New rules for the internet.

[powderman]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703581204576033513990668654.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories




I'm from the govt, I'm here to help you. POWDERMAN. 

[MGMorden]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703581204576033513990668654.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories




I'm from the govt, I'm here to help you. POWDERMAN.  

Refer to my earlier posts on the subject of net neutrality.  This is a good thing, not a bad thing.  

Without net neutrality, if your ISP (say, Comcast) decided that it didn't like firearms websites, GBO could be blocked.  As they also own some backbones, they could even refuse to carry the content as it passed through their systems to OTHER networks.

More dangerous, lets say you like sites like Hulu or Netflix.  Comcast is a major cable provider.  Those sites threaten their old business model.  No problem, they could just block them (or slow them down so as to make them unuseable).  

Switch to your local phone provider selling you DSL access.  They make a ton of money still on voice communications.  VOIP services like Vonage or MagicJack threaten those old profits from an outdated business model.  No problem though - the phone company can just block that site (OR, conveniently tack on a $59 per month "VOIP" option to price it out of reach of you so you're forced back to their own voice packages).

This legislation is good, and is absolutely geared towards granting freedom to the CONSUMER, rather than the company.  Essentially, what it says is that information is information.  Your customers pay for a certain amount of bandwidth and as an ISP you are required to treat all of that information in a neutral fashion.  Don't slow down traffic you don't like.  Don't block sites you don't like.  Let the subscriber request what THEY want to see.

All regulation isn't evil.  Without this we are essentially looking at a corporate destruction of everything the Internet has become.  Heck even as it is the bill that's finally coming through is so full of loopholes and compromises that I'm still not certain the topic won't need to be revisited soon.

Heck as a customer you wont' even notice this, as its not targeted at you.  It's essentially just a list of absolutely scummy stuff that your ISP is NOT allowed to do to their customers.  It'd be like arguing for Wal-marts right to require anal cavity searches upon entry to their store.

[powderman]

MGM. You explained it better than the article. I just feel the feds have their fingers in too many pies. POWDERMAN. 

[BUGEYE]

I have a bad feeling about any kind of regulation.
this administration can read anything in any regulation.
look at how they interpet the constitution.

[Conan The Librarian]

I think this is a case of a solving a problem that didn't exist. Companies like Comcast, for example, know that the value of the internet is free access to most anything a customer might want to look up. That's the key to it's success, and why people are willing to pay to have that service. The issue is that there's only so much bandwidth available and usage habits of people have changed now that downloads may be a relatively small web page, like these on the forum, and orders of magnitude larger, like a youtube video, pandora music, or itunes music file. Meanwhile, companies like google depend on that instantaneous and ultra reliable availability. You say google.com. It's there right now! Every time! These are competing interests.

Companies like Comcast have to pay to accommodate these usage patterns, and companies like google already pay to get preferential treatment. I see no reason why companies able to pay other companies for preferential treatment should be denied that opportunity. This is fundamental to business.

I don't believe that blocking is an issue here. It's response time.

[MGMorden]

I have a bad feeling about any kind of regulation.
this administration can read anything in any regulation.
look at how they interpet the constitution.

In this case it really was needed.  There was a mutual understanding for decades that the internet was to function in a neutral fashion as designed.   No rules were every made about it because up until now the companies were behaving and not causing trouble.  This legislation was crafted SPECIFICALLY because some companies were already starting to try underhanded things.

The thing that really kicked this off as an AT&T executive making a bash at Google.  AT&T sells connectivity - connectivity that their customers pay for.  Google provides a service - they pay for their own ISP as well, and users around the world can access Google's servers.  

Jist of it was that the AT&T exec complained that Google' was getting rich from "cheap servers" while AT&T provided the bandwidth.  They wanted extortion money from Google.  Now, what you had in that situation was Google paying it's ISP, and the user's paying THEIR ISP, but one of the ISP's want to charge both parties.

To put this into perspective, this would be like if you were doing a lot of business with a company, and your phone company noticed that, and then threatened to block their number unless that company decided to skim a little off the top for them.

After that it was like an evil seed had been planted in the minds of many of the big ISP's.  It was an incredibly scummy way to do business, but what do they care?  Most people can't switch ISP's even if they wanted to, because in many places there is only 1 ISP.  The age old adage of "the market will fix it" just doesn't hold because in most places THERE IS NO MARKET.  There's just a single provider who you either pay or go without service.

Trust me, there's a lot of really, really bad legislation regarding the internet right now.  Just look for the "internet kill switch" proposal or ACTA.  Those are both bad and should be opposed.  Net Neutrality on the other hand, is something that has become absolutely necessary to keep the open medium internet from devolving into a model more like cable where you pay for "channels".

[MGMorden]

Conan: Explain to me why, when I, as a subscriber, type in Google.com, on a service that I HAVE ALREADY PAID FOR, should have to rely on Google then paying for that service AGAIN just to make it to me.  The ISP's are wanting to double-dip.  The traffic coming from Google shouldn't have to be prioritized, because the bandwidth to get it to the user is already being paid for *by that user*.  A customer should never have to worry about whether or not a website is paying their extortion fee for "preferential treatment".

Example close to home: if this was implemented, do you think Greybeard Outdoors could afford to pay those fees?  Not just to 1 ISP.  There's lots.  You'd need to pay for "preferential treatment" on Verizon, Comcast, Roadrunner, Qwest, Spirit Telecom, AT&T, and countless others.  All to reach users that already pay those people for access to a network where they are supposed to be able to go anywhere they like.

Trust me, this is way more than solving a problem that didn't exist.  This is shooting a rattlesnake that has just coiled back to strike.

[Conan The Librarian]

MGMorden:

I really don't have an explanation. I'm just relating the facts as I understand them. The way I see it, in the google example, is that the fiber that runs to your neighborhood can only carry so much data in a given amount of time. If a lot of your neighbors are watching movies and listening to music and talking on skype, then the fiber may be at or near its limit. Somebody has to pay to increase that bandwidth, and I don't think it's any of the FCC's business to regulate how your cable provider manages it or times it.

[Conan The Librarian]

MGMorden:

There is another angle on this, and it has to do with censorship. There have been recent articles about the history of how US politicians, notably FDR, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon used the FCC to silence opponents. A book by former network head Fred Friendly keeps coming up as a good history of this abuse. If I read it correctly, FDR was the most notorious because he initiated this as a technique using the precursor to FCC.

My mind is not made up on this issue. If you've got some links and references I'd sure like to read them. I have not paid much attention to this issue, except for the aspect of technical limitation. The manifestation I see is that, for example, musicians don't want the bandwidth of their music distribution sites limited because somebody can out-spend them. That doesn't seem like a realistic threat if it is true that they are not being blocked, but just potentially slowed down by governing algorithms. The algorithms already necessarily exist, so the technical issue seems to be how those algorithms evolve based on usage patterns.

[MGMorden]

MGMorden:

I really don't have an explanation. I'm just relating the facts as I understand them. The way I see it, in the google example, is that the fiber that runs to your neighborhood can only carry so much data in a given amount of time. If a lot of your neighbors are watching movies and listening to music and talking on skype, then the fiber may be at or near its limit. Somebody has to pay to increase that bandwidth, and I don't think it's any of the FCC's business to regulate how your cable provider manages it or times it.

Here's the kicker though: somebody HAS paid to increase that bandwidth.  All those people watching movies, talking on Skype, etc - they're not doing it for free.  They're paying the ISP, and they're paying it for a certain amount of speed.  I'm sure you'll notice that when you sign up for service it's advertised at a certain speed (usually at different price levels).  Some are 1Mbps, some are 3Mbps, 6Mbps, 10Mbps, etc.  You can't use more speed than you've paid for.  I for example pay for a 3Mbps connection (though I'm soon going to bump it to 6Mbps).  If I am paying for my 3Mbps worth of connection speed, IT DOESN'T MATTER what I'm using it for.  I paid for that speed, and I'm using it.  I shouldn't then have to worry about whether or not the sites I then want to visit are willing to pony up extra protection money to make it to a customer that has already paid for the bandwidth to do so.

If their networks have become too congested, then by golly they have to reinvest some of their subscription fees back into the network to help.  Maintenance is a part of doing business.  Does your power company charge Sony or Panasonic to do line repairs?   Afterall, their devices are being used on their lines.  Of course not.  The user already paid for those lines, and though I know pocketing 100% of the incoming cash might be tempting, the stark reality is that SOME of that has to be apportioned to maintenance - you can't expect someone else to pickup the check because they're tangentially involved.

[MGMorden]

MGMorden:

There is another angle on this, and it has to do with censorship. There have been recent articles about the history of how US politicians, notably FDR, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon used the FCC to silence opponents. A book by former network head Fred Friendly keeps coming up as a good history of this abuse. If I read it correctly, FDR was the most notorious because he initiated this as a technique using the precursor to FCC.

My mind is not made up on this issue. If you've got some links and references I'd sure like to read them. I have not paid much attention to this issue, except for the aspect of technical limitation. The manifestation I see is that, for example, musicians don't want the bandwidth of their music distribution sites limited because somebody can out-spend them. That doesn't seem like a realistic threat if it is true that they are not being blocked, but just potentially slowed down by governing algorithms. The algorithms already necessarily exist, so the technical issue seems to be how those algorithms evolve based on usage patterns.

I'll try to dig up some good articles on it.  Suffice to say though, this particular legislation doesn't give the government the power to censor anything.  The only thing it has to do at all with censorship is REMOVING the ability for the ISP's to censor content. 

As I said, I'll try to find some good literature for you on the topic.  This is just coming to the front in public eyes but most in the computer sector have been focused on this for the last 2 years or so.

[Conan The Librarian]

Thanks. I'd appreciate that.

[MGMorden]

Thanks. I'd appreciate that.

Here's one.  It brings up another possibility that's a specific threat to me.  My phone has a built in GPS receiver.  Using it, I am able to use Google's Maps application (which connects to their servers) to do street navigation.  Verizon has a competing product that costs money ($8-10 per month IIRC).  I'm already paying Verizon monthly for access to the internet, so they should have no business in what I use that connection for - even if that means me using a competitor's free alternative to one of their paid services.

Without neutrality, they would be free to block Google's Map service, forcing you to use their paid version instead.  Don't think they'd do it?  They've ALREADY done it with tethering (tethering is linking the phone to your laptop so that you can funnel internet requests from the laptop to the phone).  It's just access to the internet as well, and the phone is perfectly capable of it, but Verizon wants to charge you an extra $30 per month to use THEIR tethering app.  Other apps that do this are blocked. That's not an "it might happen" thing.  It's ALREADY happened.  I only can use third party tethering applications on the phone that I paid for, using connectivity that I again paid, by hacking my phone.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-franken/the-most-important-free-s_b_798984.html

Or for a full site dedicated to the issue with tons of blogs posts and such, visit:

http://www.savetheinternet.com/

[Cabin4]

Also known as the "Fairness Doctrine" for the internet. In other words, censorship.

[MGMorden]

Also known as the "Fairness Doctrine" for the internet. In other words, censorship.

Please explain exactly how you can label this bill as censorship.  Real explanations, not one liners.

[Cabin4]

Before I do that, ask yourself one question: What’s wrong with the internet that the government feels the need to involve itself? This is the beginning of regulation that builds momentum for more regulation to come. I can vision the day now, that you will need an FCC license to have a web site. Just like regulation started at the FCC for armature radio, they will move in this same direction. The government never gets a regulatory agency (in this case the FCC) involved for no reason. All the FCC can do is regulate, and that is what they will do if our congress stands idle.

[MGMorden]

Before I do that, ask yourself one question: What’s wrong with the internet that the government feels the need to involve itself? This is the beginning of regulation that builds momentum for more regulation to come. I can vision the day now, that you will need an FCC license to have a web site. Just like regulation started at the FCC for armature radio, they will move in this same direction. The government never gets a regulatory agency (in this case the FCC) involved for no reason. All the FCC can do is regulate, and that is what they will do if our congress stands idle.

I've already spent several paragraphs in this thread and a very detailed explanation in another describing what is wrong with the internet.  You're describing a piece a legislation as a slippery slope when this legislation is like a harness keeping us from slipping further down.  Licensing to run a website, etc, is specifically AGAINST the spirit of an open internet, which is what this legislation is protecting. 

Gun analogy: Wal-mart enacts a store policy saying that in order to carry concealed in their stores you need a "Walmart Firearms ID Card" (at $99 per year) IN ADDITION to your government provided CWP.  Would you call legislation to stop such practices a step in the direction of firearms registration?  Of course not - it's going in the opposite direction from that, just like this legislation is a move towards keeping the internet as a free and open platform.

As I've said before, market competition normally keeps these companies in check.  As I've also said though, broadband internet access is an incredibly non-competitive field.  There may be a lot of companies, but most users cannot realistically shop around between them.  They buy whatever service is offered in their area and if you don't like it tough stuff - go without.  That's not a true market - it's a heterogeneous group of companies that have small monopolies in certain areas.

The same applied to AT&T back in the day before they broke them up.  They had become literally so big that there were no other options for phone service.  As the famous saying goes, if you called to complain, the response was "We don't care.  We can do what we like.  We're the phone company.".  And honestly, they were.  You didn't have anywhere else to go.  Breaking them up and putting some regulations in place helped out there. 

It escapes my mind why people who obviously understand that as a society we need laws against certain things would not see that some portion of those laws have to apply to businesses.   

[Cabin4]

This move by the FCC is not backed by legislation. It is an "edict" power grab by a regulatory agency. Congress passed no law for this. What authority does the FCC have to simply move in? I though congress was responsible for determining what size/scope/budget regulatory agencies operate under? I thought only congress can appropriate funds/budgets of our federal agencies? What budget line approval is the FCC moving forward with that they believe gives them dictatorial authority to execute this?

This is a slippery slope and this is another dimension of what I disapprove of in principal. The FCC also believes in the “fairness doctrine” for public radio but not for public TV. That’s interesting! Is it because TV is dominated by liberal leaning and radio is not? Why the disparity I ask? All rhetorical questions. But I think you get my drift.

[Conan The Librarian]

I can definitely relate to the phone company analogy, but is it really the same? Today I have a multiplicity of internet provider options. A lot of us don't, but I live rural and still have at least two hard-wired options, and some 3g/4g options too. It looks like we've got at least three flavors of argument here: My bandwidth limitation argument, Cabin4's abusive regulation argument, and MGMorden's competitive leverage argument.

Let's have a look at what Cato has to say about this, and keep adding until we've got a pretty good picture. I picked Cato because they are one of the few organizations with bias that present arguments from multiple sides of the story generally. I consider them fair input to policy arguments. In summary, they take the view similar to Cabin4.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-270.html

[Conan The Librarian]

Cabin4:

About your last post, I regret to observe that this is common practice in all manner of agencies, and congressional oversight doesn't seem to help. We have the FDA doing some of the same thing as the department of agriculture, department of education, and at least a couple of other agencies. For any given government agency, I believe there are at least two other agencies doing many things that significantly overlap, creating a morass of redundancy. All congress does is keep adding stuff. They never end any old initiatives. That's why we have all these new agencies and departments and laws, and why we don't have money to maintain roads.

[MGMorden]

This move by the FCC is not backed by legislation. It is an "edict" power grab by a regulatory agency. Congress passed no law for this.

You're right, but congress HAS granted the FCC the power to regulate communications within this country.  That's the entire job of the agency - they enforce certain laws on communications so that we can all benefit.  We might not all agree on what they need to do, but I think EVERYONE wants some degree of regulation.

Example: I'd wager that a majority on readers on a good ol' heavy right winged site like this would flip if they turned on their local broadcast television and there was hardcore XXX pornography on.  I'm not talking about the bikini's and racy jokes that the prudes call "pornography" - I mean the real stuff.  Do you agree with it being not allowed?  Personally I don't (I'm anti-censorship to the extreme and spend no time hiding the fact that prudish "morals" in regards to things like that don't concern me at all), but I'd wager many of you do.  You know what keeps it that way?  FCC regulations.  

Doesn't mean you have to like everything they do.  I don't agree with censorship laws like those I just mentioned.   I also don't like the traditional concept of a "Fairness Doctrine" like you mentioned, but Net Neutrality ISN'T about a Fairness Doctrine - at least not in the manner that the term has evolved to in other media.  Traditional "fairness doctrine" is about content production.  This is about content distribution.  If 90% of an ISP's clientele are Republicans then they may well have a pretty off-balance amount of political sites coming through their routers, and that's fine - the customers are deciding how to use their connections.  

The simple fact though is that for any regulatory agency, some percentage of it's actions will be good ones.  This is that case.  Support the good ideas and fight against the bad.  There has to be balance.  Given complete freedom to do what they will a government will censor anything that threaten's it's power.  A company though will do the same to anything that threaten's it's profits.  There is an optimal median somewhere in between.

[nomosendero]

This move by the FCC is not backed by legislation. It is an "edict" power grab by a regulatory agency. Congress passed no law for this. What authority does the FCC have to simply move in? I though congress was responsible for determining what size/scope/budget regulatory agencies operate under? I thought only congress can appropriate funds/budgets of our federal agencies? What budget line approval is the FCC moving forward with that they believe gives them dictatorial authority to execute this?

This is a slippery slope and this is another dimension of what I disapprove of in principal. The FCC also believes in the “fairness doctrine” for public radio but not for public TV. That’s interesting! Is it because TV is dominated by liberal leaning and radio is not? Why the disparity I ask? All rhetorical questions. But I think you get my drift.

Agreed!! I view anyone who thinks this is good with great suspicion.