It's happened again.
First it was the Supreme Court handing over the capability to flood government election campaigns with unlimited amounts of corporate cash, now, yesterday, a federal court ruled in favor of corporations, this time regarding internet access :
"A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that regulators had limited power over Web traffic under current law. The decision will allow Internet service companies to block or slow specific sites and charge video sites like YouTube to deliver their content faster to users."
"The court decision was a setback to efforts by the Federal Communications Commission to require companies to give Web users equal access to all content, even if some of that content is clogging the network."
I've written here before how, years ago, it used to be the government's job to protect both the "little guy"--you and me out here in the country--as well as the broader interests of the country, against the corporations.
It is certainly less and less so lately.
With this ruling yesterday, a couple of things have come out.
First, it effectively strips the power of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate the internet and all our access to it. If a corporation finds it in their best interest to slow internet access down, according to this ruling, they can do it.
That's bad for you and me but it's also bad, truly, for business.
In the rest of the world--Japan as an example, in particular--fast computer access is more of a given. The US is already known for having slower computer downloading and access.
This gives the companies the ability to give fast loading to those who can and will pay for it. Quick internet access to the highest bidder.
Typical, right? Computer capitalism. It's the "American Way", even if it is, at its core, unfair, imbalanced and, again, bad for the country, let alone bad for you and I--and small business.
It's clear this is what it's come to--more and more, the courts rule for the corporations and against the broader interests of the country, as I said above.
In this latest case, Comcast won while you and I and the US lost.
Let there be no doubt--the corporations are in control.
We need to take our country back from them.
Ralph Nader has been warning us for decades.
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In theory, and probably if I didn't know how networks run, I would support Net Neutrality.
However, based on my experience as a network tech, any law strong enough to accomplish anything useful towards net neutrality will hamstring the proper running of a network and effectively outlaw QoS, any law flexible enough to allow QoS can be easily bypassed by the ISP.
QoS is a mechanism that essentially acts as an arbitrator to allow applications with different needs to co-exist relatively peacefully. It works by determining priority levels of different types of traffic. A simple example that I use at home--My network is set to give priority to connections with small transfers, at the expense of large transfers. It also gives priority to my Netbook. This means that by slightly degrading Bittorrent, I get vastly better quality on Skype.
There is no magic formula, or "right" answer to setting up QoS. It is a lot of judgement calls.
that's all well and good and/but it's more technical things that need to be decided.
the particular problem that's more arbitrary and troubling is that these American corporations want to make it more difficult--slower--on our computers so they can maximize their own revenue.
That's not good for the US and/or our competitiveness in the world. It's in their best interests but not the country's.
It's already known that Japan and other countries have faster computer power. Putting fast connections in the hands of people who can afford them should be--you'll hate this--against the law. It should be illegal. It wrongly pits the "haves" against the "have nots", still more. It keeps the wealthier, wealthier and hampers the poor or poorer. It's disgusting. It's what has gotten us the most expensive and broken health care system, to boot, but that's another matter.
That's the net neutrality I'm talking about and protesting.
mr
Putting fast connections in the hands of people who can afford them should be--you'll hate this--against the law.
Wow.
There are two separate issues here--overall bandwidth availability, and how it is divided up.
Much of the US's bandwidth trouble is due to a combination of early adoption and low population density-Many of our systems were designed to be inexpensive enough to be feasible in Middle-of-nowhere Montana. Europe and Asia have two advantages--they were somewhat later to the game, so they could learn from our mistakes, and most of their countries have much higher density, bringing cost-per-user down considerably. Most of Europe skipped touch tone, and went directly to ISDN, for example.
How do you propose dividing up the bandwidth that does exist--Is everyone forced to have the same internet plan, with the same bandwidth? If all my neighbor wants is to check his email, but I want to watch streaming high-definition video--does he pay the same as I do, or can he get a cheaper service? Is the "nobody gets faster service" per person, or per household?
What about business use?
That may be but in this case, Comcast has never claimed that this is the case--that they're having to choose between who gets what bandwidth.
They just arbitrarily want to make it slower for some and not others and have never claimed otherwise and that is the problem. They are fighting for the right to pit the computer "haves" vs. the "have nots" and bill accordingly.
mr
Paying different amounts for different service is normal, for just about every utility.
Comcast's biggest cost is capacity. The more they spend on capacity in an area, the faster service their customers get during peak usage. This capacity is shared, based on average residential usage rates.
High-volume users take more than their "fair share", and slow down service for every user of that ISP. This is usually around 1 or 2% of users.
How do you propose to control the few people who use significantly more than their share?
First, I have no idea why you, specifically, defend and support crushing corporations who use their power against all else--governments, the people themselves, their customers, etc.--unless you are wealthy or own and run your own corporation. And that's what I don't get about any truly middle- or lower-class person who declares themselves a "teabagger", since they're clearly voting and protesting against their own best self-interests.
Y'all will defend and support all forms of naked, greedy Capitalism, even though it hurts you.
It makes no sense, besides being tiring.
Second, your question "How do you propose to control the few people who use significantly more than their share?" is just silly because we aren't talking about eating a finite quantity of rutabagas here. It's the internet and while there is a finite amount of broadband width, sure, it's not as though there isn't "enough" and they have to ration it and what they're proposing is that. That's not it at all.
You either don't get that Comcast is trying to squeeze every ugly nickel out of their customers come heck or high water--fairness be damned--or else you're in denial, one or the other and I don't care to find out which it is, frankly.
You seem to be a nice guy and have good command of the English language and logic (to an extent, since you ended up so Right wing and conservative--lol) but we just don't agree on corporations, Capitalism and guns, at minimum, clearly.
Have a great weekend,
mr
Most companies want to greedily squeeze every nickel from me that they can get. I want to miserly save every nickel I can. With competition and choice, it generally balances in my favor. It is very difficult to run a successful business in a free market--most of them fail. The ones that do make it either need to fill a niche, give their customers better value compared to their competition, or take advantage of something that reduces the freedom of the market. In the case of home internet, the advantage is usually legacy infrastructure originally built on a government monopoly.
It isn't that I think what Comcast wants to do is right, it is that I don't see a way to regulate it that won't create worse problems. The companies that thrive in a highly regulated environment generally aren't known for treating customers right.
I think you misunderstand how the internet works--there isn't a big lake of "internet", there are expensive connections between ISPs that are paid for or negotiated at every level. The few major backbone ISPs have peering agreements--instead of accounting for every megabyte of traffic, they just agree to transfer between each other. In a sense, those backbones are "the internet". Smaller ISPs pay for their connections to a backbone or mid-tier (or often more than one) based on either traffic or capacity plus the hardware to get it from the backbone access point, and pass this cost on to their customers. The more their customers use, the more the ISP has to buy, else service slows for all their customers.
What you are suggesting would be like charging everyone an equal monthly fee for fuel instead of based on usage--because it isn't fair, everyone needs to drive. And in reality, most home broadband is entertainment rather than a necessity or even an advantage.
Although I may have some conservative beliefs, I consider myself moderate libertarian-it is just that the places where you trip my "argue" button are places where conservatives and libertarians agree. I'm pro-choice in most areas--abortion, who you sleep with or marry, what drugs you take, which church you go to if you go at all, what you buy and who you buy it from. Conservatives are trying to claim libertarian values, but in reality we disagree as much as we agree.
No, honestly, you're mistaken. I do, in fact, understand how the internet works as I've read quite a bit about it in the last several months, due to this very issue.
Comcast is, I believe, the only company pushing for this money grab, which proves my point. While there is a limited amount of internet broadband width and heaven knows, like in all businesses, there are expenses--in this case, big ones, admittedly--Comcast does very well in profits and they're just trying to go for more, as corporations do.
You're right about Conservatives and the Republicans trying to claim those Libertarian values but shouldn't that prove that they're worthwhile and vindicate you all, as a group? Instead of approaching it as "hey, you can't take that--that's our idea", why can't we all, as Americans, just say this is what we need to do (e.g., cut spending, end earmarks, etc.) and call it the best for the entire country?
We don't seem capable of that.
mr
I would love for both sides to take more of our ideas--I would love a major party candidate to vote for without holding my nose. What I don't like is for someone to take a tiny portion of our ideas, water them down and then claim to be libertarian just like us.
well, get used to it because it seems as though everyone and his dog, almost, wants to call themselves Libertarian lately.
mr
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