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.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

That is a bad thing. I really don't need to go any further than "EPA" to explain why.

The federal government these days doesn't regulate so that it can be a good and faithful referee of the game.

They regulate so that they can control the moves of both teams on the field, and in the end, it's you and I who get hurt the most.

[Onelifetogive]

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who would like very much for all branches of government to abandon their efforts to regulate anything, ever...

Stopped right here. Why read the writing of someone so stupid?

[Flycatcher]

Sounds like reporterette Lisa Greim wants to be “regulated.”

[org.whodat]

I thought the GOP would use the continuing resolutions to roll back this crap, now I think they are more interested in planning where they will jet off to and play golf on there next vacation. This congress is no different than the last republican congress. Other than they are not building any roads into Hastards property at the moment.

[BitWielder1]

... "regulate everything so it's good for the consumer"--as if that were somehow a bad thing.

It IS a bad thing when they make regs on the PRETENSE of it being "good for the consumer" when it in fact makes the product more difficult to deliver and innovate, thus more expensive.

We have a pretty good system of content neutrality already, try to block something that a customer wants and you'll get a lawsuit.

This is a case of "It works fine, keep the gov't mitts off it!".
Sure it can be improved but that's already happening.
It's called market demand. ISP's are all happy to provide the service if they can get paid for it without the gubmit telling them what to do and how to do it.

[SengirV]

Enjoy not being able to access what you want on the internet. You like Netflix? Too bad, pony up an extra $20 a month to make it somewhat usable, if at all. Verizon/AT&T/Comcast will come up with a similar product that is 10 times worse, and you’ll be forced to use their service instead.

I don’t understand why you folks are soooooo eager to get rammed up the corn hole by the telcos. The system we have today is such that NEITHER are in control of the CONTENT of the internet. Why should that have to change? 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.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

————We have a pretty good system of content neutrality already, try to block something that a customer wants and you’ll get a lawsuit.-—————

I think Genachowski(sp?) made it clear he doesn’t think that lawsuits are enough. I’ll have to take a look around and see where I saw that earlier.

I agree with you. Lawsuits are enough.

It keeps the telcos in check, and keeps government off our backs at the same time.

I don’t trust any of these groups. Government, telcos, and even lawyers. But at least this way all the power is separated. And with that view, I know my liberty is safe.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

-—————I don’t understand why you folks are soooooo eager to get rammed up the corn hole by the telcos.-—————

Because I don’t want to be ‘rammed up the corn hole’ by the telcos.

I can sue telcos for bad activities.

How can I sue government for overstepping their bounds?

[SengirV]

This is a case of "It works fine, keep the gov't mitts off it!"/

Sure it can be improved but that's already happening. It's called market demand. ISP's are all happy to provide the service if they can get paid for it without the gubmit telling them what to do and how to do it.

That is where you are wrong. It's the ISPs who want to slow down communications between their customers and the content providers. It's the ISPs who are truing to extort content providers so that the content provider's info is not shunted off to the Siberian path to the end user. It's the ISPs who are looking to lock out services like netflix and hulu so they can sell a crappier home grown version.

You are on the right track, saying that the system today works just fine. But it's the ISPs who are eagerly pushing through legislation to allow them to RUIN the internet as we know it, to fleece their customers to unimaginable levels. Yet most folks here fighting for the telcos have no clue that this is the desired outcome of the telcos/ISPs. People are actively fighting for the telco's right to ruin their internet experience. It's mind bogglingly absurd.

[vpintheak]

Lisa Griem, retard.
If I know anything about the government, it’s waste and criminality. What would happen, is some congress-critter gets a whole bunch of money to force another company in to get a contract, or they stand to make a lot of money if that company gets the contracts.
No one needs to look any father

[ShadowAce]

[VRWCmember]

accused the FCC of wanting to "regulate everything so it's good for the consumer"--as if that were somehow a bad thing.

Yes is IS a BAD thing because government agencies RARELY achieve their beneficial intents with their consumer protection regulations (unless their intent really is as malevolent as the results usually are).

[RightOnTheBorder]

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. Once the government steps in it is their way or the highway.

When we have accepted govt control over the internet, how long do you think it will be before the telcom lobbyists get the government to change the law so that they can control speeds? How long before the government figures out how to monkey around with speeds to it's advantage? How long before internet speed and connection is used against conservative sites?

In a free market, there is always an economic alternative to poor business practices. With government control, like everything else, you have to beg some politician or bureaucrat for what you want or need.

[TheOldLady]

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[OnlyTurkeysHaveLeftWings]

I don't want the government anywhere near the Internet. The teleco's and free market can handle the Internet just fine without anybody laying down unnecessary rules and regula



Net Neutrality is not the Fairness Doctrine.
Net Neutrality means that all bits are created equal.

[Tublecane]

“Net Neutrality is not the Fairness Doctrine.”

You can say that, but no one really knows what it is yet. If history’s any guide, it could easily turn into a de facto fairness doctrine. Look what happened to superficially neutral donation disclosure requirements. How long did it take for politicians to use the information for punishment and reward? Early next morning, or did they push it off ‘til after a light lunch?

[BitWielder1]

People are actively fighting for the telco's right to ruin their Internet experience. It's mind bogglingly absurd.

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

Blocking content won't last because it does not make economic sense in the long run.
If a customer is unhappy with their ISP, they can complain, change ISP's or sue.
I'd rather file a denial of service complaint against a company than against a poorly written gov't law.

[BitWielder1]

Net Neutrality means that all bits are created equal.

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

[OnlyTurkeysHaveLeftWings]

No, we do know specifically what it is, because that's what we have right now. Do you like the Internet the way it is? Congratulations! You're a fan of Net Neutrality!

If I thought there was a snowball's chance in hell that we would get an actual law codifying that there shall be no tiered internet structure and no favor given to any set of bits over any other set of bits, I'd be a lot happier.

As it is, I'm waiting for the Free Internet For A Strong America Law to specifically do the opposite of what it's called.

Can't wait to have to spend an extra $40 a month just to get what I've got right now. The best part is, the Internet was built with our tax dollars, it operates on infrastructure built with our tax dollars, and we're going to wind up getting taken to the cleaners just to use something that's already ours.

The Europeans have blazing fast Internet without getting screwed. I refuse to believe that we can't do better.

[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.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

-——————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.———————

Sounds like a good ground to have the laws changed.

It strikes me that the FCC/Genachowski(sp?) do not want to change the laws so as to empower the people.

To empower you and I.

He wants power for himself.

Throw the rule of law overboard, welcome to the rule of man. Welcome to the rule of net neutrality, and the rule of the FCC.

Color me uninterested.

You’ve identified a real problem. Great, let’s fix the laws and solve the problem. Without dictators.

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

I certainly don’t want bureacurats telling us hulu over netflix, dailykos over fr. vimeo over youtube.

Do you?

Keep the power separated, don’t welcome the power grab.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

------------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.--------------

Obama’s Regulatory Czar Cass Sunstein’s Big Gov Power Grabbing Mandate to Legally Control the Internet(listen to him for yourself)

Kagan and the Cass Sunstein Connection

Sites of one point of view [would] agree to provide links to other sites

If we could get voluntary arrangements in that direction that would be great. And if we can’t get voluntary arrangements maybe Congress should hold hearings about mandates.

The best would for this to be done voluntarily but uh the word ‘voluntary’ is a little complicated

[who_would_fardels_bear]

"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?"

Those companies had names like Enron and Duke energy.

The problem is that it was deemed very inefficient to allow multiple companies to run their own sets of wires/cables to every home.

So the government gave monopolies to certain companies. In exchange for the advantage of monopoly power those companies had to agree to certain rules. One of those rules was that any third party that wanted to run a virtual phone company on top of their lines had to be charged fees such that they could be competitive with the company that had run the lines.

So you have companies like Virgin, Boost, etc. running on top of Sprint. You also have ISPs running on top of AT&T, Verizon, etc.

Every company needs something from the government in order to have a profitable business plans. The companies that spent all the money to build up the infrastructure need to recoup those expenses. The companies sitting on top of the infrastructure need to be able to provide their services at a reasonable cost.

Thus they are all lobbying government to get the best deal possible.

The Net Neutrality issue is not free market capitalism vs. evil socialistic government. It is one set of crony capitalists vs. another group of crony capitalists.

I have had generally bad service from AT&T. I've heard only bad things about Time/Warner and Comcast. I get good service from Netflix.

I am therefore siding with the crony capitalists that provide me the best service: Netflix.

It's as simple as that.

[SengirV]

Looks like some folks need to sue comcast ...

http://www.pcworld.com/article/227725/the_pirate_bay_blocked_by_comcast_isp_says_no.html

This isn’t the 1st time one of the big guys has messed with torrent sites, while at the same time crippling legit businesses that distribute material using torrents. For example, Blizzard Entertainment(computer games) distributes updates using torrents. Major telco’s interrupting torrents adversely effected Blizzard’s ability to distribute updates.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

Then sue their pants off.

[SengirV]

I”m sure the courts will get around to it in a couple years. Welcome to EVERY aspect of modern life being stacked against the little guy. By NOT telling the telco’s to keep their hands off the packets of info running around the internet, we are adding another layer of consumer crushing iron curtain that will NEVER come down.

[SengirV]

Sorry to hit you up twice in a couple minutes. Found a story about a European company basically finding any and all ways to block/charge customers who dare try to use alternatives to what the telco is selling.

http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2011/05/12/kpn-admits-to-using-deep-packet-inspection/

Welcome to the future of NON-net Neutrality. But please, keep on pushing it with some misguided notion that this will be good for customers.

*shakes head in disbelief*

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

—————I”m sure the courts will get around to it in a couple years.-—————

So then we update the laws so as to protect the rule of law and the little guy from the tyranny of the FCC, the tyranny of marxists and their net neutrality, and the tyranny of big government in general.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

-————Sorry to hit you up twice in a couple minutes.-————

Hit me up as many times as you want. Just a warning, you’ll be disappointed. I’m no fan of any telco.

-————Found a story about a European company——————

Europe isn’t a land historically known for freedom. Let Europe’s marxists shut down europe’s internet.

Not in america. We deserve better than that. We deserve freedom.

—————keep on pushing it with some misguided notion that this will be good for customers.—————

Surely you can point to a post where I said such a thing.