Net Neutrality and Verizon Vs. FCC

http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/24022#newcomments

The federal government has proven that they are unworthy of our trust.

The same may be said for the internet companies, but they don't determine our future, and, ultimately, some private company will provide what the customers want...as long as there is a buck to be made.

Unfortunately, we've now got the federal government competing with the customers, and they are using our tax dollars to get the internet companies to comply with their ever increasing spy tactics.

Not only do we lose, but we get to pay for it.

Thanks I clearly missed this earlier blog entry. I have some reading to catch up to speed how people here are taking this. A quick scan of the replies tells me that many are again not seeing the nuances I see of the decision.

The Atlantic article I linked to does point out a key nuance I see. The FCC unequivocally does have the power to declare broadband providers as "common carriers". Common carriers must provide service to all equitably. [net neutrality] For the time being broadband carriers are allowed to tailor services to build up infrastructure. This seems like a way to promote growth without granting benevolent monopoly status that Ma Bell use to have.

This is true. But we've got a problem, and I might as well address it here.

When I refer to the "government", I am not talking about the mailman, the scientist at the CDC, the doctor and staff at the VA hospital, our military people...

I am talking specifically about the politicians that we all vote for, and the degree to which they have abused our trust.

I understand what you are saying, and I would tend to agree, but given what has transpired, how can I possibly trust the FCC to represent my interests?

How can I trust the former head council for Monsanto to be our new food safety czar?

How can I trust Bill Gates to be the mastermind behind the new Common Core curriculum?

I can't.

I think this will go the way of free FM radio, landlines, honest politicians, an unbiased Supreme Court and ethical business practices.

Money will determine who gets the most bandwidth.

Or we could just have the 95% of decent people in government, blow the whistle on the 5% at the top that are making everyone look like crap.

To whom will they, "blow the whistle"?

US. You and me, and everybody else.

This is something that is no longer a funny scenario. It has to be done, and soon.

I know it sounds crazy, but bad stuff is on the horizon.

The left and right have to join together and tell them no.

You mean just like Mr. Snowden.

I'd like to think that there are safeguards in place that wouldn't make that necessary, but obviously Snowden didn't feel safe using the standard route.

If you do a Google search on how the Fast & Furious whistle blowers have been treated, Snowden's decision makes more sense. I think the fear of retaliation is holding a lot of people back, including those at the IRS that were used as targeting tools against the president's enemies, as well as the remaining witnesses that were at Benghazi.

That entire culture has to change.

My personal concern, as I am beginning to understand it, is the ability of the individual providers of service to throttle down bandwidth for a particular site as they may choose. This might be a site that provides content similar to what a site of their own provides, in an attempt to get you to choose their site instead. This also allows them to block or seriously deter any free content providers in favor of pay sites, legal or otherwise. I am sure there will be many more far reaching concerns bordering on criminal conduct by the "powers that be". I have an idea. Let's appoint lyn to be government and big business watchdog. He doesn't let much get by him and rarely misses a trick, and has no trouble speaking his mind. Can I get a second on this?

An excerpt from Read the whole article previous thread referenced by kramarat:

"Those FCC rules were meant to force broadband providers to treat all Internet traffic equally - essentially making it impossible for them to charge companies for a faster route into people's homes.

Now, the door is open for companies like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile to create a tiered Internet, where those who can pay the most can utilize the fastest connections, while others are stuck transmitting information at slower speeds. A ban on completely blocking certain Internet traffic sources was also overturned."

I saw off with their heads!

I think that some companies have attempted this, and been caught at it, receiving lots of complaints from customers.

I haven't seen, or been subjected to, any rampant abuse that would call for the government to step in and regulate the internet.

I also think that companies that choose to abuse this power, to the detriment of their customers, will be abandoned by those customers, and they will go elsewhere. It's how the free market works...people don't pay for things they don't want or like, and as long as there are options available, people will use the services that give them what they want.

It's difficult to trust the government to do the right thing, when they themselves have been guilty of using our tax dollars to pick winners and losers in the private market. Banks, car companies, green energy companies.....

The government can't enforce net neutrality, when they are not neutral.

"people don't pay for things they don't want or like,"

Changed your stance on government?

No.

Are you talking about paying taxes?

I don't see that as a choice.

It is a choice. The tax code is a voluntary system.

Just ask Harry Reid. He said so.

He was speaking as a politician.

http://news.investors.com/politics-andrew-malcolm/012612-599002-obama-white-house-staff-back-taxes.htm

We have to live under a different set of rules.

I think some people get off target on this topic because they mistakenly feel the internet is something that actually belongs to them. Last time I checked the net was not an article in the Bill of Rights. no one has a "right"guaranteed to access the net, I know its hard to believe but you wont stop breathing if you miss your daily fix(I might hyperventilate for a period).

so does the government have an element of control of band width they control through licensing? they sure do!but the interest here isn't about your entertainment but rather about promoting commerce and communication. it infuriates me to think my provider can delay my requests to access something like Youtube or steer me towards their preferred auction site but business works this way. when I tell my broker I want to purchase shares they don't head right to the open market, they look internally first. I never see the lag or price they initially paid, I just get filled at a price I agreed to. if you don't like Verizon or ATT or whoever, just vote with your feet. most of these businesses have billions invested and as a corporation they exist to make profits, if they lose enough business they'll conform to market demands, a handful of ISP users wont shape their business practices.

Good point.

Each network on my TV, forces only their own programming into my home.

Matter of fact, ABC news is on in the background, and they are lying about how the president is going to fix the NSA spying.

I just turned it off.

You've barely touched here on the point that I find interesting about this decision. So allow me to take a tangent here.

TV broadcasting has a fixed bandwidth of information per channel. The technique to carry this amount of information varies but it is a constant stream that infrastructure (a dangerous buzz word in this topic) can plan for and assure a quality transmission. (Oh, if someone could only assure quality in the content...) In contrast, internet traffic varies wildly in the bandwidth needed for each type of traffic. I believe a major contributor to the greater bandwidth and variability of bandwidth is the pushed videos that content providers get paid for putting on their web pages. Regardless of this being the primary culprit or not the wide variety and variability of bandwidth that everything draws today has exposed the limitations of the pathway providers. Verizon has championed their need to prioritize traffic.

The crux of this legal decision is that the broadband Internet providers were not deemed to be "common carrier" information providers by the FCC prior to this decision. As such the "net neutrality" rules the FCC were trying to enforce were deemed to be outside of the scope for the category that the FCC put broadband Internet providers. Ironically the "common carrier" designation came about from the widely varying but low bandwidth communication of the telephone system. Now broadband providers are everywhere trying to get people to switch their land line telephones over to their version of VOIP. Broadband providers just might be backing themselves into being common carriers and then negate this decision.

I'm sure there's more than one thing that I'm not understanding here.

First of all, when we're talking about speed and throttling, are we talking about the speed for the end user?

For example, through ATT, I've got several choices... from a cheap basic internet connection, to a middle of the road connection, to a super fast connection for online gaming, etc.

The more you pay, the faster connection you can get; and I'm okay with that set up.

The other thing that I've heard about, using my same example as a hypothetical situation: Is that ATT would intentionally slow down a connection to the Time Warner website, to thwart me from checking out the competition. Which they haven't done, but is that what we're talking about here?

If so, I thought there was a massive public backlash toward those practices.

As everybody knows, I just automatically cringe when I hear about more government regulation.

You may be right about getting people to switch to using the internet for their phones. I don't know.

The end user speed will be effected. I believe it will be in a much more complicated way than most people think. The speed you contract with your provider and their memory buffers will not be altered but how quickly their buffers get filled with data from sources your provider considers to hog their resources can now be slowed.

Ironically this ruling can end up speeding up everyone's communication in a few ways. Super time critical frequent large volumes of data (i.e. medical imaging signals for analysis) transmissions may get removed from backbone communication and follow secured point to point communication lines. Web pages will have less high density information (multimedia) from multiple sources residing in completely different parts of our globe. To mitigate the loss of eyeballs, advertisers may now pay local broadband providers to store their commercials at their servers.

I'm not seeing a problem with that.

It might be my imagination, but it seems to me, that the problems at CR4 started with the linking up to FB, and those other extraneous links.

I pay for my link to the internet, but the internet is still free. So, if FB wants to be front and center every time I open my browser, they should have to pay for it; and if they don't, they can climb in the back seat and wait their turn.

I don't follow why the FCC has a "right" to regulate it. If it is wireline, bandwidth concerns have no validity. There are many sides to this, so far I see no reason for regulation. I use a movie streaming service and use a "premium" of 3 meg download speed. Now if the monster search company buys a competing service and then pays the various telephone providers a bribe, finders fee, premium, we may have a problem. This would be similar to the Standard Oil/railroad issues of a previous century. So far, I have seen little benefit to government regulation. When AT&T ruled, service was adequate, the breakup only brought a new goliath to the fore, with similar problems, just different players.

Maybe if somebody just linked the abuses, identified the victims, and showed me the justification for the FCC to enter the internet domain.

Can anybody show me why my internet experience will be better under FCC control?

Because if you're going to tell me to take a look at how much more affordable, healthcare is, I'm not buying it.

Ask the 300,000 people with no water in W. Va. how it's going with no government meddling.

You need to look a little deeper grasshopper.

Those people are victims of government cronyism.

Who, without millions to buy influence isn't?

So which is it?

Do we need more government meddling, or less?

How about just enough, exactly where it is needed?

That's what I vote for.

Me, too. Now all we have to do is find a way to keep big business from buying politicians.

W. Va. depends on coal. Damn the water pollution.

How about outlawing big tobacco. And government subsidies? Oops. Your home state produces twice as much tobacco as its closest competitor. That would not be good for your economy, would it?

So much for government cronyism.

Just depends on whose ox is getting gored.

At the risk of making many enemies, the responsibilities of our government, along with their limitations, are clearly spelled out.

I'm not saying that nothing will ever change, but the government politicians have completely abandoned what they are there for.

I don't care about anyone's political affiliation; if we don't stop the political class, we all lose...big time.

Did you notice that I didn't name a party?

They are a party of one, and I'm tired of being screwed.

The solution is simple.

Take money out of politics. Put the voting public back in charge.

You and I don't elect politicians today. They are put in office by political machines.

That voting booth is just to make the unwashed masses think they have a say in the political process.

According to Who Owns the Internet? - Webopedia.com

the National Science Foundation, the Internet Engineering Task Force,

ICANN, InterNIC and the Internet Architecture Board.

Who controls it in the USA?

Who Controls the Internet? - Government Technology

Congress thinks they do:

Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act.

In 2011, the Protect IP Act (PIPA) was introduced.

Later that same year, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was also introduced.

And just one month after that, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act(CISPA) was introduced, later stopped, then revived again, only to be

stopped again this past April.

And there were many others that most people never heard of,

such as the SECURE IT Act of 2012, the Cybersecurity Act,

the Precise Act, and

the Federal Information Security Amendment Act of 2012.

The government wants to become the cybercops, so bad they can taste it.

It's only a matter of time until they get there.

If I only had TV and newspapers to get my information on what's going on in the political world, I would be completely in the dark.

I used to get two real newspapers, printed on real newsprint, every morning, delivered to my driveway.

Maybe I was better off then.

Probably. Now you're......