An Open Internet is Essential for America

russ 4 months ago

This is very well put.

Other countries are now toying with making broadband a RIGHT, while in the United States we are fighting against powerful interests that would like to see it even more of a privilege.

ntom 4 months ago

Haha, well my internet works fine the way it is.
Go read the constitution of the United States of America
and you will see this is not right.
If the Goernment wants to get so big it will die
I don't want that.. do you?
The government should be smaller than it is and this is
another way to take our rights and in the long run it will
raise the cost of living in the United States of America.
Any tax will raise the cost of living.. means less food for me
and you will not be able to buy that toy.. What has the Government stepped into that has not ended up costing more than before they stepped in?????
The government has too much control and too many people
are depending on it. Remeber we came to this country to have freedom
depending on the government is not being free.
AGAIN: GO READ THE CONSTITUTION!!!!
And you that cannot read find someone to read it too you and explain the words.. it is your freedom they are trying to take.
FREE Go see what is really free... you will find.. NOTHING!!!!!

mattsampley 4 months ago

This all sounds great but the fact that it's the government that wants to be in charge of expanding the internet is just plain not right. It’s the tax payer that will end up paying the bill. Why are we comparing ourselves to Korea and Japan they may have a "better" network but do a quick search on “restrictions for Japan Internet users”. If the government pays for and then controls something it's only a matter of time before they start put restrictions on the American People taking even more of our freedom away.

ar103 4 months ago

What are you talking about?
The government is not trying to control or expand the internet. Nor are they paying for anything.

All these laws do is prevent privately owned companies, who are not accountable to the public, from limiting and controlling your internet access.

Can you imagine trying to log onto, for example, GOP.com one day and getting a blank page because your internet service provider, which is owned by a democratic activist, has been paid by the DNC to stifle republican communication?

ntom 4 months ago

ar103

First it is, the administration that stated.. they want control.. what does that mean?
the government wants control over the web.. means if they decide they do not want you to
see something you won't.. look at singapore they do not let the public get to US sites
they want to watch a US tv show they have to go on the web and search and then
they cannot get to see what they want.. IS THAT REALLY WHAT YOU WANT?
Right now if you do not like your ISP you can go to another one without any problems, unless you create your own.
What will happen if the government takes control? If you give the government control..
you do not know what will happen, and again I say FREEDOM IS MORE IMPORTANT TO ME
than to trust our government with my computer... I do not trust our government enough to let them take control.
THEY HAVE ENOUGH CONTROL ALREADY!!!!! Our Government is tooo big already!!!!!

amin 4 months ago

ntom, mattsampley, ar103-

I appreciate your feedback and opinions. I defend your right to have them.

Back to my analogy:

When the Interstate system was created, who paid for it? The Federal and State Governments did (90%,10%, respectively). Who did it benefit? Everyone.

ntom- You are right, taxes can raise the cost of living. However, if you made that same argument in the previous century in regards to the interstate, I seriously doubt that we would be the economic superpower we are today. The interstate is a public work. I am saying that the Internet should be treated as a public work.

Does the government have to make some big project to do this? Not necessarily. We have the FCC. There are many ways to use resources/mandates in a smart way to achieve a goal without using too much taxpayer dollars, without a 'government-connection'. However, if we have no other choice, I argue it will benefit all in the long run. Besides, if the government had to hire thousands of workers to lay out fiber optics and install switches, I don't think they will complain, since they no longer will take part in the 11% unemployment we now face.

mattsampley- If the government pays for expanded infrastructure, sure, they can claim ownership, which may give them power to take freedoms away. However, remember what the internet IS. It's a distributed, decentralized computer network. If one link goes down, there can be many other paths to take their place. Also, what would be the difference between AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast taking freedoms/access away and the government?

ar103- I understand what the Government is doing and what their role is (they are making law, not laying out cable.). I am saying, (perhaps outside of the core idea) they should also get more involved by making more options available for data to travel across. If companies hold a monopoly over how one connects to the Internet, perhaps providing another government-funded option can provide enough competition to spur innovation. That may be more effective than law alone, where a high-paid group of lawyers can spend their time learning to circumvent.

Remember Gentlemen, these are ideas and this is a discussion. My thoughts are not 'right' or 'wrong', they are just ideas. If one opinion makes a good impact, I'm satisfied. I'm not a politician.

zvalentiner 4 months ago

I agree 100% with Amin. The internet can provide the most benefits when it's open and isn't subject to arbitrary restrictions, namely from corporations with monopolies on their local broadband markets.

The question about the McCain bill vs the other proposed legislation is basically a question of freedom for corporations to charge whatever they want, often corporations who are the only viable competitor, versus freedom for the consumers. Seriously, this is something that I thought we had grown out of in the mid 90s, when providers stopped having splintered versions of the web for their subscribers and realized that such restrictions were only harmful and not at all beneficial.

Imagine that Comcast doesn't like CNN, so they either charge you an extra $10 / month to access it, or they make all requests to cnn.com slow. Suddenly, mom doesn't know why, but she can't check the news so easily. Now imagine that instead of CNN, Comcast doesn't want you to look at the small business down the road that offers voice over IP, since it competes with their phone bundles. This level of control is riddled with opportunity for abuse, and needs to be avoided like the plague.

TLDR: If you support execs getting overpaid jumbo bonuses for restricting the way that Americans can use the internet, you support the McCain bill. If you support the freedom of Americans to use the internet as they please without facing restrictions, you support net neutrality.

marlanlike 4 months ago

Thank you Amin. Very well said.

junkpit82 4 months ago

It's so hard to tell whether these opponents of Neutrality are actually ignorant of the issues involved or are simply paid corporate sock puppets. Let me just reassure those in the government who are reading these comments that no one who actually uses and cares about the internet agrees with them; they are trying to create an illusion of populist resistance which doesn't actually exist.

mwinblad 4 months ago

I would say that your analogy, while well thought out, misses one major point. The internet in the United States is not broken. Yes, it is paid for by the public but this funding method had thus far ensured that the internet remains open and free. Do I like all the content on the internet, no. I would love to see some voluntary rating of sites to make it easier to protect my children but not at the cost of government control.
The current administration seems intent on eliminating any criticism of their actions. There are discussions about forcing Fox and talk radio host to be "fair" in their treatment of the administration. What makes you think they won't try to control content on the web if they gain further control of the internet.

junkpit82 4 months ago

How does removing the power of ISP's to block certain content help the government block content they don't like? It's much much easier for them to do that right now, when there's absolutely nothing stopping an ISP from blocking certain political sites as a form of under-the-table campaign contribution. The Net Neutrality laws would actually make it harder for the government to manipulate the internet in this way.

vandalin7 4 months ago

"The internet in the United States is not broken. Yes, it is paid for by the public but this funding method had thus far ensured that the internet remains open and free."

If you like the way the internet is now than you should support net neutrality laws. Those have been in place since its inception.

It functions in the same way as telephone regulations. They will not play favorites with those who pay them more. Imagine having to wait on the phone for 2 minutes before being connected to your local pizzeria, but having the option to getting instantly connected to Dominos.

mwinblad 4 months ago

You have more faith in the government than I do. If these laws have been in effect since the beginning, why do we need to pass more?

vandalin7 4 months ago

"If these laws have been in effect since the beginning, why do we need to pass more?"

They aren't trying to pass more they are making sure the existing ones remain. Lobbyists and corporate money has been able to continue to push for deregulation of these principles. Maybe if these telecoms spent less on lobbying for deregulation they could spend that on the infrastructure we need.

ajeren 4 months ago

Very well said and very true.

mbrandemuehl 4 months ago

Can someone on this thread tell me what actual, existing problem the net neutrality laws are supposed to be fixing? It seems that almost all of the comments are about potential problems that "might" happen if huge, evil corporations suddenly decide to change their behavior. It seems to me that we have a robust marketplace of rich companies with plenty of bets on both sides of these fights. Google wants bandwidth to be a commodity, Verizon wants to make money from bandwidth. I see all of this as jockeying by rich companies to try to gain an advantage, not as an effort to protect the rights of the little guy. The fact of the matter is that government regulation is constantly gamed by the big guys to try to get an advantage and this is an example of Google and other content providers trying to game the system.

Further, in my opinion, there's plenty of competition that regulates most of the issues I see below - I have 3 ISPs that I use daily through phones, home and work connections. If one of them decided to block content I wanted, I'd just turn them off and go somewhere else. What's wrong with that?

junkpit82 4 months ago

It's not things that 'might' happen if they 'suddenly' change their behavior, it's things they've specifically said they will probably be doing soon and are actively pursuing.

You're extremely lucky if you have access to 3 ISP's- where do you live? In the past 5 years I've lived in New York, North Carolina, and California, in fairly large cities each time, and I've never had more than one ISP available to me. Most people live under a de facto ISP monopoly, which is why government intervention is needed.

mbrandemuehl 4 months ago

I live in NoCal. Wire line into my house, I can get Comcast, ATT, Verizon and Earthlink off the top of my head and I know there are more just a Google search away. If I'm willing to get a smart phone and pay $20/month the list of providers is even longer.

One other comment I forgot, is that this market changes so fast that I think that government will have a difficult time being relevant with regulation.

vandalin7 4 months ago

"Can someone on this thread tell me what actual, existing problem the net neutrality laws are supposed to be fixing?"

How many times does this need to be said? the Net is Neutral now. These principles are in place now. These corporations want to "deregulate" these principles. The problem is what's going to happen once the regulations are gone. Picture Ghostbusters containment system: Once the EPA came in (Walter Peck) and DEREGULATED their containment system (by turning it off) the problem got out.

skolrud 4 months ago

The highway analogy works well. Soon we will see usage taxes (gas taxes, vehicle registration fees, soon to come mileage taxes.) Those taxes will be re-distributed to serve programs that do not service the fee payer (mass transit being funded by gas taxes.) Maybe insurance requirements in case you liable someone.
What would be helpful is de-monopolizing local ISP/service providers. I have only 2 choices that I am aware of...my cable provider or phone co. In some places these may be the same company.

skolrud 4 months ago

junkpit82,

You mention that monopoly of service as a reason for regulating the net...so...because the government regulation created a monopoly in service provider, more regulation is required....how about getting rid of the monopoly.
Let me try an analogy;
lets say you have a salon and you want to specialize in corn row styles. Should the government step in and say no,no,no....you must provide all styles? Even if it is the only salon in town? In a free market it would not be necessary. There may not be enough demend to bring all styles to town, but not every American has an interstate highway outside their door.

junkpit82 4 months ago

I've advocated a few places on this page that we should probably just nationalize the infrastructure so that these regulations aren't necessary. I take it you agree?

n1kko 4 months ago

We all know the internet is changing the world in ways no one could have predicted (with the exception of Steve Jobs of course)

It has allowed new avenues for collaboration, communication, and the transfer of information freely. It allows under privileged individuals access to all information human kind has acquired - unfiltered. Study after study prove broadband deployment significantly promote economic growth.

We are seeing a natural power grab by those with money to take this tool away from the people. Power of information has finally shifted back to the people after hundreds of generations.

The people have spoken - the internet is a commodity that's a RIGHT. The internet is speech, and keeping it neutral is FREEDOM.

Anyone in that isn't in support of a neutral network either has: (1) an interest, as in profit, in the network (2) doesn't understand the complex nature of the network (3) attempting to block information from being distributed freely on that network.

Failing to protect this vital network may be the single most destructive blow to man kind in history. Information IS power.

mwinblad 4 months ago

I shudder to think of the stiffling effect Government control would have on the internet. Junkpit82, like you I live in an area where my options are Satelite (Two flavors), Cell Phones (lots of those) or dial-up. I live less than 2 miles in all directions from both cable and DSL.
You could say that I live in the internet black hole. On the other hand, I have at least 5 alternative provided by companies because they know that it is profitable. If one of them started cutting off on what I can post or view, I would switch companies. If all of them do that, I would have to suspect some government control because that kind of coordination is just not normal in the business world.

thebigdudebowski 4 months ago

Considering that free speech is essentially banned from public television since international media conglomerates have monopolized the airwaves, the Internet is the American citizens', as well as our global communities', shining light for free speech and communication.

Following the money to who exactly is behind any movement away from net neutrality always leads to corporations, which are almost invariably in conflict with the demands of the public.

FCC, who do you work for? We The People, your rightful owners, demand your servitude. Vote Net Neutrality.

river_wind 4 months ago

Excellently put piece. It extends beyond the question of net neutrality to a strategy for where the internet should go from here (a bit beyond scope of the current question), but you should be saved and re-posted anytime internet planning discussions are taken up over the next 10-15 years.

andrea.quigley 4 months ago

I agree with Amin. Well said!

Dar 4 months ago

The Internet is not a superhighway. It is the collection of groceries in a community. It is wrong to force the vegan store to sell meat. It is wrong to force the big grocery to take white bread and white sugar from its shelves. We can choose.

The net neutrality rules will remove that choice.

If the FCC wants to help in this issue, it can ban content limitations on government networks and it can stop subsidizing network monopolies.

Say NO to net neutrality.

twodaylife 4 months ago

@Dar

I don't think you understand what net neutrality is.
The internet is not a collection of groceries, it's a giant supermarket. The only thing the ISPs do is get you to the store. Everything is already in the store. Without net neutrality you can have an ISP saying "Well you can look at produce, but if you want to see the baked goods, that'll cost you extra. Or just completely bar you from looking at specific items because they are from a competitor or one of the ISP's partners.
This has nothing AT ALL to do with what the store has in stock.

Dar 4 months ago

twodaylife, it is silly to say one is a product and the other is not.

If I have a choice among two TVs at the store and one has only VHS (imagine the olden days) and the other has UHS, too, I can chose based on price and other factors such as my needing a remote because of my leg. Most likely the one with VHS only will not get many sales. But using this to make rules about channels a TV can handle is dumb.

Market forces will bring good change. Regulatory forces will harm.

NO to net neutrality. YES to freedom.

rkenned 4 months ago

I do believe that between Amin and zvalentiner, everything I wanted to say has already been said. Well put you two.

amin 4 months ago

Dar-

Again, I defend the right to a differing opinion. This discourse ensures that all possibilities are explored while forming a conclusion in a manner that uses reason rather than personal bias.

My concern is that market forces right now are stagnant. In a monopoly, the content providers ARE the market force. Demand will always be high for bandwidth in the 21'st century and beyond. We live in the dawn of the information age. Net access is becoming an essential commodity like water, food, or gasoline.

In a monopoly, there is no guarantee that the consumer will get what they want. THAT IS THE CORE PROBLEM HERE. Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, they own the majority of this market. They have no real competition- why should they listen to what the consumer has to say where there are no alternatives? That is not a free market. There is no laissez-faire here. It's market control. It's a cartel.

Let's dispense with the analogies and get to some concrete empirical evidence.. a case-study, if you will. Let us consider for a moment the SMS protocol used to transmit text messages between cell phones. AT&T right now charges 30 cents for each text message sent or received. A text message consists of 120 characters maximum (120 bytes in ASCII encoding, for the savvy). That means, to generate a gigabyte of data (1/4 of the data contained in a DVD) over SMS equals ((1024 * 1024 * 1024)/120) * 0.30 = $2,684,354.56. Cell phone companies are making a killing over data transmission that I can generate watching Hulu for a few hours. Tell me that "market forces will bring good change" in this case. It hasn't in the cell phone industry. What can make a person think it will here? AT&T and Verizon do cell plans as well as Internet service, so we already have a precedent to base my argument upon. We pay more in sending texts that NASA pays to get images from the Hubble Telescope. Only heaven knows what the American people will soon have to pay for the level of Internet access we have now if they have their way.

I have no faith in empty words. 10 years ago, sure, I might agree with you. However, we are too far gone. We have run out of options- the government will have to intervene somehow: via stronger regulation, or by providing a public alternative.

I apologize, Dar, but we cannot afford to trust our freedom of speech and open commerce to the "market". Look around you. They've done enough damage already.

Respectfully yours,

-Amin

Dar 4 months ago

We cannot afford to trust our freedom of speech to the government. Look around you. They've done enough damage already.

You might have wished that there not be texting but many people enjoy it. It is not your decision, Amin.

amin 4 months ago

Dar-

Despite the venomous nature of your response, that is true. Some of our freedoms have been curtailed in the past administration, and that is something we need to reverse.

Consider though- what makes you think that the content providers will give you this freedom? If we have to choose a foe to defend our freedom of speech from in terms of the Internet, I rather have a Democratically-elected president and local representatives to contend with than the companies themselves. At least we can vote for the former. At least there is a chance that this situation will be in the hands of those that have our interests in mind. The telecoms do not, for certain. It's a sad choice, but I see no alternative. Privatization of the Internet isn't going to work in the long-run.

Let's contrast with the rest of the world.

Do we get our Internet access turned off every time people dissent in the streets like in Iran months ago? No.

Do we have the Great Firewall of USA here like in China, restricting websites that conflict with the government's worldview? No.

The fact a government website was established (openinternet.GOV) for us to even have a debate in this thread is sufficient evidence that SOMEBODY in the government cares about the freedom to express what I have to say. I'm sure everybody with an internet connection can read what I have to say right now. I don't see government agents banging down my door about this. Apparently they encourage it.

I appreciate your perspective, but without evidence it sounds like trolling, which is a no-no on the Internet. If you have something concrete relevant to the issue at hand, please enlighten us.

As for using SMS, you're right, it isn't my decision. If it were an open-competitive market, it can be.

-Amin

Dar 4 months ago

amin wrote, "Despite the venomous nature of your response, that is true."

I read what I wrote several times, and I don't see the venomous nature. I would like to improve my writing. Can you show me what was venomous? I did not attack you. I did not use loaded words. I stated simple facts.

Just because somebody does not agree with you does not mean the words are venomous.

Dar 4 months ago

Maybe we can find a point of agreement here.

I think we can agree on this:

IF there was broadband access competition in some market and IF the consumers in that market wanted flat broadband, at least one company would emerge with a flat broadband access product.

That should be pretty obvious given today's technology.

We can seek solutions based on that.

amin 4 months ago

Dar-

I'm glad we can continue this discourse civilly.

In an ideal situation, telecoms would be engaged in competition with one another in the attempt to attract the consumer to subscribe to their ISP services. This would involve offering what their potential customer base wants. In this case, we (in general):

* Want things to remain as they are in terms of universal access to all available web services at an unlimited basis.

* Want faster connections at lower prices like in other countries. Japanese can get 100Mbps connections at 50$/month.. that's 5-10x the speed of 'high-end' connections here. When I likened our internet connections to a dirt-road, I meant it.

In order for their product to be relevant and desirable by the potential customer, ISPs would have to continue to offer this service reliably and at a competitive price.

In a monopoly, the consumer has no such guarantee. They have no control on the quality of service or the price. The Supply/Demand principle no longer applies.

Now, to your premise:

"IF there was broadband access competition in some market and IF the consumers in that market wanted flat broadband, at least one company would emerge with a flat broadband access product."

I can agree that as people get more and more aware of this Net Neutrality issue, they will want flat broadband.

Now, all that is required is: a company willing and able to give customers what they want to enter the marketplace. This will provide competition, which will force the rest of the market to fall in line. I agree with this.

HOWEVER- The real question is: 1) What would it take to accomplish that, and 2) what are the chances of it successfully occurring?

Let's flesh this out, using how the Internet is organized right now.

The company would need to be a Tier 1 ISP. If you owned a Tier 2 or 3, you would have to purchase a lease to access a higher tier, and if they restrict speech, throttle, or make the lease cost prohibitively expensive, you will not be able to give what the consumer wants. The higher the Tier, the more control of the traffic you have. (I used to work for a small tier 3 ISP.)

This means-
a. If this company doesn't exist already, it needs a TON of capital to lay out a backbone network comparable to what Verizon and AT&T already have. They will need access to lay tons of fiber optics, create data centers, deploy switches able to support the potential load, hire sysadmins, etc. That is a non-trivial undertaking.

b. Once this network is established, it will have to peer(interconnect) with the other Tier 1 providers to participate in the rest of the Internet. There is no guarantee that other Tier 1 providers will connect to ours or the traffic is not tampered with, thus risking partitioning the Internet into neutral and non-neutral pieces. Imagine being able to connect to Yahoo just fine, but Google takes minutes to even load a search request. It's within the competition's power to do this, and such things have happened before.

So- What are the chances that this will succeed, without any governmental intervention whatsoever? With the current system that's established, let's use hypothetically the best-case privately-owned candidate possible: Google. They have dark-fiber, and LOTS of it. They have capital, they have the knowhow, and they support open technologies. I say this is the best shot the current market has. Could they succeed? Are they willing to try? To be honest, I'm not sure. There are too many obstacles to enter the market even at their stature. And even if they did, it would require all of the Tier 1 ISPs to guarantee a certain QoS across their interconnections.

This mental experiment brings me to a conclusion:

In order for the internet to be open to everyone, sufficient Tier 1 ISPs will have to participate, or one entity must have market control but be "pro consumer". I seriously doubt these companies will want to- they are lobbying in the other direction! And if one corporate entity controlled all of the network, we would be worse off than we are today.

Therefore, I see no other choice. The government will either have to regulate these ISPs via law, or the government will have to treat it as a public work and create a network large enough for the whole country.

That is my conclusion, Dar. Do I like this conclusion? NO! The government is fallible and can use that power badly, as you and I agree to fear. But since the Internet is owned by privately owned corporations that are concerned with profit rather than freedom, I see no other choice. At least we can vote for the people that make decisions on this matter. Not everybody can afford to be shareholders in these companies and have a say.

-Amin

amin 4 months ago

Whoops, I need to clarify something:

Sufficiently large Tier 2 networks would suit better than a Tier 1 network. At any rate, I mean a network large enough to handle the traffic requirements for a very large amount of home users and companies.

Dar 4 months ago

If the government is in control, we have one gate-keeper, one noted for working with cronies who have a stake in government actions.

If the people who own resources control those, we will have many "gate-keepers" each trying to adjust policy to please customers so they can maximize profit. If one tends to block, then consumers will go to other sources.

Which is better for the Internet? Clearly the latter.

This century dictators have tried to shut down the internet in their countries, especially communications to the outside. It failed. Why? Because there were many commercial holes. People started running TCP/IP over all kinds of media. So what was the force for freedom? The freedom of people to buy equipment and use communication services on the market. The market.

We need to keep the Internet resources owned by the people of our nation, not the government over the nation.

NO to Net Neutrality rules.

Dar 4 months ago

The SuperHighway analogy for the Internet is a bad model.

I suggest another. It is flawed, too, but it is much better than the SuperHighway.

We are goats on islands in a sea of many islands. Each island has several bridges to other islands in such a way that all of the islands are connected together.

Trolls have built the bridges. They charge for you to cross or check that you have a TrollPass. If not, you can't pass.

To get from the home island to good grazing a goat has to choose a bridge. Trolls are greedy and do all kinds of things to entice goats to cross their bridges.

Now, some trolls don't allow goats to drag houses across their bridges, blocking traffic. After all, all that traffic means more money for the trolls. Houses have to be dragged across other bridges.

A troll might try to block what goats go across or what they can carry, but it will lose money. Greed will cause it to change its mind.

Now suppose the storm troopers took over the bridges. They control who can cross if anybody. Or what they can drag behind them.

The problem is that the one who commands the storm troopers is the one who now controls the goats. We now have control in one central place.

We have troll-haters trying to put storm troopers into place. I am against that.

NO to Net Neutrality rules.

n1kko 4 months ago

"A troll might try to block what goats go across or what they can carry, but it will lose money. Greed will cause it to change its mind."

And a marketplace driven by something like, greed, is worth promoting!? We have seen what greed can accomplish from wall street. I wish only in your mind greed is good.

The internet is what we make it. It is our job as US citizens to promote equal access to the most powerful tool ever created. In a country where astroturfing has become democracy we must protect our voice. It's too valuable to be put in the hands of a single interest.

amin 4 months ago

It looks like we have come to a impasse. Major points:

1. Government control of the Internet would encourage abuse (violation of right to free speech, information, and violation of privacy. Privacy has been violated already via AT&T collaborating)

2. Lack of Government control of the Internet would encourage abuse (price fixing, poor QoS, possible violation of free speech, serving of corporate interest rather than public interest)

Both sides of the argument appear reasonable. I(and others) don't trust the corporations, and I've made my case with facts and historical perspectives. I think the monopolistic control should be ended via government intervention of some sort, akin to the antitrust movement of the last century. Dar(and others) don't trust the government, and can make a comparable list of points given enough time. I say that their concerns are valid and should not be dismissed, since the government is not composed of saints.

What we do agree upon is what we expect when we use the Internet- free and unfettered access to all services that participate on the network at the best QoS that is reasonable.

Unfortunately, the Internet is made up of a group of competing corporate networks that connect together, which means a customer of one company may be rendered unable to connect to a website whose connection is owned by another company.

With all this in mind, where do we go from here? I think inaction will equal our loss. If we do nothing, we will lose our freedom anyway, regardless of the party that takes it from us.

The fact is: the corporations own the majority of the Internet, and they have currently have the power to violate free-speech rights at the backbone level to their customers and to their competitors, which both hurt us. I think McCain's bill would unfortunately ensure that practice would go unchecked. I argue that there needs to be some sort of control that ensures that a uniform standard is in place to protect the rights of the people. The only entity that is capable is a government body. As for the level of regulation, perhaps an "Internet Bill of Rights" is in order. Our rights as citizens should be congruent to the rights we have online. Unrestricted privatization would not permit this.

At the end of the day, we just might have to agree to disagree.

-Amin

mwinblad 4 months ago

I think the basic difference in all the arguements is that some people trust the "unpure" motives of corporation more than they do the "pure" motives of government. I fall firmly on the side of the corporations only because the government has a rather long history of ineffeciency and overstepping the deliniated lines of their power.
For example, any time you make something a government project, the priority becomes "Into how many congressional districts can we put this project?". It doesn't seem to matter how much the tax payers cough up, it is dependent on how many feel as though the project benefits their area. This contributes greatly to the 100 hammer.
I find it amazing that the same people who are normally against items like the patriot bill are jumping on board to have the government involved in our current, free-enterprise driven, 'information superhighway.

n1kko 4 months ago

You cannot compare the 'Patriot Act' with net neutrality.

The PATRIOT Act gives over arching power to countless un-named officials through secret processes in the name of terrorism.

Net Neutrality preserves the network we have in place, limiting future modifications.

Dar 4 months ago

There is a major flaw in the Superhighway model of the Internet.

Highways are typically government owned and controlled. The government controls what goes on the highway.

Because of this, it is understandable that those who want government control of Internet traffic will like this model. However, because of that bias, it is a poor model or a model in need of balance.

I like the idea of a grocery store better. The ISP is the grocery store and the products are the content suppliers.

I don't think we need federal rules to make vegan groceries sell meat and we don't need to force all stores to have a refrigerated displays so they can sell products that need those. We have plenty of choices in grocers, even in small areas. And we can always to to the city to shop. And we can move to where there are good grocers. We don't need government owned grocers. And I reject the notion that government invented the supermarket. Some groceries have a wide range of choices, some serve narrow markets.

Now there are some who claim that their location does not have much in ISP competition (or potential competition) as we see in grocers. I suspect those are the same ones who petitioned their city councils to limit options in Internet access in the name of "city beautification" or something. In most cases, there are more options than people claim there are. In a few cases, some mayors and governors need to go to jail.

We don't need new Net Neutrality rules or a recodification of existing policies to make them harder. We need to let net neutrality naturally emerge among interactions of the free individuals of this nation.

Open Network 4 months ago

I think the analogy goes more like this:

You built a system of private toll roads which provide easy access from your town onto the Interstate. People in your town love these toll roads because they are cheap and provide easy access to the major highways.

There are a few nasty neighbours in town who are abusing these toll roads by monopolizing them during busy times with their big trucks. Some of them are even businesses, using them to transport heavy items during peak hours. You tried to introduce special lanes for these big trucks so everyone can get through to the Interstate in a timely manner, including the big trucks.

The government is now trying to regulate your toll roads that you invested in and built, saying you can't have any special lanes. Therefore it remains congested at peak hours, and both the regular citizens are unhappy and the truck drivers are unhappy.

You are not trying to prevent anyone from using the toll roads, you just want to make it efficient - and to do this you need to charge more for the trucks (who can afford it, they are using it for business) and still keep it cost-effective for the students, unemployed, etc. who also need access to the highway.

Dar 4 months ago

I like that analogy, too.

amin 4 months ago

I used the highway analogy because the majority of the country's economy depends on it to function. I think that soon (if not now already) that our economy depends on the Internet as a medium for commerce. It had nothing to do with some sort of bias towards government regulation. When people wake up in the morning for the morning commute, I don't think government regulation comes into their mind. Although, as I continue researching the history of the Internet, the analogy became more and more appropriate.

At any rate, it has been 40 years since the 4-node ARPA network came online and has evolved to what we currently use today. Ironically, the ARPANET was developed out of the same vein as the Interstate was: The Interstate was originally for war materiel transport for Eisenhower's time, and the ARPANET was a data transmission network designed to be resistant to nuclear weapons. Now, today, both benefit the regular citizen.

It is again ironic that people are arguing against government regulation of any kind towards the Internet today when 12 years ago, companies were lobbying the FCC en masse to ensure that ISPs did not have to pay market prices for per-minute access charges for POTS service. (Remember Dial-Up?) Of course we have resistance today, since the FCC is no longer willing to serve the corporate interest on this issue.

The fact we even have the Internet as it today is DUE to government intervention. Let's not delude ourselves into thinking that this is the house that "the market" solely built. The backbone that the bulk of our traffic travels through was HEAVILY SUBSIDIZED.

Now, let's look over some more history. The government wanted to be able to leverage a telegraph system back in the day, but they did not want to run it's network. Private companies did that. Let us also consider again that the government back in the 90s owned and controlled the backbone(NSFNET). Again, they did not want to do that as more and more commercial traffic began to be generated. Therefore, they retired the NSFNET and funded a private backbone for companies to use. They started the privatization effort, not the companies. The companies have the government to thank. They developed the technology, and handed over to the private sector.

You read that right. The government built and controlled the Internet, but they didn't want to keep it.

Their greatest mistake is that the NSF was too myopic and did not establish rules during the privatization effort that would have made this discussion today truly irrelevant, such as mandates that would prohibit anti-competitiveness amongst the telecoms.

It's great that we have the freedom to express our opinion here. Just be sure to look at history!

openinternet 4 months ago

I encourage Amin to read the entry in Wikipedia about the internet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_history

"The Government" neither invented, nor built the internet. The "subsidies" referred to are probably also a phantom. Please provide specifics and references.

Since at least 1995, "The Internet" has been a creature of aggressive, innovative private entrepreneurs, not government. The dynamism of the internet is owed to competition and the inherent openness of the market, not government.

amin 4 months ago

>I encourage Amin to read the entry in Wikipedia about the internet:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_history

Yes, I've read it, an interesting read.

>"The Government" neither invented, nor built the internet.

It describes how TCP/IP was developed under the influence of DARPA. Those are, the primary data transmission protocols we use now, right? Vint Cerf was scouted out by DARPA, right? Well, it sounds like the core technologies behind the Internet was government-funded.

The IETF was government-funded. Boy, I love reading those RFCs. Without them, a lot of data transmission protocols wouldn't have been standardized.

> The "subsidies" referred to are probably also a phantom. Please provide specifics and references.

I would be more than happy to!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET
This was a DoD project, the world's first packet switching network. Without this, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Foundation_Network
This composed the majority of the backbone in the early nineties. NSF is a government agency.

ANS Advanced Network & Services was also commissioned to service the NSFNET. The Cook Report explains that ANS was funded 10-15M/yr by NSF to service the NSFNET. They later were purchased by AOL. http://www.cookreport.com/glossary.shtml#145

MCI was given a 50M contract to work on the Internet II.
Bernier, Paula. "The science of high-speed computing." Telephony v228, n18 (May 1, 1995):7,15.

I can agree that a lot of private parties put in capital to wire up the whole nation. However, what made it possible? Where did the technology come from? Where did the baseline networks come from?

According to this, not from the corporations.

As for inherent openness, only time will tell. The news that's been coming out of Time Warner's and Comcast's camp haven't been too encouraging in terms of metered rates and throttling, respectively. I don't have a lot of faith in them seeking their customer's interests.

openinternet 4 months ago

To say that DARPA "built" or "invented" the internet is like saying that Bell Labs "built" or "invented" the computer industry because they invented the transistor. Yes, they were involved, and yes some key technologies got their starts with the HELP of DARPA funding, but DARPA's role is overblown.

Take a careful look at the references you provide. The NSF subsidies for NSF net were in the millions, and even in its heyday, was by no means the only "game in town". Private firms invested _billions_ in networks and infrastructure, and there were thousands of players, all competing for advantage by luring customers.

If I give you a $25 gift certificate to buy a car, and tell you the secret code to start the engine, do I get complete credit for providing a car for you?

No. Government involvement in the internet is way overblown. Government neither owns, nor runs the net, nor should it.

riq17 4 months ago

I believe the cellphone companies are controlling and limiting the freedom for users to use their cellphones and the cellphone options.

For example all of these companies require that you sign up for a data plan in order to be able to get one of their smartphones, However most of these smarphones have wi-fi access, and wi-fi access allows you to access the internet wherever you are able to find it, which is often in schools,malls or restaurnats were you spend most of the time when one you are outside.
Their data plans are usually 20 to 30 dollars per month. which is 300 dollars average per year.

Most companies in most countries do not limit what the users are able to do with their phones, and have many flexible multiple plans. Take the case of telefonica in europe and south america, which doesnt really sell many phones but mostly its services.

I think these companies should be required to not do this or face penalties, and i think they should follow a model more like the open european model which would incentive competition along the comunity. If companies in europe are able to make profits following that model, why not the american companies?

You can compare the way the healthcare companies have rebate programs with drug companies (drug companies give money back to insurance per paid claim) TO cellphone companies that make cellphones and Cellphone services companies who provide services, I think both of them should be different and separate.

openinternet 4 months ago

It is easy to find cases where I think someone charges too much, or where service is not good enough in any industry. That's little more than armchair quarterbacking, and ultimately we are talking about central planning and control by political process.

Central planning with political control has been tried. See Cuba, 1959-?. See Russia 1917-1990. See Cambodia 1975-1979. See China, 1949-1990's. There are many more examples.

The fact is that free societies and free markets not only protect freedom, but provide better economic outcomes. I am not willing to cede authority over internet content to a federal bureaucrat, however well intentioned.

ssfahrer 2 months ago

Russ: The notion of "rights" is, was, and always will be an ILLUSION. If you are a U S CITIZEN, you have certain PRIVILEGES OF CITIZENSHIP. Alas, these privileges can be taken away by the government ANY TIME THEY WANT. So too, the notion of "Broadband rights" is simply WRONG.

to ar103: These so-called "Privately held companies" are mostly "publicly held", i.e., have shares traded in a stock market. Time Warner is traded under the symbol TWX on the NYSE. Comcast is traded on NASDAQ with symbol CMCSA. You can buy shares in these companies.... They are accountable to their shareholders-- it may not be EVERYONE, but they are accountable to SOMEONE you may even know.... You name me a cable company that is NOT publicly traded, and I would be SHOCKED! Your pro-socialist logic is therefore faulty from the beginning....

And I could imagine GOP.com being deleted for violating some arcane "Terms of Service" of their ISP. This sort of thing happens on MySpace ALL THE TIME to people who may post a picture or say something allegedly 'offensive' to someone else who reports them and their "Customer Service" deletes their account for 'cause'.....

Heck-- I've even had to do it to someone who was passing themselves off as of legal age, only to get a reply from her father saying that she was really only 13 (an age too young to be on MySpace at the time). I contacted their Customer Service in order to get this profile deleted to prevent her from duping other people! BTW, it worked-- since I had screen shots of the profile in question to back up my case that she used a false age, etc....

mlittle 2 months ago

The Internet must remain free and open to all. The Government has already clamped down on our media so we cannot depend on getting accurate news reporting. We get what the administration allows, and nothing more. It is watered down, parroting, and borderline propaganda. To learn anything about what IS happening in the Administration that directly affects our lives, you have to read the news from OTHER countries. That's where you learn about the Global Warming Hoax, and intent of the other nations to get billions out of the United States... and learn that our President Obama is PART of the plan to throw away our money! He knows it IS a HOAX! So why does he not PROTECT our interests?

The Internet is where you can read the new science reports, where you can learn about the EO 12425 that Reagan made giving Diplomatic Immunity to INTERPOL to carry out their business in this country, BUT, Reagan set four Restrictions, so that our Constitution and our Citizens' Rights were PROTECTED. On December 17, 2009, Obama made HIS EO to 12425, ELIMINATING all FOUR restrictions. Now NOTHING can stop INTERPOL here. They are above our Constitution, Bill of Rights, Supreme Court, Congress, and every Law Enforcement unit in the land. They are free to search and seize in any home or building at will. That is how much Obama cares for the Citizens. That's why we MUST keep the INTERNET FREE. It is our ONLY SOURCE of information. He HAS to have this "Health Bill" passed, which is about Government Control, and not about Health. We HAVE TO FIND OUT WHAT IS IN THIS BILL. The INTERNET will be our only source. Obama is meeting with some of the Democrats to put together the "final" Health Care Bill. NO Republicans, NO openness - behind closed doors; NO reports on the issues discussed to the public; NO cameras from CNN, or even the CSPAN channels. Everyone is excluded. That can mean only ONE THING - there is EVIL in this Bill! The INTERNET will be our ONLY HOPE in finding out what we are faced with. The Government does not CARE about the taxpayers, or the citizens. Obama LIED about the contents of HR1, having NOTHING "Stimulus" in the bill, but he forced Congress to PUSH it to a vote UNREAD! That is unethical. We know this Health Care Bill is unconstitutional. That is no problem. The "Constitution" has been "adjusted" by this administration. We MUST keep the FREE, UNCONTROLLED INTERNET. OBAMA wants to control EVERYTHING, then sign away our Sovereignty, making us only a small part of The New World Order, owing billions in taxes. No more democracy. Pray for our NATION, Pray that GOD WILL LEAD US TO PRESERVE THIS DEMOCRATIC REBUBLIC FORM OF GOVERNMENT, based on the original Constitution signed by our Forefathers with the Bill of Rights that gave more power to the STATES and the CITIZENS than to the Government (which came in a distant third.) The Government has grown too big. Even Mrs. Obama has 23 on HER STAFF. In the past, more First Ladies had only 1. Hilary Clinton had 3, which was the most. Laura Bush had 1. This is a party-time Administration, running up the bills for taxpayers to pay when times are so tight. Without the Internet, we would not know about these huge wasteful spending habits, or the treasonous EO removing ALL protections for our Constitution and Citizens, leaving us to the mercy of INTERPOL, which Obama has already placed IN our Justice Department. Dozens! Check it out. USE the FREE INTERNET. WAKE UP CITIZENS. YOU HAVE BEEN SOLD OUT by Obama and the Democrats. Why? That's the question I'd like answered. WHY do they HATE AMERICA that much, that they HAVE to DESTROY her!

amin 2 months ago

mlittle-

I appreciate your spirited comment, but please stay on topic. This is not a forum to discuss partisan rhetoric, regardless of what side of the fence you are. If anything, it detracts from the core issues that drive the conflict around network neutrality.

However, you do bring valid ideas to the table:
Net neutrality can promote-
* giving independant and international news outlets a voice
* making government documents readily accessible
* accountability from government agencies, offices, positions, etc.

Sites like Wikileaks are an example of this.

ssfahrer-

Freedoms could be regarded as mere privilege, sure. However, that doesn't mean that people won't collectively express their personal desire to assert that their speech(communication) remains free( as in freedom, unencumbered). Just like meeting places like churches, universities, and the street corner, the internet should be a place where people can communicate what they want to communicate, without censorship. Freedom of speech on the internet shouldn't be wrong. If it is, I would like to lobby to reverse that decision. That's why democracy is great.

As for being a shareholder to influence a telecom to do the right thing- I'm not too sure about that. Companies exist to make money, not do the right thing. Shareholders usually are people that have a lot of capital invested who wants to see the company do well, so that they get a return. I doubt the big shareholders care if Bobby down the street with a DSL connection got throttled for using all of his bandwidth streaming Hulu. I also doubt that if I bought a few shares and wrote some letters and attended shareholder meetings that anybody would take me and my opinion seriously. Why change when you have a monopolistic hold on the market?

I wish I could be proven wrong on that point, I really do. I just don't think 'corporate accountability' is a realistic term in this case.

-Amin

openinternet 2 months ago

I quote amin:
"...Freedom of speech on the internet shouldn't be wrong. If it is, I would like to lobby to reverse that decision. That's why democracy is great."

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Tell that to the lamb.

We don't have a democracy. We have a republic, with private property and individual rights - at least so far.

Deciding how private property (the internet) is to be used "democratically" is socialism. It's the situation with the wolves and lamb above. This is _not_ what we want. It's what our founders fought a rerevolution to overthrow.

ar103 2 months ago

"These so-called "Privately held companies" are mostly "publicly held", i.e., have shares traded in a stock market. Time Warner is traded under the symbol TWX on the NYSE. Comcast is traded on NASDAQ with symbol CMCSA. You can buy shares in these companies.... They are accountable to their shareholders-- it may not be EVERYONE, but they are accountable to SOMEONE you may even know.... You name me a cable company that is NOT publicly traded, and I would be SHOCKED! Your pro-socialist logic is therefore faulty from the beginning...."

ssfahrer, If you think publicly traded corporations are accountable to their shareholders you are terribly naive. The only thing the shareholders are guaranteed is to be ripped off and swindled by the board of directors. Also, could you please explain to me how defending freedom of speech is "socialist", because clearly I am too stupid to understand your definition of "socialism". Please enlighten us with your oh-so superior understanding of political science.

"First it is, the administration that stated.. they want control.. what does that mean?
the government wants control over the web.. means if they decide they do not want you to
see something you won't.. look at singapore they do not let the public get to US sites
they want to watch a US tv show they have to go on the web and search and then
they cannot get to see what they want.. IS THAT REALLY WHAT YOU WANT?
Right now if you do not like your ISP you can go to another one without any problems, unless you create your own.
What will happen if the government takes control? If you give the government control..
you do not know what will happen, and again I say FREEDOM IS MORE IMPORTANT TO ME
than to trust our government with my computer... I do not trust our government enough to let them take control.
THEY HAVE ENOUGH CONTROL ALREADY!!!!! Our Government is tooo big already!!!!! "

ntom, how is the government trying to control the internet? Could you explain that to me? They are trying to prevent private corporations from controlling the internet. I'm sorry to say this but you sound like a paranoid lunatic. Now I know everyone keeps talking about keeping the discussion "civil" but I was raised to be honest and truthful and when I see a fool I call them a fool; and you sir, or ma'am, are a fool.

"We don't have a democracy. We have a republic, with private property and individual rights - at least so far."

openinternet, a republic is a form of democracy. Just like a sedan is a kind car. And unfortunately the U.S. is not a republic but an idiocracy. A nation of idiots, for idiots, by idiots.

p.s. CLEAN WATER IS SOCIALISM!!! TELL THE GOVERNMENT TO STOP REGULATING THE WATER!!

ntom 2 months ago

ar103 you don't deserve an answer.. Name calling gets people nowhere.. end of "conversation".

ntom 2 months ago

First, go read the constitution, learn what it really say's about how much "control" our government is supposed to have.

Next read this: Our country was based on this:

Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic theory which stresses that control of the means of producing economic goods in a society should reside in the hands of those who invest the capital for production. It is a system based on the production of goods and services for exchange rather than use. Private ownership and free enterprise supposedly leads to more efficiency, lower prices, better products.

Competition will bring the price down and keep the internet "open", like I have said before, you don't like your ISP because they are "slowing" you down?
Then go to another or start your own.. the stimulus bill will help you if you act now.
(The bill one of our past Presidents would have vetoed). Lets see who the history buff is.. lol.
There is no need for the government to "police" any more than they do, 20,000 complaints(about one company) started this whole discussion... out of how many internet users???

Then go read this guys post:
http://openinternet.ideascale.com/a/ideafactory.do?id=6017&mode=top&discussionID=10095

Next "some other President and his staff came up with the Sedition Act,
which by the way would put most liberal bloggers in jail.
This administration, since they have been in campaign mode has used this Presidents words.
That is what scares me.

dsfitts 2 months ago

No, no, no to government control or administration of the internet! Read the Constitution!

koconnorfyb 2 months ago

Why would anybody want our Federal Government to interfere in the private market?

Comcast shut off a p2p program (almost always used to distribute illegally copied data) which was being used by a small percentage of people but was consuming a huge percentage of bandwidth. Comcast owns the pipe - it is their private property - and the government SHOULD NOT interfere.

In a free market, if a company does something their customers don't like they leave them for a competitor. This is what keeps companies from doing stupid things - the free market.

frank 2 months ago

Amin, good comments!

1) DARPA and initial protocols was a marginal investment, the Internet was built upon commerical investment after the MILNET split and the Internet was opened.

2) Freeways have lanes. This help manage different speeds. Freeways also manage use during conjestion. There are traditional queing theory problems that apply to packet networks.

3) Japan has the penetration density for deployment of a PON type network.

The key here is that you are listening to the rhetoric of new business models that are not willing to pay the cost of goods for Internet infrastrucuture. The rhetoric needs turned down ... and the key players:

- Devices, application and transportion

Need to play nice.

lindsay.himes 2 months ago

Whatever you might think about the Internet today, it CANNOT be improved by giving the Federal Government control over it. The Federal Government is inept, incompetent, apathetic... you get the picture. Everything the Federal Government turns it's hand to turns to crap. If you believe in the Federal Government you are either a part of it or you have never had to deal with it. Just to prove I'm bi-partisan: I think ALL politicians are stinking dirt-bags who should be limited to two terms, one in office and one in prison.

ottonomy 2 months ago

Some people are saying that since non-neutral policies will be unpopular with customers, companies won't be able to get away with enacting them. Where customers can choose between several options for broadband, competition between providers will ensure the Net stays open.

However, because the Internet depends on physical wires, there will naturally be only an option or two offering high speed service in a particular area. Since most of America does not yet have access to fiber-optic connections in the home, companies building out these networks will naturally steer toward uncompetitive locations for their first projects. Competition between them will not be enough to prevent these companies from altering their network rules to favor certain content. We need Net neutrality regulation to ensure an open internet for the next decade.

todd.holm23 2 months ago

I DID NOT INTEND TO VOTE THIS UP! THIS Website is poorly designed!!
After making me log in, it moved me from the article that I wanted to Vote Up...and placed me at THIS Article (WHICH FOR SOME UNKNOWN REASON) IS AT THE TOP OF THE WEBPAGE.
It made it seem as if I'd returned to the article I wanted, BUT NO!

This seems to be placed at the Top of the Page on purpose to confuse people!
I WANT MY UP VOTE CHANGED TO A DOWN VOTE!

bradonpatrickcain 2 months ago

NOT well said.

how could anyone agree with the "open internet"
and "net neutrality" crowds who wish to confiscate
the internet from private owners and give control
to the Government?

on the highway, people who want to carry
heavy loads that require more road maintenance
are required to pay more (e.g. by larger fees for semi
trucks), which is the way it should be. taxpayers
were forced to pay for the roads, and taxpayers
have a right to regulate through government its
"fair use".

for most of its development, taxpayers were not
forced to pay for the internet, therefore the market
should regulate who pays more or less.

if an ISP wants to charge more for heavy use,
or conversely restrict heavy use to keep the
majority of its users happy, then the ISP can make
that decision. If comsumers don't like the
restrictions, we can communicate by some other
means. and there are other means...

decabaoh 2 months ago

ENOUGH of the government getting in the middle of our lives! BACK OFF! The free market is working just fine. DO NOT EVEN think the internet is a flippin right. I am damn tired of people thinking they are entitled to anything and everything. Move to Venezuela if that's what you want and leave America alone.

river_wind 2 months ago

To the past few posters: the internet is neutral today, and is neutral due to government regulation.

You seem to be unaware of this.

The push for net neutrality it to codify EXISTING REGULATION, and prevent a change in how the internet currently works. If you like the internet, you should be supporting neutrality.

There are already speed lanes available; you can get dial-up, dsl, FIOS, Cable; with different speed levels in each case. This has nothing to do with net neutrality.

No one is freeloading off the ISPs. Each person connecting to the internet pays for their access. the Content providers pay for their own access, and usually pay no just for the speed of the connection as home users do, but by the AMOUNT OF DATA TRANSFERRED. So this arguement too has nothing to do with neutrality.

Cell phone providers in the US have locked down, non-neutral handsets and some, like Verizon, provide non-neutral internet access (v-cast). They limit what you can access, and charge you more for accessing it. What you are asking for by demanding less government involvement is for the cellular company behavior to take over home-based internet as well.

Come on, everyone!! Even the guy who INVENTED the world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee, is a major supporter of neutrality:
http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/144

Net Neutrality is not a new concept.:
"The actual term "network neutrality," new or not, has a lot in common with a lot of old ideas. The concept of a “common carrier,” dating from 16th century English common law, captures many similar concepts. A common carrier, in its original meaning, is a private entity that performs a public function (the law was first developed around port authorities). Furthermore, in networking, the “end-to-end” principle of network design is also a close cousin, if not the direct ancestor of network neutrality."
http://www.timwu.org/network_neutrality.html

also:
"The concept of [electric] network neutrality predates the current Internet focused debate, existing since the age of the telegraph.[20] In 1860, a US federal law (Pacific Telegraph Act of 1860) was passed to subsidize a telegraph line, stating that:

messages received from any individual, company, or corporation, or from any telegraph lines connecting with this line at either of its termini, shall be impartially transmitted in the order of their reception, excepting that the dispatches of the government shall have priority ...
—An act to facilitate communication between the Atlantic and Pacific states by electric telegraph, June 16, 1860[21]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality

ntom 1 month ago

This administration.. that came up with this site has this idea about your "open internet"
do you really want them to have "more control" ...?
Look at what these people want to do and ask yourself.... is not what we have better than this idea?

http://www.prisonplanet.com/obamas-favorite-for-supreme-court-justice-sunstein-wants-to-ban-guns-free-speech.html

Cass Sunstein, president Obama’s appointee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
His close personal relationship with Obama
as Regulatory czar, has already called for strict restrictions on gun ownership, an internet “Fairness Doctrine”, and an effective ban on free speech where dissenting opinions to those of the government are expressed.
In effect, Obama’s information czar wants to tax or ban outright, as in make illegal, opinions and ideas that the government doesn’t approve of.
Sunstein’s definition of a “conspiracy theorist” encompasses those who question manmade global warming and, most bizarrely, anyone who believes that sunlight is healthy for their bodies.

Sunstein advocates Internet censorship via enforced and regulated links in news pieces to opposing opinions.
Sunstein himself later retracted that proposal, explaining that it would be “too difficult to regulate [the Internet] in a way that would respond to those concerns”, and admitting that it was “almost certainly unconstitutional.”

Sunstein has also called for the re-writing of the First Amendment,

openinternet 1 month ago

It is clear that "Net Neutrality" would necessarily involve the FCC having some control of internet CONTENT. Please explain to me why this is not repellent to those reading these posts? Does this not equate to government censorship? Does no one fear that the NEXT administration is not going to be as "benevolent" as Mr.Obama?

[Government} power corrupts. The ONLY way to combat that is to avoid concentrations of power.

"Net Neutrality" is a very bad idea.

river_wind 1 month ago

ntom: Your dislike for the government with regards to gun rights seems to have confused you with regards to *this* issue. The Net is currently neutral. Keeping it neutral is not some great conspiracy to take away your constitutional rights.

openinternet: "It is clear that "Net Neutrality" would necessarily involve the FCC having some control of internet CONTENT."

It is? Why do you think it is clear? That does not appear to be the case at all, in fact. The FCC would be in charge of preventing companies from filtering or blocking content.

How does the prevention of censorship equate to censorship?

openinternet 1 month ago

If this sort of "enforced fairness" is workable, let's put a government agent, with power to fine or shutter the newspaper, in every newsroom to ensure "fairness". Clearly this would be completely unacceptable. Why? Because any way you slice it, it would add up to bending the news. It is unavoidable.

That agent will play a role in every news story coming out of that newsroom, and news from that newsroom would no longer be trusted as being independent of the government. Think Thought Police. Think soviet political officer. Think Pravda.

If the FCC has power over the telecoms or ISPs to fine or shutter their operations based on the FCC's judgement of "fair", this is exactly what will happen with the net. It is a stake in the heart of freedom of expression.

If on the other hand, the FCC is to have no power over CONTENT, then what is "net Neutrality" about?

It is crystal clear. Control of content is control of content. You cannot have "good" censorship.

river_wind 1 month ago

Since the neutrality of the phone networks is enforced by the FCC today, does that mean that the FCC currently have government agents in every phone switch, censoring telephone content?

openinternet 1 month ago

Let's keep it serious.

The FCC has nothing to say about telephone CONTENT, only terms and conditions of service. i.e. the FCC does not shut down phone companies depending on what is discussed by subscribers on the phone. In fact, it would be obviously unacceptable if the FCC even monitored phone conversations, much less made regulatory decisions based on content.

Net Neutrality is very much about CONTENT because "discriminating against content" is the point.

This is a huge difference.

ntom 1 month ago

river_wind 18 hours ago
ntom: Your dislike for the government with regards to gun rights seems to have confused you with regards to *this* issue. The Net is currently neutral. Keeping it neutral is not some great conspiracy to take away your constitutional rights.

How in the hell can trying to stop someone from breaking/changing the costitution and the bill of rights be dislike for our Government?

I will repeat the part you pulled the "gun rights" from...you take less than the first sentence and "attack" me.. read it before you "attack" understand what is being said before you jump... go read the "bill/law" not just what the people are telling you.. this guy( Obama's buddy) wants to take FREE SPEACH AWAY FROM YOU!!!!

Cass Sunstein, as Regulatory czar, has already called for strict restrictions on gun ownership, an internet “Fairness Doctrine”, and an effective ban on free speech where dissenting opinions to those of the government are expressed. In effect, the information czar wants to tax or ban outright, as in make illegal, opinions and ideas that the government doesn’t approve of.

He only changed his mind after being pressed from people in high places.. to then come back and state he thinks his idea is unconstitutional... and I am the one that hates the government?
Sounds to me like this guy wants to control what you can print and read on the internet.. is that open and neutral?

THIS LINK IS TO THE STORY I SUGGEST YOU READ IT:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/obamas-favorite-for-supreme-court-justice-sunstein-wants-to-ban-guns-free-speech.html

Then look at the link to the speach itself (in the story)and read it...
Then, I think, you should go study what the constitution say's... you should read it, then go and learn about why this countries founders gave more power to the PEOPLE and the STATES, then they kept for the Federal Government..

EDUCATION NOT REGULATION!
COMPETITION WILL MAKE THE BUSINESS PLAY FAIR!

amin 1 month ago

I saw this in the news today:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/01/verizon-and-google-draft-net-neutrality-peace-treaty.ars

In a nutshell:

"We've got Google acknowledging the importance of a voluntary framework for dealing with Internet discrimination problems, and Verizon cautiously admitting the need for government oversight if all else fails."

Notable talking points:
"When a person accesses cyberspace, he or she should be able to connect with any other person that he or she wants to—and that other person should be able to receive his or her message."

"No entity from either the government or the private sector should wrest control from consumers over how they choose to use the Internet, and the government should not implement policies that would limit consumers’ ability to choose for themselves."

"There is no sound reason to impose communications laws or regulations on the robust marketplace of Internet content, applications, and services."

Of course this is as tentative as a falling leaf perfectly balanced on a twig, but at least the big players on opposing sides are willing to see each other's perspectives for a moment and try to meet in the middle.

Are Google and Verizon right on their mutual perspective? I think they are on the right track. If there is some kind of framework within the private sector that expresses the market's willingness to address social problems that take place on their networks, then the government's intervention is minimized to an as-needed basis.

As for the likelihood of implementing such a framework to the consumers' satisfaction.. only time will tell. For now, I just bring this to the conversation because it is hope-inspiring.

-Amin

pangasamaneesh 1 month ago

Net Neutrality is the cornerstone of innovation, free speech and democracy on the Internet. We need open access to the Web to inspire positive change. With the recent MLK day now behind us I thought I'd share with you that some of us reflected on that day of the progress MLK helped bring when he led the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s to end segregation in America. We should not allow ISPs to segregate the Web in the same way the country was segregated. We need to empower independent voices in the media and on the Internet. We need more participation with more diverse voices on the radio dial, TV and the Internet.

After all the Web empowers and inspires creativity as long as it stays neutral -- don't allow ISPs to destroy the single most important and wonderful thing about the Web.

amin 1 month ago

There is something that has come to my attention that has made me, and hopefully all of you in this discussion, angry:

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/01/net-neutrality-plan-would-permit-blocking-bittorrent

Just like the government should keep their hands off of free enterprise (in the general case), corporate interests should stay off FCC's Net Neutrality policies. And shame on the FCC for allowing such a thing to happen in the first place.

The current iteration of policy should NOT have a loophole giving license to telecoms and content providers to violate freedom-of-speech in the name of 'reasonable network management' a-la Comcast. Nor should the telecoms become copyright cops.

I was in support of the FCC's proposed regulations in regards to Network Neutrality, but I am not at this time due to this news.

Please help in signing this petition:
http://www.realnetneutrality.org/

I still think that minimal government intervention to discourage anti-competitive behaviour by telecoms is a good idea. This kind of regulation is NOT what I had in mind when I entered debate with some of you.

I am toying with the idea of writing a new essay and posting it here addressing this problem. You might hear from me again soon.

-Amin

openinternet 1 month ago

"Net Neutrality" rules that do not allow for "reasonable network management" would be unworkable. For example, I want to run a "flood ping" application. It happens to hose (DoS attack) the system I am "applying" it to. Strict network neutrality would require the victim to go to the FCC to get a rule that my "application" should be banned. That's nuts.

Networks (comcast et. al.) MUST have the ability and right to do "reasonable network management".

Once that "loophole" exists, the argument is about the words "reasonable" and "management". The FCC has to decide what they mean, and lawyers and politicians get to decide what traffic passes on the net.

No thank you.

What about spammers? As someone who does e-mail, I have the RIGHT to send e-mail to anyone I want to. Comcast has an AUP, but "Net Neutrality" would imply that it could not cut me off because of the content of my e-mail. The FCC would have to come up with rules for what e-mail content is acceptable (non-spam). Good luck with that.

Markets do a far better job of dealing with this sort of thing. Businesses get to make judgements about flood ping "apps" and e-mail spammers and make tradeoffs between their reputations, the inconvenience of other users, the legal issues, and what money they stand to make. Comcast works hard to shut down spammers and does not allow DoS "apps". Other ISPs behave differently.

Once power is granted to the government to permit or deny access to the net, those judgements are made by politicians and bureaucrats and politicians, with lots of help from lobbyists. You have no more choices to go to other vendors, because the laws apply to ALL the ISPs.

Power to the FCC to manage the net equals less freedom on the net. It's as simple as that.

mbrandemuehl 1 month ago

openinternet - Great comments. You've hit the nail right on the head about the problem with these rules. They're simple, on the face sensible, but open-ended - giving the government (whoever that might be at the time) a blank slate to re-write the rules to favor/punish whoever they'd like to. The only people to win with this will be the lawyers litigating these rules.

river_wind 1 month ago

openinternet: Very good questions.

Both issues are addressed in the net neutrality rules as they are currently written, in fact. The "reasonable network management" stipulation Amin's link refers to is in place to allow ISPs to manage DoS attacks an other malicious network activity. Unfortunately, it seems the wording of this section needs to be more specific so that this exception isn't used as a loophole.

The second issue, email spam, is not an issue regarding net neutrality as the spam is caught by spam filters only after being delivered; therefor rules regarding network neutrality don't limit spam filtering by manager of local networks or of email server controllers.

pangasamaneesh 1 month ago

Now before anyone disliking regulations criticizes this idea and votes it down -- I'll say I agree in principle that there should never be over regulation but markets can't govern themselves completely -- under regulations are just as bad as over regulating.

Before Bush & Cheney were in the White House we had 30 + years of common sense, pro consumer, pro competitive Internet regulations banning mega mergers between big ISPs, forcing them to share their infrastructure with smaller ISPs, offer cheap Internet access to smaller ISPs at wholesale prices so they can then resell broadband Internet access cheaply to their own customers -- The Ma Bell system was broken up to create more competition in the emerging broadband Internet access market that was still in its infancy. Our nation's leaders realized Internet would become the future of all media one day and wanted it to be open, competitive and vibrant for users. Large Internet companies had to provide equal, fair, and unfettered access to smaller companies -- so NetZero could buy Internet access from AT&T and resell it to their customers cheaply. The U.S. Congress even passed a law the 1996 Telecommunications Act mandating the broadband Internet access market be kept open and competitive, so there can be universal, affordable access to all Americans. They saw Internet as a public utility -- and a public right -- as soon as the bill was passed AT&T complained that it was unfair that they had to provide affordable Internet access to smaller competitors. They lobbied to reverse the regulations -- what they couldn't convince the courts to undo President Bush did for them in office. There even was a National Broadband Plan before Bush entered office but what did the Bush Administration do -- massive deregulation of the Internet and scrapped the National Broadband Plan.

Due to the Bush Administration's bad policies the U.S. fell from 4th in the world in terms of broadband Internet access penetration when George W. Bush entered office in 2001 to 17th by 2005-2006 -- last I checked it is 28th.

What happened was other countries maintained their pro competitive regulatory commitments banning mergers etc and kept broadband Internet access affordable. The Bush Administration though neglected to keep up these common sense regulations and as a nation we fell behind other countries that kept up their regulations.

Last year in Europe as the Obama FCC sought to restore Net Neutrality -- a European Commissioner bragged Net Neutrality is better in Europe -- and the Internet market is more competitive there -- this Commissioner said that in Europe they would not hesitate to enforce Net Neutrality ever -- there is no dire need in Europe today for new Net Neutrality rules like in the U.S. because so much of the Internet market there is already competitive.

If we maintained our regulatory commitments during the Bush years there would not be a huge digital divide in the country today. We could have millions of more jobs (closing the digital divide can result in more job creation) and Internet for everyone rich or poor, or urban or rural. Internet companies would not be able to throttle web traffic. Big ISPs like Time Warner Cable and Comcast would be unable to prioritize and discriminate against web traffic or content. A major problem right now with cable companies is they have a conflict of interest as they also have digital cable TV services -- they might without Net Neutrality try to restrict competition from online video on demand services to their TV services.

What we need to try to do is breakup AT&T again -- spinoff SBC Communications & BellSouth from AT&T, and breakup some big cable companies -- forbid providers of TV or Internet service from owning content -- there should be Net Neutrality making every ISP a dumb pipe taking you to the same Internet and providing equal access to all. We need to restore the regulations the Bush Administration abandoned and enforce the regulations we have.

amin 1 month ago

pangasamaneesh-

You touch on a concept that I've been thinking about for a while, and I am happy that you brought it up.

1) A content provider should NOT be an ISP. If they are, they should be broken up into separate companies. This is not really an FCC matter , but an FTC one for sure, and is worth talking about and bringing to people's attention. Internet access should be treated like a public work, such as water or electricity.

I'm definitely not joining the camp that regulation is bad, when properly used. Regulation should NOT be subject to influence by private interests, and the FCC's current proposed policy provides too much freedom to abuse free-speech, or worse by copyright holders. I suggest those companies revise their business model rather than trying to lobby governments to mold their antiquated policies around it.

A competitive (read: healthy) market allows innovation and requires it in order for companies to remain relevant to the demands of the consumer. This means that irrelevant business models eventually die. Those companies need to evolve, not try to take away our freedoms so that they may remain economic dinosaurs.

openinternet 1 month ago

This is simply incorrect. The facts are mostly opinions, and the conclusions are colored by the author's political preferences.

George W. Bush did not invent, nor did he obstruct the internet. The (old) AT&T breakup is only tangentially related to the growth of the internet. The interplay between that breakup, the regulatory structures and changes over the last 30 years, and the development of the internet are complex. Several large books have been written on these subjects. Boiling this down to "everything was fine until Bush screwed it up" is just silly.

There is no "digital divide". The internet is younger than I am. As with all new technology, it takes time for it to spread and penetrate to all people, and will only do so as facilities are built up, and the prices consequently drop and it becomes accessible. Wealthier people are the "early adopters". Why do people think that this process MUST be constrained to be "fair" according to some undefined person's idea of who should get what service? Is every new invention/technology instantly subject to government control (rationing) to ensure "fair" access? This is crazy.

Government does not "create" competition. It can only prohibit activities by making them illegal. These are called "barriers to entry", and markets with such barriers are less competitive by definition. European "competition" is vastly overrated because people confuse government protected oligopoly with actual competitive markets.

The idea that the Net Neutrality needs to be "restored" is also just wrong. There is no government regulation of content on the net. You get as much bandwidth as you are willing to pay for, and are free to do whatever you want with it. That is what most people expect.

Your ISP may well regulate your content. The AUP is essential for "network management" and legal liability. (spammers, criminal activities, DoS) This is as it should be. If you don't like it, do what the spammers do. Get another ISP, or get your own T1. There are very few places in the country where it is not possible to get a fast net connection. It may not be cheap, but it is available.

Net Neutrality is about giving the FCC more power. The FCC has nothing to say (today) about the content of the internet, and little or nothing to say about what the AUP is at my ISP. I want to keep it that way. (see below)

Net Neutrality proponents are very free and easy in providing prescriptions for solving various ills, but none of the solutions is without cost. All these "solutions" posted here have costs, and few of those costs are explored or detailed. Believe me, they are considerable, especially in terms of our freedom.

I run a very small ISP, and the LAST thing I want is to worry about some federal bureaucrat deciding that my network management is violating some arcane rule, or the content of my network traffic is somehow illegal.

Net Neutrality is a solution in search of a problem. There is nothing to fix. The fix proposed gives the FCC power over my network it currently does not have.

Net Neutrality is a Bad Idea.

openinternet 1 month ago

If the FCC has power, lobbyists will try to use that power to their advantage. There is no rule, effort, or law that will change this. It is the nature of things. It is what we WANT. In our constitution it is called the "right ... to petition the Government for a redress of grievances". (1st amendment)

When industries become those regulators it is called "regulatory capture".
Wikipedia has an article. This is also very good:

http://keithlynch.net/les/doc5.html

Regulatory capture is the rule, not the exception.

Dar 1 month ago

That amiss can be addressed by improved consumerism and the unwinding of government subsidies and regulations that support such things.

The so-called Net Neutrality is increased government power which can only harm our freedoms. We are better off removing the regulatory cronyism already in place.

I agree:

Net Neutrality is a Bad Idea.

pangasamaneesh 1 month ago

openInternet -- I never said George W. Bush invented the Internet (nor did Al Gore per se) but it is a fact that under Bush there was massive deregulation -- of a number of markets including the broadband Internet access market which has become less competitive, open, access is less affordable in rural areas -- and there is a digital divide. I have done the research which is why I know this. Under Bush 30 plus years of pro competitive regulations were gutted as was Net Neutrality -- in 2005 the Bush FCC crafted an Internet Policy Statement with 3 freedoms for Internet users -- they dropped the nondiscrimination rule and thus the future of Net Neutrality came into doubt -- now those of us who value the Internet as it exists today -- we value the democratic openness of the Web -- and don't want to lose the Information Super Highway we have come to enjoy we have to ensure the restoration of Net Neutrality.

Government has always been involved in regulating media -- they can deregulate media companies allowing more consolidation -- which harms consumer choice, leads to reduced competition etc or have good regulations to encourage diversity of opinions on the radio dial, more diversity on TV etc. Internet should be considered a public right -- as it is a public utility -- the Internet today is our best chance for reclaiming the media. To see statistics of the digital divide go to www.internetforeveryone.org and select your state on the map -- it shows 2007 numbers last I checked of how many people per state have broadband Internet and how many don't. Not convinced do an extensive Google search and you'll find other sources of information on our digital divide.

In order to be competitive with other countries having better Internet access -- the countries of Europe have more competitive and open markets. We must learn from history -- study the international lessons of our failed policies -- as we abandoned pro consumer, pro competitive regulations other countries maintained their own which is why the U.S. today is at least 28th in the world in terms of broadband Internet penetration. -- I am glad that we have a new FCC now committed to consumer protection and protecting the Internet -- a new FCC committed to a national broadband plan -- and to making the U.S. more competitive with other countries in offering broadband Internet access. It will not be easy as there are entrenched corporate special interests -- lobbyists for the Big Cable & Phone companies will fight against regulation requiring competition and for them to make their services more affordable -- just as Big Oil & Coal companies fight against climate change and clean energy legislation.

Whenever we try to hold polluters accountable for environmental damage they do they lobby against us such efforts. Speaking of clean energy -- some think the best way to wean our dependence of foreign oil is to drill more oil ourselves -- but with just 3% of the world's oil reserves we cannot drill our way out of this problem. To strengthen our national security and make the country more competitive globally we have to lead on clean energy or we'll be following China and others transitioning to clean energy, we need to have more energy efficiency and as this website is about protecting the open Internet -- we need to have common sense regulations to protect the Internet from dangerous corporations. We need to challenge corporate power. They have too much influence over our media, and our political system -- especially now thanks in part to the tragic decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Citizen's United v FEC to strike down 20 + years of campaign finance reform laws restricting how much corporations can spend on elections. Stop the corporate takeover of our democracy. Whether you political identification makes you Republican or Democrat as Americans we should all be concerned about this. We don't want America to become a plutocracy. We are a democracy.

Corporations have gained unprecedented control over radio, TV, publishing and the Internet -- already they have too much control over the Internet we can't let them increase their control any further -- we need to have Net Neutrality now and we have to roll back the regulations we had earlier mandating competition and reduce the power corporations already have.

We must learn from history not repeat it. Every time a transformative new technology emerged with the power to give a voice to the voiceless there was a great moment of hope -- we saw it when radio was invented in the 1920s, Television in the 1950s, Cable Television in the 1980s. Each time media moguls send their lobbyists to Washington to co-op and monetize the technologies before they get off the ground. Each time the public's best chance to reclaim the media was sacrificed to corporate power. Each time the public had no idea laws were being passed in their name killing the dream. With the Internet though we can use the Internet to save the Internet. With the Internet we not only have a tool that speaks truth to power, it protects truth from power. Former President FDR once said on the eve of his 1936 re-election "We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace business & financial monopoly, war profiteers, reckless and risky financial speculators who had begun to consider The Government of the United States as an appendage of their interests. We know now that government by organized money is just as dangerous as govt by organized mob." FDR got the New Deal passed because he took the fight to his opposition and never backed down, and neither can (nor will) we. Logon www.savetheinternet.com today!

Dar 1 month ago

The idea by pangasamaneesh that there are or might exist "pro consumer pro competitive regulations" is fantasy.

Government regulation hurt the consumer. They harm competition.

Washington, state assemblies, and even city councils set up a sign that they are for sale. CEOs who can't survive otherwise buy favors such as regulations and subsidies, limiting consumers and harming competitor.

We must limit the power of government and unwind the special favors already given.

That means LESS FCC power, not more.

We need to allow people to offer lots of communication services including Internet access services. By picking that which works best for us the whole economy will give us the best open Internet.

Let government get involved and we will have government controlled internet, a serious threat to our liberties.

openinternet 1 month ago

Yes, there are differences in internet access between different people and groups of people. There are also differences in the clothes they wear, and the cars they drive. There are disparities in how much they travel, and in what they choose to eat. Would you give the government power to "fix" these problems?

It is a little bizarre to hear that technologies like TV - fundamentally broadcast technologies - should not have been "monetized" by "corporations". If not organized in this - or some other - way, how would such a technology be used?

What you suggest is that political decision making is vastly superior to free people making their own decisions. This takes us back to the "democratic" situation of two wolves and a lamb deciding on what to have for lunch.

I value my freedom, and am willing to compete with others who also do. I do not, and will not cede my freedom to those who promise me "improvements" such as what you describe.

I trust corporations much more than government power. Corporations are subject to the same laws I am, and want only to make a profit. They can only make profits on money I freely give them.

Government can bar me from doing some things, and uses its coercive power to take from me what it wants (taxes). Corporations do not slaughter by the millions, as governments do. (Stalin, Pol Pot, etc)

The idea that you can ensure free access to the internet by giving the government more power over it makes no sense.

Private property and the Rule of Law is much better protection for me than the promises of well-meaning dreamers who want me to give up my freedom in exchange for security and "progress".

Net Neutrality is about giving the FCC more power. It is a bad idea.

pangasamaneesh 1 month ago

Actually it is not a fantasy it is a fact -- we have had regulations earlier -- the Internet is already neutral but big cable and phone companies want to kill net neutrality and to do that they have to get the U.S. Government to abandon its commitment to protecting consumers.

Big ISPs want to become gatekeepers -- the U.S. Highways if corporations were allowed to own and operate them would consist of a series of toll booths and corporations would become gatekeepers deciding where we can go, where we can travel to etc, and charge us for driving on the highways -- every highway could have a number of toll booths. The Information Superhighway should function in the same capacity as our federal highways -- that is they should remain open and free of corporate control -- I don't want government over regulation but under regulation is just as bad.

Competition by the way can be harmed by big businesses -- regulations forbidding mega mergers and mandating competition help consumers. It keeps companies from consolidating to a point they can monopolize and close markets to competitors. Innovation by monopolists comes much slower than innovation in open and competitive markets. Free market capitalism which is what the U.S. was supposed to encourage has come under threat from crony capitalists and business and financial monopolists.

I can agree in principle that government sanctioned monopolies are bad -- sometimes govt can do bad things but when govt works properly I can support responsible government regulation and intervention. Less FCC power will simply mean more corporate power, more concentration and consolidation of the media and the Internet. No company should be able to have a monopoly of any market -- antitrust rules were initially created at the suggestion of Teddy Roosevolt a Republican U.S. President for the benefit of protecting free markets, and protecting consumers. Under Bush there was barely any antitrust enforcement, Bush was pro big business and had a lot of friends in the business community and sided with their lobbyists. mega mergers were allowed to occur and hardly any companies were broken up for monopolistic abuse of power etc.

CEOs never buy regulations or want them -- your statement CEOs who can't survive otherwise buy favors such as regulations and subsidies, limiting consumers and harming competition -- thus is partly inaccurate -- yes businesses lobby in Washington which is legalized bribery that needs to stop but responsible government intervention when government acts on behalf of the public instead of corporations -- on Net Neutrality corporate cable and phone company ISPs would love nothing better than government to give up on Net Neutrality rules and allow them to do whatever they want -- we still have neutrality but they are trying to kill it and lobbying against it every day.

Net Neutrality can be good for business investment though particularly for small businesses and be good for competition -- without Net Neutrality Facebook and Twitter would need permission to have been created -- new web entrepreneurs would need permission to innovate. Censorship could occur without Net Neutrality.

Corporate monopolies restrict competition and consumer choice and we need government that represents the public's interest and does what's best for us not corporations. Without Net Neutrality even people who criticize it might suffer the same loss of freedoms on the Web as everyone else.

Do you really think its okay for ISPs to own content -- that[s a conflict of interest -- cable company ISPs have a conflict of interest -- without Net Neutrality can discriminate against online TV services competing with their digital cable TV offerings and say if you want to watch YouTube videos etc you have to subscribe not only to our Internet service but our TV service as well. Prioritization and discrimination could occur. Phone service providers cannot prioritize phone calls so why should they be allowed to do so with the Web.

Net Neutrality makes every ISP a dumb pipe taking us to the same Internet -- they hate this notion they have to provide equal and fair access to the Web -- they want to charge us more for certain features -- like when you subscribe to digital cable TV they are bundled packages -- you can get basic cable, basic digital cable, what I'd call advanced digital cable with premium movie channels like HBO, Cinemax and ShowTime etc, video on demand, pay per view etc, HD content and DVRs the more you have the more you pay per month. However, with Internet you just pay a monthly fee for Internet access that lets you do whatever you like on the Web -- you don't pay extra for using Facebook or Twitter. You don't pay for premium content etc -- you pay for unlimited Internet access and really get it at a basic price (that unfortunately for some in rural areas is unaffordable or there is no provider hence the digital divide) they can't charge you extra.

With TV service lets say you pay $49.99 a month for HD DVR, HD and digital cable each month -- well one month you buy a HD movie from Pay Per View or Video On Demand for $4.99 that $4.99 gets added to your bill for that month. Otherwise you don't pay extra -- with Internet there is no provision even for them to charge us extra and they shouldn't have to or be able to. It's wrong cable companies are already price gouging customers in general -- we shouldn't have to pay extra for Facebook, My Space, Twitter or Google. We should have universal, affordable public access to the Internet for all -- an Internet that is democratic, non discriminatory, neutral, equal and encourages participation, collaboration, and empowers the public to speak their minds. Internet that supports entrepreneurialism and innovation. An Internet that is open and required to be kept open is better than Internet that is allowed to be closed. Without Net Neutrality kiss Internet freedom goodbye -- you worry about government takeover of Internet -- Net Neutrality though is meant to stop the corporate takeover of the Web by big ISPs.

openinternet 1 month ago

These big evil ISPs that build and operate the internet are doing so for the sole purpose of getting your money. They do this by giving you the most they can of what you want and competing with others doing the same thing. By doing so, they win your business. I am continually amazed at how this can be twisted into something bad.

There is currently no government authority or power to regulate internet content. I want it to stay that way.

Yes, you have to pay to use the internet. There is no free lunch. Would comcast charge $1 billion dollars a second for data transfer if it could? Absolutely. Why don't they? competition.

"Net Neutrality" is about giving the FCC - government - more power. You want that power used to create/maintain the "free, non-discriminatory...." etc. That is just not how things work. The desire for power to be used in a certain way is just not enough to ensure that it is used that way. In the real world, power tends to corrupt, and accretes to those with the most to gain by wielding it. In this context, that is the very corporate "villains" you are so afraid of.

I strongly recommend a book for you: "Economic Facts and Fallacies" by Thomas Sowell. Much of what you say above is variations on themes of error that he covers in his book.

There is no abuse of power in a free market because there is no power to abuse. In a free economy, every transaction is concluded by choice, and unless both parties benefit, the transaction does not occur.

Where there is abuse of power, it is government power, sometimes captured by private interests for private gain. You cannot fix that by simply urging officials to be more virtuous. History teaches that temptation is too often more powerful than virtue.

Much of the 20th century was spent trying to implement the sort of "directed virtue" you describe. Despots and bureaucrats have offered us "improvements" from time to time, always leaving us poorer, sometimes leaving us dead.

Net Neutrality is a Bad Idea. It is unnecessary at best. It is the end of internet freedom at worst.

erikcorona 1 month ago

I have one simple question.

Does it cost the TELCOS more money to send me a Hulu.com Gigabyte than a Gigabyte from one of their financial partners? If not, then why do they INSIST on charging more for it?

Bandwidth is what we end users pay for, so charge me for bandwidth, but don't examine my data and tell me that a Hulu.com Gigabyte will cost me more money than a Youtube.com Gigabyte.

openinternet 1 month ago

The answer is that it's not our affair. We buy services from a telco, and they charge what they please. You get to choose your telco based on what you want to pay. If the telco charges too much, or gives poor service, you either go elsewhere, or you don't buy.

This is the way a free economy works. It's no different with cars, or computers, or clothing or lawn service. Vendors compete for customers. Customers choose what they buy.

That said, it's not a question of HULU vs. "financial partner". It's a question of HULU vs. VoIP or cable TV on demand, or internet discussion forums (like this one), or peer-to-peer filesharing. Some are huge bandwidth hogs and some are not. Some of these services are worth extra money to customers, and some are not. Networks are always under engineered, otherwise costs would be horrific. That makes bandwidth management essential. Bandwidth hogs need to be throttled. One way to do that is to charge more. The extra revenue to the ISPs allows the networks to be upgraded to handle the increased demand.

Do you insist on getting your gigabyte of HULU at the expense of your neighbor being unable to reliably get his video on demand that he paid more money to get? Network management and "discriminatory pricing" makes this possible. Network Neutrality regulation may make it IMpossible.

Network Neutrality is a very bad idea.

erikcorona 1 month ago

We buy services from a telco and they charge what they please. However, we do NOT get to choose our telco in a lot of cases. In many cases we get to choose from 2, maybe 3 if we're lucky. This is ridiculous. Competition will not work under this environment. I'd LOVE to go somewhere else to buy my internet service but I ONLY have the option of choosing ATT. It's a broken market and innovation has slowed to a crawl. Compare internet speeds with other countries. So no, we can't choose what we buy.

What makes you think it's solely a question between hulu and VOIP? Where did you dig that up from? You really trust huge corporations with their monopolies will simply act in a spirit of kindness and humanity and apply voluntary net neutrality in everything except VOIP and cable TV? If that's the case, I'd like to sell you a rock that keeps tigers away. I can prove that it works, I've never been attacked by tigers once in my life.

openinternet 1 month ago

You choose your internet service just like you choose everything else in the marketplace. You decide whether what is offered to you is worth buying. If it isn't, you don't buy.

That's how it works.

You don't have internet offerings that please you. OK, don't buy it. If it is so important, move somewhere that you can get what you want. You have that choice.

You may not have an IKEA near where you live, so you go to WalMart or Target. You don't have a *right* to IKEA any more than having a gas station for your convenience across the street.

I trust large companies to try to make money. That's it. They may not do as I might like, but they have no power over me.

Government does have power. If they want money, they take it. (taxation) If I refuse, I end up in jail. This is also how it works.

Look carefully at the history of using government power to "fix" society. In mild cases, we get the FDA and the INS - Ineffective at best, deadly at worst. In more extreme cases, we end up with Pol Pot and Stalin and Saddam Hussein.

I don't trust business or government. I trust the marketplace - if allowed to operate - to offer me choices. I trust my fellow citizens, acting freely, to treat me and my choices with respect. I do not expect my fellow citizens to impose their will on me to get what they want by imposing FCC regulations on my ISP rather than talking to me.

Yes, I run a very small ISP. Some of the FCC regulations being proposed would be onerous enough that I would be forced to shut down.

Net Neutrality is a very bad idea. History teaches us that it will not accomplish what its proponents claim, and will do great damage along the way.

river_wind 28 days ago

openinternet: if you think the FDA has not resulted in a massive improvement int he safety of our food supply, then you are drastically and dangerously ignorant of US history.

The FDA is far from perfect. But it's even farther from ineffective.

What specific regulations would cause you as a small ISP to shut down? Especially in light of the FCC possibly requiring that the big carriers like AT&T to reduce cost for third-party access to internet lines (similar to how phone systems), net neutrality rules should help smaller ISPs. Unless you were planning on making your money by DPI'ing all the data flowing to your customers, in order to charge them tier rates by content accessed.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/02/regulators-may-drop-broadband-line-sharing-bombshell.ars

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/10/us-internet-is-slow-expensiveand-the-fcc-has-proof.ars

openinternet 28 days ago

The effectiveness of the FDA is open to interpretation. It is true that we have improvements in various areas "regulated" by the FDA, but it is not at all certain that the FDA is the cause. The FDA cannot, and will never prevent every "bad" thing from coming to market. It gets far too much credit IMO for the advances made by those who actually produce the products and distribute them. Its proponents pretend that industry would go out and poison all its customers if the FDA were not there to stop them, which is absolute nonsense. Take careful note of the debates of recent years with meat inspection - the federal ag inspectors complain regularly that the number of inspectors is trivial compared with the number of slaughterhouses and food preparation facilities. They are "spit in the ocean". The only real protection we have is the diligence of vendors - who want their customers to be happy, healthy and loyal - and of consumer watchdogs (and lawyers) who want to make hay on their mistakes.

Also, none of the advances in medicine and food safety originated at the FDA. The FDA only deigns to permit advances that they consider worthy. This means that for every advance "approved" (for which they take some credit), there are several more that are denied access to the market. In the area of drugs, there are many cases of deaths of patients caused by FDA delays in lifesaving drugs. There is considerable debate about whether the FDA is a net benefit, or a net harm.

http://www.ruwart.com/Healing/chap6.html

http://www.isil.org/resources/lit/death-regulation.html

I repeat - the FDA is at best ineffective, and at worst deadly. This is the nature of government agencies. They cannot be bulletproof in protecting us, or vastly more insightful than all the experts in the field. They will make mistakes, catch some things, and always will impede progress. The question is whether they are a net benefit. I think not.

As for my ISP, I run on a shoestring. My ISP is a part-time operation, and any significant intrusion that would force me to hire lawyers to figure out what I needed to do, or possibly spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on new equipment or services to meet some new requirement would be deadly. I cannot squeeze much more revenue out of the operation, so if a new cost comes along, it is likely that I would have to shut it down.

What regs would cause me problems? Anything that requires me to be "fair" in the traffic in and out of my facility would be a problem, for starters. You can't regulate without knowing about the traffic, and my router is unmanaged. This means that the first thing that I would have to do is buy a fancy new router that could track the things being regulated. Managed routers are not cheap.

Since many of my customers are churches, charities, and so forth, this would be more of a blow to them than to me. The ISP is not a money maker for me. It is something I do so I can help people deal with the technology.

This is an example of the unintended consequences this sort of well-intentioned regulation (Net Neutrality) ignores. It pushes costs onto those "big bad ISPs", and they are not all big, nor bad.

The idea that "line sharing" to articles you cite will "help small ISPs" is dubious at best.

Yes, in theory, forcing the big telcos to sell something at a favorable price to Joe sounds good if you are Joe. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Telcos want to make the most money they can with what they have. This is natural, and if I am a stockholder, that's what I WANT them to do. (If you have a 401K or IRA, you are probably a stockholder, too)

If you force a telco to sell something below the price the market would otherwise bear, what you do is inhibit investment in that segment of the market. Investment means upgrades to capacity and quality of the capacity. Immediately you have created incentive to find somewhere else to put that investment. Instant obsolescence. This does not help anyone - not the small ISPs, not the telcos, and not the customers.

Sure, like the redistributions that happened in 1917-1920 in Russia when Lenin took power, there was housing stock and food and clothing to be distributed for a while, but after farmers buried their tractors, people found better hiding places for their food, and millions simply fled, the situation got pretty bad, pretty fast.

The Russian example is an extreme, but poignant example of what happens when you ignore markets. The internet is a vast, interconnected, efficient marketplace of thousands of vendors and millions of customers, all competing for access, resources and customers. It works amazingly well, and is improving at a breakneck pace.

Remember - the "internet" did not exist 30 years ago.

Armchair quarterbacks in government, academia, and in their living rooms who want to play kingmaker and "fix" what they know almost nothing about should be seen as the meddlers they are. They will not bring any net improvements, but will distort markets, inhibit investment, drive small players (like me) out of business, and generally take freedoms from citizens.

When I was younger, I frequently heard "this is a free country". I don't hear that much any more. Is it not true? This country was built by people who got up off their butts and built things and did things. They didn't expect to have to ask permesso, and expected to take the responsibility for their failures.

Are we no longer that free nation? Do we really want Big Brother to control everything, so even the most trivial problems - like "my internet is too expensive" - are justification for seizing the private property rights of a whole industry?

Net Neutrality is a very bad idea. It is unlikely to do anyone any good, with the exception of enhancing the power and authority of the FCC, and the lobbyists who will come to dominate them.

openinternet 28 days ago

One more thing - a previous comment stated:

"Government has always been involved in regulating media -- they can deregulate media companies allowing more consolidation -- which harms consumer choice, leads to reduced competition etc or have good regulations to encourage diversity of opinions on the radio dial, more diversity on TV etc. "

Our constitution, in the first amendment, states:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Let me repeat the salient points: "Congress shall make no law respecting ..... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press..."

Historically, this has given our "press", which includes "media companies" broad freedom to operate without interference of any kind. It has always been my opinion that this is a good thing. In other places in the world, the government often controls the media. Think Pravda.

Do we want more government involvement in the media, or less? Are we willing to sacrifice our freedom in exchange for a little commercial advantage? (cheaper comcast bills)

I value my first amendment rights. I value the rights of my neighbors - even the rich, successful ones - to operate their businesses as they see fit, as long as they don't break the law. I support no law that simply confers advantage on some people at the expense of others.

Net Neutrality is a very bad idea.

erikcorona 28 days ago

What you're saying is nonsense. Net Neutrality will make it so that NOBODY, not even government can pick and choose whether a gigabyte from Hulu.com is more expensive than a gigabyte from a AT&T's financial partner. Nobody gets that authority, not government, not corporations, not anybody. If we allow all websites to compete fairly (without slowing down access to some of the new startup websites), then consumers and the market decide which online companies will succeed, driving innovation forward.

The internet service provider industry is BROKEN. I have ONE option for an ISP, and most people are lucky if they have two. When monopolies form, they MUST BE REGULATED to maintain innovation at a steady pace. It's very important that we don't give AT&T and COMCAST the ability to divert traffic to certain websites by messing around with how much bandwidth those websites get!

All your talk about FDA being ineffective is a distraction from the issue. The issue is Net Neutrality, not god damn meat inspection. You can't cherry pick one area where government was ineffective and extrapolate that as a sad attempt to prove a point about Net Neutrality. Well, you technically can, but only people with ZERO critical thinking skills will fall for it.

river_wind 28 days ago

"You can't regulate without knowing about the traffic, and my router is unmanaged. This means that the first thing that I would have to do is buy a fancy new router that could track the things being regulated. Managed routers are not cheap."
Please point to the specific area of net nuetrality regulation which would require you to deep-inspect user data in order to *not* filter it.

"Yes, in theory, forcing the big telcos to sell something at a favorable price to Joe sounds good if you are Joe. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Telcos want to make the most money they can with what they have."
You conclusion is indeed completely intuitive. However, we have data which shows that intuition on the matter is incorrect (see the second link I posted, where line sharing in practice elsewhere in the world is shown to provide better internet access/dollar than we have here in the US).

This is just like objects of different weight falling through a vacuum. Any child will tell you that it is obvious that heavier objects will fall faster. When tested, however, real-world data shows that intuition is often wrong.

"when Lenin took power,"..."Pol Pot and Stalin and Saddam Hussein", etc, etc.

Please stop using unassociated FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) as your argument method. It is poor debating tactic at best, and dangerously manipulative at worst. The FCC requiring free and unmodified data transfer is not going to cause mass starvation, nor will it allow mass murder. Your association of any government regulation with horrendous dictators and human rights abusers of recent history is nothing more than an attempt at winning an argument through distraction.

Please discuss the issue at hand based on cognizant facts, and refrain from employing juvenile tactics like this.

openinternet 28 days ago

I would love to hear how Net Neutrality regulation, administered by the FCC will make it so that " NOBODY, not even government can pick and choose whether a gigabyte from Hulu.com is more expensive than a gigabyte from a AT&T's financial partner".

It's a fine sentiment to say that this will be the case, but in the real world, you have to set up rules, and ways to enforce them, or you have nothing. Please describe how rules can be devised that would ensure this. Tell me how this will be done without getting the FCC into the business of monitoring content (the difference between HULU and other content) and dictating pricing for _all_ ISPs. For that matter, as the internet and telephony and NetFlix and..... merge, won't the FCC have to set pricing for those things too, to be "fair"? We can't allow any "loopholes" in our regulations, right?

It seems to me that the power to "enforce" this utopian rule would make it a very dangerous power in the wrong hands.

Is that REALLY what you want?

Please describe how this will work. I am eager to know how it is to be done.

Please explain how this will allow me to continue to run my little ISP unmolested by the FCC.

erikcorona 28 days ago

I think I see the crux of your problem. Please don't take offense as I mean this sincerely. You don't know what Net Neutrality is.

Net Neutrality is this:
Internet Service Providers will be forced into selling bandwidth and will be forced to abstain from prioritizing access to websites that 1) they approve of due to political reasons 2) are run by their financial partners. This is great as AT&T and COMCAST should not artificially drive up traffic to a financial partner's website. This is against free market principles.

That's it. There is no new cost to small ISPs or anything of the sort. No deep packet inspection is required. You just sell bandwidth. You're just giving me access to the internet at a price you want to charge for, but don't charge me more for a Gigabyte from Hulu.com than one from Youtube.com. What I do what the bandwidth I pay for should be none of the ISP's business.

river_wind 28 days ago

"Please explain how this will allow me to continue to run my little ISP unmolested by the FCC. "

Don't block your users' access to certain sites or services. They pay for access at certain speeds and you allow them to connect to anyone else on the internet at their agreed speed or the speed off the other party, whichever is slower.

Your users won't complain to the FCC, and the FCC won't bother you.

Just like it is today.

openinternet 28 days ago

I know exactly what "Net Neutrality" means in the context of this discussion. The problem is that the proponents do not understand the difference between the fuzzy abstraction of "make everything fair" and the nitty gritty reality of the real world where you have to come up with specific rules, and methods to enforce those rules.

The key word here is "force".

To get to brass tacks - which "sites or services" do I have to worry about? If the FCC adopts a rule that gives my customer the power to take me to court and extract an N dollar fine if I don't violate some FCC rule, then I am in a pickle. I don't currently have "deep packet inspection". I manage my network. I block some ports, and do various things that may or may not be acceptable to some customers. Will the FCC rule allow those customers to sue me and win? I'd better have a fancy router to at least have solid data to be sure that I can defend myself. I had better start collecting and archiving that data, too, in case a lawsuit comes in 2 years from now alleging violations now.

So, depending on the specific rules - and rulings of the courts - that I will have to follow for years and years...... I probably have to get a fancy router. (at minimum)

As you may know, some networking issues can be subtle. If service is not "up to par" for one or more of my customers, will that be a customer complaint, or a summons to a lawsuit? The latter risk forces me to hire a lawyer, to at least UNDERSTAND the rules and their effects. "Don't do anything bad" is just naive.

So, again, depending on the rules, and the rulings, and the courts, that I have to follow for years, and years...... I probably have to get a lawyer and spend $$$ figuring out where I might get in trouble.

OR I can just shut down. These are real issues. Don't poo-poo them.

On content:

You can't regulate "fairness" based on content without giving the FCC power to at least monitor content on ALL networks and ALL ISPs. Is that what we want? Isn't there even a tiny risk of abuse there? It doesn't matter if the FCC does the monitoring directly, or forces me to do it for them by making me monitor and report, or by leaving me open to nasty lawsuits that forces me to do it defensively. This is ugly.

Be serious. The reality is very different than the promises and the hopes..

Net Neutrality is a very bad idea. It's a business killer, job killer, and freedom killer.

openinternet 28 days ago

One more thing:

My references to Pol Pot et. al. are not irrelevant.

Defense of freedom depends on free flow of information. The internet is a wonderful tool for freedom of information. Go tell the protesters in Iran, or the dissidents in China that government monitoring of the internet is OK. Tell them that we are supporting the idea that our government should be able to "force" any and ALL ISPs to abide by government policy - whatever that happens to be.

Freedom is not lost all at once, but in little slices and by degrees. This argument is about whether the US government is going to have power to regulate the pricing of the internet, dictate details of its technical management, and indirectly manage its content.

Is that really what we want? Is a few dollars on your comcast bill so important that you are willing to give up important freedoms?

I say no. I also will fight to prevent your giving up your freedoms, because you are also throwing away mine.

Net Neutrality is much like other utopian ideas that don't work, and produce a bumper crop of unintended and unfortunate consequences along the way.

erikcorona 27 days ago

Free flow of information is what Net Neutrality is all about. Nobody, not corporations or government, should decide that certain information is "prioritized" or blocked. Net Neutrality will make it illegal for an ISP to play king maker and divert traffic to financial partners.

To those of you who own small ISPs and are afraid of getting sued... first of all, don't violate the law. Second of all, how much is the cost burden to ensure that you are not breaking tre law? ZERO. Give people the bandwidth they paid for and that's that. As far as people abusing Net Neutrality legislate to launch baseless lawsuits, well that logic is just plain silly. I mean, sure it's a possibility, but the same thing can be said about EVERY LAW. There is no evidence that the risk of baseless lawsuits is elevated in this issue compared to the average pragmatic regulation out there. I'm sorry, but none of those reasons hold any water.

erikcorona 27 days ago

One other thing...

One of the most common arguments that I hear out of net neutrality opponents is that competition will somehow keep most ISP's net neutral without any messy government regulation. But what happens if all the major ISP's start blocking certain sites (like Pirate Bay)? With most people (in the U.S. at least) having at most 1-3 broadband providers to choose from, exactly where are you supposed to you go when all the big ones agree on a blacklist? And how can you open up a competing provider when all the wire and fiber are in the hands of monopolies like AT&T, Time-Warner, etc.? It's not like you can just start up a Mom & Pop broadband provider and start laying hundreds of miles of cable. Even Google will have a hard time competing with the big telco's and cableco's with the relatively minor bit of fiber optic they own.

At it's base, legislating network neutrality is dictating that the way the internet works now is the way it should work. ISP's are meant to be access points, not gatekeepers. Net neutrality legislation aims to prevent ISP's selling tiered services like cable companies do with their service. An ISP can't go and make an agreement with one content/service provider (say MS Bing) and throttle all competitors to be so slow as to be useless and turn around and say that you have to upgrade to the next package up to be able to use Google. Network neutrality prevents an ISP running a VOIP service and throttling Vonage into oblivion, unless you pay for the *special unlimited* VIOP package. Network Neutrality prevents double dipping, i.e. the ISP from charging you to access content AND charging content providers to be in the lower level tiers.

Legitimate QoS is not prevented under network neutrality. ISP's can, and should, prioritize VOIP over HTTP.

You should also know...
In 2006 AT&T's CEO opened his mouth and basically stated he wanted to hold his customers hostage from Google in exchange for more money. He plainly stated that he wanted to charge both his direct customers AND people who were incidentally coming across the lines. It was made plainly obvious that corporations can and would abuse their services and their customers for the sake of making a profit, especially when they had a monopoly position in areas.

A bunch of regional monopolies serve as the only reasonably modern gateway to the most important technology of the late 20th/early 21st century, and they're more than willing to destroy what makes it unique.

The carriers should be forcibly struck blind. They've already been caught manipulating connections, and are more than willing to host and affect their networks (and customers) with conflicts of interest that serve only themselves.

openinternet 27 days ago

I am still waiting for specific, concrete suggestions for rules that can be discussed.

What I see is a repetition of the goals, and the blithe statement of how wonderful it will be when the ISPs are controlled and things are kept nicely "neutral". There is no substance as to how it would work.

After reading how good it will be to prohibit charging extra for prioritization, I read in the same post that ISPs can, and should prioritize VoIP over HTTP. Which is it?

Please tell me how that works. Please tell me what specific rules will allow an ISP to deal with QoS issues for VoIP while not prioritizing bandwidth. Tell me why an ISP or telco should invest to upgrade infrastructure when it's no longer profitable because he can't charge for it. Tell me what rules will be "safe" for small ISPs and hot effectively drive them out of business.

The way the internet works now is that the ISPs and telcos do as they please with their bandwidth. They charge what they like, and customers have free choice of carriers. This is called a free market, and it works well. Decisions about what to carry on the wires are made by the parties involved. Customers have choices and vendors compete for customers.

Network Neutrality rules/legislation would give the FCC power to regulate this marketplace, precluding deals that it disfavors. NN replaces some of the decision making by vendors and customers in a free marketplace with the dictates of political/state/goverrnment entities. Further discussion depends on what those rules will be - in detail, but this strikes me as a bad trade.

Net Neutrality regulation - government power over internet pricing and content - is a bad idea. If you think otherwise, please provide information about what the rules would be, and how they would be enforced. We can discuss.

river_wind 27 days ago

It's not our job to do your homework.

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-09-93A1.pdf

"After reading how good it will be to prohibit charging extra for prioritization, I read in the same post that ISPs can, and should prioritize VoIP over HTTP. Which is it?"
Prioritization based on business-related benefit for the ISP is not the same as prioritization based on protocol. No fancy router is needed to prioritize a streaming UDP protocol over a TCP-based flow-control protocol. So long as standard methods are employed, nearly any off-the-shelf router can balance priority of the two for a maximum quality of service for both system. No DPI needed, and nothing in the Proposed Rules would prevent this.

The issue at hand is whether Comcast should be able to degrade or block traffic from Time Warner, and direct its customers to similar Comcast-branded services instead. This would reduce realistic competition through artificial barriers to entry, and are in violation of long-standing Common Carrier rules in place for mail, telegraph, and telephone systems.

Your concerns are understandable. But history does not bare them out as actual problems. History *does* however, bare out the problems encountered by non-neutral networks. See Carterfone, see Pacific Telegraph, see 'payola' in the radio market.

openinternet 27 days ago

A snarky attitude is not a substitute for clear reasoning, and the technical details of protocols are not central to this discussion. The old saying comes to mind: "Everything is easy for the man who does not have to do it himself".

Let me quote the document ref'd above. This is one of a series of similar "rules" in the proposal:

"8.13 Nondiscrimination.
Subject to reasonable network management, a provider of broadband Internet access service must treat lawful content, applications, and services in a nondiscriminatory manner. "

This sounds pretty good, until you actually go out and try to implement it.

What is "reasonable network management"? Who is a "provider"? What is an "application"? What is "non-discriminatory"?

Yes, the proposed rules include definitions of these things, but the key is that the FCC (and courts) will have to make judgements about what they are, and they are plenty fuzzy. ("flexible" is the favored word in the proposed rules) By doing so, the FCC will end up with considerable arbitrary power over the internet and all its players. This is an expansion of FCC power. If it were not so, the new rules would be unnecessary.

Decisions currently made by telcos, ISPs and their customers will be taken from them and made by bureaucrats and politicians. Lobbyists will wield more influence, and the owners of the pipes and their customers will wield less. This will be a LESS open internet, not a more open one.

This all sets aside the moral question of why it is right to seize the private property of the telcos and ISPs to serve some imagined goal of a "better internet".

History does bear out my analysis. See the wikipedia entry for "regulatory capture".

Net Neutrality remains a bad idea.

P.S. The reference to Carterfone et al is amusing. I fail to see the how the FCC opening up the telephone system - a government granted and enforced monopoly - to competition justifies FCC interference in one of the most dynamic and open marketplaces in our history (the Internet). Is this a suggestion that we should create and support a universal monopoly telco/ISP ala AT&T???

erikcorona 27 days ago

"Everything is easy for the man who does not have to do it"

Oh no, here comes the folksy sayings that don't mean anything. Look, if you want to get into specifics, great. A lot of people here have an intimate understanding of technology and the realities of implementing these policies or we'll end up saying things like "takes one to know one".

You really just answered your own questions...

"What is "reasonable network management"? Who is a "provider"? What is an "application"? What is "non-discriminatory"?"

then you say...

"Yes, the proposed rules include definitions of these things..."

Then you go on to say that courts would have to interpret whether or not you meet the definitions as spelled out in the written policy. Isn't that true for EVERYTHING? It sounds like you have a problem with courts interpreting law, not with Net Neutrality.

Oh, and spare me the whole "seizing private property of the telcos" excuse. First of all, the telcos used TAX PAYER money to build their network. Second of all, monopolies should ALWAYS be regulated.

Net Neutrality will make sure that NOBODY, not government or corporations get to play king maker and decide which online companies flourish and which ones fail by diverting traffic. It places all internet content on an equal playing field so that if a corporation can not charge you more or less for a Gigabyte from Hulu.com or one from their financial partners. Don't be naive, they are simply trying to fleece consumers. Telcos are not interested in Net Neutrality because they have publicly stated that they intend to divide up the internet like cable TV is right now. The internet should stay free and open without AT&T and COMCAST deciding who gets to succeed, which is AGAINST free market principles.

openinternet 27 days ago

If the proposed rules are promulgated, we will see who is naive.

I see no support in these posts for exactly how Net Neutrality will "make sure that NOBODY.... can play kingmaker...". If the FCC has power to tell the players what they may and may not do (the proposed rules) then it seems obvious that the FCC will have that power.

Declarations of intent are not a substitute for illustration and description of how the rules would work. As proposed, they leave too much discretion in the hands of the FCC.

Net Neutrality in essence is an expansion of the FCC's power to regulate the internet. I value my freedom and yours, and this is a bad idea.

erikcorona 27 days ago

An ISP can't go and make an agreement with one content/service provider (say MS Bing) and throttle all competitors to be so slow as to be useless and turn around and say that you have to upgrade to the next package up to be able to use Google. Network neutrality prevents an ISP running a VOIP service and throttling Vonage into oblivion, unless you pay for the *special unlimited* VIOP package. Network Neutrality prevents double dipping, i.e. the ISP from charging you to access content AND charging content providers to be in the lower level tiers.

This is how it prevents anybody from playing king maker. If an online company succeeds, it's the consumers, not AT&T and COMCAST deciding this.

This regulation of the internet is merely making sure that nobody else regulates it by limiting access.

I'm for freedom too, personal freedom. Not freedom for AT&T and COMCAST to use their monopoly fleece us consumers.

openinternet 27 days ago

This is all very nice to say, but this is intent, not rules. Rules have to be concrete and specific.

Today, I spend extra money for more bandwidth, and better service. Is there something wrong with that?

What rule - specifically - would do what you suggest, and how would it work?

ntom 27 days ago

This is what you people want(see article below)???
I still say NO... not this...
The guy is nuts and if this "open Internet" goes through
with the 'new text' that is written He will have way too much control over what people can say here and anywhere on the web.
The regulations that are im place are working...
why "fix" what works?
Want more speed? then pay more, simple it cost the provider more for you to go faster so why can they not charge more?
Don't like the service call another company...
That my friend is simple economics.. Called Capitalism (the thing this country was based on.).

Someone said they only get one or two options for the web..
hmmm.. I live on an island.. about 100 miles (either a boat or a plane will get you here)from anywhere..
we have at least 5 ways to get on the net... if you don't,
then call a grant writer, call ITT tech, and get yourself some of that stimulus money. Start your own ISP.. and see what it takes...
I do not run an ISP, I have no stock in an ISP, I just know
the internet right now is NOT BROKEN... we may not be up to speed
but it works.. and by the way, if you go READ the CONSTITUTION the internet is not a "right", it is a "privilege"!!!

The Declaration of Independence "should" explain the rest too you.

**"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights"**

priv·i·lege = A special advantage, immunity, permission, right, or benefit granted to or enjoyed by an individual, class, or caste.

Steve Watson Friday, Jan 15, 2010
"Obama’s information czar wants to tax or ban outright, as in make illegal, opinions and ideas that the government doesn’t approve of. Sunstein’s definition of a “conspiracy theorist” encompasses those who question manmade global warming and, most bizarrely, anyone who believes that sunlight is healthy for their bodies."

For every action there is a reacton:

Punitive taxes on cigarettes resulted in smuggling and a black market that harmed legitimate businesses.

Banning of Alcohol crimminals made millions from bootlegging.

Number of DUI's increased after smoking was banned in bars because smokers drove to jurisdictions that did not have smoking bans.

Food handling: Indiana effectively renedered potluck dinners.. as illegal..

The Post office was a profitable business until the government took over...

When you lend your power to someone there is nothing to stop them from using it against you.

notice no personal attacks.. hmm. don't have to attack anyonw
just have to put the truth on the page...

again I say NO... not the way it is written..take the power out of the hands of ONE man and I will agree.. but I still want to know what is wrong with the regulations that are in place...

pangasamaneesh 26 days ago

The recent tragic decision by The U.S. Supreme Court on Citizen's United which undid democracy emboldens big cable and phone company ISPs to suggest Net Neutrality violates their free speech which is bogus -- by the way the Internet is more interactive than radio or TV ever were -- it encourages participation, dissent, and democracy. The Open Internet encourages free speech on the part of users. We just pay a monthly fee for access and have unlimited equal access to all Internet websites but big ISPs want to be able to change all of that. They dislike the idea of being forced to deliver every email message even messages by consumer rights groups criticizing them etc. The Open Internet threatens their legacy business model where in the past they would co-op and monetize technologies for corporate gain at the expense of the public interest.

Big ISPs like Comcast want to be able to censor what we write in our emails and publish to the Web. Let's say I write an email about Comcast criticizing them for anti competitive, and anti consumer policies and I happen to be using Comcast's email service to send the message. Comcast wants to be able to reject my message because they think its unfair for them to be forced to deliver a message criticizing them.

When the U.S. Postal Service delivers letters every day to mailboxes they cannot filter out and decide which letters to deliver and which not to. If I want to send a letter to someone they cannot refuse to deliver my letter because they don't like what I have to say. They don't have a free speech right to do such a thing. If the Post Office cannot prioritize and discriminate against what mail is delivered ISPs cannot either.

The Information Superhighway needs to be protected -- using this analogy the Internet should be kept open and accessible like our federal highways -- I'm not advocating that government control the Internet but the Internet be open and we should be able to access any website without corporate gatekeepers on the Web. A majority of our nation's roads and highways have no toll booths and even those that do aren't owned by corporations that can set arbitrarily high prices. The way we do this is to return to some form of government regulation that existed in the past. That the FCC focus on the parts of the 1996 Telecommunications Act that provided them the power to mandate competition among broadband Internet access providers and the FCC revise its definition of broadband Internet access changed tragically in 2002 by the Bush Administration from an information service back to an information service using a telecommunications service to give them more regulatory clout to protect the Internet. Before 2002 the FCC defined broadband Internet access like this but it was changed in 2002. We also need to restore Net Neutrality protections lifted in 2005 when the Internet Policy Statement of the Bush FCC was released without nondiscriminatory service mandated for the freedom of Internet users.

pangasamaneesh 26 days ago

The recent tragic decision by The U.S. Supreme Court on Citizen's United which undid democracy emboldens big cable and phone company ISPs to suggest Net Neutrality violates their free speech which is bogus -- by the way the Internet is more interactive than radio or TV ever were -- it encourages participation, dissent, and democracy. The Open Internet encourages free speech on the part of users. We just pay a monthly fee for access and have unlimited equal access to all Internet websites but big ISPs want to be able to change all of that. They dislike the idea of being forced to deliver every email message even messages by consumer rights groups criticizing them etc. The Open Internet threatens their legacy business model where in the past they would co-op and monetize technologies for corporate gain at the expense of the public interest.

Big ISPs like Comcast want to be able to censor what we write in our emails and publish to the Web. Let's say I write an email about Comcast criticizing them for anti competitive, and anti consumer policies and I happen to be using Comcast's email service to send the message. Comcast wants to be able to reject my message because they think its unfair for them to be forced to deliver a message criticizing them.

When the U.S. Postal Service delivers letters every day to mailboxes they cannot filter out and decide which letters to deliver and which not to. If I want to send a letter to someone they cannot refuse to deliver my letter because they don't like what I have to say. They don't have a free speech right to do such a thing. If the Post Office cannot prioritize and discriminate against what mail is delivered ISPs cannot either.

The Information Superhighway needs to be protected -- using this analogy the Internet should be kept open and accessible like our federal highways -- I'm not advocating that government control the Internet but the Internet be open and we should be able to access any website without corporate gatekeepers on the Web. A majority of our nation's roads and highways have no toll booths and even those that do aren't owned by corporations that can set arbitrarily high prices. The way we do this is to return to some form of government regulation that existed in the past. That the FCC focus on the parts of the 1996 Telecommunications Act that provided them the power to mandate competition among broadband Internet access providers (the 1996 Telecommunications Act was a blueprint by Congress for the FCC to use to ensure a vibrant and competitive broadband Internet access market would continue in the U.S. instead the FCC ignored that portion of the Act and focused on another area in the Act dealing with de-regulation to completely de-regulate the market and allow big companies to consolidate) and the FCC revise its definition of broadband Internet access changed tragically in 2002 by the Bush Administration from an information service back to an information service using a telecommunications service to give them more regulatory clout to protect the Internet. Before 2002 the FCC defined broadband Internet access like this but it was changed in 2002. We also need to restore Net Neutrality protections lifted in 2005 when the Internet Policy Statement of the Bush FCC was released without nondiscriminatory service mandated for the freedom of Internet users.

We need wholesale open access and wireless Net Neutrality for mobile phones so the mobile Internet has the same nondiscriminatory protections as the rest of the Internet and cellular phone users can access the legal mobile applications of their choice over their carrier's network even if it is a VOIP app like Skype or Vonage Mobile for iPhone or Blackberry that competes with the carrier's network in offering call services. For example, AT&T Wireless cannot block apps it dislikes because they compete with AT&T's offerings like Skype for iPhone thus restricting such apps technically capable of working over 3G to Wifi. Wholesale open access likewise would apply the benefits of the Carterfone ruling to wireless and say cellular phones have to be opened up so you can use any phone with any carrier of your choice and that can result in increased competition. Breaking up business and financial monopolists in the cable and telecommunications industry (separating AT&T from SBC Communications & Bell South again; and AT&T Wireless from Cingular Wireless) etc and banning further mega mergers like Comcast NBC Universal -- which poses a huge conflict of interest with a company owning the pipes for distributing TV channels and Internet access owning content. Already Comcast with their TV Everywhere scam want to force us to bundle digital cable TV with broadband Internet access if we want access to video services online.

That is unacceptable and wrong. By the way cable prices have been rising for too long. Cable companies with Internet and TV services have a conflict of interest between allowing fast Internet and access to video sites and blocking them without Net Neutrality so we can be forced to pay for their expensive digital cable TV offerings as well.

Comcast and companies like AT&T claim they don't make enough money to make massive network upgrades and improve infrastructure to accommodate higher bandwidth and provide access to more users like unserved users -- in poor rural areas that are on the wrong side of the digital divide -- or underserved users who have Internet but their high speed Internet is slower than it should be. Yet they make millions and even billions of dollars of profit each year and have enough money to pay special interest lobbyists to fight Net Neutrality rules that would benefit users. Like U.S. Senator Al Franken said he feels Comcast would say or promise anything to win support for the merger but afterward if allowed permission to merge might break those promises. Comcast's word should not be trusted.

openinternet 26 days ago

Given the great evil that is the telecom industry, and the nefarious purposes that the big bad ISPs want to use the internet for, what would be wrong with a third-world style confiscation of the internet and all its parts? Then the FCC would have a free hand to deliver a completely regulated, and presumably fair internet. For those with so much faith in government action, would this not be a reasonable thing to do?

If not, why not?

erikcorona 26 days ago

Umm, I think you're missing the point. We don't want the traffic on the internet to be regulated. We only want a regulation in place that makes sure nobody can regulate the internet. Sort of like how the Constitution uses Federal power to limit Federal power.

openinternet 26 days ago

This entire discussion is about whether the FCC should have expanded power to regulate the net.

You can't give the FCC expanded power to regulate the net without giving it power to regulate the net. If the power is not used, then what is the purpose of the regulation?

Please be specific. I still want to hear how this non-regulating regulation that poses no danger to our civil liberties and benefits everyone except the evil big ISPs will work.

erikcorona 26 days ago

Nobody is "regulating the internet". That's exactly what we're trying to prevent. That's like saying the Constitution had to infringe on our civil liberties in order to make rules to protect our civil liberties. You're still missing the point. I don't care if it is the government or corporations, I don't want anybody regulating the internet, which is why I support Net Neutrality.

openinternet 26 days ago

Read the FCC's proposed rules posted above. This entire discussion is about whether the FCC should have expanded power to regulate the internet. It is not explicitly about content, but in the end will have to be if the proposed rules are to be enforced.

The Constitution lists a very few actions that the federal governmant can take, (enumerated powers), and then goes to great pains to essentially list whole swaths of powers that it may not take. (...congress shall make no law... respecting ... freedom of the press.... etc.) Then, in the 10th amendment, says - in essence - if the constitution doesn't give this power to the federal government, it is reserved to the states, or the people. (i.e. off limits to the feds - shall make NO LAW)

Note that there is no mention of "fairness", "communications", or "internet" or anything even remotely related to them listed in the enumerated powers of the constitution. Nevertheless, over time, these strictly enumerated powers have grown to things like...... private communications!

Why would we want the federal government interfering with private buying and selling of internet bandwidth?

Governments do not protect civil liberties. People protect their own civil liberties by insisting that governments leave them alone. That is what I am doing. That is what you should be doing. You are a better steward of your own liberties than a government agency.

Giving the FCC more power ..... gives the FCC (government) more power. Could it be clearer than that?

Net Neutrality rules - no matter what people claim (without basis) they will accomplish are a bad idea.

erikcorona 26 days ago

"Why would we want the federal government interfering with private buying and selling of internet bandwidth?"

We don't want the Federal government or Corporations interfering with the fairness and neutrality of the internet. That's the whole point.

We don't want the government interfering with the buying and selling of internet bandwidth per se. We want to make sure that NOBODY regulates internet traffic. Corporations are not your friend anymore than the Federal Government. With Net Neutrality, neither can decide which websites succeed and which fail. Only the free market should decide that.

openinternet 26 days ago

That makes no sense.

It's easy to say that NOBODY will "regulate", but "regulation" is not optional. Current "regulation" is done by the ISPs/telcos and is called "network management". Without this "regulation" (network management), the internet falls apart. Bandwidth is not infinite, and there are all manner of spammers, hackers and bandwidth wasters who would be happy to burn up all the bandwidth, leaving other users high and dry. One key management tool is pricing. Another one is blocking "abusive" traffic. What is "abusive" changes constantly and is subject to fashion and fancy as viruses, software errors and fads come and go.

The whole point of Net Neutrality rules is that the telcos/ISPs may do this "wrong", or in some self-serving way. Net Neutrality rules will give the FCC power, and a charter to "fix" it. This is by definition interfering with the buying and selling of bandwidth, and is forcing changes in the "regulation" of the internet.

FCC regulation of the internet - for whatever purpose or goal - is still regulation. It is still interference in what otherwise would be done. It is at the expense of civil liberties - at minimum of the ISPs.

Net Neutrality rules are about giving the FCC more power to regulate those who build, manage and market the internet infrastructure. (and their customers) It is a bad idea.

erikcorona 26 days ago

Now we're just playing a word game.

Regulation in the context of our discussion has not until now been properly defined. For our purposes, I'm not talking about regulating "abusive" traffic. I'm talking about picking and choosing which websites will be prioritized and which ones will be demoted for no other reason than financial gain for companies like AT&T and COMCAST.

Therefore, nobody is "regulating the internet" and this is protecting civil liberties, not eroding them. Think how bad it would be if ANYBODY, the government OR CORPORATIONS got the chance to control what websites make it and which ones don't. I don't trust COMCAST or AT&T to give unfettered access to websites criticizing them or their political partners anymore than I trust the government to do the same. Net Neutrality baby, keep the internet OPEN, FREE, and NEUTRAL!

openinternet 26 days ago

It is easy to say that NOBODY will regulate, but "regulation" is not optional.

Currently "regulation" of the internet is done by the ISPs and telcos. If it were not done, the internet would not be usable. This "regulation" is also called "network management". The bandwidth on the net is not infinite. Without management, it would cease to be useful as the hackers, wasters, spammers and others burned up all the bandwidth and left other users high and dry. One of the management mechanisms is pricing. Another is the blocking or throttling of various applications/ports/traffic types that are "abusive". What is "abusive" changes with the technology, software errors and virus fashions.

This entire discussion is about whether the FCC should have the power and charter to "fix" this, on the presumption that the telcos/ISPs might do this "wrong" or in some self-serving way.

(Whether it is being done "fairly" is pretty subjective, which is why people are arguing over this very subject.

http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felten/net-neutrality-when-network-management-reasonable

http://www.michaelsinsight.com/2010/01/net-neutrality-advocates-misconstrue-reasonable-network-management-practices.html
)

In any case, you can't have the FCC force the operators of the internet infrastructure to do things differently without "regulating" and without "interfering". This steps squarely on the civil liberties of those operators. (and their customers IMO)

Net Neutrality is about giving the FCC power to regulate the internet - for whatever purpose - and is a bad idea.

erikcorona 26 days ago

Nobody is suggesting Net Neutrality would "regulate the internet". Nobody but you seems to think that Net Neutrality will mean that the government will decide which websites get accessed and which ones won't.

That's exactly what we're trying to prevent. That's like saying the Constitution had to infringe on our civil liberties in order to make rules to protect our civil liberties. Are you a corporate shill? You keep insisting on talking points even after I explain to you how what you're saying makes no sense. I don't care if it is the government or corporations, I don't want ANYBODY regulating the internet, which is why I support Net Neutrality.

pangasamaneesh 26 days ago

I agree with erikcorona's statement no one here is advocating a government takeover of the Internet but some form of government regulation to protect the Internet that has existed in the past be maintained to ensure the Internet remains competitive and open. In crafting a national broadband plan (the FCC is seeking public comment also for their website at broadband.gov on expanding deployment etc to those on the wrong side of the digital divide -- those unserved or under served -- those with no broadband Internet access because its unaffordable, no carrier offers service in their area etc or they do but speeds are slower than they should be) the FCC should focus on ensuring equal access, choice, competition, innovation and openness for the Web. Net Neutrality should apply to all Internet companies even Google -- no exemptions -- not for Hollywood -- language saying that ISPs cannot discriminate against legal content and services should not be used to give the MPAA an unfair and unnecessary exemption -- if someone does commit piracy and is breaking the law (the merge allegation of copyright abuse can get someone's Internet access shut down if the MPAA has their way and ISPs would be forced to act as copyright cops even if they don't want to) instead it should be mandated that any illegal Internet activities be proven before shutting down a user's access -- the mere allegation of abuse is not enough and should not be enough -- it must be proven.

Hence, I have signed the EFF's petition on Real Net Neutrality at www.realnetneutrality.org

Historically the Internet even in the U.S. has always had some form of Net Neutrality rules that need to be restored/maintained and protected. If the U.S, Postal Service cannot pick and choose which letters to deliver why should ISPs be able to do such a thing. They shouldn't and with Net Neutrality they cannot.

The FCC is already moving toward crafting Net Neutrality rules and a National Broadband Plan which will be good for everyone even those who disagree policy wise on the way this is to be implemented. If Congress were to move forward and pass The Internet Freedom & Preservation Act that would be a huge achievement for Net Neutrality legislation to protect the openness of the Internet. Once the broadband Internet access market can be made more competitive again like it was before 2001-2002 then some moderate level of deregulation can occur (rules preventing mega mergers should permanently stay in place but in a competitive market may not need many more regulations) we need for the Internet to be neutral and free of government and/or corporate censorship.

openinternet 26 days ago

Rules are written in words. Words have meaning only when we agree on what those meanings are. "abusive" is a word with a fuzzy definition. So is "neutral" and "open". We are talking about the FCC being given the charter and power to define these terms on the internet, and enforce rules to make the internet conform to those definitions. This is "regulating the internet" any way you slice it.

I likewise do not trust corporations to do anything but try to make money. That's what they do. I get to choose to be their customers, though. I cannot choose not to be subject to the FCC.

Net Neutrality is about giving the FCC more power, and a charter to use that power. It is a bad idea - if you care about freedom and civil liberties.

openinternet 26 days ago

By the way - Google is planning to go out and build its own network. There will be great irony if Google gets caught short by the FCC when the "Net Neutrality" rules Google pushed start telling Google what it can and can't do with its shiny new network that it spent billions to build.

erikcorona 26 days ago

"Expanding the power of the FCC"? The FCC has to come in because there isn't real competition in the ISP market. AT&T and COMCAST will censor legal content they disagree with for political and financial purposes without Net Neutrality.

Net Neutrality will force the FCC to focus on ensuring equal access, choice, competition, innovation and openness for the Web. This is what Net Neutrality does. The FCC is working for us consumers on this one, NOT for big corporations.

You fail to mention that us tax payers have spent hundreds of billions of dollars building the internet infrastructure. Google gets to make money off its venture, but does NOT get to censor speech on the internet it disagrees with for political or financial reasons. Net Neutrality makes sure things are for. Nobody, not government or corporations will should censor legal content.

openinternet 26 days ago

Taxpayers did _not_ finance nor build the internet. The billions spent on building the internet over the last 20 years has been almost exclusively private venture capital. Before that "the internet" was nothing remotely like what we have today.

DARPA and the DoD spent millions on research 30+ years ago to develop multiple protocols, one branch of which developed later into tcp/ip.

The constantly repeated canard that "the government built the internet" is absolute nonsense.

Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_history and pay attention to dates and numbers.

erikcorona 26 days ago

It is no secret that the internet was NOT developed by the private sector and that TAX PAYER money in the hundreds of BILLIONS went into building the infrastructure of the internet that private interests now control and make a killing off of.

river_wind 26 days ago

Think of it this way.

Without Neutrality, this will be your internet billing structure:
http://culturekitchen.com/files/netneut_01.jpg

openinternet 26 days ago

That is simply not true.

Read the wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_history

Take careful note of the section "Opening the network to commerce", and note what happened in 1994. Since the late 1990s, there has been almost no direct government involvement in what had become the "commercial internet".

The government invested millions, and mostly in the 1970s and 1980s, and that was mostly research. It helped subsidize what became NSFnet, and then turned it over the industry.

The idea that the government "invested hundreds of billions" is just wrong. The massive investment came from private industry - everything from silicon valley startups to big telcos - AT&T, comcast, Worldcom, et. al. They all wanted exactly one thing - to make a buck.

That's how markets work, and drive innovation and progress.

If you insist on claiming that the taxpayers built the net, please point to the US federal or state budgets with significant line items to this effect. "hundreds of billions" would show up. You won't find much. I guarantee it.

The internet is private property, as are the pipes that the phone companies use, as are the cell towers that the cell companies use, as are the gas lines that feed our houses. The fact that they are regulated does not mean that they are "owned" by the taxpayers, nor does the fact that some believe that the taxpayers have some right to use them contrary to the wishes of their owners.

erikcorona 26 days ago

For the last time. The public sector did NOT develop the internet. Sheesh, way to spin things man. I know you really want to believe that it did, but what you want and what reality is are not always compatible. You have uncle sam to thank for the internet. The government developed the technology, the key protocols, and it had already been a robust success well before private industry got their hands on it.

Also, tax payer dollars did heavily subsidize the laying down of wire. Since as tax payers, we funded the technology, and we even heavily subsidized the infrastructure, and with the current lack of diversity in ISP options, it would be a shame if they were allowed to fleece us further.

Think of it this way.

Without Neutrality, this will be your internet billing structure:
http://culturekitchen.com/files/netneut_01.jpg

openinternet 26 days ago

Saying something repeatedly does not make it true.

It is clear that private industry spent many billions to build internet infrastructure.

DARPA played a role, especially early in the early research timeframe, but quickly was pushed to the sidelines as the internet became promising and profitable. All in all, the US gov't involvement was minor. Yes, TCP/IP was developed under contract with the US government, but that's like saying that Henry Ford developed the model T, so he therefore was responsible for all auto progress to date.

Document your assertion. Show me what taxpayer money went to this massive investment. If you are so sure, show me the references.

I can point to many, many billions in internet investment by AOL, comcast, Qwest, Worldcom, 3Com, AT&T, Cingular, BBN, and many, many others. Some no longer exist. I challenge you to cite a single "subsidy" that compares with this massive investment.

Details. Specifics.

You can say it as often as you like, but it's not true. Private enterprise built the internet.

P.S. I have no problem with my ISP breaking out different services at different prices, just like my cable provider charges for premium channels. The point you are making there is the subject of another long conversation, though.

openinternet 26 days ago

Let me add a couple of references:

http://www.heritage.org/research/latinamerica/internetandtechnology/upload/61416_1.pdf

http://www.pff.org/issues-pubs/pops/pop11.11yoonetneutrality.pdf

They are not quite on point, but are relevant.

I'll follow up if I find more.

erikcorona 26 days ago

Why is it that so few people really understand that the original build out of wireline services was not only subsidized (tax breaks) but in some cases paid for using tax payer’s $? I'm not going to do your homework for you, but I will help get you started. Check this out, this at the very least finds that they are receiving subsidies... http://ideas.repec.org/p/fal/wpaper/07002.html

You can find out the exact figures yourself if you're really interested.

"Yes, TCP/IP was developed under contract with the US government, but that's like saying that Henry Ford developed the model T, so he therefore was responsible for all auto progress to date."

I call BS on that one. The internet was built by the government. Your analogy is extremely flawed. All private industry did was take an already successful project and say "hey, let's hook up personal computers to it" which leads to some poor misguided people to claim that they invented it. I'm sorry reality isn't compatible with your desires, but sometimes government can do some good things... like the internet :-).

Without Neutrality, this will be your internet billing structure:
http://culturekitchen.com/files/netneut_01.jpg

openinternet 26 days ago

This is more on point.

http://techliberation.com/2006/03/03/wyden-on-net-neutrality-if-you-build-it-we-will-regulate/

openinternet 26 days ago

Fixed ideas are apparently hard to dislodge.

Please go tell the telecoms that they don't own their networks. It will be news to them.

erikcorona 26 days ago

Who said anything about them not owning their networks? Really, you should learn to respect the truth and not put words into other peoples' mouths. I understand you're upset that reality doesn't agree with what you "want" to be true, but as adults, we must be able to accept the truth even if it is not to our liking.

Please tell me where I said that telecoms don't own their networks, or have the integrity to admit you are WRONG (without excusing yourself).

Without Neutrality, this will be your internet billing structure:
http://culturekitchen.com/files/netneut_01.jpg

river_wind 26 days ago

A fairly comprehensive overview of the public -> private transition of control of the internet backbone(s).

http://www.governingwithcode.org/journal_articles/pdf/Backbone.pdf

river_wind 26 days ago

"P.S. I have no problem with my ISP breaking out different services at different prices, just like my cable provider charges for premium channels. The point you are making there is the subject of another long conversation, though."

I do. It creates a significant barrier to entry for start-ups, and is a violation of the basic tenants of the internet.

Try starting a new business or blog on the internet. Wow, that was easy!!

Now try starting a new cable channel. Hm. You're broadcasting, but no one can access your signaal. Not you have to get the local cable networks to carry your channel, for each market, around the world. Since the cable TV network isn't neutral, cable companies can block the access to your new content. Because they simply don't feel like it, or maybe because your company competes with a subsidiary or financial partner.

This is what common carrier rules address, and this is what Net Neutrality addresses.

P.S. I brought up Carterfone, because it is fundamentally the same situation - that anyone can connect a device to the private network/utility, so long as that device doesn't break existing laws or break the network itself. In this case, the "devices" are software instead of hardware, and the case isn't one of a startup company vs a regulated monopoly but a thousand startups vs a handful of members of an oligopoly.

openinternet 26 days ago

There are several salient differences.

For one, the Carterphone affair was about a new vendor breaking into a market "owned" by a government monopoly. The internet, currently, is (almost) entirely private, and as you say, the barriers to entry are minimal. The comparison is poor at best.

The other huge difference is that even if carriers wanted to segregate traffic by origin, the technology does not make that easy. I would argue it makes it almost impossible. (note the dissidents in China and the failure of the "Great Wall" erected by the China's gov't.) Even if the technology were presumed to be reasonably do-able, there is no evidence that carriers and ISPs have any desire to do this.

What the ISP and telcos DO want to do is stratify service so that they can properly support services like video on demand, and VoIP without building separate networks. This is about efficiently using their pipes, and will happen regardless of the rules. It's just that with rules in place, they will be forced to build multiple networks, pushing up costs for _everyone_.

Fears of comcast blocking Google and not Yahoo are - in my opinion - vastly overblown.

Fears of blocking Hulu, or YouTube, on the other hand, are slightly more plausible, but still a real stretch. No carrier wants to enrage their customers. No carrier has suggested doing this. This is a creation of those who want "Net Neutrality".

The reason comcast might block YouTube is more pedestrian, though. It competes with their cable offerings, right? It also burns more bandwidth, which might interfere with their OTHER customers.

Would an ISP do a deal that requires them to enrage their customers just to get small commercial advantage with a partner?

Those who think so would have you believe that the internet marketplace is rife with monopoly, which is simply not true. The vast majority of subscribers have at least 3 options, and the rates and terms are highly competitive. To the extent that this is changing, it is toward *more* options rather than less. Soon WiMax and its cousins will provide reasonable bandwidth without wires to anyone in cell range.

I believe that we've established that Net Neutrality rules would enhance FCC power over the internet. In my opinion, that is a bad thing.

Net Neutrality is unnecessary. It would be harmful. It is a bad idea.

pangasamaneesh 25 days ago

The Internet is public property -- no one company owns the Internet and cannot own it. Nor should they be allowed to do so. Internet is a public utility and was originally developed by government -- it grew out of Arpanet and other government networks.

There is some private investment in the Internet but corporations don't own the Internet it belongs to the public -- as in not the government itself but every citizen. Just as the future of the media belongs to the public so too the Internet belongs to us. The Internet belongs to everyone and everyone should be able to have fast, affordable equal nondiscriminatory access. The public has a right to public utilities -- we have a right to use the Internet for information -- the Internet is more interactive than any other form of media and the companies owning the pipes that supply access hate that they have to under Net Neutrality provided fair access to users for all services.

That they cannot discriminate against specific websites for political or financial reasons.

river_wind 25 days ago

"For one, the Carterphone affair was about a new vendor breaking into a market "owned" by a government monopoly."
You understanding of history on this issue is as problematic as your understanding of Net Neutrality.

Tom Carter created a new coupling device allowing mobile phones to route signal through an existing phone line, and Bell Telephone wouldn't allow him to connect it to their privately-owned network. The Bell network was a government-regulated monopoly, but it was not a "government monopoly".

He took Bell to court and won, voiding a private company rule: "No equipment, apparatus, circuit or device not furnished by the Telephone Company shall be attached to or connected with the facilities furnished by the Telephone Company, whether physically, by induction or otherwise. . .", and allowing the existence of third-party phones.

"Fears of comcast blocking Google and not Yahoo are - in my opinion - vastly overblown."
"The reason comcast might block YouTube is more pedestrian, though. It competes with their cable offerings, right?"
You have answered yourself. Just as Carter's coupler was competition to Bell-branded phone devices.

"It also burns more bandwidth, which might interfere with their OTHER customers."
Companies hosting video and other high-bandwidth items already pay for that extra bandwidth. Nothing in Net Neutrality would prevent an ISP from charging a company more for pushing more data across the pipes. It's about data neutrality, not volume ignorance.

"To the extent that this is changing, it is toward *more* options rather than less."
That is true, which will be a good thing. However, your claim that "the cast majority of subscribers have at least 3 options" is patently false unless you include dial-up. In that case there are a large (though swiftly dwindling) number of options, all of which exist *because* of government-enforced line-sharing rules on the telephone network.

"I believe that we've established that Net Neutrality rules would enhance FCC power over the internet."
Then you, sir, as nicely as I can put it, are delusional, or so confused by conflict of interest that you are blind to what we have been discussing. I don't like being insulting, but I'm left with little option at this point. I disagree with you, a majority of people working in the industry disagree with you, and from what I can ascertain, reality disagrees with you.

openinternet 25 days ago

You are correct that Ma Bell was not a "government monopoly", but rather a government granted and enforced private monopoly. You miss the significance of my point, and of the history, though. The FCC was the one doing the enforcing.

The Carterfone decision was a change in FCC rules, not a statement of basic rights by the courts.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carterfone
and http://www.law.indiana.edu/fclj/pubs/v49/no2/mcfadden.html

Note that the FCC had the power - as it appears to have today - to decide what devices may be connected to "the network". Think about that. Chew on it.

Can you think of a good reason why the FCC should have the authority to decide whether your computer may be connected to the Comcast network? I can't. That authority is foundational to what the FCC is proposing.

In 1968, Ma Bell had an almost complete monopoly on the wired telephone market - granted to it by the FCC. (indirectly by Congress, but...) This was not necessarily the intent of the activists in 1934 when the Communications Act was passed. Note the references above to regulatory capture.

What the FCC grants, the FCC can take away.

You say: "Nothing in Net Neutrality would prevent an ISP from charging a company more for pushing more data across the pipes. It's about data neutrality, not volume ignorance."

but.... who decides the difference between "Neutrality" and "ignorance? The FCC.

Competition is growing not because of mandates, but because of technology and its adoption by aggressive providers. Satellite vendors, like Hughes: http://www.nationwidesatellite.com/
provide nationwide coverage today. Almost all cable providers provide internet of some sort, and WiMax is likely to become available to many. (as long as the FCC doesn't make it impossible or impermissible or unprofitable) DSL is available to many city dwellers.

The question of Net Neutrality enhancing the power of the FCC is one of definition, isn't it? The FCC is asking for enhanced authority to regulate what it does not regulate today.

Please explain how establishing additional rules administered by the FCC that will enforce "fairneess" - as proposed - is not an enhancement of the power of the FCC. This will give the FCC power to decide in areas where it currently does not.

You may approve of the rules, where I don't, but it seems clear that it is an expansion of FCC power.

pangasamaneesh 25 days ago

openinternet -- I understand your views on not wanting the FCC to have too much power and thinking in moving forward on Net Neutrality the FCC would be getting more powerful than it already is. When you say the FCC is asking for enhanced authority to regulate what it does not regulate today -- technically pre 2002-2005 the FCC had this authority and used it wisely. Since 2002 the FCC changed its definition of broadband from an information service with a telecommunications service (any service falling under this definition the FCC has authority to regulate) to purely an information service. Despite this definition change -- in which the FCC raised its own ability to regulate into doubt they were still able to keep some regulation in place. It was 2005 when they made the Internet Policy Statement and they failed to maintain nondiscrimination rules in the Internet Policy Statement.

Did you read what I said about email providers/ISPs without Net Neutrality could choose what mail to deliver etc -- the U.S. Postal Service cannot pick and choose what mail to deliver that it picks up for delivery. Then there is also the matter of the Information Superhighway analogy a good one in my opinion for why the Internet needs to stay open. To say the Internet is privately owned would suggest one person or company or a few own the Internet -- no one owns the Internet -- if Internet ownership were possible/is possible the Internet belongs to everyone -- you and me, and everyone else in this country and around the world. The Internet connects us globally to people with different cultures, it lets us share ideas, etc get information, be entertained, communicate etc and is more interactive than TV or radio ever were. Losing TV and radio to corporate interests the public's last best chance to reclaim the media and save our democracy rests in our ability, our willingness and that of the FCC and the desire of all of us including the government to protect the Internet for everyone and keep all of us safe from monopolists trying to control the Internet.

I didn't know the history of how the Carterfone decision came about but celebrate the benefits it has brought to wireline phones and think the same benefits should rightly be applied to wireless. Besides the PC model -- the entire PC market ecosystem is one of openness -- you can choose any hardware/software configuration of your choice. Let's say your using a Windows or Linux based PC you can use any vendor/manufacturer's brand of computer (a Dell, an HP, an Acer, a Gateway, a Sony, Toshiba etc customize it with your own hardware and software) you can use any computer operating system, any web browser etc to access the Internet, any IM service, any search engine, any media player juxebox with streaming capabilities for streaming music or movies from the Web like Windows Media Player, Real Player etc or any alternatives to those two that work well, you can use any media player for playing files stored on your hard drive.

Your ISP cannot tell you to access the Internet from a computer you have to have a Dell or an HP with Windows XP or higher, you do not have to have to use Internet Explorer or the MSN browsing software, you do not have to have an Intel specific graphic chip for watching video online you can have high quality graphics chips compatible with your operating system software from any other vendor. Not only can you choose the hardware you want to use with the service provider in your area of your choice (which we could have for cell phones with wholesale open access if Carterfone is applied to wireless world allowing consumers more freedom) but by applying Net Neutrality also to wireless carriers cannot discriminate against whatever Internet enabled applications we choose to use as long as they are safe and lawful. AT&T cannot discriminate against Skype's iPhone app by restricting it to Wifi only. The Internet already has or has had Net Neutrality in the past -- I am not advocating to give the FCC any new powers it does not already have -- it has/has had the authority to mandate Net Neutrality in the past but gutted its own authority -- even Congress provided it such authority under the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

openinternet 24 days ago

The subject here is the situation today versus the proposed Net Neutrality rules. In sum, I think we do agree that as compared with today's rules and FCC policies, the Net Neutrality rules being proposed will cause the FCC to expand the scope of things over which it will exert its authority.

What it boils down to is this. The FCC seeks to decide what is "fair" and what is "non-discriminatory", and prohibit actions of which they disapprove. Is this not a fair definition of what the FCC wants to do? Can we also agree that making these judgements and sanctions are not current policy?

(Whether the FCC actually has that power today is open to interpretation, and not germane, IMO.)

I believe Net Neutrality as enforced by the FCC is a Bad Thing. I want the right - both for myself, and for others - including ISPs - to make judgement calls about what traffic is allowed/supported/promoted on my (portion of the) network. That is the situation today. Today, if Comcast wants to block porn sites on an offering to homes, I believe it could do so without interference from the FCC. If it decided to block P2P filesharing, it could do so. If it modified its routers to suppress flood pings, the FCC would say not a word. I want it to stay that way. Net Neutrality rules may or may not preclude these choices, but the point is that the network operators make the call - not the FCC.

You appear to believe that network operators will "abuse" their power over their pipes and begin to charge for every little thing. I agree that the network operators - being profit making businesses, would like to do that. Where we disagree is why they don't. I believe that the reason network operators do not charge lots more money for their services, and do not break out "every little thing" is because their customers would go to their competitors. There is lots of support for my position on this. Just look in your mailbox each week at all the junk from Comcast and other competitive network providers. They compete on the basis of universal access and low price. If one of them started charging for "every little thing" and limited access, they would lose customers.

They therefore don't behave that way because from a business perspective it would be stupid.

The idea that an ISP would pick and choose what e-mail to deliver is rather odd.

As you might recall, I run an ISP. One of my main headaches is my mail server. Between spammers and the various breakages that come and go on the net, it keeps my life interesting. Believe me, the LAST thing I want to do is drop e-mail on the floor, or bounce a letter to a customer without a REALLY good reason. My customers depend on their e-mail getting through reliably and quickly. One sure-fire way to get an angry phone call is to mess with their e-mail.

Why would I do that?

I DO block spam. I make guesses about which servers on the net are producing crap that my customers don't want, and work hard to be as accurate as possible. The second most sure-fire way to get angry calls is to let oo much spam through.

Let's assume that I would get some advantage in messing with the e-mail of my customers, and further assume that my customers would put up with it. Let's go even further by saying that the FCC has come up with rules that force me to stop "selecting" e-mails incoming and/or outgoing.

How - precisely - does the FCC write the rules so I am forced to deliver AND ACCEPT mail "without discrimination", but not step squarely on my anti-spam efforts?

Today - I make the determinations. I make mistakes, blocking the odd legit mail, but I don't worry about lawyers. I only worry about technical issues and my customers. Believe me, that's plenty. If the FCC comes along and says "you MUST follow these N rules when processing/filtering e-mails", then I have to give top priority to the FCC rules, and bump my technical and customer issues down the priority list. (after all, the FCC can fine me or shut me down, right? Customers can only leave.)

The whole idea that an ISP would have any incentive to mess with customer e-mail seems like fantasy to me. There is no upside to it for the ISP, and lots of downside. Even if I were a monopoly, my customers would sooner abandon e-mail entirely rather than work around something that is unreliable or where the costs are unpredictable. They would use paper mail, texting, or faxes.

There is _always_ competition.

Lastly, the internet is not "privately owned" and cannot be because it does not really exist as a unitary "thing". "The Internet" does not exist any more than "the gasoline delivery system" or "the fast food system". What we call "The Internet" is a collection of organizations, almost all run by private parties who own and operate their respective parts of the whole. In the case of the net, we have everything from backbone providers, to ISPs of all sizes to local telephone companies to cable TV providers, etc. etc. Each one buys equipment and services from someone and operates his piece of the whole, providing some service or prouct. Each needs to maintain a profit, or cannot continue. Each has customers to serve, and competition from someone.

So, you're right that no one "owns" it, but it is not some sort of public park either. Regulation of "the internet" necessarily involves interfering with hundreds or thousands of organizations, including people like me.

The rhetoric about how wonderful the net is that concludes by inferring that the internet is "owned by everyone" does not fly. If being a customer gives me an ownership stake, then I guess I own a slice of every gas station, McDonalds and dry cleaner in my area. It simply does not work that way.

Our economy and system of laws is based on private property and free markets. High Tech in particular has been a hotbed of entrepreneurial activity, and vibrant innovation over the last 40+ years. It is of great concern to me that so many people do not understand how and why this works. Many people in this country believe that the very companies that built and are rapidly expanding and improving "the net" are to be pilloried for not doing it in some other way. They believe that the private industry that invented and developed the technology that makes it possible should not be trusted now that the technology is popularly available.

It's late.

pangasamaneesh 24 days ago

OpenInterrnet you have an interesting argument for why you don't like Net Neutrality and say if one ISP tried to block specific services etc that upset consumers there is competition and we can flee to another provider -- the only reason the ISPs are not doing this to a large extent and charging us more and more for every piece of data we use is because they know consumers will leave them for an ISP that doesn't do it -- that they can lose customers this way. Sadly, I have to disagree with this idea it would be nice if it could be this way but the broadband Internet access market today as noted earlier has been allowed to become a duopoly market -- there is a digital divide in this country with some people being unserved because they cannot afford Internet access from one of the big ISPs, or there is no ISP choosing to provide service in their area. There is also the issue of people being under-served those who have Internet but their high speed Internet access is slower than it should be.

Today if we had a vibrant competitive Internet marketplace with plenty of choices like in the EU (one time I mentioned an article of a EU Commissioner saying Net Neutrality is better in Europe -- the market there is competitive enough that they don't need to enforce Net Neutrality rules -- they have regulations banning mega merger activity and require line sharing etc -- banning unnecessary and unfair bandwidth caps etc. The EU is strongly committed to Net Neutrality and this Commissioner said that the EU would never hesitate to protect Net Neutrality there if needed but there is enough competition there that if one ISP tried to discriminate there are so many more to choose from -- many small ISPs as well (often its the big ISPs wanting to discriminate the most) are available there who wouldn't engage in such behavior and consumers could simply switch to a non discriminatory ISP.

If Internet access in the U.S. were more competitive -- if AT&T had been disallowed to re-merge with SBC Communications and Bell South, had other big companies in Internet access market been prevented from mega mergers here -- we would not only be able to have universal, affordable broadband Internet access today in the U.S. but would not have to worry about Net Neutrality.

Up till 2005 the FCC had strong Net Neutrality rules in place but beginning in 2002 onwards started hurting their own authority by making bad decisions like redefining the FCC's definition of Internet from an information service with a telecommunications service to purely an information service- the FCC has less clout to regulate and protect information services without a telecommunications component. The reason they made this mistake had something to do with cable companies rolling out Internet services.

If competition was still sufficient today the dire need to restore/protect Net Neutrality would be much less. Also, the concern is once Net Neutrality is gone it can be gone for good we could never again have a nondiscriminatory Internet.

openinternet 24 days ago

I am always appreciative of the rare exchange with someone rational and willing to follow the logic of discussion, and dig down to identify clearly what the points of contention are.

In this discussion, it is clear to me that there are only a few foundational issues. I trust the market, and you trust government. You find the current level and quality of competition in the telecom market inadequate. I don't.

I hope that we can agree on this: What the proposed Net Neutrality regulations will do is cause the FCC to exercise the authority and responsibility to decide how internet enterprises will perform a wide variety of data management practices. Aspects of e-mail, routing, pricing, bandwidth management, and network design will involve FCC approval where today they do not.

This is not a question of opinion, but one of definition. The proposed rules will affect all these things, and that is the whole idea, is it not? The desire is to have the FCC regulate the internet in the sense of prohibiting certain practices.

You may believe that this is necessary step to a worthy goal, but it is clear to me that it requires a loss of freedom, at least for the thousands of enterprises that currently operate today without the interference of the FCC. Net Neutrality rules will insert the FCC into their organizations. They will have a more potent government overseer. This is a Bad Thing.

So I hope the tradeoff is at least clear. We may or may not agree on the relative value of the benefits and costs, but there are costs - but the costs include a loss of freedom - maybe only the freedom of some for the benefit of others, but a loss of freedom nonetheless.

erikcorona 24 days ago

When you say the FCC is "regulating the internet", you are using fear-mongering to get your point across. You make is seem as if the FCC is taking an intrusive hands on approach as to what content gets delivered to end consumers. This is exactly the opposite of what Net Neutrality does. The FCC isn't "regulating the internet", it is regulating corporations who intend on censoring the internet for political and financial purposes.

amin 24 days ago

openinternet-

Yes, that's been pretty much the big difference in perspective: "Who do you trust more: the government or the market?"

I have some ideas that might be worth thinking about:

1. As for anticompetitive practices made by ISPs with a monopolistic grip in certain areas, I suggest government oversight by the FTC rather than the FCC. The FTC can facilitate the establishment of a competitive market in those problem regions and give the customer freedom of choice.

2. A media network should not be an ISP. Mergers a-la Comcast/NBC-Universal is BAD, BAD, BAD. It might be cheaper for them to transport their content over the pipe they own, but if they prefer their media network traffic to other media network traffic when their customers want to load up CNN, that's anticompetitive. I don't see good coming from that for Comcast's customers, and possibly other ISP's customers if they adopt the same model. Again, this is in the FTC's ballfield.

3. If you look many many posts above, I wrote:

"..With the current system that's established, let's use hypothetically the best-case privately-owned(sic, they are publically-traded) candidate possible: Google. They have dark-fiber, and LOTS of it. They have capital, they have the knowhow, and they support open technologies. I say this is the best shot the current market has. Could they succeed? Are they willing to try? To be honest, I'm not sure. There are too many obstacles to enter the market even at their stature.."

Looks like they recently answered: http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/10/google-to-launch-1gbps-isp-service-in-select-markets-at-competi/

This is a GOOD THING. If Google came into my neighborhood, I'd seriously consider getting service from them. A gigabit seems outlandish and even silly, but with enough national coverage, it could give the overall US network a serious PR improvement (as in, we would not be a 'information dirt road') Also, it may force competitors to upgrade their infrastructure to offer a comparable pipe. All this, without any subsidy. Not bad at all!

I used to work for an ISP, and did the email thing too(http://sourceforge.net/projects/xerxes/). I agree, too much government oversight would stink. There needs to be some form that is balanced. Finding it will be the hard part.

openinternet 24 days ago

The bottom line remains - whether it's the FCC or the FTC, and whether you call it "regulation" or "control" or "improvement" or "assistance" - that the government agency, with the force of law, will be able to determine what I may or may not do when running my ISP. The point is that today, when I make decisions about my data management, I need not concern myself with a government agency. Proposed Net Neutrality rules would change that. It means that the government agency would be called upon to ensure that what I do in my ISP meets that government agency's standards. (other legal requirements notwithstanding)

Some may not approve of how I run my business, but my customers are happy, and I think losing the freedom to do what I think best to serve my customers is a Bad Thing. It is fundamental to my freedom - and the freedom of my customers to choose my ISP. When what I do is no longer permitted the choice I offer no longer exists.

It is a great distress to me that this simple point is not painfully obvious.

pangasamaneesh 24 days ago

I agree in principle with those not wanting government Net Neutrality regulations on the Internet that we don't want over regulations but no regulations at all can lead to disaster. If government does not regulate in a monopolistic controlled market the monopolies will. If there was sufficient competition already in the U.S. broadband Internet access market -- enough choice, competition, innovation etc that we could be assured new Net Neutrality rules are not needed to protect the openness of the Internet -- having Internet free of any government or corporate rules -- we could rest easy in knowing corporations would not try to censor free speech of users on the Internet (in regard to the analogy I gave of the U.S. Postal Service not being able to prioritize what mail to deliver and why ISPs should thus be able to prioritize connections -- openinternet raises a point about delivery of spam email -- as consumers we have a right not only to exercise free speech but a right to be free of offensive speech -- I hope the FCC considers these issues carefully and no doubt they are considering to some extent ora large extent some of them -- most spam e-mails are fraudulent today and illegal under The CAN SPAM Act which should have been a stronger bill and outlawed all junk email -- Congress and the FCC will in considering such issues as Net Neutrality etc and weighing free speech rights for users against those of spammers or ISPs wanting under free speech the right to discriminate against the free speech of users -- the best way to proceed forward on these issues) I think it best to revisit the 1996 Telecommunications Act that was to empower the FCC to mandate competition and ensure affordable, universal access to high speed Internet would be possible for all.

By the way I have heard reports that some city governments in the country have proposed establishing their own city run Internet services to provide affordable access to users and compete with the corporate big iSPs in each market -- companies like AT&T. Comcast etc don't want consumers to have other choices.

They want us locked into their companies exclusively for service. You don't like Comcast or AT&T then live without Internet. Comcast, AT&T, Time Warner Cable or whatever corporate provider you have in your area is too unaffordable for you without these services city governments want to offer at the local level users would be stuck without Internet. The big companies don't want city governments to be able to establish government run Internet services to compete with them and risk their prices being undercut by smaller Internet providers.

What we want is not regulation of the Internet but regulation to protect us from corporate regulation. Some of these big companies don't care about their customers -- they aren't doing what's in the best interest of their customers -- only the interests of their executives or shareholders -- only their corporate special interests matter. Without Net Neutrality corporations could have unprecedented power over the Internet - corporate power threatens democracy -- the U.S.A. is not and was not intended to be a plutocracy but a democracy. While government bureaucracy can be bad the same can be said of bureaucracy in corporations that don't care about anyone but themselves.

For example, health insurance companies don't care about the public welfare, of our well being, they only care about their profits -- this year I heard some insurance companies to please Wall Street are planning to cancel insurance for some of their quote unprofitable customers -- people who have insurance but use it often when they need to -- insurance companies lose money when they have to pay for treatments etc for their customers. Big OIl and coal companies don't care about the environment and financial companies don't care about the damage they do to the economy when they act like casinos and gamble with our money. Corporate power is too strong already and has gotten stronger with the unfortunate Citizens United decision -- free speech was meant for individuals not corporations -- not that I'm advocating denying any corporation a right to express free speech they can say what they want to but should not be able to use free speech to buy elections, or censor the free speech of individuals.

You say some may not approve of how you run your business but your customers are happy -- how do you know this -- what if they are unhappy but you have a monopoly and your company is the only company they can go to to get the type of product your selling. If your the only company offering Internet access in your town and run a big outfit -- bought other iSPs or drove them off the market to reduce competition -- if consumers want Internet they have no choice but to use your business even if they are dis-satisfied -- either that or not have Internet which is even worse -- we should be expanding access to the Net for others not limiting how many people have it.

pangasamaneesh 24 days ago

Also indeed the FTC can play a role in breaking up monopolies in the broadband Internet access market so ISPs can be more competitive, and we can have some form of regulation to ensure the ISPs price their services more affordably and promote policies to expand broadband deployment to areas of the country without it, while improving infrastructure in areas with Internet but an Internet provider with insufficient bandwidth storage to distribute large amounts of bandwidth equally to all users so bandwidth caps would be unnecessary. Improving access to broadband for under served users with broadband Internet slower than it should be and unserved users without Internet so Internet can improve for all users would be good. As part of our tech infrastructure when we improve public works like our roads and bridges, our electricity etc to ensure public goods work better the Internet should benefit from the same improvements.

In fact, Congress and President Obama fortunately realized this to be the case when writing and passing The American Recovery & Reinvestment Act which allocates some money for infrastructure repairs/expansion to roads and bridges, as well as IT infrastructure. Some goes toward transportation infrastructure and others to tech and IT infrastructure -- then some went out even as tax cuts and additional unemployment financial benefits etc. and state relief.

openinternet 24 days ago

I can sleep tonight peacefully because although we have not agreed on much, I think we have at least agreed on a definition of terms. I also think we have arrived at a common understanding that there are costs to the proposed NN rules, and that they will indeed crimp the freedom of some people. (evil though they may be.)

Progress always comes in small steps.

openinternet 22 days ago

Now that I have read the last couple of posts, I am less peaceful.

If our citizens show the kind of blind deference to government that pangasamaneesh does, and we aggressively abdicate our liberties as suggested, we are in deep trouble.

Government cannot "regulate" what it cannot control, and the control implied by Net Neutrality proposed rules are far broader and more intrusive than what we have today.

Competition is the stuff that makes our economy work. It functions well in every industry not hobbled by government machinery to stifle it. (many, unfortunately) Whether or not there is "sufficient competition" is highly subjective. I do not accept the premise that it is insufficient on the net. In fact, I find the idea absurd. Moreover, the remedy (regulation) suggested increases the barriers to entry, and therefore tends to make the problem worse, not better.

I trust corporations to try to make money. That's it. They cannot "abuse power" if they have none, and they have none unless granted by government. The most likely place to get it in this arena is the FCC. Count on it. Think AT&T & Carterphone.

Governments all over the world and throughout history abuse power. History is replete with examples, and those who believe that ours is somehow immune from human temptation are foolish.

I strongly suggest a book for the recent participants of this thread: "Economic Facts and Fallacies" by Thomas Sowell.

pangasamaneesh 21 days ago

Net Neutrality is essential to free speech, equal opportunity and economic innovation in America. Since the FCC removed this basic protection in 2005, the top executives of phone and cable companies have stated their intention to become the Internet's gatekeepers and to discriminate against Web sites that don't pay their added tolls.
This fundamental change would end the open Internet as we know it. It would damage my ability to connect with others, share information and participate in our 21st century democracy and economy. The FCC must ensure that broadband providers do not block, interfere with or discriminate against any lawful Internet traffic based on its ownership, source or destination. Personal critics of Net Neutrality concerned with government censorship on the Internet could also have their voices stifled/censored by their ISPs if Net Neutrality protections require they practice reasonable network management were not in effect and not enforced.

openinternet 21 days ago

It is not possible to craft specific, enforceable rules without stepping directly on the "open internet" as we know it. The proposed rules are an expansion of FCC authority over the operation and content of the net, and only blind faith and ignorance of history stands between that authority and its abuse. There is no justification for seizing the private property of telecoms and ISPs for the sole purpose of satisfying the political desires of third parties.

Net Neutrality rules will not result in the benefits claimed. The costs of Net Neutrality rules will be borne by customers of the ISPs and investors in the net. The beneficiaries will be large companies with political clout.

Net Neutrality is, remains, and will continue to be a very bad idea.

Read Thomas Sowell.

pangasamaneesh 21 days ago

Let me be clear the Internet belongs to no corporation in America -- it should and is meant to be available to everyone -- it is public property -- to say it is private property is suggestive that one or two companies own the entire Internet. No company owns the Internet and to have a monopoly on the Internet is illegal.

Microsoft tried to monopolize the web browser market in the 1990s and succeeded in driving Netscape out of the browser business but prompted antitrust attention. The Internet is a public and private collection of networks -- some parts are privately administered but other sections are publicly owned. One might think that ISPs rather than trying to establish closed, proprietary Internet networks -- (at one time when Microsoft first created MSN they wanted MSN to be a closed version of the Internet -- a separate network unaffiliated with the actual Internet -- later realized it would be better to include MSN as part of the open Internet rather than creating a separate set of networks from the Internet they made MSN part of the open Internet) so the Internet is a collection of private and public networks. It is not completely privately owned -- if it were private a few corporations would be able to own it -- no one owns the Internet -- it belongs to everyone. No one person or no one corporation owns it or can own it -- none would be allowed to own it. It is supposed to be open to all Americans and hopefully the digital divide will be reduced in upcoming years so more users can get on the Internet.

openinternet 21 days ago

This is factually wrong.

As we have detailed, "the internet" does not exist. It is a collection of independent parts, composed of thousands of operators of network segments, all voluntarily connected together. The people who operate these segments (mostly telcos and ISPs) believe that their infrastructure is very much private property. I own my little bit of it - a leased T1 and my equipment.

As far as I know, none of these segments is "publicly owned". Name one. The NSF backbone has been in private hands for 15+ years.

You can say that it SHOULD be "public property", but today it is not.

Microsoft continues to have a private internal network, as does IBM, and many other major corporations. The difference between "the internet" and a "private" network is only
administration. They often run on the same physical links.

pangasamaneesh 20 days ago

Examples of websites in the public domain include government websites, and websites of public universities etc -- on some parts of the Internet public domain content is available -- the Internet consists of both private and public networks -- to say it is private property is to suggest one entity owns the Internet.

No one owns the Internet -- the Internet like other public utilities like electricity, water etc don't belong to anyone person or corporation -- some companies provide Internet access, others provide online services -- some companies have search engines, yes MSN was created as part of a private network -- and the MSN online service and web portal is still owned privately by Microsoft -- however, MSN is just one of the available websites we can surf to as users of the Internet. If Microsoft had their way -- their original intention was to create MSN as an alternative to the Internet -- they wanted a private, separate collection of proprietary websites and a private online network separate from the actual, open Internet -- a closed, walled garden style network that they can own and control in entirety however, they chose with no requirement they comply with Net Neutrality and with MSN being the only portal likely in this network there would likely not be any competing websites in this network -- MSN would face competition from the Internet that would benefit from remaining open and nondiscriminatory -- I support Net Neutrality because I believe it is the right thing -- with big cable and phone companies having already expressed the desire to establish slow and fast lanes of prioritized access, to censor, degrade, and block access to certain websites Net Neutrality is needed to ensure there are no slow lanes for us and fast lanes for them.

Anyone concerned about censorship on the Web should support Net Neutrality to prevent corporate censorship. When government works towards the public interest and protects consumers then government action is justified but when government sides with corporations and helps them protect the status quo government is destructive and harmful -- government should never sanction monopolies like AT&T's Ma Bell monopoly they allowed for years till breaking the Ma Bell system up during the 1980s only to allow Ma Bell to be re-established by AT&T during the 2nd term of the Bush Cheney Administration.

openinternet 20 days ago

Web sites are endpoints on the net. They are not "the internet", and would not be the point of Net Neutrality rules. It is the pipes that carry the traffic that would be most affected. Those university websites are also not "owned by everyone". They are owned, operated, and controlled by the universities that create and pay for them. Government support notwithstanding. Same principle with the military, agencies, etc.

The "slow and fast lanes" on the internet already exist, and will continue to exist and expand regardless of any Net Neutrality rules adopted by the FCC.

It is, and will remain possible for telecoms and ISPs to work with customers with special needs. They will do so by building private networks.

This happens today, and is very expensive. That is why the telecoms want to do "slow and fast lanes" rather than build separate, private, networks. It is much like building a separate, private freeway system. The innovation and upgrades will go into the private parts of the net, where the telecoms can make money, instead of into the "public" internet, where more users could potentially benefit. On the whole, the innovations will be more expensive, as will the special services, and they will be available only to large customers, rather than a broader audience.

A good example is (high quality) VoIP, which requires control of latency not possible in the current internet infrastructure.

Unfortunately, regulations like Net Neutrality indirectly tend to foster monopolies by raising the barriers to entry for competitors in the telecom/ISP area. They help existing vendors keep prices high, and shield them from competition.

pangasamaneesh 19 days ago

OpenInternet when I said some websites are public including governmental I mean non military related government sites that encourage public participation, seek public input like this site openinternet.gov is seeking public comments, broadband.gov another website by the FCC to seek public comment on crafting a national broadband plan to bridge the digital divide created during the Bush Cheney years with policy ideas like mandating increased competition, forbidding future mega mergers -- breaking up monopolies even if need be with assistance in that area from the FTC and DOJ to mandating more affordable and reasonable prices for broadband Internet access so those who don't have it because they can't afford it at prices big cable and phone companies are charging can afford to get it at lower pricing.

Public universities websites are also public -- any website in the public domain is part of a public network -- yes some university websites might be part of a private network if owned and operated by a private university. Keep in mind there is such a thing as a public university and a private university. Even today, some parts of the Internet -- some networks are part of the public domain and free information and content is accessible via these sources -- open source companies contribute material sometimes to the public domain -- so their contributions to the public domain become part of a public network even if their own websites are private.

Just wanted to make that clarification -- I have been more than happy to debate you on why Net Neutrality is really needed -- and bring up the fact it is nothing new -- this is not about the FCC trying to expand its powers -- it already has regulatory powers to protect the Internet under the 1996 Telecommunications Act passed by Congress but has neglected to use that authority wisely and during the Bush years the FCC rather than regulating and enforcing regulations to protect consumers allowed monopoly companies to duopolize the market for broadband Internet access.

The FCC had some policy failures during the Bush years -- in 2002 they redefined the Internet from an information service with a telecommunications service as Internet was defined by the Clinton FCC to purely an information service -- this was their first mistake -- other mistakes included allowing AT&T to re-merge with SBC Communications and Bell South, failing to list the nondiscrimination rule for the Internet in its 2005 Internet Policy Statement -- a rule that had always been in place and enforced in previous years. What we're asking for is to restore the basic Net Neutrality provisions prior to 2005. We don't want the FCC to have any new authority it never has had before but to return to the business of protecting the Internet -- and not pass any new Net Neutrality rule never implemented before -- nor enforce new rules that we've never had before -- but restore old rules discarded during the Bush years and maintain them. The FCC is not expanding into new or uncharted territory it has never been in before -- it has mandated Net Neutrality in the past and we're now fighting to preserve Net Neutrality that is all.

After all without Net Neutrality ISPs can choose winners and losers -- with Net Neutrality anyone with a good idea big or small can make it big and make a difference -- there is plenty of competition and innovation -- without Net Neutrality the creators of Facebook and Twitter, or even YouTube would need permission to create those websites from the nation's top cable and phone company ISPs and more importantly need permission of those ISPs for users to be able to access their websites. No ISP should be able to cherry pick what content and services work on their site. Again go back to the Information Super Highway analogy or to the one about the U.S. Postal Service not being able to pick and choose what mail to deliver.

If someone is mailing a letter thru the U.S. Postal Service even if the letter mentions the U.S. Postal Service and happens to criticize the agency for bad service the letter writer had with the Postal Service the Postal Service cannot say we don't want to deliver this letter to its recipient if the letter is accusing us of bad service -- the recipient has the right to receive the letter uncensored --the letter writer has a right to free speech to express his opinions and ideas in the form of a letter and mail them to the intended recipient -- the recipient has the right if he wants to receive the letter to receive it and read it. Mind you with junk mail the recipient has a right to sort his mail and throw the letter without opening it if it appears to be junk -- just as the letter writer has a right to free speech the recipient has a right to be free of offensive speech.

Hope that clarifies why I've taken the position I have.

openinternet 19 days ago

There can be no useful discussion of this issue unless we can settle on some definitions of terms and some basic premises. Unfortunately, this "discussion" suffers in 3 areas.

1. The basic concept of private property
2. The definition of "change of regulation"
3. Is the FCC (government) trustworthy?

1. The fact - today - is that the internet is a privately owned and operated enterprise. It is not owned by any single entity because it is too large and diverse. Much of it is owned by foreign entities. It _is_ owned, and privately operated, and its owners are primarily profit-making organizations, like telcos and ISPs.

Yes, universities and other non-profit and government entities own some parts of the net. Those entities are also using the net as they see fit, and the FCC would likewise seize some portion of their property by reducing their freedom of action.

You can say all you want about what you think SHOULD be the case, but the fact today is that "the net" is privately owned. This gives the owners the right to make deals with customers, partners, and whoever, to use their private property as they see fit.

That is the definition of ownership.

Government sometimes interferes with this freedom. That is often called regulation. To the extent government increases its interference it seizes some part of that ownership. Our constitution contains words intended to ensure that that did not happen without "due process of law" and "without just compesation".

This is not open to interpretation. It is fact, based on current situation and law.

2. The FCC is proposing a change in regulation. That change is often collectively called "Net Neutrality".

The FCC is proposing this _change_ in regulation. To be clear - the FCC will, if the rules are promulgated, change what they do, and begin to regulate things that are not regulated today. Whether the FCC has the latent authority to do this is not germane to this discussion. George Bush, Dick Cheney, Calvin Coolidge and Abraham Lincoln are not relevant. We are talking about today's regulation vs. tomorrow's.

This is not open to interpretation. It is the entire point of this discussion. We are discussing whether this change is good or bad.

3. Is the FCC (government) trustworthy?
This point is not fact. It is entirely subjective. Some people believe that government is the ultimate in safety. They believe that government should run everything, and only government can be relied upon to "do the right thing". Others believe that government is by nature corrupt, and relying on government is to rely on coercion of one's fellows.

Very little discussion is needed on this point, because there will be no resolution. Either you trust government or you don't.

--

The thrust of argument here has been that the FCC "change" is not a change, and that if it were change, it is all good, because we all trust the FCC. The downside to making the non-change is non-existent because the internet is "public" anyway, so the so-called "owners" have no right to do as they please with their property. Wonderful things will flow from the non-change at the FCC if enacted.

Two out of three premises are based on failures of fact. The third is based on un-resolveable opinion. The outcome and ultimate endpoint of the change is, of course, un-knowable.

So, let me re-phrase, separating fact from opinion.

based on the facts:

Net Neutrality is a change in FCC regulation. It will seize from the owners of the internet some portion of their right to profit from their property.

In my opinion:

The FCC is subject to corruption and regulatory capture, and if regulating internet CONTENT is downtight dangerous. This is a solution in search of a problem that has no justification. No good will come from Net Neutrality rules. The most likely effect is a stifling of investment and innovation in the areas that are newly regulated, and the destruction of smaller ISPs - like me - who will not tolerate the added burden.

erikcorona 19 days ago

You left out a fourth term:
4. How much do you trust private corporations to not discriminate against legal websites for monetary gain?

It is utterly ridiculous to frame this in a "do you trust the FCC" argument. That is ridiculous. I don't trust the government in general, but do I want the government to pass laws that will give me civil liberties? Do I want then government to pass laws that protect freedom of speech? Hell yes, of course. I don't "trust" the government anymore than I "trust" corporations, or FCC to filter the internet for me, which is WHY I support net neutrality. Laws like Net Neutrality don't require you to trust your government or corporations. Net Neutrality empowers consumers to decide which online business succeed and which ones fail, it's called freedom.

openinternet 19 days ago

I absolutely trust corporations to "discriminate" for financial gain. That's what businesses do. I buy stock in those businesses and demand that they do so!

Government does not grant anyone freedom. Citizens possess freedom only to the extent that governments are prohibited from infringing on that freedom.

Corporations "discriminate" constantly. Everyone does. No authority has a right to force me to go to McDonald's vs. Burger King - except by forcing Burger king out of business through regulation. McDonald's has no "power" to force me to buy their hamburgers.

That's how it works. Free economy. Individual freedom. Government limited by a written constitution of enumerated powers.

No matter how trustworthy your neighbors, if you put a well labelled house key on a post out in front of your house, I guarantee that someone will eventually let himself in for a tour. Power, once granted begs to be used. The FCC is not immune.

erikcorona 18 days ago

"I absolutely trust corporations to "discriminate" for financial gain. That's what businesses do."

-- yet you want to give them the power to filter legal content on the internet? tsk tsk, you should change your nick from "openinternet" to "corporatefilteredinternet"

"Government does not grant anyone freedom. Citizens possess freedom only to the extent that governments are prohibited from infringing on that freedom."

--Net neutrality will not make it possible for government to filter legal content! Not having net neutrality lets legal content get filtered. Sheesh, you don't know what you're arguing about.

openinternet 18 days ago

I filter my network. I filter out spam. I filter out "DOS attacks". If I were a large ISP, I might filter porn or "applications" that use "too much" bandwidth. It's my call. My network. Who are you to tell me I shouldn't do this?

On freedom: Censors rarely edit the copy. They shut down the offices of those who displease them. The most insidious interference is that which drives players out of business indirectly by cutting them off from financial support, or driving them out of business via legal water torture.

The only way to ensure that the FCC will not "bend" the content of the net is to deny the FCC authority to affect it.

pangasamaneesh 18 days ago

Filtering out spam and blocking denial of service attacks is one thing -- sending spam messages is unethical whether or not its illegal -- and much of the spam emails that are fraudulent are in fact illegal under the weakly worded CAN SPAM Act.

Reasonable network management means that ISPs must not unfairly discriminate against certain content or services -- I can understand on occasion if too much bandwidth is being used some level of filtering can be done -- but how much is too much? If the market were more competitive -- by the way before AT&T re-merged with SBC Communications & Bell South -- in the years leading up to 2005 AT&T routinely upgraded its networks -- since 2005 rather than investing its cash wisely and fairly -- rather than investing in upgrading its networks something it was doing earlier it shifted its strategy to lobbying against Net Neutrality and lobbying to get their way in Washington. So before 2005 AT&T was upgrading its network infrastructure to accommodate more bandwidth usage -- I have said this before that if the broadband Internet access market were more competitive we would not need Net Neutrality rules to be enforced right now -- I once mentioned an article with a EU Commissioner bragging Net Neutrality was better in Europe and that if Net Neutrality were ever in any real danger there that they would not hesitate to protect it.

Most of us with high speed Internet access get it from a cable or phone company and are our choices between providers are very limited now -- the Bush FCC is to thank for that by allowing mega mergers.

In a more competitive market there would be more incentive to innovate, smaller ISPs would be less interested in bandwidth caps -- now using bandwidth caps as a last resort if the network cannot sustain any additional bandwidth usage in its existing form is reasonable -- we don't want too much bandwidth all used at once that it causes a massive outage and physical harm to the networks. We have a market dominated by big name cable and phone company ISPs -- in a more competitive market there would be more incentive to innovate -- thus more incentive to upgrade IT networks regularly to allow more bandwidth use.

So instead of restricting bandwidth why not upgrade IT networks to accommodate higher bandwidth use. You might argue that such upgrades may be costly -- to a small ISP massive upgrades may be somewhat costly but the big ISPs that dominate the market can afford to make such massive upgrades if they wanted to -- they are too greedy though and disinterested in providing customers worthwhile service. In a duopoly market they can charge whatever they want, reap billions of dollars in profit, and maintain the status quo -- that works for them -- if customers are unhappy with their service too bad -- the big cable and phone companies are the only choice in town for U.S. web surfers and even if there is an alternative provider in your area -- like 2 or 3 companies instead of 1 if the other 2 providers are no better than the 1 you already have your stuck -- it makes no difference which of the 2 or 3 providers you choose -- you can't switch to a better provider if all the providers are providing bad service. Either have service or cancel -- either accept a slower high speed Internet connection or live without Internet at all.

In a competitive market with line sharing mandated, competition and affordability mandated etc and Net Neutrality not in any clear danger the use of bandwidth caps are less common -- I've never heard of bandwidth caps being used in the EU because they aren't used at least not unless absolutely necessary to protect the networks of all the Internet providers there. Unfair and unnecessary bandwidth caps are unacceptable. ISPs wanting to use bandwidth caps should and must provide good reasons for why to do this -- capping the bandwidth of Internet users downloading video over the Web or streaming etc by cable company ISPs as a tactic to discourage us from getting TV online -- that is prioritizing web traffic and content in this manner is wrong -- they're not capping our bandwidth because we are using too much of it but they want to protect their traditional business models -- cable company ISPs don't want their Internet customers to be able to use online video on demand services in place of digital cable TV services -- that is consumers canceling their cable and watching their shows online via a TV network's own website streaming player or Hulu, YouTube, Boxee etc.

The bandwidth caps if done purely for business and anti competitive reasons which is part of their motive is unacceptable.

openinternet 16 days ago

It sounds like the ISPs are truly incompetent, and you could run them much better. In fact, you could make more money than they could, and also deliver better service to all the ISP's customers.

I think you are wasting your time posting to this forum. You should be running Comcast, or possibly the FCC.

I have suggested that things are more complicated than you think, and that the actual owners and operators - or even the customers - should be given deference before burdening them with what I consider unnecessary and onerous regulation, but clearly you know better.

Since I am one of those poor managers, I'm probably guilty of the same incompetence, and have little or nothing of value to offer, only direct experience for 12 years running an ISP, and 30 years in software engineering.

I'm sure the ISPs, when they have been prohibited from charging more for services that they think their customers want, will see the light, and give those new services out for free. They will see the error of their ways, and investors will flock to upgrade those networks once they are regulated to specifically prohibit profiting from those upgraded telecom services.

I have always believed that internet service was very nice, but hardly a life-or-death matter. I have been pleased to have better service, for less money, every year since about 1980. I now see that I have been a dupe and a pawn. Someone out there made more money than they should have, and I have been harmed. I need the FCC to clamp down on those voracious telecoms to prohibit them from offering me choices that may not be good enough. I'm sure glad you pointed that out.

I will try to be more thoughtful in the future, and think these issues through before I comment.

erikcorona 16 days ago

openinternet AKA corporateFilteredInternet

It's funny how when "pangasamaneesh" makes some good ponts, you simply resort to logical fallacies.

It's ridiculous that you call Net Neutrality onerous. It's simply, don't filter out legal content based or throttle it. That doesn't require ANY extra effort. I've caught you in constant lie after lie, makes me think you were hired to spam these boards. You appear to be one of a very few minority of people who flat out lie in favor of corporate filtered internet.

You know, I have no problem with someone who disagrees with me in a n honest way. Libertarians are some of those people. You, however, lie to try and jam your point across hoping someone without technical "know-how" will fall for your BS.

pangasamaneesh 10 days ago

For the record the duopoly cable company ISPs wanting bandwidth caps and overage charges don't want to institute them to protect their network from bandwidth hogs but to discourage competition to their digital cable TV offerings from emerging online.

Point is for those ISPs who say "low caps + overage charges will encourage people to use the Internet"? The unsaid ending is "will encourage people to use the Internet for low bandwidth purposes and dissuade them from using online video which competes with our cable TV monopoly." I use Apple's iTunes Store and the Apple TV for downloading and watching movies and TV Shows and can easily in no time at all exceed the small caps Time Warner Cable wanted to set. So I'd be forced to either pay huge fees for the "privilege" of watching shows online or stop watching shows online entirely. (I'd likely do the latter since I couldn't afford the former.) It's not an action to save their network from bandwidth hogs, it's an action to save their cable TV monopoly from Internet-based competition. Even now Time Warner Cable still wants to do this and despite lying that this will enhance the value of the Internet for their customers and that everyone will benefit from it -- TWC is living outside reality they know their customers protested the last time they tried this and don't want these caps but says their customers like them to the press.

Starting an ISP might cost money but there are other factors as mentioned like sleazy activities by the incumbent ISPs to stop competition from emerging.

You know what free market capitalism is -- (this by the way is the best system but requires some government regulation and enforcement of said regulation to protect the markets from monopolies) Free markets require personal freedom to choose. Choice requires multiple options by service and price. Options by service and price require actual competition. Where there is no actual competition there is no possibility of choice and therefore no real freedom. Unregulated monopoly capitalism is not a free market any more than it has proved to be. Right now, in the current "free telecom market" I have to pay the 'loser' duopoly to choose when "I choose" to use the other 'winner' duopoly.

Under Net Neutrality they would not be allowed to do this. So who do we have to thank for our having reduced competition and choice -- the courts that struck down the 1996 Telecommunications Act for the benefit of incumbent phone and cable companies, and the Bush Administration. I urge Congress also to pass The Internet Freedom & Preservation Act by Congressman Ed Markey as well as the Broadband Fairness Act to outlaw deceptive broadband caps.

It's always conservatives that want less regulation and their reducing regulations during the Bush years allowed a duopoly to be formed on the Internet for anyone accessing it in the U.S. By the way Net Neutrality is in even worse danger in Canada right now. At least the current FCC is working toward Net Neutrality but the Canadian Government has decided to leave the issue of Net Neutrality to citizens and ISPs to worry about.

The reason we have reduced competition is not that its expensive for new ISPs to develop and few find the market profitable enough to enter but the incumbent companies pull so many dirty underhanded tactics to prevent competition from emerging. Recently, I read a new article about a Time Warner Cable executive stating TWC's decision to keep raising its Internet rates as long as they can. They are doing so not because they have to but they want to squeeze every dollar out of consumers. Ever hear the expression "pain at the pump" when gasoline bills were so costly well picture being pinched by the cable and phone company ISPs for every penny. They have expressed their intent to keep raising rates as long as they can -- when too many people find broadband unaffordable and have to cancel service that their fat profit margins decrease then they'll be forced to offer lower pricing but otherwise they intend to keep raising rates all they want.

When speaking of the digital divide -- there is none in Europe -- we have a digital divide with other countries including the European nations which have continued to mandate competition.

With the 1996 Telecommunications Act struck down the phone companies that complained about rules requiring them to do line sharing with smaller ISPs and offer them wholesale rates to buy Internet access cheaply and resell it gave up on doing this as they never wanted to, and only did earlier because they had to.

Under George W. Bush opportunities for monopolies increased but opportunity for actual American citizens stayed about the same or decreased.

erikcorona 10 days ago

Wow, I feel very enlightened. Thanks for the very illuminating post pangasamaneesh

pangasamaneesh 8 days ago

Your welcome erikcorona -- just thought I'd add another point to the discussion -- incumbent telecom company ISPs like AT&T are behind this but cable companies could be as well (by the way in most areas with Time Warner Cable they are the only broadband Internet provider in town so they can keep raising prices all they want and not fear consumers fleeing to a cheaper competitor. Only time these companies actively try to improve their networks is when competition develops. When Verizon came out with its Fios service (which is available in some but very few TWC markets) TWC would improve service in those markets and offer promotions for new customers. When actual competition emerges to threaten their dominance they are forced to improve service and do so but otherwise become complacent. In 99% of all areas with TWC they are the only viable broadband Internet access provider available.

In my town we have Qwest or TWC -- Fios is offered in very few areas and Verizon has decided not to expand to more areas.

They offer special deals when you sign up for Road Runner High Speed Internet service to new customers but why don't existing customers qualify for any promotions? The fact is TWC is a monopoly company and do their best to retain their huge profits. They don't mind the fact there is a digital divide -- that is they have no interest often in expanding access to service in areas where service is currently unavailable as that would require spending money to upgrade infrastructure etc.

They can and will as mentioned in the article I described in my last post continuing increasing rates until Internet becomes unaffordable even for too many of their existing customers and so many of them start ditching their Internet service that losing customers becomes unprofitable.

AT&T before it was allowed to re-merge with SBC Communications & Bell South was upgrading its IT infrastructure at a faster pace (since 2006 though has been trying to mess with Net Neutrality, and institute metered Internet billing -- customers are charged more for higher bandwidth use (even if its legit streaming Netflix movies etc from the Web -- for users of Watch Now they can easily surpass TWC's outrageously proposed low bandwidth caps) and faster speed. Herein lies the problem though all users should be able to have equal access to the Internet whether rich or poor, urban or rural. Broadband Internet Service is supposed to be fast as opposed to dead-end dial-up connections with which you can get busy signals and frequent disconnects. Broadband Internet access is also supposed to be an always on capable connection -- you don't have to worry about getting disconnected -- as long as you have service you don't have to worry about being disconnected and having to re-connect frequently.

So if broadband Internet service is supposed to be fast in general why offer slower plans and faster plans to broadband subscribers getting Internet. All broadband Internet access services should offer equal, fair and fast access to the Web. We should have higher speeds, be able to do more with more bandwidth -- bandwidth caps when absolutely necessary are understandable; carriers have to be able to prove their reasonableness even then to ensure their not doing it to stifle competing services but have to actually prove it is to stop bandwidth congestion. As I mentioned cable companies are trying to cap bandwidth to stop competition from Internet based video services from developing. They are doing this to prevent their digital cable TV customers upset with paying expensive fees for cable from cutting the cord so to speak (replacing cable with Internet TV providers that are cheaper and in some cases even free) we need access to broadband Internet access to improve in the following ways -- we need more choice, competition, and innovation.

Keeping Net Neutrality will ensure the next Google, the next YouTube, Facebook or Twitter won't need ISP permission to innovate. These websites or companies on the Web I've mentioned are big and popular now but started out small. Without Net Neutrality they all would have needed permission from ISPs to innovate. The incumbent ISPs hate the idea of these websites being accessible for free over the ISP's own infrastructure -- so in future if Google wanted TWC users to be able to access its website Google must pay TWC so Road Runner users can access Google. They want to charge Internet users higher fees and they want to charge sites like Google for access to their users. This violates the history of telecommunications law in this country.

The Internet became successful because of its openness. Companies like Comcast want to be able to control the airwaves because they dislike democracy. Comcast is afraid of public opposition to its plans. They want to silence any and all dissent -- stop criticism against them from being voiced in the news.

In the realm of journalism by the way journalists were supposed to provide a voice to the voiceless of this country but with more corporate control of the news there is less independent ownership and less minority owned sources of news which results in less diversity. If Comcast owns NBC Universal do you think MSNBC would remain as independent as it is and remain committed to fact checking stories or become more like FOX News. Does anyone here think what if Comcast gets NBC Universal what that would do for democracy? Would they allow MSNBC to do accurate reporting even if that includes reporting stories critical of Comcast?

The Corporate Media already don't like reporting on themselves or exposing corporate scandals etc if they have nothing to gain by doing so. They are more interested in reporting what they want us to know than what we need to know what the truth is.

Under Net Neutrality any web entrepreneur with a good idea can make it big and make a difference.

There are 2 paths forward -- the first is the closed Internet (without Net Neutrality) that looks like cable TV or radio today -- which cable and phone companies want (in which even critics of government enforced Net Neutrality could suffer at the hands of the duopoly ISPs) where status quo is king -- big cable and phone company ISPs gets to decide what's on, how much it costs and how fast it downloads. Internet that is no longer a vibrant town square for everyone but a cash cow for a few. An Internet where censorship by corporations of individual free speech can occur.

The second path is the righteous path -- one of openness and nondiscrimination where anyone with a good idea can make it big and make a difference.

So we need to let the FCC and Congress know the following needs to be mandated -- choice, competition, innovation, and yes a Net Neutrality rule for nondiscrimination.

If we close the Digital Divide in our country we can create at least hundreds of thousands or even millions of new jobs and become more competitive with other countries in the world in offering broadband Internet access. That is why we also need a National Broadband Plan (the FCC is seeking public comment on just such a National Broadband Plan at Broadband.gov) There are some areas of the country left either unserved with no broadband Internet access provider willing to provide Internet or under-served with access but access is sub-par compared to what it should be.

That needs to change!

openinternet 8 days ago

There are indeed two paths forward.

One is to respect the Rule of Law, Private Property and Contracts, and let the market work. There is considerable experience with this. This brought us the computer, the automobile, and uncounted other innovations and improvements. Groceries, housing, automobiles, clothing, furniture, entertainment are all excellent examples of free markets satisfying customers. Some may think it imperfect, but it is certainly not a BAD option. This is how we got the internet we have.

The second is to hand more power to the FCC and let bureaucrats and politicians "fix" it. We have considerable experience with this approach as well. Rent control in NYC - big success! Amtrak! Federal housing policy! How about the gasoline price controls in the 70s, or AT&T before the breakup. We can mention the cable TV industry, where almost every locality has given a monopoly position to some vendor. (in exchange for "fixing" the rates). There are lots of big successes to talk about.

Those who have never run an ISP, or tried to satisfy customers with limited resources, and spend their time whining about how things are not yet wonderful should be given all the attention and deference that they deserve. That goes double for those who are not really familiar with the complexities of the technology. Beware the ignorant, fanatical pundits. They tear down. They are parasites on the builders.

Those people who are in the arena, trying to build and improve networks and services, in the hopes of making money deserve our respect and support. (see above re: "huge profits") They are the builders. We depend on their success.

As always, complaining that something is not good enough is easy. Making it better is really hard. Loading requirements on those making it better (more FCC mandates and requirements) is never an improvement, except for the egos of the armchair quarterbacks.

pangasamaneesh 7 days ago

OpenInternet did you even read what I said about free market capitalism though -- markets are not free just by being unregulated. For markets to be truly free they must be open to competition and there must be plenty of consumer choice. A monopoly or duopoly market like broadband Internet access is today is not a free market. For the market to be freed of this duopoly government antitrust enforcement would be needed to breakup some of the big cable and phone company ISPs and any further mega mergers that are harmful to competition and consumers would have to be rejected as such for the damaging effects they would have for competition and consumers.

If we are to become more competitive with the other countries of the world we now lag behind in adoption of universal broadband Internet access we must have a national brpadband plan, mandate competition, so there is enough consumer choices in each market (1 incumbent phone provider vs 1 incumbent cable provider in each town is insufficient) and encourage innovation by offering low taxes and some level of deregulation. Total deregulation and allowing big companies to just get bigger is not helpful and certainly not the answer.

I suggest you check out Broadband.gov and provide your own suggestions there on what shape and form the National Broadband Plan should take. Here are a few major things it should mandate: 1) competition, 2) require Internet to be more affordable -- Internet that is should be reasonably priced; 3) encourage innovation -- no mandate needed here just encouragement through tax credits and other incentives -- in a competitive market some deregulation can occur as long as the market does not become un-competitive as a result. You can vote on ideas there as well and add your own. Like at OpenInternet.gov there will be a Join the Discussion link on Broadband.gov to do so.

openinternet 7 days ago

Armchair quarterbacks are always full of easy answers to other people's problems. You have no right to decide what is "adequate" in terms of service or price, nor to preach to me about what an ISP should or should not do. Only those involved have a say. Third parties, such as yourself, who do not have any obligation to pay the price if the prescriptions fail should be wary of offering these solutions and prescriptions, especially to problems that only exist in the imaginations of the armchair quarterbacks.

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