US Lawmakers Propose New Net Neutrality Bill

An anonymous reader brings news that Net Neutrality legislation is making another comeback. A new bill, sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), would make ISPs who fail to provide service in a non-discriminatory manner subject to anti-trust violations. From the NYTimes: "'The bill squarely addresses the issue of the enormous market power of the telephone and cable companies as the providers of 98 percent of the broadband service in the country,' said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge. But broadband providers and some congressional Republicans have argued that net neutrality legislation isn't necessary. The broadband market is becoming more competitive and net neutrality regulations could hamper investment in broadband networks, some Republicans said during a hearing this week."

Not necessary?

[rukkyg (1028078)]

If you think a law isn't necessary, and a bunch of other people do, then why wouldn't you just approve it? From your perspective, the law would have no effect, positive or negative. To the other people, you look like you agree with them. Win-Win.

Therefore I conclude, that large companies and congressional Republicans are lying. Of course, that was really my thought before I read this article.

Re:Not necessary?

[JustKidding (591117)]

Indeed. Ofcourse, when they argue that it would "hamper investments in networks", they mean that the providers won't be able to extort money from content providers *and* consumers at the same time, money which, obviously, would be spend on improving the network.

I would think not having such a bill would hamper investments. There is much money to be made in creating an artificially low supply of bandwidth.

Like those pesky Banking Regulations!

[FatSean (18753)]

You know, the ones repealed and/or not passed in the late 80's and 90's in order to help the economy grow...which then led to shady banking practices that begat our current 'credit crunch'.

Yeah, I've heard this story before. I like the regulations, they are necessary for capitalism to work in the real world.

Re:Like those pesky Banking Regulations!

[DesScorp (410532)]

"You know, the ones repealed and/or not passed in the late 80's and 90's in order to help the economy grow...which then led to shady banking practices that begat our current 'credit crunch'."

Wow, put on the hipwaders. The bullshit is thick today.

Our current "credit crunch" had nothing to do with banking deregulation of the late 80's and early 90's. It has everything to do with three issues.

One, the subprime mess. That's the fault of people buying houses they knew they couldn't afford, and banks lending them money they couldn't pay back. But why were the banks lending them that money, then? Because politicians decided that it wasn't fair that people with bad credit couldn't get home loans, so they created laws authorizing subprime mortgages, and indeed pressed banks to give these loans to "disadvantaged" borrowers. That's right, your beloved government regulations helped create this mess. And now these same politicians are promising to spend taxpayer funds to bail out these irresponsible people and banks, while people that played by the rules... the ones that only bought houses they knew they could afford, or when they couldn't, rented instead... well, your beloved regulators are about to stab those people in the back. The ones that played by the rules? Suckers and chumps, apparently, because they could have gone hog wild and let Uncle Sugar bail them out. THATS the fruits of your nanny regulation, not true free market economics.

The other two reasons are strictly because of monetary policy, not banking regulation. The Fed decided on too much liquidity, and the Bush Adminstration adopted a weak dollar policy, mainly because of complaints by people much like you that "our trade deficit is too high! Get the Chinese to buy more from US!". So Bush bought into that fraudulent thinking that if we made our domestic products cheaper via a weak dollar, foreign countries would come running to buy more of our products (never mind that in the US, throughout 400 years of our history, has had a trade deficit for 350+ of those years, and it hasn't retarded our economic growth. The trade deficit is a useless measure of overall economic health).

"I like the regulations, they are necessary for capitalism to work in the real world"

Ahh, the old bullshit that capitalism isn't "efficient" enough without government regulation.

The only thing capitalism needs to work "in the real world" is a seller that has something a buyer wants, and a buyer that has the means to pay for that product or service. Period. Regulation that does anything other than prevent fraud is nothing more than a drag on markets.

Re:Not necessary?

[JamesRose (1062530)]

Because it causes situations, an old man heckling at the back of a labour party conference gets wrestled to the ground and arrested under "unnecessary" anti-terror laws.

Re:Not necessary?

[digitig (1056110)]

Stricly, "detained" rather than "arrested" (it makes a difference -- he can still travel from the UK to USA under the visa waiver program, for instance, which I understand he couldn't had he been arrested). But your point stands -- unnecessary legislation does have a cost.

Re:Not necessary?

[m.ducharme (1082683)]

Passing unnecessary laws just to make people happy is inefficient, and causes the system to become over-burdened as people try to game the new law for their own benefit, can cause unintended consequences in relation to other, more well-established laws (over-riding certain parts of an older bill, for example).

Let me ask you this, do you think it's a great idea to add a new procedure/function/module to a piece of software, that definitely interacts with the previously written and tested code, if you think that new code is unnecessary, just to make a PHB happy?

For the record, I do think net neutrality laws are necessary. I don't think however, that unnecessary laws are harmless.

Re:Not necessary?

[m.ducharme (1082683)]

I was going to write a long, thoughtful post in reply to yours, then I noticed the Ayn Rand quote in your sig. Sorry, I don't argue with religious fanatics.

why do the bad guys always come up with such names

[CDMA_Demo (841347)]

Whats wrong with "Net Equality"? Oh, i know....

Re:why do the bad guys always come up with such na

[ShieldW0lf (601553)]

They're trying to get it passed by a bunch of conservatives. "Net Equality" reminds them of communism and sharing, which they don't like. "Net Neutrality" on the other hand, reminds them of Swiss bankers, which every rich conservative likes. Neutrality is a much easier sell than equality.

The New York Times?

[19thNervousBreakdown (768619)]

The legislation, introduced Thursday, earned praised from ...

... with Comcast saying it has slowed some customer access to the BitTorrent peer-to-peer protocol during times of network congestion, they say.

Competition is happened ...

That's just from a quick read-through. This is the New York Times?

Re:The New York Times?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Competition is happened ...
What you say?
Somebody set us up the FIOS.

Competition

[77Punker (673758)]

I don't know about their dream world, but I live in a metropolitan area with 1.1 million people. When I got broadband 8 years ago, Road Runner was the only option.
There's DSL now, but it costs the same price for much lower speed. I'd like to have options, and I'm moving across the country to Tempe soon. Hopefully things are better there.

Comcast and Rogers....

[NoobHunter (1090113)]

WEe're currently experiencing the same issues up here in Canada. You guys have Comcast, we have Rogers and Bell. Also, I have to argue that Net Neutrality would hamper ISPs....if anything, it would promote MORE freedom do to whatever it is you do on the Net without having to worry about how much money is needed to guarantee that people can actually reliably access your website. In the US, the Gov't is by the people, for the people and of the people....who the hell in the US from the people want to give Telecorps more power? We, in Canada, are dealing with the same shite... http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2463/125/ [michaelgeist.ca]

Even if this passes, it wont necessarily help

[jonwil (467024)]

Even if this passes, it wont necessarily help. The lawyers for the big telcos/cable companies will spend the next decade in courtrooms coast to coast trying to argue for their interpretation of what "provide service in a non-discriminatory manner" actually means.

A variant on "If you've done nothing wrong..."

[erroneus (253617)]

"If you aren't [planning on] doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to fear from this net neutrality law."

But ultimately the problem as I see it is that the telecoms don't think it's wrong to do what they have been doing and/or what they plan to do... especially since there is no law that identifies it as such.

competitive my ass..

[bleh-of-the-huns (17740)]

Competition is supposed to bring down the prices of products.. yet all I have seen in the last 6 months is 3 rate hikes (verizon fios)... and I have plenty of options..... oh wait, no I don't.. I have Cable (Comcast can go F themselves into oblivion so thats not an option), and Fios (if I was to include TV then I also have DTV or Dish as an option)..

A duopoly is not competitive, and I have no options for DSL or any other landline based solution other then dialup. Sat internet is not an option, too much latency

Competitive market?

[rkhalloran (136467)]

For most markets, you have either cable or DSL. In large markets, you probably have both. In some VERY major markets (Bos-Wash metroplex, California, etc), you may have fiber-optic and cable.

Outside of that last group, you really don't have a choice of providers, so you're stuck with whatever crappy TOS they give you. Just look at the recent news about Comcast throttling P2P, and now talking about monthly traffic caps. Guess how long that would last if they actually *DID* have competition for customers?

Sadly, the prospects of this bill getting anywhere in the current whores-for-corporations Congress is about nil, but it probably looks good for Conyers' re-election campaign.

Good regulation, bad regulation

[davide marney (231845)]

The proper function of government is not to pick market winners and losers, but to look out for the common interests of the people. Most can agree that an open, freely competitive environment has a better chance at meeting our common interests than a closed, noncompetitive environment. (The catastrophic history of communism, alone, should be evidence enough of the truth of this proposition.)

Do we have an open, freely competitive market for telecommunications services in the US? The answer is clearly, no. We have a marginally competitive market composed of government-granted monopolies.

The problem isn't that we have "too much" government regulation. Without a grant of monopoly -- a government regulation -- the network operators wouldn't have a network to operate in the first place. The problem is we have the wrong kind of regulations. The government shouldn't be granting monopolies in the first place. Rather, it should be setting interoperability standards and requirements that keep the market as open and freely competitive as possible.

Seen in this light, then, these bills are a welcome addition. They at least set a standard for openness and nondiscrimination, which is a good thing for a government to be doing.

Re:

[CDMA_Demo (841347)]

John Conyers is an African American and he has represented a district in Michigan that is predominantly African American for nearly 40 years. He's probably thinking more along the lines of race than anything else.

That explains why he's against tubectomy.

Huh?

[dreamchaser (49529)]

What does his race have to do with his position as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee?

From the TFA, which you apparantly didn't read:

'Conyers and Lofgren were cosponsors of a similar bill introduced in 2006, when Republicans held a majority in the House. With significant Republican opposition, the 2006 bill died, but Democrats were elected to the majority late that year.

"Americans have come to expect the Internet to be open to everyone," Conyers said in a statement. "The Internet was designed without centralized control, without gatekeepers for content and services. If we allow companies with monopoly or duopoly power to control how the Internet operates, network providers could have the power to choose what content is available."'

While Conyers has at times made efforts in Congress that reflect his consituency, he appears to be acting as the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee should be acting. I am actually not a fan of his (I tend to be far more conservative than he), but your vaguely racist comment made me scratch my head and say 'Huh?'.

I'll reserve further judgement until I've had a chance to read the text of the bill.

Re:Parse these lies

[maxume (22995)]

Yes, the Carter era was a bonanza compared to the Reagan-Bush I years (things were pretty good under Clinton, but his economic policies were closer to Reagan than, say, Kennedy or Johnson).

It's a ridiculous simplification to attribute the presence or lack of economic success to the man in office at the time, because there are policies that take many years to take effect or unwind, but the idea that taxing wealthy people at 90% is smart is just silly. Wealthy people pay ~25% taxes on their income at the moment, that could easily go north of 35% without really hurting anything, but there is a good debate somewhere near 50%.

Re:Parse these lies

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve (949321)]

One would think that after a while it would get to be a chore to have to lie day after day to millions of people, but I guess the payback for "some Republicans" is great enough that their willing to step up to the challenge.

I think you are right about the majority of Republicans. They've just been bought. However, some actually do believe that stuff. It is typical Republican mantra to say "Government bad. Business good." "All regulation bad. All deregulation good." "The free market solves all ills." So I can see that there might actually be a few Republicans who honestly believe that the free market is solving this problem, but I do think that most of the Republican opposition is simply because the big providers paid them enough to oppose it.

Re:Parse these lies

[SydShamino (547793)]

Most of your countries tax spending is footed by the rich. And why should they subsidize your lifestyle?

The rich depend on public-school-educated police officers to keep them safe at home.
The rich depend on public-school-educated employees to make them money.
The rich depend on public-school-educated workers to build the products they buy with their money.
The rich depend on public-school-educated professionals to fill their prescriptions.
The rich depend on public-financed road networks to move their products.
The rich depend on public-financed communication networks (like the subsidized phone system and the government-funded internet) to enable their businesses.
The rich depend on public-financed military to protect their business interests overseas.
The rich depend on public-financed military to protect their country from invasion.
The rich depend on public-financed social, medical, and economic safety nets to prevent the type of discontent among the poor that create revolution.

The poor depend on many of the above to survive, but, in absence of those things, the poor who have nothing to lose would revolt and restructure their society to provide them. Eliminating the safety nets and social programs would make things very bad for the poor for a time, then make things better after the revolution. Eliminating the safety nets and social programs would make things better for the rich for a time, then make things much, much worse after the revolution.

The rich have gotten far more out of the system than the poor, and they have far more to lose if the system breaks down. It is only and truly fair that they pay their fair share to fund it. That fair share, proportionally, is much larger percentage of their income.

Re:RIAA, MPAA...

[MBGMorden (803437)]

Wha? This law would actually PREVENT that, not encourage it. Selective blocking of trackers is treating some sites differently than others. That's a no-no under a net neutral mentality.

Worded less politely, net neutrality boils down to the customer saying to the ISP:

"I pay you for bandwidth. Nothing more. Shut the fuck up and let me spend that bandwidth how and where I please.".

I can't believe it's even an issue in people's minds. If Comcast built a huge toll road that lead to a dead end, nobody would drive on it and their stockholders would throw mad fits. It would be a blessing if the Google Sushi Bar opened next to the road serving up the best sushi in the state for low prices. People would actually pay to use their road now. You'd think they'd be happy, but no Comcast wants to charge the travelers AND charge the Google Sushi Bar every time someone wants to turn into their restaurant. Or, if they don't pay up, they'll still let people go there, but only 3 cars every hour. You're welcome to go to the brand new Comcast Sushi Bar across the street though.

That's pretty much the situation that we're looking at, and it needs to be stopped, by law if necessary (and I've heard enough rumblings from the telecoms to believe it is now necessary). Claiming it'll "hinder investment" is just asinine. Of course companies would build more networks if they could unfairly extort money from people. That doesn't make it right.