"If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people,
under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy."
Thomas Jefferson, 1802
Posted on 12/01/2010 7:59:31 AM PST by maggief
In an effort to meet an Obama campaign promise, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski indicated Wednesday that he will propose new regulations for Internet lines.
He is expected to give a speech at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday laying out his proposal.
Genachowski's attempt to revive the long-delayed net-neutrality proceeding is a delicate balancing act designed to garner some industry and public interest support without completely satisfying anyone.
Genachowski has made concessions to AT&T, Verizon, and the cable industry that could forestall an all-out lobbying blitz by the nation's largest telecom providers.
But the concessions have done nothing to help him with House Republicans, who oppose net-neutrality rules as an "Internet takeover."
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
The Internet grew like wildfire without government involvement, yet, these pinheads want to take credit and take over.
As went the Bells will go the Net, all the same. The government got involved in telephony, regulated it, taxed its use, and telephony is on the wane. Technological advancement was preferred over a continuously increasing tax burden for use of communication devices. Thus cell phones and the Internet.
Now they want to regulate, restrict, and tax the use of another communication medium. I predict the proliferation of peer-to-peer wireless ad-hoc technology platforms.
"If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people,
under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy."
Thomas Jefferson, 1802
I sense an FCC defunding coming soon...
It’s all a big powergrab.
The FCC sees radio/tv broadcasting going away (satellite broadcasts, like cable, are not regulated by the FCC).
They need to keep their agency, regulatory role, and jobs.
Same with the post office. Remember when the USPS had the idea of printing out emails for people and hand delivering them to your mailbox for $0.25 each?
The power-hungry megalomaniacs in our government always want to take over anything that gives the INDIVIDUAL some control over himself and his environment.
I predict the porn sites have nothing to worry about.
That's a good insight.
I've been hoping for such a thing.
Is a peer-to-peer world-wide (or coast-to-coast) web feasible? Seems like the latency issues would be insurmountable.
I'd put one up.
You mean like HAM radio?
Correction: The Internet grew like wildfire under government oversight. The government gave up as the key carrier of Internet traffic in 1994 by allowing other backbones aside from NSFNet, and dropped commercial restrictions in 1995. The government allowed the growth. But the granting of IP addresses and domain names is still done under federal contract.
There are interesting tests going on in some metros for consolidated MANs (Metropolitan Area Networks) that utilize switching equipment in most big city communication hubs (hospitals, for example) that act as isolated networks for business continuity purposes.
Large MANs in relatively close proximity to one another (i.e. Tampa and Orlando in Florida) could be linked through several major providers’ fiber backbones. Those backbones could provide fast Internet routes to other MANs with redundant discrete paths to provide fault tolerance. Laggy over long distances, but fast in the metro.
As government takes over the Internet, we’ll have to rely on local resources to connect. A good example of this is HAM radio. The HAM radio community is on the wane, but I’m of the belief that any true survival-minded American should be familiar with HAM radio operations. The government may license the airwaves, but they can’t shut them down.
As such, if we can build up a consumer market for personal wireless hubs that can ad-hoc with others in the area without any centralization (think: P2P), we can continue to communicate regardless of Internet connection availability. The Chinese can (illegally) circumvent their government web control through the use of satellite technology. The same could be applied here.
See my post #13.
EXACTLY like HAM radio.
73s!
I would want to see exactly what the FCC would control.
I don’t know who I trust less — the FCC or the cable/telephone Internet providers.
I do know my cable internet provider throttles down my connection speed to a crawl if I have a large number of downloads in a month.
This G-man is a good sock puppet and you know where Obama’s got his hand...
“The government allowed the growth. “
You made my point. It did not take off until the feds got out of its growth. It languished for several decades wtihout any growth while the governmentcontrolled it.
And let me rephrase your comment, “The government stopped preventing its growth”. They did not “allow it”. A government cannot “allow” anything. It can only prevent.
“The government may license the airwaves, but they can’t shut them down.”
Well, yes, they can. They have jammers that can jam the entire frequency spectrum.
Latency would be measured in minutes, but that’s not the biggest problem. Where would you get connectivity to the internet? There are only a handful of companies that provide the base bandwidth we all use and which the ISPs and others all share, and once the FCC gets hands on the IXPs (internet exchange points) and backbone carriers, you’re screwed.
Hmmm. I’ll take your word on that. I’m not heavily invested in wireless technology.
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