they offer through their pipes. As it turns out, that position is also PRO-consumer. Allowing broadband providers to recoup their investment as they see fit will result in more broadband investment and thus, better–and ultimately cheaper–broadband. The feds could do one thing to help though–eliminate busybody local “community” regulators from the process, preventing the locals from granting monopoly licenses to their favorite cable providers or telephone companies. Other than that, the federal government is the problem on this issue, not the solution. Frankly, it is amazing how naive most MDN readers are, how easily so-called “idealists” are manipulated into supporting some greedy corporations’ agenda and shooting themselves (i.e., consumers) in the foot in the bargain.
More Econ 101 for the masses, and let’s make it mandatory!
Kate
P.S. Time to sit back and celebrate this sweet victory with a salty margarita on the rocks….mmm, yum!
Ashan,
“Republican morons need to research before they put words on the Internet.”
ALL MORONS (including you and me) should be quick to listen and slow to speak… regardless of party affiliation.
What do I think? I think the Republicans would sell their own mothers to the highest bidder.
No one asked you what you think.
Now, run away before I have the INS check your papers.
XOXOXO,
Kate
Would any of you tolerate the USPS or UPS or FedEx charging both the sender AND the recipient? What if I paid for express delivery at the receiving end, but could get only 7-day delivery if that’s all the sender paid for, or vice versa? We’d be screaming bloody murder. Well, this is exactly the kind of scam the telcos and cable companies are trying to put over on us. It’s goddamned unchecked corporate greed at its worst, and the fallout is going to be ugly indeed if they succeed.
Damn fools.
We created the Internet. We, alone, shall control it the way we see fit.
You will obey us.
The Illuminati
Novus Ordo Seclorum (New World Order)
Kate –
Go diddle yourself. MDN asked what I think. Read the last line of MDN’s take.
I think it ironically appropriate that a pinhead like you would fall back on threatening to sick the government on me. Wanna explain now how you’re in favor of small government?
The bandwidth providers are in the business of providing content. They should not be in the business of regulating content via imposition of private taxes. People like you are against government interference in private affairs, but you’re perfectly happy to hand over the power to interfere in private affairs to profit-motivated, unelected, and unaccountable corporate oligopolies who and entirely free from either public oversight or competitive pressure because THERE IS NO FREE MARKET. I can choose between Verizon and Comcast. You call that a free market? Take Economics 101 and then come back.
Correction:
“The bandwidth providers are in the business of providing content” should have read,
“The bandwidth providers are in the business of providing BANDWIDTH.”
Another correction:
…who ARE entirely free…
Damn you Kate. Now I’m so terrified of a visit from INS that I can’t even type properly.
Kate –
“Telcos have every right to charge whatever they want to whoever they want for services they offer through their pipes.”
Given that they have oligopolies, and in many markets monopolies, this is patently wrong. You’d be screaming bloody murder if your local water board were privatized and implemented a tiered pricing scheme along the lines of:
Drip, drip, drip plan – $50/mo.
Dribble, dribble plan – $75/mo.
Just enough pressure to wash the dishes plan – $100/mo.
Steaming hot shower plan – $200/mo.
(Additional per-gallon usage fee of $1/gallon applies.)
Clearly, all you understand about economics is what Dubya has said about it on TV, which is precious little. In public infrastructure, there can never be a free market with numerous suppliers and low barriers to entry because duplication is financially impossible. That being the case, it is the government’s job to balance private and public interests. Now, though, private interests have bought the government, and the public is getting screwed.
If I pay for high-speed access, and the content providers pay for high-speed access, how are additional charges, other than accross-the-board per-megabyte charges based on cost and applied equally to all users, justified? They’re not. And, you’re just a willing dupe for greedheads who don’t even have the decency to pay you for your puppy-like subservience.
Or, do they?
heh, heh, heh…
I love to see reactionaries get worked up and start sloganeering. Free the net! Net neutrality! The telcom billionaires are evil! The Google and eBay billionaires are altruistic gods! Neocons! Liberals! Capitalists!
I’m so glad, btw, that Google finally found its ethical voice (oddly enough, when its wallet was endangered) after enthusiastically bending over and lubing up for the PRC.
The net, folks is not neutral now. Never has been. At least, if completely privatized, it will be non-neutral, efficient, and low-cost.
This whole silliness is a tempest in a teacup the will dissipate when the cables are obsolete. But it sure is fun to watch everyone get worked up in the meantime! This is what happens in affluent societies – everything gets blown out of proportion by people who need a little strife every day.
Okay, dude. Everybody knows you’re gay. You’ve worked it into every conceivable topic on these boards, and now you’ve managed to shoehorn your sex life into a discussion of telcom franchise rights.
suggestion – just change your screen name to “Mike Buonarroti is GAY!” – that way you can just comment on the topic at hand without having to try and steer the topic towards your sexual preferences –
Like davida, I’m going to para-post something from last time around. Kate’s bloviations kind of demand it.
Kate:
The net exists because of a government initiative – popularly known as DARPA-funded ARPANET. The ever-hated Al Gore took the lead in 1988 funding the high speed nodes that became the precursors to what we use to day, as well as later allowing private, commerical interests on it, and keeping it largely unregulated so as to help them make a buck from the opportunities it afforded. Later, the telecos (who inherited almost the entire setup from the the British JANET & U.S. NSFNET programs) got plenty of tax breaks in this country to upgrade their ‘pipes’.
Most of the story can be found here:
http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml
And yet now you think these same beneficiaries of the public teat should be able to make the internet their own private pay-to-playground? Our taxes made the net, not Verizon or AT&T et al … therefore the government has every right – in fact, a duty – to make sure we don’t get fleeced for helping these companies become the communications powerhouses they are today.
I absolutely loved this statement from your last post on this subject: “The feds could do one thing to help though–eliminate busybody local “community” regulators from the process, preventing the locals from granting monopoly licenses to their favorite cable providers or telephone companies.”
Kind of off topic, but it does show you really are a special kind of fool. For your edification, it’s the cable providers and telecos – your freemarket champions – that spend millions to lobby the government, at all levels, to ENSURE their anti-free market monopolies stay intact. The federal government had a few bills in pending in Congress in the 90s that were intended to break those monopolies. I’ll give you 3 guesses which party scuttled the project, and the first two don’t have to count.
As an Independent (perhaps another kind of fool), basically I believe in gun ownership, progressive taxation, & free markets for consumer goods. However, I also realize that a sizable portion of those who run the larger for-profit conglomerates would sell their own mothers into slavery if it meant making a buck – because that’s just what they do, nothing personal. Pardon me for not wanting to be inadvertantly victimized by the mentality fostered by that quirk of the system though. You see, no matter how great it is at making refrigerators affordable, if any economic system at some point doesn’t serve the humans who invented it, I feel it needs to be checked at that point. Call me crazy.
Speaking of crazy, what I find most amusing are you neo-capitalist groupies, all praying for the day you’ll be so rich as to not have to concern yourselves with your fellow man in the least. Who, quite ironically, hate the government with all the righteous passion you can muster, but who couldn’t survive a day in a world without it, because you’re nowhere near as rugged as you think you are. And who have never & would never turn down your own chance at the public trough, whatever form that might take.
Obviously you’re intelligent. But your position here, at least, just goes to prove that intelligence and wisdom are not at all the same thing.
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Nice response!!
Re: Net Neutrality Bill
Take 10 min and listen to this audio on the subject:
<http://blog.gildertech.com>
Be thankful that the amendment failed. But do listen to the podcast.
Dan
There is clearly a conflict of interest. If the net infrastructure providers also provide content and therefore can favor their own content over the content of eg. a competitor….. the looser is us the net users!
The bandwidth providers already get paid according to the bandwidth companies and consumers are willing to pay for.
This is simply a powergrab of the bandwidth providers to be able the MILK the net…. AT THE COST OF USERS!
A free market can regulate itself if there is competition, but in most areas THERE IS NO COMPETITION… GET IT?
Anyone who cannot undertsand this is plain STUPID!
@Dan Kurt – Listened to the podcast………Both interesting and thought provoking. Thanks for the link.
What do I think, MDN? I think there is no way to keep the net neutral when large telecom companies can buy and sell Congressmen to get whatever legislation they want. All this blather about a free market that simply does not exist in a country where corporate lobbyists run the show and feed at the public trough in a way that all the welfare recipients that ever lived could not out do. Ours is not a laissez faire system it is a system of corporate state capitalism that protects the entrenched and powerful. Much as I desire it, I do not expect to see a truly free market emerge in my lifetime.
About the gildertech podcast:
I didn’t intend this to be a blow-by-blow, but as I listened, I felt compelled to comment. Here it is, FWIW.
“Netcompetition.org is funded by a wide range of broadband telecomm, cable, and wireless companies.”
Kinda gives away the game, doesn’t it? Nice of them to disclose that up-front, though.
“We launched netcompetition.org to promote an open, vigorous and illuminating debate on the merits of net neutrality legislation.”
The way Bill O’Reilly promotes an open, vigorous and illuminating debate on the merits of the Food Stamps or Worker’s Compensation programs.
Gee, why do I get the feeling I already know where this is going?
Follow-up: These guys are clearly paid hacks.
“If the core of the network is not maintained and improved, the network will wither.”
No kidding. Isn’t that why I pay $30/month for access whether I use it or not? Isn’t that also why I pay net hosting fees? For access to the network that is maintained and improved with the fees I and my site’s net hosting company and other consumers and content providers already pay?
So far, I’m not impressed. Gilder’s already forecasting doom and gloom despite the fact that we’ve come as far as we have on the basis of existing subscriber fees for consumers and content providers.
“We’re 16th or 17th in broadband penetration.”
This has a lot to do with the fact that the US is much more geographically spread out than most of the countries that are ahead of us. It’s the less densely populated areas that are most expensive to reach. Know what the solution was when we developed our highway, phone and electrical networks? Government programs that paid for the infrastructure investments with regulated fees and taxes that were kept to a minimum and were structured so that even the neediest among us could afford them and benefit from them. Ever heard of the Rural Electrification Program? Those government programs put us decades ahead of the rest of the world.
“It can be a carnival of lawyers.”
Or, it can be a simple government infrastructure investment based on cost and ability to pay rather than a for-profit boondoggle based on monopoly power, extortion, and greed unrestrained by competitive pressure. It is exactly those areas that most need investment in broadband infrastructure where competition will be weakest.
“Eliminate price controls.”
Oh, yeah, that’s a recipe for providing the most expensive “last mile” to rural areas at the same price as the rest of the country.
The guy’s a blowhard who loves to rail against “regulation” while ignoring the practicalities of cost and burden-sharing involved in extending broadband beyond the most profitable urban centers.
“The tech and ecommerce people are now wanting to compete by getting into communications… But they don’t want the communications companies to be able to vertically integrate or converge into content or ecommerce.”
Here, the interviewer has a good point. Telcos and cable companies should not be put in a structurally disadvantageous position in competing against new companies that want to offer the same services via infrastructure built and paid for by telco/cable. It should not be the case that VoIP vendors get a free ride by avoiding paying the same infrastructure costs borne by the Telcos.
However, what this argues for is the opposite of what’s being advocated. Content and infrastructure should be kept separate. As telecomm and internet infrastructure becomes one and the same thing, the business of maintaining and expanding the physical network should be separated from services, and would-be service providers (voice, video, simple net access) should be given equal access at to the infrastructure at standard, scaled fees. This would be true free competition. Since it’s impractical to have multiple companies building their own, redundant, networks, building and maintenance of infrastructure should be managed in the same way as that of other monolithic public infrastructure. The highways are built and maintained by the government, and the trucking companies have equal access to them and compete on cost and quality of service. The key is that access should be neutral – same terms, conditions and costs for everyone based on use. I’m not necessarily saying that the government should build the network, but that it should be made a single business, like power utilities, that’s managed for maximum public benefit in such a way that it generates a reasonable profit for the private companies that do the actual work.
What should not happen is a situation where the power company gets into the business of making and selling appliances and charges you more to operate appliances from its competitors or causes brownouts in your household when you do so. This is the situation we’ll be facing if the infrastructure managers are the same people competing in the services markets.
to be continued…
…continued
“It [network expansion] won’t happen if conditions are created where these investments won’t yield a profit.”
True, but that doesn’t mean we have to hold content hostage to capacity. The simple solution is to pay for network expansion and maintenance with simple cost-based per-unit fees for access. Which is exactly what we’ve had until now. This is all a red herring. There is no reason why infrastructure investments have to be paid for by discriminatory and inconsistent pricing that’s based not on cost but on whether the content or service provider is a competitor or partner for one of the capacity companies’ services. The proposal to capriciously grant faster or slower access based on factors other than fees for capacity usage is particularly anti-competitive.
“When you compare the capital investment dollars of the Bells and cable companies to the ecommerce and tech companies, they invest – ecommerce, tech – about a nickle for every dollar that the broadband providers do, because providing broadband is very capital-intensive.”
RED HERRING ALERT!
That’s why I pay Verizon for access. They don’t provide any other service (aside for an email account and minimal “free” web hosting space). They just hook me up. I’m not paying for content or services – I’m just paying for access to the infrastructure. And, so are the ecommerce companies. I pay the ecommerce companies for their goods and services. Everyone gets paid for what they provide. It’s the infrastructure providers who are looking to leverage their monopolistic control over the network to put profitable services providers whose markets they want to enter at a competitive disadvantage. This smacks of anti-competitive abuse of monopoly power. And they’re asking the government to give them the green light to do it.
When Microsoft abused its control over the desktop to suppress consumer access to infrastructure-dependent products (Netscape, Java) in order to give put them at a competitive disadvantage and enter their market, Judge Jackson rightly slapped this down as an abuse of monopoly power. How is granting the telcos and cable companies the right to impose discriminatory pricing and substandard access on service and content providers whose markets they want to enter any different?
“What net neutrality is all about is essentially riding on the back of somebody else’s investment, isn’t that true?
“That’s exactly right.”
Wrong. Net neutrality is about equal access at equal pricing. Everyone pays the same for the same amount of bandwidth. End of story.
“These guys should pay a windfall fibers (finders?) tax.”
Now they want a percent of ecommerce sales?! Do the state highway departments get a cut of all shipments, making more per truckload of fur coats than per truckload of potato chips? What in Hell is he talking about?
I’m sorry, but the rest of the interview, about the last three minutes, is just incoherent drivel.
Aside from the points about free rides and equal access (which were turned on their heads), these guys just don’t make a lot of sense. Basically, they’re conjuring up bogeymen and spouting generalities.
Okay, who’s next?
Majikthize: Good post. Your point about the complaint of opponents to NN arguing for the opposite of what’s being advocated was particularly sharp.
I too have recognized that telcos (in particular, but not only) are in a singularly wierd position in competing against companies offering a lot the same services, with their infrastructure. Although that just shows what TRUE competiton will do – force a hidebound industry to respond or die when a better competitor comes along. Unfortunately, because of their gatekeeper status, the telecos’ response with these anti-nuetrality goals is to starngle the competition before it can hurt them. Not too good for the consumer, eh?
I also came to the same conclusion as you; content and infrastructure should be made as separate as possible. In our hybrid system that’s not easy. How do you seperate the business of maintaining and expanding the network from profitable services on same, within the same company? In Korea, the government created the backbone – a faster, more ubiquitous infrastructure than any a for-profit company would be willing to fund themselves. Everyone gets to use it wityhout prejudice. BTW – ironically the ‘anti-government’ podcast guest points to Korea as a country to emulate! (I wonder; are these people brain dead, or do they just asume no one is really listening?)
Anyway, there’s no way our Congress or president would ever allow the same thing in this political environment, no matter how good for business it would be. Concentrated vested interests stand to lose way too mauch money if something like that comes to pass, and they’re willing to spend whatever it takes via lobbying to keep it at bay. The only option is government regulation – nothing more radical than what we’ve been doing for decades – to keep the ‘pipes’ open for everyone at an equal rate.
The highways and the trucking companies example you give – with the latter having x-number of companies with equal access, competing on cost and quality – is a good analogy. I’d only clarify what you said a bit. The highways aren’t built and maintained by the government, but the government does pay private companies to do that work for them, and sets certain parameters in law for how they do it. Seems to work well enough – so too for the telecos IMO.
As for this podast, I was suspicious of it right from the start. The webpage has an article right below the pod-link railing on how the Enron guys were railroaded – if that’s not an indictation of a boardroom-friendly website, I don’t know what is. And when the introduction of the ‘guest expert’ began sounding like a paid advertisment for the business of the same … well, I knew there was going to be very little debate here (the interviewer did offer up a few softballs of what the ‘other side’ says, but he abandoned that pretty quickly). This was just a podcast position statement on why these two particular people think NN is bad, one of whom has an vested financial interest in getting rid of it, without any real counterpoint.
Nice try, but no points.
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Thanks, Odyssey. I was feeling kinda down about this thread until I saw your earlier post. I notice Kate hasn’t been around lately…
BTW, I found a really excellent article on the issue under “network neutrality” on wikipedia.org. A good intro to the technical, economic and political basics of the concept.