Posted on 06/09/2006 5:26:45 AM PDT by mathprof
The U.S. House of Representatives definitively rejected the concept of Net neutrality on Thursday, dealing a bitter blow to Internet companies like Amazon.com, eBay and Google that had engaged in a last-minute lobbying campaign to support it.
By a 269-152 vote that fell largely along party lines, the House Republican leadership mustered enough votes to reject a Democrat-backed amendment that would have enshrined stiff Net neutrality regulations into federal law and prevented broadband providers from treating some Internet sites differently from others.
Of the 421 House members who participated in the vote that took place around 6:30 p.m. PT, the vast majority of Net neutrality supporters were Democrats. Republicans represented most of the opposition.
The vote on the amendment came after nearly a full day of debate on the topic, which prominent Democrats predicted would come to represent a turning point in the history of the Internet. [snip]
At issue is a lengthy measure called the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement (COPE) Act, which a House committee approved in April. Its Republican backers, along with broadband providers such as Verizon and AT&T, say it has sufficient Net neutrality protections for consumers, and more extensive rules would discourage investment in wiring American homes with higher-speed connections.[snip]
Defenders of the COPE Act, largely Republicans, dismissed worries about Net neutrality as fear mongering.
"I want a vibrant Internet just like they do," said Rep. Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican. "Our disagreement is about how to achieve that. They say let the government dictate it...I urge my colleagues to reject government regulation of the Internet."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.zdnet.com ...
I'll agree that people's appetite for wireless is insatiable.
Wireless is great for what it can do but is limited by any number of factors. (When is the last time you had a completely clear cell phone to cell phone conversation?)
On the other hand the potential for fiber to the home or office is unlimited. The debate is about controlling content on and access to the wire or fiber. The telcos and cable companies are saying that they're investing billions in infrastructure and the content (application) providers like Google, Ebay etc. are carting off the profits.
This debate had to happen and there is truth in both points of view but I'll always be distrustful of the telcos and cable companies.
I said "civil"...one needs only to convince a majority of the jury that a practice was improper....
But doesn't there need to be some underlying legality or precedent, even for civil action?
Clear cellular is the norm for me now. Five years ago I had lots of dropped calls but now the coverage on TMobile is virtually everywhere I go.
I've also heard great feedback about Verizon's coverage and that it exceeds that of TMobile.
I think coverage will continue to improve and from I read about the coming WIMAX, the cost of its infrastructure is significantly reduced.
The trend is clear that wireless is the future.
Since wireless is not contrained to a specific geographic region and will not be prohibitively expensive to set up, it is expected that content will not be limited by corporate interests. For example, Christian websites could very well start their own global wireless network.
So the fast lane - slow lane idea will be a nonissue as content will be entirely shaped by what people choose rather than what large corporations try to foist on the population.
The market will take care of all of this without government interference.
That would require removing all the existing last-mile franchise monopolies in phone/cable service. Wake me up when Congress gets around to doing that....
Read the link, the treo stuff is nice, my friend has it. But out on the mountain where I live it ain't gonna happen. Wimax might be a good choice eventually. But for now I have WiFi making a 9 mile link to a (mostly) wireless regional network. I also have a cable modem.
net neutrality meant that "FreeRepublic" would not have to pay additional fees to allow you to get to their site.
w/o net neutrality any isp or telecom company can block any content they see fit and charge the content provider (i.e. FreeRepublic) additional fees if they want their content on that provider's network.
unless someone explains it differently to me and i "see the light" i have a hard time understanding why freepers are against net neutrality (i.e. status quo, i.e. conservative)
You're missing my point.
Once again, wireless is cool but can't begin to compete with the potential or quality of transmission that fiber or cable can offer in regards to massive audio and video streams and files.
This is the infrastructure (the pipe) that brings the big web players, Yahoo, Ebay, Google etc. to the publics' pea shooter wireless devices. This is what the debate is about and the infrastructure won't be replaced by wireless any time soon.
Also, coverage and quality of cellular service are completely different subjects. I have Verizon service and I helped build Cingular's system (before it was Cingular). I can make a call almost anywhere but the quality of the call as compared to landline calls is not close unless you're standing still near a tower.
NET NEUTRALITY:
My understanding is commercial sites that pay a "tariff" to large ISPs such as Comcast will have their sites load quicker. Comcast and others will enable this/ So when Barnes&Noble and Amazon compete on the internet the bookseller that pays Comcast to load quicker, is easier to communicate with, has a leg up
Educational sites such as this one pay nothing to Comcast Verizon etc and will be in the slow lane. A graphics heavy thread will take longer to load than a commercial site in the fast lane. At this moment Free Republic gets the same treatment from Comcast (my ISP) as does Amazon. They load equally fast
I'm in favor of net neutrality
are telcos allowed to restrict who i call when i use the phone?
are power companies allowed to restrict what i use electricity for that comes across their wires?
i pay for my end of the broadband service. content providers pay for their end of the network (usually on a per gigabyte basis) -- why should they have to pay more to allow me to get to their content?
so in the future content providers, instead of just paying for their pipeline to the backbone, will have to pay every middleman (telco) and connection provider (isp) for the same unrestricted access.
IOW, it says that our pristine, fair and speedy federal government should magnanimously ensure that eeeeevil, greedy multinational corporations can't oppressively have control over how they sell and control their own product. Is that what it means?
Sheesh!
When you open your lemonade stand and the government offers to protect your poor, downtrodden customers by regulating your business practices such that you are punished for trying to sell different sized cups at different prices, I'm sure you'll be falling to your knees in gratitude for their gracious and brave actions.
First of all, net neutrality is not "status quo, i.e. conservative" but is in fact an intrusive government regulation of what ISP's or telecoms can do in terms of investment, cost-sharing, and other expansions of service.
Secondly, your comparison of the worldwide web w/o net neutrality (actually the status quo is the web w/o net neutrality) to what you describe net neutrality to mean is an inaccurate comparison.
Finally, if you will check out the resources that I have posted several times, that should explain it to you differently. Whether or not you "see the light" is entirely up to you.
I am looking at trend.
The article has to do with a bill to regulate the internet, or at least opens the door to internet regulation.
My point was that in the next years, the slow lane - fast lane idea won't matter because everything will go wireless.
Coverage is increasing and WIMAX towers are real small and cheap. What that means is coverage will cease to be an issue. Just last year EVDO coverage was a few cities. Now it is all major and midsize cities and is growing internationally at a fast pace. WIMAX will be faster and will grow exponentially as well.
What you have right now compared to what we will all have in the years ahead is the equivalent of having a big dish satellite antenna replaced by a small dinner plate size dish that does not need a satellite.
So those that see what's coming should vote no on any type of internet regulation because it won't matter otherwise. Those cable companies that sell fast bandwidth to selected corporate clients will see others run around them that are using wireless technologies.
Since WIMAX technology is so cheap to install, there will be many many independent bandwidth carriers that will spring up and offer fast access to content that users choose, not what is chosen for them.
In the meantime, you will be stuck with cable. If you vote for net neutrality, you are opening the door to internet regulation and you should know what that means.
Your understanding is incorrect.
how so
As I've said here before, I do believe we need net neutrality; however, my only fear in enforcing it is that when the government makes a law it usually produces more problems than it fixes.
Of course, but with this plan Skype and Google will have to pay extra to get a decent service level. The MSM will be able to pay for their decent service level. The rest of us will get our content out through the low-rent, low-speed Internet.
Another thing just hit me, how's this going to affect my hosting service? Will the videos I have up suddenly cost me more to host if I want people to get them quickly?
Not sure why you keep saying that. I have two WAN connections in house, one through cable, the other through WiFi to a regional WiFi network. I have a dinner plate sized antenna for that link (9 miles). WiMax is cheap compared to stringing cable but the big telecoms will make sure it is regulated (they'll move it into licensed spectrum and push for state taxation and regulation). So my provider's WiFi network is virtually free compared to that.
The real fight is between the big providers trying to keep customers and small providers giving customers more choices but eventually selling out like the dialup ISP's did.
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