Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T Want Congress To Make a Net Neutrality Law Because They Will Write It (theverge.com) 170
From a report on The Verge: Companies and organizations that rely on an open internet rallied on Wednesday for a "day of action" on net neutrality, and America's biggest internet service providers have responded with arrogance and contempt for their customers. Comcast's David Cohen called arguments in favor of FCC regulation "scare tactics" and "hysteria." Beyond the dismissive rhetoric, ISPs are coincidentally united today in calling for Congress to act -- and that's because they've paid handsomely to control what Congress does. There's one thing Republicans and Democrats can agree on, and that's taking money from ISPs. The telecommunications industry was the most powerful lobbying force of the 20th century, and that power endures. It's no secret that lobbyists in Washington write many of the laws, and the telecom industry spends a lot of money to make sure lawmakers use them. We've already seen net neutrality legislation written by the ISPs, and it's filled with loopholes. It's not just in Congress -- companies like AT&T have deep influence over local and state broadband laws, and write those policies, too. Some pro-net neutrality advocates are also arguing today that Congress should act, and there are some good reasons for that. Laws can be stickier than the judgements of regulatory agencies, and if you want to make net neutrality the law of the land that's a job for Congress. But there's a reason the ISPs are all saying the same thing, and it's because they're very confident they will defeat the interests of consumers and constituents. They've already done it this year under the Republican-controlled government. Further reading: 10M+ web users saw yesterday's net neutrality protest -- but rules are still getting scrapped.
Big surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine that, it's almost as if government regulation keeps competition out of the market by letting lobbyists influence the letter of the law.
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I hear this idea allot. How would this open private competition? Wouldn't every ISP have the exact network capacity, same up time, same cost, etc?
I am probably missing something here, but this seems to me like the city running the creation and maintenance of the roads and streets and saying that we just created a huge business competition opportunity for driveway companies.
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Is that even close those? USPS vs FedEx vs UPS have ways of increasing / decreasing costs/service. They can charge more and hire more people to offer quicker turnarounds or hire less and charge less but offer slower turnarounds. How would companies be able to make changes to service plans if they are all using the same lines and have the same capacity?
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Cue divestiture and hundreds of long distance companies all competing for your dollar. First, this created some huge issues of fraud, and there was at least one company that named itself "None of the above" so that when they called and asked which long distance service you
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"who's going to pay for it?"
Do you mean like who pays for roads or water works?
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"Yeah where is this extra money going to come from?"
Investments, private and public.
"Do you honestly think your government can maintain this infrastructure indefinitely and at what costs?"
Yeah, and productively, like many countries do for education, transport, and utilities.
"Today's infrastructure has been built out over the last 50-100 years."
Not sure why your using an inaccurate generalization, or how your relating it to the next sentence:
"Its hard to compete with 50-100 yrs of existing services already i
Re: Big surprise (Score:2)
Re:Big surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
The last time there was an actual free market on Internet Service was when you could connect to it with a 56k modem over your telephone line.
Want to have a free market again? Pass a federal law that overturns all state laws banning municipal broadband projects and creates an unfunded mandate requiring each state to run government-owned fiber to every home and business, freely leasing fiber access to any ISP that wants it. Provide an optional exemption for areas that already have commercial fiber if the existing commercial fiber providers agree to lease access to anyone who asks for no more than 10% above the actual average maintenance cost of the fiber.
Expecting a free market when the barrier to entry is so high (20–30 years to recoup your investment in fiber even if there are only two companies in a market) is naïve. There can only be one wire provider, realistically, unless you're in a major city with high population density. If that provider is not the government, there will almost never be competition.
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It would be a free market for ISPs, just not a free market on wire providers (which, as I said, is impossible). In an ideal world, the government would demand that companies that own fiber sell the existing fiber to local governments at cost (eminent domain), but I have no confidence that such a policy would ever pass. The ability to keep the fiber and charge 10% over maintenance cost to slowly recover their expenses is at best a poor compromise, but it's what I think might actually be possible. But at
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Especially non-point infrastructure. It's less important for infrastructure that can be in one spot (like an airport or cell tower) than for infrastructure that is sprawling across the country (like roads, last-mile fiber, possibly backbone fiber).
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I don't disagree with that, but IMO, a regulated monopoly or duopoly, no matter how regulated, can never be a free market in any meaningful sense of the word, and we basically have a natural monopoly or duopoly for wire providers in pretty much all of the United States except for certain business-hea
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What's your point? You aren't disagreeing with anything I said.
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That's not really true, because the entity or entities that run that monopoly or duopoly own the wires, and any attempt to confiscate them with eminent domain would face a significant uphill battle, as I said in one of the other posts in this thread.
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Well, you can still do that with dial-up ISPs today even though not many want to use dial-up. ;)
Huh? (Score:2)
Re:Big surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
Which is what Australia is doing with the National Broadband Network.
The troubles is, Americans might get infected by communism if the government laid the fibre.
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Pass a federal law that ... creates an unfunded mandate requiring each state to run government-owned fiber to every home and business, freely leasing fiber access to any ISP that wants it.
Federalism means that the federal government may not order the States to do things. The only power they have over the States is to withhold related funding like highway funding unless speed limits are passed.
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Letting the federal government decide exactly what is and isn't QoS (and hence legal prioritization). What can go wrong?
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Tell it to congress, I'm sure they will listen to the details of your private definition of 'net neutrality' and give it all due weight.
Re: Big surprise (Score:2)
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What is your definition??
The only definition that matters is the one written into law.
Thats clearly not important to some people... the idea itself is so good that it just doesnt matter what the law actually is.
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WTF are you talking about?
QoS is required. Net neutrality on it's face bans it. So either net neutrality breaks the internet or it legally defines QoS.
You're the one that invented a definition that ignores it, likely because you don't know what it is.
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Quality of service is easy, simply maintain sufficient capacity to ensure you can always deliver it. If you mean strangleband though, that is something different. Claim to sell something you can only provide if nobody uses it, now that's fraud and the ISPs and the Telecom incumbents have been getting away with it for years.
If those piece of shit fuckers ran power companies than brownouts would become a regular, daily occurrence basically selling capacity they do no have and can never provide.
So it is lies
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Remember when Congress let pharmaceutical companies write the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act in 2003 through the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America? The one that still bans Medicare from negotiating drugs prices?
Let's not do that with the Internet.
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Citizens United that unites.... corporations.
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Citizens United that unites.... people.
FTFY. CU allows PEOPLE to form CORPORATIONS for the purpose of paying for speech, which the first amendment says congress shall not create laws to infringe upon. Remember, some of those "corporations" are unions, which we love because they usually speak on a certain side of the issues. If CU had not reiterated (not created) the concept that corporations could spend money on speech then unions, among others, would have had to stop, too.
The difference between CU and ACA as examples is that CU supported an e
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Health Insurance lobbyists wrote Obamacare.
Then Pelosi said, "You have to pass it to see what's in it."
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influence, or write - full stop?
Re:Big surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
"Government regulation bad" seems like the worst possible interpretation to take from this. A still bad but better lesson would be "No matter what happens, they win."
Maybe the best lesson is once you let regulatory capture happen and monopolies form, it's nearly impossible to undo it, so enact aggressive government regulations before that point.
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Maybe the best lesson is once you let regulatory capture happen and monopolies form, it's nearly impossible to undo it, so enact aggressive government regulations before that point.
There is a way to undo it. The people who created this country even enshrined the way to do it within its founding documents: Voting, or, in the worst case, overthrowing the current implementation of government itself. Please note that even if you do overthrow the government, the new government had better still be based on the US Constitution though or I will likely be against you.
I am still waiting on a founding document that is superior to the US Constitution... and it has been 200+ years. What is the dea
Re:Big surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine that, someone claiming this is government regulation on slashdot.
This isn't government regulation, it's crony capitalism. This is the largest firms getting together with congress to write a law that will enevitably favor them to distract from the real issue. Whereas regulation would be the independent regulators who are not subject to the whims of politics creating a regulatory policy that gives everyone a level playing field then enforces those rules without regard to the size or political contributions of the violator.
What will come out of congress will be exactly the type of regulation the big companies like Comcast and ATT prefer, that's the kind that lets them do whatever they want, with no enforcement and prevents the FTC from declaring anything a monopoly. Mark my words, the big ISPs will write the bill and it will do the exact opposite of what the net-neutrality movement is about.
I think the point he's trying to make (Score:2)
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In civilized world what you call lobbying is called bribery and is illegal.
If you know your Rail Road history (Score:2)
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Congress is supposedly "working on" a new healthcare package. But really the work has already done by K Street insurance lobby. They wrote the bill, and handed it off to their lapdogs in congress to pass. The healthcare bill is one mamoth crony capitalist golden subsidy to the insurance companies.
Its not a big conspiracy. Its a lot of little competing ones. The politicians all agree that regulation is the way forward because regulation equals money, but they dont agree on which specific companies get the most benefit because each politician is getting money from difference sources, at different times. Whats not on the table is the good of the people.
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You DID!
But we had to 'pass the bill to see what was in it'.
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I'm going to save that one. I've not seen such clear proof of Snoops being partisans elsewhere.
Re:Same as healthcare (Score:5, Insightful)
Especially disturbing the right wing is pretending there's an equivalence with now. The house bill was intentionally passed with no debate before the CBO projection. The senate healthcare bill isn't even being shown to the entire republican party, let alone democrats or the public, and the goal is to pass whatever by next week.
"Yeah, this boat we are on is about to explode, but LOL, remember how they said the titanic couldn't sink!!!"
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Bullshit. The specifics were: 'you lose, insurance companies win'. Which is a dead on assessment of Obamacare.
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Doesn't matter! The other guys did something we don't like, so now we get to do whatever the hell we want. By compounding enough wrongs we'll surely make things right sooner or later.
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3 States just lost ALL their insurance carriers. Also, since Obamacare 1 in 5 people can no longer afford to visit the doctor. Give that a thought - the US had ~10% of people that couldn't afford medical care before ObamaCare, now we have over 20% that can no longer afford to go to the doctor.
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What the hell are you on about? Yes, there are people in the senate refusing to let people see the health care bill, and in response Republican senators have vowed not to vote for it if they're not allowed to see it. It's not going to pass because the a lot of Republicans don't like that they're not allowed to see it, kind of like how the last version didn't pass because Republicans didn't like what was in it. Take this as apposed to the Dems who "had to pass it no matter what" and gave us a bill so poor
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Wealthcare makes 20 million more people uninsured, and causes a death spiral for the rest of us... no comment on the quality of the bills
Democrats spent a year hammering out the points, accepting hundreds of suggestions from republicans, in an effort to reduce the unacceptably high number of uninsured, and bring down astronomical healthcare costs and that's "Had to pass no matter what".
Republicans ar
Don't trust the government (Score:2)
How may of you would abandon the Internet? (Score:2)
How many of you would be willing to abandon the Internet entirely, if it came down to that being the only form of protest against this bullshit that was left to you?
For my part, it would suck but I'd be willing if that's what it took to get the message across.
Of course I'm holding out hope in two areas: One, that there will always be companies that see profit in doing what's right, attracting customers who won't tolerate being jerked around like the Comcasts and AT&T's of the worl
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How can you see this and think...'We need more government'?
This is a technical problem with a technical solution. Make 100% of traffic encrypted and good luck to the ISPs playing 'whack a mole'.
Hopefully the Ds have a competent candidate next round. But it sure looks they they will pivot left instead.
Re:How may of you would abandon the Internet? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you believe that the Internet is something totally optional, just a luxury, then your assertion that we don't need 'more government' in this case might be correct.
But even I think that the Internet is now too thoroughly integrated into everything to call it a 'luxury' anymore, not much more so than electricity, water service, and sewer service.
If the Internet is NOT a luxury, then ISPs should not be allowed to fuck us over as if it WERE a luxury. Otherwise it starts approaching the jackassery of Mylan and their gouging people for Epi Pens.
I'm serious when I say that if it came right down to it, I'd dump the Internet, and I'm fully cognizant of how much it would suck to do so. But if it came down to that, it would suck less to dump the Internet than it would to be fucked over by ISPs. If you can't get the government to step in and regulate bad behavior by private companies, then that may be the only avenue left to you to protest being fucked over.
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How do you tell encrypted data from un-encrypted? It's just 1s and 0s.
The ISPs can waste time playing 'whack a mole'. If I'm working, at all, to hide the encrypted traffic, they will lose.
Regulation will MAKE IT WORSE. Start by looking up the definition of 'regulatory capture'...
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You think you're smarter than everyone else; that's clear enough. I'm saying you're probably not as smart as you think you are.
Dear Customer,
We've been detecting suspicious traffic on your IP address. We suspect that your computer might have been hacked. Please have a computer professional scan your computer for malware immediately. If you ignore this notice and we continue to see suspicious traffic on your IP address, we'll have no recourse other than to cancel your service.
Have a Nice Day,
Customer Service
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How do you tell encrypted data from un-encrypted? It's just 1s and 0s.
The encrypted data is the stuff that follows perfect statistical randomness. Every other kind of data has an identifiable coherence. Data compression produces a just-slightly-not-perfect statistical randomness that can be detected by a model with an order higher than the order of the model used to compress the data.
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So you're saying: they can't practically tell encrypted from compressed?
Higher order model? What does that even mean in that context?
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They haven't even started trying to disguise it yet... There is encryption aside from SSH.
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Don't let the router hit you on the ass.
>> if it came down to that being the only form of protest
Ah...but it's not. Even if you have no skills (sad but possible on Slashdot), you can get off your butt and 1) educate the people you know, 2) send letters (even copypasta) to your elected officials (who will at least count how many letters they got on X) and 3) send some money to organizations that fi
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No, you said "if it came down to that being the only form of protest", where "protest" literally is about communications shutdown, not the enactment of a law/regulation.
Please see actions #1-3 above if you're passionate about this.
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Impromptu poll:
How many of you would be willing to move to Canada where BS like "fastlane" is outlawed, if it came down to that being the only form of protest against this bullshit that was left to you?
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Impromptu poll:
How many of you would be willing to move to Canada where BS like "fastlane" is outlawed, if it came down to that being the only form of protest against this bullshit that was left to you?
As long as most of the influential tech companies are in the US and the data has to pass through the US to get to you it won't help.
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Canada? The nation where you can go certainly be bankrupt and possible go to jail for not calling someone that identifies as an attack helicopter 'huey' (it's chosen pronoun)?
How about a nation that doesn't have a SJW shadow court system with no presumption of innocence?
Even my web host provider got involved... (Score:1)
I got a pop-up message when I visited my web host provider, DreamHost [dreamhost.com], yesterday.
Please upgrade your plan to proceed.
Just kidding. You can still get to this site *for now*. But if the FCC ends net neutrality, your cable company could charge you extra fees just to use the websites and apps you want. We can stop them and keep the Internet open, fast, and awesome if we all contact the U.S. Congress and the FCC, but we only have a few days left. Learn more. [slashdot.org]
Telecommunications = top? (Score:2)
Hmmm...two special interests I'd stick ahead of that (certainly in terms of money-in-politics) would be the defense industry (which got theirs) and government employee unions (ditto).
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The 'American Bar Association', they don't even have to lobby, shysters everywhere in DC. All the _worst_ politicians are lawyers.
Well, yeah (Score:3)
Comcast et al are scum, but the fact is that Congress is the proper place to implement net neutrality with the FCC's input. Then it can't be removed at the whims of whoever's running the FCC.
The internet companies are going to lobby the hell out of Congress, so we need to make sure that the other side is heard as well. I don't see that as a problem with Google and company lobbying heavily.
Fix the problem don't treat they symptom (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a nice idea (Score:2)
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Mandatory Voting. Everybody votes. You can send in a blank ballot if you want,
You think this will make things better? It will increase the impact that advertising has on the results, which is a BAD thing. People won't send in blank ballots. They're likely to think "I saw an ad for X and he seems ok, I'll vote for him."
And since everyone votes there's no such thing as voter suppression.
With the large number of blank ballots and uncaring people holding them, you're very likely to get the increased effects of ads like I propose, or the other result will be voting of those ballots by spouses or others. "Hey, honey, you're sending in a blank one, let me
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Why don't we fix the real problem here: massive corporations.
Because you have not proven that big corporations are a priori (really Firefox? You do not know what a priori is and flag it as incorrect? I get so tired of this crap.) bad.
This is a country based on the idea of freedom, not dictatorial mandates. It would behoove you to change your perspective... or go live in another country that supports ideals such as prior intervention.
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Blah blah blah torches, blah blah blah pitchforks, blah blah blah OH SHIT, RUN!
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I salute you.
It should be done by Congress and not the FCC (Score:2)
Congress should be running the show. Not a couple of GOP-appointed, former corporate shills with conflicts of interest on the FCC.
The problem, however, is can Congress get it right - with all the money that flows around in the Capitol building and K Street?
My faith in Congress is a shade above zero. Outright bribery (aka "political donations") have made it just about impossible for the Legislative branch (Congress) to do anything substantial for the common man.
Because of that, the Executive (which manages g
More of the same... (Score:2)
... and it never stops.
Petrochemical companies write the EPA regulations.
Big pharma and insurance companies wrote Obamacare.
Senators and congressmen write the regulations on their income, retirement, and health care.
And now, internet service providers write the regulations on net neutrality.
Great.
All of this is brought to you not by the parties, but by the partisan. You, those people who eat, sleep and drink the words of your "political party" and violently regurgitate them at everyone you meet, are the on
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God make me industrious -- but not yet! (Score:2)
The mind boggles at how a person already too lazy to yell at their congress critter over obvious corruption and industry capture expects to thrive in a fully deregulated marketplace.
No shit Sherlock (Score:2)
The current net neutrality law was written by them and allows them to do things like zero-rate and prefer their own content while discriminating against Netflix and YouTube.
Obama legalized the practices the Net Neutrality crowd is railing against. Read the current law, it has nothing to do with the bits on your Internet connection and should be abolished to the pre-Obama rules where common carriers were violating the law when they were rate-limiting Netflix and YouTube.
I'm all for Net Neutrality but the onl
Wrote my representative yesterday... (Score:2)
I'm not sure if my response will get through but I asked "other than the dial-up era in the late 90s, when have we ever had competition?
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other than the dial-up era in the late 90s, when have we ever had competition?
You mean for an ISP? Today. There are at least two wired ISPs readily available in my city and half a dozen wireless. If I wanted to get other wired ISPs, I could. At least one dialup if I wanted that. Not a huge city, by the way, and not unlike many others.
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You want to use Sling TV, but guess what, Comcast doesn't want you to access Sling so will have poor performance or no access at all.
I have found no block on my access via Comcast to Sling.
And what happens if Century Link get bought out by the folks who own Sling and you want Hulu or NetFlix
You can hypothesize all day all kinds of bad things an ISP can do.
, if we did have all these major corporations abusing their power, we wouldn't need regulation.
No, apparently all it takes is the ability to hypothesize that some evil corporation will do something evil for there to be a demand for government regulation. You're hypothesizing a buyout of a major telco and a block on access to other stuff as an argument for regulation, for example.
The golden Rule (Score:2)
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Net neutrality is about letting those that payed the R&D budget to develop the backbone keep equal access to the backbone. The more lucrative model is to allow the ISP, which is the local service provider, to give preferential treatment in access to sites that they own or have paid agreements with.
Without net neutrality, it is the corporate ISP that will decide what you can access and how fast you can access it. I had to deal with an ISP that did exactly that in Texas. If it detected torrent file sha