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Net Neutrality or Not?
Posted by
Zonk
on Sun Jun 11, 2006 07:45 PM
from the hoping-for-alternate-history dept.
from the hoping-for-alternate-history dept.
Reverse Gear writes "CNN has two commentaries about net neutrality with quite opposing viewpoints. Craig Newmark discusses how the legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives would efficiently remove net neutrality, while Mike McCurry writes about how the big companies should pay their fair share for the physical upgrade of the internet. From Newmark's commentary: 'Telecommunication companies already control the pipes that carry the Internet into your home. Now they want control which sites you visit and how you experience them. They would provide privileged access for themselves and their preferred partners while charging other businesses for varying levels of service.'"
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U.S. House Rejects Net Neutrality 598 comments
tygerstripes writes "A recent vote in the U.S. House of Representatives has led to a rejection of the principle of Net Neutrality from the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act (Cope Act), in spite of massive lobbying from prominent businesses. According to the BBC, the bill '...aims to make it easier for telecoms firms to offer video services around America by replacing 30,000 local franchise boards with a national system overseen by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'. However, according to House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, 'telecommunications and cable companies will be able to create toll lanes on the information superhighway... This strikes at the heart of the free and equal nature of the internet.'"
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Net Neutrality: Lobbyist McCurry Raises Ire 251 comments
BBCWatcher writes "Mike McCurry, former Clinton Administration Press Secretary turned telecommunications industry lobbyist, reacts to his many new critics in the battle over Net Neutrality: "There are millions and millions of good Democrats who get paid by corporations," he said, "and I think every time we bash corporations, we just turn off people who are in the middle of the political spectrum." Among others, top political blogger Markos Moulitsas Zúniga responded swiftly to McCurry's latest assertions: "What a dishonest piece of sh[..] McCurry has become. This is an anti-corporatist jihad, is it? Is that why we are aligned with Microsoft, Google, and eBay? And when did the Christian Coalition and the Gun Owners of America join the 'left'? What a pathetic attempt to marginalize those of us working for net neutrality....McCurry is now a sad, sad, pathetic man.""
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They already pay their "fair share". (Score:5, Insightful)
I pay for the bandwidth I use.
Re:They already pay their "fair share". (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They already pay their "fair share". (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing will come of this. It's all bullshit "what ifs". There's no such thing as a "good new law".
Re:They already pay their "fair share". (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed.
When the phone monopolies were granted
A mistake.
The government realized that a monopoly has no interest in reaching every consumer,
A consequence of that mistake.
Hence they made universal access a requirement of granting the monopoly.
A bad new law to band-aid over that mistake.
Until we have total competition in all aspects of the network
That won't happen. The last mile is a natural monopoly. I believe that localities should own last mile media. Any interested party should be able to rent use of said media.
That will solve your "one choice for broadband" problem nicely. The only place there isn't competition is the last mile. People seem to be extrapolating their situation onto the Internet in general.
I can tell you when you go shopping for a T1 or T3 or more, you get to choose from at least 10 ISPs. There's plenty of competition there.
Re:They already pay their "fair share". (Score:5, Interesting)
If we let companies own major local roads, they might try to put up roadblocks to charge FedEx and other wealthy companies extra money. And then local governments would have to pass laws that say "companies that own road infrastructure can't block competitors from driving around". But, as you said, that's really a band-aid. Having the ability to deny access or charge extra to individuals or corporations for really basic things like driving or communicating is a really big deal, and maybe it's better for local taxes to fund the development instead.
Net Doublecharge (Score:4, Interesting)
The Internet works. It pays for itself well, even better than centralized payments. Except if you're the telcos, and you have "unleveraged assets": legalized blackmail you bought in Congress and Mike McCurry's lobbying office. You could get paid not only by Google's ISP (or their ISP, etc), but also by Google itself, because you can cut them off anyway.
The telco answer to the Net Neutrality that has created $HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS in wealth, connected BILLIONS of people worldwide, and has been THE ONLY REALLY GOOD NEW THING PEOPLE HAVE DONE FOR GENERATIONS is Net Doublecharge. Which will make telcos even richer than their current blackmail and bribery has. And will of course destroy exactly the innovation and investment the telcos and McCurry are whining about as if they wouldn't drown it in a bathtup the moment they thought they could sell its soggy corpse.
Re:They already pay their "fair share". (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally, I don't mind if an ISP gives higher priority to say, voice packets over data ones. I don't mind if they give a higher priority to SSH sessions to reduce lag. Giving priority per packet type is certainly acceptable and Mike McCurry (from TFA) uses this as an arguement on his platform of promoting Net Neutrality (oddly enough). However, priority because of the name of the company providing the packet is a huge NO!
Hasn't this already happened? The network infrastructure is the hardware and the apps running on top is the software. I remember when IBM laughed at Microsoft saying that the profits are in the hardware, not the software; and look how they were wrong.
I think telco companies are finally starting to realize that the big bucks in the Internet game is not in the wire, but in the applications themselves.
And they want a piece.
Re:They already pay their "fair share". (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole "Hands off the internet" campaign tries to frame the issue as who should pay for the expansion of the internet, consumers or Amazon/Ebay/Google/etc.
Where does Amazon/Ebay/Google/etc. get their money from? That's right, consumers.
If Amazon and Ebay have to pay to reach consumers, then they will be forced to raise their prices. This, of course, means the consumers will still be paying for the expansion of the internet, only indirectly. The only problem with this is if Amazon and Ebay have to charge so much more to reach consumers, that it's cheaper for consumers to buy from brick and morter stores. Consumers may stop shoping online altogether, and Amazon and Ebay risk going out of business.
Google is only sightly more complicated. Google gets it money from advertising, so it would have to charge more for ads. Any business that want's to continue advertising through Google, will have to charge more for their goods and services, and you have the same problem as above.
The real question of who should pay for the expansion of the internet isn't between consumers and Amazon/Ebay/Google/etc, but consumers (directly) and consumers (indirectly). The answer to this question will determine whether internet innovation will continue as it has, or stop and the internet will become just another way to watch TV and Movies.
You pay for more than the bandwidth you use. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's really not the case so much for Google and other big content providers. They pay for a certain level of service and expect to use that much all the time, and they pay for a guarantee that they'll have it.
Video and other services obviously mean that consumers are going to use a lot more bandwidth than they currently do. Content providers will pay for their end, but the consumer end of the system is still going to be swamped. ISP's will have to deliver the sort of bandwidth to consumers that consumers already think they're paying for. Raising consumer prices therefore means ISP's will have to confess their bait-and-switch ways, so that's not appealing. The only other option is to squeeze content providers.
One wonders why the ISP's can't simply turn on some portion of the zillions of miles of dark fiber that's already in place. I'm sure there's hardware to be purchased and all, but upgrading networks this time around ought to be pretty inexpensive compared to previous upgrades. That cost seems like a small price to pay to cover up the fact that they've been overselling their networks for years.
Re:They already pay their "fair share". (Score:5, Insightful)
Google are just as free as you to shop around for a provider and as long as that provider supplies a service and gives backbone bandwidth to the paying customer then what has it got to do with anyone else.
If the home user ISP isn't making money then thats not googles fault, but a problem with the ISP's business plan, it has no right to complain about content further upstream.
Re:They already pay their "fair share". (Score:4, Insightful)
First of all, both ends pay for bandwidth, but *content providers always pay more*, because they require more bandwidth. And in most cases, the big content providers are *already paying* for the backbone, because they are buying their connection from the backbone owners - in many cases multiple backbone owners - for the bandwidth.
You also forgot option #4, which is what the telecoms really want to do: don't build anything, just give priority to the your content provider partners, and sell your own video - for extra! So it's really #1 AND #3, except your customers new charges are for a whole other service: IPTV!!
The other flaw is that all that backbone and infrastructure that was built today was paid for by allowing telecoms to charge monopoly prices, providing tax breaks and incentives, etc.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the telecoms simply cannot be trusted. This is not the first time we have heard the telecoms tell congress "Hey, you must do [insert what they ask for here] so that we can build more capacity!" Well, guess what? *THEY NEVER BUILT IT*! At my house - in a densely populated, affluent area, - I can't even have ANY broadband access except cable, because Verizon won't upgrade their switches - but this is what they promised last time congress gave them what they wanted (favorable treatment, special dispensation, monopoly access to me and many other customers). Instead, they just pocketed the profits. They will do it again.
Why is the US #10 in broadband deployment, even though we started out on top? Because the telecoms are buying congress and selling us out - while NOT building the infrastructure they keep promising.
Re:They already pay their "fair share". (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you propose to get money from those people?
If the American ISPs get their way, how would you proportion the money to all the ISPs that you make connections with?
Bottom line,
You pay to connect to the internet and your monthly fee should cover all bandwidth charges you make according to your contract terms.
If your ISP has oversold themselves I hope they go out of business because they do not have a sustainable business model.
Both make points, but neither gets it... yet. (Score:5, Funny)
I hope Slashdot makes it into the "silver package" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I hope Slashdot makes it into the "silver packa (Score:3, Interesting)
Any site who doesn't pony up this ransom will suffer when a gold paying site runs a live stream and requires all the bandwidth.
Remember, its paying for prefenrential delivery, not for open access, we will still be ab
Politics sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Politics sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. The idea these people are putting forward (not just telcos, several cable ISPs are in on it as well!) is a horrible, horrible one, which I hope to never see in action.
But if it does come to it, I hope the content providers are ready. Google should not pay, and simply post a front page explaining that "Your ISP is reducing your access to us". Other companies that bill their users should pay, and pass that cost directly to the users in the form of a line item "verizon (or whatever) charge *" with a "* please call verizon customer service at 1-888-whatever for questions concerning this charge".
If the content providers stand up for themselves and provide the customers with education about the situation (god knows the ISPs won't, despite all the idiots insisting that some fairy hand will magically make everything better) then we still have a chance at making this go away, law or no law.
How about raising rates? (Score:5, Insightful)
Infastructure + Content = Power Grab (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe the government should sieze control over the main backbone and make the upkeep/upgrade no longer a responsibility of the major providers. ISP's would all compete for the last mile hookups/billing, allowing other companies in who don't already own part of the highway itself.
They can try to earn more of their revenue from these supposed services they are going to bring in - if the services really are all that fantastic. If they really are cooking with gas, they should have no beef with a truly level playing field with Google. If I don't like the fact I can't get (competing service) as well with ISP Alpha because they're partnered with TVIP-X, I'll just drop them and move to ISP Beta since they treat everyone the same.
Re:Infastructure + Content = Power Grab (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a natural monopoly on the local level.
One good thing this act has in it is provisions to encourage localities to take control of last mile. Even as a Libertarian I diverge from the party line and believe that the last mile natural monopoly should be municipally controlled.
Putting some fake competition into a natural monopoly via "must carry" laws never works out very well. Just make the physical last mile media locally owned and let the companies that want to use it rent it from the city/county.
Re:Infastructure + Content = Power Grab (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, there's just no way that statement could end badly!
Fair share? (Score:4, Funny)
Privileged access (Score:3, Insightful)
The telcos could create whatever rate scheme they wanted but they would have to treat everyone equally. Actually, the telcos are currently common carriers. It would be necessary to pass legislation to make them otherwise.
OK (Score:3, Insightful)
Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Vote (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Vote (Score:4, Interesting)
the real issue (Score:5, Insightful)
its not just the low bandwidth and the tiny screen, its because
its packaged as a delivery media for ringtones and crappy games.
not just as a pipe.
the value of the internet is that there isn't necessarily some
marketing shmuck in tan slacks and a blue shirt sitting between
me and what i want to do. its a free-for-all. if those people
had been involved from the beginning it would have been worthless.
do whatever you like. dont mess with my rfc 791.
Re:the real issue (Score:5, Insightful)
They want to offer us fast connections to "partner" sites so that we can shell out 20 bucks for a drm-crippled movie download, or to another site where we can pay $19.95 a month to listen to streaming music.
What the telecoms really want is control over the internet similar to the way in which cable t.v. is controlled: compartmentalized areas of advertising-infested crap. The internet as it exists today is too fragmented and open to easily hypnotize the consumers. The telecoms want to change that. They want control.
A tiered internet would really suck donkey-balls, but in some ways I won't be disappointed if it happens. The internet seems to be becoming one big tool for citizen tracking and monitoring, both by the government and the corporations. Perhaps the glory days of the internet are over no matter what happens.
and this surprises whom? (Score:5, Insightful)
The free ride is over. It was destined to be over the moment the internet was opened to commercial activity (1992?). It just took the pointy-haired types a few years to figure out why they needed to pay attention.
Re:and this surprises whom? (Score:5, Interesting)
How come no one has any videos of the _television commercials_ that were playing on network news on election day 2000? Am I the only person who noticed that, on that night, defense companies like Lockheed Martin were running commercials with slogans like "Lockheed: Getting ready with the technology to fight the information warfare of the 21st Century."
I think that there is a war on information. And we are the targets. Maybe it's time to fight back, eh?
The Market Is What I'm Concerned With (Score:4, Informative)
To those that hate government intervention on principle, I'm not big on it either. However, in this situation, we'd end up worse off with the few network providers with an iron grip on who gets to see what. It's just a matter of who gets control.
They've got more in common with Tony Soprano than any business visionary. "That's a nice website, it'd be a shame if no one saw it. Telcos and cable companies are tripping over each other on the way to congress and the courts to try to each other from entering their markets. They'r threated by civic minded citizens in townships sick of listening to telcos tell them how great the network connectivity they get will be, and how they're doing them favors, but they'll just have to wait a few more years to get fiber out there.
It's a simple money grab, they see the cash Google and them make and they want to wet their beak. Right now the content providers have been outlobbied. They haven't been out-argued, just out-lobbied. Being a monopoly is great work if you can get it. You don't have to worry about competition, just the occasional complaints from the people that don't much like that they pay more.
What's so complicated about this issue. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, think of the pipes and wires that you use to go online as the car you pay for by renting. The question is, should the rental car actively resist the steering wheel when you pass by a burger king and instead redirect you to a McDonalds because McDonalds paid the rental car agency a bribe.
God, I hate stupid f*ing metaphors. The thing is easy enough to understand, I can't believe how the debate gets convoluted by the other side: You are already paying for net access. Now your telecoms aren't quite satisfied with your payment and want to double dip by collecting on the other side of the pipe. The problem is, that as a consumer, this isn't what I paid for. I paid for internet access, not Verizon's Paying Friends network. This is fraudulent behavior against the consumer, plain and simple.
In his anti-NN article, Mike McCurry, who obviously knows how the net should really work instead of how it current did for the last XX years wrote:
Their thinly disguised self-interest happens to be my self-interest in this case too. Rather than your stance, which coincides as the thinly disguised self-interest of the bells.
Oh, and no matter what, the consumers will pay for the upgrades. Let's not pretend that the corps will pay for it and not pass it down.
I can see both sides of this (Score:5, Insightful)
Like most slashdotters, I feel and instinctive affinity for net neutrality. And I think having a medium where all "content providers" are equal has been great plus, not only for internet culture, but also for the level of competition in internet commerce.
Still, the tremendously increased investment that can be conjured up by the profit motive is nothing to be sneezed at. I was using the internet as a graduate student before there was a web, and I remeber the ruckus over the first advertisment that appeared on usenet. Like most usenet denizens of the time, I was appalled, and I thought that commercialization would destroy our beloved cooperative internet. Obviously, I was dead wrong. So having been proved wrong once, I'm not inclined to dismiss the power of the profit motive to provide us with an infrastructure capable of doing things we haven't even dreamed of yet.
There is only one side here in the end. (Score:5, Insightful)
this is allowed. Nobody is stopping them. If you believe that its a free market out there, then you must accept that the market will charge what the market will bear.
Not enough money to upgrade the internet? RAISE THE RATES. Google Yahoo and other content providers getting a "Free ride"? RAISE THEIR RATES.
Prioritising packets has nothign to do with protecting the bottom line. its totally uneccessary for the reasons they give. It is about being able to finely control every little packet you get, so you can be billed accordingly.
Why give up the incredibly profitable Long Distance business model for the "flat rate" model of the internet, when you can convert the internet into another "long distance" service?
Re:I can see both sides of this (Score:4, Insightful)
"Still, the tremendously increased investment that can be conjured up by the profit motive is nothing to be sneezed at."
What tremendously increased investment are you referring to? The tremendously increased fees that content providers will have to pay to already bloated telcos for the 'privilege' of continuing to do business? The trememdously increased revenues that the telcos receive for sitting on their fat asses? Others have stated already that the only incentive present in this scenario is for them to reduce performance for customers of certain clients until the clients agree to their extortion. This is a shakedown, pure and simple.
F*ck balance. There are two sides to this argument all right, but they are Right and Wrong. Extortion has always been wrong and always will be.
HTH, HAND.
The Bells OVERSOLD (Score:4, Insightful)
If the bells sold these connections knowing that they could not support them, they should be sued for fraud, they shouldnt be charging us MORE money to fix their fuck-up
McCurry... ugh (Score:4, Insightful)
Objectively Speaking, Mike McCurry is a whore (Score:5, Interesting)
Notice no disclosure that he's completely freaking paid for by the telecom industry, who do you think Public Strategies' clients are? And "Hands off the Internet"? That's an astro-turf campaign, noticed the crappy wanna-be underground looking propaganda that's been popping up on blog-ads, that's them. More info at DailyKos [dailykos.com].
Editor's note: Mike McCurry is a partner at Public Strategies Washington Inc. where he provides strategic communications counsel. He is a co-chairman of Hands off the Internet, a coalition of telecommunication-related businesses. McCurry served as press secretary to President Bill Clinton from 1995 until 1998.
More coverage by kos [dailykos.com], john marshall [talkingpointsmemo.com], la times [latimes.com], matt stoller [mydd.com].
This is just like the telcos claims over open access. Every regional telco has been granted monopoly status for years, we the users paid for that infrastructure, and we'll use the same model in the future if need be. These claims of eminent domain are horseshit distractions. They were when they strangled and drowned the CLECs and they are now as they try to do to the Internet what the cell companies have done to wireless. I don't use my phone other than to talk, data services currently lack value over the cell networks in the existing price structure. They want to impose the same pricing structure possibilities on their segments of the Internet. Just like access to the copper, they want you to pay for what you've already paid for. Mike McCurry is getting paid to help these people steal from you; for this payment, he's trying to convince you that being stolen from is in your best interest.
These assholes will kill the goose that laid the golden egg if allowed. Support Save the Internet [savetheinternet.com], don't let them do it.
Stop them cause Mike McCurry is a Jeff Gannon-wannabe [google.com] manwhore.
telcos... (Score:5, Insightful)
What rankles network service providers is that the current infrastructure doesn't give them much freedom to charge by what people are able to pay; that greatly reduces their opportunity for revenue. Telephone companies, for example, have been able to charge a premium to individual residential customers because individual residential customers don't have much ability to negotiate. While that premium may be small in absolute terms, it's huge in terms of percentages. The same is true for other customer categories. They also want to be able to continue to charge excessive rates for specific services, such as voice. With the proposed changes, network providers can implement that kind of differential pricing again.
There is absolutely no justification for any of this; all it does is create market inefficiencies that make telecommunications services unnecessarily expensive. Both from an economic and a public policy point of view, net neutrality is clearly the better system.
corporate shill (Score:5, Informative)
Common Carrier (Score:4, Informative)
monopolies to commodities: won't get fooled again (Score:5, Informative)
In it, Geoff points out that for a very long time, telecommunication companies were monopolies or in some cases oligopolies (a few companies controling the market). They owned everything from the handset on one end to the handset on the other end and any feature like "call waiting" or "answering machines" had to be bought from them.
Depending on what part of the world you lived in, from the 70s to the 90s, these companies were forced to change from market monopolies to competative markets of differentiated goods. This is almost always a very rough transition to make and many companies, in any industry, often go bankrupt before they can make the structural, political, technical and cultural changes need to survive in such markets. The telecommunication industry is no different.
While the telecommunication companies are still trying to deal with competing in a differentiated market, e.g. the 80's slogan from AT&T "they are making second class phones!", to the huge number of options on cell phones, Geoff points out that they are really facing an even harder transition. They are having to go from a competative market of differentiated goods to a market of commodities. Even companies that are used to competative markets have a hard time successfully transitioning to commoditiy markets, again, they require even more changes to the organization. People just want to push packets.
Telecommunication companies thought they could create differentiated products like "video on demand" where everyone would get their TV, movies and music from the telecommunication companies. Instead, P2P systems have taken care of those needs, with the result of people not wanting huge downloads from a central company, but rather they will download from other "end users". But, even TV shows and Movies are just the tip of the iceberg. People are generating their own content and are bypassing the both the traditional media companies and the telecommuncation companies. They are creating pictures of their kids, and porn, They are creating blogs and small business websites. New features of the net are not added by the big companies under careful regulation, but spring forth from millions of places. The amount of data that is being passed around that has nothing to do with the big companies is mind boggling, and it is just going to get bigger.
People don't want content from the ISPs, they want packets pushed around, and that means a commodity market for packet delivery. Telecommunication companies that can adapt to a commodity market will survive. Ones that can't will talk about how they need to charge people for their "enhanced content".
Re:monopolies to commodities: won't get fooled aga (Score:4, Interesting)
In reality, at least in the USA, just about the only content available is movie trailers. Advertisements. So, you are supposed to pay to download (at unbelievable prices) an advertisement? Doesn't sound like much of a benefit to the early adopters.
USA is just sitting around and waiting until a cell phone provider comes out with a cheap, reliable, "no extra charges" plan. They have them now, but it'll kill your pocketbook. They want to overcharge in just about every case. Wanna send an e-mail on your phone? Ok, that'll be $.10 per kB. Wanna send that picture you just snapped of your kids to grandma? Ok, that'll be $1.
Come on. No one wants to pay for those services when they are already paying for the service.
Re:monopolies to commodities: won't get fooled aga (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong - people DO want huge downloads from a central company, but they can't get that, so they're downloading from other end users instead. Things are slowly starting to change: now you can get some of the content you want, for a little more than you'd like to pay for it. In time, you'll be able to get more content for less money, but that's several years away (and remember, if Apple didn't have a monopoly position, they couldn't negotiate prices down as low as they are now - they had to fight pretty hard to keep songs at $0.99, and were only able to force the record companies to agree because the record companies can't afford to lose Apple's customers altogether).
Tell it to your Senator (Score:4, Informative)
It's Our Net - Contact A Senator [congressweb.com]
Save The Internet - Sign The Petition [freepress.net]
'Net Neutrality' is misleading (Score:4, Informative)
The problem is that companies like AT&T are claiming that Google is getting a "free ride" because Google's data goes over AT&T's pipes, but Google isn't explicitly paying AT&T. The problem with this argument is that AT&T's bandwidth IS getting paid for, just not by Google. And Google IS paying for bandwidth, it's just