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Net Neutrality Is Just "Mumbo Jumbo"
Ergasiophobia writes "It seems the National Cable & Telecommunications Association is spreading a blatant lie in the form of a commercial claiming that the net neutrality act will cost the consumer more and that it is 'bad' for the consumer. This, of course, ignores how much the cable companies will profit from the act's defeat. For some truthful information on the net neutrality act check out savetheinternet.com" This honestly seems too stupid to actually be real. Anyone know for sure?
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Real? (Score:5, Funny)
Shouldn't you work that out before putting it up on the front page?
Re:Real? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Real? (Score:4, Informative)
b) I'm so happy I live in the UK, where I'm spared ads like that. Even the worst ads here are nowhere near as dumbed down (that ad talks down to people on so many levels) or expressly politicised as that.
Re:Real? (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I prefer sites where they wear their hearts on their sleeves. Makes it far easier to read between the lines.
Re:Real? (Score:4, Insightful)
"News for nerds..."
Re:Real? (Score:4, Insightful)
Shockingly, most real news sites don't depend on their viewers for news story contributions. I imagine if they did, we'd hear many more stories on the nightly news about old women teaching their parakeets to crochet.
be careful what you wish for (Score:4, Insightful)
Thank you.
This net.neutrality debate terrifies me.
It's the same "we need we need we need" nonsense that gave us icann. If you look at the first time icann was mentioned on this site consensus was that it was a good thing, while a few folks said "this is not good".
Now history (or is that hysteria?) is repeating itself. It's a fashion statement and the worst form of political incorrectness to disagree.
The problem I have with this whole debate is, the insistance on changes to the regulatory frameworks and addition of new laws.
It seems to me people who insist we need new laws either have no experience in this process or are self serving and are looking to get themseleves and their friends jobs in some form.
So I ask you please please please: look at actual problems that have arisen and look at what happened and how quickly and ask yourself are there existing safeguards in place and do we want and need new laws governing the Internet?
Re:be careful what you wish for (Score:5, Insightful)
The key to Net Neutrality was that phone companies no longer controlled the lines anymore. They owned the lines and provided telecommunication service... They were not allowed to restrict end user devices that met FCC specification for Telcom (faxing and dial-up took off after this) the local bells were not allowed interstate long distance anymore. Later, the restrictions were included to define the telco as "line owner" and any company could rent the lines and provide service. Also, telcos were prohibited from providing many extra pay-for services outside phone service. Things like providing music over the phone, or even running their own ISPs were orginally prohibited.
What's happened specifically since 2000 is that there's been a push to designate internet connections as "data service" not "telco". Of course that narrowly defines "telco" as POTS.. when the network is so much more now. Thru FCC rulings and court cases they've got "data service" ruled as a seperate business from telephone. Cable companies pioneered this when they got Broadband over the "public" cable network reclassified as a seperate business from the Cable service with little to no public oversight..(never mind their orginal charters don't include data service either) since then telcos have been biding their time when they can own the whole "internet" all over again. You're still getting the internet over a phone line, they want to own it all again.
Net Neutrality is a "pre-emptive" strike against the telcos that have been manapulating for years to undo the restrictions put on them after the monopoly was broken up. The point is that they clearly plan to go right back to predatory, non-customer-friendly practices just as fast as they can when the ink is dry.. after all, 3 of the 5 were sued just last week after the Universal Service Charge was supposed to come off... but they tried to sneek a new fee in to replace it!!! is there any more proof than that needed to show we need to heavily restrict these guys BEFORE they ruin something really good for their own greed!
What's real? (Score:5, Interesting)
It is. I've seen it in the Dallas-Fort Worth area once.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Seen it in Central Ohio (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What's real? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yea, same in southwest Iowa. Iowa Telecom is pretty active in these things. These same crooks got a usually illegal cross-subsidy snuck through the public utilities commission a few years ago to apply a mandatory fee of $3.50 on every phone line in every home or business from their telephone monopoly that they could use to put into the coffers of their Internet and DSL operations which had competition. Imagine your electric company adding fees that they then put into their inefficient, lousy grocery store so they could drive the good stores out of town that didn't have the extra funding from a monopoly. They also had an issue with some donations of very expensive gifts to the public utilities officials at the same time that got swept under the rug.
The incumbant phone companies and cable providers don't like competition. They don't like the consumer having choice. They need that video revenue on top of Internet, voice, etc. to really clean things up. $220 a month per subscriber is a target they routinely discuss.
That they'd run false advertising is the least of their disgusting behavior. When you find out how much money they grease the political skids with (not to mention all the nice fact-finding vacations in exotic locations they're sending your congresspeople to of both parties), you'd be ill.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Good grief (Score:5, Insightful)
2) Even if that claim were obviously false, the submitter's argument against it is a total non-sequitur.
3) People who write "seems to stupid to actually be real" shouldn't throw stupid.
You can do better than guess... (Score:3, Insightful)
The Internet has practiced net neutrality since its inception. Why do you suggest that one can only guess how it will play out? It's playing out just fi
Network Neutrality supporters always forget... (Score:4, Insightful)
Text version, because Flash sucks. (Score:5, Informative)
Makes Microsoft's FUD look a bit tame by comparison.
Net Neutrality is not the answer (Score:5, Insightful)
As soon as other companies can buy access to the customer and sell them services, then the largest players can't offer degraded or bad service, because the customer can go elsewhere. The problem that Net Neutrality tries to solve is a problem because the customers in a lot of areas don't have many companies to choose from. Solve that problem instead of trying to enforce Net Neutrality and the US will be much better off.
From the mouth of a senator (Score:3, Interesting)
Telephone industry deregulation (Score:5, Insightful)
We have seen an explosion of telecommunication technology and consumer options since AT&T was broken up and the telephone industry was transformed from a monopoly into a set of carrriers that could each compete on level ground. Many here might be too young to remember how the phone company used to argue that the integrity of their network would be compromised by even adding a diifferent (not AT&T) handset to a line in your house. At that time, AT&T's network ended (barely) at your ear.
There were plenty of jokes about the break-up at the time and it was impossible back then to see what the full effect of this might be. But today, we have a recent and relevant history to help guide our decision-making. Level ground, competition for services and not territoriality of infrastructure is what gives consumers choices while driving up profits. I believe Net Neutrality is ultimately better for service providers, too, though they appear to be too greedy to see it.
I've not been hearing comparisions by the media or analysts of Net Neutrality to the phone system break-up but the parallels seem compelling to me. To the extent we can bring the argument to "people who matter", perhaps this is a way to get past that disengenuousness that is the hallmark of today's politics.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You seem to be telling
Advertising is mostly lies, anyway... (Score:4, Insightful)
Just look how the BP petroleum company runs all those corporate image advertisements that say how much BP cares about the environment.
hmm (Score:3, Funny)
Two question for the great debate. (Score:4, Interesting)
From the blog [blogspot.com]
In California there was an outrage when it was disclosed that electricity companies had deliberately idled plants while supplies were tight and then waited for prices to skyrocket on the spot market. If the current Internet network infrastructure provided by the backbone providers and Internet service providers can currently support much higher speeds and data quantities to current customers, then is the act of packet filtering and setting arbitrary low speed and data caps also effectively providing an "idled" service?
Is a tiered Internet service, where content providers would be effectively competing on a similar market to the electricity "spot market", a market based entirely on artificial Scarcity?
Unethical advertisement omits substance and facts (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing that I found most disturbing about the advertising was its total lack of substance. Never once does it explain how or why costs would rise, etc. It felt really slimy, like a poorly done political mudslinging ad (which, some would say, it was). My gut reaction is that nothing in the advertisement was blatently illegal, just very very unethical simply due to what it does not say. Deceipt by omission of fact is still indeed a lie.
Advert kung fu? (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunate (Score:3, Insightful)
Honestly, I think there might be some false advertising in this, but my honest opinion is that we need to fight fire with fire and get the tech companies to start advertising as well. The ads need to be factual, straight to the point, and needs to explain in layman's terms EXACTLY what is happening and why the providers have a vested interest in spreading misinformation.
Yeah, the rules of this game suck, but if we want to win we either have to play by them, or rewrite them.
Yep, it's real... (Score:3, Interesting)
Running ALOT in Austin, TX area (Score:4, Insightful)
Rest of the world? (Score:4, Insightful)
Does anyone even realize that the internet isn't a US only affair? That abandoning network neutrality could result in isolating the US?
Part of the Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Even among net-savvy people, you see a lot of questions like "Would having a non-neutral network be such a bad thing?" Certainly it might be nice if your provider guaranteed that your voip traffic would get through to your voip provider no matter how many people are running bittorrent at that time. It'd be significantly less nice if your provider did that if you signed on with their voip provider but left you in the bittorrent class if you were using a different one, like Vonage. I suspect that in a non-neutral network that's the much more likely scenario with most providers.
There's always the option of shelling out some extra cash and signing on with a provider who doesn't pull such shenanigans, but as we have seen most people won't. Even most small-to-mid sized businesses won't bother to check into such things. Really big businesses like IBM have their own infrastructure and probably won't notice.
So the first trick is figuring out how to explain this in a manner that won't sound like Charlie Brown's teacher to Joe Average Citizen and the second trick is getting that message out to enough people that it'll make a difference.
Everything ultimately costs the consumer something (Score:4, Insightful)
But worse still, everyone along the chain has to make a profit - so if I pay my ISP a dollar for net access, that's the end of the line - but if the maker of my favorite widget has to pay my ISP a dollar and therefore has to charge me a dollar extra for my Widget - then WalMart has to pay a dollar extra and I have to pay a dollar fifty extra because they have to make a profit too.
It's the same with "free" services such as Google and MySpace - yes, they are free to the end user - but the Widget makers who are paying them to advertise there are charging me more for their products as a result of that cost.
I would honestly prefer that the world were utterly devoid of 'push' advertising of all kinds and that I had to pay what these services actually cost. Sure Television would cost more, there would be a penny per search on Google and so on - but the end products I buy would be vastly cheaper as a result.
According to this: www.transportation.anl.gov/pdfs/TA/57.pdf (for example), 23% of the cost of a new car is the cost of marketing it to us! Now - which would you prefer? No adverts on TV or on the web or on ugly signs everywhere - but TV and Internet that costs (say) $20 per month more than it does now ($200 per year maybe) - but the cost of almost everything you buy being 23% less...or what we have now where a fifth of the price of almost everything we buy is the cost of advertising it to us?
So - no, I don't WANT cheaper Internet paid for by businesses - I want much, much more expensive Internet with no adverts at all anywhere - because I'm smart enough to realise that it would save me money overall.
Why do you say that? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is being addressed to the ignorant consumers and politicians. Sadly, they are the majority. As it is, if you really want this to not happen write your reps. Better yet, if you have the time, or contacts, educate them. keep in mind that these companies have BILLIONS backing them and are sending "educators" (lobbyists along the lines of abrahamoff) to help your local politicians understand the issues.
Re:Where's the lie, exactly? (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you figure it's "common sense" that Net Neutrality is bad for the consumer? The failing of net neutrality would almost assuredly make the costs of starting a new online business prohibitively expensive, as opposed to the amazingly level playing field we've managed to maintain for new business starting out on the internet for the last decade. If Amazon, Yahoo and MSN are all given the high-priority bandwidth, and the "next big thing" would be relegated to whatever is left over. With the "next big thing" appearing to be slower than dirt, through no fault of the creators, the "next big thing" becomes the "last failed thing", and the only companies that are able to innovate are the likes of Microsoft who can afford to put the money into it. What happens to all the sites out there right now you love so much? Wikipedia would be toast, so would Last.fm, and del.icio.us, and Digg... maybe even our very own Slashdot, who knows. It depends on how much more expensive it gets to run a high-traffic site.
Here's my favorite part: their argument is "why should Google be able to use my pipes for free?" To truly get an idea of just how absurd this would be, think about this: AT&T offers consumers and small businesses internet service, as well as offering backbone-level service to web hosting providers and data centers. Theoretically, there could be an AT&T pipe connecting Google's servers to the internet, and an AT&T DSL or dialup connection connecting YOU to the internet, and Google would STILL have to pay for "higher priority". In this scenario, not only would Google not be using those pipes "for free", but AT&T would in fact be collecting THREE TIMES from two parties.
But, forget all of that, because the real reason Net Neutrality is good is very, very simple. What matters is that Big Telco - specifically Verizon and SBC - had a brilliant idea of how to double their profits without incurring any additional expense, any additional work, or much in the way of additional equipment (routing gear is peanuts compared to most of the infrastructure expenses they've got), all the while looking like the indignant victim, by using peoples' fear and misunderstanding of technology. They want something for nothing and they'll use all the FUD they can muster to get it.
Don't let them!!
Re:Two sides to the issue (Score:5, Insightful)
What Google and other companies on the other side need to do is to come up with simple way of explaining how the routing works (nailing the "tubes" cavemanship as a positive side effect), and why messing with the routing is bad for the internet.
Google et al needs to pick up the challenge and reply with their own advertisement.
Generalizing: is there something that consumers can do all these industry associations? Is it possible to slap some anti-monopolistic laws against those bastards?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What is so hard to understand? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, here is the other side.
Once the above occurs, the telcos/cable will start charging for the connections from one to the other. All in all, this is beginning of the end of the net IFF the tellcos are allowed to charge on the other side of the connection.
Devil's advocate (Score:3, Interesting)
The large "source" providers have already paid money. That is they are connected to ATT, or MCI, or whoever. How many times do they have to pay?
Yes, they paid to be connected to a backbone provid
Wish I had some mod points (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Devil's advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
They do what all companies do. They charge more if their competition allows it, or they change their business model, or they increase their efficiency, or they go out of business for being unable to meet the needs of their consumers.
Google's telco is entirely free to charge Google more if it needs to. My telco is entirely free to charge me more if it needs to. They are not free to set up an infinite number of toll bridges in between me and Google.
What broadband providers need to do (Score:4, Insightful)
The cable and telephone operators - the entities that own by far the majority of the "last mile" into millions of homes - currently are stuck in mentalities that revolve around their traditional businesses. Namely, provision of television content and telephone services. Their unique position of owning wires that physically reach everyone's homes placed them in a unique position to also deliver data services. However, the burgeoning data business is still playing second fiddle to what many of these providers see as their declining core businesses.
As more and more customers shift to obtaining things like entertainment content and voice/video communications capability from internet-based services, the less customers will patronize cable and telephone operators in their traditional markets.
What the home broadband providers need to do more than anything is to start seeing themselves as movers of bits, and nothing more, and concentrate on becoming damned good at that. Instead of trying to engineer mechanisms for charging "large" content providers to subsidize their operations, they should be building out and investing in better and better IP data networks. There will be a day when I may elect to get CNN á la carte directly from CNN, obtain my TV shows and movies directly from publishers or commercial aggregators like iTunes, and my communications services from a combination of my wireless carrier and the internet. Some of these are already possible today, and are growing.
Traditional, regimented television delivery and landline telephones in many large markets are at the beginning of being on the way out. Yes, for many readers here, they already are. But for the vast majority of people, particularly those in the US, we haven't even scratched the surface in some of these areas. The home broadband operators are in the best position to move these bits we'll all need moved. The sooner they realize that's their future, the better it will be for everyone - them included.
Re:Two sides to the issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A convenient label? (Score:5, Funny)
Government.
"Affirmative Action", "Homeland Security", "War on $flavour_of_the_month", "Electoral Recounts"...
what if one isn't FUD? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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"Right now, your ISP charges you to access the Internet, and that's it. It this way because right now the Internet treats everything equally, and is considered 'Neutral'. What ISPs and Telcos want to charge you another fee in exchange fo
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'm suspicious of net "neutrality". (Score:5, Insightful)
The other main reason is to keep Skype et al. out of their captive markets.
When it comes to telecos, as I understand it, the competition is in reality an illusion - If your only two choices for high speed net are CableCo and Bell, then you as a consumer don't actually get to choose - particularly if (as often happens) they operate on nod-and-wink basis. It's also highly unlikely that you will know which companies the CableCo and Bell have made deals with for better access before you sign 12 months of your money away - they are hardly going to list such "commercially sensitive" information on their adverts.
To use the UPS/FedEx analogy - Imagine UPS don't serve your town, so you have to use FedEx. You place an order with Borders for some books, to discover that because they have done a deal with UPS, FedEx refuses to provide any better service than 1-week parcels. Amazon, however, have a deal with FedEx, but charge a little more for the books you want. You can get Amazon books next-day though. It means you are paying more, unless Borders decides to increase their overheads by doing a deal with every carrier. It means UPS and FedEx now have leverage in the market for selling books. Now you might say I'm making a false arguments here, because there's nothing stopping UPS from delivering. However, in the case of the internet, generally once you have a connection, you are tied down for a fixed period with one supplier - regardless of the level of service you get, and in many towns you only have a few choices anyway
There are fairer ways
- put download limits on the cheapest contracts
- impose traffic shaping based on packet type (but not source/destination)
- make it abundantly clear in the TOS what traffic shaping you do
- regulation to ensure providers who have a monopoly don't use discriminatory traffic shaping polocies
If some traffic shaping based on source/company etc. is ever allowed
- force companies to issue a list of which companies' services will recieve higher QoS, and which will receive lower QoS, so consumers can actually choose.
I'm not making any comment on the technical merit of net neutrality, rather the consumer issues.
The thing to remember is that in the case of services like this, the only consumer protections are in the law that governs the service - because the contracts themselves are written to benefit the company, not consumer (since you can't get service without signing their contract, and unless you have $millions you have absolutely no power to negotiate). It's also worth noting that once one company finds a legal (but fairly subtle) way to screw their customers for more money, you can rest assured that the rest of them are not far behind.