Net neutrality is the principle that says all information flowing across the Internet should be treated equally. But with more people streaming data-rich video and playing online games, the Internet faces congestion concerns. Should carriers be able to sell multi-tiered access to heavy users? Should sites that generate massive traffic -- like Google and Yahoo! -- pay extra fees? The U.S. Government is examining Net Neutrality and its financial, legal and social implications. Do we need federal intervention to ensure fairness, or is this an issue for the market to work out?
Please select the category that most closely reflects your concern about this content,
so that we can review it and determine whether it violates Civility 101 or isn't
appropriate for some other reason.
Abusing this feature is also a violation of Civility 101.
Explanation:
No government tampering with the net and the data-flow is the Internet's first ammendment!!!
- zebrab September 4, 2008 12:29AM
Reply to this
Recommend
(0)
Side: No
The government has already tipped the scale away from net neutrality, by granting "exclusive" territories to Comcast and other companies that choose not to give the consumer fair services for the fees charged. You are obviously NOT a customer of Comcast, unless you are a Comcast marketing employee.
I for one resent having 6-8Mb download speeds being paraded as the fiber optic level of service Comcast chooses to parade in their advertising. The upload speeds are a joke as well. There is no reason upload speeds should be any less than download speeds. This garbage hearkens back to the days that the ISP's were blocking people from hosting their own web sites. The dynamic IP addresses are actually an increase in the ISP's work to provide services. It allows them to charge twice the going rates to the business customers. The result is that no user will be allowed to host their own blog or web site. This is allowed to happen by dint of regulation.
Hate to say it, but we are already the victims of Government (FCC) regulation.
- tomcat2200
September 14, 2008 12:09AM
Reply to this
Recommend
(0)
Side: Yes
The Internet is not a public resource. The networks, machines and know how that make all of it possible are privately owned. By forcing an ISP to run their networks a certain way you are violating their rights of ownership. You chatter on about your rights to be able to see a certain web site a certain way. You have no rights in this respect. There can be no right to a good or service that must be created by another.
If you don't like the policies of your ISP you are free to start your own, or use another one. To use a few analogies:
A mall owner can eject you from his property if he chooses, this does not violate your rights or the rights of the stores who pay him rent. The mall owner can choose to charge a cover to enter his property if he wishes, he is not violating your rights nor the rights of the store owners. A privately owned road can, and do, charge tolls. Using the road means you can access certain stores on the other side of the road faster than taking the long way around. This does not violate anyone's rights. If, however, in any of the analogies above the government, under penalty of force, requires the owners of property to allow you to remain or not charge a cover or not collect tolls. The rights of the owner are most definitely violated.
If for some reason all the ISPs in the world go totally irrational and decide to break the Internet as in your doomsday, strawman, arguments, that would be unfortunate. But any one of us is free to raise the money to create a new internet that has whatever policies we wish. The internet is not an entity in and of itself. It is an emergent phenomenon based on contractual peering services and circuits that are bought and paid for by every participant. Every one of them has the right to try and maximize their profit in the relationship. But this profit motive is exactly what would keep your so-called "neutrality" safe. For every ISP that would try and squeeze some undue profit by altering the paths, three more will rise up and compete with them because they will open the door of opportunity for a "free" internet.
You claim you have a right to a free internet, but you intentionally blank out the fact that the internet is created by individuals who own the pieces. They have rights. You have whatever contractual rights that have been agreed to in your user agreement. None of those is the right to point a gun at the ISP and force them to do your bidding.
Every one of these issues is an issue of contract. When you sign up for an ISP you enter into a contract, if you are able you can convince the ISPs to write into their contract some type of equal treatment of traffic clause, then that is how to handle this. You don't go running to the nanny (government) to force the ISP to give you some of their toys to play with.
- McLazarus September 4, 2008 7:55AM
Reply to this
Recommend
(0)
Side: No
Before Al Gore invented the Internet, it was called DARPAnet. It was not "created by individuals," if by that you mean private entities without government assistance. This fact is conveniently omitted by NN opponents, who like to paint the Internet as some sort of libertarian utopia where rugged individuals made the sandbox ("created by individuals who own the pieces,") we just play in it ("You have whatever contractual rights that been agreed to in your user agreement,") and the gubmint is the stupid dumb playground supervisor who tries to ruin the fun for everyone ("running to the nanny (government) to force the ISP to give you some of their toys to play with.")
For more fun with analogies, consider McLazarus' hypothetical mall. What if the mall received a gigantic public subsidy to be built, and continues to receive favorable tax treatment that costs taxpayers millions of dollars a year? As a resident of the Twin Cities, home of the Mall of America, this is a reality that I am familiar with. "Owners" of malls (and Internet business, I might add) are happy to paint themselves as providing a public service, or even a public space in the case of malls, when it suits their interest in courting taxpayer subsidies. But when the public insists on the rights of equal access or even some access to that space for the purpose of exercising their free speech rights, the owner will claim to have a property right to exclude speech that they don't like.
As the media landscape is increasingly transformed by the meta-medium of the Internet, we should pay close attention to those who wish to obscure this, since the public backbone of the Internet is something that is akin to the public ownership of the airwaves in broadcasting. The ginormous initial subsidy that created the Internet's backbone (Al Gore notwithstanding) is relevant to this discussion.
- TheK September 8, 2008 6:53AM
Reply to this
Recommend
(0)
Side: Yes
No one forced the companies into hosting the internet. You need to realize that when the FCC allocated the internet territories, it was a public resource. Just like the airwaves are a public resource. Your arguement is broken as there are many companies willing to provide services. If Comcast wants to go home and take their routers and cable connections with them, then more power to them. It is one tear I would not shed.
You are not free to start your own ISP as you imply. There are many regulatory territories divvied out as exclusives by the FCC. The problems are that companies such as Comcast refuse to play nice in their zones exclusive control. Customers are their exclusive resource to do with as they please, and it hasn't been a nice experience for the customers. The Comcast mantra is to rely on customers not being aware of other communities around their exclusive territories.
- tomcat2200 September 14, 2008 12:17AM
Reply to this
Recommend
(0)
Side: Yes
The internet began as a connection between research computers both in Europe and the US. Much of the infrastructure was created and regulated by the government and research organizations. When these resources were originally opened to the public it was with the understanding that Net Neutrality would be observed (although the specific term had not yet been invented). The World Wide Web, which many people think of when speaking of the internet was also intended to be free since its inception. All of this was to facilitate the free and easy transfer of ideas and information.
For a corporation to charge based on the content or origin or a piece of information is to go against everything that the internet was intended. Many research organizations that were instrumental in the development of the internet still depend on its openness and ease of use. For example the LHC at CERN, birthplace of the World Wide Web, will generate 15 Petabytes of data annually that will then be sent out to about dozen other sites, which will then be divided into smaller pieces and then sent to 140 more locations, from which end users will then pull the data needed. If that data was slowed or charged based on not being in the preferred network their analysis would be impossible.
Disabling scientific discourse and innovation in this manner would be a terrible disservice to the world and in most cases would seem unethical since many ISPs and telecoms use these government and research networks to pass their information. Since so much of all traffic passes though federally funded and operated networks (many research networks fall under government jurisdiction) it would seem more than reasonable for the government to mandate that traffic not be filtered or slowed.
If these government and research networks were to turn around and suddenly start doing what is being proposed by some of the corporations, the corporations would be outraged. In either case (the government or a corporation) discrimination of information would be severely detrimental to the way the internet currently works.
- tdhowe September 8, 2008 12:18PM
Reply to this
Recommend
(0)
Side: Yes
The issue is not whether we should regulate neutrality on the internet because many Americans don't have a choice. The issue is that we don't HAVE internet choice. There is no compelling reason at this point for governments to be imposing monopoly via cable and telephone "utilities" on the public. Europe is doing quite well without that regulation, as is most of the rest of the world.
- Benjamin Tuttle September 2, 2008 6:13AM
Reply to this
Recommend
(0)
Side: No
Network Neutrality should be a cornerstone of the Internet. It is born out of the principle of 'Common Carrier' during the days of the Telecom giants. Telecommunications companies were given monopolies over the physical resources (telephone poles/lines) in exchange for maintaining certain levels of service. Now when the internet came along the Telecom companies were in the best position to deliver the internet to the masses. Just because the information transmitted has changed does not mean that the original deal should change as well.
Europe is also doing well because there is strong competition in their markets.
- Concerned Citizen September 2, 2008 2:46PM
Reply to this
Recommend
(0)
Side: Yes
The truth of the matter is that it is an issue of urgency. Not necessarily immediate earth-shattering urgency but of an urgency that preemptive action would save many headaches in the future when means and methods of 'Traffic Shaping' or 'Throttling' become commonplace and accepted. If governments of the world do not mandate network neutality you can expect many more actions like those that Comcast has done in limiting peoples network traffic.
I would not necessarily call Comcast's interferance 'Minor'. Their method of interference was out and out FORGERY of of RST packets to force both ends to drop the connection, a bonafide Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attack by an agent who is tasked with the delivery of packets from point A to point B. If trust between us, the ISPs and the backbone providers breaks down then the internet as it stands becomes a much more hostile place to do business. How can we not trust the providers along the way not to perform MITM attacks when its convenient for them. Can we trust these ISPs not to poison DNS entries so that we cannot reach their compeditor's sites (if there are even compeditors). And Comcast has not actually stopped their traffic shaping/throttling practices but have instead tried to sidestep or do an end run around the Network Neutrality debate by applying their traffic shaping/throttling measures to ALL high bandwidth uses such as streaming audio and video which services like the popular Youtube deliver.
I also fail to see how a SMS shortcode has anything to do with the Internet. Cellular Phones that receive SMS messages tend to be a wireless telecommunications issue and NOT an Internet issue.
The thing is that in the US you have typically 1 or 2 broadband providers in any given area. A monopoly or duopoly does not provide the necessary amount of choice that a customer would be empowered to effect change on these big corporations. In fact it is more likely than not less beneficial for the customer because the ones that should be competing can easily enact backroom deals to perform similar methods on their own networks then anyone in that geograhical area has no option but to goto a company that is utilizing traffic shaping/throttling. It would be diffcult or impossible to prove but everyone knows these sorts of actions happen like with the price of gas it is almost impossible to prove but everyone can see its effects.
If you want other evidence of network neutrality being broken or abused it might be hard to find them in the US presently but all you need to do is look north of the border to Rogers Communications Inc. who instead of trying to throttle bittorrent or find out traffic patterns and what not has decided to enact a draconian throttling solution that chokes your speed when it detects ANY encrypted sessions (VPN Tunnels which businesses rely on for Telecommuting employees, Some versions of Bittorrent, TOR, sites that have judicious use of HTTPS). From my personal experience speeds will drop from 500kb/s down to maybe 20kb/s if you are lucky, a decrease in bandwidth of approximately 96%. I have no idea what Bell Canada's is like but both Rogers AND Bell Canada (the cable and DSL duopoly north of the border in most cases) have forced these traffic shaping/throttling measures down to 3rd party ISPs that are supposed to be competing with them.
I am not saying all traffic shaping is necessarily bad. The thing is that GOOD traffic shaping is generally not noticed by the users of the network and will generally improve the experience for everyone involved. Prioritizing protocols where latency is a serious impact on performance such as VOIP and some gaming applications where latency or 'lag' really degrades the performance will vastly improve performance of those protocols. Giving web pages and email protocols the next rung of priority where interactivity is present (human at the keyboard/screen) but where latency is not a serious factor and where a bit of transmission speed/bandwidth helps out will make it so that the internet doesnt seem slow for your typical mom and pop user. I can also understand putting streaming video a step below that since once the downloads are started all it does need is a little bit of bandwidth to keep a decent buffer and that Bittorrent would be the lowest priority since quite often there is not a person at the keyboard. In general people dont care as long as Bittorrent works and gets things sent/received with little to no interference.
- Concerned Citizen September 3, 2008 7:59AM
Reply to this
Recommend
(0)
Side: Yes
What you cite as priorities is already built into the internet. The schemes for low latency for VOIP, has always been a design feature of all of the equipment manufactured and the software produced to drive such systems. Other services are already tiered for priority, and email comes much lower on the list than you have placed it. You haven't read about the packet prioritization that is in place, and you don't realize what traffic management ala Comcast means.
Traffic shaping, goes one step beyond the normal traffic routing, to try to reduce the shared data flow one provider has to exchange with other ISP's. This makes for a new profit centers for the likes of Comcast. They pay out less in exchange for data handling coming into their territories. It's a net profit, if they can reduce the outflow, by managing their customer use, outside their territories. It is even a managed situation if the data has to cross other territories to reach another Comcast territory.
Canada is not a good comparison. They had to beg the companies to give more general covwerage as the population density was very low on average in Canada. In the US, the population centers almost everywhere are sufficient to support a provider. Only a small subset of the US population has no internet coverage. This should all disappear as the white space products come on to the market, assuming the FCC QUITS DRAGGING THEIR FEET.
Canada is in their own nightmare, by granting exclusives to the two companies. One owns the wires and the other owns the services. They will continue to bleed Canada for as long as they can.
- tomcat2200 September 14, 2008 12:51AM
Reply to this
Recommend
(0)
Side: Yes
In this article, Cato has basically made the case in favor of Network Neutrality, and is simply worried about how it ought to be enshrined.
Few golfers hit the ball into the hole on the first swing, so the fear that we might not get a Network Neutrality bill exactly right on the first attempt is not a reason to wait. It's almost guaranteed that it will be wrong in some ways, but the chances are good that such a bill will be right in most ways.
And while Network Neutrality is rooted in how the Internet traditionally treated packets that were crossing it, this tradition was also enshrined in part of that design. Now, with Deep Packet Inspection, triple-play packages, and carefully crafted bandwidth limits -- assumptions based upon that neutral design and tradition are out the window.
Since Cato's author writes "that this principle has been crucial to the Internet’s success over the last decade, and I would like to see it preserved," I'm very Interested in Cato's proposal of how to do that given consumers current lack of choices, the heavy push for network vendors to get wire-speed "monetizing" DPI products into the ISP chain to "enhance the experience," and the natural desire for ISPs to spend as little as possible on network upgrades by using DPI as a substitute for some of it.
- Robb Topolski August 31, 2008 4:45PM
Reply to this
Recommend
(1)
Side: Yes
I completely disagree with the statement "...chances are good that such a bill will be right in most ways." I've never known a piece of regulation like Net Neutrality to be "right in most ways". Odds are quite the opposite. For instance: Cato brings up the ICC in a later argument, and more recently, there is the whole ethanol subsidy that causes food to be more expensive in order to pursue an energy-inefficient alternative to oil.
To answer your question "Why is this on the No side?":
You precede from a false assumption - Cato is a libertarian organization and its default position is to oppose the creation of most new laws (and supports removal of many existing laws). Thus, the libertarian aim is to "enshrine" as little as possible in law, for the very reason that is extremely hard to change once enacted, most laws tend to have adverse side effects, and that most laws have no business being laws in the first place under the Constitution. "Enshrining" is the domain of religion, not good, limited government anyway.
Net Neutrality, in all it's ill-defined incarnations, should never be law.
- strawhatguy August 31, 2008 6:20PM
Reply to this
Recommend
(1)
Side: No
Net Neutrality is not ill-defined. It is quite well defined as not adversely affecting the packets transiting an ISPs network in an excessively negative way.
Comcast's forgery of RST (Reset) packets to both source and destination is one such example of adversely affecting the packets. They are basically performing a Man-in-the-Middle attack with their forging of packets and disrupting traffic flow across their portion of the internet.
The principle does not say you cant give priority where such would be beneficial for all users but it does say that you should not be willfully interfering the delivery of packets. Packets can and should get to their destination eventually. What does not matter is that VOIP packets get the fast lane while Bittorrent gets the slow lane, what does matter is when you throw up a roadblock in front of the slow lane and only let traffic in the middle and fast lanes to go through.
- Concerned Citizen September 3, 2008 8:18AM
Reply to this
Recommend
(0)
Side: Yes
So who decides what is to benefit all users? Some government body? How about when this stifles innovation because innovation is not good for all users?
Also what about the owners? Comcast owns their network. They built it with their money, brains and hard work. They have the right to decide how to regulate their network. Period. They did not build it to benefit anyone but themselves, and they certainly didn't pluck it from a tree. All arguments for net neutrality blank out the owners and builders and pre-suppose the network.
Without the builders, those who actually have a profit motive to see the internet continuing to operate, there is no network for the net neutrality advocates to attempt to seize control. In the areas where there is only one low cost provider, and that provider could limit access. Those people are free to act, they can move, they can raise capital and build a competing service, they can get a T1 run to their house (at considerable but insignificant compared to what Comcast spent to build out and maintain a network to their house) or they can have no internet.
Governments role is the protection of rights. There can be no right to a good or service that must be created by another. Your comment shows some technical proficiency. So let me assume you are a network professional. You probably build networks or systems for money. This is how you survive. If a customer of yours stops paying you, or only wants to pay you to come on site for 4 hours a month, do they have the right to demand the same service a customer who pays you for 24x7 retainer? They can have no right to the fruit of your labor and mind except as agreed to voluntarily by you. If you change your rates to require payment for working with one set of equipment or software versus another they have no right to demand to pay the lower rate and get the better service. This analogy applies directly to what you are demanding of Comcast and every other ISP.
- McLazarus September 4, 2008 8:17AM
Reply to this
Recommend
(0)
Side: No
The portions of the network owned by Comcast and other ISPs are classic examples of bottleneck assets and, as such, are justly regulated as any other bottleneck is (think bridges, highways and, yes, local loops owned by telcos).
Your analysis is flawed as it applies to the earlier commenter: unless he is the only or one of a few such professionals, he doesn't represent a bottleneck.
- JKFriedman September 4, 2008 11:08AM
Reply to this
Recommend
(0)
Side: Yes
Many home consumers have the option of Verizon FiOS, Comcast cable, DSL from many providers. But you said even a few would indicate a bottleneck. As such does that mean that the best brain surgeon in the world must become my slave if I need brain surgery because he is a bottleneck between me and my right to life? I know this is a further stretch of my analogy, but it is the same thing violating the rights of one person for the benefit of another.
Where did these "assets" come from? The were produced, by Comcast for their purposes. Your term of them as assets tries to smuggle in the idea that I have a right to dictate terms on their property because they were they only ones to build that bridge to the internet in my neighborhood.
The discussion is further muddied by things like common carrier and all the other governmental involvement and public property and public rights of way. But there is an excellent article about the power grid that addresses most of this and shows how government regulation has hindered not helped in this matter, that can be found here: http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2008-summer/property-rights-electric-grid.asp As the analysis is detailed and completely applies to internet I recommend anyone really interested, not just looking for handouts, in net neutrality dig into this.
- McLazarus September 4, 2008 11:48AM
Reply to this
Recommend
(0)
Side: No
You make some excellent points and thanks for the link to the article. I will read it when I get a chance -- hopefully this weekend.
However, your analysis ignores history and, as such, fails since the vast majority of US government economic regulation is based on history -- the history of abuse.
A brain surgeon is a person; an ISP is a corporation. Government typically requires more of the latter than the former. I'm not trying to "smuggle" anything: corporate assets that are bottlenecks are properly the target of regulation. NOT because they are bottlenecks, per se, but because history has proven (again, and again, and again, and, if NN isn't codified, it will be proven yet again) that all corporate actors are would-be monopolists. Most simply haven't the effective opportunity to live up to their desire. Because of the massive sunk costs involved with building communications networks, however, the actors capable of marshalling such resources are provided with an effective opportunity. And, as history shows, when opportunity and desire coincide . . . well, the Bell System and Standard Oil are telling stories of how corporate desire and opportunity, unchecked by effective regulation, permit the big to beat the small, the rapacious to overwhelm the modest, the bottleneck to be used as a brickbat. Thus common carriage (which isn't muddying anything -- the provision of 'net services by ISPs is so close to common carriage that the FCC had to declare that it wasn't common carriage -- and we all know that when the government insists that some thing "is" or "isn't" that the truth is usually 180 degrees away from the government's description (see, e.g., the statutory prohibition against labeling universal service "subsidies" as "taxes" -- they're clearly taxes as they are government-mandated payments (the very essence of taxation)). I apologize for the nested parens -- I get carried away!. Title II of the Communications Act governing common carriage was a response to the formation of the Bell System by the means employed by its managers -- not a response to the Bell System per se. Same with NN. Your arguement would be stronger if Comcast hadn't lied and hemmed and hawed about its cloning of reset packets.
Brain surgeons, unlike corporations, are generally motivated by doing good. Corporations, properly, are interested in maximizing profits. They serve different societal purposes. Sure, the former can abhor any societal purpose and dedicated his/her life to the consumption of epic quantities of alcohol or heroin. But corporations are purely creatures of society -- they exist only due to statutory provision. They cannot, therefore, abandon society's benefit. They can abhor it, but they can't flee it (not successfully anyway).
- JKFriedman September 4, 2008 12:14PM
Reply to this
Recommend
(0)
Side: Yes
Well I would presume a panel of experts that are not necessarily bound to the companies that are the cause of many net neutrality problems.
Comcast may 'own' the network but I do believe if you do digging that they were either given public money directly for many of the projects for building their network or alternatively were given 'monopoly' rights over cable in a given geographic region which has the same effect as giving public money to them to build their network. There is no question about profit since theoretically they can set their prices as high or as low as they feel like and people will have to deal with it.
The problem with your suggestion to built a competing service also falls on its face. You will not be permitted to build a cable network where one already exists. Just like you probably wont be permitted to build your own phone network where one already exists to provide DSL as many DSL providers have 'Monopoly Rights' agreements with places they service as well.
I have a degree in an IT discipline so you could consider me to have some technical proficiency. The thing is if someone stops paying then they wont get any service barring extenuating circumstances (things such as having a record as a good customer or someone who's given us lots of referrals). Also the customer who pays you for 4 hours a day vs the one who pays you for 24x7 service get the same service for the hours they've paid for. So the person with 4 hours will get 4 hours of high quality service but the person with 24x7 service will get high quality service whenever they need it. Naturally I'd have enough employees on hand to deal with 24x7 clients as well as the 4 hour a month ones.
Why would I change my rates to require payment for different types of software except as a requirement for purchasing the software/licenses in the first place (which is another topic of debate all together)? Software is software is software. I'm not out to screw my customer because screwed customers do not come back (unless you're a monopoly, see above) and do not refer you to friends an
Should the Government Regulate Net Neutrality?
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
Net neutrality is a stalking horse for government controlled internet
The groups pushing for net neutrality are just using that concept as a way to gain acceptance for the idea of removing private corporations' control of the Internet's infrastructure. At heart these groups are really statists ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statist ). They think that government( a liberal government only) control of the Internet is the only acceptable method of managing what they are pushing as a utility necessary to human rights.
I subscribe to the Cato Institutes take on this - keep government's fingers out of the pie or we will have a real mess on our hands. http://www.opposingviews.com/arguments/beware-the-unintended-consequences-of-regulation
- tkjunkmail
August 31, 2008 3:46PM
Reply to this Recommend (2)
Side: No
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
Beware of any Single Power, not just the Government
I think it's wise to consider the wisdom of getting the government involved in traditionally private business dealings. The end result usually is less free, less efficient, and -- as you said -- a real mess.
Freedom and efficiency are the results of good choices and a strong market. It's not government that makes something bad, it's the lack of consumer choice and consumer influence that occurs when government gets involved that makes it bad. All the power is held by that single entity.
The single entity can also be an insurance company used by your employer, a cartel of oil companies that behave as one, a cell phone company that locks you into a long contract -- these create the same limits on freedom and efficiency as government control can.
I support Network Neutrality on broadband because I see the competitive landscape continue to contract. AT&T just bought SBC, Comcast took over Insight and wants even more, both Telcos and CableCos go lawsuit-happy whenever a 3rd-party wants to intrude onto "their" territory, and they even fight each-other for trying to reach one-another's customers. About a fourth of us have only Cable as a provider choice, about a fourth of us has DSL or FIOS, about a fourth of us fortunately have both to choose between, and about a fourth of us has no provider at all.
Most of us are stuck with a single provider -- the single power.
Network Neutrality isn't a government take-over. It's a check-and-balance against abuse by a monopolistic power. The moment it threatens to grow to become a take-over, I'll be on your side of this argument.
Given the choice to leave the protection of our Internet freedoms in the hands of a single and powerful for-profit company -- or have it double-checked by a government by, for, and of the people -- I'm okay with some reasonable Network Neutrality.provisions.
- Robb Topolski
August 31, 2008 5:35PM
Reply to this Recommend (2)
Side: Yes
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
we already suffer from FCC intervention
Why would the CATO institute ignore the premise that the FCC has already breached the public trust by handing out territorial exclusives to many of the companies?
This isn't about government regulation, that horse has already been beaten. The "exclusive" territorial regulations need to be repealed, and competition needs to be made available to the customer. Until then, can groups like CATO stop giving out misdirected recommendations.
Even many of the republicans see what is broken about the "regulations" the FCC has put in place.
We already have a government regulation created mess on our hands.
- tomcat2200
September 14, 2008 12:25AM
Reply to this Recommend (0)
Side: Yes
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
Net neutrality can't exist yet, the FCC has already blown it away
As long as the FCC gives Comcast and other bad actors reserved markets, that no one else can compete in, then there will be no market forces to force them to comply with good faith operations.
I live in Portland, and no one other than Quest who offers low, or no speed, services is allowed to compete in the market. Just 2 miles south of the city, Verizon offers rural users 50Mb down and 20 Mb up speeds,all the while Comcast trumpets their fiber optic networks while giving customers 6Mb and 8 Mb down speeds, and up speeds not much better than DSL.
Comcast burns off more resources on line trying to "manage" its customers than the customers are allowed to use themselves. Comcast is trying to turn net traffic sharing with other ISP's into a profit center in the name of "managing" their network traffic.
Quite litterally the government is already regulating out the net neutrality, by giving Comcast free reign in a false regulatory economy created by FCC regulations and restrictions for any others to compete in the market.
I find it astounding, that a market the size of the city of Portland, is allowed to be the sole domain of Comcast. All the while Comcast has a marketing team for determining the least amount of services for the maximum prices. This should have been an open market years ago.
Comcast cries network congestion, with a user density many times higher than the rural towns to the south, yet can't or won't convert the revenues into services as other companies have with less of a user base. What is ironic, is that Comcast could clear the congestion by providing the higher speeds, and less "management" by Comcast marketing. Internet data flow agreements were not designed to be turned into profit centers for the ISP's. Comcast is already charging their customers more than they need to for the inferior services they provide, even withiout having to layer on top of that, some contrived "management" of its users.
Comcast will always seek to provide the least for the most revenue. They are a bad corporate actor in American business. They will never do anything in good faith, and they will never seek to provide services based on merit.
Until the Comcast markets are opened up to real competition, by the FCC revoking their "exclusive" regulatory territories, then there cannot be any semblance of anything like net neutrality. The government needs to open the territories to competition. At least for the city of Portland they do. It is the government regulation that has already created this sad state of affairs. As long as the government regulation has kept this in place, it requires government regulation to fix it.
- tomcat2200
September 13, 2008 11:52PM
Reply to this Recommend (0)
Side: Yes
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
Net-neutrality framework on the Internet Model
AT&T opposes proposals to regulate its move to speed up certain services and slow down some other.
Business Corporations are highly skilled in drafting arguments as part of their lobbying exercise. Traditionally, large business corporations are known to devote time and resources to lobby for a policy framework most favourable to their own interests.
While it may be true that there are some micro-aspects of a company such as AT&T having to choose to prioritize services, there is a danger of such freedom leading to such situations - to throw names for a hypothetical illustration - as msn slowing down You Tube downloads or Google sending messages originating from yahoo.com to its spam folders.
There are several technical and non-technical aspects that make it impertive to strengthen a frame work for net-neutrality. Traditional opposition from Business is on the grounds that Net Neutrality regulations would pave way for Government intervention. Government intervention may not be the only way by which Net Neutrality could be achieved. The various aspects related to Net Neutrality need to be elaborately agreed upon and brought into force by evloution of standards and conventions by the Internet Community.
There are two different aspects that I wish to emphaize. One is that a Net Neutrality framework is imperative. The other aspect is that the need for such a framework ought not to be exploited by those who want to "regulate" the Internet.
An effective Net Neutrality framework has to emerge, without compromising on the present Internet Model which is a user-centric, community model.
All the arguments that I see against Net Neutrality are arguments that attempt to scare the proponents o the concept of Net Neutrality that say that Net Neutrality would mean complex legislations, which in turn would lead to higher legal costs and higher cost of access to the user !!! It is a very imaginative argument that propogates an anti-NN campaign, equating NN with an Internet of Legislation.
In the Internet Model Net Neutality can be established and managed with least interference from Governments.
- Sivasubramanian Muthusamy
October 19, 2008 9:28AM
Reply to this Recommend (0)
Side: Uncommitted
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.