Republicans Mess!!
House tells FCC to drop net neutrality
91–100 of 101 posts
Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality
#92"But critics of net neutrality rules argue that free-market competition would prevent such abuses" Is consumer internet really a free market? To my knowledge, most of the Bay Area only has a choice between Comcast and AT&T. If you only have 2 or 3 companies competing, it's relatively easy for them all to decide independently that traffic shaping is in their own best interest, which leaves the consumer with no real ch…
Free market does not necessarily mean perfect competition, or 10+ competitors to choose from. I don't know where you got that idea.
While this is true, it was essentially mandated that there be two competitors. The choice was to have many resellers of DSL competing against cable, or an entrenched duopoly. Chairman Michael Powell chose the duopoly, even using that word to describe it.
Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality
#93"But critics of net neutrality rules argue that free-market competition would prevent such abuses" Is consumer internet really a free market? To my knowledge, most of the Bay Area only has a choice between Comcast and AT&T. If you only have 2 or 3 companies competing, it's relatively easy for them all to decide independently that traffic shaping is in their own best interest, which leaves the consumer with no real ch…
> If you only have 2 or 3 companies competing ...
If there were truly only 2 companies that provided internet in the Bay Area (this would be extremely surprising to me), collusion might be possible.
With 3, you now have a nice unstable equilibrium in game theory terms.
But what do you want to bet there are even more, and you've only heard about the name brand ones?
We haven't considered wireless broadband providers. How many of those are there?
Okay, so maybe the Bay Area's okay, but what about the rest of America? Turns out that, according to the FCC's own data, 98% of zipcodes have 2 or more landline providers, and 88% of zipcodes have 4 or more. Again, this is not counting 3g or 4g.
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-292191...
Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality
#94What about the "what is in a name" path? What if, instead of regulating what ISPs can do with their network, there were a movement (read, "lawsuits") (using some new or perhaps just existing law) to stop anything past some previously normal level of traffic management from being called "internet service". So a teleco could give preference to their own, or affiliate, traffic, but that could not be referred to by them,…
Sounds like an elegant solution. Similar to a recent suggestion on the whole Honeycomb thing (open the code, but assert control of the Android trademark).
http://monogatari.doukut.su/2011/04/openness-and-reputation....
Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think we're at a point where Internet access needs to be classified as a utility, like electricity and water. We are indeed in a situation where many companies have invested in their own infrastructure and maybe that requires consideration. I'm absolutely certain that jimktrains2 has a point: the U.S. taxpayers coughed up tremendous amounts of money to invest in infrastructure which makes those lines ours. (Sure, '…
There is no company I have to deal with on a regular basis that is worse than the electrical company. This Internet stuff is not really a voting issue for me (health care and education are the big things that make me a Dem and not a Lib), but the candidate that tells me he wants to turn AT&T into Commonwealth Edison has secured a donation from me to his opponent. Be careful what you wish for.
There is no company I have to deal with on a regular basis that is worse than the electrical company.
Care to elaborate? Regarding electric co. service, mine has been reliable (far more than my cable internet service). Regarding customer service and price, can't really complain about these either and I've had a fair amount of experience on both a commercial and personal level.
Full Disclosure: Personally, I'm an advocate of regulations that would treat the net more like a utility. By diminishing the profit motive for maintaining the infrastructure, I believe that we can better ensure equal access and adequate service quality (e.g. South Korea: http://articles.cnn.com/2010-03-31/tech/broadband.south.kore...).
Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think we're at a point where Internet access needs to be classified as a utility, like electricity and water. We are indeed in a situation where many companies have invested in their own infrastructure and maybe that requires consideration. I'm absolutely certain that jimktrains2 has a point: the U.S. taxpayers coughed up tremendous amounts of money to invest in infrastructure which makes those lines ours. (Sure, '…
There is no company I have to deal with on a regular basis that is worse than the electrical company. This Internet stuff is not really a voting issue for me (health care and education are the big things that make me a Dem and not a Lib), but the candidate that tells me he wants to turn AT&T into Commonwealth Edison has secured a donation from me to his opponent. Be careful what you wish for.
At least power companies don't try and tell me what to do with the energy I buy from them - they don't tell me I have to pay more to use / can't use brands of toasters unless the manufacturer paid them money.
I think the ideal solution would be an act specifically about net neutrality - but where existing laws allow net neutrality to be regulated, I think that using those measures in the interim is not necessarily a bad thing.
Prosecuting companies that aren't using net neutrality in the interim might be more of an FTC role than an FCC role in terms of current US government structures - especially if they can get a court to agree that non-net neutrality violates one of the anti-trust or consumer protection laws.
Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
You probably got downvoted because you show a lack of understanding of what grellas was saying. What he was saying was that if the FCC had been allowed by the courts to use 'ancillary jurisdiction' to impose new rules, the FCC would indeed be in the very situation which you say is impossible, a situation of broad, unchecked power.
You're mistaken on this point. The courts already rejected the ancillary jurisdiction rationale, and rather than wait for Congress to make a decision on net neutrality, the FCC adopted a new rationale (which, as I recall, hinged upon reclassifying broadband traffic) to justify imposing their net neutrality rules. All of this is in grellas' post. The issue grellas is raising is whether it's acceptable to let a regulat…
In the next few years, it's looking like the vast majority of telecommunications will move over to the Internet. If the FCC doesn't have the authority to regulate the Internet, they will have no regulatory authority whatsoever over land-based telecom. I don't see how that is reasonable, and I don't see how the initial decision to classify Internet as something other than a wire communications service was justifiable.
It's disingenuous to say the FCC is claiming any authority they don't have under the law.
Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality
#98From the outside it looks like the US political scene is a complete and ridiculous mess right now, led by the Republican Congress.
I'm a liberal Democrat and I'm queasy about enforced net neutrality; these are rules that govern what companies can do with their own infrastructure, and rules that could unintentionally retard progress instead of protecting it. Further, Congress has a legitimate gripe here. We don't elect FCC commissioners. They're appointed. We should be particularly concerned about them overstepping their bounds. Which a reasonabl…
As far as slowing down progress, there is a danger of this happening without net neutrality as well.
Consider the current state in Australia: you have ISPs that charge you based on GB of bandwidth used per month. For example, lets say your ISP signs a deal with Hulu so that traffic from them is free for you. Most people would probably not give any consideration to competing services because they will have to pay for bandwidth while using them. This is a huge advantage to already established online tv services that have resources to make these kinds of offers with ISPs. Meanwhile, new services that can't afford them get ignored by users despite perhaps having better feature sets.
Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wasn't that infrastructure paid for by taxes?
No? Not really? Pretty sure AT&T and Comcast spend way way more of their own money forklifting in CRS1's and terminating circuits? From where do you get the idea that the major carriers are heavily subsidized? I'm sure they get breaks, but no, I don't think your taxes fund AT&T, Comcast, L3, &c.
Land and subsidies to lay fiber?
Re: House tells FCC to drop net neutrality
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
"unaccountable government regulators"? Just wondering about this. If you think a popularly elected government is "unaccountable", can you give an example of something that is accountable?
China also has a popularly elected government ... The fact that there are two parties in US and one in China does not make any difference IHMO. Switzerland referendum system would be my example of accountable government.
Are you kidding me? China censored internet during middle east crisis, they do not want their people to know how government of Egypt was toppled and what is happening in Libya. Even though current democratic government is much like Islamist who wants to drive this country in ground, but it is better than China government.