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

a reply to: whyamIhere
See my video in post above or last page...depending on where this post lands.

a reply to: Indigo5

And ?

I have Time Warner.

I am a power user.

That downs load anywhere between 200 to 500 GIGS per month.

NEVER experienced a 'slow' down in the decacade I have had them.

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord

originally posted by: seeker1963
Make up benevolent sounding name,

See above, the name did not original within the government.

The above that you have highlighted is asking me for my username and password SO, and my normal ATS ones do not work.

Perhaps the government didn't come up with the name, but being it will be they who will create the regulations, how can anyone be sure at all at this point if it will up representing what we are arguing about?

It sounds good on the surface, but what will the words be inside the book?

Like I said earlier, until the regulations are actually written, it seems pointless to make a stand on whether or not it will be good for anyone...

a reply to: neo96

But you will start slowing down if we lose net neutrality.
That's the point.

originally posted by: JHumm
If the Internet ran at the speed of government then we would only need a dial up connection.

Choices
(1) Internet at the speed of government...No one is talking about this..it is not an option
(2) Net Neutrality...Internet at the speed of technology..as fast as internet access permits...the Status Quo.
(3) What Ted Cruz advocates as well as anyone opposed to Net Neutrality...allowing Comcast, ATT&T Uverse...internet providers to slow down access to sites they choose to and allow faster access to other sites at their choosing...they then charge each site a premium for previously speedy access. If they don't pay up, then the next time you visit that site you wonder why it takes 3 minutes to load the front page and 10 minutes to load a video.

originally posted by: neo96
a reply to: Indigo5

And ?

I have Time Warner.

I am a power user.

That downs load anywhere between 200 to 500 GIGS per month.

NEVER experienced a 'slow' down in the decacade I have had them.

And you'd like to keep it that way, yes?

a reply to: whyamIhere

Net neutrality is what allowed the internet to flourish because it gave the little guy as much voice as the big guy.

Net neutrality was designed to ensure that all websites and protocols have equal priority while on the internet.

It was regulation to promote a free market and competition, its basically the most anti obamacare you can get.

Net neutrality ensured that when you watch netflix or read a webpage or access amazon prime you got equal priority. This allowed the mom and pop website to get same speed as the big guys.

The reason they want to get rid of net neutrality is because

1. Does away with freedom of speech: It gives the establishment control of the internet. They can purposely slow down your connection speeds to sites that the establishment might not agree with.

For example ATS could be so slow that you eventually stop coming to ATS if ATS doesn't pay or play with their agenda.

2. Gives the Oligopoly control: If you don't pay, you don't get to play.

3. Telecom survival mode: The telecom industry notice that everything is going online and they want a piece of the action. Under net neutrality they loose money and power.

For example Netflix provides content to the end user and has caused many people to cancel their over priced comcast cable subscription. Under net neutrality comcast would have had to been more competitive and provide a cheaper more attractive package to sway people back.

Instead they spent hundreds of millions to lobby against net neutrality. Why? because they don't want to compete they want to control.
Without net neutrality they can force NetFlix to give them a piece of the action or they will purposely put netflix on the slow bandwidth to kill their company.

Bottom line is Net neutrality is good for the consumer and the free market, since it ensures there is not a monopoly or Oligopoly in charge of the system.

As a republican or democrat this is the only type of legislation you want to see as it promotes a free market and benefits the consumer.

originally posted by: neo96
NEVER experienced a 'slow' down in the decacade I have had them.

You will experience slow downs if the FCC creates a tiered Internet. This is the crux of the issue.

a reply to: seeker1963

Net neutrality is the current state of the internet.
Losing it means that each internet based business... Netflix, ATS, YouTube etc... will have to pay a fee in order to have the fastest speeds available. Big companies will be fine with this, but what about sites like ATS? Blogs? What if you want to start up your own web business selling guns that you print on your 3D printer? Do you think you can pay what YouTube can pay? No, you can't.

As of right now, you or I... anyone with internet access can enter the internet at the same speed as Google. Take away net neutrality and that ends.

The man's just jealous because he's suddenly realised he's in the wrong $$$$$$$ caper.

And then there is 2016, OMG! a Canadian interloper becomes POTUS.

Long story short.

If you are against net neutrality (like Cruz) you are against free speech and free market competition.

So if you love the cable companies and think they should own the internet, you should be against net neutrality.

In other words anyone on this site, to a man, should be for maintaining net neutrality.

originally posted by: beezzer
Alright.

We have something called "Net Neutrality".

Would anyone care to explain it? Or are you all just going with the name?

Sure. To start with I would highly recommend the John Oliver video in this thread. Networking is pretty dry technical stuff so throwing it into a comedy routine keeps it a bit more interesting if you're the type to tune out, no one likes the details of these systems... they are boring.

Next, I posted this back in June which goes into more details www.abovetopsecret.com...

Now if you want to skip the video and that post and have a slightly more brief version basically Net Neutrality says that all packets on a network are treated equally. Packets are processed as a que, which means they operate on a first in first out system, like a line at the grocery store. What the FCC, or rather the telecoms throwing buckets of money at the people in the FCC want to do is to remove this requirement that packets be processed as a que. Instead they would be processed as a priority que which acts like a que but resolves all objects of the highest priority first, then all objects of the next highest priority, and so on. This is being billed as a fast and slow lane for internet speeds. Proponents argue that people with money can have faster responses from servers while people who buy lower tier service can have a less responsive server even when the two pay for the same download speed.

Now to some this sounds good, you get service tiers, multiple price points, market choice, and so on. The truth is that none of this stuff matters it's just a quality of service issue on the users end. What does matter is what this allows the telecoms to do from the content provider end. They will be allowed to goto a service provider for any reason they want and say pay us X or we shut your website down. Currently contracts only cover uptime guarantees, max bandwidth, and connection speed. An entirely new set of contracts would need to be negotiated that cover service responsiveness, so that a servicer can send out packets at X speed but the ISP's servers simply don't process it. Basically what they're trying to do here is double bill for a service they're already providing.

To give you an analogy lets take roads. Right now you pay a gas tax to use the roads, you can think of this as your ISP fee. Your network hardware is your car and it gets you from point A to point B. Removing Net Neutrality if it applied to roads would still require your car, and you would still be paying to use the road however they would also charge you a fee to use the garage/road interface known as a driveway in order to get onto the road in the first place, and then they would charge you a fee at your destination in order to get off the road and access the parking lot. Then the parking lot would charge their fee for a service (think Netflix subscription).

The outcome of all of this is that it will shut down all but the biggest websites. Another very real outcome is that due to the monopoly structure of our networks and that each website would have to pay every single ISP for service for the website to load (beyond their internet subscription fee) we would end up with a fragmented internet where say Time Warner Cable gives you Bing, Fox News, Itunes, and Netflix while Cox gives you Google, CNN, Pandora, and Amazon and Charter gives you DuckDuckGo, ABC, IHeartRadio, and Youtube. Different ISP's would essentially carve up the internet and dole out only specific parts.

So then we get to the big issue. Internet companies in other countries have net neutrality, their companies are able to reach worldwide and compete everywhere. We would not just be cutting our companies off from global marketplaces but we would be making them regional within the US as well. Doing this basically kills our ability to compete and guarantees that the US will not be a tech leader, it virtually kills that status overnight.

If you want to see an example of these principals in action look at Netflix. With Net Neutrality and competition Netflix is able to offer their product and compete with the TV providers. Netflix is buying rights to those shows and offering the product cheaper with a better distribution method. Essentially they have used new technology to be more competitive. The telecoms started losing large numbers of TV subscribers so rather than innovate, use the market, and be competitive they instead bought legislation that let them shut down Netflix service unless Netflix started giving their profits to the telecoms just because they were making too much money. Net Neutrality protects markets and makes companies play fairly yet competitively. Removing Net Neutrality (which we have taken many steps towards doing) creates an uneven playing field where only a handful of companies are viable.

If you don't think this would ever happen, I'll present to you the graph of Netflix speeds. I'll let you guess at what points the various ISP's started negotiating for a lot of money in order to provide access to the service at all (it resulted in two price increases for Netflix)
knowmore.washingtonpost.com...

a reply to: tavi45

Unfortunately, the Ted Cruz's of the world know all they have to do is suggest Obama's for something and that alone will muster the usual locksteppers.

There are thousands of reasons to not be thrilled with our president. If you're against net neutrality, you're shooting yourself in the foot. And unfortunately, help aim theat gun at the rest of us.

Obama's incompetent, Cruz is a moron. Set that aside and for all our sakes, support net neutrality.

originally posted by: neo96
a reply to: Indigo5

And ?

I have Time Warner.

I am a power user.

That downs load anywhere between 200 to 500 GIGS per month.

NEVER experienced a 'slow' down in the decacade I have had them.

AND it doesn't matter if you pay $1000 dollars a month for the fastest effen internet access on the globe...

Absent Net Neutrality...Time Warner can and WILL charge the sites you visit (On their end) for various speeds of access.

So your speedy internet connection will not matter when Time Warner is slowing down the speed of access for any websites that don't pay them.

You have not noticed things slowing down on certain sites yet because the companies have been (mostly) waiting to see how the FCC rules on the issue.

If Net Neutrality fails...then it is open season for Time Warner et al. to start slowing down access to any sites that don't pay them...

Internet is a CONNECTION between you and some site. You can have super fast access and Time Warner can charge you for that...and absent Net Neutrality...they can also charge the site you visit..and if that site doesn't pay up...then your speedy internet access is meaningless when you visit that site.

Generally speaking, I'm not a Cruz fan, but since we are talking "neutrality" I will look at the issue, and not at the man. In fact, it would be awesome to take it out of "partisanship" entirely and look at the impact on a business using the web that doesn't have deep pockets.

Net neutrality (also network neutrality or Internet neutrality) is the principle that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or mode of communication.

So let's look at this issue from, say, a website owner's perspective. The current law up for consideration by the FCC would allow service providers to grant greater access to websites based on the owners being able to pay more. We are used to that concept in America. Heck, that is the "American Dream" in some ways. We have "first class seating" and we like our gated communities...

What impact does that have for site owners, however? This is my understanding, and if I'm wrong please let me know because it means I've misinterpreted the information, which is not my goal...

If a site owner can't pay up, they get less bandwidth, their site is less functional, less available, and in general, less. So they have to fork over money they may not have to remain visible on the web, or be able to hold onto the number of features they have etc.

This would, in essence, allow those with money to control the flow of information on the web by buying up greater shares of bandwidth for their elite selves. It would allow them to block smaller sites with smaller budgets, ensuring we get spoonfed the sites that THEY (the wealthiest) want us to see.

Is that what we want?

It's not what I want...

peace,
AB

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

One more reason I think Ted is another shill. I used to like the guy. Even voted for him a couple years ago. The more I learn about him the more I want to punch him in the face

originally posted by: Kali74
a reply to: neo96

But you will start slowing down if we lose net neutrality.
That's the point.

Thought I was clear.

That I didn't want any government involvement with the net.

a reply to: interupt42

Excellent explanation...

Thanks

originally posted by: neo96
That I didn't want any government involvement with the net.

Then why do you agree with Cruz?

a reply to: neo96

Losing net neutrality means the government (The FCC) has expanded it's involvement with the internet.
Losing net neutrality means that the government (The FCC) will go into the internet and divide it into tiers.

Ted Cruz says net neutrality is bad.
Ted Cruz wants the government to change the internet.