Comments on: Politicos divided on need for 'Net neutrality' mandate

Some say Congress must act now to prevent the creation of a "two-tiered" Internet. Others are reluctant to pass laws in what they call the absence of a visible problem.

[Lucky Lou]

Let's include browser and platform neutrality, too

Not that it has to be legislated, but equal net access should
extend to browsers and platforms as well. No more IE-only sites,
no more Windows-only functionalities. I know it's slightly
tangential to the topic at hand, but I just wanted to add to the
discussion.

[nextcube]

It makes you wonder...

...it all just seems so backward. I thought the idea was to cater to the customers - consumers of information, in this case - not the other way around. Why would you deliberately exclude ANY part of your potential audience by making a site tied to one browser or desktop platform? Especially when, with tools like JAVA, Javascript, and even (to some extent) Flash, there's really no need for it?

[William Squire]

Now this really is communism

Tell broadband companies how to run their business via legislation.

Tell software companies how to write web browsers via legislation.

Tell site developers how to write web sites via legislation.

Essentially, run the IT industry from congress...

Communism rears its ugly head again. Your idea sucks. Browser and platforms do not have a soul to protect or free. They are products that can be designed any way the designer wants to build them, and can be sold to any audience that wants to use them. You do NOT legislate a company and its products out of business simply because you do not like them. Talk about abusive and tyrannical...

[dgrant6230]

why does the broadband industry care?

"By contrast, broadband industry representatives on the panel assured senators that the companies they represent have never committed such discriminatory practices.
...
...
Nor do they plan to impede network activity, said Kyle McSlarrow, president and CEO of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association."

If, as the industry execs say, they have not and will not do anything discriminatory, why do they care whether Congress passes a network neutrality law or not?

[royc]

Which way is it?

Your comment:
"If, as the industry execs say, they have not and will not do anything discriminatory, why do they care whether Congress passes a network neutrality law or not?"

Quote from the story:
"a Verizon executive said Google and others shouldn't expect to enjoy a "free lunch" on its pipes."

My question:
Which way is it?

[sabot96]

I have paid for full access to the internet!

The Telco and Cable cartel is trying to pull the old bait and switch on us. We spend our hard earned money for full internet access at a certain speed. They want to sell us limited internet access at what every speed they want.

I hope this scam can get exposed for what it is. They want to return back to the days of when they were in control. Lets put these dinosaurs back in their place.

[Catgirl450]

Two Tiered Internet

Two Tiered Internet, AKA, ISP's recieving twice as much for the same content.

[heystoopid]

interesting concept

Interesting concept, with over 650 million plus worldwide users, this form of unjust tax and double billing, has the potential to raise billions of dollars daily from users, and supplant the normal income derived from ordinary telephone users!

Oh well, looks like the time we are being sold down the sewer ,is coming with a vengance!

[mwa423]

I disagree with complete "big equality"

One thing that I'm not a fan of in the proposal of every bit of information being equal is that it gives the heaviest users and abusers of networks power to diminish the service for everybody else. I think that it's reasonable to give preference to the average user over a user who is downloading and uploading gigs upon gigs from gnutella.

I know some people will say that they have the "right" to the internet they pay for, I guess they're not smart enough to read their isp's AUP and TOS, which keep the best interests of the majority (and thus the company) in mind.

[jdbwar07]

Miss the point.

"I know some people will say that they have the "right" to the internet they pay for, I guess they're not smart enough to read their isp's AUP and TOS, which keep the best interests of the majority (and thus the company) in mind."

When ranting about monopolies' rights to rip us off, it helps to actually read the article. No one is saying we shouldn't pay for our internet access, or that ISPs shouldn't make a profit (although there might be arguments for free universal broadband).

This is about web sites (not consumers) having to pay extra for their internet traffic. This will discourage innovation and competition, as people will tend to go mainly to established sites than can afford to pay extra, rather than new start-ups. And it will discourage faster connection speeds, as the telco companies focus on this rather than provide better connections and customer service.
It's a lose-lose situation for anyone but large ISPS and their CEOs.

[jdbwar07]

ISP monopolies

If you are interested in the future of the internet in america, I recommend you read this article (or google for one like it):
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2005/10/18/broadband/

We in the US already are scammed by these monopolies. This is just an excuse to increase their profits without actually improving their service. They do not care about the consumer, if they did they would improve our basic connection speed (i.e. 100 mbps like in Korea instead of 1.5 mbps that can barely stream video properly).

Maybe some day if had gigabit internet and good customer service, I wouldn't mind so much, but the real issue for now, when it comes to improving internet quality, is the connection speed. Not charging web sites for better access. We absolutely need this net neutrality law, both for the future of broadband in America and to reign in the corrupt, greedy monopolies.

[beeyds]

Let the Market determine

If google can charge companies for priority on search, I see no difference in a wireless charging for priority on bandwidth. Ultimately, Verizon has spent Billions of dollars on their new technology that they might never get back and they should have the freedom to use it as they so please. They have the right to give their own content priority. I will say though, I don't think charging companies for priority bandwidth is a good idea, but they do have the right. It's their towers. Let the market determine if its a good decision. If users find themselves not satisfied with service they'll leave verizon for another broadband provider. If government intervenes with net nuetrality expect verizon to charge more for service to cover their costs.

[thenet411]

You have no clue...

"If google can charge companies for priority on search, I see no difference in a wireless charging for priority on bandwidth."
The problem with that statement is that there are other search engines one can go to to get search results that are not tainted by those business deals. The current state of broadband is such that you have two major players, DSL and Cable. Both entities want to do this. There will be no other choice unless Google is actually planning on creating another Internet.

"Ultimately, Verizon has spent Billions of dollars on their new technology that they might never get back and they should have the freedom to use it as they so please."
The customers pay to use it! We as customers pay our providers for a certain alotment of bandwidth. My DSL circuit is 3MB down/ 1MB up. My neighbor's DSL circuit is 1.5MB down/ 256K up. I pay more than my neighbor because I want faster speeds. We are already paying for that invensment. Fiscal studies show that the Bells and the Cable sector (which has been upgrading its networks since 1998 to handle this increase in broadband) have already made their initial invenstment back on the 1998-2002 expenditures for network build-outs. At the current rate, it takes approximately 4 years to make the investment back on a build out. Since the last few years have only seen incremental increases in speeds (largely due to software compression, not new hardware on the part of the telcos), not much has been spent in the last four years. They are getting greedy. Pure and simple.

"Let the market determine if its a good decision."
The problem with that is if we let this happen, will we be able to undo it? I don't think so. And even if we can, it will take years to repair the damage. The Internet must be protected from being splintered into a million pieces depending on what provider you go through.

Look, this is a bad idea no matter how you look at it. It is the fault of the CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, and CTOs of these big telecommunist companies that are so out of touch with reality. They have no understanding of the Internet and what it means. They don't understand its nature. We need to keep these ancient relics under control until we move them into rest homes.

[fireball74]

Double dipping....

They want to charge premium rates for consumer access, and premium rates from major content and service providers for the same bandwidth used. All the while they tought their "We'll make better networks!" montra....

I question if they will actually make higher quality networks with the extra money, or just use it to line the executive pockets.

For years consumers have been overcharged for crappy telco service and substandard support. Why else would people be flocking to new VoIP services? I did. I know pay about a third for phone service I was getting with all the bells and whistles.

[-hh]

Solutions...

> What to do? Curbing MS's abusive practices
> through the courts failed.

The solution is simple: the Federal Governement itself can at any time task itself to become browser/OS neutral. In doing so, they will create the marketplace demand for it to happen.

The Federal Aquisition Regulation (FAR)'s objective is "Full and Open" competition, and all Sole Source situations (such as a specific OS, or "Office" software) must be formally vetted with a Justification and Approval (J&A).

The hand-waving starts high up. There are entire Federal Departments that have in-house policies that explicitly state that no computers other than Windows OS shall be purchased. Where's their J&A that gives them the FAR required legal review and thus legal permission to make such an over-arching SOLE SOURCE selection?

Change that top-level guidance to "all future procurements shall specify and use non-proprietary documents formats...", especially once all of the DoD amends all of their contracts to use open source report formats and so forth.

YMMV, but I think that the relevant IS portion of the DoD's $400B+/year budget would make enough of a scratch on the marketplace to create sufficient viable product demand without legislation or lawsuits.


-hh

[directorblue]

One question the carriers should be forced to answer

Will you monitor, delay, and/or block voice-over-IP (VoIP), peer-to-peer file transfers, or any type of service used by customers?

The hardware that Cisco and others are pitching the carriers implies that, indeed, they are exploring new, intrusive, and anti-innovation methods of controlling what content providers can do:

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2006/02/end-of-internet-another-fantastic-deal.html