Hardware Firms Go Against Crowd on Net Neutrality 292
An anonymous reader writes "Some of the largest hardware firms in the world, like Cisco and 3M, have sent a letter to U.S. policymakers asking them not to be too hasty on mandated net neutrality laws." From the News.com article: "'It is premature to attempt to enact some sort of network neutrality principles into law now,' says the letter, which was signed by 34 companies and sent to House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. 'Legislating in the absence of real understanding of the issue risks both solving the wrong problem and hobbling the rapidly developing new technologies and business models of the Internet with rigid, potentially stultifying rules.'"
Regulate Who? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure there is self interest... (Score:4, Interesting)
There are the same folks who seem to believe a
Do we expect these guys to understand and make a good decision regarding the future of the internet? With that it mind, I echo this message. Don't rush into a decision. Perhaps if they take their time one of two favorable outcomes will emerge.
1 - Logic and reason will win out and good legislation will emerge.
2 - Congress will release they have no fucking clue and just leave it all alone.
I'm hoping for the latter over the former.
It's the money stupid! (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Network neutrality and QoS (Score:2, Interesting)
Each ISP can tell his customers "for extra 10$ you get priorized network access"... the market will show him if someone is willing to pay. But when they try to charge the content providers (Google, ect.) it's nothing else than an extortion.
Re:Regulate Who? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Regulate Who? (Score:2, Interesting)
ISP:: We see you've been sending packets across our infrastructure to our client nodes.
ISP:: Here's a bill for $$$$^$$
ISP:: We see.
* ISP shuts off all traffic from clients to
ISP:: And?
*
Same to any and all foreign and domestic content providers.
Re:Not laws, you the reality will stop this nonsen (Score:3, Interesting)
Its not merely comparable, but with the increasing popularity of VoIP, it is the exact same thing.
Which is, of course, why the telcos are so eager to find any excuse to get rid of it. They've always wanted to be free to leverage their monopoly on the wires to control everything that attached to them, and every business that relied on them, which is why they were subjected to common carrier laws and broken up to prevent in the first place.
Now they're re-merging and looking for ways to render common carrier controls irrelevant; by comparison to what is being sought here, Microsoft's market distorting power was small change. The kind of dominance the colluding telcos would exercise would be more analogous to the old Standard Oil monopoly.
easy solution (Score:2, Interesting)
At least, theoretically speaking. Charge the end-user on a per-bandwidth-consumed basis. Voila. People who want to stream movies or torrent huge files will pay a premium. The rest of us who just web browse, check email, play networked games, and occasionally view a video clip...we pay the same (or less) than we do now. This way nobody's bandwidth is artificially limited. The only limit is how much you want to buy.
ISPs could give people an initial "bucket" of bytes in exchange for a base monthly charge. No charge until that bucket is exhausted, after which they start paying. Basically, have it work like cell phone plans. Would this be annoying? Sure, a little. Would it be more fair? Probably.
Of course! (Score:2, Interesting)
1) when does the revolution begin?
2) what form should it take?
Should it be:
The thing that makes people squeamish is that information shouldn't obey capitalistic control since it doesn't meet the analogy correctly. There is something far better that frees information and ensures those that produce it are payed appropriately. Here the only long term successful choice seems to be something like a tax system where people choose where the money goes but should have access to it all. That is, they aren't LEGALLY prevented from accessing it, sharing it, telling someone else about it, singing it, dancing it, whatever. Then tack on any sane laws addressing privacy concerns (selling med records) or claiming work is your own when it isn't, if possible.
Re:Not laws, you the reality will stop this nonsen (Score:3, Interesting)
To my mind, the only reason the telcos have any ability to even fight this fight is their government-sanctioned monopoly on the last mile. Basically as long as most consumers and small businesses have to start their traffic on telco copper, the telcos can restrict their access to all the other "backbone" providers. If that monopoly were broken, then a consumer could in choose whether they wanted a net-neutral ISP or a paid-content ISP. The market can dictate who ends up connected to what kind of "backbone"/peering arrangement. Many consumers might well opt for the paid-content ISP, since it would basically be a TV+phone+internet bundle, while businesses and geeks and those visiting Wikipedia would go for net-neutral service. And that's not even mentioning the myriad other benefits breaking that monopoly would have: true competition between all ISPs, lowered cost of local service, and no stupid games like forbidding bandwidth-sharing. The beginning and the end of this problem is the government-granted monopoly the telcos have on last-mile connectivity.
So I say cut the following deal: back off on enforcing network neutrality, but use regulation to open the last mile to all comers, including wireless mesh, broadand over electrical, etc. With that resolve, the market can resolve how bandwidth should be apportioned.
Does this make any sense?
They pay by the Gig... (Score:3, Interesting)
You're also forgetting that what the telecoms are proposing here isn't just looking at how much, but also where it's going. so now, they'll pay for an OC-12, by the gig AND a fee to make sure their customers get a good connection.
It's the third part they're objecting to. They already pay large amounts of cash for everything going in and out of their datacenter, why should they pay _more_ for guaranteed priority?
Re:Who would you rather deal with on this? (Score:2, Interesting)
Sorry, but I can't see this as other than starry-eyed idealism. I agree that some government regulation is a problem here. In particular, the government-granted monopolies to telcos and cable companies have given them a massive financial advantage that will persist even in the face of deregulation.
But saying that regulation is always the problem ignores much of the history of the modern marketplace. Trademark law, anti-trust law, protection against fraud, mandatory deposit insurance, laws against ponzi schemes, and many other regulations create a carefully balanced environment where you maximize the market's ability to create value and mediate exchange of goods and services.
I worked for several years in the belly of the marketplace beast, spending time on the floors of several major exchanges. I promise you that careful rule-making (and the matching fear of wrath from on high) was a vital component in what at first glance appears to be capitalism at its most unfettered.