Net Neutrality Voted Down in U.S. House Committee 354
Ana10g writes "Business Week provides a look at the recent vote by the House Committee on Energy & Commerce, in which the FCC would have been given the power to prohibit discrimination of Internet traffic. The battlefield seems to be centered around which group has the better funded lobbyists, with companies such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and many others competing against the well funded Telecommunications lobbysts. The committee voted the amendment down, 34 to 22."
Re:Anyone Suprised? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I'm so torn (Score:5, Informative)
Networks not regulated as common carriers are referred to as Information Services or Enhanced Services, and are generally regulated under title I of the Communications Act. (Source [wikipedia.org])
Re:There's something so wrong with this story (Score:3, Informative)
Re:There's something so wrong with this story (Score:5, Informative)
But anyway, to the meat of my comment: Our reps actually DO listen, at least when we call or write (on that flat white thin stuff...email is ignored) so, I chose to make some phone calls.
My basic pitch to the representatives: I'm a small business owner in Virginia. I voted for you. I might not in the future. A core part of my method of business relies on a neutral, accessible internet. If congress were to allow the telecoms to restrict access, my business might fail, along with many others in the state. Help us, and we will help you.
Basically, let your reps know your point of view, and make them recognize that this is a litmus test issue for you. Ask them to work for you and keep your vote. This won't work for the complete whores in congress, but the ones on the fence, or in vulnerable elections will listen. So: CALL OR WRITE THAT PERSON WHO YOU VOTED FOR, AND ARE PAYING TO REPRESENT YOU. IT WORKS SOMETIMES.
for what it's worth fill this out. (Score:2, Informative)
not sure how much it will do now...but worth a shot?
Re:Hmm... Technicalities. (Score:5, Informative)
First, yes it would. Thanks god I live in a slightly more sane country (only by a bit unfortunately). Otherwise I would have lost one of my primary pieces of daily bread. Been doing QoS for 7+ years now.
Second, Amazon, MSFT and Co should have acted long ago when the Baby Bells and Bell Wannabies killed off the peering points circa Y2K. Instead of that, they went into a direct relationship with the Baby Bells and Bell Wannabies. As a result they simply do not have a leg to stand on regarding any such issues. They are already in contractual agreement with the ATT, Verizon, Level3, etc and if one of these decides to alter the contract there is little they could do.
To put things in a perspective - in the US traffic from access goes across the telco backbone and goes to Amazon and the like via a private link. In this environment the content provider is at the mercy of the telco. In Europe the traffic goes from access across the telco backbone after that traverses a well maintained non-profit peering point like Lynx and hits the content provider after that. Technically, you can do QoS in both cases. Practically, while you can there is no way you can guarantee any QoS because you do not control the entire route. The Bells understood this more than 5 years ago and killed the US peering points like MAE by maintaining the infrastructure as bad as they could (they also owned most of them) and forcing everyone to go private. From there on the question of net neutrality is utterly pointless.
Re:Good. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:There's something so wrong with this story (Score:5, Informative)
1. You get your internet access from AOL
2. They get their access from a metaISP. Let's just say AT&T for simplicty
3. AT&T is finacially related to... let's say Barnes & Noble Bookstores
4. You want to hit Amazon to buy a book
5. Barnes & Noble tell AT&T to provided the slowest possible access (modem speeds) to their competitors and lightning fast access to Barnes and Noble. AT&T Complies
6. You try to get to Amazon.com and you either get a timeout or the site renders VERY SLOWLY
7. This makes you think that Amazon sucks, so you ditch them and go through others until you find this really great bookseller online: Barnes & Noble
Nevermind that their prices are higher and they don't provide access to used books and media. So you just got hamstrung. Now... let's say you discover through friends who have excellent experiences with Amazon that you are missing out. What do you do? You could change ISPs to one who is a partner or in some other way is financially related to Amazon. But then... your access to your favorite news or sports site slows to a crawl. That's how this is going to impact you. Nice huh?
Re:There's something so wrong with this story (Score:3, Informative)
You do realise that the Gates Foundation [gatesfoundation.org] has given grants worth $10.2 billion [gatesfoundation.org] since its inception, right?
Bash MS and Gates all you like, but at least bash them for legitimate reasons, and Gates' lack of caring about good causes isn't one of them.
Re:There's something so wrong with this story (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/ [gatesfoundation.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_&_Melinda_Gates_ Foundation [wikipedia.org]
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
TelCos save $ with Fiber & copper sales! -Grok (Score:5, Informative)
Note that the "children" comments that followed this comment covered much detail regarding some specifics to part of what was in the quotes taken from the comment below - to see those comments and children of those comments go to:
http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&s
"Verizon and the TelCo PAC say they need to be paid for the upgrades to fiber that they are making? Well, one union lineman that works for Verizon told me that as the TELCOs install more fiber to the house, they will end up saving HUGE amounts of money, as the TELCOs will more longer need to pay for the expensive labor that is required today to maintain the copper lines (corrosion, lightning damage due to copper getting hit then equipment blowing up), as copper costs them. The Union for Telco workers is looking at fiber optics to the business or house as the biggest pink slip creator ever in the history of the Telephone Industry. Copper costs the Telephone Companies in both labor (maintance) and equipment (Fiber equipment lasts longer and does not suffer from electrical surges that are caused by every lighting storm that happens in the US ever day. Fiber does not corrode, does not conduct lighting, and is even cheaper to produce with a lower cost per foot to buy than copper... FIber is just glass! Cheap to produce and cheap to maintain... all splices to fiber lines are perfect every time. A splice to a copper line is a future failure point due to the corrosion that can then occur at that point or break in the line.
The Telephone and cable industry does NOT need to charge more! They don't need the right to OWN the internet and charge fees to those who USE is (other than the customer side where a customer can choose the speed they want and pay the fee for it's use)! The Telephone Companies and Cable Companies are looking for their own monopoly again (only this time in restricting free speech, freedom of commerce, and to restrict and own the freedoms of competition with their own a third party tax OR TOLL BOOTH ON THE PUBLIC INTERNET where the fees then become a barrier to it's use!
IF the Republicans pass this bill through it will cause masses of internet users to vote them out of office in the next election. The US internet user wants their internet access on every side to remain free! This is an attack by an industry on the Freedoms of Internet Access and by doing this it is a direct attack on the Freedoms of Speech! What are YOU going to do about this TODAY?"
Re:How did the committee vote on this? (Score:4, Informative)
I found the vote tally [savetheinternet.com], but not on any .gov - I had to google for it. That link also contains the office phone numbers for every committee member - not that changing their minds will help at this point, but a scolding could be in order.
Americans should probably look this list over and see if their rep is on it. Mine is not. The vote was pretty much along party lines, with 5 Dems crossing over and voting against the Markey amendment (Gonzalez - TX, Green - TX, Rush - IL, Towns - NY, Wynn - MD), and only 1 Republican voting for it (Wilson - NM)
Re:Tech-Regulation Bills are *seldom* well written (Score:2, Informative)
Congresscritters almost never write their own laws these days. Thats why so many laws are talked about as "sponsored by" a representative rather than "written by". The USA PATRIOT act for instance, was written by Ashcroft (or more likely, a group of people represented by Ashcroft, and put forth as the "Department of Justice")
Re:Anyone Suprised? call your senator ANYWAY... (Score:5, Informative)
Call your senator.
Tell them what you think this bill will do. And mostly why you won't vote for the again or contribuite to their campaigns.
(It is the only thing you can do, unless you are a freelance lobbyist that wants to work pro-bono for slashdotters.)
Here is their contact information.
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/ senators_cfm.cfm [senate.gov]
Re:So, would you say this is right or wrong? (Score:1, Informative)
What is interesting is this: no single industry or idea begins as a natural monopoly. In 9th century England, with the feudal system blazing away, castles began building roads connecting to each other. These were built by each of the private "governments" (the lords of the castle), meeting halfway. When they would have a falling out, they would essentially build a huge stone wall on the road, and put up temporary armaments and what have you.In short, they "owned" the road, and they used their collective will (in this case, physical force) to preserve their ownership. So what happened?
Well, what happened was in the long run, unreliable road service led to the ruin of castles. Castles who cut off their roads lost both their import *and* their export capabilities. And they would gain a reputation as being unreliable, and traders and salesmen would avoid those towns. Eventually the cost of restricting a road approached infinity, and the castle would wither and die.
So eventually the people of the castle (the constituency, such as they were) would demand that the roads remain open and free - that they in essence become a public good, and absorbed as part of the castle's own infrastructure costs.
The reasoning behind all of this is very simple: the cost of restricting the road is infinity, because what is important is not THE ROAD but what PASSES ALONG the road. In short, a road that nobody uses is not a road. And thus, roads became a natural monopoly, because they are no longer considered a good or service, but instead as a conduit for goods and services.
AT&T was once, ironically, an "artificial" natural monopoly. Like the road, a silent telephone is just a rock - the difference was, of course, AT&T is a private company, and not a public institution.
In the long run, all natural monopolies will become public utilities. The question then is whether or not a certain product or service is a public utility. It seems we are all (mostly) agreed that road transportation, aviation, water, and electricity qualify. Here are some products and services that are still up in the air - think about whether these should constitute natural monopolies or not (remember, a natural monopoly is something that is better governed by one entity than many competing entities):
* oil acquisition and distribution
* Internet infrastructure
* health care
* social security
* postal services
* education
* higher education
* sporting leagues
* retail sales
Some of these may be natural monopolies. Some may not. This isn't an easy yes/no question. But the implications of the answers (and our collective answer) can be very far-reaching indeed.