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Net Neutrality is at risk!Follow

#1 Nov 14 2014 at 12:57 PM Rating: Good
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Sorry if this is a duplicate thread, but to hell with it, this is important.

The FCC is currently making moves to turn over control of the Internet to big business, allowing ISPs to self-regulate legally now. This will end the concept of Net Neutrality as we know it in the USA, and will likely lead to similar rulings globally. It also means that corporations will be held ransom to pay off the Telecommunications giants in order to get equal treatment.

The FCC is taking comments on this now on their site:

http://www.fcc.gov/comments

Make your voices heard, please.
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#2 Nov 14 2014 at 1:22 PM Rating: Decent
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Commenting now.
#3 Nov 14 2014 at 4:06 PM Rating: Default
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Sigh...

Pawkeshup wrote:
The FCC is currently making moves to turn over control of the Internet to big businessimpose Net Neutrality, allowingcreating massive and restrictive regulation on ISPs to self-regulate legally now which never previously existed or was needed. This will endmake the concept of Net Neutrality law as we know it in the USA, and will likely lead to similar rulings globally. It also means that corporationseveryone on the internet will be held ransom by the government to pay off the Telecommunications giants in order to getunder the false pretense of equal treatment.


Fixed that for ya.


Quote:
Make your voices heard, please.


Yes. Please resoundingly oppose this new regulation that will impose draconian restrictions on everyone who uses the internet. Don't fall for the lies that you have been fed about this. Net Neutrality is not the status quo that the good guys are trying to protect, it is the new change that the bad guys are trying to impose on you.

Edited, Nov 14th 2014 2:17pm by gbaji
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#4 Nov 14 2014 at 4:43 PM Rating: Excellent
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Just cause it leaped to mind, and I can't resist quoting that game...

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The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.


Accordingly I don't trust anyone in this case.

Smiley: tinfoilhat

Edited, Nov 14th 2014 2:43pm by someproteinguy
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#5 Nov 14 2014 at 5:50 PM Rating: Good
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Pawkeshup wrote:
in the USA, and will likely lead to similar rulings globally.
Like with healthcare practices? And the death penalty? And maybe the right to bear arms?
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#6 Nov 15 2014 at 9:22 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Yes. Please resoundingly oppose this new regulation that will impose draconian restrictions on everyone who uses the internet. Don't fall for the lies that you have been fed about this. Net Neutrality is not the status quo that the good guys are trying to protect, it is the new change that the bad guys are trying to impose on you


Yes, because common carrier utterly destroyed the telecommunications industry before due to the draconian regulation of it. It's not like the lobbies haven't pushed the government to allow for countless illegal mergers or anything, nor do they willingly not compete with one another in order to divvy up the userbase and become effective limited monopolies.

Oh, and the FCC's former control over it was totally not usurped by a Telecom giant suing the government because what would ISPs have to gain from controlling network traffic?

Oh... wait.

Uglysasquatch wrote:
Pawkeshup wrote:
in the USA, and will likely lead to similar rulings globally.
Like with healthcare practices? And the death penalty? And maybe the right to bear arms?


This isn't like healthcare (although provinces in Canada, who control healthcare, have been pushing for a two-tier system in order to mirror the pay-for-care of the US...), or some of the other issues. This involves money, and a lot of it. Plus it's an issue that can be easily twisted (see gbaji above). If they can manage to get this in effect, just watch the rest of the ISPs follow suit elsewhere.
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Olorinus the Ludicrous wrote:
The idea of old school is way more interesting than the reality
#7 Nov 15 2014 at 9:43 AM Rating: Good
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You don't think healthcare is about money and **** tons of it? Nothing you say is of any relevance to me now, if you're that stunned.
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#8 Nov 16 2014 at 9:38 AM Rating: Decent
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Considering that I did mention how Canada's fighting to make two tier health a thing, I can see there being issues, but cconsidering the fight going on to prevent that, pushing though something that could be about more than money is a lot harder than something just all about it.

If cable companies win this fight, everyone loses. They are already in a position where they need to be regulated. One of the heads of they're companies blatantly said that they work with other providers to carve up the customer base so that they don't compete. That right there is in effect creating monopolies in violation of the law while simultaneously avoiding it. If the internet doesn't get reclassified, then they get to be the full on internet mafia. They get to hold for ransom internet traffic, continue their virtual monopolies and soak internet companies for additional fees.

If that is not relevant to you, then I don't get your priorities.


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Olorinus the Ludicrous wrote:
The idea of old school is way more interesting than the reality
#9 Nov 17 2014 at 4:54 AM Rating: Good
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I'm not to worried about what happens in the US. Harper won't be in forever and then some Liberal or worse, NDP PM will get in and go overboard and regulate it to death in Canada.

If you're against ISPs having so much power you should be speaking up more about Bell, not US companies.
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#10 Nov 17 2014 at 8:48 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Sigh...
Please, we're the ones that have to read your nonsense twice now.
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#11 Nov 17 2014 at 4:29 PM Rating: Decent
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Pawkeshup wrote:
Yes, because common carrier utterly destroyed the telecommunications industry before due to the draconian regulation of it. It's not like the lobbies haven't pushed the government to allow for countless illegal mergers or anything, nor do they willingly not compete with one another in order to divvy up the userbase and become effective limited monopolies.

Oh, and the FCC's former control over it was totally not usurped by a Telecom giant suing the government because what would ISPs have to gain from controlling network traffic?


Great. So let's enforce existing anti-trust regulations. Heck. If we need to beef them up a bit for 21st century technology, that's fine too. But that's not what Net Neutrality is really about. Answer me this:

How does passing a law that makes it illegal to prioritize packets at the switch level resolve the problem you are talking about?


My issue is that the entire thing is a giant bait and switch. Are there problems with the current status quo? Yes. Are there occasional abuses by ISPs and other players in the business? Yes. Does the proposed Net Neutrality legislation fix this? No. This is why I keep asking people to talk not just about the problems, but the proposed solution(s). Saying "this is broken" and then "fixing" it with something unrelated isn't a great idea.


Quote:
Oh... wait.


Yes. Wait. Spend some time getting to understand the proposed legislation and make an informed decision.

Quote:
This involves money, and a lot of it. Plus it's an issue that can be easily twisted (see gbaji above).


Except it's the version you're supporting that is "twisted". The fact that supporters of NN consistently fail to be able to even explain what NN legislation actually does is your first clue that you're being sold a bill of goods.
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#12 Nov 17 2014 at 6:12 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
This is why I keep asking people to talk not just about the problems, but the proposed solution(s). Saying "this is broken" and then "fixing" it with something unrelated isn't a great idea.
I'll freely admit I don't know much about this stuff. So, please, gbaji; you propose some solutions.
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#13 Nov 18 2014 at 8:19 AM Rating: Good
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Friar Bijou wrote:
So, please, gbaji; you propose some solutions.
Read the three or four other threads on the same topic. Not like he's got a lot of variety.
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#14 Nov 18 2014 at 10:03 AM Rating: Decent
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If we lowered the barriers to becoming an ISP there'd be more competition in the industry and ISPs would be less inclined to **** off their customers by throttling connections to certain websites etc. Of course, that requires the industry to become a utility given there's physical infrastructure on public land that needs to be maintained.
#15 Nov 18 2014 at 4:33 PM Rating: Decent
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Friar Bijou wrote:
gbaji wrote:
This is why I keep asking people to talk not just about the problems, but the proposed solution(s). Saying "this is broken" and then "fixing" it with something unrelated isn't a great idea.
I'll freely admit I don't know much about this stuff. So, please, gbaji; you propose some solutions.


Huh? I did:

gbaji wrote:
Great. So let's enforce existing anti-trust regulations. Heck. If we need to beef them up a bit for 21st century technology, that's fine too.


The things people complain about most with regard to ISPs are how they can use their control of the wires themselves to give them a competitive advantage with it comes to content. My point is that there are a whole host of ways to deal with this that don't involve the kinds of draconian and frankly poorly thought out requirements that come bundled with "Network Neutrality". In most cases, existing legislation is already sufficient. And where applicable, existing civil court options are often sufficient as well. In cases where ISP actually are abusing their licenses, there are avenues to pursue. And in cases where they have done this, they've pretty universally been slapped down for it and have stopped doing what they were doing.

The system in place largely works. Let's allow it to work. And where it doesn't *then* we act. But NN is the equivalent of tossing the baby out with the bathwater. It's a gross overreaction to the relatively rare and minor problems we're talking about.
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#16 Nov 18 2014 at 4:39 PM Rating: Decent
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Yodabunny wrote:
If we lowered the barriers to becoming an ISP there'd be more competition in the industry and ISPs would be less inclined to **** off their customers by throttling connections to certain websites etc. Of course, that requires the industry to become a utility given there's physical infrastructure on public land that needs to be maintained.


What barriers are you talking about though? I still think that people are confusing the terms here. For the context of this discussion the label "ISP" means "a company that runs physical wires to your home and therefore can use those wires to gain a competitive advantage in terms of delivering content to your home". There's no "lowering barriers" to who can be an ISP. Due to physical restrictions (and sane infrastructure requirements), there can only ever be *one* cable line to your home, and *one* telephone wire to your home. That's it. That's the restriction. We can't change that.

What we can do is add additional potential sources of connection. Cellular networks can provide this to some degree (although it can be argued that someone still owns the base stations, but that's at least a bit more fluid). But even in that case, most people have their cellular devices route through a wireless connection that runs through their home's Telephone or Cable line for data use when they're home. So those two companies are always going to be positioned the best in this context.


We can't "fix" the issue of oligopoly (as I mentioned repeatedly in the other thread). What we can do is try to ensure that those who control the wires don't take an unfair advantage of the situation. And NN is *not* the way to do that.
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#17 Nov 18 2014 at 6:52 PM Rating: Decent
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gbaji wrote:
Yodabunny wrote:
If we lowered the barriers to becoming an ISP there'd be more competition in the industry and ISPs would be less inclined to **** off their customers by throttling connections to certain websites etc. Of course, that requires the industry to become a utility given there's physical infrastructure on public land that needs to be maintained.


What barriers are you talking about though? I still think that people are confusing the terms here. For the context of this discussion the label "ISP" means "a company that runs physical wires to your home and therefore can use those wires to gain a competitive advantage in terms of delivering content to your home". There's no "lowering barriers" to who can be an ISP. Due to physical restrictions (and sane infrastructure requirements), there can only ever be *one* cable line to your home, and *one* telephone wire to your home. That's it. That's the restriction. We can't change that.

What we can do is add additional potential sources of connection. Cellular networks can provide this to some degree (although it can be argued that someone still owns the base stations, but that's at least a bit more fluid). But even in that case, most people have their cellular devices route through a wireless connection that runs through their home's Telephone or Cable line for data use when they're home. So those two companies are always going to be positioned the best in this context.


We can't "fix" the issue of oligopoly (as I mentioned repeatedly in the other thread). What we can do is try to ensure that those who control the wires don't take an unfair advantage of the situation. And NN is *not* the way to do that.


Yes we can. Turn the physical infrastructure into a utility and allow companies to purchase use at a percentage of the maintenance cost of the system plus administration costs and upgrade budget costs. Easy. Great system for public, great system for small business, great for the economy. You should love this idea.
#18 Nov 19 2014 at 3:42 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
We can't "fix" the issue of oligopoly (as I mentioned repeatedly in the other thread).
Repeatedly? Not how sure I missed that if you did it repeatedly cause I never saw you address it even once. By the way though, you can fix Oligopolies,, it just requires regulations.

Stop panicking! That word doesn't' have to be scary. If your side is the 1st so regulate it, it creates less urgency for the other side to regulate it when they get the power to do so.
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#19 Nov 19 2014 at 9:15 AM Rating: Good
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Gbaji wrote:
My issue is that the entire thing is a giant bait and switch. Are there problems with the current status quo? Yes. Are there systemic and widespread abuses by ISPs and other players in the business? Yes. Does the proposed Net Neutrality legislation fix this? Yes. This is why I keep asking people to talk not just about the problems, but the proposed solution(s). Saying "this is broken" and then "fixing" it with something is a great idea.


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Repeatedly? Not how sure I missed that if you did it repeatedly cause I never saw you address it even once.
He has, but in your defense it's the same type of "explanation" as the rest of 'em. You know, heavy on words, light on being on point.
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#21 Nov 20 2014 at 8:36 PM Rating: Decent
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Yodabunny wrote:
Yes we can. Turn the physical infrastructure into a utility and allow companies to purchase use at a percentage of the maintenance cost of the system plus administration costs and upgrade budget costs. Easy. Great system for public, great system for small business, great for the economy. You should love this idea.


I think you're engaging in a sort of wishful thinking interpretation of what a "utility" is, and how this would (or even could) play out. Do you understand that this is more or less how things are right now? Change "utility" to "licensed to operate the physical infrastructure in a given geographical area" and you haven't actually changed anything. Where we are right now is a natural progression over time. It's most cost and administration efficient to manage this in relatively large geographical areas versus small. That's why don't have a different cable company every other block. We used to (well, we did with phone and electricity lines), and over time, they competed in the market and merged, and otherwise did whatever made things cheaper and better for everyone, and the result is where we are now.

What you are proposing simply does not work. Not on any kind of scale, and not for any reasonable length of time. It's the equivalent of complaining that a stick is laying on its side rather than balanced on its end. Well. Laying on its side is the natural location a stick will settle to over time. You can keep propping it up on its end, but it'll move to the more stable position eventually. Same deal here. It's unworkable to try to divvy up physical infrastructure service into pieces as small as you seem to want.


And, at the risk of repeating myself, all of this ignores the fact that NN doesn't actually do even what you are proposing. And when attempts to more tightly regulate services (as a "utility" even), are actually made, it usually results in less competition, not more. Those networks in Europe that folks praise for their high speed and reliability? Run with much greater (or even complete) government control. And guess what? The huge number of small little service providers you imagine will appear in this model don't exist there.


I guess I just don't understand what you think will happen other than "magic". Do you really think that even if some local government stepped in and did this, that the existing cable and phone companies wouldn't still be able to buy the lions share of the control of the physical infrastructure? Barring the government creating anti-competitive rules (basically propping up the stick, er, setting aside portions of the infrastructure for just "small companies" to run), this wont work. And if they did that, the result would be bad for the consumer. Because if the only way to allow the little guys to manage X% of the infrastructure is to legislate it, then you've just tossed competition out the window. The customers of those little guys are going to suffer worse service and worse performance as a result. Of course, that wont matter because we all know that the percent set aside for this will be the folks in the poor section of town, where people don't have the time or money or influence to fight it.


The result of what you propose would be the ghettoization of the internet. It's a terrible idea. At best, it accomplishes nothing, and at worse, it makes things much much worse for those with the least power to do anything about it. The haves will still have good internet, and the have-nots will be subject to the whims of crappy services protected from competition by a well meaning but terribly flawed bit of legislation.

Oh. And it's still all meaningless because this isn't what's being proposed in the NN legislation anyway.

Edited, Nov 20th 2014 7:06pm by gbaji
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#22 Nov 20 2014 at 9:02 PM Rating: Decent
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Uglysasquatch wrote:
gbaji wrote:
We can't "fix" the issue of oligopoly (as I mentioned repeatedly in the other thread).
Repeatedly? Not how sure I missed that if you did it repeatedly cause I never saw you address it even once.


Really? Not once? Did you read the thread (cross thread shenanigans engage!):

Quote:
The existence of oligopoly is necessary because they're physically running wires to your home. We can talk about the long history of local governments licensing only one or two companies to do this and why it's necessary if you want, but how about we just accept that it is and move on?


and (responding to a claim I was saying oligopolies were "good for you"):


Quote:
I didn't say it was "good for you". I said it was a necessary evil due to the issue of having to manage physical wires run to your home:


and:

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Simply saying "it's an oligopoly" isn't useful because any system involving physical wires, pipes, etc to your home involves the same sort of thing. That's the part we can't get around and isn't fixable. So that, by itself, isn't a problem we can solve.


and (responding to a claim that it wasn't necessary):

Quote:
Yes it is. For the same reason why there's only one company that runs electricity to your home, and one that runs gas to your home. We learned very very early that allowing any company to do this was completely unworkable. There's only so much room under/over the street to run this stuff to people's homes. So you have to limit it to just one company providing any one type of connection. And that company is licensed by the local government to do this. That's unavoidable, and that's why you have just one cable company and one phone company to choose from.


and:

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I'm not sure you understand what I'm talking about. Whether it's the local government doing it themselves, or granting a license to a company to do it, you will have no more than one electricity line, one gas line, one water line, one phone line, and one cable line run to your home. No matter what you do past that initial point you are stuck with that condition. Someone has to provide the "service" that runs to your home.


and (in response to a claim that I was unfairly dismissing the monopoly aspects of ISPs):

Quote:
No. It's that it's not relevant. All the companies that run stuff to your home have "monopolies". I've never seen you rail about how unfair it is that the gas company is the only game in town and you're stuck paying their prices. And that evil water company. OMG! What ever shall you do? They're probably tracking your water usage and figuring out when you take a shower for some nefarious purpose. Run. Run now!


and:

Quote:
You're still left with only allowing one company to service any single geographical area (so your block, or superblock, or community, or town, or whatever will all have the same cable company and the same phone company). There's just no practical way to do this differently. The base argument of oligopoly is not something you can get away from. That's why I keep saying that this is a poor argument to make.



Most of that thread devolved into angrymnk just saying "Oligopoly!" over and over while I kept trying to explain that while we can certainly regulate to prevent abuses of the oligopolies that result from the physical requirements of running and operating data wires to people's homes, and I invited him to engage in a discussion of such things, we can't actually get around the fact that any single home will only have one cable company and one phone company that provides the physical "service" to his home. That's the "oligopoly" and it can't be "fixed" (well, not in any way that actually makes the customers experience better).

You really missed this? Cause that's why I stopped posting in the thread. After saying the same exact thing a half dozen times, I figured there was just no getting through to him. I made my point (multiple times). The water is there. It's up to the reader to choose to drink.

Quote:
By the way though, you can fix Oligopolies,, it just requires regulations.


You can fix the potential abuses that can result. But in this context, you can't eliminate the existence of the oligopoly itself though. So any argument that is based solely on "we need regulation because it's an oligopoly" is a flawed argument. Arguing for specific regulation to prevent a specific abuse that may arise as a result of the oligopoly is a good way to go, and I invited him to do this several times, but each time he ran back to "it's an oligopoly!". Which got a bit tiresome after a while.
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#23 Nov 21 2014 at 4:21 AM Rating: Good
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You can fix the potential abuses that can result. But in this context, you can't eliminate the existence of the oligopoly itself though. So any argument that is based solely on "we need regulation because it's an oligopoly" is a flawed argument. Arguing for specific regulation to prevent a specific abuse that may arise as a result of the oligopoly is a good way to go.
Conceded
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#24 Nov 21 2014 at 8:31 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Which got a bit tiresome after a while.
Agreed, people repeating themselves obsessively does get tiresome.

Edited, Nov 21st 2014 12:59pm by lolgaxe
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#25 Nov 21 2014 at 4:58 PM Rating: Decent
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lolgaxe wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Which got a bit tiresome after a while.
Agreed, people repeating themselves obsessively does get tiresome.


So you're saying that when people repeat themselves obsessively, it gets tiresome? Smiley: tongue
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