Big Telecom Wanted to Force Your Favorite Websites into the Slow Lane. Here’s What the Internet Ha

Thursday morning U.S. FCC Chair Tom Wheeler announced that his agency voted in favor of a plan that could allow the creation of a slow lane on the Internet. This could force everyone except those with deep pockets (think: major conglomerates) into a second-tier of service that could slow their content to a crawl.

The Internet must be declared a COMMON CARRIER - like telephone lines, trucking and shipping lines. It really aught to be a public utility but I think that's pushing it.

More from: www.commondreams.org...

However, there is a silver lining in Thursday’s decision: Under huge pressure from millions of outraged citizens, Wheeler changed the FCC’s proposal from one that only considered the creation of an Internet slow lane, to one that also opens the door to a popular common sense alternative: a free and open online highway.

In short, we have held off the slow lane plan for now, but we are in limbo until the FCC formally withdraws the plan and reins in Big Telecom’s attempts to control our Internet. In the meantime, a crucial 4 months lay ahead of us, and we have to do everything in our power to convince the FCC to do the right thing and throw away the plan for an Internet slow lane.

The destruction/dismantling of the internet will happen one day.
Let's just hope that a free, fairly open internet remains for a good few years yet.
Money talks as they say so these companies will keep pushing until they get the internet that benefits them and the mighty $.

So basically just a lame attempt at giving customers less so the internet providers can spend less on equipment.

Charming, the customer is no longer always right, its a sucker whos money they companies want more of while providing less. So transparent.

Is it the slow lane for those that cannot afford the next upgrade package? Like Cable TV, one day they'll sell us our service in increments. If you want Email thats so may dollars a month. if you want news wire, again a few bucks. If you want to upload comments, start a website on the internet or access to porn or streaming channels then a bunch of dollars more.

If you want it all (that you currently have right now, plus "hi speed") it will eventually cost you hundreds.

Xfinity is working a deal to absorb Time Warner, right? A step in the wrong direction if you ask me.

It might be comforting to know that even if big business and government begins to regulate the Internet, there may still be alternatives to wide-spread digital communication between the masses in metropolitan areas, separate and beyond the influence of these forces.

www.popularresistance.org...

a reply to: FyreByrd

HA there is way to many people living in there parents garage, basement, ect.... that will never let that happen! plus the the proffesionals out there.

Too many people are talking about them and they are trying to stop the dissent. It's funny. Internet should be free, right along with phones and TV.

originally posted by: FyreByrd

The Internet must be declared a COMMON CARRIER - like telephone lines, trucking and shipping lines. It really aught to be a public utility but I think that's pushing it.

More from: www.commondreams.org...

No you are not pushing it and are infact correct. The internet should be treated as a public utility. We are now at a point where if you do not have some kind of internet access you are stacking the economic deck against yourself. But even today making it a public utility isn't safe as even those are facing privatization by elected officials willing to sell us out to the highest bidder.

They do the tiered package BS up here in canada already. It's ridiculous, I pay over 100 a month for service not even half as fast upload or download as I had in NY, with a data transfer limit per month on top of the crap speeds. Back in the sticks of NY I paid 40 a month for unlimited monthly usage, most times I ran a speed test I was over 20 mb/s download, and 10 mb/s upload.

a reply to: FyreByrd

Damage control. I was one of the ones who participated in the reddit online campaign to call them and request all internet carriers are classified as a common carrier.

They had to setup a standalone email to handle all the requests.

Learn the proper order of this legally. Even if they rule this, I will consider this a violation of the RICO act, and, use my rights accordingly. At this point, the internet should be fully protected for us. It is a digital library of Alexandria, and it should be treated and referenced as such.

Why are you so keen to do nothing? You have ways to participate too. Research them, not one person can do it All.

originally posted by: stargatetravels
The destruction/dismantling of the internet will happen one day.
Let's just hope that a free, fairly open internet remains for a good few years yet.
Money talks as they say so these companies will keep pushing until they get the internet that benefits them and the mighty $.

The Internet opened as a source of informations sharing. Maybe they ought'a vote to consign Big Business to the slow lane until they start sharing with us ... all the information they've shared ABOUT us.

a reply to: stargatetravels

I disagree. That idea is propaganda.

How are you going to shutdown the Bitcoin network? They are the largest hashing network on the planet.

They could easily be the internet 2.0 if threatened.

a reply to: ArchAngel_X

there may still be alternatives to wide-spread digital communication between the masses in metropolitan areas, separate and beyond the influence of these forces.

Take off, eh?

Yah, you hoser.

We used to call that CB radio. I think I still have a cobra in the garage somewheres.

originally posted by: Not Authorized
a reply to: stargatetravels

I disagree. That idea is propaganda.

How are you going to shutdown the Bitcoin network? They are the largest hashing network on the planet.

They could easily be the internet 2.0 if threatened.

No. The Bitcoin network is a P2P network using TCP over IP (in this case, the IP network IS the Internet). The Bitcoin protocol is application layer.

The issue is Net Neutrality or basically that ISPs shouldn't have the right to pick and choose how they allocate bandwidth dependent on the type of traffic or the destination. Imagine for example that Comcast was in a deal with Hulu to throttle Netflix connections, thereby tanking Netflix among Comcast subscribers. Take that to the next logical step and they could throttle news sites they don't like to a crawl or block them altogether, making themselves Internet censors.

We don't need to treat ISPs as a public utility, that's part of the problem — we need to recognize net neutrality as a civil liberty.

a reply to: theantediluvian

So, a network that generates how much money in USD a day, is limited to stay peer 2 peer, if the backbone of their money generation is threatened? As rumblings of the USD reserve currency status is in severe jeopardy, goes on?

No... not even close. You are limiting your thought process. Probably due to fear, or a misunderstanding of what Bitcoin is.

Understand, Bitcoin is a currency system. It is the modernized digital version of Tally Sticks, intended to go world wide as the peoples currency. Research what Tally Sticks were, their purpose and how they functioned.

Your whole premise is a kooky thought. Bitcoin does answer to the FCC. That would be like them telling the private Federal Reserve banking system, to turn off its printing press via banning all loans.

They are already planning Bitcoin satellites. Yet, the Bitcoin foundation, filled with technical geeks, couldn't invest and offer its own IPv6 network on its protocol, if the internet becomes threatened? Especially if they had an advertising campaign telling people the benefits of encryption and switching not only to their internet, but use money not based upon usury as part of the package?

Research. Every official transaction using that protocol, would be fully transparent. Campaign funds, voting records, government money spent, and who it went too, notarized documents, with instant digital receipts. Use your imagination.

The protocol is the magic. I suggest you research to form a valid opinion of it, to see what is possible with it.

a reply to: Not Authorized

You're barking up the wrong tree. I've been an IT professional for many many years (system administration, network administration, software development, virtualization — you name it, I've done it), I was the quintessential teenage cyberpunk hacker before that (since the BBS days) and I've been mining (commercially, mostly LTC and other scrypt-based) & trading cryptocurrencies for almost two years.

There's always a lot of talk about satellites, including from torrent sites but have you ever used bi-directional satellite? The latency alone is a killer — something like 15-20x terrestrial networks. While satellites would be fine for something like a P2P crypto network it's not a viable solution for replacing the current infrastructure. Believe me, I've been there, done that in the past and the average web page took longer to render than it did with a 56k modem, hell a 28.8k.

I'm also fairly well connected in the crypto scene and in fact, I'm involved in promoting one right now so I know all about developing a new one (and not just cloning a Git repository and re-branding), getting it off the ground, getting it on to exchanges, etc. You seem to think that crypto is filled with ideological anti-establishment types but for every true believer there are 10 people who are trying to make a new technocratic establishment and 1000 who just want to get rich.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still idealistic and I agree with some of what you're saying but your approach sucks and if you think Bitcoin is a magic bullet for everything, you're going to find yourself horribly disillusioned.

Yeah, I'll tell you what. Something shady is going on and I don't like it. It's hard to tell exactly what but you can bet it's something most people would never ask for if we had any choice. Isn't that what these jerks always do? They tell us they're on our side and then screw us as soon as they get an open door.

a reply to: theantediluvian

And I am not an IT professional in my career path? You assume too much. I am one, am, and I am a lifelong learner to boot. :-) I enjoyed terminex back in the day.

Latency considerations do not impact information flow on Bitcoin. When any one node rejoins, it downloads the missing parts of the blockchain. 2 seconds of latency, per transaction, is pretty fast.

You are also assuming latency will be with us forever. Breakthroughs in quantum entanglement could eradicate the need for a physical network at all within your lifetime.

Information would just piggyback on the fabric of reality, for instantaneous retrieval.

The future is very bright, if we are unafraid to discuss it. Bitcoin is the internet of finance. Our banking system is old and archaic, and is the main part that empowers the oligarchy. The protocol to finance is like the internet was to communication.

a reply to: Not Authorized

As I said, latency is not an issue with P2P crypto networks, at least not current ones. I've done a fair bit of reading about QE and FTL communication and as of right now, given current theories, it's thought to be impossible. Check out the no-communication theorem.

Net Neutrality is an issue today, right now. I'm not trying to be dismissive of possibilities, but we must protect what we have and coming up with replacements for the current Internet infrastructure is more of a long term approach and even then there's no guarantee that we wouldn't just be fighting the Net Neutrality battle on multiple fronts.

To me, the key is to recognize the need for what amounts to a new civil liberty and guarantee it's protected. Call it the Freedom of Packets or whatever you want, but the flow of information has already become too important to society for us to allow it to be manipulated.

I am not sure about now (today), but back about 1998, telephone lines (copper pair) only carried a 9600 BAUD (bps) rating. That is all that was needed for voice communication at the time. Faster modems and fax machines used compression to make them work from 14,400 bps to 28.8 Kbps. That is one of the problems with ma bell taking a bigger chunk of the residential internet. Now, some of the new developments I sell homes in have fiber optic all the way to the ONI (Outside Network Interface) on the side of the house. They also have a DSL problem depending on how far away from the node or CO you are which slows down DSL quickly.

Cable, as in the CATV, provides much faster speeds and even blows away T1 speeds in many cases. IThe backbone is usually OSC-12 or better high speed fiber optic loops. I don't know how they plan on splitting the data up and I am sure there will be ways around it.

Another thing is the new Gigabit Internet. It is mainly used and connected to large commercial buildings, research facilities, and University campuses right now. I have no clue as to when or if they plan on making that available to the general public through providers like cable. They could charge more for their services and offer it to their customers. That is what drives the game $$$$$$. If cable companies get that set up, well it will be quite some time before we get it in our residential domiciles. But, I would love that. They say you can download a full HD movie in like 2-3 seconds. It is that powerful. Of course, the government doesn't want us to have it because it will cause them a lot of trouble capturing and deciphering meaningful information.