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Net Neutrality Voted Down in U.S. House Committee
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Thu Apr 27, 2006 11:39 PM
from the multi-lane-internets dept.
from the multi-lane-internets dept.
Ana10g writes "Business Week provides a look at the recent vote by the House Committee on Energy & Commerce, in which the FCC would have been given the power to prohibit discrimination of Internet traffic. The battlefield seems to be centered around which group has the better funded lobbyists, with companies such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and many others competing against the well funded Telecommunications lobbysts. The committee voted the amendment down, 34 to 22."
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Politics: Net Neutrality Bill in Congress 254 comments
hip2b2 writes "The US Congress is finally doing something to prevent large bandwidth providers and network operators from charging (or putting restrictions on) competing web and other Internet media content providers. According to this NetworkWorld article, the new bill sponsored by Democratic Representatives Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Jay Inslee of Washington state, Anna Eshoo of California and Rick Boucher of Virginia in the House and Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon in the Senate. I am not a big fan of legislation, but, I hope this bill keeps the Internet a freer place." Here is our coverage of the first round.
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Hmm... Technicalities. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hmm... Technicalities. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Tech-Regulation Bills are *seldom* well written (Score:5, Insightful)
In most big technical companies, it's tough enough to get your *management* to understand the critical technical issues. (If you work in a small startup, there's a good chance that some of the main players do understand, but if you're big enough to have VC-funded management and an HR department, it's pretty likely that have the management aren't technical enough.) Getting *Congresscritters* to understand anything technical is much tougher, and the FCC are a variable set of political hacks, ranging from occasional people who are outstandingly good to other people who are more concerned about regulating TV coverage of Janet Jackson's boobs.
The MoveOn.org petition-distributors don't understand the real issues, so the things they're telling the Democrat Congresscritters aren't helping their ignorance any. Some of the big customers understand some of the real issues. The telecom company managers have demonstrated that while they may understand some of the issues, they'd rather do a bone-headed arrogant "It's Our Money" regulatory play than try to talk technology to the public.
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Re:Hmm... Technicalities. (Score:5, Funny)
*lol* can see it now: breakdown of votes for new amendment was:
60% funny
20% troll
20% overrated
goddamn mods
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Re:Hmm... Technicalities. (Score:5, Informative)
First, yes it would. Thanks god I live in a slightly more sane country (only by a bit unfortunately). Otherwise I would have lost one of my primary pieces of daily bread. Been doing QoS for 7+ years now.
Second, Amazon, MSFT and Co should have acted long ago when the Baby Bells and Bell Wannabies killed off the peering points circa Y2K. Instead of that, they went into a direct relationship with the Baby Bells and Bell Wannabies. As a result they simply do not have a leg to stand on regarding any such issues. They are already in contractual agreement with the ATT, Verizon, Level3, etc and if one of these decides to alter the contract there is little they could do.
To put things in a perspective - in the US traffic from access goes across the telco backbone and goes to Amazon and the like via a private link. In this environment the content provider is at the mercy of the telco. In Europe the traffic goes from access across the telco backbone after that traverses a well maintained non-profit peering point like Lynx and hits the content provider after that. Technically, you can do QoS in both cases. Practically, while you can there is no way you can guarantee any QoS because you do not control the entire route. The Bells understood this more than 5 years ago and killed the US peering points like MAE by maintaining the infrastructure as bad as they could (they also owned most of them) and forcing everyone to go private. From there on the question of net neutrality is utterly pointless.
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There's something so wrong with this story (Score:5, Insightful)
So long as we're clear: it's just big companies with lots of money fighting each other for the right to make money off of us. God for-fucking-bid the "battlefield" should in anyway involve some kind of consideration of what might be best for the human constitutents the congresscritters are elected to serve.
Re:There's something so wrong with this story (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:There's something so wrong with this story (Score:5, Funny)
There, brought you up to the 21st C.
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Re:There's something so wrong with this story (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:There's something so wrong with this story (Score:5, Insightful)
On the bright side, it's nice to see MS money going to a good cause. I bet Bill Gates is rolling over in his coffin at the thought.
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Re:There's something so wrong with this story (Score:3, Informative)
You do realise that the Gates Foundation [gatesfoundation.org] has given grants worth $10.2 billion [gatesfoundation.org] since its inception, right?
Bash MS and Gates all you like, but at least bash them for legitimate reasons, and Gates' lack of caring about good causes isn't one of them.
Re:There's something so wrong with this story (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:There's something so wrong with this story (Score:5, Informative)
But anyway, to the meat of my comment: Our reps actually DO listen, at least when we call or write (on that flat white thin stuff...email is ignored) so, I chose to make some phone calls.
My basic pitch to the representatives: I'm a small business owner in Virginia. I voted for you. I might not in the future. A core part of my method of business relies on a neutral, accessible internet. If congress were to allow the telecoms to restrict access, my business might fail, along with many others in the state. Help us, and we will help you.
Basically, let your reps know your point of view, and make them recognize that this is a litmus test issue for you. Ask them to work for you and keep your vote. This won't work for the complete whores in congress, but the ones on the fence, or in vulnerable elections will listen. So: CALL OR WRITE THAT PERSON WHO YOU VOTED FOR, AND ARE PAYING TO REPRESENT YOU. IT WORKS SOMETIMES.
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That's up to the constituents (Score:5, Insightful)
If they spend their time watching TV and vote based on what they see in expensive TV campaign ads then Congress will respond to whoever donates money.
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Re:There's something so wrong with this story (Score:3, Informative)
Re:There's something so wrong with this story (Score:5, Informative)
1. You get your internet access from AOL
2. They get their access from a metaISP. Let's just say AT&T for simplicty
3. AT&T is finacially related to... let's say Barnes & Noble Bookstores
4. You want to hit Amazon to buy a book
5. Barnes & Noble tell AT&T to provided the slowest possible access (modem speeds) to their competitors and lightning fast access to Barnes and Noble. AT&T Complies
6. You try to get to Amazon.com and you either get a timeout or the site renders VERY SLOWLY
7. This makes you think that Amazon sucks, so you ditch them and go through others until you find this really great bookseller online: Barnes & Noble
Nevermind that their prices are higher and they don't provide access to used books and media. So you just got hamstrung. Now... let's say you discover through friends who have excellent experiences with Amazon that you are missing out. What do you do? You could change ISPs to one who is a partner or in some other way is financially related to Amazon. But then... your access to your favorite news or sports site slows to a crawl. That's how this is going to impact you. Nice huh?
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I'm so torn (Score:4, Insightful)
As an aside, doesn't the whole "tiered Internet" concept that the telco's are trying to float violate the concept of "common carrier"? Anyone know?
Re:I'm so torn (Score:5, Informative)
Networks not regulated as common carriers are referred to as Information Services or Enhanced Services, and are generally regulated under title I of the Communications Act. (Source [wikipedia.org])
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Insights * 2 (Score:4, Funny)
Shouldn't be which group has the most voters? And I mean in the country, not in Congress.
with companies such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and many others competing against the well funded Telecommunications lobbysts.
Ah, yes. Your monopoly profits at work -- ON BOTH SIDES!
Re:Insights * 2 (Score:5, Insightful)
The only guy on the panel who felt net neutrality was unnecessary was the telco guy 'McCormick' who repeatedly assured the panel they would never 'limit, degrade, or block service' to anyone - all while agreeing that one congressman's analogy that suggested exactly that was 'apropos.' How bout that.
Meanwhile republican bobble-heads were nodding in agreement nearly the entire time with the 4 other panelists who FAVORED net neutrality and seemed to understand the issue. Vote time comes - only one republican voted for it. Another 'gee, how bout that' moment. What I think surprised me the most is that they actually seemed to grasp the necessity of net neutrality throughout - but they're such whores they voted against it anyways when the attention was elsewhere (see gas prices.)
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I'd love to see this. (Score:5, Interesting)
During that week, any requests for pages from those sites from the telecom's network would respond with a warning page saying
Content providers' sites are one of the few reasons that Verizon and at&t can sell anything. Without sites like Google, Amazon, and Yahoo, Verizon and at&t's pipes are pretty much worthless. The content providers really should make this clear to Verizon and at&t.
Re:I'd love to see this. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'd love to see this. (Score:5, Funny)
At least if they fellate Bush, then we can finally impeach him
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DEMAND your rights! (Score:5, Insightful)
The shame is that we (the voters) don't stand up and say "ENOUGH!" Is it because we don't think what we want is right, or is it because we expect political special interests to win despite what we, the voters want?
The game is rigged, sure enough, just as long as we sit down, shut up, and don't vote. I don't care if you disagree with me, I just want you to vote.
Re:DEMAND your rights! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Cool idea! (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmmm...
End of Net Neutrality means what? (Score:3, Interesting)
It sounds as if the telecos are going to throttle the entire internet, especially the bigger content providers. Then only "paid", higher tiered content providers will be delivered with "premium" speeds? All the while the premium bandwith will be reserved for the telecos digital television over DSL and such.
But how is a teleco operating one of the net backbones going to know what exactly is inside a packet, if the packet is coming from a paid tier source, and where it's destination is without opening it up and examining it? That sounds like a rather ominious intrusion.
Re:End of Net Neutrality means what? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:End of Net Neutrality means what? (Score:5, Informative)
Remember, VOIP is still a new technology in the eyes of the public. They feel the need to crush it before it gains mass public support and thus political support to keep it alive.
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Net Neutrality: Three Questions (Score:4, Interesting)
they'll probably argue its about competition (Score:4, Funny)
OMFG! No way! (Score:3, Funny)
Gee, I would *never* have thought! I mean, like, in this day and age, I would expect that buying off politicians was *impossible!*
Such Damage... (Score:5, Insightful)
This may very well mean those content providers and other businesses will move operations outside the USA. Hopefully, this might (not sure on this) make it difficult for US-based major telecoms and ISPs to discriminate against foreign traffic because of international treaties and agreements.
Combined with restrictive IP laws and high taxes, this could add significantly to pressure forcing innovative technologies and the corporations behind them to base themselves outside US control.
As Princess Leia said about a possible future powergrab..
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
Once more, it seems (relatively) short-term profits win out over longer-term strategies that would benefit everyone in many ways, including even themselves, and to a much greater degree over time than this self-defeating quick cash grab.
Seems they never learned the old adage about not crapping in ones' own nest.
Cheers!
Strat
Interesting Question (Score:4, Interesting)
Doesn't it stand to reason that anyone providing last mile connectivity or even backbone suddenly declare themselves worthy of charging these tolls? So instead of Google/Yahoo/etc paying just SBC/Verizon/AT&T - now they're expected to pay every telco the world over to ensure they're competitive globally vs. local competition?
Very dangerous precedent could potentially be set. (And FYI - Congresspeople are not completely oblivious to phone calls and snail mail. If it adds up on them they take that very seriously particularly if you are a constituent. Sending an e-mail though is completely useless (I know...)
So, would you say this is right or wrong? (Score:4, Interesting)
On the one hand, in seems like the people who own the pipes should be able to do whatever they want with them. If we say they can't prioritize traffic of people that pay them good money to do it, aren't we violating their right to property?
On the other hand, if they start charging individual sites they could potentially hamper the economy, which would be against the public good. The problem is something like if all the roads in the country were privately owned and had toll booths everywhere...
Maybe the answer is that bandwidth should become a public utility. The companies who own it should be granted a monopoly, but then should be severely regulated along the lines power is. Its obvious that internet connectivity is as important to the public good as water and power. We need uniform access to these services across the country. Any part of the country that doesn't have access because its not profitable for verizon to provide it, simply can't economically develop. Also, realistically speaking, this would be *vastly* easier to do than power.
I'm sure that the existing bandwidth providers would have to be pulled into this kicking and screaming... but frankly the exact same thing happened with power providers. Originally, power companies didn't want to be forced to do things like run lines out to rural areas. This was unfortunate, because electric lighting is pretty important in agriculture. Eventually, when it was evident that the interest of the power companies came so strongly in conflict with the public interest, the regulations we have today were set up.
I don't know if this is necessary for bandwidth. It hasn't really come up so far, primarily because its a new thing, and because it didn't take them that long to make the internet accessible from pretty much everywhere in the country, by some means or another. Of course, that's just my anecdotal impression. Are there some places where its impossible to get a T1 line at a reasonable price? Are even businesses stuck with satellite in many places? If that's the case, it would be a strong argument to regulate the ISPs in some ways.
However, as far as I know aside from just generally failing to get home broadband to work on their first try, the ISPs seem to have done a pretty good job of getting everyone internet access. I think they must be somewhat aware of what could happen to them in terms of regulation if they abuse the public good too much. I'm sure they will follow a very fine line, but I'm happy to wait to see if they cross it before I consider regulation a good option. As a rule, its best to do nothing if you can. However, prioritized traffic is probably something we have to stop, depending on how strong the prioritization is. If they insure a certain level of quality for all traffic, it probably won't be an issue... but I suspect that they won't if they can get away with it.
The Atlantic ocean. (Score:3, Insightful)
TelCos save $ with Fiber & copper sales! -Grok (Score:5, Informative)
Note that the "children" comments that followed this comment covered much detail regarding some specifics to part of what was in the quotes taken from the comment below - to see those comments and children of those comments go to:
http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&s
"Verizon and the TelCo PAC say they need to be paid for the upgrades to fiber that they are making? Well, one union lineman that works for Verizon told me that as the TELCOs install more fiber to the house, they will end up saving HUGE amounts of money, as the TELCOs will more longer need to pay for the expensive labor that is required today to maintain the copper lines (corrosion, lightning damage due to copper getting hit then equipment blowing up), as copper costs them. The Union for Telco workers is looking at fiber optics to the business or house as the biggest pink slip creator ever in the history of the Telephone Industry. Copper costs the Telephone Companies in both labor (maintance) and equipment (Fiber equipment lasts longer and does not suffer from electrical surges that are caused by every lighting storm that happens in the US ever day. Fiber does not corrode, does not conduct lighting, and is even cheaper to produce with a lower cost per foot to buy than copper... FIber is just glass! Cheap to produce and cheap to maintain... all splices to fiber lines are perfect every time. A splice to a copper line is a future failure point due to the corrosion that can then occur at that point or break in the line.
The Telephone and cable industry does NOT need to charge more! They don't need the right to OWN the internet and charge fees to those who USE is (other than the customer side where a customer can choose the speed they want and pay the fee for it's use)! The Telephone Companies and Cable Companies are looking for their own monopoly again (only this time in restricting free speech, freedom of commerce, and to restrict and own the freedoms of competition with their own a third party tax OR TOLL BOOTH ON THE PUBLIC INTERNET where the fees then become a barrier to it's use!
IF the Republicans pass this bill through it will cause masses of internet users to vote them out of office in the next election. The US internet user wants their internet access on every side to remain free! This is an attack by an industry on the Freedoms of Internet Access and by doing this it is a direct attack on the Freedoms of Speech! What are YOU going to do about this TODAY?"
Re:Anyone Suprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Anyone Suprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Anyone Suprised? (Score:5, Funny)
*grr*
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Re:Anyone Suprised? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Anyone Suprised? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Anyone Suprised? (Score:5, Funny)
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Logic breakdown... (Score:5, Funny)
OMG!!1! We're on the same side as Microsoft!?!?! WTF?!?!?!11?!?//
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Re:Anyone Suprised? call your senator ANYWAY... (Score:5, Informative)
Call your senator.
Tell them what you think this bill will do. And mostly why you won't vote for the again or contribuite to their campaigns.
(It is the only thing you can do, unless you are a freelance lobbyist that wants to work pro-bono for slashdotters.)
Here is their contact information.
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/ senators_cfm.cfm [senate.gov]
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Free? How so? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Good, the Internet will continue to be free (Score:3, Insightful)
The FCC is desperately needed to regulate the internet. The FCC needs to ensure a level playing field when it comes to net traffic, whether that traffic is for google or microsoft, or my own server. I don't want to access my mail at dial-up speeds because the provider between me and it decides to that their uncompressed HD content is more important then my 5k file. I don't want my connection to time out to an independant site because verizon decided to shift all their
Charging the consumer surplus (Score:5, Insightful)
When you think of Google, Amazon, Ebay etc. ... their whole business depends on telecommunication, so that what it's worth to them to have their data sent is basically their entire profit margin, which is non-zero. So ... at the moment they are enjoying a benefit which is known as "consumer surplus". Consumer surplus is the area between a demand curve and a given (fixed) price (see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_surplus [wikipedia.org]).
Any marketeer knows that to get the maximum amount of money out of a market, you have to deal with each consumer individually, and price your goods to exactly what he's willing to pay. You can do that if his negotiation position is completely transparant to you, i.e. if you know his demand curve.
Now that extreme is too bothersome, so what do you do? You segment the market into sections that have approximately the same willingness to pay. For each segment you then negotiate a price close to the minimum willingness to pay for that segment. You won't get all the revenue you would have if you were able to charge each consumer the maximum price they're willing to pay, but you're getting close.
The trick is to identify the segments in the first place, and to gain a strong negotiating position. Identifying your customers is the basic step to figuring out their willingness to pay, and of late we have seen Cisco routers that do exactly that. So that's one hole plugged.
The second issue is to gain a strong negotiating position. That's all taken care of because the telecom companies have ensured that all electronic traffic must pass through their infrastructure.
The only remaining problem was that it wasn't legal for them to bluntly start pricing each individual customer what they would pay. Now with the removal of "net-neutrality" this is taken care of as well. Telecom companies can simply induce unacceptable delays as follows:
- (1) allocate reserved bandwidth channels on their infrastructure for customers that are prepared to pay more (got to provide superior service if we're going to charge more, right?)
- (2) route traffic in those channels with priority over existing infrastructure
- (3) watch natural traffic growth of priority traffic squeeze the performance of the non-priority traffic
- (4) politely but firmly negotiate large price increases with large customers such as Google, Ebay, Amazon who can't live with the now much reduced performance of their services
All legal, all neat. Telcos increase their profits at the expense of the (large corporate) users of telecoms facilities. Of course it won't stop there. Individual consumers and small businesses are next. Not satisfied with your Internet performance? (hehehe) Subscribe to our Deluxe service!
If you think I'm making any of this up, then see Cisco's pitch of its routers that can identify traffic here http://www.corecom.com/ftpdir/pub/corecom/iprev-bi lling.ppt [corecom.com]. as powerpoint and here as html: http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:dt-ljUr4k5QJ:w ww.corecom.com/ftpdir/pub/corecom/iprev-billing.pp t+cisco+routers+identify+traffic+tiered+charge&hl= en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=8 [66.249.93.104]
The only cloud in the sky is the fact that the Telecoms companies don't create value in this way. They simply take away consumer surplus. Gi
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Re:Good. (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:How did the committee vote on this? (Score:4, Informative)
I found the vote tally [savetheinternet.com], but not on any .gov - I had to google for it. That link also contains the office phone numbers for every committee member - not that changing their minds will help at this point, but a scolding could be in order.
Americans should probably look this list over and see if their rep is on it. Mine is not. The vote was pretty much along party lines, with 5 Dems crossing over and voting against the Markey amendment (Gonzalez - TX, Green - TX, Rush - IL, Towns - NY, Wynn - MD), and only 1 Republican voting for it (Wilson - NM)
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