Posted on 12/06/2010 5:47:00 AM PST by kingattax
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) plans to introduce a bill to prevent the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from enforcing net-neutrality rules.
She said on an episode of CSPAN's "The Communicators" on Friday that she will reintroduce her legislation to halt the FCC.
"What you're going to see happen is this," she said. "If the FCC moves forward on Dec 21…then come January you are going to see some aggressive work making certain the FCC keeps its hands off the the Internet."
"I will refile my legislation…to prohibit the FCC from enacting net-neutrality regulations," she said.
Blackburn, a member of the House Communications subcommittee, also mentioned hearings as a way to push back against the FCC.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski proposed formal net-neutrality rules on Wednesday, pending passage in a commission vote in December.
Genachowski received support from Democrats and intense opposition from Republicans.
Still, there might be little the Republicans can do to stop Genachowski.
It's unclear that Democrats will be enthusiastic to sign onto a Republican bill blocking net neutrality.
One indicator to that effect: Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas), who rallied Democrats against strict FCC regulations this year, commended the FCC for moderating its views in its most recent proposal.
Further, President Obama made a campaign promise to support net-neutrality, so he might be unlikely to sign such a bill.
Yes, the Liberals need to cold water thrown in their faces, and be asked: So again, who are the control freaks?
The Left has many under its spell, but some are ripe for a shove back towards the center. I don’t expect Liberals to adopt Conservatism, but I would expect they still have some sense of Independence, self-worth.
AFAIK, no telco has proposed that. They have proposed making you pay on the back-end though. Netflix will have to pay your ISP to allow Netflix's packets through to you regardless of your plan. But this means Netflix will have to raise prices.
>> need to
need to have
You are correct. Net-Neutrality in it’s present form would do that. I”m not advocating that. I said in a earlier post that it needs to be enacted in SOME way. Not anyway that allows the government to regulate content, only that ISPs can’t interfere with the neutral nature of the internet.
What you describe is the bad outcome of the proposed legislation. What I describe is the outcome with doing nothing. There has to be a way such that both of these concerns are met. That is what I am asking for.
The latest net neutrality proposal in Congress boils down to:
The market already decided it didn't want games played with internet price. Every time the battle happens in the '90s with dialup and '00s with broadband the market demanded flat fees and "unlimited" use.
The idea companies won't invest in wireless broadband if they can't collude with content partners is ridiculous on its face. Wireless broadband is a mammoth market opportunity with revenue potential perhaps equal that of wired broadband. Who wouldn't want in on that?
An packet should be a packet. The provider shouldn't care if it's coming from their competitor's site or some corporate cousin. If you're streaming shows off the website of a TV network with whom they're battling over prices, it shouldn't matter. They can't be allowed to become gate keepers to whom pay ransom to get content.
Imagine of FR had to pay Comcast to get the speed for its traffic that Huffington Post got?
Here is the simple explanation - if a company can’t charge extra for new technology, they won’t make new technology. If AT&T or Verizon can’t charge extra for 4G, which is an enhanced option, why pay the billions to expand current towers and equipment? This is affirmative action and reparations type thinking rolled into one..... let everyone have the same service, even if they can’t afford it. Idiotic thinking.
define “lawful”. And is that definition static?
Did you even read what I wrote? That is not what the issue is. The issue is your ISP with it’s 4G, 5G, whateverG, blocking or severely degrading the content YOU want to access on their whateverG service. Netflix is late on their payment to AT&T, AT&T cuts off the service for their AT&T customers. Some small business wants customers to access their site in a shade under an hour? Pay up to the big telco’s small business.
Filtering content is what is at stake here, NOT providing the existing server at higher speeds for less money.
Inserting “lawful” doesn’t change anything. Anything in this country deemed to be unlawful can be stopped by the FBI at the source anyway.
It is there to allow them to filter out kiddie porn and such. It also might be a bow to the power of Hollywood so they can deem copyrighted material unlawful even if it’s fair use. In either case, it is an exception allowing the telcos to interfere with certain traffic, where without net neutrality they can interfere with any traffic they want anyway.
This “lawful” provision has groups like the EFF not liking the current net neutrality proposals, mainly because of the angle that allows Hollywood a lot of control in what does and does’t flow on the Internet.
No, it is all part of the same bill. Making every single person equal will cause no future technology. Just because you want to view Netflix faster is no reason to have big government come in and set limits on private business.
I know it’s all in the same bill. Again, read what I wrote. The bill needs to be changed. And it seems that companies have been able to innovate with a neutral net already.
How is forcing their customers, who want a half decent net experience, to move to the most expensive plan possible? How is cutting off content, if the content provider doesn’t pa up, helpful to the customers? How is allowing censoring of the internet by big business helpful to the citizens of this country? How is destroying small business helpful to this economy?
Why are you so anti-consumer*?
* - Provided the state doesn’t have the right to censor content as well.
so far no one has been limited or blocked from legal sites. Claiming you need protecting "in case" they decide to do it sometime in the future sounds very far left liberal to me. Free enterprise allows for costs and service to be set by a business. You can pay for it or not - but the government has no business telling any private company what they have to do and set prices for them. Free enterprise has worked for centuries and costs always get cheaper once R&D is paid for.
Great. Now we have government protecting us from government protecting us from evil corporations. I wish they’d go all to fly a kite and leave us alone so we’re able to work in peace.
>> Imagine of FR had to pay Comcast to get the speed for its traffic that Huffington Post got?
I don’t agree with your premise that the govt can make it better.
The first rule in the equation is: Lawmakers are generally bias, self-serving, orifices that sell restrictions on your Liberties.
A dependent consumer is a weak consumer. Yeah, it’s a pain in the ass to rally against a Leftward provider, but given restrictions are NOT made on commerce, another can compete.
The argument should be limited to the shared physical properties of distribution: poles, towers, tunneling, etc.
The extremely attractive private investment should not be deemed public domain simply because it’s an ultra-cool, gotta have technology. That attitude is typical of the spoiled, envious brat. And yes, a sector of society has adopted that pathetic attitude.
It is not the govt’s job to determine how packets are throttled. That is a #ing insane thought.
I tried to warn everyone. Looks like the 1st move by the telco’s are starting to take shape.
Step 2 -
fiddling with web traffic to force content providers to pay up, and/or force people to a different tier to get access to certain sites. It will be like the multi-tier television packages. Oh, you want to access freerepublic.com, FR didn’t pay their bill, so they are not provided on your internet package. Or, you have to have the most expensive internet package to get freerepublic.com
If you saddle telecom companies with this socialist bill, they will not expand or increase research and development because there won't be any pay off for them.
Grow up, pay for the services you want and live with the services you can afford and eventually, after R&D is paid for, more services are affordable to all.
And please stop spouting this crap about Netflix not paying their bill but should still be allowed to be on line - what in the world is wrong with you? It doesn't matter if it is you not paying a bill, or a major company, service is cut off - why would Netflix EVER pay their bill if their customers could keep paying them but they didn't have to pay their provider?
If you saddle telecom companies with this socialist bill, they will not expand or increase research and development because there won't be any pay off for them.
I still do not understand your position. We do all pay for services we want. Presently, the services are split up by speed. You want to stream a netflix movie? you ain't doing it on dial up. And you probably are not doing it on anything less than DSL type speed. So you do have to pay for services and quality you want. You want internet, you have to PAY. No one is saying you get it for free.
PLEASE try to follow along, because your comments to date are NOT in line with ANYTHING I am saying. The internet is based on transferring data from one location to another. It' built with tons of redundancies, so that if one path is down/damaged/unresponsive it will get to you through another path. There was never suppose to be any reading of the actual data being transmitted, it was just supposed to move along the path. What the telco's want to do is read the data, and decide to block, greatly slow down the info's advancement, or let it go through normally.
That is HORRIBLE for the consumer. It allows the telco's to demand payment from content providers or they will not get to the telco's customers/make it agonizingly slow. It allows telco's to break up the internet into tiers like television is currently setup. I cant think of anything worse from a customer perspective.
If there is no payoff for the telco's then how has FiOS, U-verse, etc... come along. Telco's are paid by the customers for a service, the telco's are not taking a bath here. They are currently making tons of money. What the telco's do want to do is monetize every packet on the internet that passes from content providers, through them, to the customer. That is pure garbage.
Telco's are in the business to make money, and they do that when they have a large percentage of customers, which is why services get cheaper all the time - to appeal to a larger customer base. Blocking content is not a good business model and so far I don't recall anyone doing this - do you have proof that any current telcom is blocking content or holding their customers hostage?
And again, you seem to think tiers of service is not something a company should be able to charge for - Large users, like Engineering projects, hospitals, insurance companies transmitt tons of data and pay more for the speed/size of their usage. Who do you think would benefit from a one-size-fits-all type of system? Certainly not the consumer because they would bring everyone UP to pay for the difference they get now by charging more to those who use more.
You sound like those who whined about the Patriot Act and the liberties they were "possibly" going to lose. The telecoms are there to appeal to a broad base of customers and the first one who attempted to block content to PAYING sites, would start losing customers.
That is HORRIBLE for the consumer. It allows the telco's to demand payment from content providers or they will not get to the telco's customers/make it agonizingly slow.
And again, if a company/content provider isn't paying his bill, why should anyone allow it to go out for free?
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