President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet • Hacker News Board

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#381

Post by smileysteve » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 10:39 PM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #340

smileysteve wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd only support that if the ISPs started fucking up the internet massively. So, say they propose a fast lane for the internet. Or don't invest in the connections to level 3 to be able to provide Netflix to users.

I don't think a fast lane would necessarily fuck the internet. In fact, with proper management it might actually be beneficial. For example, I'd love it if my work VPN could be prioritized over someones pron torrent during internet rush hour. Net neutrality wouldn't fix the Level3/ Verizon&Comcast issues. Net neutrality doesn't force free peering. When I mean fucking the internet up, I mean significant degrading of s…

> For example, I'd love it if my work VPN could be prioritized over someones pron torrent during internet rush hour.

The person watching pron and paying the same price for internet as you doesn't think so.

Neutrality would still allow the user to pay for different speeds or qos, ie 15mbps at modem versus 100mbps at modem, or a 100% guaranteed qos vs no guaranteed qos (current residential). So, the market pricing would determine which gets to your modem faster, the pron or vpn.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#382

Post by mikeyouse » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 10:41 PM UTC

misingnoglic wrote: post #200

I know nothing about politics, but my guess is that this is a reaction to the majority republican house/senate. There's no way in hell a bill like this can be passed through congress (with all the special interests and whatnot), so by being at the front of this movement which is important to so many people, they'll opt to blame the republicans (who are now in charge).

The FCC can designate Title-II carriers with absolutely no input from congress, your theory isn't plausible.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#383

Post by foobarqux » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 10:51 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #343

foobarqux wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My question to Obama is: why now? Because it will never pass with a Republican majority so he can pretend to take a stand for the public without any actual effect that would upset business interests.

> Because it will never pass with a Republican majority The FCC has a 3-2 Democratic majority (all current members appointed by Obama, but under law which imposes a limit of 3 members of one party), and is the body through which this needs to pass.

Is it correct to say that neither the Congress nor the Senate can override the FCC in some fashion?

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#384

Post by rhino369 » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 10:57 PM UTC

drivingmenuts wrote: post #361

rhino369 wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think a fast lane would necessarily fuck the internet. In fact, with proper management it might actually be beneficial. For example, I'd love it if my work VPN could be prioritized over someones pron torrent during internet rush hour. Net neutrality wouldn't fix the Level3/ Verizon&Comcast issues. Net neutrality doesn't force free peering. When I mean fucking the internet up, I mean significant degrading of s…

> I'd love it if my work VPN could be prioritized over someones pron torrent during internet rush hour. That would require that someone somewhere would have to actually look at the bits to make a value judgement. And then you lose privacy and security. Additionally, you open the door wide for moral judgement of your bits, because we're people and that's what we do, rightly or wrongly. It's probably fine because you m…

It wouldn't require someone looking at it. I'd assume such a system would just prioritize traffic to specific IP addresses. Or they could pick a VPN port.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#385

Post by tn13 » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 11:14 PM UTC

The usual political propaganda where a politician pretends to be "champion of freedom" while doing something that is exactly opposite. (In past he had described Tax Cuts as Tax Subsidies, implying all money belongs to government by default).

Here is the more relevant part

"In a letter and a video posted on the White House website, President Obama said he believes "the FCC should reclassify consumer broadband service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act," allowing Internet Service Providers to be more heavily regulated. According to Obama, the change would acknowledge that "the Internet has become an essential part of everyday communication and everyday life."

This basically would mean government will now have a much bigger control over how new players enter this space and how they operate and how much profit they can make. When was the last time you heard PG&E doing something innovative ?

The real problem with net-neutrality has not been that the operators are bad. The real problem is existing government regulation does not facilitate entry of new players. More government regulation would only mean slowing down of innovative services like Google Fiber or SpaceX's internet satellites.

This sort of regulation would destroy the internet as we know it and will give more control to Government as to how we consume internet.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#386

Post by tn13 » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 11:15 PM UTC

The usual horror of the phrase

"I am from government and I am here to fix things for you".

Now, the government is in-charge of how we consume internet. This is bad and very bad. I cant see any scenario where this would be good for us. Expect the prices to go up and service to go down.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#387

Post by cranklin » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 11:16 PM UTC

I think this statement is just a disclaimer by the president for what's to come. Does anybody truly believe that he's in favor of net neutrality?

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#388

Post by Amezarak » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 11:31 PM UTC

padobson wrote: post #56

I hope no one is getting excited about this. President Obama is a lame duck. His party just got tossed out of the Senate, relegating his political capital to basically 0. In the wake of this, he's decided to take maybe the most important economic issue of the next 20 years and politicize it. Neither the red team nor the blue team could say they owned this issue, but one of the most divisive voices in politics just st…

> In the wake of this, he's decided to take maybe the most important economic issue of the next 20 years and politicize it.

Obama campaigned on net neutrality and has been talking about it throughout his presidency. This is nothing new.

I don't disagree that it might have been better if he had said nothing - but I suspect the current antigovernment sentiment would have applied regardless of what Obama said.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#389

Post by Amezarak » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 11:39 PM UTC

noobermin wrote: post #168

300bps wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They had 58 votes in 2009 which was darned close and they only needed one Republican to switch sides to stop a filibuster. Other than that, I guess you don't follow the news much. Harry Reid changed the Senate Rules in 2013 to disallow filibusters of appointments. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-poised-to-limi...

Ironically, the fact they changed the rules speaks against your claim that Obama could easily instate who he wanted. In fact, from the article you posted, it gives a graph that shows that more filibusters have been filed in the previous three senates than have been in recent history. This [1] shows a breakdown that includes filibusters of nominations. To further refute your point, the appointment relevant to the disc…

It's not just filibusters, even. Senators can also issue "secret" holds. At one point, Jeff Sessions (R-AL) put a hold on every single nominee simultaneously until some pork was added to a defense spending bill.

These holds have been common practice and they are very rarely publicized.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#390

Post by jaredmcdonald » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 11:40 PM UTC

roc wrote: post #372

DigitalSea wrote: post #154

As per usual with all politicians, these are just words. Nice words, but until a bill is passed and there is movement in the senate to make something like this closer to a reality, words are meaningless. My question to Obama is: why now? This whole net neutrality debate has been going on long before Obama started his first term of presidency, why wait until you are almost out of the White House to act upon something…

> "My question to Obama is: why now?" My guess? The FCC is probably close to deciding and Obama knows which way they're leaning. So he wants to build some distance between the DNC and the FCC, before the FCC inevitably announces they're going to let the ISPs do what they will. If Obama says nothing, Net Neutrality will continue to be a sub-headline issue even if/after the FCC allows it to die. Inasmuch as anyone noti…

> If he says something now, the reactionary portion of the GOP will take the opposite position as a knee-jerk response. It will become a larger news item and the GOP will have inherited the fallout.

Yeah, exactly. It's a pretty savvy way to drive a wedge through the GOP, and you already see the obstructionist crowd (e.g., Ted Cruz) playing right into it.