FCC approves net neutrality rules

POLITICO.com ^ | 21 December 2010 | Kim Hart & Tony Romm

[antiRepublicrat]

What you think “Net Neutrality” is and what government thinks “Net Neutrality” is are two completely different things.

The government has not made one net neutrality proposal that included any element of fairness doctrine. Get back to me when it does and I'll be right there with you opposing it. Until then quit mixing the two issues.

[Buckeye McFrog]

The FCC should be disbanded as it serves no useful function.

How many emplyees does it have?

Thousands of them, most of them driving around out in the countryside looking for pirate radio stations and guys on their CB’s using the “F” word.

I agree, disband the FCC. Free the internet, and at the same time let the Mark Levin Show be heard on Jupiter!

[abb]

Here ya go.

http://blog.openinternet.gov/

2) No Blocking. A right to send and receive lawful traffic. This prohibits blocking of lawful content, apps, services, and the connection of non-harmful devices to the network

3) Level Playing Field. A right to a level playing field. A ban on unreasonable discrimination. No approval for so-called “pay for priority” arrangements involving fast lanes for some companies but not others.

6) Vigilance. Creation of an Open Internet Advisory Committee to assist the Commission in monitoring the state of Internet openness and the effects of our rules.

[CharlesWayneCT]

But I know they “oversold” in the sense that they can’t give me 25mb download 24/7. I’m a “residential user”. I can look up the price for a dedicated 25mb link, and it’s a LOT more expensive than what I am paying.

I am sharing with my neighbors, who also don’t all need the bandwidth at the same time.

Hey, if everybody in my neighborhood decided to ALL go to work at precisely 8:00am tomorrow morning, some of us would have to wait 15 minutes to get out of our neighborhood. But I don’t want to pay for a road big enough to get us all out at the same time, because I know that we don’t all leave at the same time.

Same with my internet. “Net Neutrality” will end up making me pay more for my internet, when I don’t need any better service. I prefer a private market solution where I contract for what I want to pay for, and my provider gives me options that include bandwidth sharing for the vast majority of us who still only download a movie to watch once in a while, rather than streaming HD vide 24/7.

[antiRepublicrat]

“Net Neutrality” will end up making me pay more for my internet, when I don’t need any better service.

For the overselling aspect, all net neutrality does is force the ISPs to inform their customers that they are oversold. As it is most contracts promise the stated bandwidth and call those who use it abusers.

As far as paying more, tiered service is not affected by net neutrality. If you only need email and basic web, then sign up for the lowest package. Let those of us who watch video a lot pay for the high-bandwidth package.

Hey, if everybody in my neighborhood decided to ALL go to work at precisely 8:00am tomorrow morning, some of us would have to wait 15 minutes to get out of our neighborhood.

Do you get penalized if you drive on the road more than everybody else?

[orinoco]

Great article which explains how to stop the communists in our government from using commissions and agencies from enforcing unconstitutional regulations.

Government Regulatory Reform

[CharlesWayneCT]

Do you get penalized if you drive on the road more than everybody else?

Yes, and it depends. Indirectly you pay more for roads if you drive more, through the gas tax. Also, some cities have or are considering toll roads where you pay more based on the time time of day.

And if you use toll roads, you pay more if you drive on them more.

But because most roads are simply paid for by taxes and run by government, everybody pretty much can abuse them as much as they want, and whoever uses the government services most benefits the most, sometimes to the detriment of others.

The advantage of private business is they can, if they like, correct that error by signing contracts that are adventageous to them and their customers, and through free market principles can allocate limited resources in an efficient manner.

Government has no concept of this, so if they stick their nose in, it is almost certain that the packages government decides to let me buy from my provider won't meet my needs, will be hopelessly expensive, or will be so forcibly cheap that the provider will drop them because they can't make money.

I do support disclosure, but I don't think I needed government to make new regulations, because the FTC already has the right to prosecute for false advertising. I knew the limitations of my package, even beyond the obvious fact that it promised speeds "up to" a bandwidth, indicating the bandwidth could be lower.

I think that without government interference, we would eventually get to where the technology should be pushing anyway -- services where standard broadcasts are all downloaded from satellite, so the limited fiber bandwidth is saved for individual-use purposes like streaming unique programs or surfing the web.

[ChurtleDawg]

thank you for a well reasoned and polite post. I didn’t see the argument this way, but I will look into these issues.

I am concerned that the major ISPs (without some sort of network neutrality framework) would be able to pick and choose winners or losers. The analogy that I saw was like if the telecom companies were like roads, but were able to decide what color cars could drive on what roads. (Like if blue sedans were not allowed on I-95 but grey pickup trucks were allowed a special lane to get places faster.)

[dennisw]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/212637/when_comcast_bullies_netflix_the_internet_loses.html Quite the brouhaha arose last week over Comcast's demands that Level 3 Communications pay exorbitant fees to deliver Netflix content to Comcast subscribers. There was outrage -- but not nearly enough.

Level 3 was just a proxy with a contract to run Netflix's wildly popular streaming service -- a service, by the way, the likes of which the American consumer has wanted for a long time. There's lots to love about a $7.99 monthly fee to access untold thousands of movies and television shows with the click of a remote control. Comcast, however, is not a fan. Hmm, do you think its antipathy has something to do with Comcast's overpriced On Demand service?

NetFlix provides on demand movies etc and so does Comcast
Comcast built the infrastructure at great expense and maintains it at great expense
NetFlix pays no similar expenses but piggybacks on Comcast's success and wants to use Comcast infrastructure for free to steal customers from Comcast
NetFlix is a much leaner guerilla type operation with none of the heavy infrastructure expenses that Comcast has

I have no love for Comcast but I see it as entirely fair for them to demand that their competition L3/NetFlix pay a fee and pass it on to their cheapskate customers. Thus making them less economical, less a threat to Comcast

[meyer]

“”...NetFlix provides on demand movies etc and so does Comcast
Comcast built the infrastructure at great expense and maintains it at great expense
NetFlix pays no similar expenses but piggybacks on Comcast’s success and wants to use Comcast infrastructure for free to steal customers from Comcast
NetFlix is a much leaner guerilla type operation with none of the heavy infrastructure expenses that Comcast has...””

Exactly! If netflix doesn’t like to pay for their use of Comcast’s infrastructure, they are free to build their own. That equipment is not free, and the installation and maintenance is expensive.

We went through this crap with the deregulation of the electric system several years ago, and it’s caused no great price reduction for the electric customer. All it’s done is create a plethora of paperwork and redundant paperwork for the utilities, along with thousands of pages of new government mandates, rules, and regulations. All that so that Clinton’s buddies at Enron, which no longer exists, could sell power to customers using other peoples’ infrastructure for almost nothing.

[dennisw]

Thanks.... I found someone who agrees with me :)

[dennisw]

I am concerned that the major ISPs (without some sort of network neutrality framework) would be able to pick and choose winners or losers. The analogy that I saw was like if the telecom companies were like roads, but were able to decide what color cars could drive on what roads. (Like if blue sedans were not allowed on I-95 but grey pickup trucks were allowed a special lane to get places faster.)

I used to believe that and was for net neutrality
I have changed because now I see the net neutrality battle as being between Comcast/ISPS and NetFlix/Amazon/others who want to stream massive files thus hogging bandwidth and being in competition with Comcast/ISPs that also are content providers

[meyer]

I have changed because now I see the net neutrality battle as being between Comcast/ISPS and NetFlix/Amazon/others who want to stream massive files thus hogging bandwidth and being in competition with Comcast/ISPs that also are content providers.

I also see that, and it looks familiar. Having been in the electric utility business for the last 30 years, I can see the similarities between this and what they called "deregulation" of the electric industry. Tens of thousands of pages of rules and regulations (and at least one major blackout) later, it should be obvious that THAT genie should never have left the bottle.

I see this FCC move as more than "net neutrality" - it's a foot in the door of enforcing some future "fairness doctrine" where the government gets to select what information can be available and what information is to be shunned. They'd love to shut down Rush, Beck, and Fox news but they know that people won't settle for that. So, instead, they'll wittle away at the internet sites that they don't approve of, one at a time. Today, maybe FreeRepublic. Tomorrow, Drudge or Daily Caller or Heritage.

The internet wasn't broken - they've invented a crisis for which they had a pre-determined "cure" and that cure is more central government oversight. Orwell was right.

[dennisw]

Electric utility deregulation was started under Ronald Reagan I would think

Fairness Doctrine...Rush and Glenn Beck say this will come in the form of demands for more “community input”, more “community content” and more ownership by minorities. Who will be waiting in the wings, ready to swoop down on any radio or TV stations that don’t provide time for “voices from the community” to air after the Rush Limbaugh show, and try get ownership of that public airwaves frequency transferred to them after FCC hearings

IOW fewer white owners and more “comrades” owning radio and TV stations.

[meyer]

Electric utility deregulation was started under Ronald Reagan I would think.

Deregulation really took hold in 1997 with FERC rules 888 and 889. It was bound to fail (it's still here) in its initial form because it had no mechanism for compensation for the owners of the transmission lines. And, of course, without any ability to recover construction and maintenance costs, transmission system upgrades and maintenance fell drastically in the first few years of dereg.

It was more of a scheme to let entities like Enron and others have access to the transmission assets of utilities. The premise was that the transmission system was there for the benefit of the collective, and not just the utilities that built their portion or the customers that were paying for it. It was a highway system for power and according to the government, everybody should have access.

In the minds of many in the industry at the time, deregulation was basically a theft of assets.

[ChurtleDawg]

I wonder if, by Comcast giving their own websites preference, they would create a massive monopoly not only only being a service provider, but also on their own subscription services. this could create a situation where you can only get these services from Comcast.

I kind of think that if Comcast is going to offer Netflix like services, they should have the same playing field for that section of their business, ie on the strength of their services alone. By being a cable company first, they could run these other services out of business if they can make them prohibitively expensive. The other part of their business, being a cable and broadband provider, should stand on it's own and have to compete on fair terms with other broadband providers.

that isn't just bad for netflix et al, but it would end up being detrimental to all of us.