Net Neutrality Suffers Major Setback 790
RingDev writes "The US Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Comcast today, stating that the FCC lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks."
Oh goody (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Nah - ISPs may try to shape traffic, but so long as the government stays out of it, two things will happen:
1) Techniques will be developed to circumvent traffic shaping/filtering/prioritizing
-or-
2) ISPs will be formed with the specific selling point of having no traffic shaping/filtering/prioritizing.
There is no need for government regulation here - it would only benefit the existing ISPs at the expense of the consumer.
Re:Oh goody (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh goody (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be true but the 1996 Bill tied no strings to the dollars. For example Congress typically says, "Raise your drinking age to 21, else your federal highway funds will be reduced by 5%."
Congress could have done something similar, mandating companies have equal access to all websites else get no funds, but they did not. As is typical of Cognress they handed corporations lots of money and no strings attached.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Congress ties strings to dollars to coerce states to cede their rights and powers to the federal government. They hand out money to corporations without strings because congress and the senate are on the take for campaign contributions, vacations and hookers.
telecom (Score:3, Interesting)
One place we know they do have authority is telephony. And the largest immediate threats posed by the decision I think are to 1) VOIP and 2) Netflix. For brevity, I'm going to ignore bittorrent because at present while a big bandwidth hog, it's not a commercialized bandwidth hog like the other two.
it will be easy for comcast
Look on the bright side... (Score:3, Insightful)
Comcast can now negotiate with every property owner over/through whose properties their Internet links pass. No more free ride, and major costs.
Live by the sword, die by it.
Wiccard V Filburn grants FCC regulation (Score:3, Informative)
Here [wikipedia.org] is the case law that lets the FCC regulate this
Wrong (I disagree with Wickard, but....) (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody here disputes that Congress could pass laws to give the FCC such power. At most that's where Wickard would come in but I don't think you'd have to rely on Wickard (which involved interstate commerce powers and growing a portion of one's wheat crop for personal use-- while I think Wickard was wrongly decided, it isn't really relevant here). However here you have money clearly changing hands for a service, which involves interstate communication. That's pretty uncontroversially inside the power to regulate interstate commerce.
Wickard was at its basis a question of the scope of powers that Congress had under the "necessary and proper" clause as it relates to interstate commerce. It was a Constitutional question.
However the FCC can only act on powers specifically delegated to them by Congress. Unless Congress acts, the FCC cannot. That would pose other problems including separation of powers issues.
This decision here involving Comcast was a good one. It ensures that elected lawmakers make the laws, rather than unelected beaurocrats. Whether or not you like the immediate outcome, it seems like supporting the idea that Congress makes the laws and the FCC only acts pursuant to them is a good thing. Anyone really disagree with that?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
First, Wickard has been wounded by more recent cases (including Lopez, Morrison, and even Raich). In each case, the courts have stood by the Wickard decision but narrowed it to a fairly basic holding, namely that Congress, pursuant its powers to regulate interstate commerce, can regulate the production of goods and services which are likely to "leak out" into the area of interstate commerce. In Raich, for example, Wickard was characterized not as supporting the goal of price support by any means necessary
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And they don't. I can not lay my hand on any part of the Constitution which says "Congress may force the People to buy a product, or else fine them."
What's next? We will all have to buy hybrids, or else if we buy a normal car we'll be fined? We have to all buy tankless water heaters, or else we'll be fined? We have to all buy the Bush Biography, or else we'll all be fined?
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No, that's not the way it works. If you put up a low-power point-to-point radio link that uses licensed spectrum but doesn't cross state lines, and do it without going through the FCC coordination process to get it licensed, you *will* get hammered by t
Re:Oh goody (Score:5, Insightful)
You ignore reality. There isn't a lot of choice for most people on what ISP they use. So no, there will not be a better option. As far as techniques, it will be a constant escalation between the two sides which will just take up more bandwidth and cause everyone's connection to be slow.
You folks need to wake up and understand that corporations do not and never will have your best interest in mind. Government regulations may not always be good, but in this case having a regulation that guaranteed net neutrality would benefit everyone. Of course that doesn't resonate well with the tin-foil hat and Fox News watchers out there.
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"That wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that your local government grants monopoly status to your local cable and telco, would it?"
No, it would be due to the fact that cable/telco are industries with a high cost of entry. Thus, the incumbant has a huge advantage. Around here there is one phone company and one cable company. Basically all homes are already wired to both of them. Any new competitor needs to gain right-of-way to the homes, install cable/fiber, etc.--it's not worth it.
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Government regulation of our food supply is fucking us over right now (farm subsidies? politicians obeying the meat and dairy lobby? the fucking food pyramid, for Christ's Sake?), so there you go.
If you want to go back to having children pack human flesh in your canned meat products [wikipedia.org], go ahead and make your case. Don't worry. I'll wait. Your issue is not government regulation. It's ineffective government regulation.
And finally...Corporations are made up of people. Stop trying to demonize them and acknowledge that we are fucking ourselves!
The difference between a large powerful corporation and a large powerful democracy is that you can influence the government with just your vote. If Shell wants to drill in front of your beachfront condo and you have no government to regulate their activities, what are your options? Do you
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Government can't do anything to corporations that the people couldn't. It just so happens that most people are apathetic and expect someone else to do it for them. That allows corrupt government officials to write regulations that will do nothing but benefit a few large corporations.
this is a very funny thing to say. but it reveals a clear disconnect in the conversation.
you see "Government" as something other than "the people" when they are essentially the same thing. The people want clean drinking water (though they don't need it to be so pristine that fragile over-bred creatures could live in it for extended periods of time). The government makes laws and regulations to prevent contamination of drinking water. The people don't want their children seeing naked boobies on tv or lis
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Sure, we can figure out valid proxies and cobble together specialised software to route around damage, but the other 95% of humanity will basically have their internet hobbled permanently, with no recourse or no clue.
Re:Oh goody (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>no need for government regulation here - it would only benefit the existing ISPs at the expense of the consumer.
That's equivalent to saying there's no need for the government to regulate the Gas & Electric companies, or the Phone company, because it would only benefit the monopoly. I say "bull" to that. Whenever a monopoly exists, the government should either regulate the monopoly, or regulate it, or break it up and restore competition.
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"I disagree with your opinion" is fine with me.
Modding me "troll" is not. Nothing I said in the above post was trollish. I was expressing my opinion, which apparently is backed-up by a U.S. Appeal Court's opinion. If you want Comcast regulated, then contact your local state government and ask them to do it, as they are already doing with other monopolies (electrical, natural gas, phone). The State PUC would be the entity responsible.
Re:Oh goody (Score:5, Insightful)
2) ISPs will be formed with the specific selling point of having no traffic shaping/filtering/prioritizing.
This has been claimed for years and yet this hasn't actually happened. You live in a fantasy world if you actually believe such nonsense. The entrenched ISPs would kill off any such company.
Re:Oh goody (Score:5, Insightful)
If what you say is true, then Comcast would be fighting FOR net neutrality. If you've noticed, they are fighting against it.
Government regulation occurs locally as a defense against a particular kind of market failure: natural monopoly. The monopoly is going to exist whether the government gets involved or not, so the best course of action is to regulate it. If another start-up came along and ran another set of cables to every house, they would go bankrupt. In this case of natural monopoly, having more than one set of wires running to each home is simply less efficient than having only one. Everyone loses if companies run more than one set of wires, as everything gets more expensive. It's a simple fact: a natural monopoly means that a monopoly is more efficient. So, we can either encourage a fake competition (which means everyone loses) or we regulate a single entity. Or, we wait the decades or more for technology to change the market, but an unregulated natural monopoly is going to do everything in its power to kill any technological change that threatens it. Regulation really is the best option. Only closed minded free market ideologues think the free market is always the best option. Reasonable people know that it fails sometimes, and then government must step in. As with most things in life, the middle ground is often the best.
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Re:Oh goody (Score:5, Insightful)
I've got no problem with a general distrust of government, but when you turn around and bend over for someone who doesn't even bother to pay lip service to your welfare, I gotta question your sanity.
Re:Oh goody (Score:5, Insightful)
In a free market, if their product is crap, you don't buy it. You don't have the option with the government.
You also don't have that option with ISPs. There's no free market there.
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Even if your only choices were DSL, cable, or no Internet at all, however, that's still far more of an option than you'll get from the government. They only give you one choice: pay up.
Unlike corporations, you have a direct say in how your government is run, including how much needs to be paid up, and what it is used for.
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Keep on truckin'!
Don't give up so easily (Score:5, Interesting)
The State government would have the power to regulate any monopolies inside its borders, including electrical providers, natural gas providers, phone companies, and yes Internet providers. - The local government/town that granted the exclusive license to Comcast also has the right to regulate, per the terms of the monopoly.
Both these levels of government could mandate that Comcast provide equal access to ALL websites.
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Why would the local or state government want to regulate it though?
I don't know if you've noticed, but a lot of states aren't doing so hot right now with their budgets. Now, you've got two choices
A) Spend more money on regulating Comcast, because your voters say so
B) Say you care, accept a stipend, look the other way.
The FCC was really the best shot at handling this issue - they may not have been the perfect entity but they are better than the alternatives. The last thing you need is internet access dependa
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>>>a lot of states aren't doing so hot right now with their budgets
Your argument also works for why the National government would not "want" to regulate ISPs. The National government doesn't have any spare cash to spend either, for hiring additional employees at the FCC to monitor Comcast and others.
And also it's not a matter of "want". It's a matter of Law, and the Law is clear - the FCC has no authority beyond regulating commerce AMONG the states, not inside the states. The law makes clear tha
Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
What is the point of having the FCC if you don't let it do its job? Under what guise could anyone come under the impression that this isn't FCC Jurisdiction?
Lacks the Authority? It should be the Authority. The courts should only be called in when the FCC is doing something that is questionable. Instead, they have prevented the FCC from stopping all of the questionable behavior that is undoubtedly going to be spawned by this.
With Wikileaks the other day, and now this, news is giving me a serious headache this week.
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What the hell? Handing control of the internet back to the government would be the end of the internet. This is a good thing. I'll never understand the argument that the government is somehow less biased and corrupt than corporations, and most importantly, ISPs are selling a service and can regulate it as much as they want. Don't like it? Don't use it. The internet isn't a right.
Sysadmins have the right to regulate network traffic. Bribed, corrupt politicians shouldn't be involved. People who want "net neut
Re:Oh goody (Score:5, Informative)
From the FCC's charter:
For the purpose of regulating interstate and foreign commerce in communication by wire and radio
Seems pretty clear that this falls squarely within it's right to regulate. Unless you can explain how the Internet isn't "communication by wire or radio".
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
When did "regulate" become "micromanage"?
Re:Oh goody (Score:4, Insightful)
When the government got involved.
Re:Oh goody (Score:4, Insightful)
When companies became involved and wanted to spoil the golden goose, the government stepped in to save the goose. Now the courts have given the companies the rope to kill the goose.
Simile, you're on candid camera! (Score:4, Funny)
More like the companies had their golden goose and wanted to sell the eggs to people who could afford them, but the government stepped in to kill the goose and distribute the gold more fairly.
No, I think it's more like the golden goose laid a platinum egg, and nobody could figure out how the golden goose's body was able to fabricate platinum from a diet of grass and insects - and then people started wondering how it could fabricate gold, for that matter, but meanwhile the goose was walking across the road, and stopping traffic, because nobody wanted to run it over, but they didn't exactly want to sit there all day, either, so they beeped at it but it mostly ignored them and just hissed at them a little...
Re:Oh goody (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh goody (Score:5, Insightful)
How exactly is saying that you have to resell (on reasonable terms) the monopoly that you are being given (OK, paying a paltry sum for) to others who will do work and give you a reasonable profit from "micromanaging"? The FCC does not seem to be dictating a lot more than "you have to allow for competition". With all the rhetoric going around about "the free market", this seems to actually be a great example of where a more free market would benefit the public, with the only downsides being to the established (and government sanctioned) monopolies.
This same idea has worked out pretty well for phone service, while still allowing the major monopolies to still be the dominent players.
Re:Oh goody (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not micromanage? How is the internet not necessary to function in daily life. The government is moving more and more services to the net. Without high speed access, people will be left out. If we don't make the net a public utility now, we will lose our access to government in the future.
For example, if you live in Mass. you can't have your natural gas cut off, no matter how much you owe in winter. If companies were allowed to do whatever they want, it would cut off gas in winter and let people freeze to death. We have similar rules all over the US for phone, water, power, and others.
Net access needs to be treated the same. It should be a right to have cheep, high speed, unfiltered, unshaped, internet access.
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Wow. Get some perspective. You do realize that losing your internet connection will not result in you freezing to death, right?
As a "utility", internet service is pretty low on the ranking. Water is a biological necessity. Heat, during winter months, is a biological necessity. Phone is important for access to emergency services. Electric is generally required for delivery of water and/or heat in some fashion.
If you're going to declare
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Today, April 6th 2009, we can live without the internet. The world will not end if we don't have access. However, in 10/20/30 years, the internet will replace phones, TV, and most mail. I want to make it a utility, with all the rules and responsibilities, now. The earlier we do this, the better we will be in the future. So yes, I agree, it is not as important as access to clean water, but it is getting up there with phone and power.
Finding a good job required access to online job ads.
Making appointments is
Re:Oh goody (Score:5, Insightful)
HINT: "Rights" never require action on the part of someone else.
Oh, good. I'll let all the nation's court justices and bailiffs know that they can retire now and due process will carry on without them.
Re:Oh goody (Score:5, Insightful)
The long answer is, there are many different kinds of rights. Natural rights are those that are thought to be inherently granted; legal rights are those granted by a body politic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_and_legal_rights [wikipedia.org]
Positive rights require action. Universal healthcare is a positive right, since it requires someone to provide that healthcare. Negative rights require inaction. Right to life, liberty, and property are negative rights, since they require that someone NOT take those things from you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights [wikipedia.org]
There are also the concepts of claim rights (a right which entails some responsibility on the part of the right-holder) and liberty rights (a right which does not).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claim_rights_and_liberty_rights [wikipedia.org]
Healthcare and the Internet could easily become rights if the government decrees that they are rights. With respect to the Internet, this is what the GGGP was arguing should happen.
Re:Oh goody (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, if that is your argument, shut off your power, water, don't drive on the roads, don't send your kids to public school, don't fly, don't go to the hospital, don't use medicine, move to the middle of nowhere and build a house out of mud. All of those things are wants. We don't have the right to any of them.
We the people funded the internet. We the people subsidized the cables in the ground. We the people own the airways. We the people should have access to what we paid for. If companies want to make profit of of the infrastructure, they need to follow the rules we put in place.
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The means to communicate via the internet is one of the most powerful tools we have for the ability to freely operate in our political system. I believe it is a direct analogue to the freedom of the press we have enshrined in the Bill of Rights.
When a government-supported entity (the telcos) take actions that suppress the ability of people to exercise their freedom of the press, then effectively the government
Re:Oh goody (Score:5, Interesting)
The second we take away the roads, power, water, garbage collection, phone, net access, schools, other fundamental services of a first world nation, we become a third world nation. You can say "free market" all you want, but history shows that companies will not deliver these fundamental services if they don't forced to do so. If you lived in small town America, away from high density populations, you did not get power for years after the rest of the country. The same goes for phones.
I want to live in a first world nation, where I have cheep, reliable access to these services.
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Seriously... wtf? The FCC was not trying to lay down exact procedures for implementation of systems that are packet-content-agnostic. Requiring net neutrality is NOT micromanaging.
You must think all regulations are micromanagement. Is prohibiting forgery micromanagement?
Re:Oh goody (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah except there are no nannystaters. Practically, no one believes that the government should just be obeyed and never questioned, at least in the US.
There are people who believe that a robust government can encourage and even enhance the general welfare, rights and pursuit of happiness of its citizens if managed reasonably well.
There are also people who believe that large private entities with drastically reduced legal liabilities should not have the same rights or to the same degree as living citizens.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I know this is Slashdot, but the article is clear (Score:3, Insightful)
Seems pretty clear that this falls squarely within it's right to regulate. Unless you can explain how the Internet isn't "communication by wire or radio".
The legal reasoning is solid on this one. The court told the FCC it can't regulate broadband on the basis of broad principles. It has to regulate on the basis of laws it has been mandated to implement.
BigGov haters, this is not a repudiation of the FCC's authority. It just means the FCC can't go off on its own and make major policy changes on the basis o
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Because most Comcast companies are organized to handle INTRAstate communications.
Given that growing food and marijuana for personal consumption is considered an "interstate commerce" issue according to SCOTUS, it would seem that providing commercial Internet access service locally should also qualify.
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Nearly anything is true when you operate on the principles of confirmation bias.
Re:Oh goody (Score:4, Insightful)
While I agree with you, and I appreciate the potential value of a tiered internet, I have no other choice but feel doomed by this decision.
Net-neutrality almost ensures that everyone one has an equal opportunity/experience on the internet (for those who have access). It is the first step to freeing information.
As well as it is evident that Comcast, and other companies like it, want to move to a measured-rate means of charging. Combine that with tiered traffic speeds and the cost of using the internet is going to skyrocket. Online gaming and media streaming will cost a fortune to the user.
And while the FCC is not the appropriate entity to regulate this, they were our only hope in maintaining net-neutrality. Democrats and Republicans, and politicians in general have demonstrated time and time again they are not capable of managing issues like these.
$BIGGOV (Score:3, Insightful)
Hi, I'm $BIGGOV!
You are required by law to be fucked up the ass, or we'll throw you in jail. $BIGCORP has lobbied us to limit your torrent traffic, and $CORRUPTPOLITICIAN wants us to "regulate" your visits to undesirable, unfair websites. Unlike $BIGCORP, you can't replace us, but somehow, we're better to have than $BIGCORP.
Since you've signaled that you don't believe a company is allowed to have control over its own product services for some reason, we've gone ahead and instituted control of all other area
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Guarantee that there are at least three or four ISPs in every town in America and we'll talk. As long as cable companies and ILECs have a natural monopoly due to the exorbitant cost of rolling out the infrastructure, we need government regulation to keep them in check. Voting with your dollar only works if you actually have more than one candidate to vote
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That is fucking stupid.
The central tenet of net neutrality is, get ready for it....
neutrality
No corporate executive dictation.
You may or may not be old enough to remember the days before internet freedom, when there was a *MAJOR* toll to be paid by anyone wishing to cross the boundaries established by manufacturers (Hello, IBM of the '70's) or providers (hello, AT&T before Carterfone) or postal/telegraph monopolies (hello, old Europe).
Then came along a non-encumbered, free and open internet.
???
Piles and
misplaced priorities (Score:2)
and yet, they probably shall maintain the authority to 'regulate' 'Foul Language'. :(
Re: (Score:2)
Or maybe you were implying that Comcast does? I suppose they censor it on their cable channels, but if I Google, 'fuck,' on a Comcast connection, I find plenty of foul language.
Furthermore, I am pretty sure you can and do have every right to walk into Comcast's local office and say, "Fuck you and your non-neuatral internet," right to their face.
To my knowledge, nobody regulates foul langu
The opinion (Score:2, Informative)
https://ecf.cadc.uscourts.gov/cmecf/servlet/TransportRoom?servlet=ShowDoc&dls_id=01206657831&caseId=23733&dktType=dktPublic [uscourts.gov]
Login page, NOT the opinion (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Login page, NOT the opinion (Score:5, Informative)
$.08 per page. That's only really worthy of +4 informative if parent also post's his/her PACER login details.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/29489974/Full-Text-Comcast-vs-FCC-Federal-Court-Ruling [scribd.com]
Found Here [huffingtonpost.com] by using the googles
Any court decision worth reading will almost always be hosted somewhere else within hours of showing up on PACER.
Meme (Score:3, Interesting)
Step 1. Send a letter to your ISP asking them to filter your access by a defined criteria.
Step 2. Wait to get content that you requested filtered.
Step 3. ??????
Step 4. Profit.
If they can filter content, based on whatever they want to do, they lose their common carrier status, and are now responsible for all content passed over their networks. If you get a spam message that you did not want, you can sue, at least in a perfect world. I am sure they will get out of it somehow.
Re:Meme (Score:5, Insightful)
If they can filter content, based on whatever they want to do, they lose their common carrier status,
Lose what? They don't have common carrier status. They never were common carriers.
In fact they have lobbied and fought hard to AVOID getting common carrier status. Being a common carrier would expose them to regulatory oversight they DO NOT WANT. And would limit them from doing certain types of Deep packet inspection, traffic shaping, etc, etc, that they DO WANT.
and are now responsible for all content passed over their networks.
Except libel and slander because they are exempted from respoonsibility in the communications decency act. Except Copyright infringement because they are protected provided they follow DMCA takedown requests. And so on.
I am sure they will get out of it somehow.
Of course they will. By and large they already have.
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In which case, it is time to have a public utility internet access, run by the local/state/federal government. Like Finland, we need to get a law passed that says people have the right to 1/10/100 mb access to the net. In the past, the US government had to step in to get companies to provide phone and power to rural locations in the US. The same needs to be done for high speed internet access, but not just limited to rural locations. Everyone in the US should be able to access the net at a high speed. As we
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ISPs don't have common carrier status or the various obligations that go with that (net neutrality parallels some of those obligations), which is one reason why telcos want to be ISPs more than they want to be telcos.
They do separate from common carrier status have many of the same kinds of protections granted to common carriers, as a result of lots of lobbying, but without the conditions that go with that fo
standard reply... (Score:2, Funny)
since the FCC likes to use telephone comparisons (Score:2, Interesting)
Isn't this P2P blocking bit, a little like allowing AT&T arbitrarily and capriciously to prevent you from calling anyone in Chicago (not that it would be a bad thing)?
So... (Score:2, Insightful)
(possible lost profits from complying with net neutrality) > (potential financial benefits as proposed by FCC)? Are there some bargaining chips still on the table? Or is it just about "freedom of doing business how we want to"?
And yeah, I assume the "benefits" implied by the article -- funds for improving internet to rural areas -- are peanuts to comcast...
This is terrible news...but here's the doc (Score:4, Informative)
Re:This is terrible news...but here's the doc (Score:5, Insightful)
Sheesh, forget your drama queen pills this morning?
There is nothing terrible about this decision, because this decision has nothing to do with net neutrality. It was a decision about whether a government agency has carte blanche to do whatever the hell it wants without any congressional oversight, much less voter oversight.
Please, get a clue. Anyone with a brain does NOT WANT GOVERNMENT AGENCIES HAVING UNLIMITED POWER, even if they do things you like. They next decision might be something you don't like, and you won't have any way to stop them.
If you want net neutrality, then fine, get the government to pass a law. That's the way we do things in a representative democracy. We do NOT want government by executive order.
Did you hear that? (Score:3, Insightful)
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The FCC has the power to regulate the companies that are supplying last mile to consumers. I understand what you're saying as a general view, and it would seem the court agrees with that view, but there is sense to the FCCs position. They regulate the cable companies. They regulate the phone companies. The phone and cable companies supply internet to users.
this is not unexpected (Score:2)
and i don't think Congress can pass a law either. You have ISP's on one side some of whom are also cable companies and in the business of reselling media content via their cable TV business. and on the other side you have companies like Google who think up of new digital products that cause ISP's to spend more money for capital upgrades. if there is a net neutrality law then i can see the ISP's coming out with tiered pricing overnight. it's like electricity, in the last 10 years people's demand for it has g
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maybe we should just nationalize all that cable we paid for
we PAID FOR IT afterall.
Tariffs are a comin'.... (Score:4, Interesting)
ISP's operate in that magical land of no tariffs. I bet not for long. If the FCC has any backbone (I'm not necessarily convinced they do, but hey, sometimes you can hope) they'll turn this into a regulated service. Just like all of those other wonderful tariffs we've had, for basic POTS lines, T1's, ISDN, etc, etc, look for that to happen with all sorts of Internet connections. So, in return for keeping net neutrality we'll lose ISP's... and the vicious dog eat dog cycle begins.
Re:Tariffs are a comin'.... (Score:4, Insightful)
>You really think that such improvements would happen in a hyper-regulated marketplace?
As evidence by Europe: yes.
Note: basic consumer protection is not "hyper-regulated", only an ignorant anarchocapitalist thinks that kinda crap - and considering implementing even a few of the anarchocapitalist deregulatory wet dreams led to the current recession: why the @#%$ should we listen to you?
No single US Court of Appeals (Score:5, Insightful)
would of been first... (Score:3, Funny)
win for the constitution (Score:3, Insightful)
Division of power, 5th ammendment. (Score:3, Interesting)
The constitution gives congress the power to regulate interstate commerce. However, congress had passed no law prohibiting what Comcast had done, nor had they delegated power to the FCC to regulate the internet in the manner that they did. Government officials can't make up their own laws, nor can they punish people for breaking nonexistent laws.
I agree that net neutrality regulation, if created, would absolutely fall within both the letter and spirit of the interstate commerce clause (unlike many other law
Free Market, love it? (Score:2, Insightful)
Once the internet is completely metered and locked down, with corporate traffic given huge priority over private traffic, I wonder if all the "free market solves everything" libertarian types will still be so anti-regulation....
Slashdot seems to have a fairly large amount of 'free market solves all' people. Maybe strangling the internet is the thing that will make some of them realize that certain things do deserve either heavy regulation or government ownership:)
Since this is the "information super highwa
Pyrrhic Victory? (Score:3, Interesting)
Without net-neutrality, Comcast's purchase of NBC (and Hulu) could start raising some major questions about whether it is forming a monopoly, especially when the government is already looking at the broadband situation in the US (and possibly unhappy about it).
Additionally, the FCC has made it pretty clear that they want some authority over the net, so far assuming implicitly that they have such authority. With this ruling, we may yet see them given such authority explicitly.
I almost wonder if this may be a pyrrhic victory for Comcast. Imagine them having the NBC/Hulu sale blocked, and then later the FCC gets it's authority specifically created, enforcing Net Neutrality (perhaps with some fangs), and having a bit of a grudge against Comcast.
The decision is somewhat moot (Score:5, Interesting)
The FCC knew Comcast was going to win quite a while back. Comcast's basic argument rests on the fact that the FCC didn't follow it's own rules in how it created the net neutrality rule. Since the rules weren't followed for creating a new rule, Comcast argued the net neutrality rule was unenforceable.
The FCC recognized Comcast had a point and restarted the rule making process to enable them to legally enforce net neutrality.
Personally, I'd like to see the FCC say that if you own a cable or phone company, you can't provide internet service. We've just been through the consequences of companies that were too big to fail failing and are quite a bit poorer because of it. Letting monopolies form is just taking us down that path again.
Both At&t and the cables are scared shitless that the Internet will make their business models obsolete. Of course, they're right.
Not an FCC issue (Score:4, Insightful)
Funny Explanation. (Score:3, Informative)
I actually applaud this decision (Score:3, Funny)
It's not as if handing over the reigns to corporate interests ruined radio - so why would it ruin the Internet?
Currently listening to: Ke$ha - Tik Tok
The ruling was correct, now lets change the law (Score:5, Informative)
Ahem (Score:5, Interesting)
How is this a set back? That statement assumes they aren't already throttling the piss out of traffic.
I can download at 258kbps from Microsoft no problem.
I can got to Hulu and clear 259kbps.
I try and update World of Warcraft (which uses p2p) and I suddenly get 49kbps.
I download Ubuntu Linux at 49kbps.
In fact ANY torrent is exactly capped at 49kbps.(unless I turn on Protocol Encryption Only then magically that 49kbps cap vanishes...)
I can download from any non-major website and get 128kbps... capped. (Simtropolis for example, sourceforge, etc.)
A SET BACK implies they are not throttling already.
And the kicker... If I start a torrent my bandwidth appears to be capped at 49kbps for about 3 hours afterwards.
a.k.a
Boot Computer
Download by Excel files from work at about 109kbps.
Start a torrent and let it run for about 30 minutes while I take a shower. Torrent appears capped at 49kbps.
Stop the torrent and close Utorrent.
Download the same excel files from work... at 49kbps....
Wait 1 hour... try again... 49kbps
Wait 1 hour... try again... 49kbps
Wait 1 hour... suddenly back to about 109kbps...
Next Day:
Boot computer
Download excel files from work 109kbps.
Open Forced Protocol Encryption torrent
256-290kbps for torrent.
Close torrent.
Download excel files from work 109kbps.
Open WoW to update and suddenly total bandwidth drops to 49kbps....
Sorry it isn't a set back, it's "Court Affirms Right for ISPs to CONTINUE to throttle traffic."
As long as this stands non-megacorporations don't stand a chance when say Facebook will be allowed to buy a high service level then a competitor. There is nothing preventing Comcast in offering 21 Tier 1 SLA blocks
200 Tier 2 SLA blocks
1000 Tier 3 SLA Blocks
and bucketing all non-sla buyers in a T4 bucket. Then they can auction the top 21 blocks and charge substantial fees for the 2 and 3 blocks.
The capitalization of preferred service levels isn't new and the anti-competitive abuse that comes with it will be par for the course.
Write your Congressman and Senators (Score:3, Interesting)
Let them know what you think on this issue. If they know there is some interest or even a large body of interested parties that have an real informed opinion on the matter, maybe there will be legislation to treat the information highway as a public resource like the rest of our highways, a public resource not a private corporate money pit.
We do something similar with the air we breath.
Remember control of information is a first step to control of the people.
From the FCC's Statement following the ruling (Score:4, Informative)
"Today's court decision invalidated the prior commission's approach to preserving an open Internet," the agency's statement said. "But the court in no way disagreed with the importance of preserving a free and open Internet; nor did it close the door to other methods for achieving this important end."
Seems like the Court said you can't do it this way but you can try others. That doesn't sound so grim as originally sounded.
The ultimate authority ... (Score:3, Interesting)
... lies with every state, city, town, or wide spot in the road from whom Comcast (and others) must obtain a franchise for the use of their rights of way. Lets go back to that system, with each little jurisdiction imposing its own rules. Then watch the ISPs come back, begging to have the FCC take over regulations.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And the policy in question is "Net Neutrality"... so I fail to see how you offer a more accurate summary. All you've done is add an unnecessary level of abstraction.
Net Neutrality is simple, don't let FUD throw you (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah, really? What alternative definitions, besides the common one, have you heard? It's really pretty simple and it boils down to this: you treat everyone's traffic on your network the same, whether any of the endpoints are in your network or not. You want to perform traffic shaping? Fine, you shape traffic the same for your customers as you do for your peers. What you can't do is say, "well, Google isn't paying me for hosting, so I'm going to slow down everyone's access to Google until Google pays me." See?
Re:What now? (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, eastern europe is pretty much a dark spot - does anyone know if there is filtering or throttling there, and, if so, how much?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
free market bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
did free market work out the issues in wall street ?
stop believing that 'free market' religion. it NEVER existed at any point in human history, just like real communism. BECAUSE THEY ARE TOO IDEALISTIC AND CANT EXIST.
once a company acquires monopoly, it doesnt matter shit whether it acquired it through legitimate means, or underhand means. a monopoly is a monopoly.
its even stupider to expect the monopoly or near monopoly companies and groups not to ab use their power for their own profit, at the expense of the people or the free market. "oh, im near monopoly, i can lock out everyone and force my will upon everyone, but, well, i shouldnt do this, because it is unethical" => can you expect this from any executive officer of any company ?
"people will make choices, and all will be good" BUT WHO GETS STRONGEST FIRST DENIES THE PEOPLE THE RIGHT TO MAKE CHOICES. they lock them down into their stuff only. just like how 30% of america is locked down to one single ISP, just like how despite seemingly having an innumerable array of cleaning liquids/products in your local wal mart, more than half of them are produced by a single company, procter&gamble. choice is in the labeling only. source is the same.
below is an excerpt from another well made post by another user in /. in another thread :
"Free market capitalism has never been tried"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market [wikipedia.org] [wikipedia.org]
"Free market economics is closely associated with laissez-faire economic philosophy, which advocates approximating this condition in the real world by mostly confining government intervention in economic matters to regulating against force and fraud among market participants."
The USA tried something close to a laissez faire marketplace and it failed miserably.
Starting in 1898, there was an explosion of regulation and the breaking up of monopolies.
Free markets did not self-regulate. They polluted, colluded, abused the workforce,
sold unhealthy foods, caused stock/bank crashes and a 101 other things.
The EPA, SEC, FTC, FDA, OSHA, etc are all the direct result of that failed philosophy.
The problem with advocating a "free" market is that it is simply bad public policy to let
a corporation kill 100 people and then settle the matter afterwards through the court.
Ideology rarely succeeds in the real world.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
and you americans GOT to stop living in extremes, and tout every form of regulation, law, rule as 'communism'.
it is stupid.
there has to be controls over private owned companies PERIOD. else they may start embedding chips in employee's wrists, saying 'its for security'. and since you are a free market zealot, you probably unaware that this actually happened in california two years ago. numerous factories suddenly started implanting rfid chips in employees, and who didnt got along were 'let go'. it continued