Net neutrality legislation
 

Net neutrality... sounds fair right?

Be very wary of this legislation as it basically comes down to censorship.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php...ty_Legislation

How?

Sssh! Dont spoil his tinhat parade. :O:

Yeah i've been hearing the same warning but haven't gotten any specifics yet.

It will simply enable the goverment with the power to mandate what can and cannot be published on the web.

I think the interenet is already pretty neutral for every drudge there is a daily kos or two or three so why the need for legislation?

Its the same motivation as in goverment run healthcare... control.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/pos...?hpid=sec-tech

No it doesn't. Not at all. It prevents ISPs from limiting access to sites that haven't paid a fee. So if you oppose censorship, you should be in favor of net neutrality.

What mookie said. :up:

I keep hearing "rumors" about net neutrality and how bad it is for years now, but all I have seen so far is, that it is supposed to guaranty free flow of information/data on the net, regardless of source, format or content.

The end result of this is going to be bad for the US consumer. It's already starting to happen. Many broadband companies used to provide unlimited bandwidth. They started traffic shaping, cutting down bit torrent traffic and other bandwidth hog applications. This was done to make sure services were available to everyone. That started the uproar.

Now they are starting to put a caps on total bandwidth. Eventually you'll start getting charged by the Gb and you'll pay more during prime time than off hours. Just like phone service has been doing for years. Sometimes the voices in my head, the ones wearing tin foil hats, tell me this was the plan from the beginning and they are using net neutrality as the excuse.

Thet is what non-neutral net is, traffic shapping and such, net neutrality legislation aims to restrain ISPs from doing that... Net Neutrality=Freedom of traffic=nonrestrictive traffic measures

I too have heard alot about this - and so far the ONLY beef I have against it is that it appears (from the limited research I have had time to do) to create a "standard" of access to which everyone should have. However, in creating this standard, there is no ability to offer "above standard" access.

The problem here isn't censorship, the problem is it will KILL businesses.

Everyone - and by that we are talking an individual or a company - will end up with the same size "pipe" to the internet. Given current technology, and what is on the near horizon, you have a limited total pipe to push data through. With "net neutrality", grandma who never turns on her computer will have a certain amount of throughput reserved for her, should she ever do so. Just because its not in use doesn't mean someone else can use it until she wants to.

Now when grandma checks her email, gets a new cookie recipe and then logs off, did she use nearly the amount of pipe that say.... a major company did? Of course not. But with this, that same company is limited to the same data flow amounts as grandma.

VOIP? Forget about it. Phone costs alone for companies will skyrocket. Oh... and don't forget - your friendly neighborhood google and yahoo and msn and everyone else - they get the same size pipe you do. So what happens when 1000 people try to access google at the same time, and your all trying to get your request through that limited pipe? Can you say LAG????

Again, my understanding is incomplete, but what I have seen looks like some serious support by the phone companies, because this will give them a serious influx of cash oon POTS service again, a market that has languished in recent years.

One thing you should always do when you look at any legislation.....

Follow the money....

People seem to be concerned this is censorship. Its actually more about hurting larger businesses.

CaptainHaplo, if that is what happens, I will eat my entire supply of tin foil.

CH your understanding is likely brought forth by the propaganda given by major corps that have been making money by slowing down or outright blocking traffic.

First of all Grandma DOES have the same amount of bandwidth as you. That isnt anything new. If some jackass on the street is using his connection to pirate all seasons of CSI it slows grandma down not the other way around. That is called Cable internet.

This legislation is to prevent the underhanded tactics of some ISPs to further their interest deals with some companies. Sudden slowdowns of some video sites while big player sites get through faster killing revenue of smaller buisnesses.

http://thehill.com/hillicon-valley/6...-the-internetq#

Long on fearmongering, short on facts.

Agreed whole lots of that coming from the anti-neutral camp.

Good thing is it stands a very good chance on getting passed.

Possibly, but by whom?

I admit that I don't have enough understanding of current internet regulation or technical specifics, let alone the contents of the proposed legislation, to form a complete opinion but my instinct is to call it into question.

Forgive me my doubts, but I think there is just cause for them. How many pieces of legislation that were supposed to provide equality have been proven only to be avenues for legislative and corporate favoritism, abuse, and waste?

Many consumers have benefited from de-regulation of industry, rather than regulation of it. I present the telecom industry as a somewhat comparable example. It has its' share of subsidies and penalties nowadays, to be sure, but it remains one of the most competitive and innovative industries in the US. The abolition of the (US) state-sponsored telecom monopoly resulted in a telecom explosion that has lasted nearly 3 decades, and shows no signs of slowing. Stocks and profit margins have risen and fallen during those years, but the end result is that we have better service at lower prices(inflation adjusted) than we did before. Of course, modern telecommunications is a relatively new industry, but it has already shown signs of wear and tear under state intervention. Business moves to where the climate is most favorable, and the US state has inadvertently been working hard to create an unfavorable climate, and the result has been the amalgamation of business on an almost unprecedented scale.

To me, the path that the US telecom industry is following is a fast-forward model of what used to be our core industries. Heavy industry has long since gone the way of the dinosaur (or at least, as much as supply and demand will allow). Mass internet is an even more recent industry, and it is moving at an even faster pace towards slowed, and eventually negative, growth in the US. Some of you may remember the FBI's proposed "Carnivore" program from about a decade ago, which was abandoned due to cost-inefficiency and public controversy. It took less than a decade for such radical legislation to be proposed in the internet industry, whereas the first major US telecom regulation was proposed in 1996, slightly less than three decades after "Ma Bell" began its' deconstruction (late 1956) due to consumer cries for deregulation. The exponential growth of the state in the meantime seems to correlate this theory of " the more the state grows, the faster business fails.

Of course, it is not a direct correlation, there are far too many variables involved. Population growth, currency supply as opposed to market growth, multiple changes in administration at all levels, new technologies, etc, make it difficult to discern a predictable pattern in any state-economic relationship other than at the extremes, but the general rule is that less state intervention is better than more in terms of wealth per capita, short of anarcho-capitalism or anarchy.

The very nature of the Federal government, in most capacities, is to create inequality and stifle competition. It can't do much else, because it is largely a fiat monopoly. Waste, inefficiency,and favoritism are its' hallmarks. Am I supposed to believe that it has suddenly found a way of creating a "level playing field", despite the repeated and costly failures of its attempts to do just that?

Perhaps you agree to some extent, and perhaps you do not, but I invite you to consider this that you know to be true; Regulation is not so much "limiting" to business as it is "enabling" the powerful businesses, with the best legal representation, to manipulate whatever system is in place. In general, I feel that regulations like this "net neutrality" are only going to accelerate the desires of service providers to amalgamate or move elsewhere, and consumers will follow as long as their decisions lower prices.

To those that will, I invite you to accuse me of donning a tinfoil hat, but I consider my views to be colored with a healthy amount of skepticism and nothing more. You'll have to forgive me for considering the idea that a piece of legislation, drafted by a body that is largely comprised of lawyers, who are generally regarded as being self-serving scum given legal authority, and who are also politicians, which are equally reviled, is going to be a mechanism for enabling monopoly and the stifling of competition rather than a legal liberator.

Again, I profess my ignorance on the subject at hand, but given past trends I am leaning towards the opinion that less state interference is better than more. I may be wrong, but I have yet to encounter an example where more legislation generated more competition, and better results for the consumer, save where the state has legislated the breakup of state monopoly.

The senator in question seems to be speaking as a mouthpiece for the telecom companies. She provides no detail in her statements of what part of any proposed net neutrality bill would cause the things she's saying will happen. For all the evidence she's given, she might as well say that tigers will come and eat us all if net neutrality is passed.

Plenty, but I'm really not seeing the downside to making sure ISPs maintain the same level of service we have today.

And many have been absolutely screwed by deregulation. I speak of myself: http://www.businesspundit.com/texas-...-deregulation/
When the Texas electric companies were deregulated, it led to us going from paying some of the lowest rates in the country to paying the most in the country. A fact I'm painfully aware of during our hot summers.

Bad for Subsim users if it isn't passed.
If the ISPs are taking money from big websites to give their traffic
priority over the likes of subsum; that means a slower connection for the
subsim users.

OK I have done some research on this.

Its good and bad. Both sides have valid concerns and points.

As it is currently proposed, I cannot support it. Provide a way for companies to pay for larger pipes, while assuring a minimum level of service to all customers - would allow for the freedom we see today to continue.

Like it or not, every person or company does NOT have the same internet needs. You can't limit a major company to a limited pipe just because them having a bigger one isn't "fair". Especially if they are willing to purchase it. A small, 100-200 person business may need a fragmented T1, where grandma will be fine with a standard ADSL line.

Huge companies may need an OC-3 of better. Data warehouses are great, but what if you can't GET too them?

As for it being good for subsim - no it wouldnt be. The firm that hosts the servers for Subsim would be entitled to the "standard" connection - thats all they get. So all us subsimmers would be fighting with every other person who wants to connect to some other site that is hosted alongside Subsim. That would be HORRIBLE.

Change the legislation to where traffic shaping can and must be used to provide on deman minimum levels of service to any paying customer, as well as allowing that same bandwidth to be used by others when its not required to meet service levels, and then allow higher level service packages to be sold if the pipe can meet its base service levels and have room. Then we will talk.

Edit - the reason I am against this - is because its designed to fix a "future problem" that hasn't happened yet, and might not, when the "fix" WILL cause problems. Thats not smart government.

Where are you getting this from? This isn't what net neutrality is about at all.

Let's cut through the BS, spin and fearmongering from the telecoms and see what the FCC net neutrality changes really are:

http://consumerist.com/5388469/heres...ity-rules-mean