US court rules against FCC on `net neutrality'

AP via Yahoo! News ^ | April 6, 2010 | AP

[kosciusko51]

On Tuesday April 6, 2010, 10:38 am

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal appeals court has ruled that the Federal Communications Commission lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks.

[gogogodzilla]

My understanding of the net neutrality concept was that the internet providers are simply providing data, ie: 0’s and 1’s. And that as such, they had no business slowing down one set of 0’s and 1’s as opposed to another set, for all data is... is data.

Considering I pay my internet provider for 10Mps download speed, I’d consider it a breech of contract if they decided to slow down my download speeds depending on what site or information I download. But considering my internet provider is Comcast, the same provider who was slapped by the FCC for slowing down the download speed for anyone using bittorrent, it looks like they now have the go-ahead to restrict download speeds regardless of what the contract states.

[gogogodzilla]

What? And be in breech of contract to their customers? As long as they have the ability to provide their service, they have to provide their service to all those who’ve signed a contract with the provider.

IE: I paid for this d@#n service, now pony it up or return the money.

[Mariner]

Scheduled Maintenance.

[HiTech RedNeck]

And wait until the ballyhooed neutrality then becomes anything but.

[gogogodzilla]

Now there’s an idea... all the providers scheduling their maintenence at the same time.

Hmmm... that’s really slick!

:-)

[HiTech RedNeck]

It’s also a danger that all of these depend on “public internet.” A cyber takedown of the web by a hostile power (e.g. China) will crash all of this. Or they could be individually hacked for more selective chaos.

[HiTech RedNeck]

If this particular Atlas tries to shrug, all of Wall Street will come down on it.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Somebody reading the law that gave rise to the FCC. A sufficiently incensed Dem Congress could overturn this in a minute.

[TLI]

A cyber takedown of the web by a hostile power (e.g. China) will crash all of this.

Including many assets that China is absolutely dependant on.

Ain't nobody gonna pull that plug unless it is the owner/operators.

Take Google for example. They filtered until they saw their share ease off and realized they did not have to do a damn thing China said. They moved to Hong Kong and let China figure out if it wanted to cut itself off from Hong Kong.

Guess what happened?

.

[bamahead]

The internet providers own the ‘pipes’ that the data moves across. It may not be their data, but it’s their modus of transit that it must travel over to get between you and the rest of the internet.

These ‘pipes’ are expensive, and are are controlled by high-tech, very expensive devices. The more traffic a provider handles, the more expensive pipes and very expensive devices they’re going to need to handle it, which means it will be more expensive to operate.

Alternatively, they could put a network policy which governs the flow of said traffic in such a way where they can get by with fewer new pipes and expensive devices, and their cost is mitigated somewhat. The policy function also happens to be a ‘feature’ of those very expensive devices. This is exactly what the pro-neutrality crowd would like the federal government to prohibit these companies from doing - ie: manage their own resources.

Depending on your contract with your provider, it may or may not stipulate that they reserve the right to invoke this policy to manage their resources. It now looks like the FCC’s smackdown of Comcast was unconstitutional.

[RightOnline]

You’re right, of course, but what you’re really saying is that this will wind up in the collective laps of the Supremes.

Once Obama packs the court with more drooling libs, there will be no stopping him or this sort of nonsense.

[GoodDay]

The FCC is basically a censor; that's how it functions, and that's its essential purpose. Why would anyone who believes in the fundamental right of freedom of speech actually want a government censor to control the Internet?

[af_vet_rr]

Considering I pay my internet provider for 10Mps download speed, I’d consider it a breech of contract if they decided to slow down my download speeds depending on what site or information I download. But considering my internet provider is Comcast, the same provider who was slapped by the FCC for slowing down the download speed for anyone using bittorrent, it looks like they now have the go-ahead to restrict download speeds regardless of what the contract states.

They also have the go ahead to discourage us from using sites like Fox News or Free Republic. Time Warner could "encourage" us to use their fellow Ted Turner-linked company, CNN, for all of our news, by slowing us down if we want to access FoxNews.com

The liberals running various ISPs could try and discourage us from visiting sites like FreeRepublic.com as well.

As I said in another thread, I wouldn't have a problem with this ruling if the ISPs were in fact operating in a free market. They are not - they have been given tax breaks, tax incentives, and government grants (all of it coming out of taxpayer pockets), and they have been granted monopolies in many areas.

Furthermore, they are allowed to build their infrastructure on public and private property without paying for it - I haven't received one dime from Time Warner or AT&T for their infrastructure that is on MY land, and they can continue to do so without paying me.

This ruling just gives the government-granted monopolies even more power, and I have no doubt that they will screw us over.

Until all of these companies pay back every single penny from every tax break, grant, and tax incentive, and until they pay every single person for every square inch of private property they have used, they should not be allowed to have that much power, because they have shown they will abuse it. Until we have a true free market, they shouldn't be allowed to operate in an atmosphere of a government-granted monopoly with all of the power that entails.