Comments on: Senate panel proposes Net user 'bill of rights'

Politicians try again to find middle ground among fans and foes of Net neutrality regulations, but critics aren't satisfied.

[thenet411]

Government no longer about the people

This is the first hard evidence that the government is no longer working for the people. There is not a single person in Washington D.C. that gives a hoot about the average American. They continually ignore what we want in favor of big business. The problem with that, aside from the fact that it is against everything the Constitution says, is that big business is so disconnected from reality that they have no clue what is going on in the world.

This kind of BS makes me seriously consider moving to Canada because the United States of America is no longer a good place to live.

[VI Joker]

Not really

The government while no longer about the people is not much about big business. Senators are more about their personnal missions than they are about big business. If a company support their cause all the well, but if they oppose it then they do not care. For these time of senators the only time they care for people is when its election time.

[p.shearer]

give me a break

What the heck do you think America stands for? Socialism? Please, move to Canada. I hope you enjoy the lack of competition, the higher prices, the must higher tax rates, and the overall regulatory framework that Canada's monopoly will give you. As for me, I will stay here in the US and enjoy my slow, but reliable 3MB/sec DSL.

Note: my wife is Canadian and her family really envies our cheap telecom.

[jdbwar07]

not all politicians

Not all politicians, just the Republican Party. Note, There are a very few republicans who might side against a corporation or lobbyist in an issue, and a few phony democrats who act like republicans. However the general rule is true.
Do some research, find out your politicians, and then vote for the ones who support the public.

[ShoutingLoudly]

These "improvements" are a joke

Thanks to a cavernous exception in current federal law (see 47
USC S 230), these protections for free speech aren't worth the
bandwidth they're transmitted on. Further, it still permits
Verizon, Comcast & friends to charge Website X for the "right" to
have their transmissions delivered with all due diligence.

For more, see:

http://shoutingloudly.com/2006/06/19/stevens-bill-1st-am-
protections-in-name-only/

[ShoutingLoudly]

Let's try the website again

http://shoutingloudly.com/2006/06/19/stevens-bill-1st-am-
protections-in-name-only/

Sorry to post twice if the link still requires some manual fixing.
Include the whole URL and it works. Or just go to:

http://shoutingloudly.com/

[jdscardino]

Too much trust

I think that there needs to be a modification to the Internet as it is now. Some traffic should be facilitated faster over networks. VoIP and video traffic should have higher priority as they need a 'minimum-best efforts' routing - a gauranteed speed, whereas getting my web pages slightly slower won't cause jitter in any picture or echo in any voice call.

The problem is, even with so-called FCC regulation and fines, the telecos and cable companies are given too much trust from the govt. to do the right thing. In a perfect world, broadband companies would have price wars and drive the cost down to gain more customers, but this isn't a perfect world. It's not a competitive market, it's a duopoly, and who's to say Teleco #1 and Cable Co. #2 won't come to a gentleman's agreement to not charge BELOW $45 for Internet access for instance?

I know Comcast already straight-armed me and my family into a buying digital cable subscription by scrambling our analog cable signal, and having the signal drop out in the middle of local sporting events. Who's to say they won't start "unintentionally" dropping say traffic from a Vonage call in order to force people to upgrade?

And how do you prove a telco or cable company is intentionally degrading your service? It's my word against their money.

FCC regulation? Fines? Hardly a solution, and remotely far away from 'middle ground.' I don't know how to solve this issue, but I know that this isn't it.

[jdbwar07]

Net neutrality is best

If they did do this modification, there would permanently be a slow, low-quality tier that would never get improved.

If net neutrality was enforced, then the telcos would have an incentive to improve their entire network speeds. This would mean high speeds and a high quality connection no matter what you're browsing.

The solution for a better internet is creating faster high-speed connections, not "modifying" the internet into high vs. low priority traffic.

[CagedAnimal]

Holes

The bill also leaves the ISPs open to say that any blocking is for reasons of network security. When they block ports, they already cite these reasons, yet still offer higher priced "business" accounts for those willing to pay for the "privilege" of an unfiltered connection. If that is not a two tiered Internet, I don't know what is.

Since these rights are "(4) subject to the limitations of the Internet
service such subscriber has purchased." (See page 146 of the PDF), this kind of practice would still be legal. They can place any limitations they want on the connection.

[zanzzz]

Why oppose the "solution"?

"Network operators, for their part, have said repeatedly that they have no intention of blocking or degrading their subscribers' Internet activities" - If this where really true than why stand in the way of legislation to prevent it? Because this is precisely what these corporations want the freedom to do!

[freemarket--2008]

Legislate Everything!

You'd make a great politician...or bureaucrat.

Hey, the taxpayers are stupid! They'll pay for it! Look how much money the government wastes already. What's a few billion more? Who the hell cares?