Senate barely passes resolution to restore net neutrality

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
Won't need to... the House isn't reinstating this crappy law, no way in hell.

It won't matter, enough states are on board with signing their own Net Neutrality laws, that the whole thing has already been defeated. It's far too complex and expensive to treat data in each state uniquely, so just like with California and fuel standards, the hardest to comply with state will dictate the rules across the nation.

This vote was nothing more than fodder for midterms.

Being against net neutrality is just stupid. There isn't a single valid reason to oppose, only insane hatred and fear of government.

Has anyone ever came up with even a single example of net neutrality currently making the internet bad????

NO they haven't because their isn't one, it's all lies and propaganda.

originally posted by: Guyfriday
I take it you don't have Comcast? Infact, I'm sure you don't have any of the major ISPs? They all have structured services where you pay more for faster internet access. It gets covered up as gear rental fee's but really it's just a few lines of code in your account that limits the speed that you're getting. How was that "Net Neutrality", all that stupid rule did was allow major companies to make backdoor deals with cities for exclusive access to their areas (regional monopolies if you will)

Because what you just described is not Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality has nothing to do with speed in terms of a x bytes/second connection. Net Neutrality has to do with processing that data serverside and the order it gets processed. Giving one person a 100 MB connection and another person a 1 GB connection doesn't change processing priority.

However, charging Facebook $1 million to process data coming from their servers before data coming from Snapchat is processed does violate NN.

Essentially, NN is not about the end user, it's about content providers. It's the ISP's saying that they're not happy just charging for service anymore. They also want to double dip and charge not just to carry your data, but also collect a matchmaking fee between the company and the consumer.

To use an analogy of a road. Lets take a highway. You have the slow lane near the exits, the middle lanes, and the carpool lane which is the premium faster lane. Each lane moves at a different speed, based on what people are doing, and the cars are the packets of data going from their server (home) to destination (business).

What the ISP wants to do, is create an additional surcharge to the businesses that connect to that highway, they want to take the exit ramp that connects to them, and threaten to move that exit ramp to another customer unless the company pays an additional road maintenance fee. However, the customer is already on a contract to maintain that road. Now it's not just the road maintenance they're paying for, but the location of the ramp itself. It has very little to do with the cars going on and off the ramp aside from exiting at convenient locations.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
Actually, it's the lack of competition.

Why the U.S. Has Fallen Behind in Internet Speed and Affordability

Removing Net Neutrality doesn't fix the competition issue. The FCC argues it does, but that's because they're arguing wirless 4g and 5g networks are capable of providing internet service. The problem is that those networks are a hundred times slower than wired networks. They really aren't built for what the FCC wants to use them for.

If we want to get competition back into internet service we need to break up the ISP's. Such competition could render laws to enforce Net Neutrality irrelevant. It wouldn't be the first time we had such a system. Dial up internet was very competitive. Anyone could set up a small ISP from practically anywhere. It was a market with a very low barrier to entry. The reason is that the phone companies weren't involved in providing internet as they are now. They owned the lines, but would lease time on them to anyone willing to pay. That is what we need today. Regional owners of the lines, who then lease that time to third parties. Instead the owners of the lines are also currently the providers of service, and that eliminates competition.

a reply to: Reverbs

You'll need to beat AT&T's $200,000 bribe to get in the ear of Trump or the FCC.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

What a dumb argument. The term "net neutrality" was coined in order to describe the type of open internet we enjoy today and have for the past two decades. Your argument is so fallacious it's laughable.

originally posted by: 3NL1GHT3N3D1
a reply to: LesMisanthrope

What a dumb argument. The term "net neutrality" was coined in order to describe the type of open internet we enjoy today and have for the past two decades. Your argument is so fallacious it's laughable.

I thought it was painfully obvious we were speaking about the FCC’s net-neutrality rules, and not the idea of net-neutrality. I should have know better.

originally posted by: dug88

originally posted by: Grambler
I am noy informed enough to have an opinion on rather this is good or bad.

I do wonder though if this isnt a first step in the government saying other things are like a utility.

I can see republicans that are angry with google, facebook, and twitter now saying they should be able to ensure those "utilities" do not censor conservative views.

It would be interesting to see both sides flip their arguments if it comes to that.

This makes no sense. That would be like saying the guy that bottles and sells water would be a utility because he's a company profiting from water....

People really don't seem to be able to grasp the difference between the internet itself and companies that exist on the internet....

Basic telephone service is considerd a utility. Same with the postal service. The phone service can charge you by time used, the distance of the call, but they can't charge diffferent rates based on who it is you call or the type of business. Companies can offer to pay the cost of the call through 1-800 numbers or charge hefty fees for premium services.

Similarly with the postal service. They can charge by the weight of the items, the distance (local, national, international), how fast it has to be delivered (overnight, next-day, regular), fragile, live freight, but not who you are sending mail to.

With the internet, the battle has always been over video streaming. Local ISP's have always resented Netflix, Amazon, Youtube/Google making money out of videos using video-on-demand services while they remained the "boring utilities". They wanted a slice of the pie and demanded that these companies pay them money to host traffic going their network to their customers. Their arguments were that their networks were being overloaded and being close to capacity. However, since those networks are fibre-optic, the capacity is effectively infinite through the use of multi-wavelength laser transmission. But still they wanted to "shape" traffic flow so that they could give priority to customers just wanting to use Email, rather than those streaming videos or playing games through Steam.

Some of these ISP's are actually part of a large conglomerate that owns film production and distribution companies and provide their own video-on-demand services. They would be extremely happy if they could charge Netflix and all these other indy film makers commercial film distribution rates like the cinemas have to. They see Netflix and other other services as undercutting them.

gigaom.com...

a reply to: stormcell

I recall reading in a previous tellcom act document that actually had legal writing that already prevented the practices described with penalties even outlined.

Have you any examples of where this behavior has actually resulted in a situation described that was e xempt from those penalties and prohibitions or which company was guilty of such activity before NN??

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

There's no difference, though I'm sure you'd love to employ semantics as usual.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope

originally posted by: 3NL1GHT3N3D1
a reply to: LesMisanthrope

What a dumb argument. The term "net neutrality" was coined in order to describe the type of open internet we enjoy today and have for the past two decades. Your argument is so fallacious it's laughable.

I thought it was painfully obvious we were speaking about the FCC’s net-neutrality rules, and not the idea of net-neutrality. I should have know better.

The rules came because of the constant law suits filed to the isp's for doing shady things.


The fact is this is a utility nearly every business, school, and individual uses...if they allow the telecoms to do as they please the history shows they are abusive. When they start throttling and blocking Web hosts like say go daddy because it's competition this will be a detriment to commerce and to research in schools from primary to college.

Not only that the tax payers have payed in a substantial amount to the infrastructure.

a reply to: luthier
Which lawsuit specifically?? I never see any actual citations referencing such activity by ISP's in the past, especially considering that such behavior was already prohibited with penalties outlined in the Telecommunication act of 1996 under PART II--DEVELOPMENT OF COMPETITIVE MARKETS-sec. 104 "Sec. 104. Nondiscrimination principle."

Nearly every part of the 1996 law has a section against discriminatory practices, which is what the meda , rich elites, and talking heads are trying to sell us.

I just wish somebody would provide something in legal writing that supports the claims being made.

originally posted by: worldstarcountry
a reply to: luthier
Which lawsuit specifically?? I never see any actual citations referencing such activity by ISP's in the past, especially considering that such behavior was already prohibited with penalties outlined in the Telecommunication act of 1996 under PART II--DEVELOPMENT OF COMPETITIVE MARKETS-sec. 104 "Sec. 104. Nondiscrimination principle."

Nearly every part of the 1996 law has a section against discriminatory practices, which is what the meda , rich elites, and talking heads are trying to sell us.

I just wish somebody would provide something in legal writing that supports the claims being made.

www.theverge.com...

And

In September 2012, a group of public interest organizations such as Free Press, Public Knowledge and the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute filed a complaint with the FCC that AT&T was violating net neutrality rules by restricting use of Apple's video-conferencing application FaceTime on cellular networks to those who have a shared data plan on AT&T, excluding those with older, unlimited or tiered data plans.[

and

In 2005, North Carolina ISP Madison River Communications blocked the voice-over-internet protocol (VOIP) service Vonage. The FCC issued a Letter of Inquiry to Madison River, initiating an investigation. To avoid litigation, Madison River agreed to make a voluntary payment of fifteen thousand dollars and agreed to not block ports used for VoIP applications or otherwise prevent customers from using VoIP applications.

And

In the best known examples, Cox Cable disciplined users of virtual private networks (VPNs) and AT&T, as a cable operator, warned customers that using a Wi-Fi service for home networking constituted "theft of service" and a federal crime.[186] Comcast blocked ports of VPNs, forcing the state of Washington, for example, to contract with telecommunications providers to ensure that its employees had access to unimpeded broadband for telecommuting applications. Other broadband providers proposed to start charging service and content providers in return for higher levels of service (higher network priority, faster or more predictable), creating what is known as a tiered Internet.

And

Frontier Communications and a cable industry front group have sued the state of West Virginia over efforts to improve competition in the state.

And

The former owner of a small internet service provider in South Texas is suing Comcast, accusing the telecom giant of intentionally—or by way of its own negligence—destroying his business and seizing his customers.

And

The telecoms giant was sued [PDF] by Texas-based ISP and TV carrier En-Touch Systems for charging exorbitantly high prices for a local sports channel AT&T owned in the Houston market. The suit, filed in AT&T subsidiary DirecTV's home of Los Angeles, CA, accuses AT&T of violating the Sherman and Clayton antitrust Acts as well as the California Cartwright act.

And

COMCAST: In 2005, the nation’s largest ISP, Comcast, began secretly blocking peer-to-peer technologies that its customers were using over its network. Users of services like BitTorrent and Gnutella were unable to connect to these services. 2007 investigations from the Associated Press, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others confirmed that Comcast was indeed blocking or slowing file-sharing applications without disclosing this fact to its customers.

And

AT&T: From 2007–2009, AT&T forced Apple to block Skype and other competing VOIP phone services on the iPhone. The wireless provider wanted to prevent iPhone users from using any application that would allow them to make calls on such “over-the-top” voice services. The Google Voice app received similar treatment from carriers like AT&T when it came on the scene in 2009.

And

In 2010, Windstream Communications, a DSL provider with more than 1 million customers at the time, copped to hijacking user-search queries made using the Google toolbar within Firefox. Users who believed they had set the browser to the search engine of their choice were redirected to Windstream’s own search portal and results.

And

In 2011, MetroPCS, at the time one of the top-five U.S. wireless carriers, announced plans to block streaming video over its 4G network from all sources except YouTube. MetroPCS then threw its weight behind Verizon’s court challenge against the FCC’s 2010 open internet ruling, hoping that rejection of the agency’s authority would allow the company to continue its anti-consumer practices.

And

Throughout 2013 and early 2014, people across the country experienced slower speeds when trying to connect to certain kinds of websites and applications. Many complained about underperforming streaming video from sites like Netflix. Others had trouble connecting to video-conference sites and making voice calls over the internet.

The common denominator for all of these problems, unbeknownst to users at the time, was their ISPs’ failure to provide enough capacity for this traffic to make it on to their networks in the first place. In other words, the problem was not congestion on the broadband lines coming into homes and businesses, but at the “interconnection” point where the traffic users’ request from other parts of the internet first comes into the ISPs’ networks.

It goes on and on and on.

I don't know..

It seems like the entire debate is corporatism vs statism. I can understand the ideal behind both sides, but I'm not so sure that either have the end-user in mind as their priority.

I did like the idea of making it both, and creating a forced competition of sorts between the two ideals.. but then there would likely be a need for yet another regulatory body.

In the end, I feel that an entire society/nation benefits from having as many folks having net access as possible, beyond the cost of its inclusion.

How to actually accomplish that is, perhaps, its own story. And, if we can get both large corporations and the state to keep each other in check, it might solve many of the issues inherent to the statism vs corporatism debate.

I don't trust either one, in reality, but aligning their interests with "the people" may be possible beyond simply as an ideal or marketing slogan.

a reply to: luthier

And and and... They were all resolved through the existing mechanisms outline in the existing 1996 revised telecommunications act.

So what has the new law done??? Or what has it really attempted to do if existing law was sufficient to solve the occasional abuse of power present not only with ISP's , but in some form in every other industry??

Tells me there was something extra they have tried to sneak in while counting on people not reading ng the revised document from 1996 which already has protections, penalties and solutions outlined in detail.

What is the new extra bits we are not being sold; that's what is really the question.

a reply to: Serdgiam

the thing is we already saw what the internet was like under net neutrality.


when did it start 1996?

based on my memory , I may be off.

as soon as it was repealed I started getting notices of policy changes on end user agreements that I really didnt care for. that is in 2018.. so all the time before that, when I was online net neutrality has served me well.

I had a radio license under FCC.. Laws make sense. A lot of them.

Companies rarely make changes that help the consumer, until they get caught. They are like children. somone has to be the dad.. just careful the dad isnt too stern or a drunk.. Thing is your ISP is picked for you and if they want to make ATS run 3x as slow as youtube they can now whereas last year they could not choose that.

I feel like its an easy answer, for critical thinkers.. but people who put blanket philosophies over active thinking will "know" which side they are on without thinking.


next lets get rid of the epa cause Freemarkets!
or
next lets monitor whether woman breast feed or use formula and make them take drug tests to ensure babies health!

lol Im not on a side..

basketball games have refs.. both teams compete in the market.. if it were free market youd rely on players not to foul because it would look bad?

anyway.

I don't trust anyone either, but I can prioritize that list depending on who I trust least in each situation. less oversight here good more over there good.
DEA yucky.. EPA mostly good.. government can be wrong or right can steal your money as fast as any corporation and without your consent... but in this one case they are protecting your choice to go anywhere you want online at the given speed you pay for.. imagine paying for 100mbps and timewarner says packets on netflix are 6 times less priority than google and amazon.. just try watching an HD movie streamed then.. well until netflix colludes with timewarner and then the internet becomes pimped out to the high rollers..

originally posted by: worldstarcountry
a reply to: stormcell

I recall reading in a previous tellcom act document that actually had legal writing that already prevented the practices described with penalties even outlined.

Have you any examples of where this behavior has actually resulted in a situation described that was e xempt from those penalties and prohibitions or which company was guilty of such activity before NN??

Yes. Here's a short list that is by no means all encompassing.
www.freepress.net...

MADISON RIVER: In 2005, North Carolina ISP Madison River Communications blocked the voice-over-internet protocol (VOIP) service Vonage. Vonage filed a complaint with the FCC after receiving a slew of customer complaints. The FCC stepped in to sanction Madison River and prevent further blocking, but it lacks the authority to stop this kind of abuse today.

COMCAST: In 2005, the nation’s largest ISP, Comcast, began secretly blocking peer-to-peer technologies that its customers were using over its network. Users of services like BitTorrent and Gnutella were unable to connect to these services. 2007 investigations from the Associated Press, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others confirmed that Comcast was indeed blocking or slowing file-sharing applications without disclosing this fact to its customers.

TELUS: In 2005, Canada’s second-largest telecommunications company, Telus, began blocking access to a server that hosted a website supporting a labor strike against the company. Researchers at Harvard and the University of Toronto found that this action resulted in Telus blocking an additional 766 unrelated sites.

AT&T: From 2007–2009, AT&T forced Apple to block Skype and other competing VOIP phone services on the iPhone. The wireless provider wanted to prevent iPhone users from using any application that would allow them to make calls on such “over-the-top” voice services. The Google Voice app received similar treatment from carriers like AT&T when it came on the scene in 2009.

WINDSTREAM: In 2010, Windstream Communications, a DSL provider with more than 1 million customers at the time, copped to hijacking user-search queries made using the Google toolbar within Firefox. Users who believed they had set the browser to the search engine of their choice were redirected to Windstream’s own search portal and results.

MetroPCS: In 2011, MetroPCS, at the time one of the top-five U.S. wireless carriers, announced plans to block streaming video over its 4G network from all sources except YouTube. MetroPCS then threw its weight behind Verizon’s court challenge against the FCC’s 2010 open internet ruling, hoping that rejection of the agency’s authority would allow the company to continue its anti-consumer practices.

PAXFIRE: In 2011, the Electronic Frontier Foundation found that several small ISPs were redirecting search queries via the vendor Paxfire. The ISPs identified in the initial Electronic Frontier Foundation report included Cavalier, Cogent, Frontier, Fuse, DirecPC, RCN and Wide Open West. Paxfire would intercept a person’s search request at Bing and Yahoo and redirect it to another page. By skipping over the search service’s results, the participating ISPs would collect referral fees for delivering users to select websites.

AT&T, SPRINT and VERIZON: From 2011–2013, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon blocked Google Wallet, a mobile-payment system that competed with a similar service called Isis, which all three companies had a stake in developing.

EUROPE: A 2012 report from the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications found that violations of Net Neutrality affected at least one in five users in Europe. The report found that blocked or slowed connections to services like VOIP, peer-to-peer technologies, gaming applications and email were commonplace.

VERIZON: In 2012, the FCC caught Verizon Wireless blocking people from using tethering applications on their phones. Verizon had asked Google to remove 11 free tethering applications from the Android marketplace. These applications allowed users to circumvent Verizon’s $20 tethering fee and turn their smartphones into Wi-Fi hot spots. By blocking those applications, Verizon violated a Net Neutrality pledge it made to the FCC as a condition of the 2008 airwaves auction.

AT&T: In 2012, AT&T announced that it would disable the FaceTime video-calling app on its customers’ iPhones unless they subscribed to a more expensive text-and-voice plan. AT&T had one goal in mind: separating customers from more of their money by blocking alternatives to AT&T’s own products.

NETWORK-WIDE: Throughout 2013 and early 2014, people across the country experienced slower speeds when trying to connect to certain kinds of websites and applications. Many complained about underperforming streaming video from sites like Netflix. Others had trouble connecting to video-conference sites and making voice calls over the internet.

originally posted by: worldstarcountry
And and and... They were all resolved through the existing mechanisms outline in the existing 1996 revised telecommunications act.

No, they weren't.

None of those cases were resolved in court. Some were stopped through the FCC, others were stopped through consumer action, and others were stopped only because the company in question caved and gave the ISP additional money to make the problem go away.

a reply to: Aazadan
Oh, but you say they were all resolved right?? In fact, they were guilty of something already listed as unacceptable in the existing framework of modern Telecom laws, right??

Because if we needed. New piece of legislation to protect us from these practices, how were they even deemed improper to begin with??

Focus on the parts of these laws that they Are not trying to sell us is what should be of the main concern. I. Glad you finally presented some actual documentation as opposed to the usual mass media and rich people sound bytes in favor of whatever net neutrality laws are.

What law specifically is this again though,?? I remember reading some of it on the congressional website a couple years back,. Ut I don't remember it's official name or resolution #. You seem well vested in this topic, do you have that handy?? I want to read it again now more thoroughly and see what they are actually attempting to push through or usurp.

a reply to: worldstarcountry

They were resolved, but the issue is that they were resolved out of court. The laws weren't sufficient to actually solve anything through the legal system. Issues were resolved either through FCC rulings, or through companies caving and giving the ISP's more money.

I don't remember the name of the bill that passed.

Anyways, like I said... I would prefer to have Net Neutrality written into the law, but it's not 100% necessary given sufficient market competition. With the current telcom monopoly though, there is no competition. In order to bring competition back to the marketplace we need a law that prevents the owners of the distribution service from also being the content providers. That means one company (or group of companies) would own the lines and lease time on them. While other companies, the ISP's would be the middlemen that act as the point of access to the network. That would dramatically reduce the barrier to entry on being an ISP, and it would go back to being like the 90's with 10-100 competing providers in any given area as that was the model we had under dial up.

At least, that would work for wired networks. Wireless networks are a whole other mess, and pretty much can't be salvaged at this point.