Google & Verizon's Real Net Neutrality Proposal 254
langelgjm writes "Announced this afternoon in a joint conference call held by CEOs Eric Schmidt and Ivan Seidenberg, Google and Verizon have released a joint net neutrality proposal in the form of a 'suggested legislative framework for consideration by lawmakers.' This comes on the heels of last week's assertion (and subsequent denial) that Google and Verizon were close to concluding talks that would permit Verizon to prioritize certain content in exchange for pay. A look at the actual text of the framework shows some positive net neutrality principles, but there is also some more curious content: 'Wireless broadband' is singled out for exclusion from most of the agreement, and providers would be permitted to prioritize 'additional online services... distinguishable in scope and purpose.' Public Knowledge, a watchdog group based in Washington, has criticized the agreement for these provisions."
Lesser of two evils? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why no wireless rules? (Score:3, Insightful)
Putting aside the lack of clarity about how this proposal would actually work in practice (especially since it seems to require the cooperation of the FCC, who are understandably pissed at both Verizon and Google at the moment), what's up with the wholesale exclusion of wireless networks?
In the age of 4G providers like Clear that are readying themselves to feast upon the marketshare of the DSL and cable broadband providers, does anyone really think the future of the internet lies in burying more landline cable in more rural areas? While it's true that backbone fiber isn't exactly going out of style, a cell tower is certainly a much more elegant solution for the "last mile" problem that's plagued wired broadband providers for years. Now that the price of wireless chipsets has dropped substantially, the only real obstacle is building more towers.
To put it another way, Verizon Wireless is a $50 billion company, while it's (55%) parent Verizon Communications is a $100 billion company. So the proposal is excluding anywhere from a quarter to nearly half (depending on how you count) of "Verizon", before you even account for future growth.
Re:Lesser of two evils? (Score:2, Insightful)
Big Government is probably better since there's no profit involved, but BG has its own evils. Like the earlier idea I heard about "internet licenses" (you need to ask permission to publish a blog). Oh and eliminating porn from the net.
If you don't have one control freak (Verizon) then you have another control freak (Congress).
At least with Verizon I can say "fuck you" and cancel my service.
I don't know how to do that with Congress.
Good, with undercurrents of Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA, I am seeing a strange trend. They are making some outright statements that fit in with what the /. crowd has been discussing, often enforcing the view that the net should be neutral. Their words however, seem to hide subversive tactics. for example: "This means that for the first time, wireline broadband providers would not be able to discriminate against or prioritize lawful Internet content, applications or services in a way that causes harm to users or competition. Meaning that centralized agencies can shut down - or degrade access - to "unlawful" (defined by US government) content such as wikileaks, etc. (taken from comment section from TFA) So, while this looks good on the surface, even surprisingly so, my gut is to not trust either of these entities. Cautious skepticism is the name of the game here.
Re:Lesser of two evils? (Score:3, Insightful)
We should start our own network, [wikipedia.org] sort of like the old BBSes but using wifi.
Re:why the fuck are these people deciding? (Score:2, Insightful)
Woah, calm down there mister. It's simply a suggested legislative framework that would still have to go through the rigmarole of getting voted in (one would assume). The reason these two companies get to do so is because they took the effort to writeup a solution to an existing problem. Similarly, other groups can do the same. Though, admittedly they have less clout to actually get it considered. However, I don't see the problem in actually proposing something to be voted on. That's kinda how democracy should work, even if you don't agree with the opposing side.
Re:why the fuck are these people deciding? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:no exceptions for wireless! (Score:4, Insightful)
this tips their hat. something evil is up, you can be sure of it.
Why? If you're going to come to that conclusion based on the evidence given, you probably had already jumped to that conclusion. If you don't trust Google because of this, you probably didn't trust Google to begin with.
There are dozens of potential reasons why there would be an exception for wireless. Most likely Verizon wasn't willing to allow any application run over wireless because they know their network couldn't handle it. Or possibly because Verizon wants to be able to dictate what devices can run on their wireless network (we know this is true). To choose one explanation without a reason is confirmation bias.
Here is what Google said were their guiding priorities in suggesting the legislation:
1. Users should choose what content, applications, or devices they use, since openness has been central to the explosive innovation that has made the Internet a transformative medium.
2. America must continue to encourage both investment and innovation to support the underlying broadband infrastructure; it is imperative for our global competitiveness.
Given that both these goals align naturally with Google's own self-centered interests, I see no reason to believe they are misrepresenting themselves.
Re:why the fuck are these people deciding? (Score:5, Insightful)
The first amendment gave them the right to provide a 'legislative framework for consideration by lawmakers'. Seriously, this is just plain old lobbying, and is on the more legitimate side of lobbying since they're not bribing anyone. Google still has the same rights as anyone else and they're doing absolutely nothing wrong here.
Re:why the fuck are these people deciding? (Score:2, Insightful)
Any entity can propose a "legislative framework for consideration by lawmakers", corporation or otherwise.
You can do it by mailing a letter to your congressperson. Of course, your letter probably won't be given as much consideration, but it will at least be read by someone in their office.
It's hard to argue that Verizon and Google aren't more qualified to pen such a proposal then your average member of congress.
I agree that anything they write is going to be biased towards their own interests, but that's their reward for spending the time and money on writing the "framework".
I just wish we could get the word out that "net neutrality" is a fairly simple concept, and one that is no more controversial than laws regulating how the postal service treats our mail. It boggles my mind that people in their right mind can argue against it. Can you imagine if Walmart could pay the USPS to delay arrival of Best Buy's flyers by a few days?
Re:Lesser of two evils? (Score:4, Insightful)
At least with Verizon I can say "fuck you" and cancel my service.
I don't know how to do that with Congress.
But of course if you say FU to verizon, in most places that means you go with an equally bad alternative. Kind of like how in most places you can choose between one of two equally bad candidates for congress.
Re:Lesser of two evils? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Does Google really care? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Lesser of two evils? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, pretty much.
In my area (urban NJ), I get to choose between Verizon DSL (no FiOS in my building--not worth Verizon's investment), Comcast, or one of the wireless broadband providers (all of which are capped at 5GB per month.)
Verizon is the least of the evils, and I still don't like them very much.
Re:Lesser of two evils? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know how to do that with Congress.
Simple - Just vote! right?
When is the last time you voted for a member of the FCC board?
"The People" only have indirect influence on these kinds of organizations. All you can do is shout really loud and hope you can be heard over the deafening tone of corporate controlled media.
Re:Lesser of two evils? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:why the fuck are these people deciding? (Score:3, Insightful)
Who the fuck gave them the right to provide a "legislative framework for consideration by lawmakers."?
Noone gave them the right, and they don't need the right to provide soemthing to lawmakers, just as private citizens don't, either. They're not making law; they're showing lawmakers, "Here's how it could be done." This is not the outrage you're looking for.
Re:no exceptions for wireless! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but none that aren't monopolistic, totalitarian, asinine, or flat-out bullshit.
So? That just means Verizon needs to increase the damn network capacity!
So? Verizon shouldn't be allowed to do that!
No it's not; all possible explanations for wanting an exception for wireless networks are evil!
All telecommunications providers should be Common Carriers, with all the restrictions implied therein. Period.
Re:no exceptions for wireless! (Score:5, Insightful)
There are dozens of potential reasons why there would be an exception for wireless. Most likely Verizon wasn't willing to allow any application run over wireless because they know their network couldn't handle it. Or possibly because Verizon wants to be able to dictate what devices can run on their wireless network (we know this is true). To choose one explanation without a reason is confirmation bias.
No, there really is only one reason wireless gets special treatment - it's because the wireless carriers in the USA have a much greater stranglehold on that segment than they do on the rest of the internet and they aren't about to give that up without the mother of all fights. You see it in everything they do from carrier-locked phones with deliberately crippled firmware to lawsuits against any town that wants to deploy their own public utility wireless network.
The only way I could get behind a proposal that throws wireless to the dogs like this is if competition in the wireless provider market were opened up far beyond the current FCC bidding system which has produced the current defacto oligopoly.
Re:why the fuck are these people deciding? (Score:3, Insightful)
Who the fuck gave them the right to provide a "legislative framework for consideration by lawmakers."?
Everyone has the right to provide legislative frameworks for consideration by lawmakers. It's an open democracy with reasonably free speech. The consideration given by lawmakers is frequently just "no" or possibly "No!"
Google and Verizon are big, and as such lawmakers might pay more attention than, say, some random plumber in Mississippi. But they're not deciding anything, just putting their opinion out there.
Re:Lesser of two evils? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:no exceptions for wireless! (Score:2, Insightful)
Anything else is worth getting worked up over.
Re:no exceptions for wireless! (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason they're doing this is because like you said, wireless is a huge growth sector. But the majority of Verizon's wired infrastructure (i.e. FiOS) can handle a HUGE amount of data - they've already invested in it. Wireless on the other hand, is a restricted data flow pipeline.
The bandwidth available for wireless transmission is determined by the range of frequencies available, divided by the number of users on that band. It's a FIXED amount. The FCC's not going to widen it just because, there are too many considerations for it.
You can only achieve a given data speed over wifi. We've improved it over time. But there is a physical limit for reliability of the signal, and that's why wireless is a different story. With wired (or land-based into wifi hotspots) you can just lay more lines in parallel, add a separate color laser to your fiber, etc. which makes it feasible to upgrade and widen the bandwidth. When you have an easily maintainable infrastructure, you don't mind letting it be used freely without priority restrictions.
Now pictures this: if wireless providers went all net neutral as per your calls, then a phone call would have the same priority as an app downloading updates in the background. Do you know you're going to always have good enough reception to guarantee call quality? Or are OS/firmware updates not more important than that stupid youtube of a dog who can't get up?
The point is that for wireless, there is a need to prioritize bandwidth, and because it's a fixed bandwidth, if you want priority over something else, you can't just claim it like you do on a landline network. The whole point here is that they're making an argument that you pay to use a cellphone, and instead of having a monthly data cap like you would with european providers (they have rates of $0.5 per Mbit after you exceed your allowance of 125, 250 or 500 MB), they're making it such that certain traffic will always work. Like maybe accessing your bank website. Or your Verizon account website to pay bills. If they'd adhered to net neutrality on wireless, it would end up in a huge problem because of LIMITED BANDWIDTH.
I'm a net neutrality supporter, big time. But there's no way to make it work on a wireless device practically to begin with. What other restrictions they impose on it afterwards remain to be seen. But I couldn't care less for browsing the web on a screen so small my fingers cover a third of what I'm trying to read/work on.
Re:Lesser of two evils? (Score:4, Insightful)
>>>in most places that means you go with an equally bad alternative
True. That's why I think State Governments need to eliminate these monopolies/duopolies and replace them with government-owned 50-fiber bundles under the city streets (and eventually suburban streets too). Then if a company like Comcast or Verizon or Google or Apple or Cox or Virgin or Time-warner wants to provide service, they can lease one of the fibers.
Customers will at last have real choice (between multiple companies).
A Masterwork of Orwellian Rhetoric (Score:5, Insightful)
Really the Google-Verizon statement in favor of net neutrality "in principle" (but clearly not in practice!) is right up there with "Ignorance is Strength."
Utterly.
Hilarious.
Re:Lesser of two evils? (Score:4, Insightful)
Providing social services, maintaining a judicial system that allows those big corporations to do business by making a system of enforceable contracts, protecting workers from corporations that would gladly put them in harm's way for a little profit, making sure that the environment, once it's been fouled by big corporations lack of social responsibility, gets cleaned up (note the way the EPA cleaned up the Great Lakes).
The one big thing that government does better than private industry that you might relate to is create an Internet which can then be used by private industry and private citizens for a whole host of valuable things. There is no way that private corporations would have ever created anything as useful and wide-open as the Internet. They had their chance and made...cable television.
Let's see, I'm just getting started. Government does a much better job of regulating the behavior of those corporations. Remember, corporations are legally fictive entities with only one purpose: to give profit to shareholders. There is no regard for human life, human well-being, social well-being. On their own, corporations would do a terrible job of keeping themselves from being even more destructive than they have been.
danbert8, you don't pay for anything in government "out of your paycheck". Without the social environment put in place by government, you wouldn't have a paycheck to earn. You'd be busy trying to hunt possum for breakfast, probably dying of old age at 35. Whenever someone like you tries to assert that their success (such as it is) is only due to "my own sweat and innovation", I always wonder how successful they'd be if they were dropped in Somalia or Honduras or someplace where little or no government exists.
You've got the best of all possible situations. A society where there's strong government and strong private industry. Without the first, the second cannot exist, but history has shown that government can work even in pre-industrial societies. You're free to engage in private enterprise to your heart's content and you don't have to worry about bears coming and tearing you to bits while you sleep. You ought to thank your lucky stars for our government, despite what your favorite AM radio "personality" has been telling you.
This anti-US government movement in the US couldn't possibly be more wrong-headed. Maybe like them you want to make sure government can't get your social security number.
Broadband is not an open market because the government has been weakened by corporate money and power. After thirty years of "de-regulation" and a political party that admits it wants to "drown government" how can you be surprised that the biggest corporations have been able to get their way to do whatever they want, from lowering the real incomes of working families to creating monopolies that limit our choices.
Re:no exceptions for wireless! (Score:2, Insightful)
So? That just means Verizon needs to increase the damn network capacity!
You do realize that's easier said than done with a wireless network, right? The only way to add capacity to a wireless network is to deploy more spectrum or base stations. Spectrum licenses cost billions of dollars and only become available every few years. Base stations cost millions each and you can only deploy so many of them before they start to interfere with each other. You also have to contend with local zoning laws and public opinion before you can deploy them.
I hate Verizon's business practices as much as the next guy but it's absurd to expect your wireless data service to function in the same manner as your wireline data service.
fuck you for bad service (Score:4, Insightful)
As I said back then: There is no such thing as "premium service" in things like networking, no matter what you call it. On an airplane you can offer additional things above and beyond the transport itself (say, a nice menu, or naked stewardesses, whatever). But on a network, if you provide "better" quality for some services, it really translates to degraded quality of the rest. You can't serve bytes a Martini as a special comfort.
That is exactly why net neutrality is so important, and it's important to get it done and over with finally and irrevocably before the lawyers, marketing people and lobbyists get their teeth into it. These are all people who are experts at spinning a simple matter, say, you can't make information move faster than the speed of light (plus switching), pump it up with nonsense terms, complicate the matter needlessly, twist and turn it around and then publish a convulted explanation of whatever their profit-hungry masters want.
Once upon a time, entire nations were founded on simple, straightforward principles. You do not need lawyer-weasling to find out what's right and wrong. On the contrary, far on the contrary, he who can't state his purpose in simple, straight up words is hiding his real purpose. Life may be complicated, but human desires and goals and dreams aren't. If your corporate mission statement is more than ten words, you can very probably replace it by one word: Greed. The rest is just lies and bullshit and attempts to find a nicely sounding description for the ugly truth.
Net neutrality is simple, like equal rights or emancipation.
Those against have again and again failed to make a simple, straightforward, convincing argument. They are talking around the matter in the same language all crooks use to hide their true intentions.
Maybe it is time to find a different search engine. Or found one, since MS isn't exactly an alternative.
Re:Does Google really care? (Score:2, Insightful)
So small ISPs are shocked because if they sell X Mb connections they might actually have to let people use X Mb bandwidth? Shocking!
Re:no exceptions for wireless! (Score:2, Insightful)
Even then, this Google/Verizon agreement allows them to segment their network for other "non-public Internet" services. People still purchase wireless Internet as a separate service. That should leave them open to reserving capacity for their voice network, for example.
Otherwise, about the furthest you can take that argument is an exemption for prioritizing delay sensitive applications on the wireless Internet. As you say, on a wired network, there are no physical capacity limits. The wired infrastructure should be able to grow to reasonably support the "pipes" people purchase, and customers can prioritize those to suit their needs. Since, in contrast, wireless capacity has some real physical limitations, I agree that more the "Reasonable Network Management" arguments have merit on that network.
Still, the suggested FCC neutrality principles make clear that they apply to "non-harmful" devices. Maybe instead making some blanket statement that wireless should be exempt from Neutrality regulation, we should allow different standards of what are considered "non-harmful" devices and applications on those networks.
Re:Interesting proposal; just might work (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, it's not a bad compromise for Google.
FTFY. Customers will get their internet wirelessly, because they move around and want the internet. Phones, iPad, laptop... these all make people want wireless internet.
Business use wired internet, because they have a fixed location and don't need to roam.
So what Google is saying is "don't extort us, but do extort users". This is a perfect world for Google, because with their deep pockets they can bribe wireless carriers to muscle Bing and Apple and whoever else out of the market. But with guaranteed fair wired access, worst case they could start their own wireless service... they would only have to set up the wireless instead of having to potentially own everything in between their servers and the user; if their wireless network had to hook up to Verizon for instance, then without wired neutrality Verizon could make it prohibitively expensive.
In the end, if any part of the network is not neutral, then to users none of it is. Which makes this initiative from Google a case of "do less evil", or worse.
Re:Lesser of two evils? (Score:4, Insightful)
Let me help you find some of those discussions:
Expressing desire that we have 3-4 companies running fiber in parallel [slashdot.org]. Interestingly enough, in this discussion you also claim that government monopoly is tyranny, and yet now you've seen the light and government monopoly over the fiber is no longer tyranny...
Here is the most egregious one [slashdot.org]. From March of this year; you defend the position in several posts, claiming that fiber is cheap to lay and therefore we will have 10-12 telcos (with individual private fiber!) competing for our business. You have clearly changed your mind; bravo! Your new position is much more realistic in its ability to ensure the best competition for the consumer.
Just to confirm... now you are saying that the fiber should be government-owned, and leased by the private companies who are competing to offer services to us, right?
Re:Lesser of two evils? (Score:3, Insightful)
He completely surprised me... gives me hope (probably false hope) that even the most ridiculous ideologues can be brought to reason.
Re:Lesser of two evils? (Score:3, Insightful)
Please tell us the next time that happens.
I really want to see how you handle this when you get old and sick, or when your child becomes ill.
Re:no exceptions for wireless! (Score:3, Insightful)
If the problem is bandwidth limitation, then limit the bandwidth.
The network provider cannot know whether my data is higher or lower priority than someone else's data.
I may be watching a YouTube video on CPR as I perform it on my mother, or talking about American Idol on the telephone. Or visa-versa. I may be pulling data logs from a mesh-network of emergency services offices using bittorrent, trying to figure out why the 911 routers all fell over, or I may be using VoIP to make kissey noises at my girlfriend.
The network provider cannot know whether the data I am pulling is high or low priority.
Sell me a bitrate, or a quantity of bits, but pretending that the network provider can know which bits are more important based on protocol or endpoint, for all protocols and endpoints, is ridiculous. Allowing them to make the decision based on anything other than what I (not the back-room partnership) have paid for is an express path to oligopoly over our ability to communicate. A fast-track to eviscerating the practical application of both free speech and the perfect information required for an efficient free market.
Oligarchs cannot know which information is important, and should not be allowed to pick winners. Their service is moving data, which they should earn an excellent profit for doing. Choosing "good bits" and "bad bits" is neither in their ability nor in America's economic or philosophical interest.
Re:Lesser of two evils? (Score:2, Insightful)
>>>people running in terror
That's their problem, not mine. They should be more afraid of their cars, or that fatty food they are eating, because that's what will kill most of them. Not a gun.