View Full Version : Net neutrality act .. squashed !
SteamWake
04-06-10, 10:54 AM
Woops another agenda item fails.
The Federal Communications Commission does not have the legal authority to impose strict Net neutrality regulations on Internet providers, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.
A three-judge panel in Washington, D.C. unanimously tossed out the FCC's August 2008 cease and desist order against Comcast, which had taken measures to slow BitTorrent transfers and had voluntarily ended them earlier in the year.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20001825-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
SteamWake
04-06-10, 11:46 AM
Well that sucks.
It does? So you want goverment regulation over the internet?
That is after all is what they were hoping for.
nikimcbee
04-06-10, 11:48 AM
They're talking about it on the radio now. I need more info on the subject.
It does? So you want goverment regulation over the internet?
That is after all is what they were hoping for.
The government control being that the government said the private company can't regulate the internet?
The government control being that the government said the private company can't regulate the internet?
Exactly.
Wolfehunter
04-06-10, 03:13 PM
Who is worse? governments or companies? Both are going to use it to there own gains.. People will suffer anyhow... :hmmm:
SteamWake
04-06-10, 03:22 PM
The government control being that the government said the private company can't regulate the internet?
The ultimate goal was to be able to have the goverment regulate content on the internet in the name of "Fairness".
The thing with comcast was just a foot in the door.
Aramike
04-06-10, 04:33 PM
Who is worse? governments or companies? Both are going to use it to there own gains.. People will suffer anyhow... :hmmm:...or the third option; anarchy.
The government doesn't need to regulate the internet. They merely need to regulate the providers.
Torvald Von Mansee
04-06-10, 04:38 PM
Woops another agenda item fails.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20001825-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Nice to see someone standing up for the Big Guys. They're so otherwise powerless.
Aramike
04-06-10, 04:47 PM
Nice to see someone standing up for the Big Guys. They're so otherwise powerless.Shouldn't the big guys and the little guys have the same rights?
Bubblehead1980
04-06-10, 05:16 PM
This is why I despise the left and Dem party, over the years they have managed to play enough identity politics, take advantage of those who are less fortunate etc that we have generations now who think it's all "little guys vs big guys" meaning the companies are bad, bad, bad and the government is the referee on the side of the good guy, the "little" guy.I am sorry but this is crap!
The net neutrality act is a government agenda to control the one medium they do not, the internet.They are not trying to help the little guy here(they never are, just their playbook in getting support for things) so glad this part of the agenda failed this time.Give them an inch, they will take a mile.
Ducimus
04-06-10, 05:42 PM
There are two sides to every story, and while everybody wants to paint the Net Neutrality debate as being a Braveheart-style battle of freedom-lovers versus corporate monarchs, there is more to it than that.
If you're not familiar with the subject, basically right now we have net neutrality. ISPs are essentially dumb pipes and they don't know or care if that data you just downloaded was in the form of historical documents from local university libraries, or an encyclopedic collection of Brazilian fecal fetish pornography. The Internet today is the wonderful, endlessly fascinating place it is in large part due to the fact that it's been free and open its entire life.
ISP's want to change that, mainly because different applications use massively different resources. There's no comparing the stress that downloading HD movies puts on their network versus, say, reading a Cracked article's worth of text. So they want to change their infrastructure and how they bill you for it.
The problem is this also would let them slap on all sorts of controls they never could before, such as blocking competing websites, or signing exclusive deals for content. After all, Comcast both provides Internet access to millions and owns NBC, so taking away net neutrality could let them block competing networks and that could turn ugly fast. It's thus no surprise that a variety of semi-respected sources, including the chief of the FCC, are standing up for net neutrality.
Phew! The Chairman of the FCC! We're safe, right?
Actually...
The carriers continue to push against net neutrality. Its future is hardly secure, as mobile carriers AND ISPs have ample motivation. Google, patron saint of the "free information" movement, has even dipped its toes in anti-neutrality waters. They approached "major cable and phone companies" with a proposal to give Google content a "fast lane" of its own.
Major corporations and political entities getting bandwidth preference over small, independent sites and individuals is exactly what net neutrality advocates fear the most.
So What Can We Do? Well, this is where it gets complicated.
The ISPs aren't just being greedy here. Bandwidth costs a lot of ****ing money and usage is growing at a retarded rate. For instance, most of the video game consoles now offer HD movie and TV show streaming, and soon they may give up physical media completely to stream all of the games you buy directly to the system (because it would kill off the used games market that they claim is eating all of their profits). Everybody is quickly replacing their faucets with fire hoses.
If net neutrality stays and the ISP's can't offer multiple tiers of service, then they say they will have to use an even more annoying solution: putting an end to unlimited plans completely and making you pay for every gigabyte of that Bittorrent download of every single episode of The Simpsons. And you won't be able to simply switch ISPs unless you find one run by some eccentric billionaire who feels like giving away his money for the good of the people.
The problem is that what we want out of this situation--cheap, infinitely scalable bandwidth--is the one outcome we can't have. And while the other threats on this list can maybe be avoided, this is one that will end in the Internet being less free, you paying a lot more or a combination of both.
So enjoy what you have while you can, for these are The Good Old Days.
Taken from an article on cracked.com
Platapus
04-06-10, 05:50 PM
an encyclopedic collection of Brazilian fecal fetish pornography.
Link?
Ducimus
04-06-10, 05:55 PM
Link?
LOL, i love cracked.com, its a great humor and satire site, and they drip with more sarcasm then even i could conjure. But occasionally they make a point and back it up with references. If i just provided the link, nobody would have read it.
The bit i pasted is from page 2 of this article:
5 Reasons The Internet Could Die At Any Moment (http://www.cracked.com/article_18453_5-reasons-internet-could-die-at-any-moment.html)
CaptainHaplo
04-06-10, 06:05 PM
Net Neutrality as it is pushed is a bad thing - but that doesn't mean all the ideas in it are bad.
Like most things, its never a black and white issue. However, when any "regulation" over-reaches and goes beyond what is needed - it should be rebuffed. That is what occured here.
The issue isn't dead, but issues will be corrected and you will see it again.
What was the actual law proposed? Was it longer than something like:
"All packets must be forwarded, and in the order received." ?
I'd wager it was. Probably included pork, too, lol. At 1000 pages.
Imagine having our access to Subsim deliberately slowed down or even limited to a particular geographic area because Neil doesn't pay his IP an extra fee. Imagine a big company with deep pockets paying an IP to squeeze the connection to their small competitors.
This is what Net Neutrality was trying to avoid.
Yeah, and healthcare reform was supposed to be "deficit neutral" and "bend the cost curve down."
Oh, and all negotiations were supposed to be on CSPAN (all of the above per direct statements by the President).
It will do none of the above, and we were instead told by the Speaker that it needed to be passed so we (the People) could see what was in it.
Again, what was the text of the law? Was it longer than what I posted above? If it was, it likely did a lot more than you say was the goal.
Platapus
04-06-10, 07:05 PM
tater, you twice asked what the wording of the proposed law was. Why don't you research it and read it for yourself?
If you are really interested in the wording of legislation, it is best to go to a reliable source instead of asking on a video game forum. :D
True, I was being lazy, though. I assumed that anyone who cared that passionately about it (I never really paid attention to it) would know the law by heart.
Yeah, and healthcare reform was supposed to be "deficit neutral" and "bend the cost curve down."
Well yeah, but however failed or misguided the effort was, it does not mean the need for reform doesn't exist.
Looks like a typical, government mess from what I can find. Vague wording that gives exemptions for "reasonable network management." Without actually having any real requirements for what that means, and later they added "guidelines."
Here's a quote I found at arstechnica:
In an odd twist, the Electronic Frontier Foundation agrees. Despite supporting neutrality, the group argues that "Congress has never given the FCC any authority to regulate the Internet for the purpose of ensuring net neutrality." (This is the basic argument being made now in federal court by Comcast.)
The danger is that such authority over the Internet might today be used for good, but "it could just as easily be invoked tomorrow for any other Internet regulation that the FCC dreams up (including things we won’t like). For example, it doesn't take much imagination to envision a future FCC 'Internet Decency Statement'… And it's also too easy to imagine an FCC 'Internet Lawful Use Policy,' created at the behest of the same entertainment lobby that has long been pressing the FCC to impose DRM on TV and radio, with ISPs required or encouraged to filter or otherwise monitor their users to ensure compliance."
Seems like a reasonable opposition. If they have the precedent to regulate, then we are stuck with a situation where we are at the whim of some random appointee. Get a bad one, and things go south fast.
Well yeah, but however failed or misguided the effort was, it does not mean the need for reform doesn't exist.
Passing bad, counter productive reform is not better than doing nothing at all.
First, do no harm.
What was passed does rather a lot of harm.
Passing bad, counter productive reform is not better than doing nothing at all.
First, do no harm.
What was passed does rather a lot of harm.
Well I guess we'll see then Tater. The need still exists.
It'll do harm to me, our insurance cost—including all the new taxes—will more than double. :)
It'll do harm to me, our insurance cost—including all the new taxes—will more than double. :)
I got news for you, our insurance costs were on their way to doubling already long before the Democrats went on their latest pork spending spree.
CaptainHaplo
04-06-10, 09:10 PM
As I said - there are good and bad points to the Net Neutrality proposal.
The reason that FIFO won't work is because there are reasons for legitimate traffic to be prioritized or throttled.
Simple FIFO means that - were it to be law - an ISP would NOT be allowed to assist in shutting down any type of DDOS attack, for example. Nor could an ISP note that a group of 500 users are sucking up the bandwidth with "file sharing" which is resulting in reduced performance for other users. It limits the ability of an ISP to control what is on their equipment - which in the case of file sharing - lets say they want to cut out certain protocols due to legal issues. They couldn't legally do so.
Now the flip side - lets say this never goes forward in any form, then could one company limit bandwidth to certain customers? Sure they could. However, in a free market - that is what creates movement of customers. Take Subsim - if the hoster is getting shafter by Sprint due to a deal where google is faster than anything else - the hoster (and not Neal himself) is going to take his customer base to another firm that will gladly take those customers. Yet the free market can't guarantee availability of that service everywhere - so there does need to be SOME guidelines.
This is why there are valid points on both sides.
I got news for you, our insurance costs were on their way to doubling already long before the Democrats went on their latest pork spending spree.
True, but this will be worse. I'd bet that Krauthammer is right, and the next step after adding trillions of entitlement spending they'll ask for a VAT.
True, but this will be worse. I'd bet that Krauthammer is right, and the next step after adding trillions of entitlement spending they'll ask for a VAT.
Maybe so but I think the Democrats would be committing political suicide. They already didn't get the lift in the polls that they expected after passage and it would just be the final straw.
Aramike
04-06-10, 11:13 PM
Imagine having our access to Subsim deliberately slowed down or even limited to a particular geographic area because Neil doesn't pay his IP an extra fee. Imagine a big company with deep pockets paying an IP to squeeze the connection to their small competitors.
This is what Net Neutrality was trying to avoid.I don't disagree with that premise, and I'll admit I'm only vaguely familiar with the issue in question. However, I also don't disagree with the idea of covering pre-existing conditions (with some considerations, of course) regarding healthcare, but that does not mean that ObamaCare was a good thing.
I think the Act could have been simplified to prevent the "problem" while avoiding the more intrusive government impositions.
Aramike
04-06-10, 11:17 PM
This is why I despise the left and Dem party, over the years they have managed to play enough identity politics, take advantage of those who are less fortunate etc that we have generations now who think it's all "little guys vs big guys" meaning the companies are bad, bad, bad and the government is the referee on the side of the good guy, the "little" guy.I am sorry but this is crap!
That is specifically why I despise the left as well. Any organization that seeks to deny rights to corporations that it readily grants to labor unions is undeniably corrupt.
In the battle for Big Money versus Big Money, the Big Money that claims to look out for the workers wins, whereas the Big Money that actually provides jobs to those workers, should be crap-out-of-luck, according to the left. That leaves their credibility at zero, as far as I'm concerned, despite the fact that I ideologically agree with them on more than a few issues.
Intellectual integrity should count for something.
Zachstar
04-07-10, 06:40 AM
Shouldn't the big guys and the little guys have the same rights?
No.. Because when the big guys have the same rights they use them to squash the little guy.
Edit: The fact is the "internet" is FROM the government FROM the military (You think a company gives a rats butt that the network survives a thermonuclear war?) And if the gov did not regulate and put in standards we would be using 10-50 different "Internets" by now.
If ANYONE here thinks that Comcast would use some kind of "promise of no net neutrality" ruling just to throttle file sharers and stop DoS attacks deserves to be laughed at in my opinion. ISPs are salvating at the thought of having say google pay millions hand over fist to keep from having say youtube slowed down.
Zachstar
04-07-10, 06:53 AM
That is specifically why I despise the left as well. Any organization that seeks to deny rights to corporations that it readily grants to labor unions is undeniably corrupt.
In the battle for Big Money versus Big Money, the Big Money that claims to look out for the workers wins, whereas the Big Money that actually provides jobs to those workers, should be crap-out-of-luck, according to the left. That leaves their credibility at zero, as far as I'm concerned, despite the fact that I ideologically agree with them on more than a few issues.
Intellectual integrity should count for something.
Yes corporations ought to have the right to defy safety standards and threaten to outsource at the first sign of "union resistance" Is that right? oh wait they already do. Sounds like they don't really need those rights as opposed to say the guy who gets fired for showing up late once while the hot coworker with a nice bum gets a promotion despite being late many times before.
Crap out of luck eh? Sounds like comcast disagrees today eh?
Again, I think that many agree that some form of net neutrality is a good thing, but that does not mean the way the FCC went about it is desirable.
It strikes me that such a law should not be too complex—and it should be a law. Making it the whim of unelected regulators means that the net is one bad appointment from regulating far more than we would ever want regulated.
Aramike
04-07-10, 11:50 AM
Yes corporations ought to have the right to defy safety standards and threaten to outsource at the first sign of "union resistance" Is that right? oh wait they already do. Sounds like they don't really need those rights as opposed to say the guy who gets fired for showing up late once while the hot coworker with a nice bum gets a promotion despite being late many times before.
Crap out of luck eh? Sounds like comcast disagrees today eh? So wait - you're CHANGING my argument to make a point against it?
Because I implied SAME rights as a union, and in any case was clearly referring to election laws.
Besides, your counter-argument to my "union versus corporation" argument precludes the union altogether, which I did not do. Ergo, strawman.
mookiemookie
04-07-10, 12:52 PM
Imagine having our access to Subsim deliberately slowed down or even limited to a particular geographic area because Neil doesn't pay his IP an extra fee. Imagine a big company with deep pockets paying an IP to squeeze the connection to their small competitors.
This is what Net Neutrality was trying to avoid.
We don't often agree, but we do on this issue.
The scary part of this is that as it currently stands, the outcomes are very bad for consumers. The ideologues will try to paint this as the big bad gubmint trying to control things on the internet, but they misunderstand the argument.
As it stands now: (http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/fcc-next/)
A broadband company could, for instance, ink a deal with Microsoft to transfer all attempts to reach Google.com to Bing.com. The only recourse a user would have, under the ruling, would be to switch to a different provider — assuming, of course, they had an alternative to switch to.
Companies can also now prohibit you from using a wireless router you bought at the store, forcing you to use one they rent out — just as they do with cable boxes. They could also decide to charge you a fee every time you upgrade your computer, or even block you from using certain models, just as the nation’s mobile phone carriers do today.
But the last laugh may be on the ISPs. The FCC could potentially reclassify them as telecoms, bringing them under the FCC's purview. And that comes with a lot of regulation that the ISPs probably wouldn't like.
Read more here: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/fcc-next/
Aramike
04-07-10, 01:43 PM
We don't often agree, but we do on this issue.
The scary part of this is that as it currently stands, the outcomes are very bad for consumers. The ideologues will try to paint this as the big bad gubmint trying to control things on the internet, but they misunderstand the argument.
As it stands now: (http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/fcc-next/)
But the last laugh may be on the ISPs. The FCC could potentially reclassify them as telecoms, bringing them under the FCC's purview. And that comes with a lot of regulation that the ISPs probably wouldn't like.
Read more here: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/fcc-next/Coulda, woulda, shoulda ...
But they don't.
In any case, it isn't up to the FCC to make those determinations.
Zachstar
04-07-10, 02:06 PM
But they don't? Comcast already throttled bittorrent traffic back when they werent 100 percent sure they were in the clear.
Not up to the FCC? Again read up on the history of the internet. The backbone of it all is from the gov.
There are some GOP pro net neutrality congress critters so moving ISPs back to telecoms would be easy. My guess is tho congress is going to take a pass right now and watch.
Right now its MAD If comcast tries somthing again Net Neutrality will likely be passed. They ought to have accepted the punishment it would have been less likely to have NN passed.
Aramike
04-07-10, 02:10 PM
But they don't? Comcast already throttled bittorrent traffic back when they werent 100 percent sure they were in the clear.So wait - you have a problem with a company attempting to prevent any legal liability on their part?'
Besides, thats hardly restricting access to Google in favor of, say, Bing.[quote]Not up to the FCC? Again read up on the history of the internet. The backbone of it all is from the gov.[quote]Yes, not up to the FCC. Specifically correct. That, in fact, is what this entire topic is about.
A court has ruled that it is not up to the FCC. Agree with it or not, the FACT is that it is not up to the FCC. I don't know how to make this clearer.
Zachstar
04-07-10, 02:24 PM
The FACT then is that the FCC by its own choices does not have the authority its the usual Bush era BS that can be fixed quickly by moving them back into telecoms.
Its MAD
mookiemookie
04-07-10, 02:52 PM
Coulda, woulda, shoulda ...
But they don't. But for how long? I'd like to see it regulated in stone that they can't.
I'm normally as Capitalist as anyone here but in all fairness when has an opportunity to make more money not been pursued by big business? Has that ever happened, ever?
I don't much give a crap as long as my bill doesn't go up (in fact I'd rather see it go down), but if my internet bill becomes as convoluted as my electric and telephone bills with their tax for this and charge for that and delivery charge (which somehow is different from transmission charge) and the rest of it i'm gonna be pissed.
Ishmael
04-07-10, 07:58 PM
There IS a remedy to the Comcast decision no one has addressed yet. Virtually ALL of Comcast's cable service areas are local Municipal Monopoly Operations. That means that Comcast signed deals with local towns and cities for monopoly service in exchange for building the coax cable infrastructure in the US. What if people in their local communities were to lobby their municipal elected officials to end the Monopoly agreements and open the contracts up to competitive bidding to ALL Telecoms, ISPs, cable and wireless companies? How would THAT impact Comcast's bottom-line? The National fiberoptic backbone is ultra-fast at OC-192 DWDM levels, or over 4 million voice channels per fiber. That backbone is slowed considerably by the fact that most of the last mile subscriber loops in the country are either 40-50 year-old coaxial cable or 60-70 year-old twisted copper wire pairs. The analogy I use is if you took a Ferrari Testarossa and put a 45 mph governor on the fuel intake system. Until fiber is actually deployed to the subscriber loop, this problem will not go away.
Zachstar
04-07-10, 11:06 PM
Comcast gets to be king of the hill with coax but google and city broadband utilities are starting to go for fiber all the way. Any town that gets google ISP is going to see comcasts local profits crumble. One of the reasons why they are politically shooting themselves in the foot by getting this ruling. If they try somthing funky they may face a double whammy of being switched to telecom and harsh competition from fiber.
Whatever the case tho. DSL is so screwed :P
Comcast gets to be king of the hill with coax but google and city broadband utilities are starting to go for fiber all the way. Any town that gets google ISP is going to see comcasts local profits crumble. One of the reasons why they are politically shooting themselves in the foot by getting this ruling. If they try somthing funky they may face a double whammy of being switched to telecom and harsh competition from fiber.
Whatever the case tho. DSL is so screwed :P
DSL is pretty much dead around here. Verizon takes down the copper lines to any house where it installs FiOS so there is no turning back. Not even to a regular pots line.
Zachstar
04-07-10, 11:41 PM
Verizon is not exactly a good company but the phone line system is on its last legs. DSL has been the only thing keeping them from being torn down for their copper.
The only arguement for a hard line system is resiliency in a time of crisis but even that is no longer true because all the switchboxes are now computers anyway. Besides you would always use long arrays of cat5 cable in emergencies requiring direct connection analog.
DSL is simply unable to keep up. You can't even effectively watch youtube at 360p on it anymore. But of course it will take a decade before its fully phased out because that is the only option for so many people.
Aramike
04-07-10, 11:49 PM
The FACT then is that the FCC by its own choices does not have the authority its the usual Bush era BS that can be fixed quickly by moving them back into telecoms.
Its MADI just knew the left couldn't keep Bush out of this for long... :up:
Aramike
04-07-10, 11:50 PM
But for how long? I'd like to see it regulated in stone that they can't.I don't have a problem with that ... so long as its passed by elected officials, and the law would be crystal clear.
Zachstar
04-08-10, 12:09 AM
I just knew the left couldn't keep Bush out of this for long... :up:
Except that the deregulation DID happen under Bush and that is why this is happening.
SteamWake
04-09-10, 09:24 AM
Well it aint over. There is backroom manuvering going on right now on capitol hill.
I tried to find some news feeds on it but have come up empty so far but it basically boils down to the federal goverment 'purchasing' bandwidth.
I will keep my eyes open for a news story on it.
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