Net Neutrality?

[mattp]

I look at third world countries now where the technology of cell phones has helped these people in definite rural areas--but they are paying for it themselves without other people subsidizing it through government intervention.

 

Are the people who live in an area covered by a cell tower really paying all the cost of installing and operating that tower?

[G-spotter]

Of course not. They are paying MORE than enough to cover the cost of the tower.

[Stefan]

Are the people who live in an area covered by a cell tower really paying all the cost of installing and operating that tower?

 

I do not know how each and every third world rural area is operating, but yes, over time they pay for the investment, otherwise why would the company (or the government) want to put up an investment.

[Crux]

True that, about electricity. Aristotle, I am sure, philosophically agreed. And speaking of philosphers, did not Socrates say, to have lived the un-electrified life is to not have lived at all? To be sure, dear Plato, what is real if not for the electrons heating our spheres? It is all about spherical neutrality, metaphysically speaking.

 

The Greeks distrusted electricity because it was a Persian trick

 

There you go again with your Canadianian-centric world view!

 

Now, as my daddy always said, nobody knows everything, and I'm no exception. So I won't speak for what the Greeks in Canadia thought about electricity. But here in the United Corporations of Amerikin, the Greeks loved electricity like nobody's business, just like Jesus.

 

You can take that home with you -- anytime you are ready to give your big mouth a break and take a much needed rest from bellowing your incessantly shrill and hateful diatribes, that is.

 

Oh wait. Wrong thread. Or something.

 

Never mind.

[mattp]

Aside from "big corporations suck," and "government intervention is always bad," does anybody know more about what the actual issues here are?

 

Who is going to make/lose money over this? What actually is proposed for regulation? How might it affect my future browing experience?

[Crux]

"Net Neutrality" is a buzz phrase meant to aptly title political movement rising to counter the move by telecoms to gain control of the Internet as gatekeepers with full authority to decide who or what will pass and what will be paid. The telecoms are bitterly jealous of innovators on the Internet that have successfully used the Internet to make a lot of money. By this passion, the CEO of Verizon, for example, believes his company should be able to confiscate a share of the profits that Google makes. But Google says that since Google made Google, Google should get to keep its profits. And the rhetoric goes on.

 

What is pertinent to you and I, as consumers of Internet services and citizens in a community increasingly enhanced by liberal access to the Internet, is that the telecoms now have profits coming in from the control they were given over the network operations of the Internet. The telecoms were given this control not because they are innovators -- as far is the Internet goes, they played little part in innovation -- but because they offered to provide maintenance and infrastructure growth in exchange for the profits.

 

But now the telecoms want it all. They are jealous of what commerce goes over the Internet, and they want to intercept the revenues involved. All reasons in favor of the public good are smoke screens. The telecoms now want control over not just the top-tier network resources, but also control over the content transmitted over the network. Bit b bit, dollar by dollar.

 

In my view, this immediately presents a threat to everything that made the Net what it is -- a triumph of individuality and entrepreneurship and yes, a landmark example of how the right kind of government contribution can improve our world in the most benevolent ways. To give control of the rest of the Internet (the content itself) to the telecoms (companies that are already profitably compensated for their technical services) will be to give up a piece of our freedom.

 

The Internet is a vital medium of not only commerce, but also the free exchange of ideas. To consolidate this medium into the hands of a few corporate giants will be an action in parallel to those we have taken with other electronic media -- and few are happy with the result of those decisions, no matter where in the political spectrum they identify.

 

It is in this unity of discontent with the media status quo that Net Neutrality has a chance of prevailing. If it does, then the Internet will continue to grow as it has to this day. Complaints that such a state will be one that discourages innovation are patently false.

 

Net neutrality may be a clumsy selection of branding for a concept, but its purpose is noble. It is a matter of keeping the Internet a part of the commons where it can foster for all who partake a better life, and provide a conduit for all minds and ideas who venture forth.

 

The notion that net neutrality is some big-government effort to lay its hands on the internet is propaganda crafted by the telecoms working through fake grassroots organizations created by the telecoms – this is how serious these companies are in their effort to win this battle. From websites like http://www.handsofftheinternet.com/ the telecoms are attempting to win support from individuals sympathetic to such rhetoric and who spew accordingly. Thus propagated is the lie that big-government is out to control the Internet against the wishes of the telecoms, and that the telecoms are out to defend us against the perils of "Net Neutrality" legislation.

 

It’s pertinent to note the telecoms are making a bid for not billions but trillions here. The telecoms are hoping to make a comeback to their glory days of monopoly and telecommunications dominance, hoping to somehow one-up the new stars of technology with the ultimate takeover, and these telecom corporations are playing this one as hard and serious and deceitfully as the Bush Whitehouse played its bid to invade Iraq.

 

To be clear, the telecoms are sparing no tactic in the battle for possession of the Internet. Should we allow the capture of this singularly great medium of free exchange, I've no doubt we will not see it back in our life times. Moreover, consolidated and controlled the way now sought by telecom lobbyists, the Internet will be the next fertile ground for dissemination of propaganda from a central, dominant power.

 

Of course, that wouldn't be the end. These companies that now turn over communication records to the NSA upon demand of the President would never merge power with the government executive, would they? The CEO of the biggest telecom who just told the Senate majority leader to go fuck himself (under oath) would never be a CEO who would unite his corporate interests with the political interests of the Presidency, would he? Oh, but wait, that telecom CEO already did that, didn’t he?

 

But what am I saying? If fascism is the merger of government and corporations, then is Net Neutrality a turning point for or against the facilitation of fascism? Surely selling out the Internet wouldn't sow the seeds for such a catastrophic merger of powers. And even if it did, there's really nothing to worry about. Your surfing really isn't that important, and besides, we would still have Fox News.

 

(Ironic it may be, that the best kind of government action may now defend us and our posterity from the worst kind of government abuse. Provided, that is, that the Net Neutrality initiative continues to garner bilateral support and ultimately decrees by force of law that the content of the Internet shall remain as free as its people.)

 

mC

[Stefan]

So don't the telecoms and cable companies and satellite companies compete against each other?

 

If they do compete against each other, wouldn't this conspiring as stated above, be considered illegal?

[Crux]

Telecoms and cable companies now provide a common technology from the consumer perspective; thus, cable companies are telecoms. Yes, there is more than one telecom, but respective telecoms have oppportunity to act as gatekeepers over all traffic routes, provided we give that to them. Its about pricing and market manipulation. As entrepreneurs innovate new, more efficient services, the backbone providers consistently want to confiscate the profits that result. By acting as gatekeepers, they will act as castlekeepers upon every bend in the river, with the right to exact a punishing toll upon every passing pilgrim and merchant.

 

Naturally, these corporations want to make legal every aspect of what they want to do, and it is foreseeable that they will successfully lobby Congress to grant the authority and power pursued. Net Neutrality is a motion to maintain the status quo.

[Crux]

Current topic newly posted on Wikipedia: Network Neutrality.

[Stefan]

Interesting. Thanks for educating me!

[Peter_Puget]

Doesn’t current search technology make any idea of net neutrality, in practical terms, a non issue.

[G-spotter]

Not if the telcos start charging you for every search!

[mattp]

If they continue to "refine" things so those who pay more come up on top of a search list and load faster and etc., it may not be as you suggest, PP.

 

In addition, I heard a guy on the radio saying that the telephone companies that run Internet services are deliberately setting up signal interruptions or slow downs or something to interfere with web-based telephone calls, so they can't as effectively compete. Some might call that "free market," I suppose, but others will call it "anticompetitive market manipulation."

[Peter_Puget]

Type a name in Google search and then do the same in Yahoo search and compare the results.

[mattp]

What's your point, PP?

[JayB]

If they continue to "refine" things so those who pay more come up on top of a search list and load faster and etc., it may not be as you suggest, PP.

 

In addition, I heard a guy on the radio saying that the telephone companies that run Internet services are deliberately setting up signal interruptions or slow downs or something to interfere with web-based telephone calls, so they can't as effectively compete. Some might call that "free market," I suppose, but others will call it "anticompetitive market manipulation."

 

From the Wikipedia article...

 

Below are examples listed by SaveTheInternet of past examples of abuses by ISP companies where they blocked rivals or unfavorable opinions about themselves.

 

In 2004, North Carolina ISP Madison River blocked their DSL customers from using any rival Web-based phone service.

In 2005, Canada's telephone giant Telus blocked customers from visiting a Web site sympathetic to the Telecommunications Workers Union during a contentious labor dispute.

Shaw, a major Canadian cable, internet, and telephone service company, intentionally downgrades the "quality and reliability" of competing Internet-phone services that their customers might choose -- driving customers to their own phone services not through better services, but by making their opponents seem worse than they really are.

In April, Time Warner's AOL blocked all emails that mentioned www.dearaol.com -- an advocacy campaign opposing the company's pay-to-send e-mail scheme.

[Crux]

Doesn’t current search technology make any idea of net neutrality, in practical terms, a non issue.

The CEO of Verizon has specifically stated plans to intercept Google's revenues. Figure it from there.

[olyclimber]

It seems to me that I’d like cc.com or even smaller sites to have the same access and same service speed and same search engine presence and everything else as some large business enterprise like MSNBC or whatever, and those arguing for Net Neutrality say that without some regulation, we will lose this as the business interests take over "our" Internet for commercial puroposes. I think it is likely that Internet business will almost certainly warp even more than it already has so as to favor big players over the small guy without some kind of government or regulatory intervention, but what do you folks make of the argument that the currently proposed regulation or other efforts to protect “equal access” on the Internet will “stifle innovation?”

 

Do we care if Google or Microsoft don’t make quite as much extra profit by developing or marketing new services? Just what kind of "innovation" might we stand to lose?

 

What are the real issues here?

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc06y7iaZ20&feature=TopRated&page=2&t=t&f=b