Net neutrality faces serious setbacks

[libertygrl]

Just great.....

First, a primer for the uninitiated on "net neutrality."
Net (as in network) neutrality is the idea that all traffic on the Internet should be treated equally and — more to the point — should come at the same price. Right now, for instance, you don't have to pay more to watch a YouTube video than you do to check your email, even though the YouTube video eats up more bandwidth and, in theory, costs your ISP more for you to watch.

Websites and most consumers love the idea of net neutrality.

ISPs, on the other hand, are not fans. In fact, the net neutrality movement arose as a response to major ISPs' plans to attempt to charge websites and service providers more for "better" service on their networks. Fail to pay up and that YouTube video might take twice as long to download ... or it may not download at all.

ISPs call this the cost of doing business and a necessary reality in an era where bandwidth isn't growing but the amount of data being pushed through the available pipes is.

Net neutrality proponents call this extortion.
No matter who is right, things were looking up for net neutrality fans after the FCC and the Obama administration came out with specific and strongly worded recommendations and plans that they would push for net neutrality as the Obama broadband program (100Mbps to everyone!) moved forward.

But the showdown had already begun prior to the Obama era, way back in 2007, when Comcast, the country's largest cable company, began throttling BitTorrent downloads, effectively putting a speed limit on how fast they could go. The FCC put the kibosh on the practice, and ISPs, led by the mammoth Comcast, sued. Then the FCC announced even more sweeping rules that it planned to enact in the future.

This week, a major legal ruling was handed down in the Comcast case, and the tide has now turned in favor of the ISPs. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals said that the FCC had overstepped its authority in mandating net neutrality and that ISPs should be free to manage traffic however they see fit, noting that under current law, the FCC does not have "untrammeled freedom" to regulate broadband services. (In other words, Congress would have to specifically grant such powers.) The ruling was unanimous among the three judges on the panel.

Now net neutrality fans find themselves facing a serious uphill climb. Not only does the ruling open up the way — for now — for ISPs to ask websites and service providers for money; it might also allow them to restrict certain services from running on their networks entirely. Comcast, for example, may not want you to watch Hulu on its service, since then you'd have less of a reason to pay $60 a month for cable TV. It may also be able to ban VOIP services like Skype, so you'll pony up another $20 for wired telephone service. The dominoes are already lining up.

What happens now? The FCC has more tricks up its sleeve. As the MSNBC story above notes, broadband service could be reclassified to fall under the other heavily regulated telecommunications services that the FCC oversees, but that would likely result in additional legal wrangling and longer delays for the broadband plan to go into effect, a so-called nuclear option that would turn the world of broadband into a bit of a bureaucratic nightmare.

If it doesn't take this route, the FCC will instead have to ask Congress for the power to implement net neutrality rules as it sees fit, but that's a political game in a time when Washington seems awfully low on political capital. Don't rule out an appeal to the Supreme Court, either.

Stay tuned — for as long as your Internet service holds out, anyway.

Don't you just love this ObamaZombie's response to this article:

"Get ready for all the comments from misinformed people saying that this is about obama trying to take away your freedom of speech.."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ytech_wguy/20100407/tc_ytech_wguy/ytech_wguy_tc1510

[Matt Collins]

Where in the Constitution is the federal government allowed to regulate communications?

[TCE]

You won't find much love for net neutrality here. If the internet were free from governmental control to begin with, net neutrality wouldn't even be needed since we could just switch over to another provider.

[.Tom]

Net neutrality is a euphemism for state controlled internet. How about getting rid of the state sanctioned ISP monopolies and allowing more competition?

[Tenbatsu]

Net neutrality, in my opinion, means that the Internet should be free from regulation from the Government and the corporations that serve as its gatekeepers. It should be an unspoken law. This will not be the case as both parties which to tear open the last weapon we have against the establishment.

What I see playing out the next 10 years is this: The gatekeeper corporations will rape the Internet for everything it is worth; cutting bandwidth for the sites that they do not profit from while drastically increasing the bandwidth to sites that they can profit from. In the end everyone will be screaming for government regulation and when it comes it will fall like a hammer and the Internet as we know it will no longer exist.

I reserve the right to be completely wrong though.

[BenIsForRon]

I understand we need to keep government out of it, but how do we stop corporations from doing this?

http://www.thecontrarianmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/NNgraphic.jpg

[aravoth]

I understand we need to keep government out of it, but how do we stop corporations from doing this?



You remove the ability of the government to create corporations.

Everyone here needs to wrap that concept around their heads.

Corporations are literally, state sanctioned entities, and they cannot exist without government assistance.

[.Tom]

^ Couldn't agree more.

Also tell local governments to stop giving ISPs goddamn monopolies.

[tnvoter]

I understand we need to keep government out of it, but how do we stop corporations from doing this?

http://www.thecontrarianmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/NNgraphic.jpg

simple... buy your access from companies that do not do that, and tell everyone else to do the same.

[BenIsForRon]

Don't cable companies usually have a state-sanctioned monopoly on the lines? How do we break that, allow multiple companies to compete over the same line?

[brandon]

I understand we need to keep government out of it, but how do we stop corporations from doing this?

http://www.thecontrarianmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/NNgraphic.jpg

I don't understand what's wrong with a company doing this. Shouldn't a company be able to charge whatever they want for the services and products they sell? It's ultimately the consumers choice of what they pay for and what they don't.

There is a demand for unrestricted access to the internet, and therefore there will be someone supplying it. If anything, the above plan would end up saving most people money. Don't need bit torrent and streaming high def movies? Then you will pay less than the current going rate for broadband. Want to download 300GB a month? Then you need to pay more. Isn't this only fair?

Imagine if we tried to apply the same logic to cable television. Is it better to have several packages to chose from at varying prices, or do you think there should be only one package that gives you every single government approved television channel? Just want a few basic channels for $19.99 a month? Too bad, you have to buy 3000 channels at $250/month or nothing. It just doesn't make sense.

Furthermore, that image is nothing more than sensationalist propaganda made by someone trying to scare people into a taking a certain position. Tiered and metered internet service was already tried, and *market forces* rejected it and demanded better, so that is what we got.

Maybe you are too young to remember, but I was around for these days...

http://www.brainblips.com/aol/3.0/aol_s397m1_disk.jpg

[noxagol]

ISP's have local government enforced monopolies for the most part. In any given area, there is only ONE cable provider. If you want cable internet, you HAVE to go through them. THIS is the problem. It is called a 'natural monopoly'.

For instance, where my brother lives, if they want a land line phone they can ONLY have Verizon, by mandate of the city government, even though they could get cable phone through their cable provider if they were allowed.

[Matt Collins]

tell local governments to stop giving ISPs goddamn monopolies.Pretty much, yes. Real monopolies in a free market are short lived and largely impotent. The only real monopolies that exist today are there because of the government (telcos, cable companies, utilities, etc).

[TCE]

Pretty much, yes. Real monopolies in a free market are short lived and largely impotent. The only real monopolies that exist today are there because of the government (telcos, cable companies, utilities, etc).

And if a company has a monopoly, it is because they are giving a great product at a great price. However, the minute they stop doing that or another company comes up with a new innovation, they lose market share. In today's economy, the big companies don't need to compete because they are guaranteed to exist by the government.

[micahnelson]

Lets take a step back and look at this rationally.

All things being equal...
Consumers have varied goals.
Governments goal is to maximize individual liberty.
A businesses goal is to create wealth.

The internet was created with taxpayer dollars, purportedly to increase liberty by protecting American lives in the event of the loss of an entire city. Most of the advances in internet technology have come from various private, commercial, nonprofit, philanthropic, and government initiatives.

The internet is not owned by anyone, it is at its core- cooperation. The only thing provided by an Internet service provider is access to the internet, and whatever internet services they offer. Many analogies and metaphors can be used, but to stay on the point- an ISP is your only way to access many businesses, news sources, and other important services.

The internet is desirable because of the efforts of these websites. The ISP as the gatekeeper to the internet has massive sway over actions online. Do they have a right to charge you more to get the whole internet? I would say they do not. They did not create the whole internet, and the ISP would be depriving Ebay, Hulu, Youtube, etc of the liberty they now enjoy to be seen freely in a non tiered internet.

What does the ISP do about the "problem" of not enough bandwidth? Well, they could certainly charge fees for higher bandwidth use. As a provider of data, this is within the legitimate scope of what they provide. They should be allowed to determine how much of their service they use. Determining what data a customer accesses, however, is none of their business. 500MB from the library of congress and 500mb from RonPaulForums should be treated equally since it is coming from the internet, not from the ISP. The ISP does not have the right to profit from the works of others, at the expense of others.

The problem is, to allow the FCC to make a ruling implies that they have authority over the internet- which is not true. Any ruling would need to come with a clearly worded pronouncement and law stating that no government agency will ever be allowed to filter or censor the internet.

We need to make some laws about the internet, or ISPs will realize they have us by the RJ45s. If you think people will just seek other ways of connecting, think about the cell phone market. Should it really cost 10 cents to send a text message? Why do no providers offer a low cost option? Why are all data and phone plans so similar. Its collusion, obviously.

Abandoning network neutrality would ultimately lead to the corporatization of the last outpost of liberty in the world. Yes, We must protect free enterprise- but in this case it must be protected from the ISPs.

[Danke]

Should it really cost 10 cents to send a text message? Why do no providers offer a low cost option? Why are all data and phone plans so similar. Its collusion, obviously.


I don't know.

I have 4 phones on a plan. It cost ~$130. Or ~$33 per phone.

I get unlimited calls to any other cell phone (doesn't matter the provider). Unlimited texting. Unlimited data (internet). GPS navigation, TV, Music, etc.

And 1500 minutes shared to landlines.

Collusion? Maybe...

But a heck of a deal in my eyes.

[silverhandorder]

We need to make some laws about the internet, or ISPs will realize they have us by the RJ45s. If you think people will just seek other ways of connecting, think about the cell phone market. Should it really cost 10 cents to send a text message? Why do no providers offer a low cost option? Why are all data and phone plans so similar. Its collusion, obviously.

It is two cents on my plan.

[micahnelson]

I don't know.

I have 4 phones on a plan. It cost ~$130. Or ~$33 per phone.

I get unlimited calls to any other cell phone (doesn't matter the provider). Unlimited texting. Unlimited data (internet). GPS navigation, TV, Music, etc.

And 1500 minutes shared to landlines.

Collusion? Maybe...

But a heck of a deal in my eyes.

China has only cell phones, no landlines. Most people have them. Do you think they pay anywhere near 33USD a month per phone?

Texting costs zip to the wireless companies. If they would drop the SMS system and go to internet based texting it would cost the same as email does right now. That is, Email before any potential rate hikes by ISPs post net-neutrality.

The GPS data is provided by the government. Should the GPS Chip manufacturer get to charge you more if you want to drive in rural areas?

Do you enjoy the TV and Music and your phone? Well you'll love Media+ from YourCellPhoneISP! With media plus you'll have access to all the sites you currently love for one low price of 5 dollars a month!

[micahnelson]

It is two cents on my plan.

Still too much. They collectively hold on to the SMS system to maintain the ability to charge you for text messages. Why do you think Apple doesnt have iChat on the iphone? Its hobbled because the cell phone providers don't want you to be able to easily send your message through a system besides their cash cow.

[literatim]

Still too much. They collectively hold on to the SMS system to maintain the ability to charge you for text messages. Why do you think Apple doesnt have iChat on the iphone? Its hobbled because the cell phone providers don't want you to be able to easily send your message through a system besides their cash cow.

Too much? By whose reckoning?

[JeNNiF00F00]

And the statists slowly begin to show themselves....

[Chester Copperpot]

This is a win.. Govt has no right to interfere in the internet.. OUT...!!!

OUST THE MOUNTEBANKS!!

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

I understand we need to keep government out of it, but how do we stop corporations from doing this?

http://www.thecontrarianmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/NNgraphic.jpg

I'll tell you as soon as I get my law degree and make my millions in the first suit. :D

[low preference guy]

Government enforced net neutrality is a violation of property rights. If you can run a better service with net neutrality, start your own company. If the consumers want that, you'll become rich and your competitors will go bankrupt. Leave the government out of it.

Ron Paul on net neutrality:

YouTube - reddit.com Interviews Ron Paul (Part 1 of 5) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKAaps6mFYk)

[Danke]

China has only cell phones, no landlines. Most people have them. Do you think they pay anywhere near 33USD a month per phone?

Texting costs zip to the wireless companies. If they would drop the SMS system and go to internet based texting it would cost the same as email does right now. That is, Email before any potential rate hikes by ISPs post net-neutrality.

The GPS data is provided by the government. Should the GPS Chip manufacturer get to charge you more if you want to drive in rural areas?

Do you enjoy the TV and Music and your phone? Well you'll love Media+ from YourCellPhoneISP! With media plus you'll have access to all the sites you currently love for one low price of 5 dollars a month!

I (we) earn way more than your average Chinese worker. Why are you bringing up prices in China?

Anyway. Unlimited texting, via SMS or by me using any number of programs on my phone to access the internet (Skype, etc.)

Unlimited.

I call mostly others with cell phones. So I don't come close to using my 1500 minutes.

and after 7pm weekdays and all weekends, unlimited to landlines.

[LibertyMage]

This is a win.. Govt has no right to interfere in the internet.. OUT...!!!

OUST THE MOUNTEBANKS!!

Someone has been reading their Mencken.

[micahnelson]

Too much? By whose reckoning?

The market. How much did you pay to post here today?

Nothing but your network access through the ISP. Your ISP delivers data, thats it.

What makes a text message any different?

Nothing but the SMS system, designed to penny and nickle you into huge bills or forcing you into an "unlimited" plan on phones that can and do send messages via the internet in other countries for much less.

[Mini-Me]

Don't cable companies usually have a state-sanctioned monopoly on the lines? How do we break that, allow multiple companies to compete over the same line?

Ignoring this elephant in the room is exactly where the net neutrality movement went wrong, IMO...
Before becoming more libertarian, I was a huge net neutrality supporter (huge as in super-opinionated, not huge as in politically active; I've always been lazy ;)). Today, I still recognize how crucial unrestricted, uncensored Internet access is, and I still recognize how the telecom companies have us by the throats without any counterbalance to their power. The problem is, the net neutrality movement is completely ignoring the more fundamental issue of government-granted cable/phone monopolies running amok. Instead of recognizing that the counterbalance should rest in the hands of consumers (by legalizing competition), they focus exclusively on granting government the further power to regulate and micromanage these companies...which is obviously a double-edged sword.

I'm not sure if the net neutrality movement went in this direction because of ignorance, short-sighted thinking, and a lack of creativity ("Competition in this industry is impossible and intractable! We'd have wires everywhere!"), or if it was deliberately led in this direction by people with a vested interest in government "oversight" of the Internet. As far as I can see though, the only solution is trying to steer the net neutrality movement on track, so we can attack the problem at its source instead of throwing in an ugly hack by letting the federal government intervene even more to "fix" [suspiciously pervasive] local government intervention. As it stands, supporting [unconstitutional, etc.] net neutrality laws will further obscure the root problem and make it even harder to address in the future...in addition to opening up a whole new can of worms.

[micahnelson]

Government enforced net neutrality is a violation of property rights. If you can run a better service with net neutrality, start your own company. If the consumers want that, you'll become rich and your competitors will go bankrupt. Leave the government out of it.

Ron Paul on net neutrality:

YouTube - reddit.com Interviews Ron Paul (Part 1 of 5) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKAaps6mFYk)


I guess we have to bust out the metaphors...

If you are given a charter to operate the mass transit in a town, and you realize that people really enjoy one pizza place over another, do you have a right to charge people more to open the door at that place than at other places? The mass transit charter company is negatively effecting the good pizza place and messing with the consumers ability to choose the best product. The only factor that should effect cost is distance.

For the analogy to hold, assume that only 2 or three companies have charters or can get charters in a certain area, and there are no other ways to access places than mass transit.

In this case, the only thing that should effect cost is the amount of data transferred. The source of the content is irrelevant to the ISP.

Why are you so eager to rush to facism over market intervention?

[Danke]

The market. How much did you pay to post here today?

Nothing but your network access through the ISP. Your ISP delivers data, thats it.

What makes a text message any different?

Nothing but the SMS system, designed to penny and nickle you into huge bills or forcing you into an "unlimited" plan on phones that can and do send messages via the internet in other countries for much less.

Do you have a link to this "media plus" service. I'd like to check it out and see how it compares to my unlimited 3G and in some markets, 4G service.

[The Patriot]

You remove the ability of the government to create corporations.

Everyone here needs to wrap that concept around their heads.

Corporations are literally, state sanctioned entities, and they cannot exist without government assistance.

"It should be clear...that corporations are not at all monopolistic privileges; they are free associations of individuals pooling their capital. On the purely free market, such men would simply announce to their creditors that their liability is limited to the capital specifically invested in the corporation, and that beyond this their personal funds are not liable for debts, as they would be under a partnership arrangement. It then rests with the sellers and lenders to this corporation to decide whether or not they will transact business with it. If they do, then they proceed at their own risk. Thus, the government does not grant corporations a privilege of limited liability; anything announced and freely contracted for in advance is a right of a free individual, not a special privilege. It is not necessary that governments grant charters to corporations." Murray Rothbard, in Man, Economy & State http://mises.org/rothbard/mes/chap15d.asp

[micahnelson]

Do you have a link to this "media plus" service. I'd like to check it out and see how it compares to my unlimited 3G and in some markets, 4G service.

Compares? All ISPs (Including Cell Phone ISPs) are going to be doing this to ensure the "greatest speed and connectivity for you, the customer." If you want to continue accessing the websites you are accustomed too, you'll have to pay more.

You show me a lack of collusion on the part of cell phone or ISPs right now, and i might agree that this is just a free market thing and not a shared commodity thing.

As it stands right now, The Internet is like the ocean. Nobody owns it, we all use it, and if you paid for parking they cant charge you more if you decide to suntan or swim while you're there.

[jack555]

Where in the Constitution is the federal government allowed to regulate communications?



Don't internet providers have a monopoly on the internet due to the government only letting certain companies into each area (one in each area)?

[micahnelson]

And the statists slowly begin to show themselves....

Are you calling me a statist?

[JaylieWoW]

Net neutrality is a euphemism for state controlled internet. How about getting rid of the state sanctioned ISP monopolies and allowing more competition?

And there it is in a nutshell. State granted monopolies are the problem so of course the solution is to allow the state to run the internet.

Question...

I'm slightly more than an amateur when it comes to understanding fully the necessities in operating an ISP (bandwidth, cost, traffic, etc.) so, my question is why is it that say Charter (my ISP) is the only cable service available in my area? Is it because they own/maintain all the "wires and things" between me and their gateway to the "interwebs"? Is that why they get the "monopoly" for my area?

[JeNNiF00F00]

Are you calling me a statist?

Are you a statist?

[micahnelson]

This is a win.. Govt has no right to interfere in the internet.. OUT...!!!

OUST THE MOUNTEBANKS!!

The government isn't interfering in the Internet, the government is preventing an ISP from acting differently if data came from this website or foxnews.com.

Internet providers have corporate charters and they have access to shared lines. With access to the lines comes responsibilities to serve a public good. If they want to service only private interests then...

....dont incorporate.
....dont use public resources.

Any use of the public trust through government comes with it some responsibility. If they wanna charge a million billion dollars for 1meg of transfer a month, thats their business. They should not have a right to filter where that meg came from, because the internet is a public good.

[micahnelson]

Are you a statist?

Look, the group think days are over. If you want to label everyone as a great american, or a statist the hannity forums are this way ------>


Good news, you won't have to pay extra to post there because there is a non tiered internet in place.

[low preference guy]

Internet providers have corporate charters and they have access to shared lines.

Who do they share those lines with? With the government? Or is it shared private property?

If there is any info shared through a government owned line, the government can just disconnect private providers from their lines, and the internet would still be functioning. It would just happen that some government sites or a few other sites are not accessible.

[noxagol]

And there it is in a nutshell. State granted monopolies are the problem so of course the solution is to allow the state to run the internet.

Question...

I'm slightly more than an amateur when it comes to understanding fully the necessities in operating an ISP (bandwidth, cost, traffic, etc.) so, my question is why is it that say Charter (my ISP) is the only cable service available in my area? Is it because they own/maintain all the "wires and things" between me and their gateway to the "interwebs"? Is that why they get the "monopoly" for my area?

Yes. They have the monopoly because the governments in the areas they operate control the places where utility lines get placed; ie the underground cables for power and cable or telephone poles that run power and phones lines, water pipes, gas pipes. They say who does it, and they only really let one company of each type do it. These areas of land have a specific name I just can't remember what it is called.

If we had real property rights and not this public goods/land idea, then they could purchase land or purchase the ability to lay their lines from the property owners and more than one network of any given type of utility could go anywhere they wanted, which would make this whole net neutrality thing useless.

Who knows, maybe having ISP's do what they are wanting to do would be better? There is no way to tell right now because we have a one size fits all system. Once wireless gets going good though and can really compete with land line systems, this whole thing will be moot, just like phone companies of old against the cell phone companies.

[Danke]

Compares? All ISPs (Including Cell Phone ISPs) are going to be doing this to ensure the "greatest speed and connectivity for you, the customer." If you want to continue accessing the websites you are accustomed too, you'll have to pay more.

You show me a lack of collusion on the part of cell phone or ISPs right now, and i might agree that this is just a free market thing and not a shared commodity thing.

As it stands right now, The Internet is like the ocean. Nobody owns it, we all use it, and if you paid for parking they cant charge you more if you decide to suntan or swim while you're there.

So the service you mentioned is dial up speed. And I am paying too much?

You show me the collusion. You made the acusation not me. And I did not say I necessarily disagree with you, I just dont' think my service is not a fair price.

Why should I have to prove a negative? Go ahead, show me where the collusion is and how my service suffers because of it.

Let's compare apples to apples on what service you get for the price compared to me.

[micahnelson]

And there it is in a nutshell. State granted monopolies are the problem so of course the solution is to allow the state to run the internet.

Question...

I'm slightly more than an amateur when it comes to understanding fully the necessities in operating an ISP (bandwidth, cost, traffic, etc.) so, my question is why is it that say Charter (my ISP) is the only cable service available in my area? Is it because they own/maintain all the "wires and things" between me and their gateway to the "interwebs"? Is that why they get the "monopoly" for my area?

It depends. States and cities are all different in how they approach this issue. Net neutrality insures that the ISP provides only access, no filtering based on content.

That said, they can filter based on traffic, cost to run wires, all that. In no way does net neutrality cost the ISP more, it just prevents them from charging you more to go to a specific site.

An example is vonage. Some ISPs wanted to block the service they provide because Cox also provides digital telephone service. That issue is still being hashed out in court. In an area with one ISP, one business interest would have been allowed to knock out all others simply because they owned the cable between your house and their local node.

Its important to remember, the Internet is a shared resource, the lines from your house to your ISP often are not. So, traffic and volume are legitimate reasons to raise rates, but content has nothing to do with the ISP and thus should not be treated differently.

[GunnyFreedom]

I understand we need to keep government out of it, but how do we stop corporations from doing this?



IF we were not subject to government-mandated broadband monopolies, then anybody who purchased internet service from someone like this would be a complete idiot and would deserve to have their wallet raped.

They would have a choice between this criminal, and a traditional flat-rate ISP, and the extortion racket would fail...given a genuine free market.

HOWEVER, in the environment of government regulation where broadband territories are parceled out, monopolies (just like healthcare prior to the Obamonstrosity) can charge whatever they like and only deliver those services they please, and thus you have the potential for nightmares such as you posted being one's ONLY choice for access.

[low preference guy]

The function of government is protecting people from aggression, theft, and violation of contracts. Everything else it should not do. Net neutrality is not protecting people from aggression, thus it's not a government function.

If there are government lines used for the internet, privatize them.

[micahnelson]

So the service you mentioned is dial up speed. And I am paying too much?

You show me the collusion. You made the acusation not me. And I did not say I necessarily disagree with you, I just dont' think my service is not a fair price.

Why should I have to prove a negative? Go ahead, show me where the collusion is and how my service suffers because of it.

Let's compare apples to apples on what service you get for the price compared to me.

I pay 100 dollars a year for prepaid service, I have modified a device that normally would not be allowed to be used with the provider I have chosen, and I use wifi for most of my calling within wifi enabled places. I do this through third party software which can run on my device. I am a special case, because most people cannot do this.

Unlimited plans for the nations carriers....

http://www.mobileburn.com/cell_plans_compare.jsp?oSort=tariff_carrier%2Ctari ff_anytime&oDescending=&wStatus=L&wFamily=0&wMinCost=0&wMaxCost=100000&wMinMinutes=3999&wMaxMinutes=100000&compare-10819=on&compare-10835=on&compare-10805=on&compare-10827=on

Notice how they all cost roughly the same? Doesn't that kind of smack of price fixing?

[Danke]

The function of government is protecting people from aggression, theft, and violation of contracts. Everything else it should not do. Net neutrality is not protecting people from aggression, thus it's not a government function.

If there are government lines used for the internet, privatize them.

Some good points right there ^.

[low preference guy]

Notice how they all cost roughly the same? Doesn't that kind of smack of price fixing?

Who cares? It's not the function of government to interfere with the price of a product, i.e., prevent price fixing. You're definitely a statist.

[Liberty Rebellion]

I understand we need to keep government out of it, but how do we stop corporations from doing this?

http://www.thecontrarianmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/NNgraphic.jpg

I don't see why an ISP would do that since they make their money on selling bandwidth.

I can tell with you with certainty that the new business model for cable ISP's is evolving away from the subsidized shared bandwidth network, where someone who pays for 5Mbps down/1Mbps Up connection and only downloads 1GB on average/month pays the same as a guy with the same speed who downloads 200GBs/month, to one where you will be billed on your bandwidth + the amount of data you download. They'll make packages out of it including an unlimited one. To me, that makes more sense and is a more fair system.

The technology is being put into place for the company I work for and we are emulating other companies.

Plus, I can't see them divvying up websites like that. The nature of the Internet is such that there are so many obscure websites out there and you can search for anything your little heart desires and you will find something on some website.

One of the most popular sites at our company (I'm sure others as well) is Facebook. We peer directly with Facebook in three locations across the US. As our customers traffic increased to Facebook, we increased our capacity from a few Gig connections to now having a TenGigE connection at each peering location. As our national backbone grows, so do the number of settlement free peers (Facebook being an example). Basically, we have analyzers that monitor the BGP ASN of traffic that traverses our network and if we see a large amount of traffic from a particular ASN we try to peer with that company directly at no charge to each other. This is beneficial because if you are not a large company you pay Level3, Qwest, WVFiber, Spring, XO or whoever bandwidth charges for routing our traffic across or to said ASN. They charge for the link speed, plus you must maintain a certain level of traffic across the link or you pay more money

So to me, the business model for paying more or less for certain websites seems really far-fetched. An ISP doing that would be giving a lot of companies the shaft & it would end up biting them in the ass since they would have less cooperation from the other companies that make up the Internet and you would have beyond irate customers who probably have discontinued their services in droves before it was even implemented.

You have to think about the business customers on the ISPs end as well. If an ISP implemented the "pay for certain websites" model all those companies impacted would likely make access to that ISPs business customers' websites inaccessible or REALLY slow.

And now that I think about it, the only way it would work is if the websites being provisioned were in on it too, which I can't see them doing since they wouldn't benefit from being bumped into a higher tier pay which would likely mean less traffic to them overall. That being the case, the websites impacted could protest and not send any of the ISPs traffic back to the customer that requested it. They could send it to the blackhole of doom on their edge routers (null0) and by that time the company would have no websites and no customers and would go out of business. (Unless they get a bailout.) :D

[Danke]

I pay 100 dollars a year for prepaid service, I have modified a device that normally would not be allowed to be used with the provider I have chosen, and I use wifi for most of my calling within wifi enabled places. I do this through third party software which can run on my device. I am a special case, because most people cannot do this.

Unlimited plans for the nations carriers....

http://www.mobileburn.com/cell_plans_compare.jsp?oSort=tariff_carrier%2Ctari ff_anytime&oDescending=&wStatus=L&wFamily=0&wMinCost=0&wMaxCost=100000&wMinMinutes=3999&wMaxMinutes=100000&compare-10819=on&compare-10835=on&compare-10805=on&compare-10827=on

Notice how they all cost roughly the same? Doesn't that kind of smack of price fixing?

Can we stick with apples to apples comparisons? Yeah, you leach off of wifi hotspots and unsecured ones (someone, not you, is paying). So what? Can do that with my PC and Magic Jack, Ooma, etc.


Let's talk cell phone plans. What are yours? Then we can compare.

[micahnelson]

Who cares? It's not the function of government to interfere with the price of a product, i.e., prevent price fixing. You're definitely a statist.

Oh so its the governments job to give limited liability...

Its the governments job to give access to the spectrum...

Its the governments job to provide standards for common communication...


But when the prices are fixed by 4-5 major providers then suddenly we must accept it because, after all, they are private companies.

Bullshit sir. If I'm a statist, you're a corporate fascist.

[low preference guy]

Oh so its the governments job to give limited liability...

Its the governments job to give access to the spectrum...

Its the governments job to provide standards for common communication...


But when the prices are fixed by 4-5 major providers then suddenly we must accept it because, after all, they are private companies.

Bullshit sir. If I'm a statist, you're a corporate fascist.

No, fascism is the merger of government and corporations. Bailing out and owning GM, AIG for instance is a form of fascism. I advocate that the government does nothing else but protecting people from aggression, theft, and violation of contracts. That's classic liberalism. If you think that classic liberalism and fascism are the same, feel free to call me that.

The limited liability can be arranged through a contract. If someone voluntarily agrees to a contract with a group of people voluntarily, that's fine. It's the customer that accepts limited viability. Denying the customer that option would be a violation of his rights.

There is something however that the government does wrong: There are many restrictions in contracts between an individual and a group of people. All those restrictions should be eliminated.

[silverhandorder]

Oh so its the governments job to give limited liability...

Its the governments job to give access to the spectrum...

Its the governments job to provide standards for common communication...


But when the prices are fixed by 4-5 major providers then suddenly we must accept it because, after all, they are private companies.

Bullshit sir. If I'm a statist, you're a corporate fascist.

The question is whether you want more or less government. It is not a hard concept to wrap around. If the problem results from government then more government will most likely not solve it.

[micahnelson]

Can we stick with apples to apples comparisons? Yeah, you leach off of wifi hotspots and unsecured ones (someone, not you, is paying). So what? Can do that with my PC and Magic Jack, Ooma, etc.


Let's talk cell phone plans. What are yours? Then we can compare.

First off, your assumptions are wrong. I use wifi in my house and at coffee houses. I do not leach of hotspots. Your ability to jump to come to incorrect conclusions without full information may be part of the reason you are missing the boat on this issue.

Im using Tmo, i prepay, and I pay 100 a year for the minutes.

By the way, Magic Jack will not function without additional fees under most ISPs- based on how Cox Communications tried to throttle Vonage traffic.

[micahnelson]

No, fascism is the merger of government and corporations. Bailing out and owning GM, AIG for instance is a form of fascism. I advocate that the government does nothing else but protecting people from aggression, theft, and violation of contracts. That's classic liberalism. If you think that classic liberalism and fascism are the same, feel free to call me that.

So a government giving an ISP a monopoly to provide or fiber internet access, and then allowing the ISP to filter content at will- thereby depriving the people in the region access to information and services they would otherwise have, is not a merger of corporations and government?

[low preference guy]

So a government giving an ISP a monopoly to provide or fiber internet access, and then allowing the ISP to filter content at will- thereby depriving the people in the region access to information and services they would otherwise have, is not a merger of corporations and government?

If there are resources of the government used by ISPs, those resources should be privatized. That's how you separate ISPs from government.

[silverhandorder]

So a government giving an ISP a monopoly to provide or fiber internet access, and then allowing the ISP to filter content at will- thereby depriving the people in the region access to information and services they would otherwise have, is not a merger of corporations and government?

So advocate for taking that away from them.

[Liberty Rebellion]

First off, your assumptions are wrong. I use wifi in my house and at coffee houses. I do not leach of hotspots. Your ability to jump to come to incorrect conclusions without full information may be part of the reason you are missing the boat on this issue.

Im using Tmo, i prepay, and I pay 100 a year for the minutes.

By the way, Magic Jack will not function without additional fees under most ISPs- based on how Cox Communications tried to throttle Vonage traffic.

Did Cox throttle Vonage or didn't it? Is there an article related to this or a lawsuit?

[micahnelson]

The question is whether you want more or less government. It is not a hard concept to wrap around. If the problem results from government then more government will most likely not solve it.

I am not completely comfortable with the FCC making the ruling, for that very reason. The FCC, like most government agencies, will eventually give in to lobbyists. What I want is a law insuring network neutrality and a ban on government internet filtering. China filters, the Aussies filter, we should have it on the books that we wont.

Is the government corruptible? Yes of course... but since this is a situation where many people can't just choose another ISP, they are the only organization to insure that the internet remains open and accessible.

[JeNNiF00F00]

Oh so its the governments job to give limited liability...

Its the governments job to give access to the spectrum...

Its the governments job to provide standards for common communication...


But when the prices are fixed by 4-5 major providers then suddenly we must accept it because, after all, they are private companies.

Bullshit sir. If I'm a statist, you're a corporate fascist.

What you want is corporate fascism lol Thats whats so funny. Let the markets decide. Not the govt. The problem IS the govt, and you want more of it!

[Danke]

First off, your assumptions are wrong. I use wifi in my house and at coffee houses. I do not leach of hotspots. Your ability to jump to come to incorrect conclusions without full information may be part of the reason you are missing the boat on this issue.

Im using Tmo, i prepay, and I pay 100 a year for the minutes.

By the way, Magic Jack will not function without additional fees under most ISPs- based on how Cox Communications tried to throttle Vonage traffic.

No, not at all. You are using your cellphone with other services, already paid for. You have a separate bill at home, and the coffee shop (via selling coffee to you) pays for the Internet at their shop that you use.

Can we now talk about comparing cellphone service?

I brought up Magic Jack because of your claim to get so much with $100/year. MJ is only $20/year.

And Ooma is free, just need to buy the equipment.

But as with your cellphone, they all need someone to pay for Internet access.

So, back to Apples v. Apples comparisons...

[JeNNiF00F00]

I am not completely comfortable with the FCC making the ruling, for that very reason. The FCC, like most government agencies, will eventually give in to lobbyists. What I want is a law insuring network neutrality and a ban on government internet filtering. China filters, the Aussies filter, we should have it on the books that we wont.

Is the government corruptible? Yes of course... but since this is a situation where many people can't just choose another ISP, they are the only organization to insure that the internet remains open and accessible.

Yes but why do you think that these people cannot chose another ISP in the first place?

[low preference guy]

Is the government corruptible? Yes of course... but since this is a situation where many people can't just choose another ISP, they are the only organization to insure that the internet remains open and accessible.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

The Government is the only organization that can destroy the internet! If anyone can.

[bchavez]

I dont think this will happen.

Suppose they do segregate the internet.

I can think of so many ways to get around it.

[low preference guy]

^ I said IF...

[Liberty Rebellion]

Yeah, it won't happen see my post on why

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showpost.php?p=2635660&postcount=48

Plus, I cannot find anything so far about Comcast throttling Vonage. All I can find is about them throttling Bit Torrent and a press release from Comcast:

'According to a Vonage press release, “Comcast committed to work together with Vonage to ensure that network management techniques are chosen that effectively balance the need to avoid network congestion with the need to ensure that over-the-top VoIP services like Vonage work well for consumers.”'

That doesn't mean they were throttling Vonage. That could simply mean that Vonage traffic was treated like any other data traffic which is sent via best effort meaning it will be dropped along with other best effort traffic during periods of congestion. Comcast or any other ISP has no obligation to treat VoIP packets from a different company any better than regular data traffic.

If it was found that Comcast throttled Vonage, please post a link. I haven't found it and I'm going to bed

[BenIsForRon]

Guys, we've had the public utility lines system for decades. People like having guaranteed access to public water, sewer, and electric. I don't think you're going to repeal that system anytime soon.

But what are some more realistic alternatives? Allow other companies to lay down their own cables? Allow other companies to provide their service over the same cables?

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

I am not completely comfortable with the FCC making the ruling, for that very reason. The FCC, like most government agencies, will eventually give in to lobbyists. What I want is a law insuring network neutrality and a ban on government internet filtering. China filters, the Aussies filter, we should have it on the books that we wont.

Is the government corruptible? Yes of course... but since this is a situation where many people can't just choose another ISP, they are the only organization to insure that the internet remains open and accessible.

Did you go to the public hearings to insure your citizen concerns were addressed in the franchise contract or are you just wanting to cram the federal government down the rest of our throats?



WHEREAS, the Franchising Authority conducted public hearings, pursuant to Section 626 of the Cable Act, on April 24, 2001...

WHEREAS, the Franchising Authority and Comcast did engage in good faith negotiations and did agree on various provisions regarding the Cable Television System

NOW THEREFORE, in consideration of the mutual covenants herein contained and intending to be legally bound, the parties agree as follows:

http://www.gonashua.com/filestorage/1715/1633/1639/Nashua_Renewal_Franchise_Revised_By_PJE_9-13-05_-_FINAL.pdf

[JaylieWoW]

Its important to remember, the Internet is a shared resource, the lines from your house to your ISP often are not. So, traffic and volume are legitimate reasons to raise rates, but content has nothing to do with the ISP and thus should not be treated differently.

This was more what I was asking... who actually owns the physical lines from my house to the ISP. I guess this problem of "access" will change in the near future as wireless and satellite technology stand to alter the primary method by which the "internet" is delivered to a private residence. Obviously my reason for asking had to do with my statement "state granted monopolies". If the cable company "owns" the lines, even though I might not like it, they don't have to let a competitor use their lines to compete with them.

I completely agree the cable company should be allowed to charge a higher rate for more traffic and volume. This is probably why I am against "net neutrality" because I see it as a way for the FCC to get its mangy hands on the part that really concerns me, controlling content.

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

Guys, we've had the public utility lines system for decades. People like having guaranteed access to public water, sewer, and electric. I don't think you're going to repeal that system anytime soon.

But what are some more realistic alternatives? Allow other companies to lay down their own cables? Allow other companies to provide their service over the same cables?

Sorry kids my grandparents and parents were economic slaves and I just wanted to let you know I will be passing this tradition down to you as well.

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

This was more what I was asking... who actually owns the physical lines from my house to the ISP. I guess this problem of "access" will change in the near future as wireless and satellite technology stand to alter the primary method by which the "internet" is delivered to a private residence. Obviously my reason for asking had to do with my statement "state granted monopolies". If the cable company "owns" the lines, even though I might not like it, they don't have to let a competitor use their lines to compete with them.

I completely agree the cable company should be allowed to charge a higher rate for more traffic and volume. This is probably why I am against "net neutrality" because I see it as a way for the FCC to get its mangy hands on the part that really concerns me, controlling content.

Answers to most of your questions are in the link posted in my previous post regarding the Cable Franchise Agreement.

[Liberty Rebellion]

This was more what I was asking... who actually owns the physical lines from my house to the ISP. I guess this problem of "access" will change in the near future as wireless and satellite technology stand to alter the primary method by which the "internet" is delivered to a private residence. Obviously my reason for asking had to do with my statement "state granted monopolies". If the cable company "owns" the lines, even though I might not like it, they don't have to let a competitor use their lines to compete with them.

I completely agree the cable company should be allowed to charge a higher rate for more traffic and volume. This is probably why I am against "net neutrality" because I see it as a way for the FCC to get its mangy hands on the part that really concerns me, controlling content.

Yes, plus all traffic cannot be treated equal. Content DOES matter. A video stream being multicast from CA to SC across our companies backbone is going be more susceptible to latency and jitter so it will get higher priority during times of congestion than regular data packets going to website X, since the data packet being dropped simply means that it will get resent and you won't notice the difference in your web browsing experience.

That another huge problem with this, is that it will essentially mean that beaureucrats will be coming into my company and trying to tell us how to manage our network! lol. See Ted Stevens on what an abysmal failure that would be

YouTube - Series of Tubes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f99PcP0aFNE)

[Mini-Me]

Who cares? It's not the function of government to interfere with the price of a product, i.e., prevent price fixing. You're definitely a statist.

I imagine Micah Nelson is much less of a statist than you think. I can't speak for him, but I somehow doubt his ultimate goal is "moar regulation!"* Although I might agree that his focus seems a bit misplaced, I think he's ultimately trying to point out that right now, there is no free market...and especially in the case of cable companies, landline companies, utility companies, etc., these companies are given exclusive government-granted privileges over supposedly public property, yet they are not bound to any real terms and conditions for their use that would benefit the "public" that supposedly owns said property. Specifically, these companies are granted exclusive monopoly contracts by local governments...and these monopoly contracts are suspiciously pervasive all over the country. That is not what I'd call the free market; actually, it is fascism. Therefore, speaking of these monopolies favorably, especially without reservation, is not a pro-market position.

In the case of cell phone companies, the situation is different, but I'm not sure how much different. Micah Nelson mentioned price-fixing: If you think about it, when a cartel of companies is successfully colluding to fix prices, that should be a red flag that there's some government intervention going on that's restricting competition and enabling it. I'm not familiar enough with cell phone companies to know whether they're getting special "chartering" (etc.) privileges uncommon in most sectors, or whether the natural market entry barriers are combining with common government-imposed barriers (taxes, regulations, legal red tape, competing with corporate welfare queens, etc.) to lock out competitors. If I were to speculate on a more specific culprit, I would guess that FCC regulation of the airwaves is making it extremely difficult for alternatives to crop up.**

*EDIT: Whoops, I spoke too soon. He DOES want "moar regulation!" ;) I think throwing out the statist slur is a bit much considering his majority pro-liberty views, though. In a way, I can understand the mentality that, "We already have a billion bad regulations. Why not just support this one, just this once, that will actually [supposedly] secure free access to information on the Internet...especially since that's so crucial to accomplishing pro-liberty goals in general?" I understand that mentality, but I don't agree with it though. First, I disagree because it's unconstitutional (I'm closer to an an-cap than a Constitutionalist, but if we agree to subvert the Constitution in any capacity, then literally anything goes, and we lose a valuable tool). Second, I disagree because it will make it all that much harder to uproot the whole monopoly-granting system. Third, I disagree because the government will use the power as a "foot in the door" towards censoring and regulating the Internet THEIR way. Notice that in this case, I don't give half a shit about the "property rights" and such of ISP's, because they signed those away when they made their deal with the devil and accepted a monopoly contract to lock out competitors. :mad:
**In an actual free market with no artificial market entry barriers, I suspect that small companies and consumer coops across the country would network with each other to provide wider geographic coverage and collectively compete with the big boys, until they made more money, a few split off and grew on their own, etc. Nothing of the sort is happening, and government intervention is undoubtedly playing a role.

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

Yes, plus all traffic cannot be treated equal. Content DOES matter. A video stream being multicast from CA to SC across our companies backbone is going be more susceptible to latency and jitter so it will get higher priority during times of congestion than regular data packets going to website X, since the data packet being dropped simply means that it will get resent and you won't notice the difference in your web browsing experience.

That another huge problem with this, is that it will essentially mean that beaureucrats will be coming into my company and trying to tell us how to manage our network! lol. See Ted Stevens on what an abysmal failure that would be

YouTube - Series of Tubes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f99PcP0aFNE)

Congestion? Are suggesting ISP's are committing fraud selling bandwidth they do not have? Are you suggesting bandwidth operates like the federal reserve system? Oops I am giving away a small aspect of my suit.

[BenIsForRon]

Sorry kids my grandparents and parents were economic slaves and I just wanted to let you know I will be passing this tradition down to you as well.

Whatever man. People need water to live. I'm not going to die of thirst because some jackass who lives between me and the river doesn't want a small pipe going through his property. There is some logic to the system.

So I'll ask again, what are some realistic alternatives?

[Depressed Liberator]

I understand the problems net neutrality would attempt to fix, but at the same time, why would I want the FCC regulating something else in my life? Pretty conflicting.

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

Whatever man. People need water to live. I'm not going to die of thirst because some jackass who lives between me and the river doesn't want a small pipe going through his property. There is some logic to the system.

So I'll ask again, what are some realistic alternatives?

Tell your kids they have been born into a coercive system you support and that if something doesn't go their way in life to petition government to use force against their opponents. And if local or state government isn't willing to correct problems created by local or state government to petition the fed.

The truth sucks doesn't it.

[Liberty Rebellion]

Congestion? Are suggesting ISP's are committing fraud selling bandwidth they do not have? Are you suggesting bandwidth operates like the federal reserve system? Oops I am giving away a small aspect of my suit.

Depends on the service they are selling and the terms and conditions of the agreement.


There can also be congestion from hardware going down, maintenance going awry, route-maps being fat-fingered, accidents (car accident taking down a fiber pole), construction (digging up fiber lines), power outages, etc etc. From what I have seen alot of the avoidable congestion is at the node level where they are oversubscribed. At my company they are splitting the nodes and breaking out DOCSIS 3.0. We have plenty of bandwidth beyond the node.

[noxagol]

This was more what I was asking... who actually owns the physical lines from my house to the ISP. I guess this problem of "access" will change in the near future as wireless and satellite technology stand to alter the primary method by which the "internet" is delivered to a private residence. Obviously my reason for asking had to do with my statement "state granted monopolies". If the cable company "owns" the lines, even though I might not like it, they don't have to let a competitor use their lines to compete with them.

I completely agree the cable company should be allowed to charge a higher rate for more traffic and volume. This is probably why I am against "net neutrality" because I see it as a way for the FCC to get its mangy hands on the part that really concerns me, controlling content.

Yes, your ISP owns the physcial lines. They placed them there and they own them. The problem comes from the government saying that they are the only ones allowed to do this.

And yes, as with cellphones, wireless internet access, not just networking, will be the end of this debate I think.

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

Depends on the service they are selling and the terms and conditions of the agreement.


There can also be congestion from hardware going down, maintenance going awry, route-maps being fat-fingered, accidents (car accident taking down a fiber pole), construction (digging up fiber lines), power outages, etc etc. From what I have seen alot of the avoidable congestion is at the node level where they are oversubscribed. At my company they are splitting the nodes and breaking out DOCSIS 3.0. We have plenty of bandwidth beyond the node.

I see. And customers are issued credits for bandwidth they did not receive in these situations?

[BenIsForRon]

Tell your kids they have been born into a coercive system you support and that if something doesn't go their way in life to petition government to use force against their opponents. And if local or state government isn't willing to correct problems created by local or state government to petition the fed.

The truth sucks doesn't it.

I'm not letting you block my access to water. If you're a store owner and you want to block my access to a new iPod because I have a big nose, that's fine. But I'm not letting you block my access to water, that simple.

Anywho, back on topic, I think multiple cable providers on the same cables would probably be the best way to go here. Allows competition within the current framework.

[noxagol]

I'm not letting you block my access to water. If you're a store owner and you want to block my access to a new iPod because I have a big nose, that's fine. But I'm not letting you block my access to water, that simple.

Anywho, back on topic, I think multiple cable providers on the same cables would probably be the best way to go here. Allows competition within the current framework.

I'm pretty sure that can't work. Those lines go directly to your ISP's machines, in a round about sort of manner. Then from there, the signal goes out and seeks whatever it is you're trying to get.

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

I'm not letting you block my access to water. If you're a store owner and you want to block my access to a new iPod because I have a big nose, that's fine. But I'm not letting you block my access to water, that simple.

Anywho, back on topic, I think multiple cable providers on the same cables would probably be the best way to go here. Allows competition within the current framework.

We are on topic. The only thing that has been articulated is that you are willing to use force against your neighbor in lieu of negotiation or alternate solutions.

[BenIsForRon]

I'm pretty sure that can't work. Those lines go directly to your ISP's machines, in a round about sort of manner. Then from there, the signal goes out and seeks whatever it is you're trying to get.

Yeah, that's what I was curious about. I guess that means you have to let multiple companies lay down lines.

I highly doubt that would be a problem, I don't more than a handful of companies competing before the market lands on a couple good ones.

[BenIsForRon]

We are on topic. The only thing that has been articulated is that you are willing to use force against your neighbor in lieu of negotiation or alternate solutions.

What is there to negotiate? People on my side of town need access to the water. Pipes are how we get it from the source to where we live. Let us put down the pipe, end of story.

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

Companies already lease bandwidth on lines.

The solution is simple. Get your gun and go around and point it at all of your neighbors and extract money from them all to build fiber optics everywhere so there is enough bandwidth to go around.

And if applications catch up to fiber optics repeat the above to roll out newer cabling infrastructure.

[Mini-Me]

Guys, we've had the public utility lines system for decades. People like having guaranteed access to public water, sewer, and electric. I don't think you're going to repeal that system anytime soon.

But what are some more realistic alternatives? Allow other companies to lay down their own cables? Allow other companies to provide their service over the same cables?

Both. :) Personally, I'm 100% in favor of the free market solution. In the meantime though, while we still have these bullshit municipal monopolies, I will not shed a single tear over these same companies being forced to share their lines with competitors*, since their "market" dominance, the reason they and they alone could lay those lines, and their very existence, was based entirely on them exploiting the force of government.

*HOWEVER, I absolutely would not support any legislation like this at the federal level whatsoever, because it would subvert the Constitution, and supporting anything in contravention of the Constitution means giving it up entirely as a tool to defend liberty. In addition, regulations, especially at more centralized levels, are generally crafted or amended by the very oligopolies they claim to regulate, so trying to use government force in "self-defense" against others using government force - much more powerful others - is a suicidal road in the long run. Government-granted monopolies already sold their souls entirely, and they are initiating force against competitors and consumers by proxy (using government), so I have no moral issue using force against them in self-defense...but from a consequentialist point of view, "playing with government" is in a league far beyond "playing with fire."

I think this post is worth repeating:

Tell your kids they have been born into a coercive system you support and that if something doesn't go their way in life to petition government to use force against their opponents. And if local or state government isn't willing to correct problems created by local or state government to petition the fed.

The truth sucks doesn't it.

[Liberty Rebellion]

Whatever man. People need water to live. I'm not going to die of thirst because some jackass who lives between me and the river doesn't want a small pipe going through his property. There is some logic to the system.

So I'll ask again, what are some realistic alternatives?

I'm for letting the cable companies lay their own cables or the existing cable can be leased to a competitor. We lease circuits to our competitors all the time and they to us

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

What is there to negotiate? People on my side of town need access to the water. Pipes are how we get it from the source to where we live. Let us put down the pipe, end of story.

And you knowingly purchased property that did not have access to water because?

[Liberty Rebellion]

I see. And customers are issued credits for bandwidth they did not receive in these situations?

If they call in. Which is BS, it should be a given. That's the game we play with our transit peers. We have to chase them for any issues when one of their circuits goes down. If it is something on their end we don't have to pay them for the duration of the outage.

[BenIsForRon]

And you knowingly purchased property that did not have access to water because?

Because not every piece of property has a water source. If there is a reasonably close source, then access should not be prohibited, by anyone.

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

Because not every piece of property has a water source. If there is a reasonably close source, then access should not be prohibited, by anyone.

And access only means pipe?

[Mini-Me]

Yes, your ISP owns the physcial lines. They placed them there and they own them. The problem comes from the government saying that they are the only ones allowed to do this.

And yes, as with cellphones, wireless internet access, not just networking, will be the end of this debate I think.

In the long run, I think you're correct...so long as unsecured wireless isn't outlawed, and so long as the FCC doesn't squash us all like bugs (this is another reason not to give the FCC any more powers...). Decentralized wireless networks have a lot of potential, and this is just the tip of the iceberg (http://nocat.net/).

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

In the long run, I think you're correct...so long as unsecured wireless isn't outlawed, and so long as the FCC doesn't squash us all like bugs (this is another reason not to give the FCC any more powers...). Wireless networks have a lot of potential, and this is just the tip of the iceberg (http://nocat.net/).

All of the big cable companies have invested in the companies like Clearwire that popped up and exploded in the unlicensed 900mHz & 2.4gHz ranges. I'd say it's a safe bet they are going to lobby to stifle competition at some point crying quality of service can not be achieved if anyone can do an unlicensed wireless start-up on pickup truck money. That battle is coming.

[BenIsForRon]

And access only means pipe?

I guess that depends on the state of the economy. In a developing country it would be more along the lines of letting people follow a trail to the river.

In most towns in the US, yes, it pretty much means pipe. Then there's the issue of access for recreation, which most towns have dealt with by have a public access point. That way private property owners are not bothered by kayakers and fisherman.

[Mini-Me]

All of the big cable companies have invested in the companies like Clearwire that popped up and exploded in the unlicensed 900mHz & 2.4gHz ranges. I'd say it's a safe bet they are going to lobby to stifle competition at some point crying quality of service can not be achieved if anyone can do an unlicensed wireless start-up on pickup truck money. That battle is coming.

Surprise, surprise... :rolleyes: Well, at least that reinforces the idea that the newly opened free subsets of the market are already starting to make big ISP's irrelevant, and the ISP's already see it coming. This is all the more reason to strip the FCC of power as quickly as possible instead of giving it more power in the hope it will "protect" us.

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

I guess that depends on the state of the economy. In a developing country it would be more along the lines of letting people follow a trail to the river.

In most towns in the US, yes, it pretty much means pipe. Then there's the issue of access for recreation, which most towns have dealt with by have a public access point. That way private property owners are not bothered by kayakers and fisherman.

I think you are being close minded to assert there are no alternatives and that:

access = pipe
pipe = best or lowest cost solution

Nor do I consider it responsible for you to purchase land locked property that has no usefulness to you just because you can get it cheap and then point a gun at your neighbor and force them to accommodate your pipe.

[foofighter20x]

The Idiot's Guide to Net Neutrality:

1. The internet has limited bandwidth.
2. Some users request web-data that eat up a lot of that bandwidth.
3. Expanding existing infrastructure to meet that bandwidth demand costs money.
4. Businesses ask: How about we make those bandwidth hogs pay for those bandwidth hogging items?
5. Businesses conclude: Until we can expand infrastructure, we'll restrict or slow access to the websites which store those high-bandwidth items in order to better serve the majority of our customers, who use little bandwidth.
6. Bandwidth hogs complain that raising their prices or limiting their access or net speed is unfair.
7. Bandwidth hogs complain to Congress.

8. Congress seizes the internet. [yet to occur]


Even the electricity market doesn't follow the above model, and it's one of the most heavily regulated industries. Nope. In electricity, the more energy you consume, the higher the rate you pay as you consume amounts in a progressive rate structure.

[BenIsForRon]

I think you are being close minded to assert there are no alternatives and that:

access = pipe
pipe = best or lowest cost solution

Nor do I consider it responsible for you to purchase land locked property that has no usefulness to you just because you can get it cheap and then point a gun at your neighbor and force them to accommodate your pipe.

It's called a township. Not every parcel of land is going to have a stream running through it. I think you're thinking that every land owner has 20 acres or more of land. Na, some people live on small acre or half-acre plots, and have to find someway to get a dependable source of water. Therefore: public utilities.

And as I said, the water should be reasonably close. Some landlocked guy in Arizona should be able to dig a canal through five thousand acres of other people's property to fill his swimming people (to provide an extreme example).

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

The Idiot's Guide to Net Neutrality:

1. The internet has limited bandwidth.
2. Some users request web-data that eats a lot of that bandwidth.
3. Expanding existing infrastructure to meet that bandwidth demand costs money.
4. Businesses ask: How about we make those bandwidth hogs pay for those bandwidth hogging items?
5. Businesses conclude: Until we can expand infrastructure, we'll restrict or slow access to the websites which store those high-bandwidth items in order to better serve the majority of our customers, who use little bandwidth.
6. Bandwidth hogs complain that raising their prices or limiting their access or net speed is unfair.
7. Bandwidth hogs complain to Congress.

8. Congress seizes the internet. [yet to occur]


Even the electricity market doesn't follow the above model, and it's one of the most heavily regulated industries. Nope. In electricity, the more energy you consume, the higher the rate you pay as you consume amounts in a progressive rate structure.

Well articulated foo...

[Mini-Me]

The Idiot's Guide to Net Neutrality:

1. The internet has limited bandwidth.
2. Some users request web-data that eats a lot of that bandwidth.
3. Expanding existing infrastructure to meet that bandwidth demand costs money.
4. Businesses ask: How about we make those bandwidth hogs pay for those bandwidth hogging items?
5. Until then, we'll restrict or slow access to the websites which store those high-bandwidth items in order to better serve the majority of our customers, who use little bandwidth.
6. Bandwidth hogs complain raising their prices or limiting their access or speed is unfair.
7. Bandwidth hogs complain to Congress.


Even the electricity market doesn't follow the above model, and it's one of the most heavily regulated industries. Nope. In electricity, the more energy you consume, the higher the rate you pay as you consume amounts in a progressive rate structure.

To be fair, the issue isn't really about bandwidth hogs; that's a sideshow. Net neutrality proponents are afraid of [literal] monopoly ISP's censoring sites they don't like (or providing such slow/patchy access to them that it might as well be censorship), dividing the net up into "content packages" a la the picture posted several times in the earlier thread pages, etc. They are afraid of monopoly corporations transforming the Internet from its current form into something more controllable and restricted like the channel packages on cable TV, basically. Their fears are real, and the threat is real. It's just their solution that's FUBAR.

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

It's called a township. Not every parcel of land is going to have a stream running through it. I think you're thinking that every land owner has 20 acres or more of land. Na, some people live on small acre or half-acre plots, and have to find someway to get a dependable source of water. Therefore: public utilities.

And as I said, the water should be reasonably close. Some landlocked guy in Arizona should be able to dig a canal through five thousand acres of other people's property to fill his swimming people (to provide an extreme example).

I believe the market can deliver water cheaper and more efficiently than government monopoly can. I think have had heard this exact same point made with regards to health care.

[BenIsForRon]

The Idiot's Guide to Net Neutrality:

1. The internet has limited bandwidth.
2. Some users request web-data that eats a lot of that bandwidth.
3. Expanding existing infrastructure to meet that bandwidth demand costs money.
4. Businesses ask: How about we make those bandwidth hogs pay for those bandwidth hogging items?
5. Businesses conclude: Until we can expand infrastructure, we'll restrict or slow access to the websites which store those high-bandwidth items in order to better serve the majority of our customers, who use little bandwidth.
6. Bandwidth hogs complain that raising their prices or limiting their access or net speed is unfair.
7. Bandwidth hogs complain to Congress.

8. Congress seizes the internet. [yet to occur]


Even the electricity market doesn't follow the above model, and it's one of the most heavily regulated industries. Nope. In electricity, the more energy you consume, the higher the rate you pay as you consume amounts in a progressive rate structure.

You're distorting the issue. Nobody is saying ISP's can't charge more money for higher bandwidth users. ISP's are trying to block access for specific types of bandwidth use. ISP's don't care if people use the bandwidth to download photos from their grandpa's flickr account, they care if people are using things like VoIP that conflict with services they offer.

[foofighter20x]

Well articulated foo...

Thank you.

I think the short of it is that businesses feel that those who most burden the internet should bear most of its cost.

Net Neutrality would make everyone pay the same without regard to how much they burden the internet.

[BenIsForRon]

I believe the market can deliver water cheaper and more efficiently than government monopoly can. I think have had heard this exact same point made with regards to health care.

Don't lump me in with the health care people.

All I'm saying is that it's ok for a community to create public water infrastructure if everyone doesn't have access. People still have to pay for the access, (connecting to infrastructure, and monthly water bills), but they shouldn't be denied access because they have the wrong neighbors.

[silverhandorder]

It's called a township. Not every parcel of land is going to have a stream running through it. I think you're thinking that every land owner has 20 acres or more of land. Na, some people live on small acre or half-acre plots, and have to find someway to get a dependable source of water. Therefore: public utilities.

And as I said, the water should be reasonably close. Some landlocked guy in Arizona should be able to dig a canal through five thousand acres of other people's property to fill his swimming people (to provide an extreme example).

We already have bottled water because utilities suck at providing good drinkable water. There are other factors also, like portability and access. Where there is a problem someone will come in with a solution.

The idea that somewhere some guy will not give up his pipes in order to make more profit is ludicrous. He can not make profit with no customers. He can not even make profit with less really desperate customers.

When my parents live in Russia government was incapable of providing water. People had water tanks, water collectors and just had a truck bring it in. There is no problem beyond you investing your emotions into an improbable situation.

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

Don't lump me in with the health care people.

The truth sucks.

I have nothing else to contribute. I made my point and you have rebutted you do not agree the market can provide water more efficiently and cheaper than monopoly via coercion.

Your principles and beliefs will also dictate solutions you accept to a bandwidth shortage. It is plainly obvious for me to see why your belief in coercion lures you to strongly supporting net neutrality.

[Mini-Me]

We already have bottled water because utilities suck at providing good drinkable water. There are other factors also, like portability and access. Where there is a problem someone will come in with a solution.

The idea that somewhere some guy will not give up his pipes in order to make more profit is ludicrous. He can not make profit with no customers. He can not even make profit with less really desperate customers.

When my parents live in Russia government was incapable of providing water. People had water tanks, water collectors and just had a truck bring it in. There is no problem beyond you investing your emotions into an improbable situation.

I should add that, realistically speaking, no water provider would ever DARE deliberately cut people off from water, especially suddenly (the hostage situation). Any loss of water would be met with overwhelming physical violence, regardless of the law...which is why supporting government-granted monopolies over utilities, even water, will ultimately only restrict competition, enslave people to a single privileged provider (which therefore has no competitive benchmark or market incentive towards efficiency), and prevent the market from serving people better. It will not prevent people from dying of thirst, because nobody would realistically stand for that anyway.

[BenIsForRon]

We already have bottled water because utilities suck at providing good drinkable water. There are other factors also, like portability and access. Where there is a problem someone will come in with a solution.

The idea that somewhere some guy will not give up his pipes in order to make more profit is ludicrous. He can not make profit with no customers. He can not even make profit with less really desperate customers.

When my parents live in Russia government was incapable of providing water. People had water tanks, water collectors and just had a truck bring it in. There is no problem beyond you investing your emotions into an improbable situation.

But what you guys are suggesting is basically a similar water infrastructure to what most towns have today, except the utility has to pay every single owner to put pipe through their property. Am I missing anything?

Why not just say "Water is a public good, people should have to pay to support the infrastructure, but everybody should have access to said infrastructure"?

[BenIsForRon]

It is plainly obvious for me to see why your belief in coercion lures you to strongly supporting net neutrality.

You're an idiot, I have repeatedly said in this thread I do not support net neutrality.

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

You're an idiot, I have repeatedly said in this thread I do not support net neutrality.

I accept your accusation I am an idiot.

[BenIsForRon]

I accept your accusation I am an idiot.

Don't beat yourself up, just read the posts more thoroughly next time.

[brandon]

I don't see why an ISP would do that since they make their money on selling bandwidth.

I can tell with you with certainty that the new business model for cable ISP's is evolving away from the subsidized shared bandwidth network, where someone who pays for 5Mbps down/1Mbps Up connection and only downloads 1GB on average/month pays the same as a guy with the same speed who downloads 200GBs/month, to one where you will be billed on your bandwidth + the amount of data you download. They'll make packages out of it including an unlimited one. To me, that makes more sense and is a more fair system.

The technology is being put into place for the company I work for and we are emulating other companies.

Plus, I can't see them divvying up websites like that. The nature of the Internet is such that there are so many obscure websites out there and you can search for anything your little heart desires and you will find something on some website.

One of the most popular sites at our company (I'm sure others as well) is Facebook. We peer directly with Facebook in three locations across the US. As our customers traffic increased to Facebook, we increased our capacity from a few Gig connections to now having a TenGigE connection at each peering location. As our national backbone grows, so do the number of settlement free peers (Facebook being an example). Basically, we have analyzers that monitor the BGP ASN of traffic that traverses our network and if we see a large amount of traffic from a particular ASN we try to peer with that company directly at no charge to each other. This is beneficial because if you are not a large company you pay Level3, Qwest, WVFiber, Spring, XO or whoever bandwidth charges for routing our traffic across or to said ASN. They charge for the link speed, plus you must maintain a certain level of traffic across the link or you pay more money

So to me, the business model for paying more or less for certain websites seems really far-fetched. An ISP doing that would be giving a lot of companies the shaft & it would end up biting them in the ass since they would have less cooperation from the other companies that make up the Internet and you would have beyond irate customers who probably have discontinued their services in droves before it was even implemented.

You have to think about the business customers on the ISPs end as well. If an ISP implemented the "pay for certain websites" model all those companies impacted would likely make access to that ISPs business customers' websites inaccessible or REALLY slow.

And now that I think about it, the only way it would work is if the websites being provisioned were in on it too, which I can't see them doing since they wouldn't benefit from being bumped into a higher tier pay which would likely mean less traffic to them overall. That being the case, the websites impacted could protest and not send any of the ISPs traffic back to the customer that requested it. They could send it to the blackhole of doom on their edge routers (null0) and by that time the company would have no websites and no customers and would go out of business. (Unless they get a bailout.) :D

This is a really good post.

[UtahApocalypse]

I look at this way....

I can much easier change ISP's then I can Governments.

So the proponants use this graphic:

http://www.thecontrarianmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/NNgraphic.jpg

I could just as easily make one showing the government control of the internet. Blocking websites (like here possibly) not allowing free and open access to things (Porn anyone?) and who knows what. look at the way the FCC controls the "open airwaves" of Radio and Television.

[ChaosControl]

You remove the ability of the government to create corporations.

Everyone here needs to wrap that concept around their heads.

Corporations are literally, state sanctioned entities, and they cannot exist without government assistance.

Thank you!

I thought I was alone in this view.

[kahless]

You remove the ability of the government to create corporations.

Everyone here needs to wrap that concept around their heads.

Corporations are literally, state sanctioned entities, and they cannot exist without government assistance.


...tell local governments to stop giving ISPs goddamn monopolies.

There you go. Two solutions that do not give control of my private property to the government or a telco monopoly. I would have last mile competition available to me and could simply switch ISP's if any of them decided to block my content.

[ChaosControl]

If government stayed out of it and the companies caused issues, we could also make our own ISP that is free. The problem is government and corporate collusion to begin with, more government involvement wont fix that.

[silverhandorder]

But what you guys are suggesting is basically a similar water infrastructure to what most towns have today, except the utility has to pay every single owner to put pipe through their property. Am I missing anything?

Why not just say "Water is a public good, people should have to pay to support the infrastructure, but everybody should have access to said infrastructure"?

It is a problem for them to sort out. I find that private sector is more flexible to solving these problems.

If I understand correct your fear is that someone, somewhere will end up without access to internet because of company greed. That is it costs more to lay a wire to someone then to charge them. Governments already do this tho.

Or is it the fear that a company that owns the wires would also buy a bussiness that benefits from it and proceed to monopolize on that. I don't see a problem with that. It is like you suggesting that if I build a tire making factory for my car factory that I would be forced to sell my tires to anyone who needs access. It does not even work with communications to exclude others. Cell phones are very similar to internet. They have towers all over the place. They have agreements between each other to share them, because ultimately they save more money this way. If verizon owns wire A and leases it to AT&T it gains money anyways. Both benefit.

[kahless]

...... Cell phones are very similar to internet. They have towers all over the place. They have agreements between each other to share them, because ultimately they save more money this way. If verizon owns wire A and leases it to AT&T it gains money anyways. Both benefit.

Not always. All too often they want to be the only game in town and not discount their service to resellers so they can get the full price. There is nothing wrong with that but what they do is work with local governments to keep out competition. This is why we end up with things like 'Net Neutrality' being proposed.

Either way you get screwed since all too often those against "Net Neutrality" support the telcos in shutting out the competition in this manner.

[steph3n]

Just great.....

First, a primer for the uninitiated on "net neutrality."
Net (as in network) neutrality is the idea that all traffic on the Internet should be treated equally and — more to the point — should come at the same price. Right now, for instance, you don't have to pay more to watch a YouTube video than you do to check your email, even though the YouTube video eats up more bandwidth and, in theory, costs your ISP more for you to watch.

Websites and most consumers love the idea of net neutrality.

ISPs, on the other hand, are not fans. In fact, the net neutrality movement arose as a response to major ISPs' plans to attempt to charge websites and service providers more for "better" service on their networks. Fail to pay up and that YouTube video might take twice as long to download ... or it may not download at all.

ISPs call this the cost of doing business and a necessary reality in an era where bandwidth isn't growing but the amount of data being pushed through the available pipes is.

Net neutrality proponents call this extortion.
No matter who is right, things were looking up for net neutrality fans after the FCC and the Obama administration came out with specific and strongly worded recommendations and plans that they would push for net neutrality as the Obama broadband program (100Mbps to everyone!) moved forward.

But the showdown had already begun prior to the Obama era, way back in 2007, when Comcast, the country's largest cable company, began throttling BitTorrent downloads, effectively putting a speed limit on how fast they could go. The FCC put the kibosh on the practice, and ISPs, led by the mammoth Comcast, sued. Then the FCC announced even more sweeping rules that it planned to enact in the future.

This week, a major legal ruling was handed down in the Comcast case, and the tide has now turned in favor of the ISPs. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals said that the FCC had overstepped its authority in mandating net neutrality and that ISPs should be free to manage traffic however they see fit, noting that under current law, the FCC does not have "untrammeled freedom" to regulate broadband services. (In other words, Congress would have to specifically grant such powers.) The ruling was unanimous among the three judges on the panel.

Now net neutrality fans find themselves facing a serious uphill climb. Not only does the ruling open up the way — for now — for ISPs to ask websites and service providers for money; it might also allow them to restrict certain services from running on their networks entirely. Comcast, for example, may not want you to watch Hulu on its service, since then you'd have less of a reason to pay $60 a month for cable TV. It may also be able to ban VOIP services like Skype, so you'll pony up another $20 for wired telephone service. The dominoes are already lining up.

What happens now? The FCC has more tricks up its sleeve. As the MSNBC story above notes, broadband service could be reclassified to fall under the other heavily regulated telecommunications services that the FCC oversees, but that would likely result in additional legal wrangling and longer delays for the broadband plan to go into effect, a so-called nuclear option that would turn the world of broadband into a bit of a bureaucratic nightmare.

If it doesn't take this route, the FCC will instead have to ask Congress for the power to implement net neutrality rules as it sees fit, but that's a political game in a time when Washington seems awfully low on political capital. Don't rule out an appeal to the Supreme Court, either.

Stay tuned — for as long as your Internet service holds out, anyway.

Don't you just love this ObamaZombie's response to this article:

"Get ready for all the comments from misinformed people saying that this is about obama trying to take away your freedom of speech.."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ytech_wguy/20100407/tc_ytech_wguy/ytech_wguy_tc1510


good cause net neutrality sucks.

[Krugerrand]

Why not just say "Water is a public good, people should have to pay to support the infrastructure, but everybody should have access to said infrastructure"?

Nice of you to suggest that. Donald and Janet Burket would, I'm sure, disagree. They found themselves up against the long arm of the law for not drinking the kool-aid municipal water.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=238214

Verizon upped my fios from $35 to $53/month. I'm now on Crickett's 3G. As 4G rolls out and becomes widely available - this whole point will become moot. Internet providers will be faced with true competition.

[steph3n]

Nice of you to suggest that. Donald and Janet Burket would, I'm sure, disagree. They found themselves up against the long arm of the law for not drinking the kool-aid municipal water.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=238214

Verizon upped my fios from $35 to $53/month. I'm now on Crickett's 3G. As 4G rolls out and becomes widely available - this whole point will become moot. Internet providers will be faced with true competition.

they still have to pay for transit, peering, and many other fees, I welcome competition and 4g, but LTE version of 4g is just more of the same, WiMAX is actually the most open standards and we as consumers should support wiMAX over LTE.

[BenIsForRon]

If I understand correct your fear is that someone, somewhere will end up without access to internet because of company greed. That is it costs more to lay a wire to someone then to charge them. Governments already do this tho.

Or is it the fear that a company that owns the wires would also buy a bussiness that benefits from it and proceed to monopolize on that.

No, I wasn't trying to draw an analogy to internet service, I was talking about water independently. Internet service should at the very least be opened to competition by allowing multiple lines.



Nice of you to suggest that. Donald and Janet Burket would, I'm sure, disagree. They found themselves up against the long arm of the law for not drinking the kool-aid municipal water.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=238214

I wasn't saying people should be forced to buy water, just that they shouldn't have their access blocked if they are within a reasonable distance to water infrastructure.



Maybe I should just stop talking about water in the internet thread...

[Matt Collins]

YouTube - The Open Internet and Lessons from the Ma Bell Era (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS_udd5K91o&feature=player_embedded)

[tnvoter]

simple... buy your access from companies that do not do that, and tell everyone else to do the same.



^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

just in case anyone missed it the first time.

[healthpellets]

i'm waiting for "LibertyNet" ISP to be formed, free from tiering and noncompliant with government spying requests. It's coming...

[Slutter McGee]

So yay for capitalism....except that we want our free and cheap stuff? Damn companies making profits?

Ok.

Sincerley,

Slutter McGee

[reillym]

Nice of you to suggest that. Donald and Janet Burket would, I'm sure, disagree. They found themselves up against the long arm of the law for not drinking the kool-aid municipal water.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=238214

Verizon upped my fios from $35 to $53/month. I'm now on Crickett's 3G. As 4G rolls out and becomes widely available - this whole point will become moot. Internet providers will be faced with true competition.

Wireless broadband has a far, far way to come to really be on par with wired connections. Latency, bandwidth, it's all different.

[pcosmar]

It has been my experience that "Net Neutrality" means different things to different people.
Hence the confusion.

So some it is free and open access,, and fuck the property rights.
To others it is imposed controls over access,,More Government involvement.
To others it is a free open market,,with all the warts.

I know what I would like, but they don't let me run anything anyway.
:cool:

[ChaosControl]

So why are people okay with television having tiered services but not the net?

I don't know why cable television even exists anymore, why don't all networks just broadcast through the internet with services like HULU.

[Matt Collins]

Internet Cop (http://reason.com/archives/2011/02/08/internet-cop)

President Obama’s top man at the Federal Communications Commission tries to regulate the Net.

March 2011 Reason Magazine article here:
http://reason.com/archives/2011/02/08/internet-cop