Net Neutrality Bill in Congress

hip2b2 writes "The US Congress is finally doing something to prevent large bandwidth providers and network operators from charging (or putting restrictions on) competing web and other Internet media content providers. According to this NetworkWorld article, the new bill sponsored by Democratic Representatives Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Jay Inslee of Washington state, Anna Eshoo of California and Rick Boucher of Virginia in the House and Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon in the Senate. I am not a big fan of legislation, but, I hope this bill keeps the Internet a freer place." Here is our coverage of the first round.

Grammar nazi!

[xoran99]

According to this NetworkWorld article, the new bill sponsored by Democratic Representatives Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Jay Inslee of Washington state, Anna Eshoo of California and Rick Boucher of Virginia in the House and Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon in the Senate.

I would like to point out that every sentence should have a verb. Except maybe this one.

Re:Great but...

[sexyrexy]

Great but, why wouldn't the republicans introduce a bill like this? Why does it always have to be the party not in power that has the good ideas?

Same reason your girlfriend looks great when she's trying to get you but then she gets fat when you're "committed".

Wait, slashdot... ok, bad analogy. TCP/IP, Something about a linux distro... ha ha!

You're an "it" getter

[Anonymous Coward]

"I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq."

-- Stephen Colbert

AT&T on Net neutrality & it's new Tier opt

[usurper_ii]

AT&T Introduces Privacy+ Tier for Consumers and an NSA Turbo-Speed Tier for the government, at Market-Leading Prices

Wednesday April 26, 6:00 am ET

For $24.95 a month extra, the new Privacy+ Tier offers consumers the ability to feed all data to the NSA at the slowest speeds available. However, for an extra $28.95 per month, per customer, the NSA can override the Privacy+ Tier and spy on Americans at Speeds of up to 6.0 Megabits per Second

SAN ANTONIO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 26, 2006--AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T - News) today announced a new, higher-privacy tier for its AT&T Yahoo!® High Speed Internet service that meets consumers' growing outrage for allowing the NSA full availability to its backbone. At the same time, it announced a new NSA Turbo-Speed Tier that, for a fee, allows the government to override the newly introduced Privacy+ Tier.

Beginning Monday, May 1, new residential customers who order AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet service online through www.att.com can purchase the Privacy+ Tier -- offering data to the NSA at speeds sometimes as slow as 56k. (other monthly charges and a 12-month term commitment apply). Effective today, the new Privacy+ Tier is available for $24.99, when it is ordered with a qualifying service bundle. Existing AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet customers can upgrade to the Privacy+ service through the company's Web site and take advantage of the current pricing promotion beginning Monday.

"Consumers are craving greater privacy, and now with the AT&T Privacy+ service, they can at least get the satisfaction that the government is going to get their private data at the slowest speeds possible; "Consumers could easily get more privacy from a company that doesn't offer the NSA a fat pipe right onto its backbone, but with the incredible amount of money that the government paid us for that pipe, we just couldn't pass it up. The new Privacy+ Tier, tips the scales back just a little bit in favor of the consumer," said Scott Helbing, chief marketing officer-AT&T Consumer.

Also effective Monday, May 1, the NSA can sign up for the new NSA Turbo-Speed Tier, which for an extra $28.95 per month, per customer, allows the government to override the newly created Privacy+ Tier. "The NSA is craving greater speed to American's private communications, and now with the NSA Turbo-Speed Tier, they can at least get the satisfaction that they can resume domestic spying at the highest speeds possible; "The NSA will be hard-pressed to find this speed at a better price, for a full 12 months, from one of our leading competitors," said Scott Helbing, chief marketing officer-AT&T Consumer.

AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet also announced that with the NSA paying an undisclosed, but very large amount of money for access to its backbone data, and with a higher than expected demand from consumers, that it has decided to ask popular web sites, such as Google and eBay to also pay a monthly fee to insure a speedy deliver of all consumer data to these web sites. In that regard, AT&T Yahoo introduced the new Extortion-racket Tier.

Also, in a move that is sure to stun Wall Street, AT&T has announced that they will soon enter the "garbage collection" business.

About the New AT&T

AT&T Inc. is one of the world's largest telecommunications holding companies and is the largest in the United States. Operating globally under the AT&T brand, AT&T companies are recognized as the leading worldwide providers of IP-based communications services to business and as leading U.S. providers of high-speed DSL Internet, local and long distance voice, and directory publishing and advertising services. AT&T Inc. holds a 60 percent ownership interest in Cingular Wireless, which is the No. 1 U.S. wireless services provider with 55.8 million wireless customers. Additional information about AT&T Inc. and AT&T products and services is available at www.att.com.

You will also be charged a monthly FUSF (Federal Un

And in related news

[usurper_ii]

Large gorillas have filed civil suits for violations stemming from the use of the slang "800-pound gorilla" when referring to large businesses which dominate an industry. A spokesperson for the gorillas said, while this has been an issue for gorillas for a long time, that since AT&T provided the NSA with a backdoor to its backbone, that it is just too offensive to have the word gorilla and AT&T used in the same sentence. As the suit winds its way through the judicial system, the gorillas prefer people use the more appropriate metaphor for large corporations who violate American citizen's privacy rights on a grand scale, by referring to them as "800-pound penises."

Usurper_ii

Re:Legislation != Free

[Gorshkov]

But Cable TV content is produced at great expense by companies that expect recompense. The internet is composed largely of user contributions. Blocking off ports is just a way of producing an artificial scarcity.

No, actually, it's not, and on a couple of points.

First, there's the old saw that says "Your right to swing your arm ends at the tip of my nose"

That is exactly what the ISP is doing - stopping you from hitting MY nose, just because somebody wants to play with an email server. If you want to play, you can always set it up on an alternative port and play till you're heart's content. But in the meantime, the 3,000 viruses/rootkits/zombie loads that your roommate/wife/son managed to infect your computer with won't be sending me any more offers for breast enlargement cream.

The *other* point is that it's simply a matter of differentiating between product offerings. Your cable TV is capable of delivering 200 stations. But do you bitch at the difference between basic cable, the "movie" pack, the "sports" pack, and the "adult" packs that you have to pay extra for? Of course not - it's an extra service, and to get it, you cough up more coin. That's the way markets work.

So just because port 25 happens to be there, why is it any different if your ISP charges you extra (requiring you to pay business rates, for a business account) for something that NO SINGLE INDIVIDUAL NEEDS, and actually increases the expences for the ISP in question? (monitoring, getitng themselves removed form blacklists becase of some jerk who really *can't* figure out sendmail.cf, and dealing with the increased supports costs from OTHER users, bitching because all their mail gets bounced)?

There is no freedom without responsibility - I'm pretty sure that you guys fought a little war about that a few hundred years ago.

Since individual users ("the great unwashed") can't/won't/aren't capable of being responsible for their own systems - keeping them clean, etc - the ISP has to do it.

So deal with it. Not everything in the world comes down to a bad interpretation of Adam Smith's writings.