Net Neutrality Act On the Agenda Again

blue234 writes "On January 9th, Republican Senator Olympia Snowe and Democrat Byron Dorgan reintroduced the bill popularly known as the Net Neutrality Act, and officially called the Internet Freedom Preservation Act. The bill was killed in the Senate last year in a vote split along party lines (Democrats yea, Republicans no), with the exception of Senator Snowe, who voted with the Democrats. Now that the Democrats have a slight majority in the Senate, the bill certainly has a better chance, but it still needs 60 votes to prevent a Republican filibuster.

Wait and see, I think

[JoshJ]

If this suceeds, I think we basically win the internet freedom war against the telcoms and cable companies- it'll be a long time before they can do any more damage.

Re:Wait and see, I think

[morgan_greywolf]

If this suceeds, I think we basically win the internet freedom war against the telcoms and cable companies- it'll be a long time before they can do any more damage.

Maybe. I guess it depends on how loosely worded the bill ends up being and how many loopholes get thrown in by senators catering to special interests (read: corporate campaign sponsors). This sort of pandering to special interests isn't a Republican thing and it isn't a Democrat thing either -- it's a politician thing.

Re:

[FleaPlus]

I guess it depends on how loosely worded the bill ends up being and how many loopholes get thrown in by senators catering to special interests (read: corporate campaign sponsors).

Question: Is there any way to word a Net Neutrality bill without loopholes which wouldn't also interfere with legitimate activity?

Re:

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

Question: Is there any way to word a Net Neutrality bill without loopholes which wouldn't also interfere with legitimate activity?

I'd hope it would be possible, but it would certainly have to be carefully worded. However, and I'm sure this may put me in the minority here, but I don't think any Network Neutrality laws should be passed at this time. Any type of such regulations will add to costs (if nothing else than from an administrative/legal perspective) and of course those costs will be passed on to

Re:

[nmb3000]

From the article:

"How do you think they're going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?"

Clearly this guy has a stick up his pipe (and i

Re:Wait and see, I think

[JoshJ]

Stall the internet's progress?
I'd say allowing the cable companies to charge people for delivery of content would halt it entirely- there'd be no more small innovations, you would have to be a big player to have a website, period. Nothing new would be possible from the average person- only from the large corporations.

You chose force, I choose the free market

[cryfreedomlove]

I disagree. Let's say one area has both DSL and Cable IP as choices for high speed internet access. Let's say that the DSL company implements your fear scenario. They will block any blogger that does not pay to reach their customers. If I am the cable IP provider then I will not do this and then make this clear in my advertising campaign. My ads would say: Do you want the entire internet? Then signup with my cable IP service. Customers will flock to me.

I have a lot more faith in the invisible hand

Re:You chose force, I choose the free market

[Bill_the_Engineer]

You are trusting that your cable IP service won't also have tiered access. Of course, both cable and telephone companies currently provide tiered services (DSL, DSL-Lite, voicemail, premium channels, VOIP, etc) why wouldn't they charge for access to third-party media providers.

It takes more than two sources of broadband to create a free market.

Re:You chose force, I choose the free market

[JoshJ]

The invisible hand of the free market has failed left and right. Standard Oil. Carnegie Steel. Ma Bell. Microsoft. No thanks- I'll take a regulated market that guarantees individual rights by taking some away from corporations.

Re:You chose force, I choose the free market

[QuantumG]

Yeah, sorry, the market was ruined by the consumers, not the producers. If you don't demand competition, then don't be surprised when producers don't compete. Go ask an Indian how many monopoly products he bought last year. Shit, we don't even haggle in the western world anymore - it's considered rude. Where's the US version of whirlpool? [whirlpool.net.au] Exactly how much effort have you put into finding the best price, on any product, in the last week? And don't go blaming the marketing and the slick advertising... you let it get this bad. Now you're crying to the government for regulation.

Re:You chose force, I choose the free market

[kharchenko]

>Where's the US version of whirlpool?
Here [dslreports.com]

Re:

[bladesjester]

I hate to break this to you, but the free market is an illusion. It's a convinient lie told to people by economists and parroted by large companies because it suits their purposes (eg "don't blame us. It's just the market at work"). The thing that amazes me is that so many intelligent people buy into it.

The truth is that the major players in any given market often collude with each other on one level or another for their own mutual benefit and the government goes along with it. In fact, governmental int

Re:You chose force, I choose the free market

[Harmonious Botch]

Sorry, but I think you are confusing lies with abstractions. The 'free market' is a theorerical abstraction for economists like a black body is a theoretical abstraction for physicists. Calling economists liars because the free market doesn't match your day-to-day economic experiences is like calling a paint manufacturer a liar because his black paint does not emit perfect black body radiation.

In the real world, the free market is gummed up by many things, such as collusion, friction, well-meaning government interference, and bribery-motivated government interference. What is truly remarkable is how well it works in spite of such problems.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

[Ayanami Rei]

Calling economists liars because the free market doesn't match your day-to-day economic experiences is like calling a paint manufacturer a liar because his black paint does not emit perfect black body radiation.

Wow, I'm going to have to remember that one. :-)

Re:You chose force, I choose the free market

[miskatonic alumnus]

You know, I will blame the marketing and slick advertising. It was designed to play to people's weaknesses, much as propaganda shapes public opinion. Face it: almost all media is owned by a handful of corporations that want us to buy their crap. The only recourse is education --- an increasingly watered down, one-sided education provided by the public schools. And the corporate drivel has infiltrated there too. So, no, the consumers aren't at fault, they are behaving the way they were programmed to --- by market forces and a weak, greedy government.

Re:

[Roxton]

In the absence of government, consumers would have an incentive to "unionize." I have a few ideas on how such a "unionization" would take place and what it would look like, but that's not immediately germaine to the discussion...

Once consumers organized on a larger scale, they could more readily pressure companies to not do abusive things. Laws such as those that force telecoms to permit the transfer of telephone numbers would be unnecessary, as that feature would be negotiated on between consumers and te

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

you let it get this bad. Now you're crying to the government for regulation.

Insightful? Maybe intuitive is a better word, because you're wrong. When you say "you", you are of course referring collectively to all consumers/citizens. But, "the body of citizens acting independently as consumers" is not a political entity, so you can't attribute blame to them. There IS a body who is supposed to represent the collective though, and it's called -you guessed it- the government.

Re:

[jvkjvk]

Ok, so you agree with the premise of the GP. Thanks.

Now, what are you planning on doing about it? Government regulation is one group of people saying - "This is what I think we should do about this issue." You forget that generally most of the government tries to do what most people want most of the time.

Do you object to the government stopping corporate tyrannies? I really don't see a point, unless you are trying to say that since we got ourselves into this mess we deserve what we get.

But that's hardly

Re:You chose force, I choose the free market

[shma]

Yeah, sorry, the market was ruined by the consumers, not the producers.

Yeah, and when a scientific theory doesn't match experiment, it's not the theory that's failed, it's the universe's fault.

Look, what use is a theory if it doesn't match the real world? Free market capitalism's desirable results come from specific predictions about how consumers behave. And if those predictions doesn't match up with how consumers really behave, then the theory has little or no use. A good economic theory shouldn't make demands on how we spend out money, it should take that as a given and develop the rest accordingly.

After all, the economy exists to benefit US, not the corporations. Corporations are just a tool that are supposedly designed to maximize useful economic output.

Re:

[macdaddy]

Don't forget all the RBOCs [wikipedia.org]. I was just commenting on that today over lunch. A free market can not work without some oversight and some smart regulation. This is required to ensure that a bamboozled majority can't steer us in a bad direction [wikipedia.org] by fundamentalists. Somebody has to ensure that the playing field is level and kept neutral.

Re:

[linuxmop]

You know, it's really cute that you can parrot back examples of big bad monopolies you learned in middle school. I know, those were simpler times, and you thought that if you received enough gold stars from your teacher then maybe, just maybe, Jenny from math class would let you sneak a peak behind the bleachers at recess. But here in the real world, you can't just regurgitate nonsense and get a pat on the back and $20 for an A on your report card.

With that in mind, let's take a look at your list of example

Re:

[daeg]

The thing is, it won't necessarily be your local cable company that is forcing the charge. What if it's your peering points? What if it's the local government that gets greedy? What if it's the FCC? Or a "tax" on pornographic websites to help cover "filtering costs"?

As well as the "entire Internet" will attract customers, you could have 100,000 local customers but if you can't get anyone to peer with you, you basically have a city-wide Intranet.

I'm not saying those would happen or even could happen, but a n

Re:

[DurendalMac]

And they get their service through other providers much larger than they. This provider charges them to get the regular ol' bandwidth, thus raising costs for consumers. The purpose of net neutrality is to prevent all-out fucking greed from ruining the internet. You and your ISP will have to cough up in order to get decent service from other networks. Your cable company may advertise that it will give you full-speed access to the internet, but their service will be more expensive as a result. So the internet

Hello theory, meet reality

[Travoltus]

In reality, both the DSL and Cable company will adopt the same behavior because they stand to get more money extorting content providers than they stand to get from winning one another's subscribers over.

Plus they are gambling on consumer apathy, as in if Youtube is slow because they're not paying the extortion fee, the customer doesn't know that Youtube is slow because it's de-prioritized, so the consumer just forgets Youtube and moves on. You know what's happening to Youtube but no one wants to hear your

Here is how the free market will sell

[whoever57]

Internet access from provider 1: $40/month
Internet access from provider 2: $10/month (see note)

Note: hidden in our contract is a disclaimer that Internet access does not mean access to all the Internet at reasonable speeds -- only access to our "partners" is guaranteed.

Re:

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

Let's say one area has both DSL and Cable IP as choices for high speed internet access.

I have a lot more faith in the invisible hand of the free market than I do in corrupt politicians whose hands are dirty from counting bribe money.

There is no free market when it comes to internet access. The cable and DSL companies have their lines and equipment strung all over public and private property which is all made possible through government granted rights-of-way.

Re:

[DDLKermit007]

What magical fucked up delusional world do you live in? It's certainly not this one. "Some" very well off locations have the ability to choose between at least two providers (often more than). Whereas the rest of us have to just take whats available. Know whats available in my area? Cable...and satellite if you count that. Know how long DSL has been saying they'd build out to my location? Going on 6 years now. Not exactly counting on annnnnyyyyyyy progress with DSL like ever. I'm not in some run down or bac

Re:

[Colin Smith]

Stall the internet's progress?

Yes, that's exactly what it'll do. That's the purpose of the legislation. To prevent change to the network. It will prevent beneficial changes as well as malign ones and thereby stall development.

 

There they go again...

[icebike]

Those damn Republicans will be trying to kill off our Internet Freedom again.

.
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Oh, wait a minute....

Re:

[Manchot]

It's too bad that the bill's Republican co-sponsor is labeled a RINO by many members of her party.

Re:

[Headcase88]

Homer: America, take a good look at your beloved candidates. They're nothing but hideous space reptiles! [unmasks them] [audience gasps in terror]
Kodos: It's true, we are aliens. But what are you going to do about it? It's a two-party system; you have to vote for one of us!
Man1: He's right, this is a two-party system.
Man2: Well, I believe I'll vote for a third-party candidate.
Kang: Go ahead, throw your vote away.[Kang and Kodos laugh out loud] [Ross Perot smashes his "P

As a North Dakotan

[alexwcovington]

I say.. Go Dorgan! I'm impressed that we have a representative in Congress that knocks back the backwoods sterotypes. I'm not kidding-- Fiber-to-the-home is already offered by the phone co-op in Rugby. Compare that to the constant delays at the big telcos.

Re:As a North Dakotan

[icebike]

I don't think you read very carefully:

From TFA:

"The prioritization of types of content, applications, or services would be allowed under the condition that it is done free of charge, and that it is done for all types of that particular content. For example, the prioritization of packets to insure Quality of Service for Voice over IP must be done for all VoIP providers free of charge to them."

Now since virtually every telco is also an IP carrier you can kiss skype goodby. Anything that competes with POTS is likely to be degraded to death.

Re:

[Garse Janacek]

How is this different from the current situation? Providers already treat different content differently, and some providers block certain ports / content types entirely. Is there something in current law that would prevent them from (e.g.) degrading VoIP, that will lose effect after this law passes? (For example, if telcos could be prosecuted under anti-trust laws for this behavior, they probably could after the law is passed as well, even if the law doesn't specifically restrict VoIP degradation -- it's no

Re:As a North Dakotan

[Firehed]

Sounds like that says that if an ISP who's also dealing in VOIP wants to prioritize their VOIP packets above your bit-torrent and whatnot, they're free to do so provided that Skype, Vonage, etc get that same prioritization.

Although it sounds like you're coming from the other side of things - those ISPs who don't have VOIP services are going to send them to the bottom of the stack. Still, I take some comfort in knowing that they're going to have to either screw themselves or help their competitors (or, rather, not abuse their position of power and screw their competitors while helping themselves) whenever there's some new market that they want to enter. I see no reason to be racist towards bits, but then again I think I'd put up with slightly slower pira^H^H^H^H Linux .iso downloads in order to have all of my VOIP calls not make that horrible "your upload sucks right now" screeching noise.

Hopefully...

[Watson Ladd]

the bill survives committee intact. Do not contact your Representative or Senator to ask them to support the bill until after it makes it through committee! Otherwise you could be supporting a bill that's completely different from what you think it is.

Re:

[mordors9]

Oh c'mon. You must be forgetting the Dems are now in control. The days of any legislative shenanigans are over. (removing tongue from cheek)

Operation Preserve Freedom

[s388]

"Internet Freedom Preservation Act"

It's funny. In this day and age I hear a bill title like that and I automatically assume it's some tyrannical euphemistic horror-show and that I should immediately call my representatives and insist they opppose it.

Incidentally this bill really is evil, because apparently all consumers and businesses currently use tremendous bandwidth without paying for it! I for one think it's about time the internet service providers were paid a monthly bill for the courtesies they provide!

Re:

[oSand]

You're probably just one of those people that hate Patriotism and don't want Clear Skies.

Re:

[Duhavid]

He was being ironic.

It's not gunna happen..

[QuantumG]

here's how I see it...

My friend sends me a link to a clip on Google Video.
I go to the link, get my clip and laugh at the money drinkin' its own urine, or whatever.
Google gets a bill from my Internet service provider for bandwidth usage.
Google rips up the bill and tells my ISP to go fuck themselves.
My ISP reduces the available bandwidth to connections to Google's ip range.

Great, so then what happens?

My friend sends me another link to a clip on Google Video.
I go to the link and discover that the clip is too slow (or completely blocked).
I moan to my ISP that I can't play these important movie clips from Google Video.
My ISP tells me that I can't play them because Google hasn't paid their bandwidth charges.
I tell my ISP to go fuck themselves and switch to a provider that honours net neutrality.
Everyone else does this too because we really like Google Video.

And there goes the backhanded stupidity caused by ISPs temporarily forgetting that we, the consumers, control exactly how much money they make.

Re:

[JoshJ]

And what happens if all the ISPs make a deal that they will all refuse to honor net neutrality? Because that's what would happen- they'd all make a deal behind the scenes. That's what happens today- corporations ganging up to rape the consumer.

Re:

[QuantumG]

If that happens, we've got a lot bigger problems than net neutrality.

Re:

[JoshJ]

I'm curious- why do you think basically every Internet service costs about the same?

Re:It's not gunna happen..

[QuantumG]

Maybe they do where you live, but most parts of the world, they have these laws that prevent price fixing, and companies actually compete for the customer's business. Of course, if you have any evidence of price fixing, maybe you shouldn't be talking to me, maybe you should be talking to a lawyer, cause you could have some sweet class action lawsuit payout coming. But I think you don't.

Similarly, if you're so sure that ISPs are price fixing, in clear violation of the law, then why bother supporting a new law? Won't they just break that one too?

Re:

[stinerman]

Price fixing is obvious. Take a look at any street with gas stations on either side of the road. 9 times out of 10 they have the same price. Unless that price is wholesale (or close enough to cover marginal cost), its price fixing.

Re:

[qbwiz]

It could be that if one had a higher price, then it would go out of business. As you can see from the demand curve [wikipedia.org] there is a good incentive to keep the prices all at the same level, even without collusion. No collusion=no price fixing.

Re:

[QuantumG]

Ya know what you should do about that? Start your own. And don't give me any of this shit about having to lay cables or whatever, get your local government to declare that the current provider must open their infrastructure so you can compete with them. This is what happened in Australia and we have a thriving broadband market.

It seems to strange to me that the US has become the land of the monopolies and very few people stand up and declare that it aint right.

Re:

[Grey_14]

there are more costs associated with running an ISP than just cable, though thats a huge part of it, now IF the local government manages to declare this, which I have no idea how likely that is, There are huge other costs to get up and running, and then your trying to stay competitive with these other companys who have been in the business for years. You make it sound like anyone can just push a few buttons on their home PC and make the internet free for all again, There's a lot of reasons things aren't as

Re:

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

This is what happened in Australia and we have a thriving broadband market.

Since when? Last I heard, a year or two ago, the partially-state-owned telco had a near monopoly and was farting around with xfer caps for any international traffic. Apparently you live there and all and thus should know more about it than someone who is too lazy to google it, but if what you say is true, it's gotta be a recent phenomenon.

Re:

[QuantumG]

I have the choice of about 100 different DSL providers [whirlpool.net.au].. and I live in an outward suburb of the second smallest city in Australia.

Re:

[Qzukk]

The US was like that too, at one time. Then the government decided to "deregulate" and by "deregulate", I mean cancel the regulations that forced the telcos to share their lines.

Even so, it was more of a joke than not while it lasted. The 100 different DSL providers all simply resold lines they rented from the telco, and buying service from them was generally pointless. Half the time the telco would fuck the line up and continuously blame the DSL "provider" (but of course, if you bought the DSL direct fro

Re:

[mibus]

Said state-owned telco is still screwing people over, but is forced to allow access; this includes ISPs being allowed to install DSLAMs for DSL2+ into exchanges.

Re:

[Duhavid]

Google is already paying for the bandwidth they use.

Why should they pay twice?

Not to mention that such an arrangement would freeze
out smaller businesses that cannot afford the
bandwidth pirate fees. And note that the unpredicablity
of such fees will make that especially troublesome
for a small business.

If the ISPs and Telcos cant make ends meet on what
they charge, then there is an easy, direct, non-extortionate
solution to that problem.

Another post in reply to yours has covered the concept
that companies can an

Re:

[Duncan3]

They will just ALL start charging server rates for all uploads. Since 1/3 of all traffic is pirated^H^H^H^H^H^H^H BitTorrent which means upload, and a tiny tiny fraction is Google, the ISP's win.

(why they haven't already attempted to solve the piracy problem this way I have no idea)

Re:

[QuantumG]

ISPs have been attempting to charge upstream for access to their network since the commercial Internet began. They've all met a resounding answer from the content providers: fuck off or we will block you . Who do you think has more to lose, Google being blocked by even the biggest ISP in the US (leaving the thousands of others with millions of users visiting their site daily) or the ISP being blocked by Google (pretty much all of who's customers would subsequently quit and find another provider). This wh

Re:

[Garse Janacek]

I live in a major city, and have only one option for bandwidth (besides dialup): Comcast. Or somebody else, Earthlink or something, that also goes through Comcast (when I used them, I still had to call Comcast for my tech support). I can't use DSL, my building doesn't support it. Actually, despite living in a number of large urban/suburban areas, I have never yet lived in a single place where I had the option of DSL, or more than one cable network.

I see some variant of your post almost every time net neut

Re:

[QuantumG]

This is why we don't need these laws in Australia.. we have competition. Maybe the US should do something about that, instead of trying to pass regulations. Personally, I thought it was the american way and Australia was just copying.. guess I was wrong.

Re:

[JoshJ]

You're confusing American freedom/democracy rhetoric vs the actual reality of American corporatist oligarchism.

Re:

[QuantumG]

We have the best broadband in the world second to maybe, south korea. And what laws are you talking about?

Re:

[kindbud]

My ISP tells me that I can't play them because Google hasn't paid their bandwidth charges.
I tell my ISP to go fuck themselves and switch to a provider that honours net neutrality.

Yeah, but does your provider's provider honor net neutrality? There are few sources of bandwidth outside the existing telco infrastructure, and very few companies that control all that. Everyone else is a reseller.

Re:

[Qzukk]

My ISP tells me that I can't play them because Google hasn't paid their bandwidth charges.

And risk you telling them to go fuck themselves? Clearly their first tier support staff will be trained to tell you that the problem is that google's servers are overloaded and you should use a different server like [paid sponsorship here]'s funny video server.

Why do so many people assume that companies are going to tell the truth about the bad things they do?

Re:

[QuantumG]

As if that wouldn't elicit the exact same response.

Re:

[stinerman]

Where do you live that you have more than 2 choices for broadband? Most people don't have the zillion choices that are needed for perfect competition.

Re:

[QuantumG]

Yeah, I've learnt this, posting to this.. I live in Australia and have about a 100 suppliers available to me. the US is fucked, and no amount of regulation is going to help you. Not that kind of regulation anyway. Your government needs to force the current big players to open their architecture and provide competitive prices. I guess you folks learnt nothing from the Ma Bell incident. Sigh, history repeats.

Re:

[JoshJ]

You do realize the feds just let AT&T, Southwestern Bell, SBC, and Bellsouth merge?

Re:

[stinerman]

Indeed. Its pretty much Verzion, Qwest, and AT&T now. Just wait until Qwest gets bought out by one of the 2.

Re:

[TeraCo]

There's your solution then - Wait for them to merge into one superplex, then declare the infrastructure. They'll scream like a stuck pig, but within a year you'll have 10-15 ISP's and within 5 you'll have a couple of hundred. (Or more).

Re:

[stinerman]

We have CLECs which are people who use the lines owned by the old Bells. So in many cases I can get a different service provider. I used Speakeasy as an ISP, and I found them to be excellent. The only problem is that if there was something physically wrong with the line, they'd have to call up AT&T to fix it. And since AT&T isn't getting much money out of my line, they decided to put it on idle priority. I was without a connection for 6 days because AT&T couldn't be bothered to fix their li

Re:

[QuantumG]

Yup, that's fucked, and is exactly the kind of thing that should be attracting government attention.. not net neutrality.

Re:

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The problem is that many areas have a monopoly or duopoly, and if there are any choices, they are between evil and retarded.

Even the mobile phone market is pretty bad, those providers call the shots, you buy their service and their restricted phone with an overly long contract and they charge you about $200 to end the contract.

I think the ISPs are well aware of this.

Re:

[QuantumG]

I'd respond to your points, but you're so ill-mannered that to do so would be just encouraging more of your kind.

Re:

[QuantumG]

If you happen to be in that situation, I have one suggestion for you: get out now. No matter what you are paying, it is guarenteed to be too much. No competition, no chance you're getting a good deal.

Re:

[Grey_14]

Hey great plan ace! then the next time he wants to post on /. he can just wander down to the local library and use their computers! How Convenient! It's a good thing he stuck it to the man and showed them what he thought of the lack of competition!

Re:

[QuantumG]

Last I heard, the vast majority of people were saying "screw broadband" and sticking with dialup.. maybe breaking net neutrality will be the last nail in the coffin.

2 Senators appeal to YouTube community for support

[remove office]

Obviously YouTube has a lot to lose if Net Neutrality is not preserved and if teclos start treating consumer's bandwidth in a fashion unfavorable towards the site. You can see videos of Senator Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) and Senator Dorgan (D-North Dakota) appealing to the YouTube community for support regarding Net Neutrality here:

Kennedy's video [youtube.com] (3 min, 22 sec)
Dorgan's video [youtube.com] (1 min, 48 sec)

Dangerous

[Dunbal]

You know, I am seeing this practice more and more often in many countries throughout the world. Some bill or act is shot down. A few years later when the balance of power shifts slightly, some trivial modifications are made to the content of the bill, and it is resubmitted.

      I think this is a dangerous practice. Yes it is a reasonable strategy for a party or special interest group - because if they are persistent enough the bill might just pass. However it is dangerous for the rest of us - since once this bill passes - even if it is merely through insistance and momentum, we are stuck with it. It is much harder to get a law repealed than to get one approved. So we end up with laws that got approved through sheer bloody-mindedness, and are stuck with them because no one dares repeal it. I mean, if it is a law - it must be right, right? People must have agreed with it, right?

      Sigh, another pebble is eroded off of the cliff of democracy...

Re:Dangerous

[TheSuperlative]

How is this eroding democracy? That is democracy.

Under your ideal government, reform would be impossible, since one could only pass things by consensus - and anything that could not pass a few years earlier would be considered bad.

Change happens in a democracy. We vote in new leaders precisely for the reason that we want them to pass the things that the old ones wouldn't.

Re:

[grcumb]

How is this eroding democracy? That is democracy.

Indeed. I think this is where the phrase 'An idea whose time has come' originated.

Re:

[kfg]

If this sort of nonsense keeps up we stand the risk of banning slavery and giving women the vote.

KFG

Re:

[HappyEngineer]

I agree. I think the system would work better if all bills required 60% to pass and 45% to repeal. Furthermore, once a bill has been in place for more than 5 years it should be possible to repeal it with only 35% of the vote.

Concern

[LordMyren]

I am concerned about net neutrality. Quality VoIP and video conferencing requires low latency, and thats not typically available on the public internet. Paying extra for a low latency pipe seems valid to me. My understanding is that net neutrality would prevent this intelligent discrimination. No doubt, any slack in disciminating between users will be immediately exploited in terrible corporate ways, but principally i cant see how anyone could support enforcing a lowest common denominator upon everyone.

Re:

[JoshJ]

You pay extra for broadband instead of dialup, don't you? That's your low-latency pipe. There's a difference.

Re:

[icebike]

Paying extra for a low latency pipe seems valid to me. My understanding is that net neutrality would prevent this intelligent discrimination.

You want band width, you pay for band width. But don't come telling me my use of the bandwidth I pay for is somehow less important than yours and therefore I can't watch baseball or view youtube so you and your suits can crack wise across the continent.

principally i cant see how anyone could support enforcing a lowest common denominator upon everyone.

How is it that

Re:

[Duhavid]

Discrimination could be allowed, based on type of traffic.

Discrimination based on end points would be the real issue.

That would be crucial part of any legislation.

Be very wary

[bendodge]

I am personaly against the current form of net neutrality. I think that government intervetion is almost always bad. The ONLY regulations that should be passed:

1. All backbone providers must allow other providers to connect to them on a naked pipe
2. All providers must use standard protocols
3. Providers may only throttle data/bandwidth based on protocol, not orgin/destination

I believe anything more is harmful to the free market.

Re:

[compro01]

this is most intelligent comment I've seen in this story.

too bad such regulations will never be passed. they're too sensible.

Net Neutrality is the wrong focus, I think

[volkris]

I think this Network Neutrality debate is a bit misfocused. If we want to ensure the ability of people to speak their minds on the Internet we would do better to attack the near-universal practice of ISPs blocking ports and restricting the use of home servers.

THAT is where the free speech comes from: the people. The NN debate seems to be rather focused on the ability to choose between large companies that want to profit through our expression. Even though there may be more options it still represents a consolidation of content. If we want information we must get it from these providers; if we want to share it we must share it through the providers. As a group they become the gatekeepers.

It doesn't have to be this way. If more ISPs would let us use even our measly aDSL uplinks (that we pay for) to legally serve our own content, people would be able to self-publish in all sorts of new ways. Once we can participate directly in the internet without the middleman of some company with servers we'll unleash an amazing amount of potential and innovation.

Software would be created to deal with the technical challenges that would arise, perhaps with legitimate P2P providing interesting solutions to some of these problems. Network-centric computing would get a huge boost too. In any case, that small change in SOP has the potential to really change the way people view and use the Internet.

Network Neutrality proponents love to talk about a level playing field... lets level the playing field between the consumers and the providers as a whole.

mod parent up +1 Insightful

[Sean0michael]

I think this is a very informed post, and I'm glad you bring up how ISPs restrict users from using their own web servers. As far as I can tell, I pay for the ability to send and receive packets. It shouldn't matter what application sends the packets. In this respect, I am no different from Google, who also pays to send and receive packets. As long as the user fees are enough to cover the cost of operating, maintaining, and improving fiber, routers, etc. then I see no reason why they should charge anyone mor

Re:

[volkris]

Firstly, running servers is in violation of the terms of the agreement that most ISPs provide. This has a chilling effect on the entire environment: from developers to users to those who may come up with fantastic innovations, all will be dissuaded from attempting to use incoming connections in a significant way when those incoming connections are not only subject to filtering but even illegal.

We're not just talking plain ol' web servers here. We're talking anything that might have a use for listening for i

The Truth

[Godji]

Think what you will, but here's the One True Statement when it comes to Net Neutrality:

The Internet is not something you just dump something on! IT'S NOT A BIG TRUCK! IT'S A SERIES OF TUBES!

Who owns the Internet? Who owns Congress?

[sweatyboatman]

I am all for preventing telecoms and cable companies from filtering the internet and giving priority to their own services. Tiered internet is a dead-end road leading right back to how cable television works now.

So on the face of it, a law mandating Net Neutrality is a good thing.

But big ISPs are also big campaign contributors. The cable and phone companies have long since learned to cover their asses by bribing our elected officials on both sides of the aisle. So odds are good that if Congress does pass

Re:

[MightyMartian]

Well, I suppose it was because the Republicans controlled Congress, so all the money from the Telcos was being used to buy them off. Let's wait and see. I have no doubt that the Democrats will be receiving nice big fat checks, whores, dinners, golf club memberships and the like from the Telcos. Heck, I'm sure the Telcos will happily draft the legislation that puts the nails in the coffin of net neutrality, just like the record and movie industries did to limited copyrights and fair use.

After all, America

Re:Why the split?

[Ironsides]

but is this part of either party's official ideology or agenda?

Think about it this way. This bill is a proposal to regulate the internet itself. Specifically, to regulate how an ISP and network backbone company can allocate bandwidth.

Republicans: Regulation mostly bad.
Democrats: Regulation mostly good.

Capiche?

Re:

[Duhavid]

Because the Republicans hate our internet freedoms?

Re:SAVE TEH INTERNETS!!!

[Duhavid]

My recollection differs from yours.

The bill came up after the head of ATT complained
about how "google was using his 'pipes' for free".

And how he wanted to correct that, so that google
was paying him.

Never mind that google paid their ISP, and their
ISP and ATT ( if they are not the same, I presume
not, or he would not have cause to complain
( course, I am stupid, he doesnt have cause to
    complain then, but still he did ) ) have either
a peering arrangement or a cash arrangement to
carry each other's traffic ( you know, the
arrangements that make the interconnects between
each telco/isp's networks worth much of anything
in the first place... )

But, yes, the Democrats backed the bill.

Re:

[Garse Janacek]

This is my recollection as well. I also recall that after the bill was proposed, the big cable/telcos started running counter-factual advertisements in TV and newspapers, essentially saying "Google wants to raise your Internet bill! Stop them!" -- which even those who oppose net neutrality ought to agree is not really correct. But this widespread dishonest behavior does suggest that, even if the major bandwidth providers had not yet started the tiered bandwidth charges the bill was meant to prevent, they st

Re:

[Duhavid]

And what is funny about the "google want to raise your internet bill"
type campaign, is that if google *did* end up paying for it, they
would end up passing those costs on to the end users anyway, just
in different ways. So, the end user would get the cost, plus some
percent of profit going to Google for the transaction.

Re:

[compro01]

This bill is absolutely needed, because the internet has been completely destroyed by evil corporations since the problem of INTERNET NEUTRALITY was discovered by brave Democrats last year!

it was not a problem until a year ago as ISPs (DSL providers anyway) fell under the same regulations as phone companies. the courts ruled that they are not an "information service", thus they are subject to different, less stringent, regulations.

net neutrality is returning the former regulations and standardizing them to

Re:

[Doc Ruby]

Moderation -1
    100% Troll

How appropriate that the rightwingers will lie and spew whatever venom (like "questioning the president is treason") they want, but simple statements comparing their Republican Party behavior to Democrats is called "Troll" by their trollMods. TrollMods are the Slashdot equivalent of the filibuster, but not as effective or boring.