Does Anybody Still Give a #(^&! About Net Neutrality?

PC World ^ | May 5th | Lisa Greim

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who would like very much for all branches of government to abandon their efforts to regulate anything, ever, ripped into FCC Chair Julius Genachowski Thursday for allegedly doing President Obama's bidding on net neutrality.

Issa denied that large corporations dominate the Internet access business and accused the FCC of wanting to "regulate everything so it's good for the consumer"--as if that were somehow a bad thing.

[Tublecane]

“No, we do know specifically what it is, because that’s what we have right now.”

Oh, I see your point.

[OnlyTurkeysHaveLeftWings]

And not having it means that Comcast gets to decide that if you don't fork over however much they think they can demand, you don't get any bits at all.

I'm not a big fan of unnecessary oversight, but when you've got the choice between a group that *might* screw you that you have a shot at throwing out of office and changing, and a group that *will* screw you that you can't do anything about, I'd rather go with the government.

[BitWielder1]

I'm not a big fan of unnecessary oversight, but when you've got the choice between a group that *might* screw you that you have a shot at throwing out of office and changing, and a group that *will* screw you that you can't do anything about, I'd rather go with the government.

Amazing! I'm AGAINST the so-called "Net Neutrality" for exactly the same reason.

[OnlyTurkeysHaveLeftWings]

Okay. That's cool and all, but I've seen Congress and the White House change hands a whole lot when people aren't happy with the job they've been doing.

When was the last time Comcast said "By golly, you're right!" and fired the CEO?

I'm not saying blindly trust the government. I'm saying don't blindly trust the cable company. They're not there to give you a great deal on your internet service, they're there to make as much money as they can however they can.

[OnlyTurkeysHaveLeftWings]

Net Neutrality means that he gov't can decide that some bits are more equal than others.


I sure am worried about the government. Fortunately, the free market will come through! No way ISPs will act in a way detrimental to their customers in order to save them money/make more cash on the backs of the people who keep them afloat!

Wait what's this

The era of capped broadband begins on May 2
With the first business day in May, AT&T DSL and U-Verse customers wake up to a new age. It's not a good one either: as we wrote earlier, on May 2, AT&T broadband customers face usage caps on their services, for the first time.
With that, AT&T, the nation's second-largest ISP, joins Comcast, the nation's top ISP, with capped broadband services. AT&T's DSL customers will have a cap of 150GB a month, while its premium U-Verse customers will have a cap of 250GB a month, the same size as Comcast's cap.

...

250GB, or even 150GB, seems like a lot. It all depends on the use, however. We have currently opted into a backup plan in the cloud for our important data, while at the same time keeping multiple copies locally. If we did not throttle the upload, it would have exceeded our 250GB limit in a month (via Comcast) as we had over 500GB of data to upload.

Of course, the U.S. doesn't have it as bad as other locations. Canada’s recently imposed somewhat onerous restrictions prompted Netflix to give customers in that country the option of using a lower-quality video stream, one which uses significantly less data.

The problem isn't bandwidth per se, as much as it is congestion, that causes issues in areas. What might prove interesting, and is at the heart of the net neutrality issue, is if an ISP like Comcast or AT&T starts counting Netflix bytes traveling across its network, but not counting, say, data traveling for its Video-on-Demand (VoD) service.

Infrastructure build-up is the real answer, but that costs $$$, and lots of it. We'll see what happens as we enter the age of capped broadband.

Of course there's NO WAY AT&T or Comcast would DREAM of putting their competitors at a disadvantage. That's just wrong and runs counter to the entire concept of competitive commerce!

[SengirV]

You can always change internet providers as the only means they have to keep customers is to offer a better deal than the next guy.

Sorry, but you can not always simply change. You saying it does not make it true.

[SengirV]

That's a blatant misrepresentation. People are fighting for the GOV'T NOT to ruin their internet experience.

By actively promoting that the telcos DO ruin their internet experience? Because you can't have one without the other, in the framework of the present argument.

Blocking content won't last because it does not make economic sense in the long run.

Of course it makes sense. The telco's are licking their lips at this point. I can get FiOS, a crappy comcast connection, or satellite at my location. Satellite's latency is too high unless you are reading only, so that is not a viable option. FiOS will fiddle with the bits to exclude the content I want unless the content providers pay big $$ and/or I pay big $$$. Only one of us paying big $$$ is not even a guarantee that the content will be provided to me upon request in a timely fashion. So my only option remains comcast which has horrid speed at my location, and comcast will also charge me and the content providers as well. Thanks to the telcos splitting up the country and agreeing not to compete with each other at the same location, I have little to no REAL options if FiOS starts screwing with the internet traffic. So your contention is not realistic.

If a customer is unhappy with their ISP, they can complain, change ISP's or sue.

Do that, maybe SOMEONE will get to your case/complaint/whatever in a couple months or a year. In the meantime you are screwed.

I'd rather file a denial of service complaint against a company than against a poorly written gov't law.

File a complaint and wait while your internet is unusable. Enjoy.

The internet should be content agnostic. The telco's should be pushing the bits along, ans offering services that customers can purchase. What you are fighting for is the right for the telco's to degrade your service and charge you more for less.

[BitWielder1]

I'm not saying blindly trust the government. I'm saying don't blindly trust the cable company. They're not there to give you a great deal on your internet service, they're there to make as much money as they can however they can.

I don't trust either.
There is nothing wrong with making money, that's the leverage we the customers have over private companies.
Unhappy customers are detrimental to business, enough of us can make them change course for that very reason.
That is not the case with government, monopolies or over-regulated markets where companies have no choice in what they do.
Yes we can petition and vote, it just that we have very little say only once every 2 years while they can make new laws every day.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

-----------Net Neutrality is not the Fairness Doctrine.------------

What do you think this guy thinks net neutrality is?

White House Information Czar Cass Sunstein Calls For Controlling Information

==========Sunstein discusses how conservative websites should provide links to liberal websites and vice versa or even how political blogs should be made to include pop ups that show "a quick argument for a competing view".========

There aren't very many people more powerful than Sunstein in our government. He's regulator #1. So if he thinks that popup windows and "voluntary is a very troubling concept" is net neutrality, then that's net neutrality. Cause he's the one who can make it so.

And he's never shown that he's changed his mind, meaning he still believes this.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

What does this guy think net neutrality is?

http://www.teapartyconnect.com/410/white-house-information-czar-cass-sunstein-calls-for-controlling-information/

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

-————but when you’ve got the choice between a group that *might* screw you that you have a shot at throwing out of office and changing, and a group that *will* screw you that you can’t do anything about, I’d rather go with the government.-——————

But the group that *will* screw you is the government. In everything that government does these days, it’s the people, it’s you and I who are being screwed.

The EPA screws us. The DoE, the DOJ, IRS, the fed........

It would be easier to list governmental agencies that *DONT* screw us over. And right now, I can’t think of one.

Right now, even if Comcast *MIGHT* screw me over, I can sue them.

I can’t sue the government. You can’t either.

[RightOnTheBorder]

I can change providers this afternoon if I choose. If a person lives in an area with a single provider with poor service, a competitor will rush to take advantage. This is exactly what happened in my town with Time Warner and ATT. Internet speeds have never been faster or cheaper for me. If you choose to be wilfully ignorant of the way a free market works, do so at your own peril.

[SengirV]

Great. What do you do when BOTH AT&T and Time Warner start messing with the internet traffic? When both of them start charging a premium to get to the sights you get to today? Where do you go then? If you choose to give the telco’s the right to give you degraded services, then there is no one to blame but yourself.

What other competitor is going to rush to give you service? How are they going to get the service to you? They will have to lease the lines from those two, and they will also suffer the same BS - Deliberately slow service from the line’s owners.

Keep it the way it is today - Don’t allow the telcos to mess with the traffic!!!!

[who_would_fardels_bear]

"I can’t sue the government. You can’t either."

And on another thread the shills for crony capitalists (e.g. Comcast, AT&T) were praising the recent US Supreme Court decision against class action suits.

So now you can sue, by yourself, a multi-billion dollar corporation backed implicitly and explicitly by the U.S. Government.

Good luck.

[newzjunkey]

The only ones pushing to screw with the internet based on content is the telcos. If the telcos would have stopped their desire to ruin the internet as we know it, this would not be an issue

Stop confusing them with facts.

There's a dearth of broadband competition. Many areas have one choice, too often a gov't granted monopoly, a cable provider. In at least two cases, Comcast and Time Warner, the cable providers also compete as content providers. It is in their financial self-interest to undermine competitors, to collude, to drive up prices.

It is not in the interest of consumers.

The internet thrives when access is just a "dumb pipe" without your gatekeeper provider picking and choosing among the sites you can go to or able to undermine the quality of experience you have at non-partner or competing sites and services.

[Lancey Howard]

Wow. Where did PC World come up with this simple pig, Greim?

[newzjunkey]

If a customer is unhappy with their ISP, they can complain, change ISP's or sue.

Fantasyland, not reality.

Sue? Sue on what grounds? What's the contract say? The US Supreme Court ruled just LAST WEEK a contract can limit a customer to arbitration and forfeit the right to sue. AT&T was the winning litigant.

Millions live where they have one broadband choice. Apartment dwellers, for example, are often limited to one provider, like the cable company two of which are also content providers: Comcast and Time Warner.

While it's possible they wouldn't block content outright, they may play favorites by shaping bandwidth to benefit partner sites or their own services and ruin the experience of competing services.

Do you want monopoly providers making those choices for you? Hulu over Netflix. DailyKos over FR. Vimeo over YouTube.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

———————What do you do when BOTH AT&T and Time Warner start messing with the internet traffic?——————

Sue ATT. Sue T/W.

What do you do when the FCC starts messing with the traffic?

You can’t sue the FCC.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

I have been for a while against class action lawsuits.

However, now that I see a perfect storm of government power, marxists, and corporations teaming up to institute net neutrality and/or establish government sanctioned monopolies I find myself becoming a big fan of class action lawsuits again.

[BitWielder1]

Do you want monopoly providers making those choices for you? Hulu over Netflix. DailyKos over FR. Vimeo over YouTube.

DailyKos over FR - that's exactly what I'm afraid the current gov't will do.

Of course I don't want monopolies running the show any more than I want gov't regs that effectively amount to the same thing.

A few years ago we had the ability to choose who we bought our electricity and phone service from, the company that hung the wires was not necessarily the same as the service provider. What happened to that?

Instead of the gov't making rules of what should be available, why not open up the digital world to similar competition, so that no matter where you live, you have a choice who your ISP provider will be.