Posted on 03/01/2015 12:26:22 PM PST by BlatherNaut
This week, the FCC voted 3-2 in favor of implementing net neutrality policies. These rules will prevent internet service providers like Verizon or Comcast from blocking or throttling traffic, ban giving priority to providers who are willing to pay for faster service, and reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service. This means that internet service will now be regulated under stricter, utility-based laws the government currently uses to control wired telephone and other similar services.
The pro-NN moves made by the FCC have come under attack from both activists, and members of Congress. A recent poll shows that only 1 in 3 Americans thinks that more regulation will lead to a freer internet.
We’re looking at one of the most controversial regulatory decisions made in recent years, and still, only about 1/4 of Americans have heard of “net neutrality,” and have a basic understanding of how these policies could affect the way they use the internet.
This is a problem—but we may have a solution.
TomoNews, a Taiwan-based animation firm, has released a (moderately whacked-out) cartoon out that both lampoons the ridiculous moves by the FCC, and educates its audience about what net neutrality could mean for the future of the internet.
Watch:
(Excerpt) Read more at legalinsurrection.com ...
is there a direct link to the cartoon?
Later
The gladiatorial thematization also neatly evokes the shadow of Caesarism, which is precisely the course the Regime is now embarked on.
Later for when I can get on a computer that doesn’t block the video.
Another target of virtually unlimited additional taxes imposed by the clueless elected criminals in D.C.
Have you checked your phone bill lately?
See my tag line...
Net-Neutrality has liars on all sides. What we all want is cheap unfettered access to the web. And we want others to have the same. So, new companies have the same rights as big companies. So Foxnews.com can’t pay for better service than Freerepublic.com.
But the government and the cable companies want control. Both tell the truth when it comes to the fears of the other getting control. The government does want to spy and tax. The cable companies want to charge dot.coms for access, getting paid on both sides like a newspaper charges the reader and the advertiser.
As consumers we have good reason to fear both sides. Neither can be trusted. As freepers we should not be clearly on one side or the other. Comcast, the owner of MSNBC should not be able to select winners and losers on the Web. And the government should not be able to hide taxes in our internet bills like they do with the phone bills. The internet is cutting into the money governments made on phone bill taxes.
This issue is like the keystone pipeline. Both are fights between big business and big government. We should not take sides when two thieves are fighting over which one has the right to rob us.
Comcast should be free to sell its services on whatever terms it deems fit, and customers should be free to patronize Comcast or not as they choose; anything else is socialism.
As a consumer, I should expect to see choices driven by cost/performance, along with a number of competitors offering a product... Even within a single ISP, if they want to charge more for a higher throughput rate that's their prerogative, barring monopolistic practices.
As far as what we 'should' do as Freepers, I'd refer you to the forum Mission Statement by JimRob – and that doesn't include an automatic, disparaging moral equivalence between "big" business & an all-intrusive Gov't.
Who in hell elected these jokers and what happens if everyone just tells them to buzz off??? I hate gov't interference with private business and this may be the time to tell them HANDS OFF...
The issue is not selling service.. it selling what called QOS.. Quality of service.... classes of service..when multiple streams of traffic all content during the same time for the same bandwhith ...who goes first and who has to wait and how long.... .
The Internet is a shared service yes....
The thing is the big content provides are the biggest bandwhitch hog.. and there streaming service are time sensitive.. they have to go first or..they buffer... so there traffic pushes everyone else out of the way it goes to the head of the line...
So the isp charged for this priority and if the customer still uses more of the shared common bucket of bandwidth that all the customer must use they the hog get throttled back for a time so other can use there share of the common bandwidth..
Its like an apartment building having one common hot water tank you can't have one person using all the hot water that leaves no one else with any so you got a throttle the hog back...
Trust me isp want to make money.. they do this by selling bandwhitch and that is both shared commodity and perishable commodity..
They want it 100% used an all times... just like an airlines selling seats they want a hundred percent capacity on every flight ..
So for customer that book early and fly first class there guaranteed a seat and guaranteed to be in front of everybody else ...but that also means that if you need that guarantee ...your abusiness customer has to fly and be there on time to make your money back to guaranteed to be there on time...you needs to pay to the airline for that guarantee ....
else if you want the cheap rates you gotta risk being bumped risk missing your flight..
And then its your as a business are responsibility to explain to the customer why you missed your flight and not blame it on the airline because you tried to buy the cheapest flight and took standby..
Conversely the private guy doesn't care..the guys that can afford to get bumped...gets “stand by “ and get the cheapest rates but they may not get a seat or service as a guy get paid first class rates...but now you're saying everybody supposed to get the same quality of service and you can't charge difference so the bandwidth hogs are going to eat up all the bandwidth and everybody else can be left with the scraps
Comcast is now charging to slow the internet into your house, and for some sites to get faster service over others. This is the equivalent of making some players into AM/FM radio stations while others are Ham radio operators.
This is not because Comcast is innovating. Its because Comcast has bought up the wires into your home. For most people, they did not build the original wires. They bought them. And they have a duopoly if you count the phone companies.
I am not suggesting that they can’t charge what they want. Although they do have a monopoly built into laws of many states that makes it illegal for towns to build or even pay for over the top cable services. The internet is not Comcast’s. They only charge to pipe it into your house.
But what they want to do is to put a toll on companies who want access to your house through the internet. Comcast could charge, Facebook, Google, Yahoo, etc. for premium access. Other sites would still get through but at a slower speed. Comcast would not be building a faster internet. They would just be building a tollbooth. Its like the fast pass at Disney. The ride is the same speed. The number of people per hour is the same. Its just that some people don’t wait in line.
The reality is that Comcast could sell those companies access to their other pipe. While you may see one wire coming into your house, there are really two. One is Comcast’s own service which has, among other things, all the cable channels. Then they have the internet pipe. These two networks that share one wire into your home can be throttled as a whole. They are allowed to limit the bandwidth of the cable channels or the internet as a whole. They just aren’t allowed to limit some internet traffic or support others within the internet pipe.
But they are allowed to sell bandwidth within their own network that has all those 200+ cable channels. Nobody is stopping them from letting Facebook or Youtube send video to you through their network and getting access to it through a web-site.
This is not about Comcast’s freedom to sell any service. Its about their right to decide how you get to see the internet. And I don’t trust that the producers of MSNBC are going to make the right choice.
And by the way, Comcast is a huge lobbyist at every level of government. They license the right to provide cable wires from every community. At the local level they fight to keep their licenses low. At the state level they fight to make sure there is no access to the home internet except through them. At the national level they fight to be allowed to buy as many cable companies as possible. And your cable bill is sending lots of money to every level of government. There is no free capitalist here. Its cronyism. Or maybe I should say, its cronyism vs. tax and spy.
It is exactly like that - should Disney be prohibited from selling fast passes?
This is not about Comcast’s freedom to sell any service. Its about their right to decide how you get to see the internet.
See it through their equipment. Don't like it? Fire them - I did.
At the state level they fight to make sure there is no access to the home internet except through them.
Then combat that - don't use it as an excuse for more government interference in the market.
Similarly, should the airlines be banned from offering first class service and priority boarding to those willing to pay for it?
I do not use Comcast. But I have to use someone. So I use AT&T. They are not better, just different. I wish I had choices. But I have two choices for the internet. And I don’t get cable, nor do I want it.
Comcast is run by democrats. This is not the Obama FCC taking on republicans. In this case, they are taking on the Roberts family who do not support republicans.
Disney has the right to fast passes because its their ride and park. Comcast is selling access to the internet. They don’t own the internet. They are providing a connection service. And they themselves are a huge user of the internet. They have xfinity, which is in the Internet pipe. If they can slow things down and speed them up. It will be Comcasts Xfinity which will be the fastest of them all.
You’re describing a problem but not its solution. Enabling government regulatory powers will solve nothing except legalize the differentiation of access speeds. Look at regulatory history per se, in any industry - that’s what always happens. The declared problem that regulation is going to fix merely becomes legally formalized. The competition is still there, the different performance for different rates is still there. But with regulation, police powers are used to shut out new market entry by raising the number of requirements, just like has happened in health insurance. Net Neutrality will do nothing but raise rates, lower commonly available standards, and enable super-access for the rich through exemptions. It’s inevitable, because it’s what government DOES.
I agree that government is bad. But Comcast is no better. Your cable bill has been going up and not because of government.
I am very leery of this net-neutrality thing. I agree it seems like a government overreach. But I do not want the ISPs to have the right to throttle up and down individual web-sites I access. Remember that Xfinity is run by Comcast. They will throttle their own site higher than everyone else has access to.
Web-sites pay when they pay for the pipes from their servers to the web. We pay when we pay for the connection from the web to our homes. We should not have a middle man who just takes graft for not slowing down your web traffic. Especially when they are not adding value. They are simply paying the government for a license to a duopoly of internet service.
I want the government to stop spying on my web traffic. And I want the government to stay away from taxing the internet. I want Comcast to provide internet at different bandwidths. But not to change anything that comes over the internet, i.e. change speeds for different sites. I will decide what I want from the web.
Comcast has its own network that goes into everyone’s home. This network is were the cable channels come into your house. Its in the same wire as your Internet. Comcast can sell access to that if they wish. But they should not screw with the web.
Yeah but Comcast is fleeting. The government is forever. Comcast might annoy us for a few years but the markets will innovate and flow around Comcast eventually. Turning it over to government means we're locked into the government paradigm forever. It cuts off all sorts of possibilities. I would rather put up with a short or medium term quasi-monopoly situation stemming from the imperfection of the market than to invoke gubmint and encase everything in amber till the end of time. Plus, why should we give these Marxist a-holes the satisfaction of getting over on us? Have you looked at the backgrounds of the key people (e.g. Robert McChesney) behind the push for net neutrality? They are literal Marxists and they are doing it to strike a blow against capitalism. That is their own words.
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