“Entrepreneur, NBA team owner, and Shark Tank star Mark Cuban has this to say about Net Neutrality and the push to regulate the Internet under Title II of the Telecommunications Act: ‘The government will fuck the Internet up,'” Nick Gillespie reports for Reason. “A huge Twitter user, Cuban also recently tweeted the following: ‘The promise of the net is not content. It’s high speed apps that chang[e] healthcare, medicine, transportation, safety and more… the best is yet to come on the net, and we cant hold it back because we want to make sure we can watch TV shows.We need fast lanes… Blocking access is different animal. Where have you seen it happen?'”
“The FCC specifically and governments generally have never been great at managing innovation. It works better when they stand aside and let it happen, as mostly happened with regard to the internet and web in the 1990s,” Gillespie opines. “Mostly, though not always: recall bipartisan attempts to place backdoors for easy spying in all sorts of telecom hardware and software, classifying encryption as munitions, and trying to regulate the internet in the name of protecting kids from child predators. The only thing that prevented that last bit from happening was a 9-0 Supreme Court ruling that extended toothsome First Amendment protections to the internet.”
“Net Neutrality and Title II reclassification are solutions to problems (blocking of sites! fast lanes that prevent new services from coming to market!) that don’t yet exist,” Gillespie writes. “Each ‘solution’ gives the same government that is godawful at respecting privacy rights more power over the most revolutionary means of communication since the printing press. Really not a good idea from just about any perspective.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Obama-appointed FCC chairman distances himself from Obama on so-called ‘net neutrality’ – November 12, 2014
What does so-called ‘net neutrality’ mean for Apple? – November 12, 2014
AT&T to pause fiber investment until net neutrality rules are decided – November 12, 2014
U.S. FCC plays Russian Roulette with so-called ‘net neutrality’ – November 11, 2014
U.S. House Speaker John Boehner: Republicans will continue efforts to stop misguided scheme to regulate the Internet – November 10, 2014
Tech Freedom: Obama cynically exploits confusion over Title II, misses opportunity to lead on legislative deal – November 10, 2014
Obama want FCC to regulate the Internet; Cruz calls it ‘Obamacare for the Internet’ – November 10, 2014
Never thought I’d say this about Mark Cuban, but thanks to him for being a voice of reason!
Don’t kid yourself. He’s as useless as he always is. It’s convenient for his interests that government is meddling in his affairs, yet, from his perspective it’s good for everything else but what HE doesn’t want regulated.
What Federal Government programs are they excellent at maintaining and regulating efficiently and effectively?
Post Office? Bankrupt. Bailout mode.
Social Security? Heading to bankruptcy – now.
Medicare? $100 billion+ a year in fraud.
No Child Left Behind? Ted Kennedy’s legacy and George W. Bush’s signed into law disaster.
War on Drugs? Hundreds of billions – failed.
Economic Stimulus? Disaster of Fed Bureaucracy bloat.
Affordable Health Care Act? Would cost $1 trillion… Already is 3x that amount, with skyrocketing premiums for people with insurance and only 1/3rd of the folks they thought would sign up have. Nightmare bill, collapsing under it’s own weight.
EPA: Telling people they can – or cannot have ponds. Zero oversight, do whatever they want to any citizen or land owner.
And this is the tip of the iceberg… And the premise I see is the Government would be fine to regulate the internet?
My big question is why? Why would you want this nightmare Bureaucracy, run and implemented by – largely – corrupt power hungry politicians to control the internet? Meanwhile, the business motivation is to make money by delivering goods and/or services people and other companies would love to buy, have or use. Building competition, delivering better services and goods. Let the backbone be wide open from Government regulation and see what types of choices and competition emerge.
Mark Cuban is a fat mouthed ahole. He criticized Apple for avoiding taxes to USA via Ireland as equal to treason. Apple paid every tax that it was legally required to pay to IRS via the current US Tax Laws as they testified before Congress.
Yet, Mr. Cuban takes full advantage of the same tax laws to save BILLIONS in taxes via owning a sports franchise just like Steve Ballmer does & does not pay the USA extra taxes. Finally, his Shark Show always encourages new start up businesses not to make products in USA so they will be more profitable to them & bigger ROI on his shark investment… NOT PRO USA again. So, STFU2U2 Mr. Cuban.
What is Net Neutrality? Is the internet today too acid or too alkaline?
Nice – but seriously folks …
MDN, you guys are waaay off on this one. Your political biases are coloring your good sense to an extreme extent.
There’s nothing ‘so called’ about Net Neutrality. It means what it says – an internet accessible by everyone equally, consumers and content providers, and/or entrepreneurs, and/or merchants alike. And this is as it should be because the net was invented based on technologies that came from the U.S. government – which is to say the people who fund that government.
It was eventually expanded to everyday people by an act of Congress, representatives of those same people. It’s infrastructure AND subsequent upgrades (which made it, finally, much more useful) was funded either directly by government grants, or through government tax breaks, or in government sponsored partnerships, with universities and private companies, WORLDWIDE.
There is no net with out government care and support. And thus there is no MDN without it either. Period.
And, most importantly, it is now indispensable to communications and commerce, across the globe. There has never been a more ubiquitous public good, depended upon by the public to such an extent, save water and electricity.
What if only those who could afford to pay the most got the best water, or electrical service, as a matter of course? I guarantee that half, if not all, of those now toadying up to the money masters on this topic would be crying for government to save them in that case. As they most certainly will if the money masters get there way here.
It all sounds so well and good (‘Free da markets!’ ”Guv’ment sucks!’) until, of course, you’re paying double, even triple, what you are now for even worse service. Service which includes even basic telecommunications now, btw. It’s all a blissful GOP wet dream, until those people with soaked crotches now are someday wondering why, that guy/girl who invented a better search engine, or a better way to distribute media content, or what have you, can’t get it off the ground because only the wealthy can afford to set up a website. It’s such a grand experiment in retrograde thinking brought to life, until you just don’t agree with what the best government that corporate money can buy is doing, but find all your posts or blogs on the matter have been shut down.
Get a clue, MDN. This is your collective asses that are on the line too. Stop for a minute and think about what kind of world you’re pushing for here, and realize it’s a world with no room for you, or most of your readers.
Stop being a pawn. Start being a leader.
What would be wrong with prohibiting cable and satellite companies from selling content? If we required that their content sales divisions be separate divisions or companies and that their delivery divisions or companies treat all content equally we could end the fscked up situation we have now.
Cuban acts as if delivery capacity is a limited natural resource. The truth is that we could all have gigabit service if enough money were invested in infrastructure. The fact that we don’t is the result of a business decision by the cable companies, not some natural law limiting capacity.
The truth is that the cable and satellite companies have a sweet little monopoly, with just enough regulation to discourage competition, and not enough to force them to actually serve their customers. The delivery companies, and their concomitant content sales are what has limited progress and kept pricing at ridiculous levels. Europe has far faster service available to everyone at a fraction of the costs we pay. It’s time to regulate the carriers as if they were public utilities. Without their throttling of competition there would be many more content companies, many more independent ISPs, much more content, and prices would be much lower. The internet is like a highway system, but one that was built and is controlled by private companies. In other words, the internet now functions as if it were a toll road, with a charge per mile (content), and “fast lanes” for the rich and powerful. We need the internet to be more like the interstate highway system; open equally to all, and supported by user fees based on the level of benefit derived. If you’re doing business on the net (selling content) then you need to pay the bulk of the maintenance and new construction fees, just as commercial vehicles do on the interstates.
I like your analogy of the highway system. However, there are those who would like to see all highways privatized, as has been done with some toll roads. Again, the fast lanes are only affordable by the ones with money. I see the internet more like electricity. It is ubiquitous. But if you use a lot of megawatts, you pay for a lot of megawatts. But, pretty much everywhere you go, there is more than adequate wattage available to do your day to day activities (homes typically have 200 amp service for instance). But the power company is not providing “content” – in other words, you don’t use their stove – they are only providing you with the power required to use your stove. This is why your idea of separating content from the delivery vehicle really makes sense.
We call those toll lanes in California Lexus Lanes.
Actually, I spent 30 years in the power generation and delivery industry. It really is a better example of how things should be run. There, the delivery (wires and poles), transmission (the grid), electricity producers (content), and billing (metering) are all separate functions that can be assigned to any qualified company. Of course, the people who own the poles and wires going to your home is pretty much a given, and transmission over the backbone lines from state to state is also. But the energy supplier (content) and the billing can be anybody the customer chooses.
I’m in Oregon, but if I want I can buy my electricity from somebody in Nevada. They send the amount of electricity I demand into the grid and Portland General Electric extracts it here and sends it to me. PGE also does my billing and maintenance, so they charge me for transmission, maintenance, and delivery. The energy provider in Nevada tells PGE how much to bill me for energy. They later settle up.
That is exactly the way the internet should work. The telco or cable company should provide only a connection to the net. I can then select which content I want delivered. Domain hosting, email, tech support are then supplied by the independent ISP I select. This is exactly how I am working it now. I get my DSL from Mammoth Communications over Frontier’s lines. I don’t use any of the Frontier services like email, etc. They simply provide me a connection. I get my ISP services (domain hosting, web pages, server space, email, tech support, etc. from Eskimo North in Seattle. Here’s a recent email from Eskimo North outlining what they provide me:
“Dear Eskimo North Customer,
We’ve changed a number of things and I’m writing to let you know so that you can take fullest advantage of our services.
At one time only shellx supported NX and X2Go, now every Linux server, shellx, scientific, centos7, scientific7, fedora, mint, debian, ubuntu, and opensuse all support both NX and X2Go remote desktop protocols. With X2Go, sound is supported and fully functional on all of these servers. NX can work with freenx, opennx, qnx, remmina, and nomachine player. I believe neatx can also work but lacks much functionality. X2Go works with X2Go client and Pyhoca client.
Private keys are no longer required, all of our servers will work
with the default keys so you do not have to specify a private key. You do need to specify tunnel through ssh.
We presently have a two-for-one sale in progress through Christmas on shell accounts and virtual domains. If you purchase either (or both), you can give one to a friend, family member or yourself, for free, for the same period you purchase.
Having an eskimo north shell account frees you from being tied to one carrier for access. No matter what carrier you use, you can retain the same e-mail, web space, and shell space.
There are encrypted versions of all of our services. We send and receive e-mail encrypted from any other sites that support TLS encryption as well. This makes our service ideal for people who must access the Internet from less than secure locations such as cable modems, college campuses, or foreign countries where your data must pass tapped public peering points.
If you are learning Linux or developing for Linux, we have nine
different popular distributions available for your use complete with most development tools.
If you enjoy IRC, we have a wide variety of IRC clients, bots, and proxy servers available. If you’re into Moo, Muck, or Muds, we’ve got a variety of clients for those games. And on the subject of games, there are thousands of games online on our shell servers.
Audio/video/image processing facilities are also available.
Several full Office suites compatible with Microsoft Office file
formats are available.”
Does the average cable company offer any of that? And if they did, would their support people help you set it up? This is what you are missing by getting your ISP services through the cable company.
I wish I could give you 10 stars. Your ideas are right on. It seems the ones who oppose neutrality have a profit motive or a political motive.
“The truth is that we could all have gigabit service if enough money were invested in infrastructure. The fact that we don’t is the result of a business decision by the cable companies, not some natural law limiting capacity.”
Amazing… “enough money”… Have you ever thought where does so called “enough money” come from? Not grown on the tree, not drop from the sky. It comes from people’s pocket. Now why do people having “enough money” want to invest in the infrastructure? Because we are nice, or we are good looking? No. Because those bloody capitalists want return of their “enough money” after they invests in the infrastructures. Now if NN’s goal is to have a free internet for everyone, then I bet those bloody capitalists won’t invest a single penny in the net. Then we can all have 56k dialup modem. You know, socialism is good.
I’ll bite Mr Capitalist.
Since they are capitalists, then they should stop using imminent domain and pay me for the lines run on my land, no? They understand, it’s a business thang, you have to pay for what you get right? It takes money to build it out, just none for me? It’s for the “public good” that they trench their fiber thru MY land, or is it for their commercial benefit and my dissatisfaction with shit service i’d dump in a minute if not for their government enabled monopoly.
They should also pay back all the tax subsidies right, after all it is OUR money they are playing with no? Why am I subsidizing them?
It’s called an ‘easement’ and is how all utilities (and access to restricted property) are able to function, so get over it (and think of it as ‘socializing property use’).
Where will that “enough money” to build a much improved internet come from? From the same place it came in the beginning. The internet was originally built with government funds and funds from public (and private) universities. Perhaps if we hadn’t spent roughly $10 Trillion on Middle East wars that accomplished exactly nothing (except to make government contractors rich) we would have “enough money” to not only update our internet infrastructure, but our road systems, school systems, and other public facilities as well. I’m really sick and tired of “capitalists” who become indignant at being asked to pay for the benefits they consume that are provided by this society. Capitalism doesn’t operate in a vacuum. It REQUIRES government to enforce the rules of capitalism and to protect businesses from forces that would simply take what they want from those capitalists. Capitalism as we know it relies on publicly funded infrastructure, like highway systems, rivers made and kept navigable by tax dollars, seaports built and maintained with tax dollars, etc. Capitalism can’t exist without government and taxpayers to support it. To then turn around and crow about being self-made successes is either gross ignorance or hubris. The owner of the fourplex on the other side of town that is valued the same as my single family home pays the same property taxes that I do, but his business uses 5 to 10 times the government services that my household does. It takes a lot of nerve to complain about paying taxes while one operates a taxpayer subsidized business.
“Europe has far faster service available to everyone at a fraction of the costs we pay. ” NO IT DOESN’T. KEEP IN MIND THAT MUCH OF THEIR SYSTEMS WERE HIGHLY PAID BY THEIR GOVERNMENTS. THEY ALL THROTTLE AND CAP. SOME AT EXTREMELY LOW LEVELS.
Interesting your bring up the highway systems. THEY ARE NOT OPEN EQUALLY TO ALL. THEY TO THROTTLE SPEEDS AND CAP. AND THEY (INTERSTATE) ARE NOT SUPPORTED BY USER FEES, BUT BY TAXES COLLECTED FROM THE GENERAL PUBLIC.
INCIDENTLY, electrical power and water companies all throttle and/or cap to some degree, particularly as demand increases, during heat waves for example.
Your are right, we could all have Gbit service, much like Korea has. However, it would take a law decree like the Korean government implemented years ago to do so. Nice to have a country with ideal geography and population densities that help achieve their higher standards. And a government that significantly subsidized and continues to subsidize the building and maintenance of the infrastructure.
I worked in the power generation industry for 30 years. You have no idea what you’re talking about in that area, and I doubt your knowledge is any better in any other area you cite. Your highway example is particularly flawed, for instance. It’s a non-sequitur. You seem to assume that any contribution to the system by government would be bad. But the internet wouldn’t have ever existed without the “gubmint”.
then support a bill that finances the improvement of the infrastructure, not one that makes the internet vulnerable to control of its content by government. The power generation industry doesn’t communicate ideas, the non sequitur is yours.
Support a bill that finances improvement of infrastructure that is controlled by the cable monopoly? You’re joking. Which do you want, an internet controlled by corporate executives, or an internet controlled by our elected representatives?
The power generation industry certainly does control the communication of ideas. Or maybe we could deliver hand printed newspapers on horseback without it, and read them by kerosene lamps.
It does not control content, and you know it and you know precisely the inherent danger of government control of media that communicates ideas, debate and news. Further, the power generation industry also enables the publishing industry to flourish, but you would never support government control of printing presses and their book publishers..this is the very same thing. If you consider a cable company to be a monopoly, then either cease to be their customer, file a class action anti-trust suit against them or enact laws in local governments to allow more than one company access to the taxpayers’ lines. But, under NO circumstances, allow the Federal government regulation and control of the internet.
Your book analogy suffers. It would not be the equivalent of the presses that the government would control, nor the content of the books, but the highways that trucks use to deliver the books.
I do consider the cable companies to be monopolies in control of what content and what ideas are delivered through the internet. I *have* left them for that reason.
My point is that the federal government does indeed have some legitimate functions. Too many people have swallowed whole the paranoid rantings of the corporate shills on the PUBLIC (OMG, government controlled!) radio waves, who argue that if you let the federal government regulate their masters’ rapacious, out of control capitalist behavior we are all going to hell under a dictatorship as the economy collapses. Let’s please just stop being silly and take notice of what’s actually going on, shall we?
“My point is that the federal government does indeed have some legitimate functions.”
I agree, but not among them is control of what I read, what I write and who and how I communicate. You must surely know that if this Net Neutrality Act should pass, the present criminal government or any future government, the NSA and the spiderweb of acronymic “national security” agencies and their unconstitutional policies would run roughshod over the First and Fourth Amendments. It is no exaggeration that if this law is passed and the Federal government controls this most wonderful of all tools, we would not be having this very conversation online.
Really? Surely if the government were in control of the allocation and management of the electro-magnetic spectrum we would see no dissenting opinions discussed on AM and FM commercial radio, would? No, wait…the government DOES regulate commercial radio frequency distribution and content, and it even issues (OMG!) LICENSES! I’m sure they’ll be shutting down Limbaugh and Hannity any moment now.
And as far as “the present criminal government or any future government, the NSA and the spiderweb of acronymic “national security” agencies and their unconstitutional policies would run roughshod over the First and Fourth Amendments”, what would be different from how things are right now?
I cannot share your optimism in the egalitarianism of the Federal government, we disagree. To paraphrase Franklin: “Give the choice between what is right and what is not right, the government will invariably choose the latter.”
Doesn’t it bother you that you’re arguing to the benefit of a collection of the most abusive and hated companies on the planet? Does anybody believe that Comcast doesn’t have as much interest in your personal data as the government, and fewer ways it can be held accountable?
I just don’t get it when people say the government will do nefarious things, and give corporate America a pass. Does anyone think that insurance companies didn’t have death panels before Obamacare? If so, get off your unicorn and put your fairy back in your pocket and tune into the real world.
then that is the function of antitrust laws.
Might want to rethink your statement Zeke.
http://www.pff.org/issues-pubs/ps/2007/ps3.11fairnessdoctrineinternet.html
Net Neutrality Act , we’ve been there before with the Fairness doctrine.
You might want to research it a little.. NN and the Fairness doctrine, some of the same rhetoric.
Same BS, different name.
Net neutrality and the fairness doctrine have nothing to do with each other. The fairness doctrine had to do with balancing content when there were exactly 3 corporate entities broadcasting news and OPINION nationally. They absolutely controlled all content. It at least made some sort of sense to require the presentation of a dissenting opinion in the same forum, when that national forum was controlled by a very small number of corporate executives. These days, with thousands, if not millions of world wide voices disseminating a broad spectrum of opinions there’s no need and no justification (whether you or I agreed with it or not) for requiring the presentation of differing opinions. And I really don’t need to research it because I was there in person.
What we ARE dealing with is control of the distribution of content by a handful of cable and telephone companies. We need some way to ensure that these companies don’t collude to exclude other content providers, like NetFlix from the market.
“The broadband provider has committed to providing a specified level of service to its customers, and to deliver broadband content within a certain range of speeds. A service like Netflix that streams video content consumes an inordinate amount of network bandwidth—much more than downloading email, or surfing the Web—which can result in degraded services for all customers whether they use Netflix or not.
It’s also not an issue that necessarily impacts the whole network. Netflix customers are scattered around the world, but the Netflix servers only connect in to the Internet in a few select locations. Where the Netflix content enters the Internet, those nodes can easily become saturated, which means the broadband providers have to add more nodes and expand the network to accommodate the load from Netflix—even though the demand is an issue unique to Netflix more or less.
If a broadband provider like Comcast can’t negotiate a deal with a service like Netflix and collect additional fees to fund the necessary network infrastructure, it has to bear the cost of upgrading the network itself. That cost would then be passed on to all Comcast customers regardless of whether they actually subscribe to Netflix or not.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/knowledgewharton/2014/05/09/112014/
under NN ISP’s would have to pay for the problem Netflix has created and pays nothing for…
And then when the ISP can’t afford to upgrade their network, you cry foul.
I suppose you believe the Clean Air Act means the government will soon be telling us how much we can breathe and taxing us on each breath.
C’mon, net neutrality is not about government “controlling” the internet. It’s about making sure that the utterly noncompetitive cable oligopoly cannot strangle services that compete with them. And, the mechanism for accomplishing that is exceedingly simple: all data must be treated equally.
Know how many choices I have when I go shopping for broadband service? One. That’s some “free market” ya got there. Know how the big telcos got those monopolies? They begged and pleaded and threatened until governments granted them.
You want a competitive free market? Strip the local monopolies and make every provider compete in every market for every consumer.
Or, better yet, make the pipes a public utility, and let the content providers compete on content alone.
“You want a competitive free market? Strip the local monopolies and make every provider compete in every market for every consumer.”
good idea.
Well, I still do and for longer than you!
Just to make things clearer: I in fact endorse contribution made by governments. I have no issues with Net Neutrality in principal. I support the concept of free speech, but with the proviso that we take full responsibility and are accountable for what we say.
Like those that want to use a toll road to drive faster with limits, and pay for such relative to the size/type of their vehicle, I endorse whole heartedly that we should pay more for faster delivery and larger Internet content.
For all your other comments I gave you 5 stars!
“Mark Cuban on so-called net neutrality: ‘The government will fsck the Internet up’”
Yes, because Comcast et al have done such a stellar job so far.
Cuban, MDN and the rest of the “let the selfish rule” want to do to the internet the very thing they’ve succeeded in doing to government… user pays/wins so those with the big pockets get to broadcast their message of selfishness to every aspect of our daily lives. The market doesn’t decide anything, the market permits those that can afford it the delusion that they earned it.
Wish I could give this a ten star rating….
And yet, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ) funded and developed the Internet as a reliable network infrastructure to assure reliable communications in time of war.
Just because something could go awry doesn’t mean it will. I live in a medium sized metropolitan area of a million people, and Comcast is my only choice for high speed Internet (30mbps) at a cost of $140/month. So, where’s the competition to keep them sensible? Opening the pipes to force ISPs with effective monopolies to sell bandwidth to potential competitors appears to be the only potential option to keep features and costs to consumers under control. Saying we can always hire a lawyer and sue the local monopolist is not a viable option.
Government exists to provide for the common defense, and to regulate common goods (e.g., infrastructure) to the benefit of the populace.
So, I’d take the opposite approach, let the FCC regulate the Internet backbone as a utility, and then rely on the Congress to take action if they mess it up. That’s supposedly one of their primary roles, agency oversight.
Yeah the Internet is going to become some sort of pseudo regulated utility at some point in time IMO. And just like every other gov’t regulated industry, there will be some good and bad that comes along with it. There is a long list of industries the gov’t has failed at trying to regulate. Airline industry comes to mind…
Bottom line the industry lobbyists will eventually “win” and the rich will get richer. Looking back over the past 30 years of the telco industry and the complete cluster that has been. Less competition, higher prices, and innovation at the speed of a snail.
For those who don’t seem to know what net neutrality is (ie: MDN): Net Neutrality = dumb pipes – you know, that thing MDN used to purport to support.
it’s the GOVERNMENT involvement… in the private sector thats the problem.
What if the government said you have too many Apple products connected to the internet in your house, you either need to add a PC or disconnect one of the Apples.
It’s none of the governments business.
Remember back when ISP’s only allowed 1 device on the internet? you had to PAY to add a 2nd device…. or risk getting charged an insane fee?..
Customers won that argument.
The problem is that CUSTOMERS AREN’T WINNING THIS ONE.
Therefore regulation is unfortunately needed.
Definition of Socialism.
You are willing to hand over every aspect of your life to Government.
So you don’t use the interstate highways, I guess. That would be handing over a part of your life to the government.
Highway system, yep EXACTLY the same as internet service.
Yes, almost exactly the same in that they are built and maintained with government funds, just like public schools, airports, seaports, public libraries, etc. I’m assuming you use none of these because to do so would be surrendering your life to socialism. And BTW, do you enjoy living in a country with a strong military for your personal and corporate protection? If so, you’re enjoying socialism.
Highway system…. owned my a Corporation? Granted ACCESS via a corporation?
oh wait… owned by the Government, built by Government (for the military)
Military to defend it’s citizens. I Kinda remember something about that in our Constitution..
I’m sure you think you’re making some kind of sense.
One of the primary tasks of government is to protect ordinary people from corporate abuse. Net Neutrality ensures that we all have the same rights on the Internet.
In much of the world the rich have already pulled up the ladder after them, preventing others from climbing the aspiration tree as the previous generation were able to. They now want to do the same with the ‘Net. Allow them that and the startup culture will die off, innovation will die off, and the Internet will become as stale a medium as newspapers. Is that really what you want to happen?
Oh i’d like to hear this one…
Point it out for me.
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html
(Hint, you are talking UN not US….)
Love the down votes.
He’s quoting a UNITED NATIONS paper, not any official Government law in the US.
If you believe that government protects you from corporations, then you should avoid people selling bridges.
-jcr
No, WRONG!
Smart customers purchased a router allowing their one IP connection to be NAT’d allowing more devices on that IP.
ISP’s still charge for multiple IP’s, IF they offer it at all. Most don’t want that because they prefer to statically assign and revoke them, and do not want you hogging the limited bandwidth they have made available on your oversold subnet by hosting a server on your IP.
you may want to do some research
Comcast called it “Theft of Service” up until 2004 when they changed to allow home networking
Click to access CHNGettingStarted.pdf
as you can see here:http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r14111385-Connectivity-Comcast-with-2-computers-
Comcast MODIFIED their subscriber agreement to allow up to 5 behind their equipment in 2004.
We are NOT talking multiple IP’s…
either you are very young, or you are not observant of internet history.
The only reason they modified their behavior and their terms of service was that in order to enforce those terms of service they would have had to argue and win the case that they owned the content, which was not the case.
And……….. come on you are almost there….
Answer the question… Show me where Government would have done the same.
(Government would have to argue with themselves, wouldn’t have changed)
Answer what question? You didn’t ask a question. You’re statement is completely incoherent.
Comcast can call things anything they like. Once the signal arrives on my wires it’s mine to do with as I please, as long as it falls under the definition of personal use. Comcast is famous for overreaching statements and actions. Most of the time they can bluff consumers into surrendering to them. In fact, I’m going to have a talk with them at some point about coming out and fixing my wires. When I disconnected from them and went to DSL and an OTA TV antenna, they not only disconnected their cable at the pole, they cut the connectors off of MY wires inside a distribution box that I own. I’m going to ask them come back out and repair MY wires that they damaged, which are technically on MY side of the demark point.
“Show me where Government would have done the same.”
The government would not have been interested in how many computers were on your home network sharing your single connection to begin with. In fact, in 1965 or so it was perfectly OK to connect as many of your own computers to the net with their own individual IP addresses as you wanted. The government (who along with public and private universities had built a large portion of the internet in those days) didn’t care because they weren’t trying to extract a profit from you.
…..
“The only reason they modified their behavior and their terms of service was that in order to enforce those terms of service they would have had to argue and win the case”
NAME ONE TIME THE GOVERNMENT WOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME…….
It doesn’t matter WHAT the issue is, the Government would NOT have changed the ToS/Law to avoid a lawsuit.
Comcast changed their ToS cause they knew they were going to lose lawsuits, and customers to their competition.
With Government in control… there IS NO COMPETITION. You are stuck with what THEY deem “acceptable”.
Don’t like it? tough, you’re screwed.
The government would not be your ISP. It would simply ensure that your ISP isn’t discriminating as to which content it wants to deliver to you. It’s that simple.
The government controls the allocation of spectrum and the licensing of commercial radio. Have they shut down Limbaugh and Hannity? Have they somehow made it more difficult to listen to them on the radio? Have they controlled their political content?
You’re grasping at straws, and your tinfoil hat is slipping.
Hannity/Limbaugh EXIST ONLY BECAUSE THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE IS GONE.
It’s not ABOUT the Fairness Doctrine. The Fairness Doctrine has NOTHIng to do with Net Neutrality. If you think it does, as it appears you do, you’re very confused.
Net Neutrality and Fairness Doctrine are ONE IN THE SAME.
Orwellian naming conventions to promise the greater good. But in practice, freedoms are LOST. Losers become winners and winners become losers.
Let the Internet be. Let Rush and Hannity be. Let the markets decide.
not the same?
You should speak with your liberal friends..
http://wtnnews.com/articles/8976/
Just one example of linking them, but do some research.. those that are pushing for NN also want fairness doctrine back for radio/tv.
While Comcast is not known for customer service, they had to agree to net neutrality till 2018 as a result of an acquisition. Apparently they have become believers. Their official response is:
“Free and open Internet. We agree—and that is our practice.
No blocking. We agree—and that is our practice.
No throttling. We agree—and that is our practice.
Increased transparency. We agree—and that is our practice.
No paid prioritization. We agree—and that is our practice.”
Where they differ is they would like net neutrality enforced without using the Title II “common carrier” designation, however courts already struck down the FCCs ability to enforce net neutrality without using that designation.
So unless Congress gives the FCC power to enforce net neutrality without using Title II, that is what they are likely to do.
And for those who don’t like Title II, telecoms often use it to assert other rights, but don’t like it when it comes back on them.
This is not a simple issue, both because of government always being behind the times and politicized and telecoms clever legal and merger wars to avoid competition.
Can we stop with the simplistic negativity in these threads on MDN? The more simplistic and negative the posts, the clearer it is that the poster has no idea what they are talking about except for their own uninformed biases.
And, as soon as the public looks the other way, and Comcast no longer has an incentive to follow these public policies (i.e., post merger), they’ll disappear in the blink of an eye.
It’s time for the FCC to step up to the plate and help the consumer, not the monopolists.
I agree, Comcast’s admirable enthusiasm for a level playing field for consumers and other content providers will be temporary, if it isn’t solidified for all telecoms going forward.
But fear of regulatory abuse is well founded. It is very important that the net neutrality rule be kept simple so it isn’t abused by either telecoms or the government.
As macnut22 says, net neutrality should just mean dumb pipes. The pipes are not allowed to adjust to the type of data or the source of data.
Telecoms can to continue to bundle optional proprietary add-ons like TV, VoIP, or any other service, as long as they continue letting other services connect to their pipes with the same priority as their own. Net neutrality should not be anti-telecom, just pro-competitive.
Exactly. Comcast is trying to take what was ultimately just a merger concession (in order to get the merger approved) and trying to use it as a marketing tool.
“We’re all for free Internet!!!”
Bullsh*t. That tune will change the minute they either (a) find a loophole in their merger agreement, or (b) the term of it runs out.
Proponents of “Net Neutrality” like to use the meme “It protects the consumer from throttling Netflix”…that horseshit ranks up there with “It’s for the children!” to pass a lottery referendum. Don’t let this criminal administration fool you otherwise: The clandestine goal of Federal regulation of the internet is censorship, surveillance and taxation. Period.
…in a word: Control. Control of ideas, control of the exchange of ideas, control of trade.
If consumers have a problem with Comcast or any other provider, file a class action suit against them. The legal vehicle for that is already in place.
Do NOT support this government effort to destroy what is truly a miracle of free choice and expression.
“Then I’ll get on my knees and pray,
We don’t get fooled again.”
Your biases and lack of understanding come right through in your emotional and fearful posts.
But both governments and corporations abuse their power. Your siding with telecoms as if they were angels who need neither competitors or regulation to play fair is naive.
Any consolidated critical market need to be either forced to compete, or be regulated. So which is it?
If you want to suggest that breaking up the telecoms is better than regulation, that would be a reasonable view. But simply whining about regulation without offering an alternative that limits telecom market abuse is pointless, unless you just have an emotional need to whine.
This best describes your naive mentality:
“Flip the switch on, and the rats remember. Flip it off, and the rats forget,” said Theodore Berger of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, who holds the David Packard Chair in Engineering and is director of the USC Center for Neural Engineering.”
have a nice day, rat. 🙂
You sure are an emotional one.
But are those emotions associated with any insight?
What do you believe is the best solution for critical markets where competition has been nearly wiped out by consolidation? And why?
I assume you can speak with a rational voice when you want.
I thought that quite “rat”ional. I subscribe to neither suffering fools gladly nor throwing pearls before swine.
Adios, muchacho.
Asking for insight instead of insults is not foolish.
Again, what do you believe is the best solution for critical markets where competition has been nearly wiped out by consolidation? And why?
Hear ye! Hear ye! The BOTVINIK has got it exactly RIGHT!
Half the time you have such intelligent and witty take on things and the other half it is complete tinfoil hat territory. Can you give examples of censorship and provide any logic bridge between Net Neutrality and censorship?
Your answer lies in who is commandeering the regulation.
PS – I hope your small duck is sticking to its principal.
Tin foil hat.
In the meantime, we didn’t have any censorship when government funded the internet for decades. Asking telecoms to continue to not bias the internet is protecting something we already had, not government overreach.
You keep complaining, but don’t offer any solutions, just fear.
Last time, neverright:
“If consumers have a problem with Comcast or any other provider, file a class action suit against them. The legal vehicle for that is already in place.”
No actually, there is no net neutrality law. But you are right, if congress passed one then citizens could enforce it and there would be no need for FCC/executive branch involvement.
So you are for a law that would allow citizens and the court system to enforce an unbiased internet?
Are you the dumbest motherfucker that ever lived?
“THE LEGAL VEHICLE FOR THAT IS ALREADY IN PLACE.”
I see you can repeat yourself. Explaining yourself would have been more helpful.
There is currently no law on the books that will let consumers or businesses enforce unbiased treatment of the packets they pay for.
Look, dumbest motherfucker that ever lived: You’re pissed at Comcast, right? Get off your fat, lazy ass, get a lawyer and a shitload of your buddies that are also Comcast subscribers and file a class action suit against Comcast. But, DO NOT, try and convince me or anyone with half a brain to support a law that allows the Federal government to regulate & control the internet. I am not certain what your “agenda” is, but it is not reason.
Yea, thrice yea!
then, maybe you can get your mom to show you how to tinkle. Jeez, grow up.
Your getting emotional again and confused.
You stated people should sue telecoms (Comcast is only one) if they want the packets they pay for to not be filtered for the telecom’s benefit.
But you cannot sue someone unless they are breaking the law.
What law are you suggesting they sue telecoms with?
Again, instead of spewing empty expletives, just explain yourself.
Neverright: if the telecom is charging you for packets that you do not receive, than that’s called fraud. Fraud is against the law. After mommy helps you tinkle, get your fellow Comcast buddies together with an attorney, hopefully one who just won’t just pull out a gun and shoot you in the face for being so godddamned stupid, and file a class action suit against them. Do you not understand that one of the primary functions of the judicial system is to settle disputes?
Neverright: another option for you, in most states there is an elected Corporation Commission or Railroad Commission to protect consumers from business fraud…this happened to me a couple of years ago, my contract with my ISP was for a 12mbps download speed, due to what the ISP described as an unforeseen “connection problem with the hub we purchase our internet from” the speed dropped to 1.0-2.0 mbps. However, the ISP kept billing me for the full speed, whereupon I called them regarding fraudulent charges. Of course they balked and kept charging me full price. My next step was to log-on to the Better Business Bureau and file a complaint, the result was the same, though I received an apologetic email. My next step was a single call to the Corporation Commission, whereupon I was instantly credited for the previous three months of slowed speed and not charged for another two months while the “hub” problem was corrected. The point of this particular post, is, once again, there are already courts and commissions already in place to remedy fraud by any ISP. It does not require boo-hooin’ to the Federal government to step in and “control” it. Had you not been born the dumbest motherfucker that ever lived, you would have already learned this.
Nevermark..
think about it.
A company breaks a law…. they can be sued.
Government breaks IT’S OWN LAW….. can you sue? nope.
The icing on the Botty cake. 🙂
But there is no fraud when a company doesn’t guarantee unbiased access, so there are no grounds for suing a company that isn’t providing it.
Telecoms don’t guarantee net neutrality in their customer contracts for a reason: so they legally don’t have to provide it.
I agree 100% that using law and the court system is better than having the executive branch making regulations as they go. But to get there on this issue, we would need one or both parties to get a clear law through.
If there was such a law, none of this controversy would be happening and the FCC would not be involved in settling it.
no company or individual is exempt from prosecution of fraud..find another source for your internet, Do NOT tell my there are none…net neutrality is shit, your arguments for it are shit.
The gooberment fucks up everything it touches, from the post office to the CIA, Don’t even get me started on healthcare.
Government created the Internet and funded it for decades without censoring it or biasing it.
Now the government wants to require that telecoms continue not to censor or bias their services.
The fact that government screws up a lot of things isn’t a good argument for them NOT keeping something working well that they actually did right.
Dear Neverright-
Yes, it is plenty reason and more than anyone needs. They f*ck up everything!
Peace.
The tin foil hatters here are not proposing alternate solutions to net neutrality regulation so I will.
Problem: The internet was designed to be packet agnostic from the beginning, and to reroute around networking problems either intentional or unintentional. This neutral internet worked very well, so well in fact that eventually it was adopted by billions of people around the world.
Now telecoms have made a huge business out of this, providing all of us with even faster speeds. But as with any business, they are looking to leverage their control. This might not be a problem if the telecom market had not consolidated so much, but it did.
What to do?
1) A net neutrality regulation would force telecoms to maintain packet agnostic service. This keeps the internet open and free for consumers and all other businesses. Downside: regulation, especially if complex, can be politically abused. (This is a credible criticism.)
Simple regulation often works very well, which is why both parties are for regulation in many situations. HOWEVER, lets look for alternatives to avoid the possible government abuse problem.
2) Break up telecoms. Recreate competition by forcing telecoms to break up regionally, then allowing them to enter each other’s markets.
3) Temporary regulation to force telecoms to rent their assets to new entrants at reasonable prices. This recreates competition by allowing entrants an onramp to becoming competitive.
4) Congress passes a law enforcing net neutrality. This gets the FCC out of it, and lets citizens enforce net neutrality with lawsuits and the court system.
These are the options I am aware of.
Any other alternatives (besides cowering in fear, or trusting telecom conglomerates)?
I am for (1) because I think it is most likely to actually happen. (2) and (3) would involve even more governmental regulatory control. But I could wave my magic wand, I would choose (4).
So we’ll just forget that the Comcast Netflix thing happened? We’ll just forget that ISPs block the customers from getting timely updates to their phones? Wi’ll just forget that ISPs blocked customers from using services and features that were installed on their phones because they would’ve competed against features that the ISPs want to customers to pay them for? We’ll forget that Comcast is a de facto monopoly and many of the markets where it provides service? The history of the lowly telephone line is a lesson in what happens when you allow the so-called free market to dictate terms.
Egad, the blind persistence of head-banging big gov’t proponents is painful. If you have an obvious monopoly situation then get the monopoly broken up! They did it with Standard Oil, the phone companies, they spooked MicroShaft enough to slow Bill G down. Other than that, which will create more of the competition we all want and love, additional gov’t intrusion will again sow the seeds for wanton abuse by an out-of-contol federal gov’t. Why can’t you get that?!!!
Because the telcos and cable companies are against regulation precisely in order to maintain their control of the net, and their ability to shield themselves from competition.
I think people do see that, but its not in the cards. Which party did you see doing this?
I’m living in Seoul, South Korea, which enjoys some of the fastest internet in the world, precisely thanks to government support for the infrastructure. The faith that profit motive always works in the public’s interest seems bizarre to me.
Well, that’s just Jim Dandy, then you don’t mind sending the money your Slungdung stole from my American company, ya’ thievin’ bastards. We are sick and tired of financing your country’s R&D.
Not sure what your point is. I’m an American citizen, born on a farm in the midwest, have used macs exclusively since 1986, and have been an AAPL shareholder since 2000, and never used Samsung. The simple fact is that internet service in the U.S, is an embarrasssment. The South Korean government made lowcost, high speed Internet a priority in the late 1990s and all have benefitted from it since. To be sure, South Korea is much more compact than the U.S., but the idea that government backing for the Internet will necessarily mess it up strikes me as ludicrous. I encourage you to visit East Asia sometime and see how relatively backward the U.S. Internet has become.
“…the idea that government backing for the Internet will necessarily mess it up…”
I encourage you to visit the NSA Utah Data Center on your next visit to the United States.
That should read “Government subsidized”
You are right Bob, the profit motive only works for the public when there are limited by healthy competition and protection of individual rights, as companies can make more profits by being monopolies and predatory/criminal.
Without basic checks and balances, there are no free markets, just strong vs. weak. Governments do many useful things, including keeping markets open.
Botvirnnik can only see one side of a coin. I have tried getting sensible views out him, but he just retreats into verbal incoherence.
Verbal incoherence!?!
Botty played you like a fiddle!
Tell me again, who is incoherent?
You must be like one of those elitist MIT lifers who developed the healthcare law. Everyone is stupid except you. Listen to ME, but I DON’t listen to you.
Nothing new here.
Incoherent means a mish mash of poorly fitting pieces.
And I didn’t call you out, you called yourself out. What does healthcare have to do with any comment I made? None. Did I design any health care plans? Not my area of expertise. Botty can’t play anyone if he retreats from simple questions. What does playing someone have to do with the topic of this article? Nothing.
Why not say something meaningful about the discussion. If you disagree with me, or have a deeper view of something, share it intelligently. My assumption is that you and Bottvinik do have views worth hearing, but you know better.
Botvinnik responded more on topic above. We both win.
Moreover, there are some cases that are just not profitsble enough for businesses to risk investment, regardless of how worthy the goal. Case in point: the rural electrication in the U.S. Bringing electricity to remote farm houses was deemed too unprofitable to be feasible. Thanks to the Rural Electrification Act of 1936, though, a network of rural REA electrical cooperatives was created, and as a result I was able to grow up with electrical lighting, TV, and running water and went on to an Ivy League Ph.D. By the logic of some on this board I should have borne the kerosene lamps and well pump stoically, since my father was foolish enough to live in a site where he was able to provide copious amounts of food for the city folks but wasn’t deemed commercially profitable enough to merit electricity or later a telephone line.
As you point out, aking basic investments in infrastructure and people are things government can do that corporations cannot..
Ensuring everyone has access to basic utilities and education gives everyone the opportunity to advance beyond their start. That helps everyone. I am glad to hear of your experience!
I am libertarian, but the government’s basic investments in each generation of people as payback for the free education and investment made in each previous generation. And investments are about reaping rewards, not charity.
We are all better off for these investments, even the rich who have a richer country and economy to grow in.
The government will fuck the Internet up
That is most certainly the concept of Thomas Wheeler, one way or the other. What a nasty fellow. And let’s never forget who assigned him to his job.
So we’re going to be any better off letting the Corporate Oligarchy run the Internet? HELL NO.
What’s the third alternative? We The People kick BOTH their evil asses. The Internet belongs to US, not the deceitful THEM. The BOTH serve We The People or they can BOTH make way for a new rule of We The People. They are both dispensable at OUR whim.
😀 😎
THEY both serve We The People…
I’m getting off the net now zzzz