AT&T CEO Attacks Network Neutrality 358
Verteiron writes "The former CEO of AT&T, Ed Whitacre, had some interesting remarks to make about Net Neutrality during his parting speech. Choice quotes include his plans for getting anti-neutrality legislation through: "Will Congress let us do it?" Whitacre asks his colleagues. "You bet they will — cuz we don't call it cashin' in. We call it 'deregulation.' "
More information on AT&T's attitude problem and a video of the speech are available. There's no sign that his replacement is any better."
Subject (Score:4, Funny)
Broken Home (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah (Score:2)
Re:Subject (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The reasons for us going to war weren't correct, but you can be sure that oil had very little to do with it. Anytime there is a war in
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Anytime there is a war in a major oil producing country the price of oil spikes. This really does not benefit us at all.
You assume what's good for us is good for the engineers behind the war. The oil costs do not rise, merely the prices, this is of great benefit to those who make their fortune in oil, such as George Bush. Haliburton on the other hand been given quite a help from one of the other engineers behind the war. No, the war most definitely does benefit those who engineered it.
When we send troops we get yelled at for being heavy handed
Bush had my support in Afghanistan he lost it in Iraq. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to realize why Bush lost my support.
That's not what "war for oil" means (Score:5, Insightful)
And it's not just oil. We have outsourced much of our armed services to private contractors. The military industrial complex is having a field day, and making record profits. Citizens are scared into accepting all sorts of draconian restrictions. Huge bundles of cash simply disappear. The wealthy and well connected profit. And we lose rather than gain security.
Re:That's not what "war for oil" means (Score:4, Insightful)
My point? They will never make a move in the great game that weakens their position against us, the little people. No matter how much it would hurt their opponents. That's just the way the game is played, and any ruling class person who defects and takes the side of the little people is anathema, outlaw, outside the rules of the game.
So the oil owners will never turn off the taps because it hurts their position vis a vis the rest of us, even if it wins them some points in the game. There would be too much chaos, rioting, and overturning of established orders all over the world. The powerful in the rest of the world would put aside all differences and gang up on the outlaws to restore order.
Re:stay on your own side of the pond (Score:4, Insightful)
Great God Almighty!!!! Are you hopelessly nuts? We have almost little or no actual news reportage in the US today - especially as opposed to when I was a kid back in the '50s. How many Americans are aware of the (at least) 2 attempted assassination/coups of democratically-elected President Hugo Chavez by the Bush Administration (can you spell o-i-l???)? How many Americans are aware of the second attempt - led by undersecretary of state, Otto Reich and his Cuban-American squads? Erroneously reported in American news as Cuban dissidents being sighted in Caracas at that time!!!! Un-frigging-believable!!!
Great God Almighty!!! Free press??? WTF have you been smoking, dood??? Any intelligent American is forced to read the foreign press and blogosphere for any and all news as the only breaking news in America today concerns either Paris Hilton or the deposition of Anna Nicole Smith's corpse. Nothing, but nothing gets reported in the news.
Forty and fifty years ago that testimony of Monica Goodling before congress (ya know, the one where she testified that the attorney general [Gonzo or AGAG], and the assistant attorney general both committed perjury, that there was massive election fraud ["caging"] and that the US attorneys were replaced to prevent any prosecution of past - and future - election fraud) would have been front-page news for days, if not months. Today, nothing........
Re:stay on your own side of the pond (Score:4, Insightful)
New boss is the same as the old boss (Score:2)
Attacking the network (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Attacking the network (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Attacking the network (Score:4, Funny)
Speaking of attacking and given AT&T's logo:
That's no moon, it's a space station!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Good thing (Score:2)
Welcome to the future. (Score:5, Funny)
Resolved "google.com" to [64.233.167.99]
Hello! Welcome to AT&T PingSelect(tm). Please enter in milliseconds your desired ping time to website "google.com".
>25
Unfortunately, website "google.com" is not available at that ping time. Please contact the website administrator and advise them to upgrade their AT&T PingSelect(tm) package if you wish to ping website "google.com" at this value. Please select another time in milliseconds.
>50
Unfortunately, website "google.com" is not available at that ping time. Please contact the website administrator and advise them to upgrade their AT&T PingSelect(tm) package if you wish to ping website "google.com" at this value. Please select another time in milliseconds.
>100
Pinging google.com [64.233.167.99] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 64.233.167.99: bytes=32 time=100ms TTL=247
Reply from 64.233.167.99: bytes=32 time=101ms TTL=247
Reply from 64.233.167.99: bytes=32 time=101ms TTL=247
Reply from 64.233.167.99: bytes=32 time=100ms TTL=247
Ping statistics for 64.233.167.99:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 100ms, Maximum = 101ms, Average = 101ms
C:\>
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If congestion hell is located on the access gear you should expect it to have the three heads of Cerberus - the loss head, the jitter head and the delay head. The reason is that the queues there are deep enough for all of these to occur.
If the hell is distributed across the backbone and the peering points drop is going to be the most likely result (the queue transmission times are not long enough to make a real influence on the other).
By the way, the really
Mod parent Insightful, not Funny (Score:2, Insightful)
While Whitacre and his ilk are busy partying away megamilli
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Infinitely large number of broadband options (two, that is) are only available in big cities like NYC. And even then both ISPs could be doing this and you still will be screwed.
flashbacks to Bush's speeches in F911 anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
Reminds me of Bush's candid comments we got to see in Fahrenheit 9-11. "This is an impressive crowd - the haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elites; I call you my base."
Question: did this guy know there was a camera rolling?
Re:flashbacks to Bush's speeches in F911 anyone? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Scarface, just can't resist. (Score:2)
This Internet's like a great big pussy just waiting to get fucked. I should've come here years ago.
Apologies to the worthy script [script-o-rama.com]. None are offered to Ed "cuz" he sounds more like a gangster than the leader of one of the world's largest companies. Shame!
What's all the fuss? (Score:5, Funny)
I mean look at how well "deregulation" worked in the airline industry? More people can fly, flights are cheaper, to more destinations... crammed into tiny airplanes with more people... lousier food... more delays... bad customer service... bankruptcies... never mind.
Re:What's all the fuss? (Score:4, Insightful)
Air travel isn't a natural monopoly though.
Re:What's all the fuss? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What's all the fuss? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The people who make the product aren't the brains of the company. If they were, they wouldn't be slaving away on the assembly lines.
Quit being ridiculous. They're already getting paid what they're worth.
This is precisely the attitude I'm talking about. Thank you for providing such a succinct example.
And from further down the thread:
They might be getting paid what their market worth is but somehow this doesn't seem fair on a human level. Don't get me wrong, I love global capitalism as much as the next guy. It's just that the divide between rich a poor seems to be getting bigger through unnatural corruption of the system.
Right. If we might make an analogy to farming, what's going on right now is the farmer is putting in the same cash crop season after season, leeching the soil of nutrients. He refuses to rotate crops or let the field sit fallow for a season, even though that would be better for his long-term profits, because it would impact his short-term profit. He can do this for a while but
Re:What's all the fuss? (Score:4, Interesting)
Kind of like the Automotive industry has in the past few years when they started offering those 0% deals. GM figured their financing cost of capital was low enough that, yeah, sure, they'd bleed, but it would be stabbing the heart of Chrysler and the slitting the jugglar at Ford when those companies matched the offer. Why? Proably because some idiot was worried about next quarter's marketshare numbers instead of making a profit.
Well it worked, but the japs didn't take the bait and now what's happening? And the auto industry ain't regulated. There are some businesses that make really stupid decisions. No amount of regulation is going to stop people from being stupid.
Where I am now, I can have my phone service with one company and DSL through another. My Dad lives in a state where it's a regulated local monopoly and his phone company as screwed the customers for years in DSL rates and the cable company isn't much better since they know the customers really don't have any other choices. If he lived 2 miles north of where he does, he could get DSL for $30 a month where he's paying about $45 now for the same speed. The state I'm living in now "deregulated" by saying that local phone companies had to open their lines to any provider that I choose.
Re: (Score:2)
You are right, but it is not as somple as saying the people and businesses make stupid decision. GM made a decision that would have put them ahead, and if they were the only ones they would have been happy. But when everyone followed, that screwed up the indust
Re:What's all the fuss? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd call that very strong regulation. I think it's just a different kind of regulation, but it sure aint deregulation. Deregulation would be saying, "the line's yours. Go ahead and do what you want. Hell, the owners have a right to profit out of their infrastructure!" The company wouldn't open the line up to competition, and you'd be screwed as hell.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
deregulation (Score:2)
But I'm sure once the general public starts to feel the effects of it, they'll blame Canada for that too.
Voting time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Voting time (Score:5, Informative)
Well, you can certainly fill up your Senator or Congressman's inbox with emails, but you've got to remember that rarely do they actually read all their own email. Usually it's screened by their staff for content first, so they get a sanitized picture of what constituents want. It's better to hunt these people down on the campaign trail and ask them pointed questions before news cameras. Also, even if they do "read" all their email, unless that's followed up by actual votes there's little chance of any great impact. I don't think either party is courting the "Internet voter".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I did: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5Rh0iH3_X4 [youtube.com]
and the only thing I managed to get was a bunch of haters. WTF?
---
Yes I know the message was poorly executed... but the facts are 100% correct.
Re: (Score:2)
We need an appropriate response (Score:2, Interesting)
Back in ancient times, the UAW would target ONE company for a strike, in order to get an agreement that could be used later as leverage with the others. Say what you like about the state of the auto industry today, but the tactic worked with great effect.
Next, we have the NRA, and their targeted boycotts. When they were unhappy with Smith and Wesson's push for high-tech gun locks, they instituted a very effective boycott. Their manufacturing slowe
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Their customer service has been crappy anyway, and I'm leaving them as soon as the cable company gets their tech out here. I encourage anyone using Embarq to find a different provider, and call corporate -- not the 800 customer service number -- ask to speak to someone in Daniel Hesse's office and let them know why you're leaving.
Re: (Score:2)
What? The auto industry in America today sucks *because* of those tactics. That goes against the claim of it working "to great effect". It's not going to seems so effective when there are defaults on pension promises.
Now, a lot of you are going to disagr
Re: (Score:2)
When GM et. al were saddled with pension costs, it was a while before Japanese competitors without these costs could take advantage of their weakened position.
If the demands made by the unions were financially impossible, why did GM management agree to the labor contract? There are only three answers I can think of here:
1) GM's management was ignorant of the fact they were agreeing to terms they could not possibly deliver on in the future.
2) GM's management thought they could deliver on the terms and were blindsided by external factors and poor management
3) GM's management at the time knew they were lying their asses off but figured the consequences wouldn't be
Re:We need an appropriate response (Score:4, Informative)
So what's the real scoop on their pension issue, is it just BS or a consequence of poor management or is there something more to it?
This is a very good question. I wanted to know the answer myself for same reason you listed above: why agree to a pension without being able to monitor its funding status, and relying on future profitability? Why allow other creditors to have seniority to pensioners in collecting debt? (Since a pension is deferred compensation, and workers are senior to bondholders in payment of obligations, pensioners should always be senior, and credit ratings and lenders should always assume they'll be behind in line.) How can you assume no competitors will enter the market?
Unfortunately, it's hard to get reliable information on this, and I try as hard as possible to avoid "well they were just stupid"-type conclusions. I also can't read a financial statement from a corporation. But that's what every source confirms: GM promised an unfunded pension, predicated on future profitability, and the failure of GM was considered impossible. My best guess as to why it happened would be:
-stupidity on the part of unions, who refused to accept the possibility that their employer doesn't dictate its own profits.
-malice on the part of management, who was willing to indulge this fantasy in exchange for valuable union concessions, knowing the union would have no leverage when the obligations came due. Likely arrogance about the possibility of competition.
When I first heard about pension problems affecting profitability, I was confused: aren't they funded in advance from a separate account? Well, they aren't.
Hope that helps.
Re: (Score:2)
As for me, I have not been personally involved in unions. My dad worked as a mechanic at Bellsouth so I was given a nice observation seat to see how management can completely destroy a large organization. All of their mechanical work is outsourced and they're wasting a fair chunk
Here's the low down. (Score:2)
As for GM, Ford and Chrysler the negative effects of the unions extend way beyond financially hijacking the company's future. The unions also lobbied for, and won, workplace rules that placed rigid limits on worker flexibility. So for example at a Toyota or Nissan factory every worker on the floor is expected to spend some time on every machine in the plant so they'll know how to work it to fill in for someone else if they're
Regulation may give more freedom (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
They're not exactly "paragons of free-market capitalism". State-backed corporatism, perhaps. The regulations (in this case as elsewhere) act like a union, restricting the supply of their sort of labor. This ensures that those who find themselves able to meet the regulations command a higher price than they could in an unregulated environment. Th
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's just so much bollocks. If you argue that invetment banks support regulations because it enforces transparacy and thus reduces their reputational risk (which can get much more expensive then a financial hit) I' m with you. But the idea that investment banks support regulation to force smaller players out of business is ridic
Re: (Score:2)
That may not be your personal reason, but it is an effect of the regulations nonetheless. Also, forcing others out to protect your reputation isn't significantly different from forcing them out to restrict the supply. The underlying principle remains the same: you are employing force against other for your own benefit at their expense.
Re:Regulation may give more freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporations fall into this same pattern. They have to make the numbers this quarter, THE NUMBERS, YOU DUMB FUCK! COKE IS FOR CLOSERS! etc etc. So that's where you see the fans of deregulation coming in. Have you noticed the dismantling of the rules and regs put in place after the '29 crash to make sure that we wouldn't have another one? With the rules in place, you can have a reasonable profit for years to come. Without the rules you can make a fucking killing...and I guess you'd better hope that goose has a lot of meat on the bones because that's all you'll be eating as the markets struggle to recover.
Product differentiation is BASIC (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, after a lot of ISP/webhost consolidation, some of the biggies want to reintroduce performance tiering. To differentiate commodity IP transport into various service levels. That's elementary marketing to capture increased revenue from those customers willing to pay more.
I'm far from certain this is a bad thing. Instead of everyone having the same (erratic) latency, some people will pay for better, and the rest will get slightly worse. Frankly, I'm far more concerned about preserving competition between ISPs at all levels, from comsumer last-mile broadband up through the long-haul links.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It seems like you don't understand the issue at hand. Net neutrality is not about differences in connection speed, but about artificial differences between services, based on the amount o
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Product differentiation is BASIC (Score:5, Informative)
You are not understanding the issue here. Put simply:
This issue isn't about how much I must pay my ISP for decent net connectivity.
This issue is about how much Google must pay my ISP for decent net connectivity.
Google already pays for their own connectivity. My ISP is already paid by me. My "pipe" is already paid for. Why should my ISP be paid twice? What right does my ISP have to individually charge every conceivable web site that I might access?
Re: (Score:2)
An ISP won't be able to reach across because they have to satisfy their own customers who want everyone to have clear connections to them.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless Google's ISP runs cable from google to you, Google's ISP cannot guarantee that you and Google can connect.
In any case, Google should only be paying Google's ISP, and you should only be paying your ISP. AT&T shouldn't be collecting money from Google in exchange for giving its own customers reasonably quick access to Google. You say Google will complain to their ISP? What's Google's ISP going to do to AT
Re: (Score:2)
There really isn't that much competition at the last mile. The fact that you might have a choice of DSL providers is a product of government regulation. If the AT&Ts and Verizons of this country had their way, they would keep the last mile to themselves.
In reality, what we're talking about where broadband is concerned is competition between the monopol
Re: (Score:2)
Most people have no problem with tiered service at the consumer level (a consumer could be a business, too). We already have that. My provider offers three tiers of residential service and two tiers of business service with better performance and support. I have absolutely no problem with this because I can choose the level that meets my needs. Most of us are opposed to two things
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
net neutrality (or the lack thereof) is a symptom of competition. there is no competition in the telecommunications industry, so clearly there is no net neutraliy.
the concept of net neutrality is not new. it used to be standard operating procedure for the FCC. the FCC is now owned and operated by the tecos, so now it's not. all that the net neutrality groups want is to make into law the historical practices of the FCC.
Frustrating. (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the ultimate problem here. People don't know this is going on, first of all. I suppose the media doesn't deem it exciting enough to report this. But it wouldn't make a difference if they did because most people likely wouldn't care. Even worse, they probably wouldn't even see anything wrong with what AT&T wants to do.
People have gotten so used to paying for every little thing that they be able to justify AT&T's position. I suspect that's one of the underlying motivations for this trend. Companies are realizing just how tolerant consumers are of this nonsense. I've read that recent studies have found that consumers are growing increasingly comfortable with monthly payments. A company can raise rates on a regular basis and few complain.
People like to whine about gasoline prices, but Americans are still paying far less than most of the rest of the world. And it's still cheaper per gallon that a lot of other things they consume. They're getting screwed worse in other ways and don't even realize it or even care. It's frustrating sometimes to see all this ignorance and to see this disdain for the people on the part of the politicians.
Re:Frustrating. (Score:4, Insightful)
This from AT&T (Score:2)
I give that legislation (if it passes) 29 months from the m
I'd like to see the video (Score:3, Funny)
Easy Fix (Score:5, Interesting)
If you don't like the rules, don't play them. Other companies will step up where you fail and provide the service the public demands and deserves.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's more owned by the government than the public, though, right? I mean, if it were really publicly owned, then everyone would be able to used it and we
Deregulation (Score:2)
Non-neutral internet has already been tried (Score:2, Interesting)
Let's make Ed Whitacre a deal... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it April 1st? (Score:2, Informative)
about the accompanying video I click on that. Well surprise! That "video" is a PARODY (funny).
Am I missing something here?
In other news... (Score:2)
That's why... (Score:3, Funny)
Why is it getting warm in here?
People keep misunderstanding net neutrality (Score:3, Insightful)
They have 3 options:
1.They can increase their prices so that they can afford to expand their network so it can handle the increased amount of multimedia traffic.
2.They can introduce limits on how much you can download so that your $x per month only includes 10GB of transfers or 5GB of transfers or whatever.
or 3.They can throttle access to the high bandwidth multimedia sites unless those sites are willing to pay money to the ISP to cover the fact that the ISPs network cant handle the traffic.
The ISPs don't want to pick option 1 because they would loose customers to other ISPs who didnt pick option 1 (or with networks that aren't yet congested enough for the ISP to need to pick an option)
They don't want to pick option 2 either because most consumers don't have a clue how much bandwidth they are using or how much data they are transferring (unlike, say, phone calls where costs are based on how long you are on the phone which is an easy thing to measure). So if ISPs start setting limits, they would loose customers who would think "I don't want to be hit with a bill at the end of the month and I don't have a clue how much I am downloading so I will find an ISP that has no such restrictions"
So, ISPs faced with increasingly congested networks want to be able to throttle back speeds to known high bandwidth sites. That or have the site pay up to get better treatment.
Anyone who says net neutrality is about QoS or common carrier or anything else is wrong. The issue at stake here is simply that ISPs want to throttle high bandwidth sites and protocols unless they are paid money by the owners of those sites.
Re: (Score:2)
Not even the CEO, but the ex-CEO handing over the reigns to the incoming CEO, who BTW is just as bag an Net Neutrality opponent.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Devil's Advocate (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you know what network neutrality is? Why would network neutrality prevent someone for charging for use of their network (which by the way was subsidized by our tax dollars to the tune of billions)? All the network neutrality proposals ever to see any support in congress call for a ban on charging different prices for traffic based upon who is sending the traffic... and that is it. You can still charge for traffic. You can still charge different amounts for different types of traffic. You just can't charge different amounts based upon where the traffic came from. This is to prevent AT&T from asking for money from some company who buys access from AT&T's peer's peer's peer, in exchange for not intentionally slowing down that traffic as it crosses their network. I might mention, in the situation I just mentioned AT&T has already been paif by their peer to carry the traffic, so it is not a question of them not being able to charge for it.
I work with a lot of ISPs and big network providers. Their side of the story is that they want to be able to charge people with lots of money extra for the same service they supply to other people, by using their location as a gateway and by telling their peering router "sure I'm the best way to get that traffic there" and then intentionally slowing the traffic down so their previous claim to the router was a lie. Quite simply, they want to be able to gouge people by ignoring the responsibility of a common carrier. It is a lot easier to do this, than to actually add real value through faster connections or services where they have to be competitive. I mean if you build out a DDoS filter service it might not be as good as Sprint's. They'd have to work hard and take risks. They'd much rather abuse their location in the network in order to collect money for nothing. It is extortion, plain and simple.
I'm glad you're in favor of net neutrality, but I think your reasons are a bit off. We gave the network operators billions of our tax dollars. That is what prevents little companies from entering the market. We give them special protections from prosecution for the traffic they carry under the auspice that they are impartial, common carriers, not responsible for what crosses their network. Both of these were done for the common good. If they want to be mercenary and be unregulated let them, right after they pay the money back and after we start prosecuting them for transporting child pornography and contributing to copyright infringement. If they want to eb treated like any other company we should oblige them, but if they want to be supported and protected by special laws, we should be getting something back for the american people.
Re: (Score:2)
We gave the network operators billions of our tax dollars.
Can you point me to any references to back those assertions up? I was under the impression
that the current backbone infrastructure was all privately funded pretty much since NSFNet
went out of the picture. Knowing that significant public funds went into the existing
infrastructure would change my position on net neutrality (which I currently oppose) somewhat...
That is what
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Can you point me to any references to back those assertions up?
Here is a brief article [muniwireless.com] on the subject. For more in depth information on the current subsidies in place and the economics of them, check out "Internet Economics" By Lee W. Macknight and Joseph P. Bailey. There are a number of other books, but this one has better references and avoids sensationalism.
I was under the impression that the current backbone infrastructure was all privately funded pretty much since NSFNet went out of the picture.
I can assure you, that has not been the case. A whole lot of the dark fiber in the ground was laid by the US government and then sold at much less than cost, to hide the subsidy. In fact, we've paid more p
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
To be fair usually infrastructure like that gets subsidies from the government and the govt has reason to limit the number of companies building such infrastructure in each area (because it has to pass over land not owned by the company placing it and having 20 wires where one would be sufficient if everyone could use it is a waste of material, sp
Re: (Score:2)
I heard a good deal of this was subsidized by tax payer money or tax breaks.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)