Posted on 06/05/2006 3:51:43 PM PDT by yoe
Tell Congress to OPPOSE 'Net Neutraility"
ALERT: A coalition of mostly left-wing organizations, led by the wanna-be socialists at MoveOn.org, is helping to push legislation through the U.S. House that they're calling "Net Neutrality" -- but the effect that it would have would be to impose government regulations on the Internet!
They MUST be stopped -- before it's too late.
The new bill they're pushing, the "Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act" (H.R. 5417), has been strongly opposed by advocates of free markets and a free Internet -- but it's been passed out of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, and is due to be voted on quickly.
Thankfully, there are some Congressmen willing to stand up to MoveOn and their cronies. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) noted a number of his concerns as the committee was debating the bill, stating, "It is a well-intentioned bill that would certainly prohibit some anticompetitive conduct. The problem is that it would also prohibit a lot of conduct that is procompetitive."
Suppose, for example, that an innovative company wants to provide a new video service that requires greater bandwidth than most existing products. Suppose that a broadband provider has the capacity to provide that extra bandwidth to one company, but not to six companies. Under this bill's prohibition on any discrimination in the broadband provider's terms or conditions of service, it would not be able to offer the extra bandwidth to the one innovative company because it would then be required to provide it to all.
As Rep. Smith notes, "This is a regulator's dream, but an entrepreneur's nightmare."
Preemptively legislating new regulatory burdens can also have many unintended consequences. Stated Rep. Smith, "I am particularly concerned about the effects on intellectual property protection."
For example, the bill says that a broadband provider cannot block access to lawful content. How does that apply when users subscribe to a peer-to-peer file sharing network that is primarily used for infringing purposes, but may also include some lawful content?
It's also unclear how broadband providers would comply with some of the provisions. For example, the bill provides that a broadband provider must clearly and conspicuously disclose to users, in plain language, accurate information concerning the terms and conditions of its service. That is so broad and vague that you can't be sure how anyone could know what it meant as a practical matter. But if the broadband providers violate that requirement, they are subject to all the remedies of the antitrust laws, including treble damages.
As Jason Wright of the Institute for Liberty noted, "The leftist Moveon.org coalition claims that so-called 'Net Neutrality' rules are the 'First Amendment' for the internet. In fact, the exact opposite is true. The unprecedented regulation Moveon lobbies for limits innovation by restricting certain businesses from the option of seeking more reliable connections to support advanced services like VoIP or IPTV."
We need to STOP MoveOn.org and their liberal allies -- before they start a snowball effect of government regulations over the internet.
TAKE ACTION: The point is that it is very difficult to write rules for how the Internet should grow. So far, it's done a pretty good job of growing on its own. And it's the uncertain and unpredictable effect of the bill is what makes it worrisome.
Even a coalition of first responders has expressed their concern that the bill could potentially affect the development of new technologies to address interoperability.
Instead of writing proscriptive rules to solve speculative problems, it would be better to focus our efforts on preserving the application of current antitrust laws to safeguard against anticompetitive practices on the Internet.So-called "net neutrality" is anything BUT neutral. There's nothing neutral about the government: dictating one, and ONLY one, way to design networks; creating an innovation double standard where innovation at the edge of the network is encouraged but discouraged inside the network; or rigging the game by picking winners before the game is played. And THAT is what MoveOn.org and their friends are pushing.
The fact is, "net neutrality" is the epitome of a solution in search of a problem. Click "Go!" NOW to send a free message directly to your Congressman, telling him to OPPOSE the "Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act" (H.R. 5417), and keep the federal government AWAY from the world's freest, fairest market... the internet.
NOTE: There are a lot of potential unintended consequences from "net neutrality" legislation that the far left doesn't want you to know about: it could hinder public safety and homeland security; complicate protecting Americans privacy; erode the quality and responsiveness of the Internet; limit consumers' competitive choices; and discourage investment in broadband deployment to all Americans. Let's "nip this in the bud" NOW. For more info:
http://www.handsoff.org/
http://www.netcompetition.org/
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=14435
You said -- "This is off the subject..."
Are you trying to "hi-jack" this thread?
You're right, I couldn't have come up with something more off-topic. By the way, do you have a recipe for Mint Julip drinks..., perhaps we could share them, while we're here and off-topic....
Regards,
Star Traveler
Yes, you need more mint than you have....could
always substitute the aphrodncipatagus...Jake
I know, when I see someone like you argue like this against "net neutrality" -- that there is something there that the big special interests (who want to triple charge consumers) are afraid of.Dear paranoid boy. I am not a big special interest. And there is nothing behind me but the back of my desk chair. Please understand: big special interests are not interested enough in you to hire me to overturn your arguments. Besides, your arguments overturn themselves. Look at them. They're all on their heads. Won't you help them out, please?
A tiered internet is a poor idea.We already have one. And it's a pretty good one. Whether it gets better or not depends on how long we can fend off those of you who want the government to supervise it.
I understand that you don't see the implications. But it is obvious that relegating the smaller sites to a slow, backroom shelf type existance isn't going to do anything for innovation and competition. I expect most who don't support net neutrality are those who want to shut down the upstarts that might compete with them. Right now, any person can take a small site and make it huge in a short time. With no net neutrality, that will become as likely as me going out tomorrow and being able to afford a radio station to compete with the existing ones. Almost impossible for the average person.You want ISPs and Telecomms to subsidize the so-called upstarts so that they can compete with anyone? This is OK I suppose, provided that the ISPs and Telecomms *want* to subsidize the so-called upstarts; but they should be given a choice, don't you think?
I want the internet left the way it is. It's not worth shutting out smaller sites to allow telcom companies to levy an additional toll.
Now *that* is *definitely* an "risible" statement (to use your term), if I've ever seen one.Well, duh. Off course it's risible, because it is just me repeating your own logic back to you. If neutrality is such an effective and empowering legal principle, then we certainly should apply it to grocery stores and shopping malls. Everyone should be on the top shelf, damn it! If my product is not on the top shelf, well, that's a violation of grocery store neutrality!
I want the internet left the way it is.Then leave it alone please. Your net neutrality idea will give us government supervision of the net.
It's not worth shutting out smaller sites to allow telcom companies to levy an additional toll.Dear paranoid person: no one wants to shut anyone down. All the telecomms are saying is that they would like to be recouped for disproportionate bandwidth usage by high-traffic or rich-media-streaming sites (which are precisely *not* smaller sites).
"Government already regulates it. They catch many terrorists this way."
How many have they caught?
That day is long gone -- when the government turned it all over to commercial interests -- which is where it is today.I have an idea. Why not leave it there. Instead of some hair-brained scheme like net-neutrality, why not simply let the market sort all this out? OK? OK! I'm glad we've finally agreed!
no, they pay only for the egress costs at their hosts. they do not pay any part of the costs for their traffic pulled onto the local networks by consumer subscribers. their marginal costs to increase bandwidth at their hosts is low. the current system results in the network upgrade costs on the local loops, to be bourne fully by subscribers, no matter what new services and bandwidth usage the hosts start offering, or whether a particular subscriber uses that service.
if 50% of everyone on your DSL network starts streaming porn, from a host that has paid for enough bandwidth on their end (its cheap there) to pump it out - you will eventually pay higher ISP costs, even if you don't view that material. that's the issue here in a nutshell.
if you want to pay for that, fine, so long as you understand what you are signing up for.
FR bandwidth is trivial, its all simple HTML and text. compared to media intensive sites, download sites, etc - FR bandwidth is low, no matter how many hits there are.
A coalition of mostly left-wing organizations
Oh, yeah, like those pinko commies at Gun Owners of America. Perhaps the writer is one of those crackpots who thinks he has a right to a private nuclear arsenal, and thus finds GOA to be too far to the left for his taste.
For example, the bill says that a broadband provider cannot block access to lawful content. How does that apply when users subscribe to a peer-to-peer file sharing network that is primarily used for infringing purposes, but may also include some lawful content?
It applies the same way it applies to guns -- the responsibility for using the product legally rests with the end user, not the vendor. This concept of personal responsibility ought to be obvious to someone who claims to be a conservative.
For example, the bill provides that a broadband provider must clearly and conspicuously disclose to users, in plain language, accurate information concerning the terms and conditions of its service. That is so broad and vague that you can't be sure how anyone could know what it meant as a practical matter.
The requirement that each party to a transaction must clearly explain the terms is basic contract law. The only people who find this concept "vague" are weasels who are trying to worm their way out of their obligations.
The unprecedented regulation Moveon lobbies for limits innovation by restricting certain businesses from the option of seeking more reliable connections to support advanced services like VoIP or IPTV.
In fact, one of the reasons net neutrality became a hot issue is that some of the incumbents with government-granted last-mile monopolies (another thing conservatives ought to be against, not for) have attempted to degrade third-party VoIP vendors.
The point is that it is very difficult to write rules for how the Internet should grow.
Fortunately, the key rules are in place. For instance, there is the ancient rule of contractual obligation, which says (for example) that if I buy a 1.5Mbps connection, the provider doesn't get to effectively throttle it down to a 128kbps connection because I prefer to connect to a site other than the provider's preferred business partner. "Net neutrality" is simply a fancy term for enforcing this existing contract.
they will get that money from us - the subscribers.
if they can't, they will allow the IP network infrastructure to grind to a halt. they won't upgrade their networks to accomodate all content providers, if they cannot get revenues to cover those costs. they are in business to make money, not provide universal access below cost.
Note that you can easily delete the twaddle in this site's prepackaged message and substitute a more rational commentary of your own in favor of net neutrality.
While the fact that the Wall Street Journal would publish content-free logorrhea is regrettable, I'm not so moved as to actually break down and cry about it.
*** DING DING DING *** No more calls; we have a winner!
This wouldn't be an issue if the government had not created last-mile monopolies. They did, so it is.
Large bandwidth hosts already pay their share -- do you think Google runs its service on somebody's $19.95/month residential line?
The issue here is that the incumbent telecoms want to leverage their government-granted monopolies and get paid again for the same service.
If you advertise an "All You Can Eat" buffet, people come in and buy it, and you run out of food, what happens?
Answer: You're in trouble because you failed to uphold your end of a contract. That doesn't entitle you to stick your fingers into somebody else's pocket to bail yourself out.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.