So the Tea Party is Helping Get rid of Net Neutrality...

[asterism]

Since you obviously are well versed in this bill, can you kindly point me to the portion that states where government officials will be restricting sites and throttling back access wherever they want?

Its evident throughout the language in the entire bill and the attachements. the whole bill reads as "The government now has the power to decide what is and what is not acceptable for ISPs to provide their customers"

Im serious, take the time to go read through it and then re-bump this thread so we can discuss it on equal footing.

Make sure as your reading through dont skip past the reference numbers, once you finish a section read what the reference goes to below, many times it will sound like the section is saying one thing but once they reference it it sounds like something else.

Let's be honest, I appreciate the link but I'm not reading through 194 pages to try and find something you are claiming is in there. I'm happy to read any specific examples you'd like to point me towards, but despite what others would love to claim, I really do have better things to do with my time then comb through this document.

Here's one:

74. Standard Practices. The conformity or lack of conformity of a practice with best
practices and technical standards adopted by open, broadly representative, and independent Internet engineering, governance initiatives, or standards-setting organizations is another factor to be considered in evaluating reasonableness. Recognizing the important role of such groups is consistent with Congress’s intent that our rules in the Internet area should not “fetter[]” the free market with unnecessary regulation, 223 and is consistent with broadband providers’ historic reliance on such groups. 224 We make clear, however, that we are not delegating authority to interpret or implement our rules to outside bodies. 22

That's a fancy way to say that their interpretation and implementation is the only authority.

 

[Oddball]

Let's be honest, I appreciate the link but I'm not reading through 194 pages to try and find something you are claiming is in there. I'm happy to read any specific examples you'd like to point me towards, but despite what others would love to claim, I really do have better things to do with my time then comb through this document.

Translation:

Don't cloud the issue with the facts and let me continue to spew my ignorant party man hack drivel.

 

[asterism]

Since you obviously are well versed in this bill, can you kindly point me to the portion that states where government officials will be restricting sites and throttling back access wherever they want?

Its evident throughout the language in the entire bill and the attachements. the whole bill reads as "The government now has the power to decide what is and what is not acceptable for ISPs to provide their customers"

Im serious, take the time to go read through it and then re-bump this thread so we can discuss it on equal footing.

Make sure as your reading through dont skip past the reference numbers, once you finish a section read what the reference goes to below, many times it will sound like the section is saying one thing but once they reference it it sounds like something else.

Let's be honest, I appreciate the link but I'm not reading through 194 pages to try and find something you are claiming is in there. I'm happy to read any specific examples you'd like to point me towards, but despite what others would love to claim, I really do have better things to do with my time then comb through this document.

Here's another:

75. In evaluating unreasonable discrimination, the types of practices we would be
concerned about include, but are not limited to, discrimination that harms an actual or potential competitor to the broadband provider (such as by degrading VoIP applications or services when the broadband provider offers telephone service), 226 that harms end users (such as by inhibiting end users from accessing the content, applications, services, or devices of their choice),227 or that impairs free expression (such as by slowing traffic from a particular blog because the broadband provider disagrees with the blogger’s message).
228

"Harms an actual competitor" is the key phrase here. Microsoft was under LOTS of pressure from the FTC for doing something Apple does everyday now, bundling a browser with an operating system. It's common practice now and it's fine. But that wasn't the case a few years ago.

So if Verizon develops a new video protocol and they optimize their network to transmit this protocol for competitive advantage is that a situation where their use of their network "harms an actual competitor?"

In government speak it is. Microsoft was told it could not optimize its operating system for its own browser and bundle it. Now every OS does it.

Do we really want the government in charge of writing and interpreting the rules?

Especially as they have demonstrated how slow they are to adapt?

 

[Foxfyre]

The point is, those who HAVE read the bill or who have read or listened to the analysis of credible people as to what is in it are in a much better position to judge whether the bill is acceptable to people who value personal freedom or not.

People who value big government control--those who want a king to give them what they want and keep them safe from all harm--don't care. They trust the government more than they trust the people to do what is best.

And then there are people like me who want the government to secure our rights and then leave us alone to live our lives, conduct our business, and pursue and strive for whatever we want. I oppose giving the government control over anything that has potential, now or in the future, to screw up or derail the free market system.

 

[asterism]

Ahhhh, so you do know what a backbone is. Well at least you've heard of it. So you do realize if a backbone provider is throttling content that would have widespread effects. No?

Actually, that isn't what they are doing. They are prioritizing traffic.

You didn't grasp it the first time, so you won't grasp it this time. But what the hell...

If a business leases a fat pipe from their ISP, they do so with the intent of transacting across it. So IF an office in East Los Angeles wants to create a persistent tunnel to a server farm in Downey, they are in luck. Because the whole area is Verizon. So all they have to do is get an SLA from Verizon, and they're good.

BUT, what if an Office in Denver, needs to connect to the SAP instantiation in Brooklyn? Now we have a problem, because once the traffic leaves the local loop, it becomes open season. SO, what groups have done is create SLA's with the backbone operators, ensuring that this sort of traffic is prioritized across their switches. Yes, this means that during peak times, the QOS of your porn will be lower than that of the VPN traffic. Too fucking bad - if you want to ensure porn than never stutters, pay business prices and get an SLA.

Here's another:

76. For a number of reasons, including those discussed above in Part II.B, a
commercial arrangement between a broadband provider and a third party to directly or indirectly favor some traffic over other traffic in the broadband Internet access service connection to a subscriber of the broadband provider (i.e., “pay for priority”) would raise significant cause for concern. 22

So nobody can shape traffic according to this. Your torrent download is as important and "neutral" as my emails, chat, and package download. This perspective right here shows that the objective is either control and regulation or just plan lack of actual experience in network management.

In my company emails without large attachments and chat ALWAYS get priority. Torrents, file downloads, and streaming video are behind them. It's the only way to get things done. Otherwise I'd have to upgrade from a T-1 to a T-3 for the same functionality. The torrents can wait. My traffic shaping only affects large distro downloads by a few seconds. But without those rules in my router email just plain stops for an hour or so. Chat ceases to function.

Under the FCC proposal even upgrading to a T-3 won't solve the problem because there will be no option for me to purchase a plan that allows the provider to shape the traffic.

 

[Uncensored2008]

So nobody can shape traffic according to this. Your torrent download is as important and "neutral" as my emails, chat, and package download. This perspective right here shows that the objective is either control and regulation or just plan lack of actual experience in network management.

In my company emails without large attachments and chat ALWAYS get priority. Torrents, file downloads, and streaming video are behind them. It's the only way to get things done. Otherwise I'd have to upgrade from a T-1 to a T-3 for the same functionality. The torrents can wait. My traffic shaping only affects large distro downloads by a few seconds. But without those rules in my router email just plain stops for an hour or so. Chat ceases to function.

Under the FCC proposal even upgrading to a T-3 won't solve the problem because there will be no option for me to purchase a plan that allows the provider to shape the traffic.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

If he won't listen to me, maybe he'll listen to you.

 

[asterism]

78. We also reject the argument that only “anticompetitive” discrimination yielding
“substantial consumer harm” should be prohibited by our rules. 241 We are persuaded those
proposed limiting terms are unduly narrow and could allow discriminatory conduct that is
contrary to the public interest. 242

Here's a real case in point right now:

A content provider, HBO, and an ISP, Bright House, can't strike a deal to allow me to watch True Blood on the Internet. Comcast folks can, but not Bright House. No problem, if I really want to watch Sookie's tits I can switch to DirecTV or Dish. How would this be interpreted under the proposed FCC rules?

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Private business should be able to do what it wants within the law.

The debate here is over what the law should be. You're not a very deep thinker.

The market will decide who actually gets the business.

Example : Let's say internet company A says it is going to charge company Z $100.00 per hour of internet and internet company B says hey we will only charge you $10.00 per month for your internet, who do you think is going to get the business?

Thanks for ECON 101 lesson. Now here's another one

EXAMPLE: Let's say internet regulations are relaxed, allowing company A, who previously charged $25 a month, and company B, who previously charged $25 a month, to both charge you an extra fee of $20 a month to open you big fat trap on US Message Board.com. Which one do you you choose, and are you happy now?

the market does a great job of keeping business in check not the government,

Do you have any REAL WORLD evidence to back that up or just your stupid hypothetical econ 101 examples?

 

[asterism]

So nobody can shape traffic according to this. Your torrent download is as important and "neutral" as my emails, chat, and package download. This perspective right here shows that the objective is either control and regulation or just plan lack of actual experience in network management.

In my company emails without large attachments and chat ALWAYS get priority. Torrents, file downloads, and streaming video are behind them. It's the only way to get things done. Otherwise I'd have to upgrade from a T-1 to a T-3 for the same functionality. The torrents can wait. My traffic shaping only affects large distro downloads by a few seconds. But without those rules in my router email just plain stops for an hour or so. Chat ceases to function.

Under the FCC proposal even upgrading to a T-3 won't solve the problem because there will be no option for me to purchase a plan that allows the provider to shape the traffic.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

If he won't listen to me, maybe he'll listen to you.

I was a huge (for me) advocate of "Net Neutrality" when the concept first came about. I, like most of the activists, didn't want Comcast (then a division of AT&T) to block voice chat. I didn't want Time Warner to block streaming video to my computer out of fear that I would buy from someone else instead of using their pieces of shit Video On Demand services.

But now I have Internet through a Comcast spin off, and I don't need to buy starz because I have a Roku, Netflix and Amazon Prime. I was told early on that these services would never happen without government regulation.

But when I saw that traffic shaping clause (and it's been there the whole time) I stopped supporting it. I've seen how government manages networks. For the most part their view of traffic is somewhere around the capabilities of Novell 3.11. That's not a good national policy.

 

[asterism]

Private business should be able to do what it wants within the law.

The debate here is over what the law should be. You're not a very deep thinker.

The market will decide who actually gets the business.

Example : Let's say internet company A says it is going to charge company Z $100.00 per hour of internet and internet company B says hey we will only charge you $10.00 per month for your internet, who do you think is going to get the business?

Thanks for ECON 101 lesson. Now here's another one

EXAMPLE: Let's say internet regulations are relaxed, allowing company A, who previously charged $25 a month, and company B, who previously charged $25 a month, to both charge you an extra fee of $20 a month to open you big fat trap on US Message Board.com. Which one do you you choose, and are you happy now?

the market does a great job of keeping business in check not the government,

Do you have any REAL WORLD evidence to back that up or just your stupid hypothetical econ 101 examples?

Landline long distance fees were extremely high during the 1990s but they were much lower or free for cell phones. The reason was government regulation.

Under the current situation, if the current provider charged extra based on the content an alternative would be available. AOL and CompuServe used to charge $4.95 per hour for Internet access and had to switch because other ISPs (without any government intervention) provided unlimited dialup access for $20 per month.

If there was a proposal back then for the government to "protect the consumer," I speculate that it would be something like a regulated $1.95 per hour. Would we really be better off? Only in the short term. Before broadband got ubiquitous market forces had dialup down to $2.95 per month.

Same thing on healthcare. I had a great policy in Georgia but now I live in Florida and it isn't as good. Why can't I just keep my Georgia health insurance?

 

[asterism]

Another:

79. We disagree with commenters who argue that a rule against unreasonable
discrimination violates section 3(51) of the Communications Act for those broadband providers
that are telecommunications carriers but do not provide their broadband Internet access service as
a telecommunications service.
246
Section 3(51) provides that a “telecommunications carrier shall
be treated as a common carrier under this Act only to the extent that it is engaged in providing
telecommunications services.”
247
This limitation is not relevant to the Commission’s actions
here.
248
The hallmark of common carriage is an “undertak[ing] to carry for all people
indifferently.”
249

Skype, Google Talk, Windows Live voice chat, and a bunch of other services (the ones that the Net Neutrality activists said would not exist without government involvement) would not exist under the proposed rules.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Landline long distance fees were extremely high during the 1990s but they were much lower or free for cell phones. The reason was government regulation.

Bullshit.

 

[asterism]

This one's a whopper:

A network management practice is reasonable if it is appropriate and tailored to
achieving a legitimate network management purpose, taking into account the particular
network architecture and technology of the broadband Internet access service

That's the same caveat the IRS uses when they say this:

VII. Appeals and Judicial Review

If you disagree with us about the amount of your tax liability or certain collection actions, you have the right to ask the Appeals Office to review your case. You may also ask a court to review your case

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p1.pdf

What the IRS doesn't tell you is that if you appeal you are now subject to their Byzantine rules on appeals, and all of your assets are seized or frozen. So you have the right to argue your case in front a court, but you get to do so representing yourself since you can't hire a lawyer with frozen assets.

Oh and you won't be going up against the auditor the IRS sent work your case, you're going up against some of the best attorneys the IRS has. That's what happens when the government makes the rules and then participates in the process. They almost always win, one way or another. So in this case a provider has the ability to petition a government bureaucrat, but the deck is stacked it the FCC's favor.

As I pointed out previously, this proposal gives the FCC absolute authority to decide interpretation and implementation. Also pointed out above, the reason Skype even exists is because it was not a telecommunications provider when it launched. It was an unregulated Internet service.

Also alluded above, is the phenomenon that we now know as "free long distance" on cell phones. That was not a government action that caused this, it was that cell phones didn't fall under landline rules and therefore were not required by regulation to charge for long distance.

Do we really want to stop the next Skype? Do we really want to stop the next Roku or Netflix?

Government regulation did not create these services and lack of government regulation hasn't stopped them.

 

[asterism]

I'm not even close to half way through this document. Here's another:

83. As proposed in the Open Internet NPRM, we will further develop the scope of
reasonable network management on a case-by-case basis, as complaints about broadband
providers’ actual practices arise.
259

That's nearly identical to a letter I received from the FBI in 2002 when someone ordered a bunch of products from my website using a fraudulent credit card. The problem was, it was below a certain threshhold (which was $50,000) so they would not get involved. I was out $2000 and I wanted the people that stole from me to be prosecuted. I agree (and stated at the time) that this is not an FBI matter, but the government regulations prohibited any other activity. The state government said their hands were tied, the crime occurred on my server. The state where my server was said that the actual crime was committed at the computer in another state. The bank upon which the funds were drawn said that the FBI was the only entity they could refer the case to.

I say this because in this proposal, content providers who feel they have been incorrectly blocked have this as their only option, some government agency in charge of regulating this. Relying on a government agency for enforcement of standards they themselves define and prioritize does not do anyone any good.

Think about this. If you are going to send a priceless (to you) piece of costume jewelry to your daughter, would you really use the USPS? We're still trying to find out what happened to a piece my grandmother sent to my daughter. The declared value was $5 and that was accurate. There's no provision to put $20,000 because that would be mail fraud. But now it's gone and I have no recourse because we only lost $5. That was the same treatment when my business lost $2000.

 

[RDD_1210]

Thanks for calling out those sections Asterism. I will read them tomorrow in more detail. I do appreciate the effort.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Two straight posts and you still haven't got a clue. Impressive. Hey, at least your consistent! You're right though, this is just about getting access to the internet for free! Solid analysis.

Is there a specific reason, other than your complete inability to deal with reality, why you have not addressed the fact that I actually posted a link that shows that AT&T wrote the net neutrality regulations the FCC is trying to impose?

Because I learned long ago that you don't know how to have a rational conversation.

But just to humor you, yes, I am aware of the bastardization of the Net Neutrality legislation, which proposed keeping wired networking neutral while allowing wireless communication to be manipulated. It certainly isn't ideal, but it's still better than letting big ISPs run rampant across everything.

Right now we have nothing, and you think letting AT&T dictate the rules is better than nothing. And you claim that I am the one that cannot have a rational conversation.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

So which is it? The federal government should protect us, or leave us alone? You do know that if you want protection, that there has to be some rules and regulation that they have to pass in order to be successful. Right?

The federal government should protect our unalienable, civil, legal, and Constitutional rights. And that's it. It should not be who smooths out every bump in the road, solves every problem, fixes everything that breaks, eliminates every hazard, prevents us from being frustrated or angry or offended or getting our feelings hurt.

Do you know what an unalienable right is? Can you define it as the Founders intended it?

Sure do. Sure can.

I guess then it boils down to what value you place on the internet, technology and the way we get information in this day and age. If you are ok with information being restricted and controlled then that's your choice. If you don't consider the internet to be of enough importance to protect its use by all, then that's where we'll just have to disagree.

I do not see the government protecting access to information. Governments always work to restrict access to information in order to maintain power and control. Putting them in charge of guaranteeing access is like letting the fox guard the hen house.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

But what if what you like is not a preferred site by your ISP and you can't reach that site, but instead you are only able to get to the ISP's preferred site. You're cool with that?

I get a new ISP and that old ISP loses me and any other customers who like whatever websites they screw with.

Thats the beauty of american capitalism, well what is still left of it anyway.

The problem is such competition simply does not exist, and it isn’t likely to exist in the foreseeable future. Most Americans have access to two broadband providers — cable and DSL. That’s it. These two systems dominate, holding over 98 percent of the broadband market.

A significant chunk of the country has only one broadband provider, and around 10 percent of households have none at all. This is hardly a competitive market. Certainly there is insufficient competition between different technologies to produce any kind of deterrent. If both the local cable and telephone companies are using their networks to discriminate, the consumer is trapped. There is nowhere else to go.

That’s why nondiscrimination through Network Neutrality is so critical for the content and
application layer of the Internet. Without Network Neutrality, the telephone and cable duopoly will leverage its market power over the network to gain control over the content and application markets, establishing a handful of wireline companies as the gatekeepers of the Internet.

That is a flat out lie.

The only people that have limited competitive access are those who live in rural areas. Last time I checked the maps most Americans live in cities or suburbs, not rural areas. By the way, as I have pointed out multiple times, the reason that cable suppliers have monopolies is that governments gave it to them, not because they managed to drive other companies out of business.

 

[Oddball]

I get a new ISP and that old ISP loses me and any other customers who like whatever websites they screw with.

Thats the beauty of american capitalism, well what is still left of it anyway.

The problem is such competition simply does not exist, and it isn’t likely to exist in the foreseeable future. Most Americans have access to two broadband providers — cable and DSL. That’s it. These two systems dominate, holding over 98 percent of the broadband market.

A significant chunk of the country has only one broadband provider, and around 10 percent of households have none at all. This is hardly a competitive market. Certainly there is insufficient competition between different technologies to produce any kind of deterrent. If both the local cable and telephone companies are using their networks to discriminate, the consumer is trapped. There is nowhere else to go.

That’s why nondiscrimination through Network Neutrality is so critical for the content and
application layer of the Internet. Without Network Neutrality, the telephone and cable duopoly will leverage its market power over the network to gain control over the content and application markets, establishing a handful of wireline companies as the gatekeepers of the Internet.

That is a flat out lie.

The only people that have limited competitive access are those who live in rural areas. Last time I checked the maps most Americans live in cities or suburbs, not rural areas. By the way, as I have pointed out multiple times, the reason that cable suppliers have monopolies is that governments gave it to them, not because they managed to drive other companies out of business.

I'm posting from one of those rural areas right now.

We have the choice between dial-up, DSL and satellite.

RDD has absolutely NFI what he's talking about, and he's the only one on this tread who hasn't figured that out.

 

[asterism]

Thanks for calling out those sections Asterism. I will read them tomorrow in more detail. I do appreciate the effort.

I hope so. There are good reasons for net neutrality controls, but not this IMO.