Epic Stupid: Ted Cruz - "Net Neutrality is Obamacare for the Internet"

a reply to: interupt42

Google is only in a very small market and the Telecom industry has made exclusive lease agreements with many cities which makes it extremely hard for google to get in those markets.

Yes but they still have it in place in certain cities and will undoubtedly have it in at least a few more by the time the ISPs can implement a tiered system. So if this tiered system was inferior to Google fiber consumer advocates would be all over the major ISPs for willfully creating a inferior service.

The Telecom industry is composed of an Oligopoly (Att,Verizon,Comcast) that ensures they don't really compete with each other.

While they are definitely huge there are still many others spread throughout the country. So if the ISPs created these fast lanes there would be spots all over the country they would have no access to because their service would be way less popular.

Att , comcast, and Verizon year after year are consistently rated the most hated companies by its customers.

Yeah they are pretty much as amoral as it gets in terms of corporate entities. I only have 2 choices where I live, and to be honest I don't really have an issue with them. Price is a little steep but I get decent speeds, only times I have slow streaming, downloads, etc is when my roommates are practically downloading the entirety of TPB. I haven't had a straight up internet outage in over a year, hell my utilities are less reliable than the net.

The one thing that is absolutely horrible about all of them is their customer service, and this is why I think they have such terrible reputations. Everything has to be done on their terms, and they are insanely unreliable.

I refuse to use violence to do so.


I agree with that.

So I assume you don't want to use the government in anyway then?

You mentioned above that...

the Telecom team of lawyers have been stonewalling googles attempts to implement their services.

and of course they are. They understand that the state can do what they cannot and that's use force.

I would love to go on an anarchist rant about how state power pretty much screws everything up, but I think I will attempt that in a separate thread so not to derail this one.

originally posted by: ThirdEyeofHorus
a reply to: buster2010

Why shouldn't the government be in the business of regulating the internet after all they did build it.

oh right, DARPA built it and now liberals think we should turn it over to international authorities. That's rich you should make such a statement.

International authorities? Do you even know what you're talking about outside of DARPA built it? And as far as DARPA goes, back in the day, it was actually called ARPA--Advanced Research Projects Agency with no D in front and their creation was called ARPANET. The purpose of ARPANET was pretty straightforward--make it so that people could communicate and share their discoveries via computers.

ARPANET was born out of the fears of falling behind after the USSR successfully launched Sputnik in 1958. A huge amount of need was seen in terms of STEM subjects--science, technology, engineering and mathematics. ARPANET was to connect the brains of the US--those researchers--so they could really do things. Pretty inspirational if you think about it. The end result was ARPANET and the creation of the Interface Messaging Processor that was first launched from UCLA and then, connected to other universities across the country. The first data exchange wasn't from one defense installation to the other. It was from UCLA to Stanford.

ARPANET was about communication and the sharing of ideas (and processing power!) right from the very beginning and it's beginnings were in those well known liberal cesspools called universities.

a reply to: Openeye

I would love to go on an anarchist rant about how state power pretty much screws everything up

That I can agree with you on , especially with the lobbying influences and unlimited super pacs.

You gotta hand it to the Tea-Potty...
first they wanted government so small that it will fit inside a woman's uterus.
now they want goverment so small it fits inside broadband lanes.

a reply to: Openeye

Indeed, Verizon is the prince of darkness

There’s nothing they can’t do to you.

Try complaining…it’s like an ant trying to go up an elephant’s trunk.

There all so big now all you can do is play out the specials and then go to the other ones specials

a reply to: Openeye

The one thing that is absolutely horrible about all of them is their customer service

Have to agree here.

Wow this thread has made me extremely confused on this issue... it seems like no one really knows what is going on. My understanding of the situation is this: we've had something called "net neutrality" for a very long time, and what it means is that all website traffic gets treated equally by the ISP's. But lately, people with power have been talking about eliminating net neutrality, meaning that websites which can afford to pay more (eg Google) can get a "premium" service which places their website traffic onto some sort of fast lane, in other words they get priority over websites which cannot afford to pay so much.

Now what I just said could be completely wrong, that's just the basic picture I've built on this topic by hearing bits and pieces of news about it. But if true it poses a very interesting choice. On the first page of this thread someone said that net neutrality "ensures a free market and competition", but actually it seems to me like net neutrality is the more socialist type of system, because it treats everyone equally. Whereas a system which gives priority to those who can pay more is much more in line with free market philosophy and the competition that comes along with that type of capitalistic system.

Even I'm very much torn on this issue, because I tend to be a free market type of guy and I tend to dislike socialist solutions to a problem. But in this case perhaps a socialist solution may be the most appropriate solution considering that the internet is a world wide network that is now absolutely crucial to the way the world functions and the way people operate in their daily lives. But it's also possible there could be many unforeseen advantages to eliminating net neutrality and relying more on free market forces to dictate prices. I would say stick with what we already have, because if it aint broke why fix it.

a reply to: WhiteAlice

Sure I do.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), originally the International Telegraph Union (French: Union Internationale des Télécommunications), is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that is responsible for issues that concern information and communication technologies.[1]

ITU, based in Geneva, Switzerland, is a member of the United Nations Development Group.[2] ITU has been an intergovernmental public-private partnership organization since its inception. Its membership includes 193 Member States and around 700 public and private sector companies as well as international and regional telecommunication entities, known as Sector Members and Associates, which undertake most of the work of each Sector.[3]

en.wikipedia.org...

To understand what is at stake, it is important to know the essence of the current Internet governance regime and a bit of recent history. Currently, pursuant to a 1998 agreement with the Commerce Department, an entity called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) manages the assignment of Internet domain names and addresses for websites across the globe.

With the growth in Internet usage and the number of websites across the globe during the past 15 years, perhaps it is not surprising that other countries increasingly have come to question the U.S. government’s role as the sole sovereign overseeing Internet management. After all, for a century, international telephone communications have been regulated by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), an arm of the United Nations. Each of the ITU’s 193 countries has one vote in its deliberations.

www.washingtontimes.com...
I hope this explains my position and statement..

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

Yes, clearly I don't agree with you, granted. This is not an indication of my ignorance on the issue in question.

Why would it be necessary to pass a law to keep things the same?

What possible excuse could there be for subjugating private enterprise to the whims of wannabe authoritarians?

How could the official de-privitization of the means of production of the most important commodity on the planet benefit humanity?

By your logic, oxygen and water should be instantly nationalized.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

But it's also possible there could be many unforeseen advantages to eliminating net neutrality and relying more on free market forces to dictate prices. I

The problem is that internet is a market itself and the guy who controls access to the market controls the market .

In addition, I would agree with a free market solution as well but we don't have a free market we have an Oligopoly controlled market.

That is why year after year people rate the Oligopoly ISP (ATT ,verizon, comcast) as the most hated companies in America.

Despite a clientele that hates them , they stay in business and post record profits. That only happens when they have an organized monopoly and the customers have no choice but to take it.

I hate comcast and would leave them in a minute but I can't because I have no other option for fast internet.

would say stick with what we already have, because if it aint broke why fix it.

Because we broke it recently. What worked was net neutrality that existed from the inception of the internet until a year ago or so when they undid net neutrality. They just haven't enforced it yet due to fear of backslash and it was agreed upon that they will slowly incorporate it.

The FCC is under pressure for selling out and having a revolving door with the guys they are suppose to regulate when they undid net neutrality.

Net neutrality has been proven to work , so why fix it?

originally posted by: greencmp
Why would it be necessary to pass a law to keep things the same?

The Internet is currently regulated under title I of the telecommunications act. Reclassifying it as Title II is not creating new laws.

What possible excuse could there be for subjugating private enterprise to the whims of wannabe authoritarians?

To prevent a Sherman Act monopoly on Internet content delivery.

How could the official de-privitization of the means of production of the most important commodity on the planet benefit humanity?

It's not de-privitization. It's regulation.

By your logic, oxygen and water should be instantly nationalized.

They both are regulated through EPA regulations. And delivery of water is managed through municipal water companies.

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord
This is just another example of the strategy of the conservative Oligarch Lords, who are the masters of the indentured servant Republicans, to be against anything that smells of being democrat. Damn the country, Obama must fail

The Internet, and the technological and economic boom it spawned, is what it is today, because of neutrality.

The liberal Oligarch Lords, who are the masters of the indentured servant Democrats, are on the fence about this one, not fighting… because a hybrid/tiered Internet benefits them as well.

We're screwed.

Funny thing - net neutrality isn't even a real political thing and definitely not a democrat thing. It's being manufactured into something political, but it's the most cut #ing dry issue ever. Most things there are multiple positions on it. This is either you are against net neutrality if you are super wealthy elitist internet leach or you are the other 6 billion people in the world whom net neutrality has been working just fine for.

a reply to: ThirdEyeofHorus

Did you think that the internet, once known as ARPANET, would simply stay limited to the US? Many countries around the world developed their own systems in the 80's before ARPANET was even decommissioned and turned into NSFNET (National Sciences Foundation Network), which further opened internet usage to even more (education based). Heck, much of NSFNET was actually backed by both private corporations and public funding. Do you really think those private companies would just limit a great idea to one continent? Nope.

I remember when the internet became the World-Wide Web. Totally cool. Does net neutrality have anything to do with other countries though? NOPE. It does not. Every country has their own policies and own regulations as to their own internet portion of the WWW. China has different rules than the UK which has different rules than Canada and so on. The difference between the US and some of those other countries (cough cough, China..) is that for many using the internet here in the US, its existence encapsulates the First Amendment--freedom of speech.

Speech is free. You shouldn't have to pay extra for a chance to be heard.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Yes and no. Net Neutrality doesn't do anything about speed tiers. One person can have 3mb down and another gets 50mb down. What it does do is state that the data you do get when received by a server needs to be treated equally. In computer science the term would be a que, you can think of it as first in first out, like a line at the store. That is Neutrality, different people can put different amounts of goods though the cashier at a time, but everyone waits in line. What repealing it does keeps that aspect but also says that those in line who can pay more go through the cashier faster than those who don't.

From a consumer standpoint this isn't much of an issue (and infact aside from poor people getting worse service and prices in general increasing you would see no change) but it's HUGE for content providers because all of a sudden paying for server space and internet access isn't enough. What it does is it means a content provider must now make deals with every ISP, including those who aren't even hosting their content in order for their content to be accessible. What this results in is an increases barrier to entry in the market and a general shrinking of the marketplace.

To give an example, lets say you have a small widget business. 95% of your sales are online. In order to facilitate this you currently pay a website designer, a card payment processor, a hosting fee, DNS registration, and an ISP to put your site online at the speed you desire. Now in addition to all of this you will have to pay the ISP again or they will simply make your website load so slow that it doesn't matter and if you do well enough, they'll simply extort you and shut your business down until you pay the blood money. Don't think they would do that? They already did it to Netflix, somewhere around page 3-5 of this thread is the graph that shows what they did.

Free markets require competition which are facilitated by low barriers to entry. Removing Net Neutrality makes running an online business more expensive, which results in a higher barrier to entry and reduced competition. The small government/free market approach is to maintain Net Neutrality.

originally posted by: greencmp
a reply to: SkepticOverlord

Yes, clearly I don't agree with you, granted. This is not an indication of my ignorance on the issue in question.

Why would it be necessary to pass a law to keep things the same?

What possible excuse could there be for subjugating private enterprise to the whims of wannabe authoritarians?

How could the official de-privitization of the means of production of the most important commodity on the planet benefit humanity?

By your logic, oxygen and water should be instantly nationalized.

Because keeping things the same is the problem. For the past 6 years or so (since Obama got into office basically) the principals of Net Neutrality have been removed little by little. A couple years back we eliminated them for mobile networks and the hybrid plan of the FTC more or less eliminates them for wired networks. A law change is needed because we need to rewind to how things were 6-10 years ago.

Note that this also results in less regulation. With the repeal of Net Neutrality comes a whole host of rules in how packets of data can be transmitted, sent, prioritized, and everything else. Net Neutrality is quite simple and can be legislated in one sentence "packets of data over a network are processed as a que, first in first out".

Note that your electric, water, and so on companies are still private industries although they're classified as a utility. Basically as a utility access to the service is provided but the utility provider can't dictate how you use that service.

Comcast spreads cash wide on Capitol Hill

There’s little that tends to unite a leading liberal like Dick Durbin and a conservative firebrand like Ted Cruz. But when the two senators join their colleagues for a hearing this month on Comcast’s $45 billion bid for Time Warner Cable, many of them will have something in common — they’ve each collected Comcast cash. Read more: www.politico.com...

The Philadelphia cable giant historically has been a major Beltway player, and it’s sure to strengthen its political offense in order to sell the new, controversial megadeal. Yet even before announcing its plans for Time Warner Cable, Comcast had donated to almost every member of Congress who has a hand in regulating it. (Earlier on POLITICO: Netflix, Comcast cut deal for smoother service) In fact, money from Comcast’s political action committee has flowed to all but three members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Checks have landed in the campaign coffers of Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), who oversee the chamber’s antitrust panel. Meanwhile, the cable giant has donated in some way to 32 of the 39 members of the House Judiciary Committee, which is planning a hearing of its own. And Comcast has canvassed the two congressional panels that chiefly regulate cable, broadband and other telecom issues, donating to practically every lawmaker there — including Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.). Read more: www.politico.com...

Democracy at work or bribery

This is not the way to run a democracy, imo, its too corrupting

The money eventually always seems to win

“Comcast reportedly has an army of over 100 lobbyists ready to swarm Capitol Hill and whose goal is to push this through. Their top priority is Comcast’s bottom line — not whether this deal will be good for consumers,” said Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) in an email, adding the merger could result in higher prices and less choice for consumers. “There’s also a pretty cozy relationship between Comcast and the regulators that will evaluate this deal, which I find troubling.” And many of the lawmakers who might scrutinize Comcast’s purchase have received the company’s campaign contributions. Read more: www.politico.com...

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord

originally posted by: greencmp
Why would it be necessary to pass a law to keep things the same?

The Internet is currently regulated under title I of the telecommunications act. Reclassifying it as Title II is not creating new laws.

What possible excuse could there be for subjugating private enterprise to the whims of wannabe authoritarians?

To prevent a Sherman Act monopoly on Internet content delivery.

How could the official de-privitization of the means of production of the most important commodity on the planet benefit humanity?

It's not de-privitization. It's regulation.

By your logic, oxygen and water should be instantly nationalized.

They both are regulated through EPA regulations. And delivery of water is managed through municipal water companies.

Sprinkles, you keep thinking that new legislation isn't new law writing.

You mean the already established and thoroughly entrenched and officially recognized service providers who have their positions as a direct result of similar legislation.

You are right here and I am wrong, at least semantically speaking.

Goody, how much oxygen are you allocated by your beneficent overlord? The bigger question is why you would unquestionably accept EPA edicts regarding anything.

P.S. municipal water services are not federal.

originally posted by: ThirdEyeofHorus

originally posted by: Gryphon66
So, Obama is for Net Neutrality, so it must be a bad thing, even if a poster admittedly doesn't understand what "it" is.

How utterly appalling this whole thing has become!

I'm biting my tongue not to talk to you.

Really, I'm holding back in a big way.

One person says we need government to enforce net neutrality which we don't have anymore because it has been repealed, and another person says we always had it but now the evil Republicans are trying to take it away. Another person says that foreign countries have net neutrality but we don't
You know this stuff can get pretty heady.
I posted that net neutrality was legislated by a Democrat majority Congress so it cannot possibly have already existed before it was passed right?
But of course you are the techy who knows it all aren't you?

Maybe you can also give me an enlightened discourse on public-private partnerships since you are so educated.

You state that you're not "going to talk to me" ... in a post ... where you're talking to me?

Hmmm. Par for the course.

You're merely doing what you do ... trying to muddy the water. You said, very clearly a few posts above that even though you don't understand "Net Neutrality" if Obama is for it and The Annointed Ted Cruz is against it, well, that's all you need to know, essentially. What more can be said to a comment and a position as wholly partisan as that?

Now, you're installing "straw-men" right and left ... no one, not one has said anything like "evil Republicans are trying to take it away" ... no one has said "that other countries have it and we don't."

It seems obvious that you don't know what "net neutrality" is. And no, I don't have to be "a techy who knows it all" (which I find insulting and demeaning) to explain it to you:

The internet basically treats all data traffic the same. It is "neutral" in that regard. Some companies want to provide different access levels (faster or slower) to different sites or different types of content ... that is not neutral.

That's what you're arguing about, not some mystical Democrat plot.

You're welcome.