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Net neutrality under attack again.
Eteric
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[Yesterday, Republicans in Congress introduced a "resolution" in both chambers that would give phone and cable companies absolute, unrestricted power over Internet speech.
Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and John Ensign (R-Nevada) introduced the “resolution of disapproval” on Wednesday. It already has 39 Republican cosponsors. On the House side, Reps. Fred Upton (R-Michigan) and Greg Walden (R-Oregon) are pushing similar measure.
This arcane proceeding under the "Congressional Review Act" would strip the Federal Communications Commission of its authority to speak freely online... at a time when phone and cable giants are already restricting our ability to connect with others and share information.
The resolution is moving quickly through the House. If their resolution passes, the FCC would not just be barred from enforcing its already weak Net Neutrality rule, but also from acting in any way to protect Internet users against corporate abuses by AT&T, Comcast and Verizon.
This is not a symbolic congressional exercise — it's a scorched-earth campaign that leaves Americans at the mercy of a corporate cartel.
We can stop this resolution when it moves to the Senate by getting 51 members to stand with us for online freedom. If we don’t act, we’ll gravely regret it.
Imagine a world where these companies are allowed to do anything they want, ban any speech they don't like, charge anything they can get away with, hold commerce hostage to their profit margins. If this resolution passes, there's nothing anyone could do about it.
My God...
What the fuck is wrong with these people? And what can we actually do about it?
Eteric on
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Did that already.
http://www.randpaul2010.com/2011/02/senator-rand-paul-co-sponsors-resolution-of-disapproval-to-repeal-net-neutrality/
WHERE ARE THE JOBS, REPUBLICANS????
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The absurd thing is that there are conservative things which could be done to help create jobs. You could create some tax incentives to hire full time workers and so on. I don't know why the republicans aren't attacking there where their plans make a bit of sense to everyone rather than here where they are simply wrong. Yes, comcast thinks you are right but at least right now a lot of people can see the news online to see the problems with this bill.
I hope you're right. : /
It's probably dead in the EU too. Telefonica, DT, FT and co have pretty much bought the way the conversation on the topic goes in the political circles and the press. Probably the Scandinavian countries could hold on for a bit, but even then it may be more just a case of Finland as a last bastion.
Fuck corporations.
I hope Google gets into the business one day. I heard they were trying, but they need to hurry the fuck up.
If google starts up a viable ISP, you can bet your rear that the same companies demanding the government get the hell out of their business will be demanding an antitrust investigation
Netflix will feel temporary pain until they decide on which ISP they want to be purchased by to act as their content wing. Amazon wouldn't have too much trouble either.
Really it's only Google that's at odds with this and that's because having a reliable way to search for something you want on the entire internet is at odds with the ISP's desire to hide any content they aren't charging you extra for. That and Google's entire business model is built around trying to extract money from companies instead of users, and we just simply cannot have that!
Corporations are also allowed, nay encouraged, to bribe politicians thanks to the Supreme Court.
Like my mom, she hates the idea that the internet could be controlled in any way, she thinks that all the information should be spread as it likes. For some reason she thinks that Net Neutrality is a scheme for the government to try and take control of the internet.
What happened when you told her Net Neutrality is supposed to be the exact opposite?
You know, the "Neutrality" bit?
My mom,as smart as she is has the flaw of once she makes a judgment, pretty much the only thing that will change her mind is if God Himself comes down and tells her to change it.
So unless the Second Coming happens soon that won't be happening.
But what if it doesnt?
Im really tempted to stop paying attention to things since all it does it make me angry. Or sad. Or angrysad.
If you like limited bandwidth, packet loss and a free and equally shitty internet experience for everybody then net neutrality is for you.
EDIT: You know what? Nevermind.
I thought this was debate and discourse. Not rah rah lefty echo chamber.
It's certainly conceivable that there will be technologies built that will need prioritized information distribution. I don't know what they are yet, but I could imagine a lot. I kinda like the idea of doctors being able to buy a premium internet connection so they could use extra-sensitive equipment remotely.
I don't really worry about a provider banning Netflix, so long as new entrants into the market are allowed. I think the "no tell internet provider" (the one that doesn't care what you use your bandwidth for and keeps that information private) would be very successful.
Isnt the maintenance of the interstate left to the states?
Given it'd be idiotic for anyone else to run either of those, yes it is for me.
Except thats not how ISPs operate. Theyre given their own mini monopolies since the cost of laying cable is so prohibitive that if the states didnt allow/create these mini monopolies there would be no internet ultrastructure (since whats the point of laying the cable if the person just goes with a competitor?).
Before you bring up Verizon and Fios, theyve stopped expanding their network since it was getting too expensive.
As for DSL, that uses existing phone lines (which when they were laid were subject to the same restrictions as cable) and doesnt actually offer broadband speeds as defined by the government (4mb/s down, 1mb/s down), or at least it doesnt in most places.
Basically, there is no competition in this specific economy. If I want broadband I go with Time Warner, if I want something else I can go with ATT (maybe, Im not even sure if their uVerse thing is available where Im at, and Im in one of the largest cities in the US). Verizon Fios isnt available where Im at, Im not even sure if its available in my city. Verizon LTE, however is, but the performance isnt worth it.
Actually, the FCCs Net Neutrality was/is only going to apply to the wired internet. Wireless ISPs (like Verizon's LTE offerings) arent covered by what the FCC wants to do.
Very cute, but ultimately, I should have realized which way you'd go on this one. Shame on me.
That said, I'm not really down with telecoms gaining the ability to censor and remove things which offend them (or their partners). I may not trust government all that much, but that has more to do with incidental incompetence due to the way the bureaucratic process works and because it's more often than not compromised by corporate interest (outright bribery). This is mostly why I trust corporate entities far less--what they do, they do for profit and market share. In other words, their evil has a purpose, and it frequently involves the subversion of otherwise working systems inside government.
This reeks of that in a big way.
QoS, simplified greatly, basically means voice communication has a higher priority than video, and video has a higher priority than normal browsing. This is done to ensure that services that require a minimised amount of disruption to work correctly can do so (as VoIP call degredation is very obvious, whereas a few milliseconds more for a browser page isn't). This is done irrespective of the source, and is practised by protocol.
Network neutrality bars discrimination by the source of data, rather than type of data. This seems like subtle difference, but it is an extremely important one.
"Equally shitty service" is rather spurious, given that we already have a system whereby people and concent providers can buy better service. It's called paying for more bandwidth. I don't see how you derive some forced equality into this situation - users pay for faster services, content providers pay for larger pipes to provide their content, and the network providers use this money to pay for network upgrades and maintainance, with the extra being profit. It works now, and despite ISPs whinging because they want a bigger slice of the pie without doing their job of upgrading their networks as required, there is simply no defensible requirement for them to charge more when the user wants data from a specific content source (again, distinct from content type).
The users who use less can buy an el cheapo plan. People who want to watch vidoes and download large files buy faster plans. A small business who just wants to serve a little dinky company website can pay chump change to throw it up on the internet. A content-focused organization can pay a large amount of money for more bandwidth so more users can watch their content easily.
This works. This is the way things currently are. This worth defending.
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Why don't half the people here link to their initial stories? In this case maybe because its a copy-paste on 10-15 blogs (or possibly the government controlled media?). Oh, and PA is the leading Google return.
Second:
Here's the actual press release.
Lastly:
This is a resolution.
However, under the Congressional Review Act, joint resolutions (i.e resolutions passed in the house and senate) can be used to revert a government institution's regulations. In this case, the FCC's attempt at outlining some sort of concrete net neutrality boundaries in December. As a government agency the FCC is suprisingly vested in net neutrality, but they basically get stomped on legislatively and judicially at every turn.
(also the FCC regulation does have some restrictions on wireless networks ...it's just that they're very minimal compared to wired networks)
Really? Because I have massive qualms about providers banning Netflix, or whatever service they want to ban me from using that is a legal service, one reason being because of the second point I am going to make here.
Your possibility of the "no tell internet provider" right now does not exist in the United States. What exist right now are regional monopolies, with only two or three providers (most places with broadband service are lucky to have two)
So once a provider has that kind of power, their customers in that region are pretty much screwed. That's what Net Neutrality is supposed to do: Protect Consumers from power overreaches by the companies supplying a vital service
Actually, all of those horribly inconveniencing (and in no way certain) consequences of net neutrality are 100% totally worth it to me, as long as no one is censoring what information and sites I can access when I connect to the internet.
And before the argument "oh these companies would never do that because it would obviously hurt their business" is made, let me just preemptively say that whoever thinks that trusts corporations far far more than I do, and definitely more than anyone should.
The entire point is that without net neutrality, ISPs have ZERO accountability for f'ing with the data you receive from the internet, for any greedy/shady reason they feel like, and to me that is an unacceptable situation, regardless of how face-melting fast it would be otherwise.
I was of the belief that mandating NN would mean that providers could not discriminate based on QoS. Is this not the case?
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