Obama calls for more regulation of Internet providers, industry fires back
Published November 10, 2014 • FoxNews.comFacebook0 Twitter0 Email Print
This Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2014 photo shows an AT&T store on New York's Madison Avenue and President Barack Obama on Saturday, Nov. 8, 2014, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. (AP)
President Obama threw down the gauntlet Monday with cable companies and Internet providers by declaring they shouldn’t be allowed to cut deals with online services like YouTube to move their content faster.
It was his most definitive statement to date on so-called “net neutrality,” and escalates a battle that has been simmering for years between industry groups and Internet activists who warn against the creation of Internet “fast lanes.” The president’s statement swiftly drew an aggressive response from trade groups, which are fighting against additional regulation.
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"We are stunned the president would abandon the longstanding, bipartisan policy of lightly regulating the Internet and calling for extreme" regulation, said Michael Powell, president and CEO of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the primary lobbying arm of the cable industry.
Obama, in his statement, called for an “explicit ban” on “paid prioritization,” or better, faster service for companies that pay extra. The president said federal regulators should reclassify the Internet as a public utility under Title II of the 1934 Communications Act.
"For almost a century, our law has recognized that companies who connect you to the world have special obligations not to exploit the monopoly they enjoy over access in and out of your home or business," Obama said in his statement. "That is why a phone call from a customer of one phone company can reliably reach a customer of a different one, and why you will not be penalized solely for calling someone who is using another provider. It is common sense that the same philosophy should guide any service that is based on the transmission of information -- whether a phone call, or a packet of data."
Obama's statement puts him in the middle of a debate between industry groups and the Federal Communications Commission, which is under public pressure – now from Obama as well -- to prevent broadband providers from creating the “fast lanes.”
The FCC is nearing a decision on how far to go to protect Internet consumers from deals between broadband providers like Verizon and AT&T and content companies like Netflix or YouTube.
But industry groups pushed back, with Powell arguing that such regulation would slow Internet growth.
This "tectonic shift in national policy, should it be adopted, would create devastating results," Powell said, claiming only Congress should make a policy change of this magnitude.”
Likewise, CTIA-The Wireless Association called Obama's proposal a "gross overreaction" that would ignore other viewpoints.
Last January, a federal court overturned key portions of an open Internet regulation put in place by the FCC in 2010. The court said the FCC had "failed to cite any statutory authority" to keep broadband providers from blocking or discriminating against content.
That ruling sent the FCC back to the drawing board. Until the FCC can agree on new regulations that satisfy the court's requirements, Internet service providers could block or discriminate against content moving across their networks with impunity.
Internet activists say the FCC should reclassify the Internet as a public utility under Title II of the 1934 Communications Act to ensure it has enough power to regulate the Internet effectively. That's exactly what industry doesn't want to happen. Industry officials say they are committed to an open Internet in general but want flexibility to think up new ways to package and sell Internet services.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has said he is open to using a "hybrid" approach that would draw from both Title II and the 1996 Telecommunications Act. But Wheeler said Monday that so far, those options have presented "substantive legal questions."
"We found we would need more time to examine these to ensure that whatever approach is taken, it can withstand any legal challenges it may face," he said.
LordofHats wrote: Every day this debate becomes more and more brain dead and my faith in human intelligence sinks to further lows.
Really?
I get the optics of the public's general favorability toward a "message of free and open access to the internet"...
But, I believe that most of us have little faith in the ability of the federal government to regulate online communications technology or internet service providers.
If we were to reclassify these entities as "Utilities"... just wait for the next round of mergers & acquisitions to shake up the industry.
I'd settle for keeping our access as it is. Giving the providers what they want will not end well for any of us. This isn't about government power it's about rights of the consumer. This will open a very very nasty door in an industry that already lives to shaft us;
Posted yet again, because it's still so true its scary.
And now Comcast owns Time Warner. "Hello, consumer? Yes. See we had this monopoly on your cable and turns out it just got bigger and better so we'll be raising your prices."
But, I believe that most of us have little faith in the ability of the federal government to regulate online communications technology or internet service providers.
Why can't provider's control content? Isn't it similar to subscription tv channels? I pay HBO for their channel and they control want I can watch on their channel and since it's a subscription then the FCC doesn't interfere so there can be nudity and cussing.
If I pay a company for internet, that's a subscription service, why does the FCC get to dictate the provider's ability or inability to determine content that flows through their internet connection?
I'm not advocating for or against a new law. Since the key issue appears to be whether or not the FCC has the power to enforce whatever may be passed that seems to be key issue, the definitions of the FCC's power. It's not should the govt allow the regulation content, it's can the govt regulate content control in the first place?
But, I believe that most of us have little faith in the ability of the federal government to regulate online communications technology or internet service providers.
You drink too much of the kool-aid.
Whatever man...
I'm "pro-consumer" in this... just not "your way".
I'm all for making sure they don't get too big (Comcast truly does need to be broken down) or that their conflict of interest don't curb stomp consumers.
But with the increased regulation by the FCC... the government is not going to create more competition.
It’s going to turn these service providers into arms of the government implementing government policy.
Prestor Jon wrote: Why can't provider's control content? Isn't it similar to subscription tv channels? I pay HBO for their channel and they control want I can watch on their channel and since it's a subscription then the FCC doesn't interfere so there can be nudity and cussing.
It's not an issue of the FCC blocking content. It's a sad case of corporations playing the public for fools. The cable companies want to block content behind pay walls. The FCC meanwhile has become the only way to prevent this by turning internet service into a public utility (and thus, the providers can't block content behind pay walls), which increasingly seems to be the only option we're going to get, because all parties involved seem unwilling to consider any more nuanced possibilities.
But, I believe that most of us have little faith in the ability of the federal government to regulate online communications technology or internet service providers.
You drink too much of the kool-aid.
Whatever man...
I'm "pro-consumer" in this... just not "your way".
I'm all for making sure they don't get too big (Comcast truly does need to be broken down) or that their conflict of interest don't curb stomp consumers.
But with the increased regulation by the FCC... the government is not going to create more competition.
It’s going to turn these service providers into arms of the government implementing government policy.
It's not really a big thing I don't think. The problem seems to be that you almost never have two companies operating in the same place at the same time, so you know no competition.
Prestor Jon wrote: Why can't provider's control content? Isn't it similar to subscription tv channels? I pay HBO for their channel and they control want I can watch on their channel and since it's a subscription then the FCC doesn't interfere so there can be nudity and cussing.
It's not an issue of the FCC blocking content. It's a sad case of corporations playing the public for fools. The cable companies want to block content behind pay walls. The FCC meanwhile has become the only way to prevent this by turning internet service into a public utility (and thus, the providers can't block content behind pay walls), which increasingly seems to be the only option we're going to get, because all parties involved seem unwilling to consider any more nuanced possibilities.
That's true...
Keep in mind that the courts have rule TWICE that the FCC has NO AUTHORITY to regulate the internet.
It will have to take an act of Congress via new legislation to re-categorize these entities as a public utility.
Otherwise, it's politicking by Obama to mollify his base.
Prestor Jon wrote: Why can't provider's control content? Isn't it similar to subscription tv channels? I pay HBO for their channel and they control want I can watch on their channel and since it's a subscription then the FCC doesn't interfere so there can be nudity and cussing.
It's not an issue of the FCC blocking content. It's a sad case of corporations playing the public for fools. The cable companies want to block content behind pay walls. The FCC meanwhile has become the only way to prevent this by turning internet service into a public utility (and thus, the providers can't block content behind pay walls), which increasingly seems to be the only option we're going to get, because all parties involved seem unwilling to consider any more nuanced possibilities.
So is the article Frazzled posted wrong when it states:
Last January, a federal court overturned key portions of an open Internet regulation put in place by the FCC in 2010. The court said the FCC had "failed to cite any statutory authority" to keep broadband providers from blocking or discriminating against content.
That ruling sent the FCC back to the drawing board. Until the FCC can agree on new regulations that satisfy the court's requirements, Internet service providers could block or discriminate against content moving across their networks with impunity.
Because that summation seems to be pretty clear about the FCC not being able to stop providers from blocking content even if Congress/POTUS/whomever wanted the FCC to stop providers from blocking content.
I'm "pro-consumer" in this... just not "your way".
You can't call yourself pro-consumer while advocating a position that will literally bends consumers over and get them violated with a wine bottle.
But with the increased regulation by the FCC... the government is not going to create more competition.
Again, what regulation? You throw that word out like it's the devil, but what regulations? How does ensuring the continuation of Net Neutrality, make it harder to create competition? Net Neutrality has allowed companies like YouTube, Google, Amazon, and Netflix to rise completely out of the woodwork (two of them becoming the most profitable in the world). Creating a fast lane is going to kill competition.
We could have handled this intelligently, but the internet companies have masterfully made it impossible for any other solution to be passed. It's FCC Net Neutrality, or the wine bottle up your rectum.
So is the article Frazzled posted wrong when it states:
It wears its bias on it's coat to obscure the reality of what is happening. This has nothing to do with regulation. Net Neutrality is a standard that all data must be treated equally, and is the foundation on which a free and open internet rests. A certain group of companies want that rule removed so they can increase their profit margin at everyone else's expense, and now the only way to keep Net Neutrality going has become to reclassify these companies as common carriers.
I would have preferred Obama stay out of the issue. Now it's going to become Republicans vs Democrats.
whembly wrote: You and will disagree that having "a fast lane" would curtail competition.
Yeah. Go find that world where an increased cost of entering a market places increases competition. I wish you luck in finding Imagination Land (I'm just gonna keep making South Park references ).
But, this issue is overly politicised.
This we can also agree on. Now that Obama has said something, all the Republicans are going to have to jump on the bandwagon, and this mess is going to become as banal as the immigration debate.
whembly wrote: You and will disagree that having "a fast lane" would curtail competition.
Yeah. Go find that world where an increased cost of entering a market places increases competition. I wish you luck in finding Imagination Land (I'm just gonna keep making South Park references ).
I have to re-read that last FCC proposal, but if memory serves, as long as the "not-fastlane" isn't impacted to current standards, they're open for a dedicated fast lanes for additional fees.
Now how that works in practice? Remains to be seen...
But, this issue is overly politicised.
This we can also agree on. Now that Obama has said something, all the Republicans are going to have to jump on the bandwagon, and this mess is going to become as banal as the immigration debate.
Yeah... that's going to suck big time. To me, it's another "LOOK, squirrel!" event.
whembly wrote: Now how that works in practice? Remains to be seen...
Yeah. Like this gun. I mean, I haven't shot it yet. Who knows what could happen when I point it at that deer over there!
There is no 'remains to be seen.' If you increase the cost of entry, then the competition in a market will decrease. I have no idea how anyone can even buy into that line of BS. Fast Lanes might have some pros behind them, but increased competition is not one of them.
Prestor Jon wrote: Because that summation seems to be pretty clear about the FCC not being able to stop providers from blocking content even if Congress/POTUS/whomever wanted the FCC to stop providers from blocking content.
Politicians being the mouth piece for whatever group donated money to then? Shocking!
Of course that's why I'm still in favor of campaign finance reform that requires politicians to wear NASCAR style sponsor suits, that way it's always obvious who they are talking for.
He just got spanked last Tuesday, and is trying to "throw a bone" to his base.
Yeah, it's not like he said he would do this in 2007, FFS.
I mean, Jesus Christ. When you say stuff like this it really makes people call into question your intellectual honest in pretty much anything else you write in the thread.
Anyway, we've danced this dance before and we're not going to convince each other, but I'm strongly in favor of network neutrality. I loathe the double dipping that Comcast et al have been getting into with Netflix and such shenanigans need to come to a stop.
Ultimately I agree that the internet is a public utility just like sewage and water.
He just got spanked last Tuesday, and is trying to "throw a bone" to his base.
Yeah, it's not like he said he would do this in 2007, FFS.
I mean, Jesus Christ. When you say stuff like this it really makes people call into question your intellectual honest in pretty much anything else you write in the thread.
Wow... you're a bit touchy. Ain't ya?
I don't mind basking myself in the schadenfreude* of the aftermath of a spanking the Democrats had NOT EVEN a week ago.
Anyway, we've danced this dance before and we're not going to convince each other, but I'm strongly in favor of network neutrality. I loathe the double dipping that Comcast et al have been getting into with Netflix and such shenanigans need to come to a stop.
Ultimately I agree that the internet is a public utility just like sewage and water.
The Obama administration tried and the courts ruled against them TWICE.
The facts remains is that if they're going to be regulated like public utilities, it'll take an act from Congress.
*That said, this is NOT what I had in mind for Republican to "draw the line in the sand". And, imo, it'll be disasterous if Cable companies were regulated like utilities.
He just got spanked last Tuesday, and is trying to "throw a bone" to his base.
Yeah, it's not like he said he would do this in 2007, FFS.
Okay, I'll play this game. Given that he had six years so far as President, the first two with total Democrat control of Congress, why hasn't he done it already? Not like it would have taken as much effort as the ACA did.
Ouze wrote: I mean, Jesus Christ. When you say stuff like this it really makes people call into question your intellectual honest in pretty much anything else you write in the thread.
Or maybe the President is doing what Whembly said and is trying to toss a bone to his base?
He just got spanked last Tuesday, and is trying to "throw a bone" to his base.
Yeah, it's not like he said he would do this in 2007, FFS.
Okay, I'll play this game. Given that he had six years so far as President, the first two with total Democrat control of Congress, why hasn't he done it already? Not like it would have taken as much effort as the ACA did.
The FCC did do it already. In 2010. It was knocked down by the court. There remains a different route that the FCC can take - reclassifying as a public service - which is the next avenue to explore.
He just got spanked last Tuesday, and is trying to "throw a bone" to his base.
Yeah, it's not like he said he would do this in 2007, FFS.
Okay, I'll play this game. Given that he had six years so far as President, the first two with total Democrat control of Congress, why hasn't he done it already? Not like it would have taken as much effort as the ACA did.
The FCC did do it already. In 2010. It was knocked down by the court. There remains a different route that the FCC can take - reclassifying as a public service - which is the next avenue to explore.
And why hasn't the FCC done this reclassification already, then? I don't really know if they have the authority, anyway. Still, while the FCC didn't have the authority to implement Net Neutrality, Congress + President did. So back to the original query, what exactly did the President do to keep his promise in those six years? I'm not seeing any evidence that he did anything. It wasn't an urgent issue when the Democrats had all three branches of Government under their control. It certainly wasn't very urgent before the Republicans took the Senate, so why is it urgent now? Why threaten executive action before the Republicans have taken Congress except to cause drama?
He just got spanked last Tuesday, and is trying to "throw a bone" to his base.
Yeah, it's not like he said he would do this in 2007, FFS.
Okay, I'll play this game. Given that he had six years so far as President, the first two with total Democrat control of Congress, why hasn't he done it already? Not like it would have taken as much effort as the ACA did.
The FCC did do it already. In 2010. It was knocked down by the court. There remains a different route that the FCC can take - reclassifying as a public service - which is the next avenue to explore.
And why hasn't the FCC done this reclassification already, then? I don't really know if they have the authority, anyway. Still, while the FCC didn't have the authority to implement Net Neutrality, Congress + President did. So back to the original query, what exactly did the President do to keep his promise in those six years? I'm not seeing any evidence that he did anything. It wasn't an urgent issue when the Democrats had all three branches of Government under their control. It certainly wasn't very urgent before the Republicans took the Senate, so why is it urgent now? Why threaten executive action before the Republicans have taken Congress except to cause drama?
He just got spanked last Tuesday, and is trying to "throw a bone" to his base.
Yeah, it's not like he said he would do this in 2007, FFS.
Okay, I'll play this game. Given that he had six years so far as President, the first two with total Democrat control of Congress, why hasn't he done it already? Not like it would have taken as much effort as the ACA did.
The FCC did do it already. In 2010. It was knocked down by the court. There remains a different route that the FCC can take - reclassifying as a public service - which is the next avenue to explore.
And why hasn't the FCC done this reclassification already, then? I don't really know if they have the authority, anyway. Still, while the FCC didn't have the authority to implement Net Neutrality, Congress + President did. So back to the original query, what exactly did the President do to keep his promise in those six years? I'm not seeing any evidence that he did anything. It wasn't an urgent issue when the Democrats had all three branches of Government under their control. It certainly wasn't very urgent before the Republicans took the Senate, so why is it urgent now? Why threaten executive action before the Republicans have taken Congress except to cause drama?
It wasn't an issue up until a few months ago.
You're missing the point. It's been hotly debated for years.
But, what is undeniable is that this push from the WH is a signal that they are focused on mollifying the president’s progressive base... even if it invites more conflict with the incoming Republican-dominated Congress.
Why is this a surprise? Obama is ever in "campaign mode".
Why is this a surprise? Obama is ever in "campaign mode".
All politicians are always in "campaign mode".
Sure, Obama chose to do at this time to stir the pot and see what the Republicans would do. Right now, the Republicans have the gun pointed at their feet, we'll just have to wait and see if they pull the trigger (although, I would argue Cruz already emptied his entire magazine into his feet). Conflict with the incoming Republicans was going to happen, at least this is something the Democrats will have popular support for. Pretty much everyone who uses the Internet will want to keep it neutral.
He just got spanked last Tuesday, and is trying to "throw a bone" to his base.
Yeah, it's not like he said he would do this in 2007, FFS.
Okay, I'll play this game. Given that he had six years so far as President, the first two with total Democrat control of Congress, why hasn't he done it already? Not like it would have taken as much effort as the ACA did.
The FCC did do it already. In 2010. It was knocked down by the court. There remains a different route that the FCC can take - reclassifying as a public service - which is the next avenue to explore.
And why hasn't the FCC done this reclassification already, then? I don't really know if they have the authority, anyway. Still, while the FCC didn't have the authority to implement Net Neutrality, Congress + President did. So back to the original query, what exactly did the President do to keep his promise in those six years? I'm not seeing any evidence that he did anything. It wasn't an urgent issue when the Democrats had all three branches of Government under their control. It certainly wasn't very urgent before the Republicans took the Senate, so why is it urgent now? Why threaten executive action before the Republicans have taken Congress except to cause drama?
It wasn't an issue up until a few months ago.
You're missing the point. It's been hotly debated for years.
But, what is undeniable is that this push from the WH is a signal that they are focused on mollifying the president’s progressive base... even if it invites more conflict with the incoming Republican-dominated Congress.
Why is this a surprise? Obama is ever in "campaign mode".
M point is, they haven't had to do anything, so they didn't. Polticans are lazy that way.
Man, I am a fairly conservative dude, but I cannot see an upside to fighting net neutrality. Maybe I am getting cynical in my old age, but come on. This isn't a neat ideological split between conservatives and liberals, it's a split between corporate shills and everyone else.
I mean, aside from the general feeling that the government should never do anything, what is the gain here? I cannot wrap my head around that.
I really hope the Republicans don't go after this.
And if they do, they are going to shoot themselves right in the foot for 2016. All the partisan nonsense on big button issues doesn't even compare to what will happen if you marginally inconvenience people on a daily basis.
Bromsy wrote: Man, I am a fairly conservative dude, but I cannot see an upside to fighting net neutrality. Maybe I am getting cynical in my old age, but come on. This isn't a neat ideological split between conservatives and liberals, it's a split between corporate shills and everyone else.
I mean, aside from the general feeling that the government should never do anything, what is the gain here? I cannot wrap my head around that.
I really hope the Republicans don't go after this.
And if they do, they are going to shoot themselves right in the foot for 2016. All the partisan nonsense on big button issues doesn't even compare to what will happen if you marginally inconvenience people on a daily basis.
*meh*
Until Congress enact legislation to reclassify these entities as utilities... not much will change.
The Republicans would be smart to step away from this topic.
Bromsy wrote: All the partisan nonsense on big button issues doesn't even compare to what will happen if you marginally inconvenience people on a daily basis.
There is a reason that the Cable and Electric companies top the list of worst companies in America. Every. Damn. Year.
It's childish, but damn for once childishness might actually work out for us
Bromsy wrote: All the partisan nonsense on big button issues doesn't even compare to what will happen if you marginally inconvenience people on a daily basis.
There is a reason that the Cable and Electric companies top the list of worst companies in America. Every. Damn. Year.
I thought Electronic Arts topped that list two years in a row recently? I suppose we could be talking about different ranking systems, though.
I'm not talking strictly about the Consumerists List, which is by far the most famous (though this past year Comcast was #1 I believe), but rather consumer report rankings. Several news sites and magazines do them every year, and every years cable companies and electric companies appear overwhelming at the top of the list, as do banks and finance companies.
So basically the things the public hates most in a company is their power going out, their cable going out, and people who make money by managing other people's money XD
If you watch the news, it seems just about everyone is in favor of “Net Neutrality” legislation. Despite being a tech-addicted entrepreneur, I am not. No, I am not a paid shill for the cable industry. I am no fan of Comcast or any other ISP I’ve ever had the “pleasure” of dealing with. I’m skeptical of large corporations generally and dislike the fact that in this debate I appear to be on their side. While I have no problem with net neutrality as a principle or concept, I have serious concerns about Net Neutrality as legislation or public policy. And since a false dichotomy is being perpetuated by the media in regards to this matter, I feel an obligation to put forth a third point of view. In taking this stand, I realize I may be the only techie, if I can aspire to that label, opposed to Net Neutrality and that I open myself to accusations of killing the dreams of young entrepreneurs, wrecking free speech, and destroying the Internet. Nevertheless, here are three reasons I’m against Net Neutrality legislation.
I Want More Competition
Proponents of Net Neutrality say the telecoms have too much power. I agree. Everyone seems to agree that monopolies are bad and competition is good, and just like you, I would like to see more competition. But if monopolies are bad, why should we trust the U.S. government, the largest monopoly of all? We’re talking about the same organization that spent an amount equal to Facebook’s first six years of operating costs to build a health care website that doesn’t work, the same organization that can’t keep the country’s bridges from falling down, and the same organization that spends 320 times what private industry spends to send a rocket into space.
The U.S. government has shown time after time that it is ineffective at managing much of anything. This is by design. The Founders intentionally created a government that was slow, inefficient, and plagued by gridlock, because they knew the greatest danger to individual freedom came from a government that could move quickly–too quickly for the people to react in time to protect themselves. If we value our freedom, we need government to be slow. But if government is slow, we shouldn’t rely on it to provide us with products and services we want in a timely manner at a high level of quality. The telecoms may be bad, but everything that makes them bad is what the government is by definition. Can we put “bad” and “worse” together and end up with “better”?
I Want More Privacy
Free speech cannot exist without privacy, and the U.S. government has been shown to be unworthy of guarding the privacy of its citizens. Only the latest revelation of many, Glenn Greenwald’s new book No Place To Hide reveals that the U.S. government tampers with Internet routers during the manufacturing process to aid it’s spying programs. Is this the organization we trust to take even more control of the Internet? Should we believe that under Net Neutrality the government will trust the telecoms to police themselves? The government will need to verify, at a technical level, whether the telecoms are treating data as they should. Don’t be surprised if that means the government says it needs to be able to install its own hardware and software at critical points to monitor Internet traffic. Once installed, can we trust this government, or any government, to use that access in a benign manner?
I Want More Freedom
“
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. '– James Madison, The Federalist No. 51
Many of us see the U.S. government as a benevolent and all-knowing parent with the best interests of you and me, its children, at heart. I see the U.S. government as a dangerous tyrant, influenced by large corporate interests, seeking to control everyone and everything. Perhaps these diverging perspectives on the nature of the U.S. government are what account for a majority of the debate between proponents and opponents of Net Neutrality. If I believed the U.S. government was omniscient, had only good intentions, and that those intentions would never change, I would be in favor of Net Neutrality and more. But it wasn’t all that long ago that FDR was locking up U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry in concentration camps and Woodrow Wilson was outlawing political dissent. More recently we’ve seen the U.S. government fight unjust wars, topple elected democracies, and otherwise interfere in world affairs. We’ve seen the same government execute its own citizens in violation of Fifth Amendment rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. Simply put–I don’t trust the U.S. government. Nor do I trust any other government, even if “my team” wins the election. I see any increase in regulation, however well-intentioned, however beneficial to me today, as leading to less freedom for me and society in the long term. For this reason those who rose up against SOPA and PIPA a few years ago should be equally opposed to Net Neutrality.
The first two are easily dismissed, lack of net neutrality means this big companies can continue to gain more influence, not less, and a more monopilised system, and the second makes no sense, the FCC gets most if not all it's information from reports of violations from the people.
The third is purely opinion based, and thus can't be proven or disproven. It's just the blanket government=bad thing so many people are stuck on.
Co'tor Shas wrote: The first two are easily dismissed, lack of net neutrality means this big companies can continue to gain more influence, not less, and a more monopilised system, and the second makes no sense, the FCC gets most if not all it's information from reports of violations from the people.
The third is purely opinion based, and thus can't be proven or disproven. It's just the blanket government=bad thing so many people are stuck on.
If the govt wants to prevent too much restriction of ISPs and content then it should pass anti trust legislation to break up existing monopolies in the private sector. Having the Federal govt control ISP rates, service and content is still a monopoly and is the biggest most powerful monopoly in the country. Why do you think the FCC would get you better rates and service than Comcast? It would be better for the govt to ensure that Comcast was a smaller company that had to compete with other companies of similar size to provide consumers with the best internet service at the most competitive price. Having the FCC dictate X service costs Y dollars doesn't create that environment and prevents such competition from ever occurring.
Co'tor Shas wrote: The first two are easily dismissed, lack of net neutrality means this big companies can continue to gain more influence, not less, and a more monopilised system, and the second makes no sense, the FCC gets most if not all it's information from reports of violations from the people.
The third is purely opinion based, and thus can't be proven or disproven. It's just the blanket government=bad thing so many people are stuck on.
If the govt wants to prevent too much restriction of ISPs and content then it should pass anti trust legislation to break up existing monopolies in the private sector. Having the Federal govt control ISP rates, service and content is still a monopoly and is the biggest most powerful monopoly in the country. Why do you think the FCC would get you better rates and service than Comcast? It would be better for the govt to ensure that Comcast was a smaller company that had to compete with other companies of similar size to provide consumers with the best internet service at the most competitive price. Having the FCC dictate X service costs Y dollars doesn't create that environment and prevents such competition from ever occurring.
That's not what net neutrality is. The FCC doesn't dictate rates, the ISPs can charge whatever they want. The thing with net neutrality is that they can't charge more for certain web-pages.
How the feth does "the government says there can't be separate internets" become "the government will set rates and control the infrastructure and content of the Internet"?
d-usa wrote: How the feth does "the government says there can't be separate internets" become "the government will set rates and control the infrastructure and content of the Internet"?
Because of misinformation galore.
However, the idea that creating a "fast lane" is going to be a bad thing is crazy pants imo.
d-usa wrote: How the feth does "the government says there can't be separate internets" become "the government will set rates and control the infrastructure and content of the Internet"?
Because of misinformation galore.
However, the idea that creating a "fast lane" is going to be a bad thing is crazy pants imo.
It's crazy pants to think that things that have already happened are going to happen?
d-usa wrote: How the feth does "the government says there can't be separate internets" become "the government will set rates and control the infrastructure and content of the Internet"?
d-usa wrote: How the feth does "the government says there can't be separate internets" become "the government will set rates and control the infrastructure and content of the Internet"?
Because of misinformation galore.
However, the idea that creating a "fast lane" is going to be a bad thing is crazy pants imo.
It's crazy pants to think that things that have already happened are going to happen?
d-usa wrote: How the feth does "the government says there can't be separate internets" become "the government will set rates and control the infrastructure and content of the Internet"?
No. In this case, we see the dislike of government regulation taken to such an extreme it has literally become a parody of itself. Case and point, the dislike of government regulation is being taken so far here, people are patently ignoring the frank reality that the alternative is a thousand times worse.
d-usa wrote: How the feth does "the government says there can't be separate internets" become "the government will set rates and control the infrastructure and content of the Internet"?
Because of misinformation galore.
However, the idea that creating a "fast lane" is going to be a bad thing is crazy pants imo.
It's crazy pants to think that things that have already happened are going to happen?
For years a lineup of phone and cable industry spokespeople has called Net Neutrality “a solution in search of a problem.”
The principle that protects free speech and innovation online is irrelevant, they claim, as blocking has never, ever happened. And if it did, they add, market forces would compel Internet service providers to correct course and re-open their networks.
In reality, many providers both in the U.S. and abroad have violated the principles of Net Neutrality — and they plan to continue doing so in the future.
This history of abuse reveals a problem that only real Net Neutrality protections could solve:
MADISON RIVER: In 2005, North Carolina ISP Madison River Communications blocked the voice-over-Internet protocol (VOIP) service Vonage. Vonage filed a complaint with the FCC after receiving a slew of customer complaints. The FCC stepped in to sanction Madison River and prevent further blocking, but it lacks the authority to stop this kind of abuse today.
COMCAST: In 2005, the nation’s largest Internet provider, Comcast, began secretly blocking peer-to-peer technologies that its customers were using over its network. Users of services like BitTorrent and Gnutella were unable to connect to these services. 2007 investigations from the Associated Press, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others confirmed that Comcast was indeed blocking or slowing file-sharing applications without disclosing this fact to its customers.
TELUS: In 2005, Canada’s second largest telecommunications company, Telus, began blocking access to a server that hosted a website supporting a labor strike against the company. Researchers at Harvard and the University of Toronto found that this action resulted in Telus blocking an additional 766 unrelated sites.
AT&T: From 2007–2009, AT&T forced Apple to block Skype and other competing VOIP phone services on the iPhone. The wireless provider wanted to prevent iPhone users from using any application that would allow them to make calls on such “over-the-top” voice services. The Google Voice app received similar treatment from carriers like AT&T when it came on the scene in 2009.
WINDSTREAM: In 2010, Windstream Communications, a DSL provider with more than 1 million customers, copped to hijacking user-search queries made using the Google toolbar within Firefox. Users who believed they had set the browser to the search engine of their choice were redirected to Windstream’s own search portal and results.
MetroPCS: In 2011, MetroPCS, at the time one of the top five U.S. wireless carriers, announced plans to block streaming video over its 4G network from all sources except YouTube. MetroPCS then threw its weight behind Verizon’s court challenge against the FCC’s Open Internet Order, hoping that rejection of the agency’s authority would allow it to continue its anti-consumer practices.
PAXFIRE: In 2011, the Electronic Frontier Foundation found several small ISPs were redirecting search queries via the vendor Paxfire. The ISPs identified in the initial Electronic Frontier Foundation report included Cavalier, Cogent, Frontier, Fuse, DirecPC, RCN and Wide Open West. Paxfire would intercept an Internet user’s search request at Bing and Yahoo and redirect it to another page. By skipping over the search service’s results, the participating ISPs would collect referral fees for delivering users to select websites.
AT&T, SPRINT & VERIZON: From 2011–2013, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon blocked Google Wallet, a mobile payment system that competed with a similar service called Isis, which all three companies had a stake in developing.
EUROPE: A 2012 report from the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications found that violations of Net Neutrality affect at least one in five users in Europe. The report found that blocked or slowed connections to services like VOIP, peer-to-peer technologies, gaming applications and email were commonplace.
VERIZON: In 2012, the FCC caught Verizon Wireless blocking people from using tethering applications on their phones. Verizon had asked Google to remove 11 free tethering applications from the Android marketplace. These applications allowed users to circumvent Verizon’s $20 tethering fee and turn their smartphones into Wi-Fi hotspots. By blocking those applications, Verizon violated a Net Neutrality pledge it made to the FCC as a condition of the 2008 airwaves auction.
AT&T: In 2012, AT&T announced that it would disable the FaceTime video-calling app on its customers’ iPhones unless they subscribed to a more expensive text-and-voice plan. AT&T had one goal in mind: separating customers from more of their money by blocking alternatives to AT&T’s own products.
VERIZON: During oral arguments in Verizon v. FCC, judges asked whether the phone giant would favor some preferred services, content or sites over others if the court overruled the agency’s Open Internet Order. Verizon counsel Helgi Walker had this to say: “I’m authorized to state from my client today that but for these rules we would be exploring those types of arrangements.” Walker’s admission might have gone unnoticed had she not repeated it on at least five separate occasions during arguments.
The court struck down the FCC’s rules in January 2014 — and in May FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler released a proposal that would allow discrimination online.
Since then millions have urged the FCC to reclassify broadband providers as common carriers. This is the only approach that would enable the agency to create and enforce strong Net Neutrality protections.
In the absence of any rules, violations of the open Internet will become more and more common.
Don’t believe me? Let history be the guide.
But like you said, I must be pants-on-head crazy to think that they would keep on doing what they are already doing...
Better yet, it must be pants on head crazy that the problem would become worse once it ceased being against the rules, and even worse, they'd start using their monopoly to raise prices on everybody.
Does no one remember the Netflix vs Comcast fight from a few years ago? Comcast, upset that people were using their service (you know, cable internet service) to access their Netflix subscriptions to watch movies, Comcast told Netflix they wanted more money or they'd throttle the speed at which they delivered Netflix's content.
Comcast did so, and Netflix now pays Comcast more money.
In the area in which I live, if you want faster-than-DSL internet, Comcast is your *only* option. If I wanted to give Comcast the big middle finger, they have no competition in my area, which denies me, the consumer, any meaningful choice in the matter. Yes, I could go with DSL speeds, but that's not really competitive against cable, now, is it?
Three...
This is the United States of America. We are the wealthiest and most powerful nation on the planet. Internet access is virtually a requirement in our society, for education, for commerce, for managing finances, for work, for entertainment... face it, the internet is simply a fact of life in America. It *should* be considered a utility, available to every American, and just as my power company cannot tell me what I am or am not allowed to plug into my wall-socket, the ISP should have no right to tell me what I can and cannot access on my data connection.
Prestor Jon wrote: http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshsteimle/2014/05/14/am-i-the-only-techie-against-net-neutrality/
I Want More Competition
Proponents of Net Neutrality say the telecoms have too much power. I agree. Everyone seems to agree that monopolies are bad and competition is good, and just like you, I would like to see more competition. But if monopolies are bad, why should we trust the U.S. government, the largest monopoly of all? We’re talking about the same organization that spent an amount equal to Facebook’s first six years of operating costs to build a health care website that doesn’t work, the same organization that can’t keep the country’s bridges from falling down, and the same organization that spends 320 times what private industry spends to send a rocket into space.
These are some remarkable bad arguments.
1.) Yes, monopolies are bad, and competition is good, but then there is a diatribe about how much "government sucks" without in any way explaining how allowing giant corporate entities to control even more of our infrastructure will allow more competition. It's just that the government is probably worse!
2.) What is this nonsense about the government unable to keep bridges from collapsing? Lets pretend for a second that bridges aren't almost always under the control and maintenance of a state government, and those same state governments don't control the FCC. I mean yeah, only a fool would accept that premise, but screw it, lets do it anyway. Is there some epidemic of bridge collapses I'm unaware of? This country has over 600,000 bridges, and in the last 14 years there have been 16 bridge collapses. Out of those 16, the vast majority were due to some extreme externality - like a barge hitting it, or a construction accident when working on the bridge. Only one accident can be fairly be laid at the fault of design - the big one we all saw on the news. So the argument that while Comcast and Verizon double-dipping is bad, the government is worse because they can't keep tornados from hitting a bridge built in 1882 is sort of laughable.
Why not argue the goverment can't control interstate commerce because they can't even protect us from dying from beestings? It's a better argument, because bees killed more people last year alone than bridge collapses caused in the last 14.
3.) Yeah, the private space industry can rockets into space less expensively now than the government does. Gee, do you think the fact they didn't have to do 53 years of R&D on their designs might have influenced that number a bit?
And again, even though this article is premised on the fact that the reader is a useful idiot and won't dig into the facts at all, screw it, lets do that anyway.
The 320x figure is comparing SpaceX's Dragon capsure to the NASA Orion. It's not exactly an apples to apples comparison. The Dragon is an uncrewed module that tows stuff to the ISS and can go to the moon - the Dragon v2 will carry crew. That's pretty cool. The Orion can also carry crew, too, and also go to the moon. However, the Dragon v2's design that carries crew hasn't yet been finished - it's first flight will be in 2016. So we really don't know how much less it costs because it hasn't yet been finished.
Additionally, the Orion has other missions planned than lunar. It might go retrieve an asteroid. It might go to Mars. That's TBD, but it's a multipurpose platform with a lot of modular components. That's why the Orion is so much heavier - it's 50,000lbs / 25 tons (as opposed to the Dragon's 9,000lbs / 4.5 tons, and Dragon vs2's estimated - but not yet determined - 8 tons). Now, I'm not a rocket scientist, but I did play some Kerbal Space Program a few times, and it seemed the bigger and heavier something was, the more difficult and expensive it is to launch it into space.
But hey, the government is bad! That's the important thing!
However, the idea that creating a "fast lane" is going to be a bad thing is crazy pants imo.
For the hundredth thousandth time: there is no such thing as a fast lane in internet infrastructure! The only way that the cable companies will be able to create a "fast lane" is by making every non-paying content provider go slower and the paying content providers will get to keep their current speed.
However, the idea that creating a "fast lane" is going to be a bad thing is crazy pants imo.
For the hundredth thousandth time: there is no such thing as a fast lane in internet infrastructure! The only way that the cable companies will be able to create a "fast lane" is by making every non-paying content provider go slower and the paying content providers will get to keep their current speed.
It's called " paid prioritization " in a "peering agreemment/content delivery' model.
The debate is misdirected imo...
Here's a great image:
What we reallybe doing is looking for ways we can increase competition among ISPs & companies providing Peering / Content Delivery arraignments.
That image doesn't have anything to do with the concept of net neutrality that is in discussion and is nothing but an obvious attempt to muddy the debate by the part of the cable companies...
Peering agreements have existed for almost 10 years but the issue isn't and never was about peering agreements, its about giving the cable companies the power to restrict or limit access to the backbones themselves unless they get paid more.
PhantomViper wrote: That image doesn't have anything to do with the concept of net neutrality that is in discussion and is nothing but an obvious attempt to muddy the debate by the part of the cable companies...
Peering agreements have existed for almost 10 years but the issue isn't and never was about peering agreements, its about giving the cable companies the power to restrict or limit access to the backbones themselves unless they get paid more.
PhantomViper wrote: That image doesn't have anything to do with the concept of net neutrality that is in discussion and is nothing but an obvious attempt to muddy the debate by the part of the cable companies...
Peering agreements have existed for almost 10 years but the issue isn't and never was about peering agreements, its about giving the cable companies the power to restrict or limit access to the backbones themselves unless they get paid more.
PhantomViper wrote: That image doesn't have anything to do with the concept of net neutrality that is in discussion and is nothing but an obvious attempt to muddy the debate by the part of the cable companies...
Peering agreements have existed for almost 10 years but the issue isn't and never was about peering agreements, its about giving the cable companies the power to restrict or limit access to the backbones themselves unless they get paid more.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
You could have written it in Comic Sans.
Dammit, you made me laugh in the middle of a lecture .
Fast lanes are really not the problem. The problem is separate charges for individual site, slowing service for certain sites, and things akin to that.
Co'tor Shas wrote: Fast lanes are really not the problem. The problem is separate charges for individual site, slowing service for certain sites, and things akin to that.
I'm not saying that ISP are not dicks sometimes (they are).
I'm arguing that more regulation isn't the answer in this case.
Co'tor Shas wrote: Fast lanes are really not the problem. The problem is separate charges for individual site, slowing service for certain sites, and things akin to that.
I'm not saying that ISP are not dicks sometimes (they are).
I'm arguing that more regulation isn't the answer in this case.
whembly wrote: It has everything to do with Net Neutrality...
Because peering agreements / Content Delivery agreements IS THE FAST LANE!
But that is not what the cable companies are arguing for, they can already make peering agreements with whomever they wan't. And read the article, peering technology only really helps with high traffic providers, it doesn't make them faster than low-traffic providers it just makes them run at the same speed.
The term "fast lane" in itself is a false talking point, because what they wan't isn't the ability to make peering agreements with content providers, like I said, those have been common for almost 10 years now, what they wan't is the power to restrict access to content providers that they don't have a peering agreement with!
They don't wan't to create "fast lanes", they wan't to slow everyone else down.
Co'tor Shas wrote: Fast lanes are really not the problem. The problem is separate charges for individual site, slowing service for certain sites, and things akin to that.
I'm not saying that ISP are not dicks sometimes (they are).
I'm arguing that more regulation isn't the answer in this case.
What is the answer then?
By looking for ways we can prevent the Comcasts and the Verizons of the world from gaining so much power, such that they can completely control the market for internet bandwidth. Competition,imo, is the best way to stop these types of extreme behavior.
Breakup Comcast/Cox to Baby-Cast/Cox?
I'm MOREworried about Comcast owning Contents as well, than being just a service provider.
The Obama administration tried and the courts ruled against them TWICE.
The facts remains is that if they're going to be regulated like public utilities, it'll take an act from Congress.
*That said, this is NOT what I had in mind for Republican to "draw the line in the sand". And, imo, it'll be disasterous if Cable companies were regulated like utilities.
Fat chance that'll happen.
The courts ruled against them twice because of their specific status as not classified as "Public utilities". IIRC, the courts even said that could change if they were put under a new classification as public utilities. Also, AFAIK, it doesn't take an act of Congress to change the status to public utilities, merely a decision by the FCC.
You can repeat the "spanked twice" as often as you want, but it doesn't tell the whole story.
Unless I'm missing something (entirely possible I admit) the FCC could make the internet a public utility on it's own. That's what I'm hoping for. The internet is as integeral to most American's life now as the phone was 20 years ago. It's time it's status reflected that.
I do think we agree though that breaking up internet companies is a good step though.
Prestor Jon wrote: http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshsteimle/2014/05/14/am-i-the-only-techie-against-net-neutrality/
I Want More Competition
Proponents of Net Neutrality say the telecoms have too much power. I agree. Everyone seems to agree that monopolies are bad and competition is good, and just like you, I would like to see more competition. But if monopolies are bad, why should we trust the U.S. government, the largest monopoly of all? We’re talking about the same organization that spent an amount equal to Facebook’s first six years of operating costs to build a health care website that doesn’t work, the same organization that can’t keep the country’s bridges from falling down, and the same organization that spends 320 times what private industry spends to send a rocket into space.
These are some remarkable bad arguments.
1.) Yes, monopolies are bad, and competition is good, but then there is a diatribe about how much "government sucks" without in any way explaining how allowing giant corporate entities to control even more of our infrastructure will allow more competition. It's just that the government is probably worse!
2.) What is this nonsense about the government unable to keep bridges from collapsing? Lets pretend for a second that bridges aren't almost always under the control and maintenance of a state government, and those same state governments don't control the FCC. I mean yeah, only a fool would accept that premise, but screw it, lets do it anyway. Is there some epidemic of bridge collapses I'm unaware of? This country has over 600,000 bridges, and in the last 14 years there have been 16 bridge collapses. Out of those 16, the vast majority were due to some extreme externality - like a barge hitting it, or a construction accident when working on the bridge. Only one accident can be fairly be laid at the fault of design - the big one we all saw on the news. So the argument that while Comcast and Verizon double-dipping is bad, the government is worse because they can't keep tornados from hitting a bridge built in 1882 is sort of laughable.
Why not argue the goverment can't control interstate commerce because they can't even protect us from dying from beestings? It's a better argument, because bees killed more people last year alone than bridge collapses caused in the last 14.
3.) Yeah, the private space industry can rockets into space less expensively now than the government does. Gee, do you think the fact they didn't have to do 53 years of R&D on their designs might have influenced that number a bit?
And again, even though this article is premised on the fact that the reader is a useful idiot and won't dig into the facts at all, screw it, lets do that anyway.
The 320x figure is comparing SpaceX's Dragon capsure to the NASA Orion. It's not exactly an apples to apples comparison. The Dragon is an uncrewed module that tows stuff to the ISS and can go to the moon - the Dragon v2 will carry crew. That's pretty cool. The Orion can also carry crew, too, and also go to the moon. However, the Dragon v2's design that carries crew hasn't yet been finished - it's first flight will be in 2016. So we really don't know how much less it costs because it hasn't yet been finished.
Additionally, the Orion has other missions planned than lunar. It might go retrieve an asteroid. It might go to Mars. That's TBD, but it's a multipurpose platform with a lot of modular components. That's why the Orion is so much heavier - it's 50,000lbs / 25 tons (as opposed to the Dragon's 9,000lbs / 4.5 tons, and Dragon vs2's estimated - but not yet determined - 8 tons). Now, I'm not a rocket scientist, but I did play some Kerbal Space Program a few times, and it seemed the bigger and heavier something was, the more difficult and expensive it is to launch it into space.
But hey, the government is bad! That's the important thing!
Reading it, it was clearly written from a heavily-biased libertarian perspective (rather than techno-geek like he opens the article saying). The arguments just didn't make a lot of sense, and you know things are getting silly as soon as the founding fathers are mentioned...
Remember... Wheeler got appointed by Obama himself. He was also a major bundler for Obama’s presidential campaign and served on his transition team, too. 'Tis how he got that job after all...
It’s not as if Wheeler is just some faceless bureaucrat far below Obama’s radar.
Makes you wonder if Obama ever bothered to touch base with his own adviser and appointee in this matter. But, this is what you get for electing a community-organizer.
Rule changes being considered by U.S. regulators could shape the next generation of online services.
If you’re like most people, your monthly smartphone bill is steep enough to make you shudder. As consumers’ appetite for connectivity keeps growing, the price of wireless service in the United States tops $130 a month in many households.
Two years ago Mung Chiang, a professor of electrical engineering at Princeton, believed he could give customers more control. One simple adjustment would clear the way for lots of mobile-phone users to get as much data as they already did, and in some cases even more, on cheaper terms. Carriers could win, too, by nudging customers to reduce peak-period traffic, making some costly network upgrades unnecessary. “We thought we could increase the benefits for everyone,” Chiang recalls.
Chiang’s plan called for the wireless industry to offer its customers the same types of variable pricing that have brought new efficiencies to transportation and utilities. Rates increase during peak periods, when congestion is at its worst; they decrease during slack periods. In the pre-smartphone era, it would have been impossible to advise users ahead of time about a zig or zag in their connectivity charges. Now, it would be straightforward to vary the price of online access depending on congestion and build an app that let bargain hunters shift their activities to cheaper periods, even on a minute-by-minute basis. When prices were high, consumers could put off non-urgent tasks like downloading Facebook posts to read later. Careful users could save a lot of money.
Excited about the prospects, Chiang patented his key concepts. He formed a company, now known as DataMi, to build the necessary software. Venture capitalists and angel investors put $6 million into the company. A seasoned wireless executive, Harjot Saluja, signed on to be the chief executive, while prominent people such as Reed Hundt, a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, joined DataMi’s advisory board. Everything seemed aligned for Chiang and Saluja as they set out to make “smart data pricing” a reality.
Today, DataMi’s variable pricing idea is on ice. The startup has regrouped in favor of other services, including one that helps businesses calculate how much of their employees’ cell-phone bills should be reimbursed because of work-related usage. The reasons for the switch have little with DataMi’s technical ability to make good on the promise of variable pricing. In early user tests, it delivered everything that DataMi’s patents predicted.
But politics got in the way.
A huge debate has erupted about the degree to which Internet carriers should be subject to a concept known as net neutrality. In its simplest form, the idea is that Internet service providers such as AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon shouldn’t offer preferential treatment to certain types of content. Instead, they should send everything to their customers with their “best efforts”—as fast as they can manage. Nobody can pay your ISP for a “fast lane” to your house. Carriers can’t show favoritism toward any of their own services or applications. And nobody providing lawful content can be slowed or blocked.
At this point, net neutrality is only a principle and not a law. Though the FCC put an ambiguously worded version on the books in 2010, it was struck down this year by a federal district court. But now, as the FCC is deliberating how to redo the policy, it’s facing passionate demands to restore and possibly even tighten the rules, giving ISPs even less leeway to engage in what regulators have typically called “reasonable network management.”
Until about a year ago, Chiang and his colleagues thought their data-pricing idea had so much common-sense appeal that no one would regard it as an assault on net neutrality—even though it would let carriers charge people more for constant access. But then, as the debate heated up, everything got trickier. Ardent defenders of net neutrality began painting ever darker pictures of how the Internet could suffer if anyone treated anyone’s traffic differently. Even though Chiang and Saluja saw variable pricing as pro-consumer, they had no lobbyists or legal team and decided they couldn’t afford a drawn-out battle to establish that they weren’t on the wrong side.
For network engineers, DataMi’s about-face isn’t an isolated example. They fear that overly strict net neutrality rules could limit their ability to reconfigure the Internet so it can handle rapidly growing traffic loads.
Dipankar Raychaudhuri, who studies telecom issues as a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rutgers University, points out that the Internet never has been entirely neutral. Wireless networks, for example, have been built for many years with features that help identify users whose weak connections are impairing the network with slow traffic and incessant requests for dropped packets to be resent. Carriers’ technology assures that such users’ access is rapidly constrained, so that one person’s bad connection doesn’t create a traffic jam for everyone. In such situations, strict adherence to net neutrality goes by the wayside: one user’s experience is degraded so that hundreds of others don’t suffer. As Raychaudhuri sees it, the Internet has been able to progress because net neutrality has been treated as one of many objectives that can be balanced against one another. If net neutrality becomes completely inviolable, it’s a different story. Inventors’ hands are tied. Other types of progress become harder.
Rather than debate such subtleties, net neutrality’s loudest boosters have been staging a series of simplistic—but highly entertaining—skits in an effort to rally the public to their side. In September, popular websites such as Reddit and Kickstarter simulated page-loading debacles as a way of getting visitors to believe that if net neutrality isn’t enacted, the Internet could slow to a crawl. That argument has been picked up by TV comedians such as Jimmy Kimmel, who showed a track meet in which the best sprinters represented cable companies with their own fast lanes. A stumbling buffoon in his underwear portrayed the shabby delivery standards that everyone else would endure.
Even President Barack Obama has been publicly reminding regulators of his commitment to net neutrality. In August he declared, “You don’t want to start getting a differentiation in how accessible the Internet is to different users. You want to leave it open so the next Google and the next Facebook can succeed.”
Clearly, most Americans aren’t happy with their Internet service. It costs more to get online in the United States than just about anywhere else in the developed world, according to a 2013 survey by the New America Foundation. In fact, U.S. service is sometimes twice as expensive as what’s available in Europe—and slower, too. Meanwhile, the University of Michigan found in a recent public survey that U.S. Internet service providers rank dead last in customer satisfaction scores against 42 other industries. Specific failings range from unreliable service to dismal call-center performance.
With lots of U.S. consumers wanting the government to do something about Internet service, strengthening net neutrality feels like a way to do it. Given that most Internet providers are urging the FCC to let this principle disappear from the books, it’s natural to call for the opposite approach. Yet that would probably be the wrong move. It’s possible to overdose on something even as benign-sounding as neutrality.
Bitstreams
The two sides in the net neutrality debate sometimes seem to speak two different languages, rooted in two different ways of seeing the Internet. Their contrasting perspectives reflect the fact that the Internet arose in an ad hoc fashion; there is no Internet constitution to cite.
Nonetheless, many legal scholars like to point to their equivalent of the Federalist Papers: a 1981 article by computer scientists Jerome Saltzer, David Reed, and David Clark. The authors’ ambitions for that paper (“End-to-End Arguments in System Design”) had been modest: to lay out technical reasons why tasks such as error correction should be performed at the edges, or end points, of the network—where the users are—rather than at the core. In other words, ISPs should operate “dumb pipes” that merely pass traffic along. This paper took on a remarkable second life as the Internet grew. In his 2000 book Code, a discussion of how to regulate the Internet, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig said the lack of centralized control embodied in the 1981 end-to-end principle was “one of the most important reasons that the Internet produced the innovation and growth that it has enjoyed.”
Tim Wu built on that idea in a 2002 article published when he was a law professor at the University of Virginia. In that and subsequent papers, he wrote that the end-to-end principle stimulated innovation because it made possible “a Darwinian competition among every conceivable use of the Internet so that only the best survive.” To promote that competition, he said, “network neutrality” would be necessary to eliminate bias for or against any particular application.
Wu acknowledged that this was a new concept, with “unavoidable vagueness” about the dividing line between allowable network-management decisions and impermissible bias. But he expressed hope that others would refine his idea and make it more precise.
That never happened. The line remains as blurry as ever, which is one reason the debate over net neutrality is so intense.
Barbara van Schewick, a leading Internet scholar at Stanford and a former member of Lessig’s research team, expresses concern that if profit-hungry companies are left unfettered to choose how to handle various types of traffic, they “will continue to change the internal structure of the Internet in ways that are good for them, but not necessarily for the rest of us.” She warns of the perils of letting Internet providers promote their own versions of popular services (such as Internet messaging or Internet telephony) while degrading or blocking customers’ ability to use independent services (such as WhatsApp in messaging or Skype in telephony). Such practices have occasionally popped up in Germany and other European markets, but they have rarely been seen in the United States, a disparity that van Schewick credits to the FCC’s explicit or implicit commitments to net neutrality.
Internet service providers such as AT&T have publicly insisted that they wouldn’t ever rig their networks to promote their own applications, because such obvious favoritism would cause customers to cancel service en masse. Skeptics counter that in many locales, consumers have little choice but to stick with their current broadband provider, because there is barely any competition.
Van Schewick also argues that it would be a mistake to let the likes of AT&T or Comcast charge independent content and service creators (including Internet telephony providers such as Skype or Vonage) to secure the best possible access to end users. Though such access fees exist in other industries—cereal and toothpaste companies, for example, pay “slotting fees” to major grocers in order to get optimal shelf space in stores—van Schewick warns that charging such fees to online companies would “make it more difficult for entrepreneurs to get outside funding.” In other recent writings, she has said it would be ill-advised to let carriers decide without input from customers whether to optimize different versions of their services for different types of traffic, such as video versus speech and text.
But while van Schewick and other advocates are trying to promote an “open Internet,” codifying too many overarching principles for the Internet makes many engineers uncomfortable. In their view, the network is a constant work in progress, requiring endless pragmatism. Its backbone is constantly being torn apart and rebuilt. The best means of connecting various networks with one another are always in flux.
“You can’t change congestion by passing net neutrality or doing that kind of thing,” says Tom Leighton, cofounder and chief executive of Akamai Technologies. His company has been speeding Internet traffic since the late 1990s, chiefly by providing more than 150,000 servers around the world that make it possible for content creators to store their most-demanded material as close to their various users as possible. It’s the kind of advance in network management that helped the Internet survive the huge increases in traffic over the last two decades. To keep traffic humming online, Leighton says, “you’re going to need technology.”
A central tenet of net neutrality is that “best efforts” should be applied equally when transmitting every packet moving through the Internet, regardless of who the sender, recipient, or carriers might be. But that principle merely freezes the setup of the Internet as it existed nearly a quarter-century ago, says Michael Katz, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, who has worked for the FCC and consulted for Verizon. “You can say that every bit is a bit,” Katz adds, “but every bitstream isn’t the same bitstream.” Video and voice transmissions are highly vulnerable to errors, delays, and packet loss. Data transmissions can survive rougher handling. If some consumers want their Internet connections to deliver ultrahigh-resolution movies with perfect fidelity, those people would be better served, Katz argues, by more flexible arrangements that might indeed prioritize video. Efficiency might be more desirable than a strict adherence to equity for all bits.
House of Cards
About a year ago, Netflix’s customers noticed something disquieting when they tried to stream popular shows such as House of Cards. Their download speeds became annoyingly slow and some shows wouldn’t load at all, regardless of whether these customers relied on Time Warner Cable, Verizon, AT&T, or Comcast. Network congestion had taken hold—with transmission speeds dropping as much as 30 percent, according to Netflix’s own data. Last March, Netflix’s CEO, Reed Hastings, lashed out at the major U.S. Internet service providers, accusing them of constraining Netflix’s performance and pressuring his company to pay big interconnection fees.
Over the next few months, Netflix and its allies portrayed this slowdown as an example of cable companies’ most selfish behavior. In communications with the FCC, Netflix called for a “strong version” of net neutrality that would block the companies from charging fees to online service providers. In his blog, Hastings declared that net neutrality must be “defended and strengthened … to ensure the Internet remains humanity’s most important platform for progress.”
But the situation isn’t as black-and-white as Hastings’s indignant posts suggested.
For many years, high-volume sites run by Facebook, YouTube, Apple, and the like have been negotiating arrangements with many companies that ferry data to your Internet service provider—backbone operators, transit providers, and content delivery networks—to ensure that the most popular content is distributed as smoothly as possible. Often, this means paying a company such as Akamai to stash copies of highly in-demand content on multiple servers all over the world, so that a stampede for World Cup highlights creates as little strain as possible on the overall Internet.
There’s no standard way that these distribution arrangements are negotiated. Sometimes no money changes hands. In other situations, content companies pay for distribution. In theory, distribution companies could pay for content. In Netflix’s case, as demand has skyrocketed for its movies and TV shows, the company has negotiated a wide range of ways to help route its content around the Internet as efficiently as possible.
As Ars Technica reported earlier this year, Netflix started to realign its distribution methods in mid-2013. As its traffic soared, that created greater demands on all the Internet service providers that needed to handle House of Cards and its kin. By some estimates, Netflix last year was accounting for as much as one-third of all U.S. Internet traffic on Friday evenings. One of Netflix’s distribution allies (Level 3) restructured its terms with Comcast, reflecting the expenses associated with extra network connections, known as peering points, that Comcast needed to install in order to handle this rising traffic. Another (Cogent Communications) balked at the idea of defraying Comcast’s costs, and as a result, additional connections from Cogent to Comcast weren’t installed.
The result: Netflix’s videos began to stutter. In the short term, Netflix resolved the problem by paying for more of the peering points that carriers such as Comcast and Verizon required. More strategically, Netflix is arranging to put its servers in Internet service providers’ facilities, providing them with easier access to its content.
In the long run, carriers and content companies are likely to keep tussling about the ways they connect—simply because these are the sorts of business contracts that must be revisited as circumstances change. That’s why Hundt, FCC chairman from 1993 to 1997, says it’s a mistake to portray Netflix’s scuffle with the carriers as a critical test of the neutrality principle. It’s more like a routine business dispute, he says. “This is a battle between the rich and the wealthy,” he adds. “Both sides will have to figure out, on their own, how to get along.”
Hundt says the Netflix fight shouldn’t distract regulators who are trying to figure out the best way to keep the Internet open. They should be focusing, he says, on making sure that everyday customers are getting high-speed Internet as cheaply and reliably as possible, and that small-time publishers of Internet content can distribute their work. It’s worth noting that much of the lobbying in favor of net neutrality is coming from large, publicly traded companies that make momentary allusions to the well-being of garage-type startups but are mainly focused on disputes that apply to the Internet’s biggest players. A tiny video startup doesn’t generate enough volume to force Comcast to install extra peering points.
Zero Rating
In the rest of the world, where net neutrality is not insisted on, innovative approaches to wireless Internet pricing are catching on. At the top of the list is “zero rating,” in which consumers are allowed to try certain applications without incurring any bandwidth-usage charges. The app providers usually pay the wireless carriers to offer that access as a way of building up their market share in a hurry.
In much of Africa, people with limited usage plans can enjoy free access to Facebook or Wikipedia this way. In Europe, many music-streaming sites have hammered out arrangements with various wireless carriers in which zero-rating promotions become a major means of marketing. In China and South Korea, subsidized wireless options are springing up too. Such arrangements can help hold down mobile-phone bills and possibly even get people online for the first time.
In the United States, T-Mobile lets customers tap into a half-dozen music sites, such as Pandora and Spotify, without incurring usage charges. And AT&T has been experimenting with zero rating. But overall, things are moving slowly.
Consumers around the globe may find zero rating delightful, but net neutrality champions such as Jeremy Malcolm, senior global policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, object on principle because it lets content providers pay carriers for access to consumers. In his view, carriers can’t be trusted in any situation that involves special deals for certain services.
When Tim Wu talked about net neutrality a decade ago, he framed it as a way of ensuring maximum competition on the Internet. But in the current debate, that rationale is in danger of being coöpted into a protectionist defense of the status quo. If there’s anything the Internet’s evolution has taught us, it’s that innovation comes rapidly, and in unexpected ways. We need a net neutrality strategy that prevents the big Internet service providers from abusing their power—but still allows them to optimize the Internet for the next wave of innovation and efficiency.
Co'tor Shas wrote: Fast lanes are really not the problem. The problem is separate charges for individual site, slowing service for certain sites, and things akin to that.
I'm not saying that ISP are not dicks sometimes (they are).
I'm arguing that more regulation isn't the answer in this case.
What is the answer then?
By looking for ways we can prevent the Comcasts and the Verizons of the world from gaining so much power, such that they can completely control the market for internet bandwidth. Competition,imo, is the best way to stop these types of extreme behavior.
Breakup Comcast/Cox to Baby-Cast/Cox?
I'm MOREworried about Comcast owning Contents as well, than being just a service provider.
... isn't that just another form of regulation? The government invokes its anti-monopoly laws and directs a company to fragment.
To put it a different way, you know the President appoints (and has confirmed) the Attorney General, but you also know that the President can't just tell the AG to make some case disappear, right? It's the same principle.
I find that a bit disingenuous, because I don't know how anyone who thinks about how companies like Google interface with ISPs could arrive at the first conclusion.
What we reallybe doing is looking for ways we can increase competition among ISPs & companies providing Peering / Content Delivery arraignments.
Peering and CDNs by their very nature benefit ISPs with established, regional monopolies (or near monopolies) by enabling them to force companies like Google to partner with them exclusively if they want to generate the maximum amount of revenue from programs like AdSense. This makes it much more difficult for service providers without an established infrastructure in the region to move into that region.
I guess you might be able to bust ISP monopolies, but that still leaves peering and CDNs to restrict competition when the newly founded corporations, which were formerly elements of a single corporation, work to reach those agreements.
I find that a bit disingenuous, because I don't know how anyone who thinks about how companies like Google interface with ISPs could arrive at the first conclusion.
What we reallybe doing is looking for ways we can increase competition among ISPs & companies providing Peering / Content Delivery arraignments.
Peering and CDNs by their very nature benefit ISPs with established, regional monopolies (or near monopolies) by enabling them to force companies like Google to partner with them exclusively if they want to generate the maximum amount of revenue from programs like AdSense. This makes it much more difficult for service providers without an established infrastructure in the region to move into that region.
I guess you might be able to bust ISP monopolies, but that still leaves peering and CDNs to restrict competition when the newly founded corporations, which were formerly elements of a single corporation, work to reach those agreements.
It ain't pretty, I'll give you that.
I'd still say the issue is primarily ISP who also owns "contents" (looking at Comcast/Verizon)... that's an obvious conflict of interest to me.
I don't know anyone who has thought about the way Google interfaces with an ISP that arrived at conclusion 1, even my ~60 year old mother knows better. I would say people who don't think about the relevant matter are the ones who arrive at conclusion 1, because it is easily sold.
).
them hard. 
