Obama Picks Net Neutrality Backer As FCC Chief 409
Ripit writes "President Obama on Tuesday nominated Julius Genachowski as the nation's top telecommunications regulator, picking a campaign adviser who has divided his career between Washington, D.C., political jobs and working as an Internet executive.
Genachowski is likely to continue the Democratic push for more Net neutrality regulations, which are opposed by some conservatives and telecommunications providers. He was a top Obama technology adviser and aided in crafting a technology platform that supported Net neutrality rules."
And then... (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the sentiment behind net neutrality. But rather than just regulating, which we know never goes wrong, why not foster a more competitive market as well? I hear that sometimes helps keep capitalism from sucking.
Re:And then... (Score:4, Insightful)
The carriers can "compete" using their own money. Not with public funds.
Re:And then... (Score:5, Funny)
Have you heard of monopolies? Granted it's not that bad thanks to competing technologies but it's still pretty darn bad in many local markets. When was the last time you started a telecommunications company? I hear the tubes can be pretty expensive~
Re:And then... (Score:4, Informative)
It wasn't through their own hard work and superior service, it was given to them.
Re:And then... (Score:5, Informative)
Guess what? The surrounding ISPs/cable companies went out of business because of this.
Re:And then... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, I guess I'm just blind.
Re:And then... (Score:5, Insightful)
"The president's job is to do what he was elected to do"
Ummm no, the presidents Job is clearly defined in the constitution, modified by laws from congress and vetted by the supreme court. If the presidents job is to 'do what he was elected to do' than all this complaining about Buh is off mark, after all he was only doing what voters put him in office to do. The idea that because President Obama got 5.4 out of 10 people to vote for him he has cart blanch to make 'change' is disturbing. He is just a man and the constitution is bigger than him.
Re:And then... (Score:5, Insightful)
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If Obama follows the Constitution, that would be the biggest change seen in many years.
I don't think we need to have any fears on that score.
Obama has no interest in following the Constitution.
Re:And then... (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'm afraid you're actually quite wrong, there. The president's job is to do what he was elected to do. Given that the president's entire campaign was based around the word 'change,' you might want to consider that the majority of voters apparently agreed. Therefore it could easily be argued that Obama's job, literally, IS to change that which America has become. Sorry, I guess I'm just blind.
No. Read the Constitution. The president's job is spelled out right there. He's not allowed to go beyond the responsibilities and authorities that have been granted to him. It doesn't matter what he said during the campaign. America is a Republic, not a democracy. Voters aren't allowed to trample individual, inherent rights of the people, no matter how many of them vote to do so.
Re:And then... (Score:5, Interesting)
Regardless of what ANY presidential candidate campaigns on, he IS restricted to the Constitutionally delineated duties and privileges of the Presidency.
I just KNEW someone was going to call me out on that... If and when Obama, or any president, were to do something unconstitutional, I can guarantee to you that I will either be calling for their impeachment or arguing for an amendment to the Constitution. That's the beauty of the living document, after all.
Which means that making fundamental change in our society (such as altering the economy and political system from a Capitalistic Representative Republic to a Socialistic Single Party System.) is literally prohibited from even attempting. Not that "The One" won't try it. The "stimulus" package is one such totally unconstitutional example.
Also, reading the Constitution right here, I note that it has these mechanisms for change built right into it. On the other hand, I don't see anything referring to how many parties there should be, or one single reference to capitalism being the One True American Way. I also don't see any way to hold the President responsible for said fundamental changes, when any change he makes has to be at least approved, if not written, by the Congress. (And at least the way I read Article 1, Section 8, Congress can go as socialistic as the people want it to... good old "general Welfare") I can see disagreeing with the stimulus package. I am very curious to know which elements of it you see conflicting with what words in the Constitution?
For the sake of continuing the argument, I'll pick an obviously unconstitutional act: the suspension of Habeas Corpus. It's right there, Article 1 Section 9. Only in cases of rebellion or invasion. (You'll have to join me in the reasonable assumption that the Founders didn't mean "when we invade another country.") I do not blame Bush for this. I blame him for ratifying it. I blame every single person in Congress who voted to make it possible. I assume from your position, you would have to agree?
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Should I also join you in the assumption that a rebellion or invasion didn't take place on 2001-09-11?
9/11 was a tragedy, a horrific crime, and a terrorist act. That said, calling it an "invasion" is beyond a stretch. It's interesting the way you phrased this; you're essentially making an implicit association between saying that the September 11th attacks weren't an invasion and trivializing the deaths of 3,000 people. Clever, but I'm not falling for it. This is precisely the sort of thinking that we ne
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Wow, I find it amazing that your actually willing to spew this shit outside of your little I hate Bush Camps. Did you forget where you are or are you really that stupid to think your misconceptions would remain unchallenged at a site that is known for the frequent association of smart people.
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I wish I had mod points. Thank you for being a voice of reason among a throng of boisterous idiots.
For those people who disagree, I'd like you to do a few things for me.
If congress allows the FCC to regulate speech, then they have defacto created a law abridging the freedom of speech. They are actually forbidden to do that, too. Check out, for instance, Taylor v Smithkline Beecham Corp and Field v Clark for the case law that covers this.
Explain how "the freedom of speech" is the same as "the freedom of speech in any medium you want, even one that isn't owned by you"
Because if not, it's an abridgment. Also, you don't own the airwaves, either, so why would you have a right to equal time? How about this: what this really comes down to is *funding* for speech. It's not like Murdoch (or anybody else,
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The movie rating system does NOT have "zero" government intervention. It is the result of government saying, "Either you regulate yourself, or we will do it for you." That happened in the 1930s, again in the 1960s, and again in the 1990s with games - you can blame government interference. Without people like Bob Dole & Joe Lieberman standing-up in Congress and demanding ratings, those TV-14, Rated M, and PG labels would probably never exist.
>>>On the contrary, regulation is what keeps capita
Re:And then... (Score:4, Interesting)
There's enough room under the streets, that we don't need monopolies. There's no reason why every urban home can't have access to Comcast, Cox, Time-Warner, et cetera and simply choose which provider they like best. I have two cable companies serving my home - Comcast and Suburban. If it can be done here, and can be done elsewhere.
Let's have REAL competition, not government fiat monopoly. As for rural homes, i.e. the midwest and west, the focus should be mandating that everyone who has a phoneline must also have the option to upgrade to DSL. No more "we don't offer DSL" allowed. Upgrading existing phonelines is the fastest and cheapest way to get everyone above 56k.
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here's no reason why every urban home can't have access to Comcast, Cox, Time-Warner, et cetera and simply choose which provider they like best.
Sure there is...price control. Just because it's not good for consumer doesn't mean it's not good for someone else. Don't be greedy pay comcast more money. $200 for that phone/internet/cable package is a fair price for a gimped Internet connection, tv connection & phone connection. Don't worry if Google pays comcast a fee you will get full gimp speed to their content.
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There's no reason why every urban home can't have access to Comcast, Cox, Time-Warner, et cetera and simply choose which provider they like best.
Yes there is: why lay 2 sets of fiber when you can have only 1? Communications is a natural monopoly [wikipedia.org], in that really the cheapest possible phone service (in terms of real costs, not price charged to consumers) is a single phone company.
Re:And then... (Score:4, Informative)
Not all markets are the same, that's why they behave differently.
The optimum production level of a car company or electronics manufacturer doesn't satisfy the demand for cars or electronics, for instance.
In the case of operating systems, you have what is officially called monopolistic competition [wikipedia.org], where the differences between the 3 OSes are far more than just price.
Competitive markets aren't competitive because we want to eliminate monopolies, in most cases. They're competitive because the markets they're in don't lend themselves to being monopolies. For instance, in the North End of Boston there are about 20 Italian restaurants in a 4-block area. If it were profitable to do so, they would buy each other out. It's not, so they don't, and you end up with a competitive market.
Re:And then... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ever heard of the "last mile"? The reason many areas in the US have broadband providers holding local monopolies is because running cable to homes is one of the most expensive undertakings you can make. To say that other providers should run cable to homes to compete for a market would be to say "They should spend millions on construction and infrastructure for a slim chance at succeeding in the local market." It's just not cost effective, and it's difficult to justify to investors. Additionally, in many areas there just isn't sufficient interest to warrant this investment because the local population doesn't see the appeal of broadband, even just for upgrading phone lines for DSL.
In my area we have both Fios and Cable broadband, but one of my coworkers, who lives in Queens in NYC, doesn't have any broadband access, because he lives on the other side of a highway, and neither the cable company nor the phone company are willing to run wires a block for him and his neighbors, despite very vocal arguments. But you wanna tell me they'd be willing to spring for thousands of square miles for a population that's still primarily indifferent to the technology? I doubt it.
It's unfortunate, but broadband is very much an "if you build it they will come" technology, where the consumer often doesn't see the benefit of it until they've actually used it. This makes for a very precarious investment for communications companies, and is one of the biggest obstacles to improving our infrastructure.
Re:And then... (Score:4, Informative)
One of the real problems is local municipalities. Many of them have signed exclusive contracts for Cable TV services. For example in many Chicago suburbs Comcast has exclusive 'media services' access to the cabling right of way, in exchange comcast has to be able to service all residents within the municipality (in many towns without these agreements they only wire the middle and upper class areas).
This actually caused a bit problem when AT&T wanted to lay fiber for TV, internet, and phone. Comcast argued that AT&T was encroaching on their 'media rights'
Re:And then... (Score:5, Insightful)
from the FCC's website: [fcc.gov]
could high-speed internet access someday be interpreted to be a "vital link...to government services?" maybe.
there are options for us rural dwellers. there's satellite, which is somewhat expensive and not very fast. there's also the cellular network. an aircard in combination with a wireless router [cradlepoint.com] works well, if you can get a signal at your house. some companies offer wireless broadband over the 5.8 spectrum, [swave.net] but you more-or-less need line-of-site to the tower for that. another possibility is broadband-over-powerlines, but i think they suffer from the same fate as dsl, requiring the user be within a certain distance of their "box."
any way you slice it, rural customers will be out of luck for some time to come.
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Actually they may not be able to... I believe the 96 TeleCommunication Act 30 percent limit still exists. Basically it states that no cable media provider can own more then 30 percent of the cable market. Thus Comcast, TimeWarner, RCN etc routinely trade eachother's territories, or pick and choose which ones will give the most profit.
Re:And then... (Score:4, Insightful)
By your reasoning Verizon and Comcast should merge, rather than have separate phoneline and TV lines, because it's cheaper. However I argue it's actually more expensive, because you take away (1) freedom of choice (2) power of the people to run their own lives (see 1) and (3) create a monopoly which is inherently non-innovative, controlling, and tends to overprice.
No, not if you fully follow his reasoning. The key factor here is that Verizon and Comcast are from two very different sectors of the communications industry. It's only in the last 5-10 years that they're started overlapping significantly, and they both had huge infrastructure in place before that. It's not profitable for them to merge, because while they offer similar services, they use significantly different technology to do so. Comcast's infrastructure is not at all beneficial to Verizon, and Verizon's is equally useless to Comcast. However, it's profitable for a large DSL company like Verizon to buy up smaller DSL companies, because they're now buying additional useful infrastructure in a market with some proven customers, instead of throwing their money out on the line without knowing if there will be sufficient customers there or not.
There's a lot more that could be said here, but most of it has already been said or at least implied. However, it seems you're ignoring it. So I'll just reiterate the most important point: communications cannot be compared with any other industry (when talking about competition) because the barrier of entry is out of necessity prohibitively expensive. Consider: right now, your options for creating long-distance communications include cables, satellites, or wireless towers. Cables means acquiring permits to install it in all kinds of places, permits to dig up roads and all kinds of other things, not to mention the cost of miles of expensive cable, the cost of all the equipment to install it, the time and cost of the installation, etc. Satellites... well, we already know that's not cheap. Wireless towers are easily the cheapest route, but the tech just isn't there yet for high-speed capacity that truly competes with DSL or Cable. And even when that tech is ready, you still have to either rent space on existing towers (hopefully they'll work with your tech), or buy or rent land to build your own.
Building a car dealership or a restaurant or even an automobile factory is peanuts compared to building a communications system.
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With this bailout Obama set in motion, our government is set to become the biggest monopoly.
As far as getting a standard telecom company started (cable,dsl), I don't think we will see many more of those. The company I work for started up as a wireless internet provider. I think we may begin to see more and more non-standard approches to providing internet such as wireless, as these solutions do not require as much capital to get started.
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Just like arsenic keeps you healthy (Score:3, Insightful)
Please explain how forcing banks to make bad loans in the name of "social justice" proves that regulation keeps capitalism from destroying itself.
Re:Just like arsenic keeps you healthy (Score:4, Insightful)
s/social justice/profit/
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Regulation is what CREATED this crisis.
You then go on to explain how the government actions made the crisis worse, but don't explain how they created it.
The truth is, the government did create the crisis by rearranging the tax burden such that taxes on the high end did not compensate for wealth condensation resulting in runaway wealth disparity. Then they prolonged the problem by promoting unsafe lending, but they didn't need to do a lot because the banks were running out of people to loan to since half the country no longer had any net wealth.
We need to stop acting like we can control things.
B
Re:Just like arsenic keeps you healthy (Score:5, Insightful)
The government didn't force anyone to make bad loans. If you are a loan officer and you made a bad loan, it isn't because the government held a gun to your back.
It is amazing how on one hand you hear "The government made the banks do it through regulation" and on the other you hear "Deregulation of banks made them do stupid things!" Which is it? Did the government tell them to make the loans? Or did the government fail to tell them not to make the loans?
Neither: The banks made loans based on their own flawed risk calculations and poor valuation of future property values. Capitalism is based on the power of greed, but it assumes that the greedy ones are also smart. In this case, they weren't.
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>>>Did the government tell them to make the loans?
As a matter of fact, yes it did. The Democrats pushed through legislation requiring banks to make "no down payment" loans in order to extend housing to as many low-income Americans as possible, and that idiot Bush signed it. (He also signed the stupid anti-bankruptcy law authored by democrat Biden.) So the answer to your question is "yes".
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>>>Obviously, some libtard got some mod points and figured he'd do his best to quell the dissenting voice of truth
But don't you know? Free speech only applies if it's the *correct* speech. If it's not politically correct, then it may be censored.
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Well he was wrong about the bill but right about the time.. The mortgage crisis is the fault of government but not just one party..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act [wikipedia.org]
The Community Reinvestment Act (or CRA, Pub.L. 95-128, title VIII, 91 Stat. 1147, 12 U.S.C. 2901 et seq.) is a United States federal law designed to encourage commercial banks and savings associations to meet the needs of borrowers in all segments of their communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.[1][2]
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The government didn't force anyone to make bad loans. If you are a loan officer and you made a bad loan, it isn't because the government held a gun to your back.
Oh really? [boston.com]
"The roots of this crisis go back to the Carter administration. That was when government officials, egged on by left-wing activists, began accusing mortgage lenders of racism and "redlining" because urban blacks were being denied mortgages at a higher rate than suburban whites.
The pressure to make more loans to minorities (read: to borrowe
Re:Just like arsenic keeps you healthy (Score:5, Insightful)
Now if some mortgage underwriter took this law to mean "give people who can't afford mortgages a mortgage" or "Hey now i have an excuse to sell an extra mortgage and raise my commission" that is not the fault of the gov't that is the fault of the mortgage underwriter who abused the system (shocker).
"High risk borrowers" is a very loose statement. It's akin to saying "How much do I love you? I love you THIS much". The science of mortgage lending is more art then science - if you don't believe me speak to someone who is or was in the lending industry...oh wait, you are.
So before talking about "pesky facts" make sure you don't skew them.
Not for nothing, this statement...
The pressure to make more loans to minorities (read: to borrowers with weak credit histories) became relentless.
...Is extremely racist.
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It IS the fault of the government if the politicians unjustly prosecuted various underwriters when they turned-down loans. ("But I did it because he only gets minimum wage!" "No you did it because you're racist; we're dragging you to court.") Other underwriters would observe this, decide it wasn't worth the hassle, and therefore approved risky loans just to stay out of jail.
The fed did not go after folks who rejected one person; they would go after a lending institution that showed a trend. If a bank had a dramatically high rejection of minority loans (compared to non-minority loans for the area) then the fed would look at the bank. The bank could either justify their decisions by showing the reasoning for minority rejections, or the bank could get fined. So if the bank was able to show the declined minority loans were from those who could not afford the loans they wanted or
Re:Just like arsenic keeps you healthy (Score:5, Informative)
First off, your source is not appropriate for a serious argument. It's an op/ed by a columnist with accusations of plagiarism to his name, not a news article.
The loans that caused the vast majority of the current mess were issued by mortgage brokers (firms like Countrywide Financial, Ameriquest Mortgage, and Ditech), not banks. Brokers are not held to the CRA standards. The idea that the CRA caused this mess has been debunked repeatedly by every study done on the subject. If you want some real sources on this, I'd suggest studies put out by a university [unc.edu], the Federal Reserve [clevelandfed.org], or the US Treasury Department [treas.gov].
Some real reasons behind the arguments about the CRA:
1. Banks have hated the CRA for a long time. They were trying to dodge it or get rid of it back in the 1990's as well.
2. Conservatives oppose most government regulation on principle.
3. By blaming the CRA, it absolved the bankers of any role in creating the problem.
4. It creates an image of a foreclosed subprime homes is owned by a black person in a bad urban neighborhood. In reality, the areas with the most subprime loans are in suburbs near LA, San Diego, Denver, and Miami. In short, racism.
Re:Just like arsenic keeps you healthy (Score:5, Informative)
The banking industry complained regulations were too restrictive and they couldn't get people into homes - so the Clinton administration made it easier by pushing Congress to remove a lot of these regulations. The banking industry, & republicans loved this on a business level (more sales, less rules). The democrats loved this on a "we are helping the little guy buy a home" level. Nothing was wrong with that...except as history has proven over and over and over again if you give people the opportunity they will do whatever it takes to gain power/money even at the expense of other people. There are way too many sales people, and their managers who demand this, who just want to "SELL SELL SELL". How many times have we heard this on tv shows or movies "SELL SELL SELL"...you think that is a myth? It's "SELL no matter what" attitude.
There is a local jewelry store (been around for over 30 years) in Philadelphia. They have an insane commercial that says "if you really love her, you can't let the economy stop you. Buy her that diamond because if you love her she is worth it and so is that diamond".... as opposed to saying "You want to get married, the economy is tough, we can help you by getting you and affordable ring. Oh and we can upgrade it down the road for you" Again sales people just want to sell and they don't care about you.
Order of blame:
Banks who abused the system
Gov't who didn't monitor the system
People who got into those stupid loans.
Why do I put "People" on the bottom of the list? It is similar to the Stanley Milgram experiment. Given an authoratative figure people will do what they are told even if it is known to be wrong. Authoratative figure = real estate agent (with a LICENSE) & mortgage officer (with a LICENSE) in nice suits telling their customers "don't worry we know what we are doing with years of experience and fancy computer programs that say you CAN do this."
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Just to emphasize the "it's not that simple" angle, read up on the Community Reinvestment Act.
Re:Just like arsenic keeps you healthy (Score:5, Informative)
Subprime loans were not forced or mandated by regulations. They were sought after by the banking institutions who lobbied for them.
Re:Just like arsenic keeps you healthy (Score:5, Insightful)
On top of my point, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may have been encouraged to lend to lower credit families, but the crisis would have happened even if they didn't exist because the other unregulated institutions went about it with much more gusto.
Fannie and Freddie's subprime loans were shown to be on the more respectable end as opposed to the other banks who pushed their mortgage brokers to get loans no matter what the risk.
The only thing Fannie and Freddie really shows is that the government endorsed the practice, but the fat cats of Wall Street made Fannie and Freddie's bad loans look likes child's play.
Re:Just like arsenic keeps you healthy (Score:4, Insightful)
Fannie and Freddie purchased the subprime loans from other lenders, creating a huge market for them overnight. Why not issue a subprime loan if you can turn around and sell it the next day? You keep all the initial fees and assume none of the risk.
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I am not sure that your 'facts' are really facts!!!
> On top of my point, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may have been encouraged to lend to lower credit families, but the crisis would have happened even if they didn't exist because the other unregulated institutions went about it with much more gusto.
This is a big IF. It is not a fact! The fact is that F/F lowered their credit requirement so much that enables others to pursue the aggressive lending practice.
> Fannie and Freddie's subprime loa
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I've heard this twice in two days.
People didn't stop paying their mortgages because they fucking felt like it. Even 'undeserving' homeowners (yes, there are such a thing) as a rule paid their mortgage until they couldn't. For example, losing their job or having a huge unexpected expense (medical).
Do you disagree with me, or do you think we should be 'fixing' the symptoms by discouraging lending? (For the record, I don't think everybody's entitled to a home - maybe an apartment - but I don't think that you'r
Re:Just like arsenic keeps you healthy (Score:4, Informative)
Te other reason pay don't pay their mortgages is because they foolishly signed-up with variable rate loans. They could afford the original $300 a month, but when it suddenly jumped to $400 a month, then they were unable to keep up. They were living too close to the edge.
A secondary reason is an unwillingness to sacrifice. i.e. Cancel the TV, cancel the cellphone, cancel the internet & replace it with free dialup, stop eating dinner at restaurants, et cetera. My niece & her husband fit this category. If these persons learned to sacrifice, a lot of them would probably survive.
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Two points:
1) I'd modify the gp's statement to say "responsible regulation." The investment banking leverage ratio was regulated; the increase from 15:1 to 33:1 by Donaldson/Cox was the cause of Bear's failure whereby their management went overboard with leverage.
2) The increase in loan originations was due to the massive reduction in interest rates per Greenspan's attempt to pull the economy out of the 2000-2 fall.
Not sure what this "social justice" babble is referring to.
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In order for Capitalism to work, there needs to be a free market. When dealing with natural monopolies (and artificial ones like the telecoms), regulation is needed to keep the market somewhat fair because monopolies cannot self-regulate.
Another big issue is that we need a BALANCE between free market and regulation. Too loose of regulations and we melt down Wall St, too much regulation we stifle innovation and growth due to red tape.
Compare working for a mega corporation vs working for a small company. I
Re:[CITATION NEEDED] (Score:4, Informative)
Food and drug labeling laws made companies actually research drugs, instead of just giving mothers laudanum (opium and alcohol) to treat teething infants. Very effective - they behaved like angels. Until the stuff wore off.
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That was before our litigious society and the internet. Society has changed a lot since those days. I like to think that a self-regulating body would come about if we abolished the FDA. Much like the ESRB came about because they didn't want government interference - and they now are arguably stricter than the gov would have been with their ratings.
Don't get me wrong, I think plenty of people would try to circumvent the private 'FDA' association and buy non-label products... but I think they would be hard
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Lets take a recent example. How did Mortgage backed investments get so overvalued and rated at AAA status, even though by all accounts they were overvalued and overrated. Oh yeah, it's because the rating agency was unregulated and was Paid based on the rating they gave the investment.
Thanks, you just killed my neice and nephew who are allergic to peanuts. If the peanut recall that spread for weeks and weeks taught us anything, it's that we aren't buying directly from the local guy anymore. Suppliers barely know where their supplies come from, or where their suppliers get their supplies from. Also, without a regulatory agency that is impartial and looking out for the consumer, cost is the only thing that rules. A milk company could use melamine for months, paying off the "self-regulators" until the "good milk" suppliers are driven out of business, because their milk costs more. Then we are left with a cheap substitute for milk that is harmful. I'm simplifying here, but when it comes to Food, I really really appreciate an outside group verifying that my food isn't full of harmful substances.
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The regulation made the mess, and the dereg hide the mess until critical mass.
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Ah, I knew you were in my friends list for a reason..... well said sir!
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I see a lot of comments about regulation being good or bad, some saying it's the cause and some saying the lack of it is the cause. This is just silly.
Regulation is a tool, kind of like a gun, and can be used for good or bad purposes. If you are going to say regulation is bad or good, you should name a specific regulation. Granted there are cases when any regulation is bad, but it's just silly to say it's all bad or all good.
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Regulation is the damping of a process. Compare with Watt's steam machine. The regulator is needed to make sure that the system does not blow itself up.
However, in order to get a good regulation, you should first understand the process and be able to show that there is a possibility of run-away, and then create a regulator for the process.
Re:And then... (Score:5, Insightful)
But rather than just regulating, which we know never goes wrong
Oh yeah, just what we need these days, more de-regulation. Do you live under a rock, or have you not noticed an economic depression lately that is caused by total lack of regulation?
why not foster a more competitive market as well?
Competitive market in what? If you propose to let data carriers compete with one another freely, they'll go to bed with big corporations and media companies faster than you can see the dollar signs in their CEOs' eyes. Then loss of net neutrality ensues. If you propose competition between companies that produce said data, then fair enough I suppose.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland_Electric_Deregulation
Maryland deregulated its power a few years back. They insisted that "market forces" would allow consumers to "choose" their electrical power here in MD, and Baltimore in general.
Guess what? It didn't happen. Guess what happened? Prices went far up as a result of this "deregulation".
Guess what else? The deregulation was pushed by Enron....
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I would however like to say that regulation or de-regulation can be beneficial in different circumstances. In the case of Electricity in the US states perhaps a model based on maintaining a state owned supplier, but allowing new privat
Re:And then... (Score:5, Insightful)
The funny thing is, that's the goal of the regulation.
Regulation that encourages competition is a good thing. Lack of net neutrality would force people to pay extra charges to the various telcos to compete, which would reduce competition.
Telcos are already charging their customers, they shouldn't double dip and charge those their customers want to access as well.
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I'm not sure if you are just dense, or perhaps all this talking about ISP's has made you forget there are other people that have something to do with what is on the internet.
Net neutrality is so that *suppliers* of data over the internet can be competitive.
If the ISP's can agree with a big existing supplier to deliver only their data at a speed whereby the service (such as video) works, a new supplier of a competing service has no chance, as end users will get an unusable experience with them. There is noth
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Net neutrality encourages competition between content providers. Consider: Google pays a bunch of money to all the major ISPs to ensure that their web sites get top priority when routing traffic. Somebody comes along and creates a better search engine, but it loads slowly because they can't afford to bribe all those ISPs like Google can. People continue using Google, because it loads faster.
Net neutrality also encourages competition between ISPs. Let's say Google, Microsoft, NBC, and a bunch of other c
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Well, they ARE "competing" now, yet net neutrality is gradually becoming an even more important issue despite that. There are a few problems with competition. For one, there isn't truly competition in a lot of areas. In many cities, franchise agreement restrict other competitors from coming in. Even if there are competitors, you might find that the competition works backward from how you hope. When one company starts charging extra for certain services, that gives them a financial advantage, and others may
Re:And then... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with the current broadband market is the cherry picking and exclusivity of many areas. While some areas are rich with broadband while others are lucky to have dialup.
Internet service needs to be treated as a utility just like electric power and telephone service. There are plenty of working regulations for telephone and power service and we know from recent history and current events when regulations are removed "to bring about competition" right? Texas and California deregulated power and now Texas and California have VERY high energy rates! That's higher, not lower, even when there is supposedly competition present. The monopoly abuses of phone companies are well documented and while there is some level of competition in phone, there are a lot of nonsense costs associated with phone services abusing customers of every form of phone service.
Capitalism is viewed by many as "that which the market will bear." This lends itself to how much nonsense and abuse the market will bear which is the condition we see today.
Right now, everyone is scrambling for ways to make profit from everything imaginable and if that means erecting some sort of toll gate system on the public interenet, then that is what they are prepared to do unless they are regulated as a utility. You should see the mess that is the ATM (Automated Teller Machine) processing industry. If you wonder why ATM fees are so high, you have to know that there are several links in the processing chain and that everyone in that chain pushes their small fees that ultimately amount to large fees. If the internet were to adopt this model, you'd be paying $2/hr to post on slashdot.
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It's called "The Tragedy of the Anticommons". Unlike "The Tragedy of the Commons" (in which a communal resources is abused), too many transaction fees and economies of scale mean that you simply can't split the system up and let the market sort things out. Regulation, monopolies, or government ownership are the only options, some of which are more evil than others.
Just imagine if your ambulance service, doctor, hospital, drug company and specialist surgeon were all owned / employed by separate owners, all o
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Or just watch Sicko, where Michael Moore uses to the weak US health system to prove why he thinks the slightly weaker (but cheaper) Cuban system is superior.
Fixed that for you.
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You should see the mess that is the ATM (Automated Teller Machine) processing industry. If you wonder why ATM fees are so high, you have to know that there are several links in the processing chain and that everyone in that chain pushes their small fees that ultimately amount to large fees. If the internet were to adopt this model, you'd be paying $2/hr to post on slashdot.
I did an intern for a company that processes whole-sale lockboxes for major banks. This gave me some pretty neat stories, & documentations into different areas like ATMs.
Back when ATMs first came out the gov't mandated that nobody could charge fee's. This was so people would start using the system (hey if you've always gone to your bank teller to get money, why would you now use a machine and have to pay a fee?). Eventually, once ATM's were mainstream the gov't dropped these regulations and BAM C
Re:And then... (Score:5, Informative)
Here in Utah, Utopia is the open fiber that any ISP can use to give you access, and it works wonderfully. Most fiber is approx $50/month, and if you don't like your provider, you can switch without needing a new wire run to your house. If internet access worked this way, Net Neutrality would be unnecessary, but it doesn't, so it's required so Ma Bell doesn't get any bright ideas about which content it should start filtering.
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Have any of the telco's actually started to "double dip" yet?
This debate has been going on for year and we want regulation that says they can't do it, but beyond expressing interest in charging have any of them actually tried it yet?
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It's become a hot issue lately as bandwidth usage across the board is on the rise particularly due to streaming video.
Youtube takes up a vast majority of the internet's available bandwidth and ISPs are complaining about that.
Many of these doubling as both phone and cable tv operators, they're worried about the internet dipping into their profits on those services.
Right now, a cable operator can charge you a separate fee for both inter
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why not foster a more competitive market as well?
WTF do you think net neutrality is for? The word "regulation" does not only mean what talk radio ideologues want it to mean. Property rights themselves are regulation. Without the government to enforce them, there is no such thing as property. Every system has rules, and the rules must be enforced or the system collapses and all value is lost. In this case, the system is more valuable with participant neutrality than without.
I mean, do you want the internet t
News vs editorial (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm disgusted by the blurb for this one. Since it's supposed to be news, not editorial, can we do away with the slant? That's one of the reasons I gave up on mainstream media long ago, most of them write editorial commentary and call it news.
"...opposed by some conservatives and telecommunications providers..."
And supported by plenty of conservatives as well.
Good (Score:3, Insightful)
How can anyone be against net neutrality (Score:3, Interesting)
The inevitable car analogy (Score:4, Interesting)
Implementation is, of course, another matter entirely, and I do not pretend that it will only be restricted to voice or 'necessary' services. But calling tiered service 'discriminatory' or 'racist' is fallacious and needlessly confuses the issue.
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Those of us in ambulances don't magically get the road. Everybody is so important that they can't be bothered to pull over, even with the airhorn.
VoIP is more like a HOV/carpool lane. Nobody is against QoS, but net neutrality isn't about no QoS. It's about no discrimination based on source or destination.
You aren't going to find any serious people wanting their BitTorrent running at the same high priority as VoIP. In any case, properly set-up QoS won't affect most people ever, even the torrenters. Just at h
The Correct Post Office Analogy (Score:5, Interesting)
The internet is not and never has been a bunch of "roads". The internet is a series of interconnected post offices. Sure, there are "roads", the fibre and wires and cables that carry signals. But that's not what the internet is, just like the roads and the warehouses and the green vans are not what the post office is. The post office is a service that delivers post.
When I subscribe to an ISP, I am not paying to drive on their "information superhighway". I am paying them to deliver packets from to other IP addresses, and to deliver packets from other IP addresses to me. This is the internet. This is the way it has always been and this is the way it is as it scales upwards from users to ISPs, to Telcos.
Now big Telcos want to turn around to companies like Google and Twitter who are making money and charge them more for deliveries simply because they are deemed able to afford it. In addition, they also want to charge you more for delivering your packets to and from these companies sites. This is bullshit and everyone with half a brain knows that it cannot be allowed to stand.
When I pay for a stamp and post my letter, I don't expect the post office to turn around and say; "Oh, you're sending correspondence to your great uncle? Suit you sir. But I'm afraid that will cost you a bit extra owing to the fact that your great uncle is a man of some means. You'll have to buy a special stamp." Or "Hmmm sir. It seems your business made quite a lot of money last year, and management feels you can afford to pay an extra few pence for deliveries." Is this acceptable? Can anyone justify that?
And don't give me bullshit about "international stamps, etc". That's not what this is about. True, bandwidth corresponds to charging by weight, but on the internet, there are no foreign countries. Every computer is a local one. If you want to separate sites in Europe from one in the States then you may as well just shut the whole network down altogether, because you will have irreparably broken it.
Can anyone give one morsel of justification for why delivering my packets to google.com should cost more or less than delivering to slashdot.org? Do I give a flying fiddlers what kind of "tubes" were used to send them? Do I weep for the packets waiting milliseconds in the queue while mine is processed? Do I contemplate the strain on networks caused by shameless charlatans like myself who actually use the bandwidth they paid for? No, because the whole point of a post office is that I don't have to care how you get my letter there, I just pay you to do it.
Packets are packets are packets. IPs are IPS are IPs. Data is Data is Data. There are no tubes, no roads, no cars, no tiers, no premium IPs or domain names. Net neutrality is the only sane answer.
Re:The Correct Post Office Analogy (Score:4, Insightful)
So when emergency call is held up because WOW released the latest patch and everyone in my neighborhood is downloading will you still feel the same way?
I hope you're using the ISP's own VoIP offering to make that call, it'd be terrible if something happened to your emergency call via Vonage.
In otherwords (Score:3, Insightful)
Lets try to make intelligent arguments. Please leave these kind of arguments for the politicians.
The real new threat from ISP's (Score:5, Insightful)
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That might be so, for the current incarnation of P2P. It has evolved in the past to route around censorship, and it'll do so in the future as well. Even now we have DHT and just need a way to identify the torrent we want. I'm sure something like freenet will evolve to allow us to browse to the .torrent file and DHT will let us download it.
Honestly, I'm rather looking forward to something like that existing. It just adds 1 more level of crap that the RIAA has to wade through to prove anything whatsoever.
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UK is a fascist dictatorship. But instead of one Mussolini, it is governed by elected MPs and thousands of unelected bureaucrats.
Plus, those Neville chamberlains (citizens of UK) are perfectly content to be under such a benevolent dictatorship!
Hell, next they will invite the Government to put up a webcam inside their bedrooms so that the Government can "monitor" their "activities" for safety purposes.
Please don't compare US and UK.
They both may speak English, but we have Obama. And they have Brown-:))
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it's that they will outright BLOCK it (and any sites related to it).
No...free....porn???? :(_-_-_-_-
Pardon my cynicism, but.... (Score:2, Insightful)
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What's in it for me? (Score:3, Funny)
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If your traditional landline is busy because you are listening to $6/min porn AND you want to dial 911 because you ate too much viagra, then you can't sue Comcast/Verizon because of your stupidity.
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Huh?? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Why does anyone think it would?
Replace ISPs with wireless peer-to-peer (Score:2, Interesting)
If I can see my neighbor's wireless hub, and he can see the next neighbor's down the street, and he can see the next neighbor's further down, aren't we getting to the point where we can begin decentralizing the internet from the handful of ISPs? IIRC, the early internet was basically a system of interconnected switches. By interconnecting our own personal wireless hubs, we can begin recreating the internet at a gra
Let's hope he paid his taxes ... (Score:2)
Paradoxical Position (Score:3, Interesting)
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I'm not quite sure how you are able to make that statement.
I'm a very liberal person, and I 100% support network neutrality. The idea of networks not being neutral has far reaching implications to our information structure that isn't just about piracy.
We are already seeing the "market" trying to cap internet growth. With recent caps instituted by Comcast and other cable operators, we're
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plenty of democrats are opposed to net neutrality.
Name them.
Hollywood is opposed to net neutrality.
Proof?
It's not a liberal agenda persay, it's a really liberal agenda.
So?
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Feinstein, Biden, Boucher just to name a few.
Proof: DRM
So, everyone is making it seem like it's only republicans against Net Neutrality.