Kevin, are you really so gullible as to take a telcom's word on where it will stop if you don't regulate it?

Regulation now, regulation tomorrow, regulation forever!

Everything I can find on the subject is hopelessly vague about what the rules used to be, what they're going to be

That's because there are no formally defined rules. The Internet is an ad-hoc creation based on the principle of equal access with reasonable limits to increase efficiency. But this came out of academia and has maintained that philosophy. The whole point of the Internet is that no one controls it. Now that it is becoming an extremely important part of everyone's lives, soon to deliver telephone service, television, and every other type of communication, companies want to assert control over it. So, now we do need to codify the rules that allowed the Internet to come into being. This is nothing new, it happens with every new disruptive technology. It starts off under the radar of the major players (think Apple II and IBM, HP, etc.) and as it becomes prevalent, companies try to dominate and control it (think Microsoft).
The Internet needs to be protected against companies seeking to control the flow of information. Net neutrality needs to be codified.

Since the Internet was developed using phone lines as its transport medium, it was already explicitly protected from content blockage by common carrier principles.

But now that broadband is no longer regulated under the Computer Inquiry rules, any pipe owner can block or degrade content.

The issue is bandwidth. Cable companies haven't chimed in on this issue, primarily because their pipes are fat enough to handle video.

But the Bell's pipes aren't. They want to get into the video business, but don't want to really spend the money to upgrade their pipes. So in order for their prefered content to get through, they'll need to throttle all other content.

Net Neutrality language would keep the pipes
"dumb", and provide incentive for the pipe owners to upgrade. Fiber-speed is the end goal.

Other countries are kicking our ass. In france some companies offer triple play for less than $30 per month. In japan, 100Mbps speeds are common for less than $40 per month.

The bill being voted on this week in the House is a giveaway to the telecom companies.

savetheinternet.org

FYI... Media companies have received this today. Anything Dick Armey is for, I'm against, and vice versa.

____________

FreedomWorks News Alert April 24, 2006
Dick Armey, Chairman

-------------------

FREEDOMWORKS TARGETS DANGEROUS NETWORK NEUTRALITY EFFORT
New Coalition for Internet Freedom ironically proposes increased government regulation of the internet.

Washington, D.C. -- In response to today's launch of the "Save the Internet" Coalition, a misguided group of leftist organizations selling network neutrality legislation as a "First Amendment for the Internet," FreedomWorks is refocusing its long-standing campaign to bring about free-market telecommunications reform. The campaign aims to bring truth and clarity to the too-often misunderstood concept of net neutrality.

Net neutrality legislation would grant the federal government broad power to dictate how businesses offer Internet service. FreedomWorks finds this violation of fundamental property rights alarming. Additionally, FreedomWorks has grave concerns that, if enacted, net neutrality provisions would significantly deter investment in exciting new technologies that offer a faster, higher-quality Internet experience, thus ultimately hurting the consumer.

To combat the misinformation that groups such as "Save the Internet" have propagated regarding net neutrality, FreedomWorks is taking a multi-pronged approach to prevent net neutrality regulations including: directing its nationwide of army of more than 800,000 volunteer activists to call and email their members of Congress; conducting one-on-one hill staff and member education with FreedomWorks chief economist Wayne Brough and chairman Dick Armey; and placing targeted print and Internet advertisements.

FreedomWorks has a more than 20-year history on free-market technology issues. Most recently, it was active in several states for its "Choose Your Cable" campaign--a grassroots effort to streamline barriers to entry that now exist in the video programming--more commonly known as "cable TV"--market.

FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey commented:

"Net neutrality allows the government to run all over basic property rights in classic, Kelo fashion while expanding regulation in the telecommunications arena. Having the government tell a cable or phone company how to manage the pipes that offer their clients Internet service would fare no better than having the government tell Wal-Mart how to stock its lawn and garden department.

As Congress takes up the important issue of telecommunications reform, it must avoid the false idea that net neutrality represents Internet freedom. Nothing could be further from the truth; net neutrality is nothing more than "Internet regulation."

-- 30 --

For more information, call Adam Brandon at (202) 942-7698 or visit http://www.freedomworks.org

About FreedomWorks

FreedomWorks recruits, educates, trains, and mobilizes ordinary Americans to fight for less government, lower taxes, and more freedom. Founded in 1984, FreedomWorks has more than 700,000 members nationwide.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~
FreedomWorks...Advancing Freedom through Citizen Action

Kevin,
I take it you have never managed corporate telecom/datacomm services, negotiated a contract with a telco, or managed a contract or a service level with a telco? They all (and I mean every one of the 25 I have dealt with in 15 countries) have the A.G. Bell mentality of monopoly entitlement. As soon as they have the ability to throttle, control, and censor, believe me: they will.

And once those "lanes" are established it will be quite easy for, say, the Jeb Bush Administration to seize the controls and use them to shut down dissenting web sites. Given the current situation with the AT&T feed to the NSA I think we have to expect that to happen right off the top.

Cranky

The Internet is not a grocery store.

Grocery stores have limited shelf space so they get product makers to pay for the shelf space their products appear on. A so called "shelf fee" or "slotting fee"

Cable companies have a limited number of slots so they to engage in "slotting fee" like practices though not quite as much because they also sell subscriptions.

The internet and network connections are not limited to a fixed number of slots so slotting fees is just an attempt to extort money.

It's simple.

When the jackasses at SBC say that it's not fair that Google gets to profit off of using their pipes for free, they're LYING. Google pays for it's access. And the bandwidth they use.

SBC is trying to get the rules changed, so that they can look at packets for data content, and favor one type over another (and supposedly charge for preferential treatment).

The type of preferential treatment they have in mind is:
Blocking Voice Over IP so that it does not compete with their POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service).
Charging more for a given quantity of data transport, to certain customers, than other customers are charged. Just because.

Along with various other types of discrimination and anticompetetive practices.

This is not all that complex. There are many fine sites out there that explain the details (including EFF.ORG). But the bottom line is - for the first 10 years of the Internet's modern (post 1992-ish) existence, nobody took seriously any talk of threats to net neutrality, because it's obvious to everyone that net neutrality is what brought all the content to the Internet, and made it so accessible, which brought high demand, which created an economic and information phenomenon unparallelled in the history of man. Nobody dreamed that politicians would be so stupid as to take these proposals seriously. Now the telcoms are consolidating, and monopolizing again (witness broadband penetration, and pricing in the US, compared to countries like Japan, the UK, and South Korea). And now they're buying off politicians to essentially privatize the Internet.

This is the worst idea since "book burning".

On the one hand, the telecom industry says they just want to be able guarantee service levels (for a price) for high-value, high-bandwidth services like on-demand video. This does not seem very alarming to me.

The biggest broadband provider in most markets is the cable company. Do you really think it's a good idea to give these guys a stranglehold over their competition? The future of TV is downloadable digital content (with ads you can't fast-forward throught) that goes to a set-top DVR-like device, but that vision can never come to fruition if we allow cable companies to use their near-monopoly power in defense of their highly-profitable cable franchises.

"the telecom industry says they just want to be able guarantee service levels (for a price) for high-value, high-bandwidth services like on-demand video. This does not seem very alarming to me. Companies already buy bigger pipes and negotiate quality-of-service agreements when they need guaranteed bandwidth, and that's never caused any problems. Bloggers are accustomed to paying their hosts based on the bandwidth they plan to use, for example, and this seems like more of the same on a larger scale."

Wow, the current crop of bloggers is so low in it's level of knowledge of technology. It wsn't always like this.

The short answer to the above statement is that you're conflating two different things. If I go out and pay more for DSL than Dialup -- that's to the Internet Service Provider. Only in the United States where competition is prohibited does this mean the Telco. What I get for paying more than for Dailup is more bandwidth for all content -- more bandwidth for YouTube as well as for Disney.

There is no discrimination in content. All content is equal and hence you have 'Net Neutrality'.

What the Telcos want to do is not offer you better DSL, they want to off your better Disney. ITube, YouTube, WeAllTube will be left in the Dust.

They usually describe what they want to do as "priority bandwidth". What it is in truth is "bandwidth discrimination" and those who can't pay the extra freight -- in addition to paying for the Hosting Service, in addition to paying for the Internet Service Provider -- will be screwed. You differenciate like this to knock out the small-time independent voices.

Kevin, I just don't understand how you can doubt that the corporations have our best interests at heart. Next you'll be contradicting Al and claiming that Exxon and the like don't want what is best for us drivers!

This is all about the telcos and cable companies trying to figure out how to make more money off their bandwidth pipes. Since there are no net neutrality laws in the US, that makes it easier for them to figure out where/how to put the squeeze on.

It's definitely an issue, but the level of panic and paranoia I'm seing on the blogs today is IMHO a little irrational.

From Save the Internet:

Last year, Canada's version of AT&T -- Telus-- blocked their Internet customers from visiting a Web site sympathetic to workers with whom Telus was negotiating. And Shaw, a major Canadian cable company, charges an extra $10 a month to subscribers who dare to use a competing Internet telephone service.

It's entirely feasible that sort of thing could happen here.

Kevin, the telecom companies are trying to confuse the issue.

It is completely legitimate to have a means of guaranteeing quality of service for certain kinds of services; for example, voice-over-IP or real-time video communication needs a steady, non-bursty pipe, so that frames don't drop out, while if you're downloading a large program, you care only about the average speed; burstiness is no problem.

But the telecom and cable companies don't want to just be able to make video work better. They want to be able to make their video work better, and make their competitors' video work worse. They want to be able to shake down the likes of Google for more money, or make partnering agreements that let Google and Microsoft compete for the title of "preferred vendor".

The Internet we have today was made possible by the regulations imposed on the phone companies, going back to the "common carrier" idea. The ISP sells you a pipe; the people at either end decide what goes over the pipe. It works; we should not allow it to be broken for the benefit of the cable/local phone duopoly.

the telecom industry says they just want to be able guarantee service levels

Ask how they can do this. None of the basic IP protocols (TCP/UDP) have any Quality of Service guarantees. So how can they guarantee an service level between the content provider and you?

To contrast, on the USB wire, there is a certain amount of time available where only time critical packets can be sent. (I think).

IP is random traffic.

The only way they can conceivably guarantee a service level is by opening up packets and inspecting them and by degrading packets that they do not like. Degrading means dropping. Means slowing. Degrading is by definition impeding traffic.

If they want to supply a QOS service, let the industry get together with the IETF and implement a QOS service for IP services. Until they do that, everything else is just marketing bullshit intended to separate you from your dollars.

And others have already discussed what this means to google to have to deal separately with AT&T, Cox, Cable & Wireless, and other international ISPs.

When you say "I've been trying to understand this whole 'net neutrality' thing and I've failed utterly. I just can't figure out the underlying issues", it seems to assume you are competent in this domain and that this problem is not a real problem.

More accurately, "I am not an network engineer, nor an economist with an understanding of Internet issues, I have no real understanding of how the packets go from my laptop to yours, and I would appreciate it if someone could explain."

You appear to be taking the Yglesias approach: "I am not a physicist, chemist, botanist, or scientist, but a Law Professor said that Nuclear Power was really really good for the environment and I am inclined to agree."

Telecom executive lie, management changes, technology changes. Even if the first two don't get you, the third will. Sure, people will still be able to reach Washington Monthly using their current internet connection. But if you want to reach people who are connected by municipal wireless, or who've upgraded their DSL lines or their cable modems since that promise was made, gosh, the telecom folks are just going to have to charge you some extra fees. And they'll scare their customers into supporting them because otherwise they'd have to jack up access rates even further.

Oh, and do you perhaps host controversial content that might generate attacks by internet vandals? Obviously you'll have to pay a security surcharge...

And yeah, once the principle is established that you don't have to offer everyone equally effective carriage of their packets regardless of content, look for Murdoch and Scaife to start investing in internet backbone links. Individual customers don't even have contracts with the backbone folks, so there'd be no standing to sue.

Kevin, has it occured to you that it's vague for a REASON? Vaguely worded legislation always makes me a bit nervous, especially when I can see drool coming from AT&T over it.

The simplest way I can explain it is to extend the highway metaphor: The internet as structured is like a public highway -- you've got to pay for your own car and gas, but everyone has free use of the road. This legislation is akin to privatizing ALL the roads in the country. If you pay out the nose, they'll let you use the highways -- if they like you. If you don't, you get the backroads, assuming you can even get where you want at all.

You'll still have a car. You'll still have an onramp. But you'll be blocked at the tollgate.

To arms...

This legislation is akin to privatizing ALL the roads in the country.

This sounds like a good reason why net neutrality is bad. If all the roads were privatized, people wouldn't have to worry about bad roads with potholes any more because private companies would immediately fix bad roads being that's in their self-interest to do so. Similarly by privatizing the internet and eliminating net neutrality, the internet would be faster and on-demand video would be faster because private companies would have a incentive to make it as fast as possible. So Kevin is right that net neutrality should be eliminated.

> If they want to supply a QOS service,
> let the industry get together with
> the IETF and implement a QOS service
> for IP services.

IP has had QoS since at least 1995; I found 30 RFCs with just a quick search. Corporate IP telephony wouldn't work otherwise.

Cranky

Kevin Drum,
Are you ready to say "Uncle" or do we need to continue?

Damn you Cranky!

But I still think there is a difference between corporate telephony on private backbones and leased lines and extending qos services across an isp for all matters of tcp based protocols.

Besides which, just finding 30 RFCs in itself doesn't mean any have been implemented, or that any are anything close to widely adopted standards.

Don't forget RFC 1149 - Standard for the transmission of IP datagrams on avian carriers. Indeed one of the comments on RFC 1149 is "RFC 1149: Proposal to introduce Quality of Service (QoS) via the PO (Pecking order)..."

IP has had QoS since at least 1995; I found 30 RFCs with just a quick search. Corporate IP telephony wouldn't work otherwise.

And that is great. Latency sensitive applications like telephony and video conferencing need to be bumped to the front of the line, while other applications like web browsing and e-mail can be delayed with no perceptible difference.
But, it has to be applied on a non-disciminatory basis. That is the key difference. Telcos want to force you to use their VOIP service, their video service, their sanctioned applications and no one else's. They want to give their data preferential treatment and delay other data so that it is unusable. If they are going to improve QoS for one type of packet, then they have to do it for every packet of that type regardless of origin.
That is what one of the net neutrality bills killed by the Republicans addressed. Network providers had to provide equal or better service for other data as they did for their own.

QoS is great, but only on a non-discriminatory basis.

Regulation now, regulation tomorrow, regulation forever!

But regulation pretty well went out with the Telecommunications Act of 1996. -- "To unleash technology and entrepreneurialism so as to maximize consumer welfare in ways we regulators (ex and otherwise) could never even imagine."

Kind of funny, don't you think.

Kevin man,

It doesn't take a genius. Serious policy changes to the internet should not happen with out a lot of public discussion. This bill is like a bludgeon to free discourse. It will certainly lead to discriminatory traffic policies to all sites. It is also clear from the lobbyists backing the proposal to end Net Neutrality that public interest is not being served.

The call on thos bill is no-brainer. Kill it in comitee and bring the whole issue to light in some very public discourse over the next year. There is no urgency for passing the bill right now, except for the underhanded reasons.

Kevin,

Congress critters, of either stripe, who think this is an easy vote on obscure pork for lobbying money are going to find themselves out of office and receiving the distributed Joe Lieberman treatment. Congress needs to understand. Hands off or lose your hands.

Turning off the internet is a sure way to piss-off the millions of people who have grown to depend on it.

Jerry, you're trying to draw too fine a distinction. The telecoms already use QoS and traffic shaping. They're right to do so -- the size of the pipe to your house is limited. It makes sense to marshal that limited resource based upon the different types of applications that are using it.

As others have pointed out, problems arise when those network decisions begin to be shaped by payments of protection money. Kevin, it really isn't complicated. You pay a consumer ISP for your broadband connection; Google pays a bulk broadband retailer for theirs. Now the guys who own the consumer connections want to be able to send a bill to Google, too. If not, they turn down the quality of your connection to Google.

It's sleazy, it's unethical, it's dishonest. There's not much to clarify here. This is like banks charging non-customers higher and higher ATM fees: there is no price pressure that will actually lead to improved service for anybody. It's just a private tax being levied on businesses (and therefore indirectly on consumers) for no justifiable reason.

Kevin: in lieu of Reed Hundt, I'd recommend Rep. Rick Boucher (D-far southwest VA). He used to be my Congressman, back in another lifetime, and despite representing a very rural, conservative area, he was extremely knowledgeable about telecom and the potential of the Internet even then. He clearly figured that his geographically isolated constituents' best chance of participating in a 21st-century knowledge economy was to be connected to the world electronically.

From a Boucher press release last summer:

Boucher called on Congress to enact principles of Net Neutrality which include:
# ensuring unimpeded consumer access to any lawful content, applications and services on the Internet;
# allowing consumers to attach and use any device that does not harm the broadband network; and
# prohibiting broadband network operators from unreasonably favoring themselves or their affiliates in the provision of Internet services.

Boucher noted that incidents of improper action by broadband network operators blocking access to websites that offer content in competition with that offered by the broadband provider have been recently reported and that no binding rule or law currently exists to prohibit network operators from engaging in anti-competitive practices in the operation of their platforms. "The absence of a binding statute codifying the principles of Net Neutrality leaves a significant gap in our regulatory structure which will undoubtedly be exploited again by companies seeking to gain an inappropriate competitive advantage," he added.

Kevin - right now, you pay to host your site and the bandwith to the nearest onramp. I pay for my bandwith from the offramp to my computer. Our respective ramps pay into "the system," which currently must treat all packets of information equally.

What the telecos want to be able to do is treat packets unequally. The problem is, you don't have any control over what pipeline information coming in to you is travelling on.

Imagine if long-distance phone calls were treated this way. You might have Sprint, I might have T-Mobile, but the trunk might be AT&T. So AT&T wants the right to give shitty, crappy reception to calls that aren't AT&T on one end. Or paying extra fees to AT&T.

Remember, digital is as good or crappy as you want it to be. And the fastest US broadband is pure shite and four to five times as expensive as in the rest of the world. And that we paid massive subsidies through customer surcharges to build a true broadband network for the whole US, and the cable/telcos never built it, yet kept the money.

The core issue for us internet customers is this: the fact that ISP's dont regulate content is what caused the internet to be so great. Applications like www, blogging, social networking, chat happen by innovation at the edges, not the controlled center of the internet.

The moment ISPs start regulating content, innovation will slow. COould blogging have started if bloggers couldnt get good QOS while big newspapers paid for super-fast QOS? The big guys like Google and Yahoo have enough money that they wont be hurt when the Bells start charging for their traffic, but the small guys will.

What the broadband companies are asking for is the right to force all broadband customers to purchase a branded, old school AOL-type service. Remember when the internet first came to AOL, Compuserve, and their ilk? Raw internet feed loaded slowly and was hugely buggy, while the AOL stuff worked OK?

The public has loudly and thoroughly rejected that type of service. The telcos think it is a better business model for them, however, so they have gone running to Congress to allow them to be able to force it upon unwilling people.

Given the track record of this administration and this Congress, we'd be very stupid to accept this without protections written into the law. Once the freedom we've known in this medium is gone, I doubt we'll ever get it back. Quite apart from Reed Hundt, Al Gore, who does know what this is all about, should be speaking out. Has he?

"If all the roads were privatized, people wouldn't have to worry about bad roads with potholes any more because private companies would immediately fix bad roads being that's in their self-interest to do so."

Someone hasn't been to Pennsylvania, apparently.

One word: Skype.

You mean like my name?
Really what can you tell?

I could be a Ferringi from Star Trek hologram, a computer glitch in the internet, a matrix, within a matrix.

Or it could be just a stoopid name that many people seem to conjure a red headed, bucktoothed village idiot of a stepchild or something.

Net Neutrality?

Who in the Hell sits around and thinks this crap up anyway, sheeshopeete

Compare those ROADS to HALLIBURTON War profiteering and say that again. You will probably choke on the words.

"If all the WARS were privatized, people wouldn't have to worry about bad WARS with PROFITEERING any more because private WARS would immediately fix bad WARS being that's in their self-interest to do so."

Someone hasn't been to Pennsylvania, apparently.
Or to Halliburtons History.

The Internet will become Cable TV [$$] and just as sucky as The 'News Corp' is today. Might have to get the ham radios back out...

As I understand it, the way things are right now, the customer (you and me) decide what kind of speed and service we want and/or can afford, and subscribe to that Internet Provider. As a result, we can get to any website we want with the same ease and speed as any other.

What the Telcos want to do is to essentially reverse that forumla. Each website operator would have to decide if they want customers to be able to get them slow, medium-fast, fast or really-really-fast and pay accordingly.

So, imagine a little guy wants to start up a new book selling service and has wildly innovative ideas that could totally revolutionize the way we handle retail shopping on the internet. But he's just starting out, so all he's going to be able to afford is the slowest service. Even if you have the bestest, fastest, top-of-the-line broadband service, anytime you visit him, it's going to take a while to get there, and each new page is going to load very slowly. Meanwhile, Amazon can pay for the fastest service on their end, so going to their site will be just like it is today. That puts the little guy at a HUGE disadvantage since none of us like to wait for a website to load, right?

In addition, it also tends to devalue the customer's on selection of service because even if we're paying for the bestest fastest service we can get, there will still be sites that are going to load slowly for us, so we're not going to be getting the same kind of service as we have now.

Anyway, that's the way I understand the situation.

Think of the Rail roads in the 1880's 1890's etc. The reason for the Granges etc.
If a private entity is granted special priviledges so as to facilitate providing a public utility for private profit then that entity must allow transperent and equal access to all.
View the telecoms as the robber barons of this century.

All of the telecoms caved in when warrentless wiretaps began. If they didn’t cooperate with the White House then their lobbyists pushing telco reform (in their favor) would be ignored.

All telecoms have provided remote links to their “switches” providing the nsa complete access to everything.

The internet was a benefit to the Republicans a few years back but is now proving to be a dagger in the heart.

Republicans want to control (censor) what goes out on the net and they are just clothing this operation in the telecoms uniforms.

You may remember that ATT (used to be called SBC until they bought ATT a few months back and changed their name) intends to buy Bell South for 67Billion (all stock, no cash). This would put Cingular 100 percent in ATT hands. Hmmm.

There are loads of behind the scenes deals hinging on this merger with the CEO’s making out like bandits.

Net neutrality is just a catch phrase that they want us to concentrate on and I believe they have our attention. I would much rather watch the other hand of the magician, the one that’s hiding the trick.

The Internet ain't broke. Don't fix it.

.I've been trying to understand this whole "net neutrality" thing and I've failed utterly. I just can't figure out the underlying issues.

You have to be the stupidest fucking idiot on the planet.

There's a reason this site is held in such contempt by so many of us. Usually, it's the political stupidity and craveness you display on a daily basis that sickens anyone with a brain. But this statement goes beyond your usual whiny moderate hand-wringing capitulation into "President" Cuckoo Bananas brain-damaged idiocy.

What a fucking moron you are.

You have to be the...

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

No one fucking cares, blueshirt.

'dave' posted:

"You have to be the stupidest fucking idiot on the planet."

No that's you.

The fact that the only people who will defend him are the brownshirts that infest his site like so many fleas is all you really need to know about The King of the Hand-Wringing Moderate Capitulators...

The fact that the only people who...

Go back to your loony bin, loser. Quit making a fool of yourself.

Kevin

Net Neutrality as every single poster has explained to you above is very basic. You are being thick. The internet as it now stands means every packet of information transferred over it is treated the same. I pay for my acessing content by paying my DSL/cable provider a monthly fee. If I'm a producer of content I pay server fees to host my content. Net neutrality means that the uploading and downloading of content is in no way segregated. What AT&T and other phone companies are suggesting is that besides the fee they already get from me as a consumer they will also charge content providers to get their content transmitted over the pipes. So if let's say AT&T decides that ebay is not paying it enough tomorrow when I try to acess ebay it will not work as well. Imagine what that means for any kind of innovation. Unless you can afford to pay toll fees to AT&T your content will never be accessible at reasonable speeds. So the next Google or MySpace or Ebay will never be formed because a start-up will not be able to afford to pay the toll fees. Think of it taxation on innovation of any kind that is not already supported by huge corpate cash. The internet you will have left will be kind that is sanctioned by AT&T, Verizon et al. AT&T and Verizon's argument that they have invested alot of money in their network is only partially correct. The phone and cable system has been built with huge tax payer support and all sorts of breaks with cable franchises enjoying monopoly rights in their markets. The internet is about content. The fastest pipe in the world is useless if there is nothin to see online. And what the phone companies want is control over what content gets delivered to the user.

You have to realize that dave is the narcoleptic nazi hunter. It's a pity, somewhere there are real nazis for dave to find if he could just stay awake long enough. Due to his narcolepsy he is forced to call everyone a brownshirt lest he miss a few, and right after his brownshirt orgasm, the oxytocin peaks and off he goes. Zzzzzzzz.

Dude, the issue is that the pipe owner would determine who can come down their pipe at what speed.

Today's Internet accepts all traffic at the same speed once it enters the system. That means that while someone sending lots of data will pay more (your example of bloggers paying more for bandwidth) the people who want to get that data can be assured it will arrive at the same speed as all other data.

Net neutrality is about the reader/viewer being able to pick whatever they want and getting it at the speed they paid for: 56K, DSL, Cable, T1, whatever.

The Verizon/AT&T/Comcast folks want to decide that for you based on how much they get paid by content providers.

Some of us out here think that once data is on the Internet and traveling to us, it should come to us without restraint. And that's a big deal.

Oh good lord. Well, you think medical savings accounts will cure US healthcare, so I'm not surprised.

I found that this paper on net neutrality answered a lot of my questions...

This legislation is akin to privatizing ALL the roads in the country.

This sounds like a good reason why net neutrality is bad. If all the roads were privatized, people wouldn't have to worry about bad roads with potholes any more because private companies would immediately fix bad roads being that's in their self-interest to do so

This analogy only works in your favor if you stop halfway. To make it truly analogous, you would have to imagine many separate road systems--one system of roads for people who own Fords, one for people with Chevys, and so on. And if you own a Yugo, you're screwed, since none of the big companys will let you use their private roads.

Dude, if in doubt ask Gore. He sure used to know this shit. No kidding, we should let Gore and Vince Cerf figure this out.

From what I understand, Internet as we know will stop to exist once the implicit reciprocal traffic agreements breakdown.

On the one hand, the telecom industry says they just want to be able guarantee service levels (for a price) for high-value, high-bandwidth services like on-demand video. This does not seem very alarming to me.

I find the fact that you believe them when they say that rather alarming. I may or may not want you on my jury. If I was OJ, I guess I would.

We need a slogan that captures this issue. I am interested in other readers comments.

How about " Don't Let Them Cabalize The Internet ! " ?

I hate what cable has done to (kept the lid on) the promise of access to globally diverse programming. I can not imagine a scenario worse than letting telecoms and or cable firms gain control over access to the net.

This sounds like a good reason why net neutrality is bad.
Posted by: Al on April 24, 2006 at 9:06 PM | PERMALINK

Ohmigawd. The bill itself is called net-neutrality bill. According to telcos this is supposedly for net neutrality.

Swiftboating of the Internet is working. By god we are doomed.

I'm sure that the fact the 'net has become an invaluable resource for netroots political organizing and fundraising has nothing whatsoever to do with this.

I'm sure that liberal political sites won't experience any access problems once Internet traffic is funnelled through pay-to-play telecom channels.

I'm also sure that the people of Russia will crown me their new Czarina any day now.

I must admit I am surprised at the low volume of outcry from Google, Yahoo, MSN, eBay, YouTube, Amazon, Walmart, Netflix, ....

I am curious why they would not be organizing in response.

I would like to see a "The Day The Net Stood Still" demonstration in which for 60 minutes, all non-life-critical content on the Internet was stopped. I would think that Google, Yahoo, MSN, eBay, YouTube, Amazon, Walmart, Netflix would all benefit from participation.

OMG Kevin, Social security is in trouble, it needs to be reformed NOW! We can't wait! You democrats need to get out in front on this issue and show how sensible you can be, not like those lefty loony liars who claim it will be solvent for 50 years.

Hey Kevin,

I KNOW that you are NOT a fool...

THREFORE, GO HERE: Go HERE, Pal...

Follow the links, watch the little video, geared to an 8th grade mentality, and I am SURE that even YOU will grasp it... Just, PLEASE, get Lieberman's cock out of your mouth before you undertake this trek into the truth... I KNOW you can do it, buddy... Just BREATHE your way through it... I made it VERY SIMPLE for *ahem* "democratic centrists" like you... You can't miss it, pal.

The issue is as clear as can be... If your, or AN ISP doesn't like your message, your site gets FUCT by slow refresh, or total block, via firewall under this new idea.

Don't think that you are special, Kevin... you're a Democrat, or so you say.

Net Neutrality dictates that ALL sites get equal bandwidth and treament no matter WHAT their message. PERIOD. Just follow my EZ links. Even YOU can't miss the issue.

Kevin, if you cannot figure out this issue, just give it up, you fucking simpleton and Republican in Dem's clothing. I'm thinking that this is the case.. You're no sort of Democrat that **I'VE* ever related to, WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU!!!!???

--MF

Tony B.

I must admit I am surprised at the low volume of outcry from Google, Yahoo, MSN, eBay, YouTube, Amazon, Walmart, Netflix, ....

I am curious why they would not be organizing in response.

They are the current giants in the marketplace and thus have the resources and/or capital to have their content delivered whether or not this bill is made into law. In either case any increased costs to deliver content will be passed on to their customers.

However, the next google/youtube/etc will have a much harder time entering the market because they may not have the capital to have their content delivered in a reasonable manner.

For those of us who were aware of this nebulous thing called the "internet" in those days before WWW, it always seems something of a miracle that the internet evolved in the way that it did - an organic, bottom-up, egalitarian system - and not how it certainly could have - with Prodigy, CompuServe, and AOL running the show.

If one finds media consolidation on television and in print to be distasteful, one should certainly hold net neutrality in the highest regard.

If the big telcos are for it, why in the world would I be? At what point do their interests coincide with mine?

Here's how I think about it: the [b]Bush Administration[/b] wants to give [b]large telecom companies[/b] more power to regulate their distribution of Internet bandwidth.

The policy will inevitably be anti-competition and anti-consumer. With these entities as the main actors, it is inevitably so, and so I reject this.

Hey, am I right in "remembering" that the National Information Infrastructure" was NOT the intarweb but something else much more structured and organized from the top down? And it was only when the NII flamed out that people started to think of teh intarweb as the NII?

If so, then it seems that teh Intarweb's success was built on it's being relegated to the dustbin of history, and that we have already seen what happens to a non-neutral-net. It flames out and dies.

Or maybe it's just the aluminum anti-perspirant affecting my brain sales.

At any rate, I believe if we could convince Vint Cerf and Google to go dark for an hour, we could get MSN and Yahoo on board as they compete to do no evil.

Little Red Riding Hood: "I'm confused and bewildered."

The Wolf responds: "All the better to see you, my darling."

Ending net neutrality would not only be bad for our ability to communicate with each other (maybe not as bad as the worst nightmares, but still bad). It would also mean that our entire economy would have to do with second rate (at best) in one of the most critical areas for future development and growth.
The first scares me more, but the fact that corporate America as a whole is willing to let this happen surprises me more.

Don't forget that the I2 people have already tried to do what the telcoms propose. They thought that "of course" the next gen internet would all be based on traffic shaping. Then they tried it in real life.

It turned out that it was not only easier, but cheaper too, to ignore content and just double the bandwidth. There's no problem with content delivery on the internet where the cheapest solution is not more fiber.

The telcoms aren't interested in the best internet, or even the cheapest (even to them) internet. They want total control, and monopoly rents on the internet, and nothing less will satisfy them.

I would like to see a "The Day The Net Stood Still" demonstration

Ha! you youngsters obviously don't remember the day the Net turned black! It was about ten years ago.
Actually, even I don't remember what it was about... :(

Kevin don't know what the little girl, understands:

THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that, John. I am concerned about the economy because our small business owners and families are paying higher prices at the gas pump. And that affects the lives of a lot of people. If you're a small business owner and you have to pay higher gas prices and you're -- likely you may not hire a new worker. In other words, higher gas prices, as I have said, is like a tax on the -- on the small business job creators. And it's a tax on families. And I do think this has affected consumer sentiment; I do think it's affected the economy.

Ed Whitacre: Chairman, AT&T Wha, yeah!, c’mon, yeah, yeah, c’mon, yeah
Yeah, c’mon, oh, yeah, ma
Yeah, I’m a back door man, I’m a back door man
Kevin don’t know, but the little girl understand
Hey, all you people that tryin’ to sleep
I’m out to make it with my midnight dream, yeah
’cause I’m a back door man, the men don’t know
But the little girls understand, all right, yeah
Kevin eat your dinner, eat your pork and beans
I eat more chicken, than any man ever seen, yeah, yeah
I’m a back door man, wha, the men don’t know
But the little girl understand
Well, I’m a back door man
I’m a back door man
Whoa, baby, I’m a back door man
The men don’t know
But the little girls understand

What good would Google, Yahoo, MSN be if the majority of web sites slip off the edge of the Internet? Where else are they going to find compelling content?

Kevin,

Here is a good summer of everything from Matt Stoller. This is not something you guys at the monthly can hedge on. Get yourselves together.

http://mydd.com/story/2006/4/24/123726/983

Kevin circa 1997:

"I've been trying to understand this whole Telecommunications Act that's been floating around Congress the past few months. But I just can't figure out the underlying issues. On the one hand..."

Can you say censorship?

My insecurities stem from the fact that I have a very tiny penis.

I am so sorry for being a useless twat.

In other words, higher gas prices, as I have said, is like a tax on the -- on the small business job creators. And it's a tax on families. And I do think this has affected consumer sentiment; I do think it's affected the economy.

Wow. I wish Bush had thought of this before he decided to start invading the middle east.

And no - it's not at all like a tax. A tax enriches the public treasury, and is used to do things like build roads, defend our country, and educate our children.

High gas prices just fatten tax-cheat CEO's offshore bank accounts. Not at all like a tax.

There's no problem with content delivery on the internet where the cheapest solution is not more fiber.Posted by: Mike on April 25, 2006 at 1:25 AM | PERMALINK

In fact, it's been shown (just google on "Dark fiber") that there is actually a massive surplus of bandwith (that you and I paid for through phone bill surcharges) built into the system, which the telcos simply decided to leave unconnected. If broadband is slow and expensive in the US - it's not for any technical reason. This is preciesely how the telcos want it.

God damned "supply-siders".

Changing net neutrality into telecom control will not only harm our ability to communicate, and organize, and create, but will also make us second rate in one of the areas most crucial for future economic development.
Putting the interests of one part of the elite even over the interests of the elite as a whole is often a symptom of societal sclerosis.

"No one should deny or impede access to lawful sites on the Web. Everyone supports that position."

That's a slighty creepy way to phrase that. Right now, nobody denies or impedes, period. Nobody outside of the guys running China's firewall, anyway. If there's an unlawful website, you go to their ISP and get their server shut down, it's easy. Qwest doesn't impede access to unlawful sites any more than Verizon impedes my ability to call my weed guy.

Nazi stuff is illegal in France, but Qwest doesn't deny or impede France's access to unlawful neo-Nazi web sites. They could though. They could, for an appropriate fee, make China's firewall much more effective, by denying and impeding unlawful packets leaving their network for China. And while they're at it, unlawful packets about early Canadian election results heading north from American blogs. Or allegedly unlawful copyright-violating packets coming from servers hosted on networks that aren't as cooperative with Scientology's lawyers as Qwest is. Or the MPAA's lawyers. Or a celebrity's lawyers upset with the weak libel laws that servers hosted in Russia have to follow...

But I'm pretty sure the CEO of Qwest has thought through the lucrative opportunities of his little unecessary exception better than I have.

Come on Kevin, pull your head out of your ass...seriously.

This is all so interesting in a "let's talk about something interesting" sort of way, but everyone count on one hand the number of times Corporate America has been denied anything it wanted from this MBA pResident. Feel free to use two fingers if you wish. My point is, by the time we start talking about things that infringe on freedoms, it's already too late. Done.deal. Game.over.

Whoa, what's with all the Kevin hating here from leftists? I haven't seen the usual right-wing trolls. Are they masquerading as leftists here? Though I'm further left of Kevin, I do get embarrased by certain leftist types--thing is, I've never seen any such people so eager to denounce a bonafide center-leftist (which category doesn't include, say, the Joe Kleins of the world). Have they read Kevin since 2002? Or are they really right-wing trolls?

As for net non-neutrality, I think the only thing you have to know about the issue is that the telcos want it, therefore we should reject it.

Am I late for my free lobotomy? I heard this was the place!

"As for net non-neutrality, I think the only thing you have to know about the issue is that the telcos want it, therefore we should reject it."

Actually, the Defense Department may have an interest in this as well. Weave into the discussion Donald Rumsfeld's "Information Operations Roadmap" and perhaps people will get off their butts and pay more attention. Somehow, I doubt it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4655196.stm

Geeze, Kevin, if you don't know what's going on, have the grace to stfu!

They're busy destroying the Internets and turning them into yet another unlevel playing field owned by the loser hotheads who can't even play softball with the opposition (you see that story today? check it out at http://tinyurl.com/q3g23 ) and yr response when Duncan, Josh, and most Everyone Else gets excited is a baffled mutter like some kind of Democratic party strategist selling out basic principles?

Why, it's almost as if you haven't learned a damn thing three years after you cheered the Iraq invasion. What's next-- Social Security "reform"?

And this from a man who only days ago had a spellbinding must-read on the Commander in Chief's studied refusal to talk with Iran as he heads into yet another catastrophically boneheaded "regime change!"

You're not as stupid as you act. You can do this. Watch the video. Read the rants. Then redeem yourself.

Kevin: "What's more, if the real issue is that telecom companies want to be able to offer higher service levels to certain customers but would never reduce service levels for other customers — well then, why not write that into law?"

The real issue for telecom companies is that they want a guaranteed profit margin. If that means a reduction in the quality of service for the same price, well, then that's just the way it goes.

Our resident telephone monopoly for years was GTE Hawaiian Tel (later Verizon Hawaii), which was recently bought by The Carlisle Group (yes, that Carlisle Group). For years, GTE provided substandard service to the state's rural areas (which in Hawaii is almost 90% of all lands).

In the Ka'u region on the island of Hawaii (the southern end of the Big island, an area almost three times the land area of the entire island of Oahu), residents had to rely on party lines, even though they paid the same residential rate as customers on Oahu.

This wasn't just after the end of World War II, when party lines were commonplace nationwide. This was 1998!

That year, the state legislature finally took action to force GTE to upgrade their service in Ka'u to the same standard enjoyed by the people of Honolulu. The phone company certainly wasn't going to do it on its own initiative. As it was, it only completed the phase-out of the Big Island's party lines in 2003.

I've been trying to understand this whole "net neutrality" thing and I've failed utterly. I just can't figure out the underlying issues.

If you like privatization and unregulated capitalism, and if think that people should have to pay for vital resources such as water, then net neutrality isn't your thing.

See if this gives you a better understanding.

This legislation is akin to privatizing ALL the roads in the country.
This sounds like a good reason why net neutrality is bad. If all the roads were privatized, people wouldn't have to worry about bad roads with potholes any more because private companies would immediately fix bad roads being that's in their self-interest to do so. Similarly by privatizing the internet and eliminating net neutrality, the internet would be faster and on-demand video would be faster because private companies would have a incentive to make it as fast as possible. So Kevin is right that net neutrality should be eliminated.

Posted by: Al on April 24, 2006 at 9:06 PM | PERMALINK

Off the top of my head, I can think of half a dozen reasons for companies to not immediately fix bad roads without breaking a sweat, and I'm a moral woman with scruples. For a corporation that is required by law to scheme away in order to make a profit for its' shareholders, if there is more money to be made by not fixing them, they won't get fixed. They may even get dug up.

The privatizing of America's roads has not been thought through or debated by Americans. All that has been framed to date is that somebody else is picking up the cost of their upkeep. But it doesn't come at no cost to Americans. Our roads is a cornerstone of American freedom. To travel freely within the United States, on roads that we paid for, and that our ancestors built.

What if a corporation buys up roads surrounding a piece of property that they want to develop, but the owner of the property isn't interested in selling? I see Kelo as only one obvious outcome.

What if a foreign corporation (or some serious private foreign money interest, because honestly, who else is going to have the kind of money necessary to buy roads?) decides to create a New People's Republic of Inner Mandibula (or New Saudi Arabia) in the U.S.? Pick a state.

They can buy up the main arteries, close them down, get a good price on the land of those unfortunate enough to be without helicopters or planes. I think with what paper the Chinese and the Saudis already own, they could probably foreclose on our southwest, and ship a healthy population over to colonize. Perhaps not so healthy. Perhaps they'll use the U.S. for quarantining. Or their own workers who will pump our aquifers into floating bladders and ship our water out to other countries with the ability to pay.

I don't believe anybody can be enthusiastic about these privatization scheme once they've thought them through.

It's late, I'm sleepy, good night.

I have difficulties in understanding the industries position, too. Maybe it's different in the US, but here in Germany the internet surfing customer pays for his connection and the 'publishing' customer pays for his website (or the company who offers him a limited presence, like blogger, pays for it). The website package consists of a share of a server, or maybe one or more servers, a certain amount of traffic and a guaranteed bandwith. Sure you remember those error messages when a small site is overwhelmed by traffic: "This domain exceeded his bandwith" or something like that. The companies who offer the hosting services have to pay the telcos for being connected to the internet. Even the telcos have contracts with each other for the data exchange.

So, contrary to their argumentation, the telcos already get paid for the backbones. And afaik they are making profits with this business. Now where exactly is the rational reason for additional charging of websites? Wouldn't this violate the contracts with the hosting services of those sites? If they don't like those contracts, too bad, then they should try to get more in the next negotiations. Good luck.

I don't see any logic in the arguments of the telco lobby. Can anyone here explain the brouhaha or is this just a big stack of lies and spin?

Al: If all the roads were privatized, people wouldn't have to worry about bad roads with potholes any more

Better yet, privatize the potholes! Let companies charge for passage over the place of each. The invisible hand of the market means we'll get just the amount of potholes we desire, as it were.

"the telecom industry says they just want to be able guarantee service levels (for a price) for high-value, high-bandwidth services like on-demand video. This does not seem very alarming to me."

Kevin, sorry, but that's uninformed nonsense. A bit is a bit. There is no difference in the costs of transmitting one megabyte of email or one megabyte of data for the telcos. What the telcos ask for is a license to blackmail content providers by placing filters into the data stream that would slow the traffic of all normal customers down. Only by paying the ransom your data would be allowed to flow unrestricted.

In effect, this would result in all websites becoming hostages of the telcos. If they don't like your kind of data, they can slow you down to the point where you can't serve your audience in a satisfying way any more. It's a free country, who can force the telcos to offer a better bandwidth than a mere trickle to you, once they are allowed to differentiate between the bits? And on the receiving end, the customer would be left with an unmanageable amount of variations to chose from. At Telco 1, he could get his favourite websites A C D G in good speed, but not B E and F. At Telco 2, A B E and F run great, C D and G not so much. Telco 3 offers awesome connections with D E F G, but A B C are almost unsuable. And what will happen if new website H is the next big thing for the customer? If it isn't on the preffered list of his old provider, he will have to change services!

Kevin, does this remind you of something? YES, this is Medicare Plan D for the Internet! This will result in total chaos. Why should any internet using citizen want that?

So, 'No' to telco filtering plans! No pasaran!

"If all the roads were privatized, people wouldn't have to worry about bad roads with potholes any more because private companies would immediately fix bad roads being that's in their self-interest to do so."

Utter nonsense. For many places, there would be no competition in the accesibility, all roads would belong to one provider. Where this is the case, the company would have a monopoly and no incentive at all for providing a better service. Instead, they would raise the prices to a level slightly below the point where the customer would rather move his home or business. That's economics 101.

It's late, I'm sleepy, good night.

Good afternoon.

So, contrary to their argumentation, the telcos already get paid for the backbones. And afaik they are making profits with this business. Now where exactly is the rational reason for additional charging of websites? Wouldn't this violate the contracts with the hosting services of those sites? If they don't like those contracts, too bad, then they should try to get more in the next negotiations. Good luck.

I don't see any logic in the arguments of the telco lobby. Can anyone here explain the brouhaha or is this just a big stack of lies and spin?
Posted by: Gray

No, Gray, you understand the situation exactly. It IS just a big stack of lies and spin.

Put simply, the Telcos want to protect their telephony revenues. If Verizon or Qwest can block Vonage, you'll have to buy your telephone service from Verizon or Qwest, and at a price set by them, not the market.

Some of the other arguments - censorship, etc. - aren't really the immediate goal. HOWEVER, once the principle of "non-neutrality" is set, nothing would prevent a Clear Channel or a Sinclair from, say, buying Blogspot or Typepad and forbidding non-Conservative blogs.

This guy has to be bought off, the obviousness of this being a bad decision means he'd have to be stupid to the point of mental retardation not to grasp it. He is clearly not an idiot,therefore someone must be paying him to say this? Perhaps his taskmasters at Washington monthly are pressuring him, or perhaps he's just a tool of the telecom industry.

It doesn't matter what rules they set up, allowing discrimination of any sites will kill the internet. If not immediately, in the long run. People will pressure sites to have them removed from networks that feature materials they find questionable, so nobody will see any point in having online stores. Nobody will carry political opinions to the left of Powerline, because business hates liberals. Christian groups will demand boycotts of networks that allow homosexual sites. This will kill free speech, political involvement and is an absolutely necessary step in setting up a dictatorship. I know Drum is stupidly poo pooing any notions of the such, but these people are doing a whole lot of things absolutely nessecarry for setting up a dictatorship. Let's not let them put any more pieces into place.

Geeze, Kevin, if you don't know what's going on, have the grace to stfu!

Why? That never stopped me from opening my mouth.

Kevin comes from the tech industry and is familiar with statistical bandwidth multiplexing. The way it is supposed to work is as follows:

If you order a quality of service pipe to your home or business, then your traffic is higher priority and you get the minimal service delays you purchased.

Other traffic gets to use the available bandwidth left over.

Presumedly, no one is blocked from any site, it is simply that when higher paying customers use their bandwidth, lower priority users have to wait.

There should be nothing in this about blocking sites. If you are a lower priority customer, you still get porn, internet phone and anything else, you just have to wait your turn in the pipe.

Any telecom executive who actually blocks one site and allows traffic from another should be executed, promptly. If any executive is in Wasington asking for that priviledge, then his or her company should immediately have their taxes raised by a gazillion percent.

Kevin is essentially right abuot this, except for this point:
".. telecom companies want to be able to offer higher service levels to certain customers but would never reduce service levels for other customers.."
This is an impossible contradiction.

Without quality of service guarantees, then I can, from my home computer, arrange to continually receive megabytes of garbage and ruin internet phone for all my neighbors.

"That never stopped me from opening my mouth."

Hehehe! So why is it always Kevin who stands out for not seeing the wood for the trees? Do you offer private lessons for unskillful bloggers like him, Duncan?

Well, I agree with Kevin about one thing here: I'd like to see Reed Hundt weigh in on this issue.

He would have a deep understanding of the issues involved, and I'd pretty much trust his judgment about what the proposal really entails.

It's hard to imagine that the telecoms aren't up to something extraordinarily greedy, because that's their natural constitution, but it would be good to hear from someone deeply familiar with the industry machinations.

"you've got to pay for your own car and gas, but everyone has free use of the road. This legislation is akin to privatizing ALL the roads in the country"

This analogy is wrong. Truckers pay more because they require more road service. Carpool lanes contradict this analgoy. Heavy trucks are prohibited on some roads. Maximum speed limits and laws to put slower traffic to the right; it is all similiar to bandwidth guarantees.

"Net Neutrality dictates that ALL sites get equal bandwidth"

When I worked in the network business