Civil Rights Groups Divided On Net Neutrality 127
HughPickens.com writes: Edward Wyatt reports at the NY Times that the NAACP, the National Urban League and the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition have sent representatives, including the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, to tell FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler that they think President Obama's call to regulate broadband Internet service as a utility would harm minority communities by stifling investment in underserved areas and entrenching already dominant Internet companies. "We got a lot of poor folks who don't have broadband," said Jackson. "If you create something where, for the poor, the lane is slower and the cost is more, you can't survive." "I think we're all on board with the values embedded in what President Obama said, things like accelerating broadband deployment and adoption," says Nicol Turner-Lee, vice president of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council and a member of the group including Mr. Jackson that met with the F.C.C. chairman. "The question is, will we be able to solve these issues by going so far with stringent regulation?"
Some of the groups that oppose Title II designation, like the Urban League and the League of United Latin American Citizens, have received contributions from organizations affiliated with Internet service providers, like the Comcast Foundation, the charitable organization endowed by Comcast. But those organizations say that the donations or sponsorships do not influence their positions. "We get support from people on all sides of the issue, including Google and Facebook," says Brent A. Wilkes, national executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens. "We don't let any of them influence our position." For it's part, the NAACP says its formal policy position is that the NAACP neither endorses, nor opposes the formally defined concept of net neutrality but supports the need to particularly focus on underserved racial and ethnic minority and poor communities, while highlighting the importance of protecting an open internet.
Some of the groups that oppose Title II designation, like the Urban League and the League of United Latin American Citizens, have received contributions from organizations affiliated with Internet service providers, like the Comcast Foundation, the charitable organization endowed by Comcast. But those organizations say that the donations or sponsorships do not influence their positions. "We get support from people on all sides of the issue, including Google and Facebook," says Brent A. Wilkes, national executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens. "We don't let any of them influence our position." For it's part, the NAACP says its formal policy position is that the NAACP neither endorses, nor opposes the formally defined concept of net neutrality but supports the need to particularly focus on underserved racial and ethnic minority and poor communities, while highlighting the importance of protecting an open internet.
Shakedown (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Shakedown (Score:4, Informative)
What confuses me is how Net Neutrality could do anything but help the urban and rural poor because Net Neutrality aims to prevent ISPs from discriminating between the sources and destinations of packets meaning that the traffic of non-profits (for example) and will be equally served by ISP networks in the US to the users of those networks.
Am I missing something here?
My suspicion is that the advocacy groups don't have a good understanding of how Net Neutrality will protect all users and content providers from ISP exploitation and that these advocacy groups have been given misinformation by advisors who, in fact, are in the back pocket's of the ISPs.
Is this what's going on?
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Pretty much. The ISP argument goes something like this:
1. The urban poor can't afford internet, and we're not going to pay for expensive cable-laying in areas of low population density because the RoI would be awful.
2. Unless new business opportunities change the situation, like being able to provide value-added service for preferred content providers (ie, demand money from other companies in return for not slowing their traffic down to an unusable level).
3. Therefore net neutality means no rural or low-cos
Re:Shakedown (Score:4, Interesting)
The urban poor can't afford Internet? Every time I drive through "poor" urban areas, I'm always amazed at the forest of DISH/DirecTV dishes on apartments. Half the time I wonder if its not an NSA branch office or occupied by a NASA tracking station.
AFAIK most cities who signed cable franchise agreements required the entire city to be wired. While I'm sure more affluent areas were wired first, I seriously doubt my own city (Minneapolis) isn't universally wired 30 years later.
And 80% of the population is urban, and I would wager that number is slightly higher for African Americans, meaning that most of them live in areas with accessible broadband.
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The urban poor can't afford Internet? Every time I drive through "poor" urban areas, I'm always amazed at the forest of DISH/DirecTV dishes on apartments. Half the time I wonder if its not an NSA branch office or occupied by a NASA tracking station.
while you can get internet from dish, you don't want it, and it costs more than DSL, which is what most poor urban households have got. It is the cheapest and shittiest option. I have two dishes on my rental, and I am using 0 of them. The installers don't take down old dishes for fear of creating leaks, so they just stay up until the building falls.
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I think his point was that if the "poor" can afford satellite TV, they don't need internet access to be subsidized.
Satellite TV is cheaper than internet access, if you only get a basic package, and especially if you take an introductory deal and then never make a payment. The average household can do that three or four times, if you put it in the kids' names too.
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Really? I'm paying $25/month ($35 after taxes, fees, etc,etc,etc) for the slowest, crappiest Centurylink DSL line available (3 mbps, closer to 2mbps in practice). That's approximately the same price as the cheapest satellite TV plans I can find*, and is plenty fast enough to watch Hulu, TED, Youtube, etc,etc,etc.
*I'm assuming they have a similar asshole "hidden fees" policy to cable and ISPs.
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Re:Shakedown (Score:4, Insightful)
You are missing the fact that Net Neuttrality hinders the development of alternative business models. This is bad for everyone, but especially bad for customers who are least well served by the mainstream alternative. This is pretty much exacty poor people.
Net Neutrality is only needed because of the last mile monopoly. Remove that and no one would have thought of the idea of NN for a second. You don't like the practices of your local ISP? Well, get another one, then. As long as there is a last mile monopoly, the situation isn't ever going to be good (for consumers - it's excellent for monopolists!). Fight that instead!
This is also, not coincidentally, why the NN debate is much less intense (in fact, almost non-existent) in Europe.
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This is also, not coincidentally, why the NN debate is much less intense (in fact, almost non-existent) in Europe.
It's very intense and existent in Europe. Just google "eu net neutrality" to get some idea.
Re:Shakedown (Score:4, Insightful)
Given the present cost of providing service and accepted margin, there are a variety of areas and people who don't end up with internet access, mostly urban poor and rural. The theory is that, without net neutrality, various exciting new business models (mostly variations on shaking down existing internet activity for more money; but never you mind that...) will be possible, which will make it economic to provide service to the currently underserved. Don't, of course, ask why this change would lead to more access in shitty areas, rather than continued non-access in those areas and higher prices elsewhere, or inquire as to whether an internet built on shaking down businesses looking to reach customers might be wildly in favor of incumbents...
It is also quite likely that, in terms of understanding and the people involved, there's a lot of holdover from the assorted minority-interest/minority-owned radio and TV battles. With the exception of the people who are simply too young to have been involved, those are the areas were people concerned with lack of minority access to culturally relevant communications systems are likely to be coming from; but, inconveniently, those areas really lead to a number of nasty misunderstandings: "Internet" isn't especially similar to broadcast media. People who come at the problem from a background in scrabbling over broadcast media seem to fall fairly readily into one of several traps.
Most obviously, the temptation seems to be to fall into notion that 'internet access' is more or less a binary thing, possibly with some understanding of 'broadband' vs. 'not broadband'. In this case, the ISP strategy is to promise some additional coverage of uneconomic customers at cheap rates(often with a raft of fine print limitations and for a limited time, because it's a screwjob rather than a good faith offer) if they are allowed to get their way with customers who have enough money to be worth squeezing. If your background is campaigning for access on behalf of those without access, this looks fairly attractive. Unfortunately, you end up being the least-valued customers of an even worse oligopoly ISP at an overall cost that is likely to be higher than just outright subsidizing the additional households that actually ended up getting service.
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Because of your clear and thoughtful reply, I understand the context and positions much better.
Much appreciated.
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Better yet - why not ask why the existing situation, without any net-neutrality regulations, hasn't led to better service already? I mean it's been possible all along, but now that we're threatening to regulate their sorry exploitaitive asses, suddenly we're supposed to believe we'll be making it less cost-effective to do the things they already weren't doing?
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>> Give Jackson money and he'll go away.
This. Remember when beer distributorships were harming minority communities by entrenching already dominant companies? And then Jackson's kids mysteriously ended up owning a distributorship or two...and suddenly all was well? http://www.martinlutherking.or... [martinlutherking.org]
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FTFY
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Give Jackson money and he'll go away.
So far as I know, European countries do impose network neutrality. And they do it with faster broadband speeds. My son who lived in Riga, Latvia in 2010, had 8megabits per second fibre access to the apartment building in which he lived, and at a standard fee. (They actually had fibre, because thieves stole the wire for the metal it contained. One night the elevator cables were stolen.)
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Thankfully no one is proposing 'strict regulations'. The modest and reasonable regulations (which already apply to not-insignificant chunks of Verizon's FiOS network) being pushed for by Title II advocates would cut off things such as paid prioritization schemes and providers favoring their own paid services by exempting them from technologically unnecessary bandwidth caps, however.
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None of which will really do much good. All the cable company has to do to get around those regulations is to ensure that only traffic to Netflix goes through a particular link using routing rules, then decide to never upgrade that link. It's just as anticompetitive whether Netflix is paying them to upgrade the link or not, but with this pretend version of net neutrality, the poor are screwed even harder, because they lose Netflix as an alternative to the cable company's extortionate video on demand servi
Re:First Do No Harm (Score:5, Insightful)
What problem will be solved RIGHT NOW by passing strict regulations for ISP's to abide by?
The fact that the United States is something like 26th of industrialized countries in average internet bandwidth, AND more expensive than even those that have far better service.
The big ISPs haven't been investing in infrastucture, because they haven't had to. They don't compete. In 80% of the United States, people have only one real choice for low-latency, modern broadband.
Instead, they've just been pocketing their insane profits.
You can't expect free market forces to fix a situation in which there is no free market. The obvious answer is Title II Common Carrier status.
It worked just fine for landline telephones. It can work for internet.
(PS: before anybody yells that it didn't work for landline telephones, yes, it did. Ma Bell wasn't broken up for lack of service and high service fees. It was different reasons altogether.)
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Well, nobody's complaining. Why should they provide better service? Where's the incentive? I mean, yeah, people blabber about it all the time, but when it comes to action? Poof! Where did everybody go?
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The only action with a company with a monopoly is to go without.
Nonsense, you stop protecting their monopoly. That probably means you need to stop reelecting politicians that are owned. I see that as the principle problem.
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What you are saying is in effect "We have local monopolies. That's bad. Let's add regulations to make sure that the local monopolies wont' do bad things." That is putting a lot of faith in regulation. How did that work in other markets?
The only thing that will help is breaking up the local monopolies. That is where poeple should put their lobbying efforts. ANything else is a fool's errand.
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What you are saying is in effect "We have local monopolies. That's bad. Let's add regulations to make sure that the local monopolies wont' do bad things." That is putting a lot of faith in regulation. How did that work in other markets?
Well, today you are allowed to connect non-approved devices to your telephone line, and telcos have common carrier status. So it worked beautifully.
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It works acceptably in power delivery, though government-owned nonprofit corporations work a lot better. And Internet service is pretty similar in terms of the costs involved, minus the generation part. The nice thing about nonprofits is that they have no incentive to cut c
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There's no reason one approach has to block the other.
If there is a monopoly, it should be regulated as a common carrier.
If they don't want to be regulated as a common carrier, they have to let the competition in.
Let the ISPs themselves choose. Would you rather be a regulated common carrier monopoly or free to do as you like in a highly competitive market?
Either way, the users win.
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The fact that the United States ...
This is not a USA topic. European governments are already falling in line and falling over themselves to lick the telcos boots as well. It's disgusting, really.
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You can't expect free market forces to fix a situation in which there is no free market. The obvious answer is Title II Common Carrier status.
It worked just fine for landline telephones. It can work for internet.
(PS: before anybody yells that it didn't work for landline telephones, yes, it did. Ma Bell wasn't broken up for lack of service and high service fees. It was different reasons altogether.)
Title II very obviously DID NOT impose a free market, because the company it regulated for most of its existence HAD TO BE BROKEN UP BECAUSE IT WAS A MONOPOLY.
Title II would also not impose actual competition. Unless there are multiple providers capable of serving an address, it's not really a free market. Land line telephone service (currently regulated under Title II) pretty much has one option per area. (Two if you count phone service from the cable company, which is really VoIP rather than an actual l
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What problem will be solved RIGHT NOW by passing strict regulations for ISP's to abide by?
The fact that the United States is something like 26th of industrialized countries in average internet bandwidth, AND more expensive than even those that have far better service.
The US has between 10 and 1000 times the land area of other "industrialized countries".
And, so fucking what? Not being able to watching Netflix at 4X HD seems to be somewhat of a first-world problem...
The big ISPs haven't been investing in infrastucture, because they haven't had to.
Yep, that AOL dialup everyone's using sure has stagnated...
They don't compete. In 80% of the United States, people have only one real choice for low-latency, modern broadband.
Cherry-picking. What's a "real choice"? What's "low-latency"? What's "modern"?
Gee, you seem to have really limited things with your choice of words. Now WHY would you do that?
Oh, yeah, because you had to constrain things so you could have an argum [google.com]
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Yes, such a wide spectrum, consisting of Comcast and political activists funded by Comcast...
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It's not cherry picking. "Real choice" means a choice that meets the legal definition of broadband, and has low enough latency that normal use of the Internet isn't painful.
The most critical word was "broadband", which has a strict legal definition. Going forward, that definition is 10 Mbps down, 2.9 Mbps up. AF
Wish I had mod points (Score:2)
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Basically, content owners: read the United States Media Monopoly (90% of what you read, watch on TV, learn in school and so forth is made by 4 companies, look up a book by Ben Bagdikian) want control over content distribution as well so they can snuff out competition. And that means taking control of the last mile and forcing everyone else, specifically anyone competing with them such as pirated TV channel or bit-torrent traffic, or netflix or youtube, or Khan academy, to die by making it artificially too
Less interference... (Score:1)
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You seize the last mile infrastructure under "eminent domain", "national security", or whatever reason your want to give. Then let the service providers lease access to that to deliver their connections to the backbone. Use the funds from the lease to pay for the upkeep of the network (the first thing the current providers will do once they lose the ownership of the network is stop rolling techs to make people who lose service get upset and side with them).
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and "Net Neutrality" strikes me as an intrusive shell game... Hoping I'm wrong.
You're wrong, probably because you have some wrong notion of what "Net Neutrality" is.
I won't rehash the explanation, look it up or just check this thread later in the day.
How do we get back to real competition and value for our money?
End local franchise monopolies.
-This might have to be done State by State
Force cable companies to open their infrastructure to (cable ISP) competitors.
Enhance build out requirements so that the infrastructure will reach under served populations.
The basics of creating competitive markets are not news to anyone.
The problem is that national
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Lemme help ;)
What "net neutrality" is, is
1) Nothing we have yet to win. We have it NOW and must do all we can to make sure that we keep it.
2) If we lose it, Google and Facebook will be able to spam you with their ads at 100 Mbps, while your own VPN connection to the office behind your mom-and-dad shop two blocks away will stop being usable for of lack of bandwidth.
Now I might have exaggerated it a bit, but that's how you have to see the general idea.
What losing it also means is that a small scale (regional,
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Because we can only solve one issue at a time, and must focus on just one thing with monomaniacal devotion until it is completely solved, and only THEN move on to other issues.
Am I doin' it rite?
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>competition
wake up to the real world please. competition does not work with less than 4 sellers.
What? (Score:3)
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If 1mbps always meant 1mbps, that would be a solid connection to nearly anything on the internet. The only reason it isn't is because the networks are shitty, so you get somewhere between the advertised speed and a 56K dialup speed at random, usually with awful latency. The maximum bandwidth is a terrible metric by which to sell internet, because there are any number of reasons the network won't live up to it. Of course when I buy internet I've got some idiot customer service person trying to tell me that 1
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And you are correct. If I had a 256k connection with awesome ping times then pretty much every game would be fine. But 1Gbs with a 200ms ping time would leave me a bleeding/resetting corpse in most games.
What does Net Neutrality even mean??? (Score:2)
It has lost all of the original meaning and has become a buzzword with a generic "don't do things that I don't like" meaning. Look at all the Netflix shakedowns for instance. Is it neutral for ISP's to accept a caching server from Netflix? Not unless they would be willing to take servers from everybody else. Is it neutral to leave a link saturated? It's bad for users but it is neutral to the data as long as you aren't purposely forcing routes to only use that link. Does anyone care what neutrality is in thi
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It's bad for users but it is neutral to the data as long as you aren't purposely forcing routes to only use that link.
ISPs are forcing Netflix to only use saturated links. Although to be less cynical, it's possible that Netflix is forced there not by explicit policy but because the links haven't been upgraded in ten years.
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It's bad for users but it is neutral to the data as long as you aren't purposely forcing routes to only use that link.
ISPs are forcing Netflix to only use saturated links. Although to be less cynical, it's possible that Netflix is forced there not by explicit policy but because the links haven't been upgraded in ten years.
Peering contracts make it impossible for the public to have any clue what is actually going on with the saturated links since the contracts are secret. Caching servers are a good way to reduce traffic on the backbone links but giving them directly to ISP's is a bad thing for neutrality because the ISP's then get to pick and choose who they accept hardware from or get flooded with hardware from everyone. Competition in Europe has produced a much better ecosystem with many ISP's to choose from and lots of exc
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For politicians, "net neutrality" is something to get people fired up about an idea, so that it can be wrapped up with other things. The recent Obama push for net neutrality isn't for the sake of net neutrality as we geeks know and love, but rather some vague notion of a clean internet. The real aim is to move the internet under Title II so that it can be heavily regulated. It would also be subjected to the 16.1% universal service fund tax (as spelled out in the telecom act of 1996).
With the recent events s
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Neither of those assertions are remotely true. There were already periods where Internet access was subject to Common Carrier regulations, and parts of Verizon's FiOS network are still under it to this day because it gave a tax and subsidy benefit to Verizon. If anything, internet access is already HEAVILY regu
I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
The only feasible explanation I can imagine is that they are abusing the trust of the gullible in an attempt bring the force of public opinion down against Title II designation for broadband.
Title II seems the sanest answer available for our current situation, as we have seen it succeed at reigning in other natural monopolies for 80 years at this point. Why this push didn't come 15 years ago is a mystery to me.
Aside: the fact that this is part of the conversation all of a sudden means that the man behind the propaganda curtain is now actively trying to influence *your* thoughts on the issue. Watch carefully to see how they paint this across the media.
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The article makes it sound like the various groups are mostly lining up on the side that donates to them. So groups that are supported by Comcast, and the other ISPs, are against title II regulation and those that are supported content providers, such as Google and Facebook, are for it. At the very least that creates the appearance that their positions might be for sale. Though it is possible that they just solicited companies they agree with for donations. Which of those you believe is going to depend up
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Informative)
Jesse Jackson represents Jesse Jackson, first and foremost. I don't know anyone who doesn't wish he would just go the fuck away, and that includes the [few] black people I know well enough to know how they feel about Jesse. (Hey, I grew up in whitey-white land, Mexicans aside, so sue me.)
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Fuck all these people (Score:1)
Just give us the dumb pipe. *Sheesh*.. When are we going to stop with the bullshit?
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Look, I don't want to be smug about it, and I do feel your pain, I really do, but this is the kind crap you get when you live under the ideology of the 'free' market and 'small state'. I know, your state is broken and corrupt, but it doesn't really have to be like that - it's broken because it is owned by large corporations that have no interest in real democracy or taking care of the interests of ordinary people. Call it communism if you must, but then bear in mind that what you think you know about commun
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I'm not arguing that the state should own everything and that private ownership should be abolished, but there are things that are best cared for by society as a whole - the state is only one of several possible candidates to represent society's interests.
This makes your desire socialism rather than communism. Socialism is maligned by much of the popular media here as well, on the (quite correct) belief that the huddled masses don't understand it and will do as they are told by their betters, but that doesn't make it the same thing. What reigns currently is more akin to "national socialism", corporations in bed with and eventually owning the government.
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What reigns currently is more akin to "national socialism", corporations in bed with and eventually owning the government.
Uh, what? No, and also no. Calling something socialism doesn't make it socialism. It's capitalism, specifically corporatism (which is a kind of capitalism — I despair of us fixing this every time someone tries to claim that corporatism is not capitalism. Buy a dictionary.)
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"national socialism"
You mean fascism?
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"national socialism"
You mean fascism?
That's what I was getting at, yes, just using a deliberately deceptive term I thought would be immediately recognized.
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I can't worry about peoples' philosophical predilections. I do know that we are now paralyzed by majority rule, and everybody is too corrupt and greedy to respect any alternative. So, we remain in this stalemate. Progress is slow, but 40 years ago most communications were even slower and much more expensive. So, I guess, something good is still coming out of it. In the meantime, consider all their attempted impediments as a challenge to develop circumvention that nobody can control and ration.
Actually a smart strategy for comcast (Score:2)
This is both cynical and genius on Comcast's part. For no good reason, people still listen to race hustlers like Jesse Jackson. Feed him some money and watch the protester buses and media circus roll into town. Facts will no longer matter.
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It's disgusting, but effective.
Most of the objections I've seen are justified by ideology - conservatives arguing that net neutality is bad because all forms of government regulation are bad by default.
Some civil rights groups are corrupt? (Score:1)
Some of the groups that oppose Title II designation, like the Urban League and the League of United Latin American Citizens, have received contributions from organizations affiliated with Internet service providers,
gasp, I hardly didn't see that coming. This is fucking capitalism motherfuckers. This is why you can't have a civil rights group that isn't anti-capitalist. This shit needs to end. like yesterday
net neutrality affects the poor the most. Bridge the digital divide.
abuse (Score:3)
The problem here is one of marketing. The parties interested (read: Telcos) are big corporations with millions of PR budgets. They've managed to create terms like two-tier Internet and "fast lane" and all the other PR bullshit. They've created a story to sell, that what they want would be good and has many advantages. It's really text-book PR work.
Some people didn't see the thing being built and are falling for the smoke and mirrors. The simple truth they need to be told is that yes, the story sounds compelling, maybe even convincing. But the reality is that anything that can be abused for profit will be abused for profit, and it will look nothing like the story they're being sold now.
How about tell them of the benefits (Score:4, Interesting)
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Stop using the water analogy. The technology is fundamentally different. Using QoS, we can control the priority of packets which are on a shared line. That is impossible with water droplets in pipes. If it were possible, I would support it. Because 1. I'd pay less money for "hard" water for rinsing, but a little more for "soft" water for the washing mashine 2. water utilities would be much better run, with better services, tiers, etc.
I don't see anyone complaining about socializing (through legislation) th
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It's a fine analogy for what is needed, stop being a worthless pedant. You
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How does non-neutrality help poor communities? (Score:5, Interesting)
"We'll give your community 'internet service', but you're only allowed to use MSN" Isn't my idea of of improved service.
If you want to improve service, then stop banning communities from putting together their own ISP's. If AT+T doesn't want to service the South Bronx, then the South Bronx Community Association should be able to run it's own community internet service.
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> big companies don't want to deliver to poor communiies
They don't want to deliver to anyone which proves your argument wrong. I live in downtown Seattle, and my building is still stuck with ISDN. Yes, we still pay per minute charges to connect to the Internet. Comcast can't offer service because the Director's Rules prevent them from installing equipment, and we're too far from the CenturyLink CO for DSL. It's not that the phone and cable monopolies won't provide service to poor areas. They don't w
Yep, this is what I wanted to say (Score:3)
The NAACP is completely, utterly wrong about this. They have it completely backwards. We already paid the phone company to extend the DSL network to all subscribers, they were supposed to be done with that back in 2000, how's that coming along? Oh, fourteen years behind schedule, and still not done, and never going to happen unless we force it. And we aren't in the habit of forcing AT&T to do anything.
Who is behind all this confusion uncertainty and (Score:1)
I hate to have to point this out (Score:5, Informative)
I hate to have to point this out but Rainbow/PUSH isn't a "civil rights organization" by any stretch of the imagination. It's Jackson's personal vehicle for racialist shakedowns like this:
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.c... [cbslocal.com]
He has about $10M in the bank:
http://www.celebritynetworth.c... [celebritynetworth.com]
The only "civil rights" he cares about are those of his bank account.
And somehow this is relevant (Score:2)
The fact that this is even being brought up should tell everyone that it's not about making sure that all traffic is treated the same. Nope, nope, move along, nothing to see here.
Broadband Internet needs to be classified utility (Score:3)
I have Verizon as my telecommunications provider here in Maryland. I had DSL Internet and phone with Verizon until I met with Verizon's marketing engine following the big FIOS rollout. My Internet/phone bill combined was $75 prior to FIOS. Verizon convinced me to switch to FIOS Internet and phone with a 3-year agreement; my bill initially went down to $68/month, but would rise to $113 in the third year. I was assured that there would be "another deal" that would make the price lower as long as I committed to another term of service. A little over four years later, and Verizon is charging me $125/month for Internet and phone, insisting that this is the "best price" I can get. Color me a sucker.
I was recently upgraded "for free" to 15 Mbps up in addition to 15 Mbps down. This happened after I was heavily marketed to buy this not-so-valuable (to me) capability 2 months earlier. Funny thing - the same day that I received the glossy postcard from Verizon announcing the "free" upload speed upgrade, I received that month's bill from Verizon, complete with a $7 cost increase for FIOS Internet (which took my bill from $116 to $125). Just how stupid does Verizon think I am? The message is clear - I will buy whatever Verizon wants to sell me, and if I don't, I'll get anyway, and Verizon will increase the cost of my service.
The real kicker is the way that the cost is divided up. FIOS Internet service is $75/month; my phone is $30 (the balance of my bill is various fees and taxes that Verizon has broken out separately over the years to obfuscate their rate increases). Of the two (Internet and phone) I believe that I could do without Verizon's phone service much more easily than the Internet. I have a cell phone, and I can subscribe to a broadband VoIP service for about $3/month and operate it over my Internet service. I can't cut out Internet at this point and run it over my phone service. My job, my wife's job, my kid's school work, and access to a myriad of necessary on-line services (banking, investments, my grad school, Amazon for purchasing, etc.) all depend on my Internet service. Hardly anything depends on my phone. If that isn't a clear sign of a utility service, I don't know what is.
Its long past time for Internet service to be classified and regulated as a utility - the Verizons and Comcasts of the world have clear demonstrated how they will reap a fortune in fees from people who have to use their services left unregulated. With regulation will come other encumbrances, such as the ability for the FCC to enforce (or not) "Net Neutrality". So be it. The big communications providers have gobbled up all of the Internet access services and combined them under a very small number of companies, while at the same time the public's use of Internet for practically every aspect of work, school, and commerce as grown by leaps and bounds. Internet access is a utility. Let's declare it so.
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Split the difference, glass between your house and one or more central points is a utility. Layered networks a switched/vlaned muni network that can get community services, lifeline internet, emergency services, startup ISP's, local patching, or whatever people can think to do with it. Now bigger providers can take a pure optics handoff as well. The muni is only taking care of glass and potentially it's own swtich network. The muni potentialy has the long term view to put the glass underground.
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I like your idea. Back in 1997 or so I speculated about the "information utility" that towns/cities could provide based on ATM. The town provides the basic data "pipe" and anyone who wants to sell you a service over that pipe can do so.
Perhaps local jurisdictions need to take the existing cable/optics infrastructure by eminent domain and use it for the benefit of the public. That court case from Connecticut where the Supreme Court held that private property (houses) could be taken by the city so that a
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The nice thing about an all optical solution is no active devices are needed at the muni level. Passive mux and management of cwdm channels is all that is really needed. Other bits like macsec can help keep the muni's honest.
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Well, you're all over the place. There are one or two good points buried in there, but the bottom line is, take your racism and Jew baiting and SHOVE IT, you sad excuse for a human being.
You ask "who decided". Well, as a society and historically speaking, it's poetic justice, isn't it? I mean Americans were so goddam sure they had a right to own slaves, and that having those slaves was a win, the chickens have come home to roost, right? Who to blame but themselves? Their own white asses. The fact that all t
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The Irish were sold as slaves too. Hmmmm....