How the FCC Plans To Save the Internet By Destroying It 217
New submitter dislikes_corruption writes: "Stopping the recently announced plan by the FCC to end net neutrality is going to require a significant outcry by the public at large, a public that isn't particularly well versed on the issue or why they should care. Ryan Singel, a former editor at Wired, has written a thorough and easy to understand primer on the FCC's plan, the history behind it, and how it will impact the Internet should it come to pass. It's suitable for your neophyte parent, spouse, or sibling. In the meantime, the FCC has opened a new inbox (openinternet@fcc.gov) for public comments on the decision, there's a petition to sign at whitehouse.gov, and you can (and should) contact your congressmen."
Congressional fix? (Score:4, Interesting)
It seems to me the lobbying forces on the part of the content providers, Netflix et al., would be pretty formidable—unless they think the price is worth it to suppress upstart competition. Which is it?
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unless they think the price is worth it to suppress upstart competition
Ding ding ding, we have a winner!
People in favor of "regulation" because of the evils of "big business" need to familiarize themselves with the concept of regulatory capture. Big business loves regulation, because they've got legions of lawyers and compliance officers at their disposal, resources unavailable to any would-be start up. George Will writes about this topic frequently, in industries ranging from undertakers to electricians to nail salons.
Re:Congressional fix? (Score:5, Insightful)
And I suppose big business loves non-regulation, with the opportunities of monopoly. So win-win?
I'll agree that regulation risks just shifting wealth from one corporate interest to another. Also, that regulaiton introduces its own barriers to competition. But to condemn regulation per se is mindless. We got enough of the robber barons ages ago.
Now, back to my question.... which way will things tilt, and how much will the public interest matter.
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Now, back to my question.... which way will things tilt, and how much will the public interest matter.
OK, I'm willing to grant that the public mostly doesn't understand, let alone care about, net neutrality.
I'll also go along and grant that companies such as ISPs don't see regulation as good, and that is a point against net neutrality in their case.
So lets follow such a setup to end game. Lets revoke imminent domain regulations as well!
This should be pretty easy comparatively.
a) I can't see many, if any, individuals seeing this move as a bad thing in any way. Especially so once explained that imminent dom
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You use that phrase a lot, blissfully unaware that there's no such legal device as imminent domain. Maybe you're referring to eminent domain? Not being able to spell the term, you probably know very little about what it entails.
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Don't blame me for firefox spell check. But to answer your question, no I am very bad at spelling, which is why I only questioned that "fix" for a few seconds instead of not at all as would be usual.
Why would you suspect I am not familiar with what it entails however? Was that the multiple times I described it in detail that threw you off? Or was it your inability to look past a couple letters being swapped around that clearly had no effect on your understanding of my point?
Since you seem OK making such
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Well, we'll have to differ then. The free market is an ideal, but a self-executing free market is a rarity. No regulation (or no government) is a nice jingle but there will always be something. (Is anyone saying more regulation/govenrment for its own sake? No, but they can be nasty side effects.) It's the law itself. Even the criminal law is a form of regulation—especially unlikely to be banned—and yes amending, sometimes repealing, it can improve it. That said, I do sympathize with the libertar
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It's not really possible to have a monopoly without regulation
That seriously depends on the industry in question. Barriers to entry aren't solely determined by regulations.
Re:Congressional fix? (Score:5, Informative)
Wait, I think you're confused.
"Regulation" in this case would be the FCC instituting net neutrality, so that the ISPs have to treat all comers equally. E.g., Comcast can't speed up Hulu at the expense of some small start-up video streaming site.
The big businesses want to kill net neutrality because that will let them crush any new start-ups, and ensure that they maintain control of what we watch for generations to come. Sites like Netflix never would have gotten off the ground without net neutrality.
The big businesses are trying to get rid of regulations, and you've twisted it around to say that we need to ...get rid of regulations. Either you're confused, or just some corporate bootlicker.
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Sites like Netflix never would have gotten off the ground without net neutrality.
And yet Netflix is one of the biggest abusers ever of the structure that built the internet. They've abused peering relationships to dump their traffic onto other providers while paying a fraction of what you or I would pay for similar traffic levels. They're currently pushing the absurd theory that they should get settlement free peering even though such agreements have traditionally been limited to connections with a roughly equal balance of traffic.
The internet was built on the notion that providers g
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Netflix isn't a network carrier, they are a content provider. That would seem to be problem #1 with your comments. Problem #2 is that content must be delivered to the requester, the end user. This idea that Netflix's CDN must pay to another carrier via peering trunks because the data is going to that other carrier's user doesn't seem much like a peering relationship. I mean, how can you be a peer with a local ISP? That Comcast built their own network backbone to run traffic along is nice and all that, but t
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CDNs are paid by content/service providers to get data from A to B, usually on a sender-pays basis. If the volume of data coming from them causes peering/transit to go imbalanced beyond what the agreements allows, it is not that hard to imagine the destination network being displeased about getting asked to eat the bill.
The main problem with this is most ISPs are unlikely to pass the bucks they get from CDNs back to their subscribers.
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The 'imbalance' itself is a ludicrous notion when the peering is between source and destination (rather than mutual transit to 3rd parties).
There is perfect balance between Netflix and Comcast. For every byte Netflix provides to Comcast, there is a paying Comcast customer who requested it.
Balanced traffic in peering was originally a concern when the peering includes transit services. Say there are 4 networks, a-d connected up in a line. A-B-C-D. In that arrangement, B and C might agree to peering including
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For every byte Netflix provides to Comcast, there is a paying Comcast customer who requested it.
Not really: Comcast subscribers are not paying for any particular quantity of Netflix or any other content and may not even be subscribers of. Flat monthly rates are based on bulk average costs plus markups where the low-volume users "subsidize" the high-volume users so the ISPs can meet their gross profit margin target.
As for "Comcast not providing transit to Netflix," keep in mind that this whole thing started with Comcast not liking how thin L3 was stretching their (Comcast-L3) peering agreement to avoi
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Not really: Comcast subscribers are not paying for any particular quantity of Netflix or any other content and may not even be subscribers of. Flat monthly rates are based on bulk average costs plus markups where the low-volume users "subsidize" the high-volume users so the ISPs can meet their gross profit margin target.
Comcast made the offer freely and the customers accepted. It's a bit late for Comcast to be complaining about it. There are transfer limits involved even though the original offer was 'unlimited'. In reality, transfer rate is the driving factor in infrastructure costs.
I thought it was Cogent they were arguing with. The answer to that for Comcast is to restrict the routes they announce at the various peering points. It's a bit low class to drag Netflix directly into what was a dispute between two network pro
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Netflix wasn't involved in the routing decisions. They were paying Cogent to take care of that. If Comcast didn't like where Cogent was dumping the traffic onto their network, they should have adjusted the routes they advertised to the peering routers.
They could also have taken Netflix up on their standing offer to provide cache servers.
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Nor is it Netflix's job to subsidize Comcast. That's why they were willing to meet them half way. Why would Netflix want to pay Comcast for the privilege of saving Comcast money?
I am not a Netflix customer and have little knowledge of their prices etc.
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Lie, told by a liar. Netflix generates very little traffic. Netflix customers generate all of the traffic. The end user at the location of their choice, connects to the Netflix site and sends a request for data firstly of content selection system and then of the content itself. Your bullshit is like claiming a supermarket fills roads full of traffic. The traffic is generated by customers driving to the store paying for what they want and returning home. All that's corruptly happening is a toll booth is bei
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The big businesses want to kill net neutrality because that will let them crush any new start-ups, and ensure that they maintain control of what we watch for generations to come. Sites like Netflix never would have gotten off the ground without net neutrality.
The big businesses are trying to get rid of regulations, and you've twisted it around to say that we need to ...get rid of regulations.
SHH!!! I dont know about you, but I personally am really looking forward to the $50000/month checks these businesses are arguing they must pay me and every other land owner for the right to run their cables and such through our yards!
At this point I don't care which side the companies want to argue for - I just plan to hold them to it across the board.
They can either give us net neutrality regulations and keep imminent domain regulations as well, or alternately, they can say none of that regulation should
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It seems to me the lobbying forces on the part of the content providers, Netflix et al., would be pretty formidableâ"unless they think the price is worth it to suppress upstart competition. Which is it?
I think they're getting to the point where they're willing to pay for prioritization just to guarantee quality.
A big problem is that we have a transmission protocol (TCP) that is a well deployed but incredibly stupid protocol that that intentionally floods the network with packets until it breaks, then b
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Pretty damn well. You can't believe the difference things like lifting the bar to pre-existing conditions makes to families like ours. That they could have better job with this behemoth project, I don't doubt. That they would have done a better job if the other half Congress hadn't been obstuctionist jerks, I don't doubt either. Growing pains, not fault with the basic concept.
To drift back on topic: ditto for net neutrality. Sometimes we do better without the market carved into big corporate fiefdoms and fa
Re: Congressional fix? (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone actually hurt this more by upmodding your reply to a derail.
This is why our political system is broke, try to point out how Net Neutrality is vital, some goon brings up healthcare.
Then someone else who thinks he is smart, agrees to change the conversation to healthcare to respond to a goon.
BAM! You've been suckered and taken your eye off the ball: The ball is Net Neutrality.
Don't take your eye off the ball.
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Re: Congressional fix? (Score:4, Informative)
You trade pre-existing support now for death panels later. Have fun.
Repeating as fact something that Politifact had rated as "Lie of the Year" for 2009 [politifact.com] does not help your credibility.
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Right now the US spends the highest proportion of GDP on health care of any developed country [worldbank.org], and in return gets consistently mediocre outcomes [photius.com]. I bloody well hope costs will be reduced.
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As parent post points out, the insurance industry is HUGE, one of the largest industries in the USA.
And yet, insurance produces nothing: it is not manufacture. It does not provide services that facilitate manufacture, transport of goods, or merchant affairs. The insurance industry does nothing except provide a means for you to bet against yourself; it is an abased form of gambling that contributes not one penny toward creating wealth.
Since the government cannot outlaw it, the government should have total
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That's been the reality everywhere, forever. It's cute that the founders of the USA actually believed their experiment in limited government was ever going to last. The USA is simply catching up to where the rest of the world has always been. It was inevitable.
Re: Congressional fix? (Score:5, Insightful)
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There is no such thing as death panels. It is just the insurance company working in "mysterious ways". That out has been working for god since the beginning of time and he gets away with starving children and gruesome deaths of innocent people by the hundreds.
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Thank you.
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That wasn't even what they were talking about. The 'death panels' was a requirement that coverage included sitting down with your doctor, possibly a counselor, your family, etc. when you had a fatal (or likely fatal) condition to discuss end-of-life care options. So you could make an informed decision about what you wanted.
How that got warped into 'the government's going to kill you', I have no clue.
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Whoever thought of death panels is a sick, sick bastard.
Hint: It wasn't the people who invented public healthcare.
Countries that have had public healthcare for decades don't have death panels either.
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> You are REALLY going to see the screws put in over the next decade in most of Europe (probably not Germany).
Been hearing that for the past four decades, myself. Still nada. In fact, even with the recent austerity measures, my health coverage and access to higher education well into the last quarter of my career is so much better than my US colleagues I can understand why you neocon nimrods are so desperate to try to discredit the European model.
You're wrong. You've been wrong for 40 years. You'll conti
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Again, the issue is not a matter of Black or White.
My relatives in Canada are constantly commenting on the delays and inefficincies of the heal care system. I have a some relatives who came down to the USA for bypass operations and transplants because they could get treated in a week or two instead of 6 months or more.
My relatives in Sweden have similar complaints.
My 96-year-old Mother might not be alive if she had to depend on Canada's National Health Service. At 92 she had a mitral valve replacement. In C
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Do you think that she would have been able to afford it if she had been paying for all her other healthcare at US prices? Do you think there will not be any private practice if the US reforms it's system?
OK, more then 2 questions.
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You trade pre-existing support now for death panels later. Have fun. I hope you have a big appetite, because I have a feeling you're going to be eating those words about your "new and improved" healthcare in a few short years.
Ditto for net neutrality should sheep like you have your way.
This is why NEW ideas have such a hard time gaining traction. Save for the fact this isn't a NEW idea. It has been implemented successfully in basically all other modern industrial nations. This is like arguing the superiority of communism after the fall of communism (hopefully the irony of that example sets off the trolls, hahahha).
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I was going to mention that but I know how much "a certain demographic" shits a brick if you stomp on their circle-jerk. Much like lower IQ animals, if I don't actually say trigger words then they won't clue in. Unfortunately, you did, and now you're getting voted down (as of now).
Communism is just one extreme and and neither extreme is the answer. Just don't mention the S-word around animals that have been "conditioned" by their masters.
For now I'm going for a W-A-L-K. :)
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>death panels
You mean the insurance companies themselves? You know, the ones that would rather see you die than hand over the money for chemotherapy? Even if the US has the best healthcare in the world (we don't) it doesn't do you any good if you can't fucking pay for it in the so-called "free market" (which never existed, ever, except in your fevered imagination).
>ditto for net neutrality
Yeah, another imbecilic "talking point" originated by the right-wing-media owners (not you, obviously), tacitly
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Both of you are missing the point, or getting suckered by elitist arguments. As it stands now only a tiny minority of people can pay fully for their health care. The ACA sounded like a good idea until you analyze it as 1) Not addressing the root causes for the costs of health care in the U.S. which are twice as high per capeta as the next most expensive nation, and 2) That the ACA as enacted by Congress is basically subdedized insurance with no controls on private insurers raising premiums and on controlli
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It's certainly in a better state than it was before the new healthcare bill.
And yet (Score:2)
I'm mocked when I point out the blatant conspiracy between corporations and the FCC.
Conspiracy or capitulation? (Score:2)
"Conspiracy" implies that the FCC has some active input.
The general public is incredibly stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Capitalism is nice until corporations grow big enough. At some point they start to strive towards a monopoly and this is where the core idea of capitalism dies. It's the end of competition and consumers suffer the most.
The political spectrum in the US needs some new parties and fast.
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I don't know if anything you said is true, but it doesn't really matter. Problem is, there are no viable alternatives!/em If you think the Dem's don't do shit just like this all the time, you're deluded. R or D, they're all a bunch of opportunistic scoundrels, taking every chance to bolster their own position and prestige, regardless of the cost to the rest of us.
Another petition (Score:2, Informative)
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/maintain-true-net-neutrality-protect-freedom-information-united-states/9sxxdBgy
They don't care. (Score:3)
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The rest of the world will likely ignore this, as most other countries have avoided creating such duopoly/monopoly situations as have been encouraged by regulation in the United States. Where providers have to compete, there's little incentive to be the carrier that slows down service X,Y or Z. If necessary, the other countries that do have monopolies will use regulation to achieve much the same.
Be Specific (Score:4, Informative)
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Well said. I would be even more specific and say you don't want the carriers to discriminate or, god forbid, they'll redefine common carriers. ;-) I'm not sure most congresspeople understand the issue anywhere near as well as they understand who is for or against—politics.
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Re:Be Specific (Score:4, Informative)
That study about the US being an oligarchy basically comes down to the Citizen's United decision paving the way for deep and widespread corruption. And that's a huge problem, no question, bigger than net neutrality for sure. But SOPA happened just last year, well after Citizen's United was passed. The Oligarchs don't control everything, just most of it.
You are certainly right to be outraged, maybe even despondent, but your fatalism isn't going to help anything. If you're upset about the oligarchy study you have two options: find a way to leave the country - Canada is nice, and apparently they have the richest middle class in the world now. Or you can volunteer for a campaign finance amendment which would overturn the Citizen's United decision.
Don't underestimate that second option. At the very least it would be a good life experience. Maybe you'd learn something, maybe you'd accomplish something, but at the very least you'd be contributing and doing something a little different with your time.
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Biggest difference I can see between this and SOPA, is that those proposing SOPA had elections to worry about. The FCC is appointed by the Executive branch and serves at their pleasure. Honestly, what the articles author really meant by the FCC being scared of the ISPs is that if they do something the ISPs don't like, well they can say good-bye to the revolving door and a lucrative contract with an ISP after they leave the FCC. Comcast's head lobbyist is a former FCC commissioner for Christ's sake!
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While the median income in Canada might be slightly higher then the States, the cost of living is 30% higher on average. And it is much worse in the oil patch where the average is pushed up by labourers making $80,000 and skilled people making double that.
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The study found that even when 80% of the population favored a particular public policy change, it was only instituted 43% of the time.
Re:What we need is more of what ails us! (Score:5, Insightful)
PROPER REGULATION!
Oh I see, Proper Regulation is just like communism - it's just never been done right before!
Never mind the FACT that you cannot have Proper Regulation, because anytime you centralize enough power to write said Regulation it will naturally become subverted, because Power has that effect - always.
Just like people are calling for more regulation now and what they will get is anguish until they figure out the root cause of the pain was in fact regulation...
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Never mind the FACT that you cannot have Proper Regulation, because anytime you centralize enough power to write said Regulation it will naturally become subverted, because Power has that effect - always.
That's a ridiculous thing to say.
Our situation is transparently a cultural problem, not a problem with centralized power.
The culture in Washington doesn't see fit to aggressively fix the glaring problems with our regulators.
It's not like this is magic, there are books written on the subject and anyone who cares to learn the solutions, can.
It's patently obvious that when you have former lobbyists being elected head of a regulatory agency
and the former head of the regulatory agency taking over the job of chie
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Oh I see, Proper Regulation is just like communism - it's just never been done right before!
And gravity doesn't work -- because I waved my hands in the air and said so.
I'm holding back a huge list of regulations that do work. But keep praying that planes don't fly into each other, people stop at stop lights, and drinking water that doesn't have amoebas in it. The idea that you could get karma to be marked insightful, is more of a testament that Slashdot has lowered the bar.
The FCC is being driven by corpora
don't know don't care (Score:2)
Problem 1 is to get people to pay attention (Score:2)
The Globe and Mail did a story on it the other day. I took a few minutes to put in a longish comment, thinking this would be yet another right/left shoutfest.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com... [theglobeandmail.com]
I dropped back a few hours later to see who'd called me a commie, only to see it only got a few comments and was dropped off the main page already - presumably because the web server had noticed almost nobody was reading it.
If people don't pay attention to government, the bad guys generally win.
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As much as it angers me, I don't think Net Neutrality can survive. People don't know, and the places they get their news from--the CNNs, Fox Newses, NBCs--they will never cover net neutrality in any meaningful way. I mean, hell, NBC is owned by Comcast, and we sure as hell know where they stand on net neutrality.
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Of course that would fail when people sell "the world network" with disclaimers in the fine print. The US is broken that wa
The problem is having lobbyists heading the FCC (Score:4, Informative)
Tom Wheeler and other cable lobbyists should not and must not be in charge of any agency that purports to be for the public good.
sign this petition to target that very problem: http://wh.gov/lwhr8 [wh.gov]
Re:The problem is having lobbyists heading the FCC (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who is against net neutrality either (1) has no understanding of what it means, or (2) is being bankrolled by a corporate interest. I doubt that the FCC doesn't understand what net neutrality is, so that only leaves option (2).
Funny how net neutrality suddenly dies as soon as a former telecom lobbyist/CEO became the FCC chairman.
Re:The problem is having lobbyists heading the FCC (Score:4, Informative)
There are a number of loonitarians here that object on principle regarding a government regulation on a private network. Yes, that comes down to ignorance of what the regulation is, but also a general objection to any and all regulations, no matter how beneficial.
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Blocking p2p in the name of network health kind of defeats the point of net neutrality.
No, it doesn't. Blocking Skype because you sell VoIP defeats the point of net neutrality. Picking a "class" of traffic, that even you indicates causes actual harm, and reducing that harm on others doesn't seem to be a bad thing. As you hint, if that were the case, maybe the P2P makers would make their stuff to be less abusive so that it would not be targeted so much for throttling.
Note, even if they are declared "common carriers" they could still filter P2P. The standard of proof for harm to the networ
TL;DR for neophytes? (Score:2)
Not suitable (Score:2)
I have read Ryan Singel's article. It is NOT "suitable for your neophyte parent, spouse, or sibling."
Far too long and too complicated. My father (who is 76 and worked in insurance) would not understand any of it.
I think we all will have a very hard time explaining this to the public
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We really need to get the government from regulating at all. Do you know that they actually regulate killing? Think about it, government butting in when honest businesses want to kill off their competition. If we get rid of all government regulation we can have the ultimate free enterprise state much like the Congo Free State. If those pesky workers aren't meeting their quotas, well chop off their hands, and no wimping out with cauterizing their wounds either as free enterprise is the best and those people
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This is exactly what Comcast wants to hear
So is "Hey can we have the federal government please control the internet so Comcast doesn't have to deal with a bunch of local yahoos"?
In fact we ALSO need local regulations creating the cable monopoly situation that keeps Comcast entrenched everywhere to vanish also.
Your name, BTW, is just DRIPPING with irony in this situation as you apparently really, really love corruption as you are the biggest enabler of it I've ever come across.
I sent this to each of the Commissioners: (Score:5, Insightful)
o During the Oklahoma Land Run of 1889, there were no special "carve-outs" for people of wealth. Every participant started racing at the sound of the starter's gun.
o When railroads were built, there were special coaches for first class, but they were part of the same train, going at the same speed, along the same route, to the same destination.
o While the rich can buy their own jet aircraft, the Air Traffic Control system that manages all aircraft in the skies give no special treatment to the jet aircraft, nor the lone pilot in a Piper Cub.
o When Eisenhower created the Interstate Highway system, he did not mandate special travel lanes for trucks or limousines; all traffic uses the same routes.
Every one of these historical innovations lifted up the poor, the middle class, and the rich. As a result, we became the world's most respected democracy, and the model for many other, newer countries to emulate.
Now, the FCC would like to change all that history and allow those who can afford to pay for a "special lane" on the Internet, crowding out other traffic, and making it slower. It will reward the oligarchs and penalize the common citizen.
I have been in the computer and electronics industry, from bench technician to CEO, since 1957. Now retired, I have watched as the very rich people, and the very large corporations have worked tirelessly in recent decades to destroy that equality of opportunity. If we are to survive as a nation, we must return to a democracy, with every citizen treated fairly and equitably.
We should, instead, be requiring our "common carriers" to expand their Internet capacity, robustness and security for all. Where there is plenty of reliable capacity, everyone will have the opportunity to use the Internet without disadvantage. The large carriers, like Comcast (which the FCC has misclassified), AT&T, Verizon, et. al., have been intentionally restricting their expansion of the Internet to make it slower and slower. Yes, they save the investments they should be making. But, deeper and more cynically, they have been intending to leverage those self-imposed restrictions into higher prices for these restricted servicesby adding a special lane for those willing to pay.
"Demos" is the Greek word for people; "kratia" is the Greek word for rule. Democracy puts the emphasis on people deciding how to rule. When appointed public officials usurp that decision-making to favor one class of people (or corporations) over another, it has violated basic democratic principles. The consequences will be uncomfortable for the citizens, and will erode our principles and the quality of our beloved nation.
You are a public, appointed official. I trust you will decide on the basis of democracy that the rich deserve no more preferential treatment than the middle class or the poor. We need to expand our Internet capacity for all, not make it available only to the highest bidders, driving all prices upward for the benefit of the already-rich.
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This is beautifully worded, not too long and very convincing.
But just like "Demos" is Greek for people and "kratia" is Greek for rule, "Poli" is Greek for many and "ticks" is English for little bloodsuckers. It may be me, but I just don't have much hope for our politicians actually working in our interest and not in that of those they can suck from.
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This is beautifully worded, not too long and very convincing.
But just like "Demos" is Greek for people and "kratia" is Greek for rule, "Poli" is Greek for many and "ticks" is English for little bloodsuckers. It may be me, but I just don't have much hope for our politicians actually working in our interest and not in that of those they can suck from.
They can all suck my dick.
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Sorry. They are whores, allright, but they already suck much bigger and richer dick.
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It may be though that we do have to see the Internet 'destroyed' before it can be better again. The infrastructure that makes the Internet work isn't going to go away because asshats at corporations like Comcast and AT&T and in Congress are being asshats and screwing it up for everyone, it'll all still be here when the smoke clears. I, like everyone else who understands the problem, would prefer that it not come to that, but at the same time if they need to be gi
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I just love that we have so adopted the term, chanting it at games and having it on official documents at times...especially marketing s
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"During the Oklahoma Land Run of 1889, there were no special "carve-outs" for people of wealth. Every participant started racing at the sound of the starter's gun. "
You do know how Oklahoma got nicknamed "The Sooner State", right?
What did you all think would happen? (Score:2)
Here's a surprise - you all clamor for the government to control the Internet.
Once they do, the heavily corporate-entwined government does what comes naturally - act in the interest of some very large campaign contributors. They can do this because they have power over ISP's now.
If it wasn't this, it would have been something else. The speed of it surprises, me, but only a little.
Before both sides (ISP and providers) just worked things out. Now the FCC has decreed ISP's must be paid... this is what happe
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The Big Mo. (Score:2)
Half of prime time Internet traffic in the states was a Netflix stream before Netflix offered a streaming only service. Expectations evolve. Closed captioning. Multilingual dialog. High definition. 4K video. Theater sound. Original production. Live broadcast.
Internet radio is evolving as well
To the point where the WiFi radio can found at Walmart.
The target audience for these services are likely to be perfectly comfortable paying a little more each month to access the fast lane.
They may not even recognize
"Congressmen"? Really? (Score:2)
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I am woperson, hear me roar!
SOPA-level response? (Score:2)
What is the possibility for another SOPA-level response? Some internet companies, like Facebook, might like this because they will happily pay for any chance to trounce fledgling competitors, but certainly other bastions of the Internet like Wikipedia would be quite hurt by it.
I doubt any senator (of either party) really gives a flying fuck, and would in fact support this change because their buddies^W^W^W^Wlobbyists^W^W^W^W^Wconstituents told them they should, so only a public outcry of such proportions wo
Don't forget this petition, its alot further along (Score:3)
https://petitions.whitehouse.g... [whitehouse.gov]
Idiots (Score:2)
If they do their damned job this wont be an issue. If they think 'letting it burn' is a good plan, the entire lot of them should be fired.
This is a New Petition (Score:2)
Please note that this is a new petition, specifically stating The People's requirement that data carriers be reclassified as common carriers [whitehouse.gov]. Yesterday's petition only identified the need for net neutrality [whitehouse.gov]. I believe both are valid expressions of the best interests of our society, and have signed both.
You are all fools (Score:2)
I've said it from the start and I'll repeat it now:
The FCC's interest in "net neutrality"(1) was never about what you wanted, it was *always* about gaining control of the internet. When you have the power of regulation over something, you have all the power in the world at the barrel of a gun.
By trying to support their efforts, every single one of you was dooming the internet.
The USG frequently tries to fear monger online, always accusing others of militarizing the internet, when in fact they are the on
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The petitions may not have any direct impact, however, they can help raise awareness, even if it's only a little bit. It's still better than nothing.
Public awareness is the only hope net neutrality has. Lobbying from companies like Netflix and Google can't turn the tide. Lobbying is more about money, it's about connections too, and most of the telecoms have connections that stem back before Netflix and Google even existed.
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"Obamites"? really?
the petitions help in that the Administration necessarily responds to any petition that reaches the the threshhold. that means that they are forced to go on the record with a response that alone is enough to stir action out of inaction. even if the current Administration does not agree with the goal of a petition, the American people will know that position rather than having it swept under a rug, and can vote accordingly.
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>Modded offtopic
I guess the endless editorials against net-neutrality by the WSJ are all off-topic?
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BMO
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