The Telcos' Secret Anti-Net Neutrality Strategy 457
NoMoreHelio writes "The political blog ThinkProgress lays out big telecom's plan to attack net neutality. The blog obtained a secret PowerPoint presentation from a telecommunications industry front group (PPT) that outlines the industry strategy for defending against regulatory attempts by the FCC. The industry plans to partner with two conservative 'astroturfing' groups, best known for their work seeding the Tea Party movement. Today's revelation from ThinkProgress comes as Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) joined various telecom-funded front groups to unveil an anti-net neutrality bill."
What is to stop how ISP's peer? (Score:5, Interesting)
If an ISP does this, are they violating net neutrality? Does the government get to tell me which networks I peer with? Is peering now a *bad* thing if the government has too much control over the "neutrality"?
Useful Idiots (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Those wascally conservatives! (Score:3, Interesting)
No, they both agree to fight about certain "key" issues that they ensure cannot be resolved. Abortion is a good one, it lets you get the fool on one side and the other to vote for their designated party while both parties sell the government to the highest bidder. We have only 1 party that simply use these fake issues to make it look like we have 2.
Next election I am voting for whatever third party is doing the best. Since they cannot win I do not care what their ideology is.
I like the slide that says (Score:3, Interesting)
Stop the Government from taking over the internet!
Umm Hello?! If you Assholes remember, the Government *created* the Intranet, specifically Al Gore did. They then said, Hey All, we're going to turn this really nifty thing, that we created, over for the public good. I know I lived through it. Despite your best efforts to market/rewrite the web's history. I was on BBS's, CompuServe and Prodigy. I had a Accoustic coupler, and was war-dialing open systems before your fucking CEO's had even a wet dream over how much money could be made.
You Telco Asshats have proven over and over and over again that you are incapable of intelligently stewarding teh Intrawebs.
Re:Will They Ever Learn? (Score:3, Interesting)
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
- George Orwell
With each passing year, he becomes more the prophet.
Re:Hooray! (Score:5, Interesting)
The FCC under Obama says "Net Neutrality good"
The FCC is playing it's own political game. Broadband Reports has been covering it for quite awhile now. Essentially they plan on ignoring the recommendation of their own study groups. The studies they've done have concluded that "open access" (i.e: Verizon/Time Warner/etc are forced to let competitors use their fiber and copper plants) is the best way to increase competition. They have ignored these studies in favor of moving forward with a "third way" that won't do anything to address the mono/duolopy of ISPs.
Re:Hooray! (Score:2, Interesting)
That kind of tenuous reasoning could lead to people organizing and shutting down big corpulent wastes of money like HEW, the EPA, etc.
The HEW and EPA -are- large wastes of money for the most part. History has proven that the largest polluters aren't corporations but rather the government. Pollution is generally caused by inefficiency, when technology catches up pollution ends up resolving itself. The department of health ends up really only working because of economies of scale, and most health care problems are caused by the government (patents, etc). Private firms unencumbered by government-created problems usually end up producing more workable, safe solutions.
And if public money has gone to National Public Radio (a certain amount has and can be documented) where's my open mike?
Radio is no longer as big of a deal. You are much more likely to gain an audience through the internet or TV. You might not be able to get an open mic because it is limited, on the other hand if you and a lot of other members of the public opposed a certain section of NPR or wanted to add in something and NPR refused, you might have a case.
Plus, I don't think NPR is making billions of dollars at taxpayer expense like ISPs are (you don't have to pay to get NPR directly, you do to get internet access)
Re:Hooray! (Score:2, Interesting)
For the same reason as other government regulations.
What does our economic system have to do with rational regulation? Even the father of capitalism favored a regulated market. Before you use that big S word again, how about you go read a book, ok?
Re:It's no secret (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hooray! (Score:3, Interesting)
You mean like granting the telcos the continuing right to bury their cables under MY yard and to dig for repairs any time they like without even a by your leave?
Good then, they may either agree to net neutrality now or come get their damned cables out of MY yard right now!
Re:Hooray! (Score:3, Interesting)
Indeed. The problem as I see it is that someone, somewhere, somehow got the idea of net neutrality tangled up with the "fairness doctrine," which really was anything but fair.
It doesn't help that net neutrality as a concept has just started to come to public attention around the same time that Democrats are trying to re-introduce the "fairness doctrine" to wield against their supposed foes, conservatives in "talk radio."
I don't know who's red herring it's supposed to be, either: is it supposed to distract conservative soap box'rs and rope-a-dope them into expending energy making themselves look like fools? Or is it supposed to take advantage of genuine wariness about the "fairness doctrine" as it was applied and prevent net neutrality from taking hold?
Re:Teabaggers are not for small government (Score:3, Interesting)
Look at the SEC and what good their regulation did. They totally ignored Bernie Madoff (under Bush) and Enron (under Clinton), giving regular folks a false sense of security in the market. If there was no SEC, people wouldn't have a default assumption that the market isn't rigged and they would invest more carefully.
I really don't like comments like this as they are completely unproductive. Why, Fred over there got robbed for all the good the laws and cops did! Guess we shouldn't have any laws or cops at all, giving the folks a false sense of security that they can leave their homes without being armed to the teeth.
*sigh* The idea is not to abolish something when it fails, the idea is to see where something failed and improve upon it.
The answer isn't to regulate the internet, it's to get rid of the whole monopoly provider system. Have a regulated (even non-profit) independent company (can't be owned by an ISP) run and maintain the network, deriving its revenue from the ISPs wishing to use it.
This fails in a number of ways. First of all, you are just replacing a bunch of local monopolies with one big centralized one. With your suggestion of just regulating THEM, you end up really regulating the Internet. Welcome back to square one. Worse yet, your "centralized non-profit" would likely be a Government Sponsored Enterprise. As you say about the Health Department, GSEs don't have a great track record of providing great service, because they have little motivation to do so.
Lastly, the end-point "provider" companies in your scheme would struggle to find some way to differentiate their product from others. Price can only go so far, so then you'll get into network segmentation, walled gardens, "premium content", etc.... Net Neutrality effectively done for.
So, with your scheme you get the worst of both worlds -- you get a huge centralized (and probably government run) monopoly AND no net neutrality to boot.
Hang on there, pardner... (Score:4, Interesting)
They favor small government when it helps big business. They favor new legislation when it helps big business. They are experts at fooling average hard-working folks into voting against their own best interests.
I keep hearing that the GOP = Big Business, when big business have given more to the Democratic Party over time than to the GOP. While there is certainly support in business for the Republicans, there is certainly no shortage of support for Democrats in the halls of commerce, either. Goldman Sachs is practically the in-house fundraiser for the DNC. Each of the largest megabanks... Citi, Bank of America, etc.. has very close ties to major Democratic politicians like Chuck Schumer, Chris Dodd, and ... I think you get the picture.
While your narrative plays well at Democratic Underground, Daily Kos, etc, those Wascawy Demokwats are even more deeply buried in the bosom of "big business". The RIAA is big business. As is Google. As is Apple. As is HP. The quintessential "big business" is GM, and guess who was eager to have government buy them? Hmm?
Re:It's no secret (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately I just looked at Google, and it appears the true story behind ISDN has been revisioned away so I'll summarize.
In the industry, it was commonly known as "I Smell Dollars Now". The sibling posters are quite correct that DSL was the explosion of the internet, along with cable etc. My point was that ISDN was an option *years* before those. What held back ISDN was a complete lack of interest in deploying it by the physical plant providers, coupled with exorbitant pricing because they could, and no one could compete with them.
The reason DSL went so well, was the forcible opening of the lines by Congress/FCC, which created an explosion of competition (hundreds and hundreds of ISPs), which have all but withered and died under the Bush administration's view that large corporations should be free to do anything and the market will decide.
I am very excited to see these changes, as it is a step in the right direction (a small one, but still a step), back to the days of the 90s opulence of consumer and small business success.
Re:It's no secret (Score:2, Interesting)
The Federal and State governments have been trying to find a way to tax the Internet for a long time. If the FCC controls it they will change the type of service to "communication" just like phone service.
Then they can add taxes just like they do on the phone service. There will be a tax to provide service for those areas that don't justify the build out, tax to support equipment for the imparied, and for people that can't afford it.
It will be like your phone bill which is over half taxes now.
This is about taxation not neutrality.
Re:Watch the other hand... (Score:2, Interesting)
Anecdotal my ass.
I know at least 15 people who 'leach' off SSI and medicare. I know 15 sounds 'high' but that was just the ones I could think of off the top of my head. They get pills and sell them on the local drug market. They get 100-300 pill bottles for free and sell them for 3 dollars a pill, or they grow/buy/sell weed. Know why they get the pills? Because they are disabled. I asked them about it. Know what they said? 'I teach my kids how to do this too its a good living'. There is a whole class of leaches out there (and doctors to support it). They exist in larger numbers than people really want to know. Do not doubt it for a second. Hell they are up front about it too if you act like their friend. 'Where/how did you learn how to do this?' 'Oh my aunt and neighbors taught me.' There is like a step by step guide how to do it if you ask the right people.
They have no incentive to do better. Why not? They can sit at home and watch direct tv all day. They have a decent amount of food. Also the apartment they live in is paid for. Then the extra money comes from taking advantage of drug users who will do anything for those drugs.
These people are leaches on society in every sense of the word. Oh and dont call them drug dealers (as they are just helping you out).
The funny thing is I worked out one dudes 'finances' he was making about 120k a year (from ssi/medicare/medicade/drugs/etc). Yet he lived like a beggar. I tried to show him that he was 'rich' but he just couldnt even comprehend the idea. He literally just squandered the money on stupid things that would last a day or so. He would do things like buy all his groceries at the local gas station instead of a real grocery store. Why? Because it was an extra 3 blocks. But who cares more money is coming in a couple of days....
I used to feel sorry for them. I dont any longer. These people are taking advantage of everyones generosity. If this doesnt anger you it should...
Re:Hooray! (Score:2, Interesting)
Are you old enough to remember how close we came to having several of the Great Lakes become completely dead bodies of water?
Are you old enough to remember when it didn't take nine years of lawsuits and reviews by an alphabet soup of state, local and federal governmental agencies to get approval to build something [wikipedia.org]?
Take a good look at that. A wind energy project. Something that's a win win for everybody. Carbon free electricity for the green crowd. Jobs for the area that it's going to be built in. Energy for nearby homes and businesses. It took nine years just to get approval to break ground and there will probably be more lawsuits before that happens. This type of excessive regulation discourages private investment -- why put your money up for something that may not happen when you can invest it in these nice safe packaged up mortgages instead?
I don't want to see the Great Lakes on fire again. But I also want to see us able to move forward as a country. Could it just be that there's some healthy middle ground that would do that and still keep our air and water clean?
Re:It's no secret (Score:3, Interesting)
So, we now need to choose between an oligopoly (relatively unregulated) and "government takeover" (unspecified regulation).
I don't trust either side right now ....
Look to the way television evolved: in the US, it was seen as too big for government to run, so it went to the oligopolies. In the UK, it was seen as too big for the private sector to run, so it went to the government (until ITV came along at least).
Oligopolies will mean the net turns into an ad-infested worthless mess where every mouse click has to be monetised. What will government mean for it?
That's a false proposition (Score:1, Interesting)
That's a false proposition. Currently the laws state that there is net neutrality. The laws are merely instating that situation. And even if it WERE new regulation, it wouldn't be "government control of the telecoms", it would be "government enforcing nobody controls it".
Tell me: is the constitution's proposition to have no law proposing and enforcing a state religion "government control of religion"?
No?
Then why is a law proposing nobody control the internet government control of it?
Re:Hang on there, pardner... (Score:1, Interesting)
I keep hearing that the GOP = Big Business, when big business have given more to the Democratic Party over time than to the GOP.
Well, that's probably because if you look at where economic activity takes place in the US, it's predominantly in Democratic states.All things being equal, companies likely give the most amount of money to the politicians actually representing them. (Republican states account for only 1/3 of economic activity and receive a net transfer of hundreds of billions of dollars from Democratic states.)
Besides, you're making the incorrect assumption that giving more money means closer political affinity; it's just as plausible to assume that they are giving more money to Democrats because they already have the Republicans in their pocket anyway.
The quintessential "big business" is GM, and guess who was eager to have government buy them? Hmm?
As far as Democrats were concerned, that was about preserving jobs, which is something voters want. And that came with conditions that business didn't like.
For better or for worse, Democrats like to regulate business. They'd regulate a lot more if Republicans didn't make a stink about it. And the current oil spill is yet another example of government not regulating enough.
Re:Hooray! (Score:3, Interesting)
The Chicago River was a stinking mess, with factories and mills up and down the river dumping waste into it.
Today, living on the river is highly desirable
Ahh, I remember as an adolescent, whenever crossing the Chicago River on the way to the neighborhood park, we used to pause at the middle of the bridge and gaze at the flowing water, timing how long it would take until a used rubber floated by. Usually took less than a minute.
Now, billions of tax dollars later, storms wash the sanitary waste from Chicago's old combined sewers into the Deep Tunnel instead of overflowing directly into the river, and gets treated before being pumped into the waterways. So, rubbers in the river are now rare.