FCC Declares Intention To Enforce Net Neutrality 343
Unequivocal writes "The FCC chairman, Julius Genachowski, told Congress today that the 'Federal Communications Commission plans to keep the Internet free of increased user fees based on heavy Web traffic and slow downloads. ...Genachowski... told The Hill that his agency will support "net neutrality" and go after anyone who violates its tenets. "One thing I would say so that there is no confusion out there is that this FCC will support net neutrality and will enforce any violation of net neutrality principles," Genachowski said when asked what he could do in his position to keep the Internet fair, free and open to all Americans. The statement by Genachowski comes as the commission remains locked in litigation with Comcast. The cable provider is appealing a court decision by challenging the FCC's authority to penalize the company for limiting Web traffic to its consumers.' It looks like the good guys are winning, unless the appeals court rules against the FCC."
Let me say.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Me either, after the FCC being suspiciously absent from any meaningful reformist type discussions during the last 10 years.
Other than Google Voice and a bandwidth auction, I haven't heard much about the FCC in some years, aside of course from Janet Jackson's nipple.
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during the last 10 years.
It seems to go in 4 or 8 year cycles. I wonder why that is.
Re:Let me say.... (Score:5, Funny)
Sunspots.
Re:Let me say.... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a simple tactic. Get people thinking you are in charge of the Internet by "protecting it". Once people take it as an unwritten rule that you are the police of the Internet, you can do whatever you want.
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Well that's a lie. Just as in most countries the FCC and it's equivalents around the world, have responsibility over telecommunications, that's phones for the not so bright. It is pretty obvious with the transition from an analogue systems to digital systems, the internet is a direct extension of phone of phone calls and should cover that extension and provide private communications between subscribers.
So telecommunications aren't allowed to listen in to what is going on in your home when your not using
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The media companies forgot to pay the FCC.
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This is good news and I hope the FCC sticks to it, I enjoy Netflix streaming too much to lose it because Comcast decides to throttle back my connection in an effort to force me to buy their more expensive services that offer less.
Re:Let me say.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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How does this grant you freedom? (Score:5, Insightful)
It gives me the choice to choice a competitor without having my connection artificially slowed down. If I as a ComCast customer can choice to use a video download service other than ComCast's own service, then I have more freedom. If instead of using ComCast's phone service I choice another, I have more freedom. Or if instead of viewing ComCast's preferred political messages I can view others I have more freedom.
You haven't gained any freedom, what's happened is a private corporation has lost freedom to more government regulation, and I don't see how anyone could think that this is a surprising thing.
BS!!! I have gained more choices than either putting up with ComCast or going without. If you want to live in a world where one entity controls what you can see then Cuba's 90 miles from Florida.
Falcon
Re:Let me say.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Interesting. I can give you an example where my argument finds a parallel that you (unless completely insane) might understand.
In this country the majority of our roads are public. I do not forsee our local, state, and federal governments allowing corporate interests to purchase and control every one of these roads. But if they did, I'm sure you would be quite apalled to see how private/capitalist influences affect your life.
I see net neutrality as a prevention of corporate interests limiting your abilities and access while (and as we see in most oligopolies) forming unwritten agreements amongst 'competitors' in such a way that they operate quite the same and never truly compete. Oil companies don't compete. Telecoms don't compete. Sure, it looks like a free market, but in reality they're all looking at each other and grinning. You have to be a complete idiot not to see that.
And while the majority of major media outlets are largely owned by corporate interests, and their messages spewing the biases they want you to believe -- the internet serves to be the only place where a true variety of content and information can be accessed. I truly fear the day that the information I can access is limited to the business contracts my ISP has, and I have no other choices because all of my ISPs act just like every other player in oligopoly-run systems.
I completely recommend the book "Snow Crash" to you. It is a great book, and the theme of the book is the epitome of capitalism/free-market where large corporations actually own what we currently think of as neighborhoods and counties, jails are franchise businesses, etc etc... it truly paints an interesting and yet scary picture as to what pure capitalism does for people.
Remember, capitalism is an 'ism' for money. That means your focus is on money. When you put money over people, you've disrespected those people. Call it what you like, but I think selfishness and lack of respect are the presently greatest flaws of human cultures. When you've matured past the simple-minded capitalist views and ignorant faith for corporatism, maybe you'll realize how petty it is when your ferrari doesn't follow you to the grave .... maybe 5 starving children could have had healthier meals growing up.... bagh.. fuckem, right? The shitty thing is, the people who care about communities care about you despite how little you care about your community. And that can only be described as compassion-parasitism.
Think about what truly matters, and if it has anything to do with money--- your mind is sick.
Re:Two-edged sword (Score:5, Informative)
Why was this modded insightful. It should be "-1 ignorant". There is virtually nothing factual or truthful about the parent post about the ICC, it is a rant from either an libertarian extremist or a far-right extremist. Personally, and without looking at the user's other posts, I vote for far-right with a patina of libertarianism. I say this because the poster appears to claim that the Republicans weren't really conservative. Apparently it seems he may have his own custom definition of conservative not shared by the rest of society.
The article for the ICC at Wikipedia is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Commerce_Commission [wikipedia.org]
According to the parent, the ICC was formed after a dispute over four trucks, especially considering that the article states the ICC was formed in 1887 to regulate railroads. I'm fairly sure that interstate cargo transport would not have been done by ICE trucks. If they existed the existing roads would have not been passable, the relative unreliability of early ICE engines and vehicles is another factor to consider. Even better, in the 1970' and 1980's Congress started taking away powers from the ICC (many were probably just redistributed instead) and in 1995 the ICC was abolished by the Republicans in Congress. The remaining functions of the ICC were distributed to the Surface Transportation Board. Interestingly, the ICC was the model for many other federal agencies like the FCC, SEC, and FTC among others. Its hard to argue against the need for a functional SEC and FTC today at least in a credible manner.
While personally I would like more people, who are well informed to be involved in a constructive manner with the government. I prefer inactive, but informed individuals rather than people like the parent, who is badly misinformed or who even knows what they are spewing is untrue. While I'm not saying the parent does this, but acting like hooligans nonviolent or otherwise in order to obstruct the government helps no one, not even themselves.
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>>>If you compare what the USA pays per capita for that health care, compared to developed European countries
Yes and if you compare the QUALITY of the cheap "bargain basement" European care, you'll see why the USA is still the better health system. The European may save money, but at the cost of rationing services such that citizens have shitty results:
UK HEALTHCARE WAITING TIMES
8 months - cataract surgery
11 months- hip replacement
12 months- knee replacement
5 months - slipped disc
5 months - hernia
Re:Two-edged sword (Score:5, Insightful)
You are right, but what is missing is an alternative solution. We could avoid this all together if we had competition for broadband providers. Then, the market would (in theory) favor network neutrality.
But, the problem with that is
- Politicians aren't smart enough to figure that out
- Network neutrality is too important to trust to the market
Let me clarify that last item. Network neutrality is as vital as the first amendment. Without it, Comcast customers might click on the FCC link and see a page that says "The FCC has decided that network neutrality is currently being enforced just fine, and the FCC will not get involved." We are in a new and strange world - where one person could read a newspaper and see one thing, and another user could go to read that same newspaper, but there is someone secretly standing between them and the page right in front of them, who can change the article. That slippery slope is more dangerous than the slippery slope that the FCC brings.
For every person like me, there's probably 5000 people who would say "who cares if Comcast/Cox/Whoever changes those boring news articles? I can download my music/porn/games twice as fast!" So I would prefer to see the FCC get involved, rather than not.
I guess Canada should be on watch (Score:4, Interesting)
Assuming they aren't already. You know Rogers and the other providers are going to be watching very closely how this develops.
Re:I guess Canada should be on watch (Score:5, Informative)
Canada doesn't give two shits about what the FCC has to say about net neutrality.
The CRTC has been actively working against the entire idea of net neutrality, and the very few providers that don't have to answer to the CRTC perform lovely things like AD insertion/replacement and falsifying DNS, not to mention throttling competitor's VoIP service (but, of course, not their own).
Canada has the sort of internet you find in the 3rd world. The only difference being not the price, nor the bandwidth (the price and average available bandwidth is in-line with most 3rd internet world pricing) but rather the caps on the service (most 3rd world countries have somewhat smaller caps).
Way to go, Canada!
Careful what you wish for... (Score:5, Insightful)
If "Net Neutrality"= "treat traffic the same regardless of source and destination", then GOOD.
If "Net Neutrality"= "treat traffic the same regardless of protocol", then BAD.
Re:Careful what you wish for... (Score:5, Interesting)
If "Net Neutrality"= "treat traffic the same regardless of protocol", then BAD.
Not in my opinion. I see no reason at all to have policies based on protocol. That's a static decision, and static policy decisions can be inaccurate for any particular connection, out of date or simply ignorant of new protocols, and can/will be largely decided by politics not practicality. I.e. bittorent bad, equally bandwidth heavy streaming protocols from ISP-approved media sites good.
You can get QoS while remaining protocol agnostic. You simply base the priority for any connection based on the amount of bandwidth it uses. Lower bandwidth, higher priority. Low-bandwidth latency-sensitive apps like VOIP work perfectly without having their protocol recognized, bulk data transfers are deprioritized but still get plenty of bandwidth (because the higher priority connections are by definition not using much) again without the protocol mattering. If you try to game the system by sending bulk data transfers though VOIP protocols, then you still get downgraded, while a static system would fail.
The only cases it doesn't work for are cases where there's not much you can do anyway -- like live (as in no buffering) streaming video.
What I don't know is if there is any routers out there that do this, or if it's still considered too much memory to keep the connection state info around for packets that are just passing through.
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You can still game the system: Open many parallel connections.
Shortfalls (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sure it's not in your opinion, but you're sadly oversimplifying or ignoring every use case and ignoring the drivers behind QoS in general. If you want something simplistic and turnkey, there's certainly products out there. Netequalizer springs to mind.
But hey, let's throw in a few simple examples:
HTTP downloads vs. Flash video streamed over HTTP. One is decidedly interactive (even if buffering certainly helps), the other one is decidedly non-interactive (even if faster = neater, naturally).
SIP telephony vs. SIP videoconferencing. Agnosticism per your definition would make the algorithm punish the SIP videocon.
Or, let's take an even simpler example: P2P. Rather than a few very hungry connections, you get a large number of connections pushing less data per connection.
One can always argue that service providers should provide enougb bandwidth so that they won't even have to prioritize data the first place. Nice in theory, hard (or simply uneconomic) in practice. Take a cable provider - with a limited upstream bandwidth per channel, you need some sort of fairness. Simple per-plug fairness works to some extent, but you don't really want to punish the puny amount of upstream data your average HTTP request would generate just because the same user is P2P'ing like there's no tomorrow. Makes for a bad user experience.
When we get to wireless, it gets even messier with the limited and shared upstream and downstream.
I could go on for a whie, but I believe the point has been made. It's not a case of "You simply XYZ" at all.
Re:Careful what you wish for... (Score:4, Informative)
So, you wouldn't mind having telesurgery on a connection that wasn't protocol aware?
Are you shitting me?
I would never get any kind of telesurgery where the success of the surgery depended on specific latency and reliability promises over the Internet. Protocol-aware QoS isn't magic, it doesn't prevent packets from ever being dropped, or being delayed, or a router crashing and dropping the connection, and so on. You're telling me I'm betting my life on their traffic shaping algorithms? I wouldn't bet my life on that, and a hundred other assumptions that go into the net.
So, no, I would mind. In either case. Either stick to surgeries which don't have critical time constraints on each step so some lag is acceptable, have assistants present for anything that does, or use a communication medium a lot more direct and reliable than the damn internet!
FCC Network Neutrality Principles (Score:5, Informative)
The FCC's Network Neutrality Principles [fcc.gov] are:
Neither of the principles you state are, as such, strictly necessary to meet those principles.
That being said, discrimination by source or destination could in some cases violated the principles (e.g., if an ISP that is also a content provider outright blocks access to traffic trying to reach competing content providers over its network, or blocks all port 80 requests, or all requessts that appear to use the HTTP protocol, going to their non-business subscribers IPs.) Likewise, discrimination by protocol might in some cases violate the protocol (indeed, the last example of discrimination by source or destination is also a discrimination by protocol.) Whether deprioritizing rather than outright blocking traffic using certain ports or protocols would violate the principles depends on the circumstances; presumably, deprioritization that made it impractical to use the protocol for its principal purpose would be problematic.
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Neither of the principles you state are, as such, strictly necessary to meet those principles.
Yeah, it doesn't seem like the FCC means the same thing the average geek does by "net neutrality". The summary's quote talks about keeping the internet free of additional fees for heavy usage. Er, well, that's nice to have, but the right to hog your ISP's pipes to the detriment of other uses with impunity is not really what net neutrality is all about.
If networks want to prioritize users that don't download as much when they are at full capacity, fine. If they want to let traffic pick between low latency
Re:Careful what you wish for... (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is, ISP's are already doing it based on protocol, and it's bad. If your internet service is provided by a cable company, they just may slow down video protocols as perceived competition on their own bandwidth, but allow voice ones through to take a stab at phone companies.
On the other hand, if you have a DSL through a phone provider, they just may slow down voice/audio protocols for the same reasons, but allow video ones through to take a stab at cable companies.
There was a LOT of competitions, back biting, and attempts at legislation between both of these types of companies a few years back, I remember TONS of commercials with each side trying to get the people on board. Both sides pretty much supported the concept of government intervention to keep the other out of their business while allowing their side to get into the others. I'm generally against most government intervention.
In most cases, a competitor will spring up when one type of industry is screwing the people at large that doesn't screw the people at large, at least at first. Unfortunately in communications industries those competitors are few and far between.
I would LOVE to start my own cable company that simply pushed analog and QAM TV without the need for converter boxes and was utterly lacking in all but absolutely require encryption. I think the public would love to use their own TV tuners again and be able to build their MythTV boxes/use their Tivos without having to clear it with some mystical gate keeper.
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If "Net Neutrality"= "treat traffic the same regardless of protocol", then BAD.
Can you explain how to tell what protocol is being carried over a TLS connection?
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If "Net Neutrality"= "treat traffic the same regardless of source and destination", then GOOD.
If "Net Neutrality"= "treat traffic the same regardless of protocol", then BAD.
Agree, with some caveats such as with vocal and emergency communications.
Falcon
Re:Careful what you wish for... (Score:4, Insightful)
I can understand prioritizing some protocols, in the manner in which Wondershaper does on my own computer. Interactive web applications take priority - basically, browsing and gaming. Torrents and downloads are automagically throttled JUST ENOUGH to allow the interactive stuff to go through first.
The ISP's practice of throttling torrents to some arbitrary value that might be as low as 1% of capacity is BS.
The customer who starts a torrent early in the morning sees that his download rate should finish the torrent in 6 hours expects to see the torrent completed when he gets home. If it takes 6.5 or 7 hours, no big deal. 10 hours might be mildly annoying. But, if he gets home, and the client says that ETA is 1 week and 19 hours, there is a serious problem. Such arbitrary throttling should never take place.
Re:Careful what you wish for... (Score:5, Insightful)
> I can understand prioritizing some protocols
I'm all for it - as long as I'm the one setting the priorities. All the ISP should do is provide a pipe, and enforce bandwidth limits and quality of service as specified in our service level agreement. I don't want them sticking their hands in my traffic and deciding what to do with it.
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I see your point - users should have a voice, IF there isn't enough bandwidth to go around. And, yes, the bandwidth that you pay for should be available, thereby negating any need to throttle bandwidth.
But, stuff happens. As happened a couple years go in Louisiana and Mississippi, a lot of infrastructure went down. That infrastructure affected people inside and outside the stricken area - some more than others, of course. Let's assume that over a period of months, for one reason or another, the ISP simp
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I think that we're agreed that arbitrarily throttling downloads to x Kb/s is wrong.
I don't have much of a problem with throttling upload and download speeds if it is protocol agnostic and there is not enough bandwidth available. What I do mind, hate actually, is when capacity is oversold. I also hate when cable companies and telecoms take $200 Billion [tispa.org] of taxpayer subsidies but they do not do what they were given the money for. That was to build out broadband. If they don't want to build out then they ca
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> I see your point - users should have a voice,
That's not my point at all. Users shouldn't have "a voice," they should have the whole damn phone line that they are paying for.
> I think that we're agreed that arbitrarily throttling downloads to x Kb/s is wrong.
I wouldn't agree with "arbitrarily" throttling, but bandwidth limiting is perfectly fair, especially if that's part of the contract.
> IF there isn't enough bandwidth to go around ...then the ISP needs to add more bandwidth. Or sell bandwidth
The dangers of vague phrases (Score:2)
I'd be happier if they vowed to enforce the principles, rather than their violation.
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"One thing I would say so that there is no confusion out there is that this FCC will support net neutrality and will enforce any violation of net neutrality principles," Genachowski said....
I'd be happier if they vowed to enforce the principles, rather than their violation.
So much for ensuring that there is no confusion!
principles vs. law (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd be happier if they vowed to enforce the principles, rather than their violation.
What I'd like to know is on what grounds do they think they can mandate how traffic is managed on ISP networks. There are no net neutrality laws. "Principle" means jack squat legally. I don't think there are even any internal FCC regulations on the books regarding NN, let alone laws passed by Congress. This leaves a huge hole for ISP's to take the FCC to court for what is essentially a privately delivered service.
Re:principles vs. law (Score:5, Informative)
Specificially the preemption of franchising authority regulation of telecommunication services, and the elimination of most of the greedy/protective (depending on your political views) PSC boards.
The alternative is something they don't want, which is why they are trying to find some illiterate judge to declare the FCC impotent.
Re:principles vs. law (Score:5, Informative)
Presumably because Congress, by law, has given the FCC authority to regulate interstate and foreign communication to acheive policy aims set by Congress, including, for instance, direction "to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet" and "to promote the continued development of the Internet" and to "encourage the deployment on a reasonable and timely basis of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans", and also because of the US Supreme Court ruling in Brand X, 545 U.S. 967 (2005) that "the Commission remains free to impose special regulatory duties on facilities-based ISPs under its Title I ancillary jurisdiction."
(Additional authority is cited in the FCC's Memorandum Opinion and Order [fcc.gov] in the Comcast case.)
No, there are net neutrality principles that the FCC has articulated that it believes are appropriate and necessary to acheive the mandates the FCC has been given by Congress with regard to the internet, and which it intends to use to guide its policymaking in that area.
True, principles, as such, have no binding force. The FCC Net Neutrality principles [fcc.gov], one should note, are essentially a statement of how the Commission intends to acheive the objectives set for it in law, using its existing statutory authority; they aren't asserted to be independent legal authority.
Anyone can take the FCC to court for anything they want; whether they can win or not is another matter.
Uh huh. (Score:3, Funny)
What you don't realize is that by "neutrality" they mean politically; all Republican websites will be required to forward half the incoming traffic to liberal pages.
They'll swap that when (if) the Republicans come back to power.
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What you don't realize is that by "neutrality" they mean politically; all Republican websites will be required to forward half the incoming traffic to liberal pages.
You're smoking something if you think there are currently the same number of Republicans as Democrats in the U.S. :)
The really sad part is, there are a lot of conservative Democrats, which is the big reason Obama is having trouble getting things passed - the Democratic pols aren't one homogeneous group in the same way the smaller Republican part
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That's deliberate. I don't consider Republicans to be at all conservative. They are "neo-conservatives", as socialist as modern liberals.
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They are "neo-conservatives", as socialist as modern liberals.
It also helps that what we generally call "liberals" in the United States aren't really socialists, they're just not as corporatist as what we call "conservatives".
Wait a second... (Score:5, Funny)
Is it April 1st?
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Big corporations like Google benefit from network neutrality; that's why they are lobbying heavily about it. In fact, virtually all of the think tanks and pundits are funded by big business; the neutralists are funded by content providers and the anti-neutralists are funded by ISPs.
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ummmm they ahve always doen that.
Believe me, the media companies do not like the limitation on language.
Sadly, a few hicks in BFE write a letter and we all get to suffer.
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s/Republicans/idiots/;
And you have a post that's non-partisan, and yet still true!
Note: I don't mean to imply that Republicans are idiots. I do mean to imply that Bush and Cheney are.
Re:Wait a second... (Score:5, Insightful)
>Is it April 1st?
No, this is what happens when you vote in competent Democrats to run things instead of Republicans like Bush and Cheney.
I agree. Democrats have consistently stood up for the little guy:
I think it's time to wake up. Both the Republican and Democratic parties are deeply, deeply corrupt.
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Whoever modded the parent post "Troll," please pay attention to reality.
Yes, yes, in many ways the major parties are depressingly similar; Democrats and Republicans alike take enormous bribes from corporate interests and the little guy is pretty much guaranteed to get screwed no matter who's in power. But on a few key issues, there is a difference between them, and this happens to be one of those issues. Pointing this out does not constitute trolling.
Foundational concept (Score:5, Insightful)
Every so often, a foundational concept comes along that could affect development for decades or centuries hence. The concept of "network neutrality" is one of these.
Just imagine the future possibilities:
On one hand, you have a future where you can never be sure what's really "out there", where there are huge swaths of information that you simply can't access, not because you or the information owner have any disagreement, but because some third party that you don't even know has determined that you shouldn't or couldn't see it. In this world, many sites are slowed to the point of unusability simply because your carrier doesn't want to have to compete with them when they offer a similar service. Quality suffers due to the lack of open competition.
On the other extreme, we have a future in which the Internet consists of the "world of ends [worldofends.com]" so charmingly envisioned by Doc Searls and David Weinberger. In this world, every information provider competes on fairly level turf with everybody else. Services that are genuinely better are allowed to win out solely on their merits, and not on their competitive associations. Quality of service continues to progress at a lightning pace, friction for improvements is low, so the best man truly does win.
Some people would say this is esoteric, that it's not about the "real world". But these people miss the fact that in the world of the future, the Internet will be the primary means of communication around the world. Already we see whole industries being consumed and integrated into the Internet. I no longer have cable, no television antenna sits on my roof, since Hulu + Netflix does everything I ever asked of my satellite dish and then some. I no longer have a phone line, since Vonage lets me do what I wish, anywhere I like for less. I basically don't send letters anymore, Email does the job faster, better, and cheaper. It's easier for me to do my banking electronically than it is to drive downtown to the nearest bank branch.
The world of the future is the Internet. And it's up to us, our generation, to see that this gorgeous technology is established with social norms and laws that allow us to use it to its maximum potential. This is our time. SAY YES TO NETWORK NEUTRALITY, AS LOUDLY AND OFTEN AS YOU CAN.
Re:Foundational concept (Score:5, Insightful)
I've always maintained that the opposite of net neutrality is censorship. Simply put, net neutrality and the establishment of ISPs as carriers of information rather than producers, filters, or surveyors will be every single bit as important to freedom in western civilization as free speech.
And before someone goes Mr. Pedantic on me, note that "censorship" is literally defined as the act or ability to censor. Other entities besides the government can censor information and ISPs would be the perfect example.
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Use-based pricing (by maximum bandwidth or total transfer) doesn't even come close to violating any of the FCC's network neutrality principles. There is nothing non-neutral about paying for what you use.
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I like net neutrality as a concept, e.g. i don't want Comcast blocking my port 25, but on the other hand there will eventually have to be some use-based pricing because transfer does cost money. So if networks don't impose some usage caps or use QoS to provide multiple tiers, then we're just going to end up with metered service (like water, power, gas, phones and cell phones)... and that's going to hurt enthusiasts just as much if not more.
I pay another $10/month to have my bandwidth upgraded from 1.5 Mb to
Port blocking is part of Net Neutraility! (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the types who have traffic shaping explained to them - which is what usually happens when politicians are the ones pushing the cause - still don't understand the concept of port blocking.
When I pay for "Internet Access" I don't expect my service provider to be able to dictate what I can and can't do with my internet connection. This includes hosting my own mail, FTP, and HTTP servers! What business of it is theirs if I post an image on Fark and host it myself?
As long as you're not spamming and/or doing illegal things they need to back the hell off.
As far as I'm concerned, if I'm having select ports blocked I am NOT getting "Internet Access".
Re:Port blocking is part of Net Neutraility! (Score:4, Insightful)
I would generally agree, but would point out two things:
1) if you intend to run servers etc, a business package may well be more for you, since the ISP probably won't restrict that so much - you get what you pay for, and if you pay for a generic consumer package that's what you'll get
2) It helps to block mail server ports for most people to stop people unwittingly becoming part of a spam botnet. The benefits of the blocking more than outweigh the downsides of a few geeks being inconvenienced.
Re:Port blocking is part of Net Neutraility! (Score:4, Interesting)
1) The providers are rather stupid about what they allow/wont allow. For instance with most providers that do the "Triple Play" if you get a business package you're no longer even allowed to get television. AT&T is known for this. The only reason I could get a 20 up/down with Verizon when I got it was because TV wasn't available in my area. If it would have been I wouldn't have been allowed to get that bandwidth. (Never mind the fact they lowered my bandwidth after a few months, never notified me and still charged me for 20)
2) When I had Time Warner years ago, they did NOT block my ports. What they did do was occasionally attempt to send mail through my SMTP server, they failed. (yes, I read my logs) I'm pretty sure if they would have succeeded I would have heard from them, since they never did, I never heard from them.
How hard is it to have script look for problems on a subnet? Time Warner did it. I personally believe they should cut off problem customers, and notify them as to why they are being cut off if they're problematic. Back when people would attack my servers with bots (usually infected Windows machines) I usually notified the ISPs, they usually didn't give a rats ass. ISP's are usually talking out their ass when they give justifications, I've proved it more than once.
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oddle, 20/20 with TV and Phone is available in my area from Verizon.
Also, they lowered my monthly bill mid contract.
For the curios, yes they did send an opt out if I wanted to continue my previus higher payments, and no it didn't come with anew EULA.
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It's rare and awesome thing thing when that happens.
Way back when I had AT&T dialup they lowered their prices across the board, unless you already had their service. I sited the fact they didn't lower my bill when I canceled service, but I really left because I had free service with the ISP I starting to work for. I told them this, they tried to get me to stay anyway, with lowering my bill to the new rate and a couple of free months. I had to explain to them they just couldn't beat outright free.
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Another note -
Instead of some arbitrary "business" classification I would actually support bandwidth/traffic tiers.
I could see my grandmother getting a low speed low transfer cheap tier and doing fine. She doesn't do much more than email and goofy internet slot machine game.
I could see most average users getting a high bandwidth low/medium transfer tier and doing fine for browsing, email, and maybe a couple of digital movie downloads or some Hulu time.
Someone like me could probably get along with the previ
Re:Port blocking is part of Net Neutraility! (Score:5, Insightful)
1) if you intend to run servers etc, a business package may well be more for you, since the ISP probably won't restrict that so much - you get what you pay for, and if you pay for a generic consumer package that's what you'll get.
That's fine. Just don't refer to the "generic consumer package" with blocked ports and redirects as unlimited Internet access. If I am connected to the Internet, I expect to be able to connect and be connected to as I wish, because that's what the Internet is. Call it the Comcast Walled Garden Online Package instead, because that's what it is.
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I completely agree.
I wonder how successful a net neutraility lawsuit would be on the basis that having one or more specific ports completely blocked is effectively just the absolutely maximum possible bandwidth shaping of a particular kind of traffic.
Or alternatively, a lawsuit for for false advertising, given all the cable companies generally do just sell their service as internet access, with no mention of limitations.
Re:Port blocking is part of Net Neutraility! (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is, in most cases the companies DO NOT clearly dictate what ports you can use. If you talk to the people on the phone they generally don't have a concept of what a port is, and if you ask them if they block ports they will usually outright lie or say no to make a sale.
Verizon outright denies any port blocking yet they do it. So do several other ISP's. If you call their support about port blocking they generally blame the consumers computer and assume the person calling is a moron. Do your own research on this, there's many non-morons who will validate it.
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I use DYNDNS, and even with DHCP I had the same IP for long periods of time since I just left my server/router on. Power on that side of Houston was rather crappy so I did occasionally lose my I.P address for that reason alone.
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If the person was willing to purchase a static IP then they got free rain to set up an email server.
It's "free reign". Like being king of your own IP.
Oh, and "reliably receive".
(It can be a tricky language, even for native speakers. See the FCC chairman's quote in the summary for one.)
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Actually, it's "free rein" as in letting your horses run without restraint.
Yes, it can, can't it?
The principles are good... (Score:2)
...but aren't we talking about private property owned by private private companies?
I don't want my traffic shaped one way or another, BUT allowing the government this kind of power is a dangerous road. If the government wanted the internet to be free of these kind of controls, doesn't it make sense for them to OWN the infrastructure so they can make the rules? As apposed to forcing the rules down the throat of a company?
I value lower government interference over funky tubes any day.
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Most ISPs wouldn't be able to deliver service at all if it wasn't for public appropriation of property rights, via eminent domain, to put in their connecting infrastructure (often, established to support their operation as common-carrier telephone companies, which were often regulated monopolies), and many of them are protected from having much competition by the fact that governments aren't going to keep doing that to suppor
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We are also talking about interstate issues; which are regulated by the government.
The government and the court are the only real things the protect use from corporate abuse. Do you think only one company would do this?
simple (Score:3, Informative)
The stimulus bill that was passed requires any firm getting stimulus money for infrastructure upgrades, to follow the FCC's net neutrality tenets.
Honestly, how hard is QoS on packets? (Score:3, Interesting)
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It's difficult because I paid for my internet connection. Who the hell are they to tell me the people that use the service they paid for less often is the more important customer? Last I checked the people that used your service the most were your best customers. If I use the service the most I should get priority, not the people that use it the least. Either way we both paid the same amount and should get equal treatment. "Traffic shaping" (more accurately called packet forgery or fraud) is an insult to bo
Jump in logic: (Score:2)
The FCC stated that they will go after violations.
This is not the same as them actually doing it!
Let's first wait and see how this agency, that is stuffed with people from companies that are net-neutrality opponents, actually will perform.
I personally don't believe a word of what a government agency says. Because I learned a bit about rhetorics. And one thing is clear: The reason they are saying it, is never ever to inform anyone about their intentions, but always about reaching a specific effect in the tar
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They've actually already been acting against violations of the principles; two notable cases being the Madison River Communications case centering on VoIP blocking, and the Comcast case centering on BitTorrent blocking.
Re:Cue complaints (Score:5, Funny)
You know, nothing good will come of this, and whenever the government try anything they just fuck it up and or it should just be left to the market!
Re:Cue complaints (Score:4, Insightful)
of course the government would never have had any part in creating these massive corporate horrors like say local monopolies would they?... /sarcasm
prosecute fraud [as an example, unlimited isn't] and end the local monopolies and most of the problem should go away. the actions of these companies wouldn't likely be tolerated were there any choice for the internet user in the matter.
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of course the government would never have had any part in creating these massive corporate horrors like say local monopolies would they?... /sarcasm
Are you suggesting that the Federal Communications Commission should tell the States what monopolies can and cannot be setup within their borders?
I agree with your conclusion that more competition would drive out those who seek to limit services, but I seriously question your method.
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I agree with your conclusion that more competition would drive out those who seek to limit services, but I seriously question your method.
As opposed to now, where one agency of the feds has to undo some of the damage done by the states to their own citizens? I think the OP's suggestion makes more sense.
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government has one sole reason for existence: enforce laws restraining one person from doing violence/defrauding another. My feelings on the matter are the same as with the drug war- technically the states retain the right to create these monopolies/enforce their own drug wars.. but the results of doing either of these is often negative. The various governments have encroached too far into various parts of the market and the negative consequences are numerous. Currently the states retain the power to cre
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Currently the states retain the power to create monopolies if they are foolish enough to do so however, an amendment to the constitution forbidding state and federally created monopolies or one at the state level would suffice.
That won't do much to prevent cities from establishing their own monopolies, which is where most of them get established anyway around here.
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Re:Cue complaints (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, to be fair this does seem like the kind of thing that should be established in, you know, a law or act or something. Not just one commission saying, "We've decided this is illegal now and will enforce it". I'd much rather see this on the books as a semi-permanent change, rather than something that will be easily reversed when the political winds change direction.
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It means 20% of the population can hog 90% of the network resources without any technical measures being allowed to stop them.
Except that in this case, unlike all the other situations where a small minority have all the wealth, any one of the other 80% can step in at any time and use a large share of the bandwidth. Net neutrality garauntees that anyone that wants it can go out and use a larger portion of the available bandwidth, just because today it is file sharers doesn't mean that tomorrow it won't be someone else.
Re:Cue complaints (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cue complaints (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cue complaints (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cue complaints (Score:4, Insightful)
Better yet, let's review the FCC's anti-public good performance going back to the mid-90s. FCC has consistently worked on behalf of private interests to the harm of the public.
The FCC under Clinton did as much damage to the public as the FCC under Bush. Just looking at the FCC's most recent failures, I am not optimistic about FCC doing anything in the public good regarding net neutrality. At best, we'll get some immediate treat that will keep consumers happy in the interim at the cost of a loss of consumer rights further down the road.
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Yes, sometimes they are. Often enough, it's hard to tell, but overall, yeah. They are better than anarchism, at worst, and better than corporate control all the time. They DO enforce law among private and corporate users alike.
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Those companies aren't even pretending to be interested in rural network access now. The new FCC policy won't make a difference. In fact, the only interest they do show is when a local government decides to run their own local broadband network access. Then they are sued by the companies who refused to provide service for unfair competition.
In socialist countries where infrastructure is built by government or under massive regulation, they have better cell coverage, better broadband access and speed, and ch
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Nope. Finland, Sweden, and Norway have similar population densities and much harsher climates, and have better cell coverage and broadband access.
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What is meant by the FCC with network neutrality [fcc.gov] is four things:
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The first sentence of the FA states:
The Obama administrationâ(TM)s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) plans to keep the Internet free of increased user fees based on heavy Web traffic and slow downloads.
That supports my claim that the government is out to control prices and demolishes your claim that it is not. It would appear that you have reflexively invoked government propaganda in defense of government policy without even reading the article linked in the slashdot summary.
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Yes, it does claim that. It offers no support for this claim, and the only person they quote from the FCC states only that the FCC plans to enforce its network neutrality principles, which are published in an official policy statement and have nothing to do with "increased user fees based on heavy
Here's the problem with your logic (Score:2)
The ISPs won't reduce the rate for granny, they'll just increase the rate for Wayne.
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Wrong. The FCC's original 1934 mandate included both the regulatory authority over the airwaves that had previously belonged to the Federal Radio Commission and that over wire communication that previously belonged to the Interstate Commerce Commission, so even if we're looking at their original jurisdiction and ignoring newer laws like the 1996 Telecommunications Act, the FCC has always had a broade
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Net neutrality principles don't address the content of what can be sent, so I don't see where this complaint comes from.
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No, because ISPs, as such, explicitly do not have common carrier status the way telephone companies do (even when the ISP is a telephone company.) They have similar immunities to those given to common carriers under various laws, but they don't have (explicitly in law) most of the obligations of common carriers. OTOH, the net neutrality principles echo, in many respects, the obligations of common carriers.
Re:"good guys winning"? (Score:4, Informative)
The FCC is acting under general policy direction from Congress. The specifics aren't dictated by Congress, but then, if Congress wanted to dictate the specifics, they probably wouldn't create regulatory agencies in the first place.
Continuing to follow through on a policy statement made in 2005 that it has pursued by various means in the intervening time period is hardly a "whim".
Acting under legal authority articulated by the US Supreme Court (in Brand X in 2005) isn't "ignoring the rule of law."