Comments on: Net neutrality gets a boost from the feds

The Obama administration includes the FCC's Net neutrality principles as conditions for some of the funds it will allocate as part of the economic stimulus package.

[PixP]

"...spending the government's $7.2 billion broadband stimulus package." I think you meant, "...spending the American Tax Payer's $7.2 billion broadband stimulus package."

[Havoc70]

Exactly PixP

[redmarine]

Luckily I don't live in America so I will be observing. Seems like the government is doing an 'OK' job so far.

Hopefully soon enough Net Neutrality will become a trend.

[jasonaorr]

If a particular ISP chooses to embrace net neutrality, good for them. I have a huge problem, however, when laws are passed that forbid private agreements between companies.

[Earl Benzar]

The problem is that for many people there is no competition one can run to with regards to ISP choices. You may be in an area where that is not true, but many of us live in monopoly controlled areas, so yes, the government has a responsibility to ensure neutrality.

[jaguar717]

Ah yes...the Chicago-style Omnipotent Government types who have taken over Washington now propose to solve a failure of government (utility monopolies) by adding yet another layer of government.

Nevermind the fact that net "neutrality" is nothing more than a roadblock to innovation in favor of lowest-common-denominator service. Instead of being able to offer high-def video services, pipes for gaming, and any of a dozen developments nobody has thought of yet but which require real-time fixed bandwidth, ISPs won't be able to set aside dedicated channels while leaving email and web requests on separate paths because that isn't "neutral".

It's like saying that no one's mail should be "discriminated" against, so we're going to ban dividing mail into 1st class, 2nd day, Overnight, etc, then pretending that that will make everyone's mail Overnight (how fantastic!). Of course the actual effect is to ban the ability for people to buy specialized priority services, leaving everyone stuck in universal mediocrity.

[jskrenes]

The irony of Earl's comment is that pretty soon the government will be our only consumer option. They'll be our only auto company, our only bank, and our only doctor.

[cp256]

jag, why exactly is the U.S. lagging far behind many other nations in affordable consumer high bandwidth services? Why have the telcos' promises for universal home broadband (true broadband, not the crippled services they offer now) of even 15 years ago not been fulfilled yet? Time and again the telcos have received tax breaks and merger assent in exchange for promises of better service, more service offerings and reduced consumer costs and they rode their empty promises all the way to the bank at our expense. Check out teletruth.org and phone and cable bills from the past 25 years, we've been raped.

[tikoro]

Jaguar717: You have a bizarre concept of Net Neutrality. Here's some real world examples of what Net Neutrality resolves:
1: Issues where a consumer is unable to access a certain website as it may offer competitive services to the ISP or a partner. i.e if Comcast blocked www.qwest.net that could be considered a breach of net neutrality.
2: Someone is paying for a 6mb/s down and 1.5mb/s up connection,and they are downloading a torrent for a new free game. Obviously barring any other use of their connection by other computers or applications, and provided they have enough peer connections to reach their 6mb/s speed in the first place, they should be able to. ISPs have been talking and trying to implement flagging on connections using P2P and then capping them. The cap defies net neutrality in that it cripples their use of their pipe for which they are paying.

Net neutrality is basically: Private connection providers need to provide the service they are acquiring a service fee for, without transmuting or crippling the access they have agreed to in regards to content or speeds. If somehow providing what they said they would provide cripples them from providing HDVS or gaming or anything else in the future that nobody has thought of, then that is on the provider and their equipment, not because the consumer is actually using what they're paying for. When you pay for 1st class, 2nd day, overnight etc... via US Mail or some shipping company, you are paying extra for that service, just like if your ISP provides for more than one service plan, you are paying more and getting more (provided your ISP is practicing net neutrality). Nowhere in there does it state everyone's going to get an T1 dedicated line or overnight delivery. It merely states that you are going to get what you agreed to when you signed up with no expectations of being limited. However, depending on law changes, it may disallow providers to "cap" up and down data transfer rates in totality. For Example Comcast I believe currently will warn and possibly discontinue your service if you go over X Gb of data transfer per month.

[CS_POnder]

Why Change Anything...
The System seems to work quite
well on it's own.

Do We Really Have a Problem ???

[jaguar717]

The Anointed Ones have a problem since they don't control it. I mean, why should the Peons just be able to choose what internet service they'll pay for without anyone's permission or anyone artificially increasing its cost?

Next thing you'll say they should be able to drive a car of their choosing and afford to fill it up, or choose where to set their thermostat and be able to afford their power bills! Blasphemy! Dictate it all til they learn their place!

[strongpimphand]

If you have a problem with this jaguar, then please, either contact your local reps and demand representation or move to a country where you won't have this over-hyped illustrated senario.

Trust me - we're nowhere near what you (and somehow suddenly millions of other people in the mere 6 months) are thinking

[Shaun822]

Wow and I thought your comment to the previous entry and a paranoid political rant Jag.

[j_a_s_p_e_r]

Get off Jaguar's back. Obama is a socialist and he wants to control every aspect of our lives. He is an ideolog that did not learn from the failures of the Great Society and the New Deal (or he is so arogant that he believes he will succeed where they have failed).

Lets see what controls so far: banks, auto industry. What does he want to control next: health car, carbon derivatives market (if cap and tax passes the senate). Do you think he will stop before he reaches the Internet? Really? I don't want Net Neutrality to become another form of government control because you know once congress get their grimey paws over it the bill most certainly will call for yet another new department and heaven forbid an Internet Czar

[gertruded]

The ultra right wing fringees are at it again. If we can not get the corrupt American corporations under control we are all lost.

[j_a_s_p_e_r]

I'm not ultra right. I believe government needs to be affraid of its people not people of the government.

Do you really want an internet czar? Do you really want layers of new laws? It isn't so much that conservatives are against Net Neutrality as that they don't want more laws. We want less power in goverment hands.

[jaguar717]

Apparently anyone libertarian-minded, ie anyone who believes the individual should be left free to live his own life and responsible for himself, is the "ultra right wing".

Damn extremists and their unwillingness to accept government control over every facet of their lives!

[cp256]

I have been a small local ISP since 1995, in fact I'm the only small independent debt-free locally owned ISP left in my city that has been in business for more than 10 years. I have had backbone circuits from many tier 1 providers and seen a lot of peering games played over the years. I have battled tooth and nail with the telcos just to stay in business and that's only by the skin of my teeth. I can't seem to contract DSL lines for reselling at WHOLESALE rates that cost even 15% HIGHER than verizon sells them RETAIL! How is that not anti-competitive?

I'm no socialist and I generally prefer the government to stay out of business' business, but I am behind net-neutrality 100%. If the telcos and cablecos (hereafter lumped in with telcos) are allowed to extort peering and transit fees from content providers in order to permit unthrottled access to those services, you'll see not only a dramatic (read DEVASTATING) drop in free online content, but costs for pay services will necessarily skyrocket until the only services remaining outside of those offered by the telcos themselves will be the few biggest content providers able to financially survive the extortion. You really don't want this to happen, you absolutely don't.

IN MY OPINION, the big telcos and cablecos are meglomaniacal, anti-competitive, technology stifling criminal enterprises that have been allowed to get away with massive theft and monopolistic practices because they own the decision making politicians and political cronies lock, stock and barrel through their mega-millions pocket lining, massive lobbying and AstroTurf campaigns. I am not affiliated with TeleTruth, but IMP their site is worth checking out for some eye opening fact gathering about how every person who has ever spent a dime with a big telco or even paid taxes is getting ripped off big time. www.teletruth.org

Of course, this just my opinion, formulated by my first hand experiences...

[dwolford--2008]

if anyone is going to post a comment you should read this one first. all of you people saying obama is just being socialist are really misinformed. these new regulations help the little guy like cp256 from being bullied by the huge companies and thats what we need, unless you want to start paying a hundred dollars a month for crappy DSL service.

[CA1900]

Exactly; an excellent comment, cp256.

Even worse, your ISP could throttle streaming video services such as NetFlix to the point of unusability in order to force you to their own pay-per-view offerings. Allowing an ISP to prioritize content on a connection YOU'RE paying for is a very slippery slope.

Stopping this kind of abuse was a campaign promise Obama made in October of '07. He said, "I am a strong supporter of net neutrality... as president I'm going to make sure that is the principle that my FCC commissioners are applying as we move forward." He's following through on his campaign promise.

[gertruded]

Yes and unless you are a right wing fring person you know this. The Criminal American corporations and Banksters are destroying the country.

[j_a_s_p_e_r]

This article was not biased at all. .. ahem...

CNET has NOT given both sides a fair shake and I for one has not taken a position based on only one side of an argument. I have many questions for other CNET readers and hopefully we can get some honest dialog going here. Below I made an attempt of representation of the other side, which I believe has at least some merrit

For one why is a tiered system so bad? wouldn't it just allow lower cost products to be market to lower income families? And have optional higher end products available to other users? I know of course the real reason for cable and phone companies are fighting this, they want their product data to take precendence over other data. Net neutrality in essence will not allow this. This raises serious issues for telecom in the handling of emergency infrastructure and the only way around I can can see are parallel systems and data usage caps.

Google is one of the strongest driving forces behind Net Neutrality. They have the most to lose from this, esp with the purchase of Youtube. They don't want for example that the cable companies own movie channel services to take precendence over their data.

I leave with one last question and probably the most important. WHY? Why do we need ANY legislation on this? If you are unable to get video at desirable speed you will contact your provider, if your Movie On Demand fails to start you will do the same. I see this as a battle of content providers on the NN side and infrastructure providers on the opposing side. Can this not simply be handled inside the existing consumer protection structures that he have today? Don't we have enough laws, why do we need to government to legislate every single little aspect of our lives?

[gertruded]

We need regulatory laws because American corporations will do ANYTHING to make money. Lack of regulatory action and the wild excesses of the banksters have caused the current depression, like they did the last one. Corporations were created to serve people, not the other way around. Through campaign contributions and heavy lobbying the corporations have gotten way to much control over the government.

We just must get control of these criminal corporations or we are lost. With reasonable and effective controls, the limited liability corporation can be of great benefit to the society, not the destroyer of society.

[j_a_s_p_e_r]

What is wrong with making money? Since when is turning a profit considered evil? The current economic situation was cause by housing market increasing at a rate that was unsustainable, mostly because of lax lending practices. Banks developed new leverage instruments called credit default swaps that leveraged the housing market. The whole deck of cards collapsed because the growth of the market was unsustainable. Do you know why the housing market boomed and then busted? Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Government mandate inevitably leads to disaster.

We do NOT need more goverment control and regulation, espesially not of the internet. Even now there are talks of Obama creating an Internet Czar. Be careful what you wish for....

[alainmir123]

better than spend it on war, don`t you think?

[gertruded]

j_a_s_p_e_r

You really have the right wing mantra down pat. No one really believes it though.

[TalhaAsmal]

"The government also outlined what it means when referring to an "underserved" region. Areas where less than 50 percent of households have no access to broadband will be considered underserved and eligible for grants."

I think there's an error here... should be "Areas where MORE than 50 percent..." or "Areas where less than 50 percent of households have access" (remove the no between have and access)

As for the actual topic, I think this is a great thing, if it's enforced. Here in South Africa we're constantly subject to the 'shaped' vs. 'unshaped' debate. We pay through our teeth for 'broadband' (maximum of 7.2Mbit/s, over HSPA), and still certain protocols are throttled during certain times of the day. It's a scam, but we have no competition and so no choice.

[zanzzz]

Whenever the topic of Net Neutrality comes up the inevitable posts are sure to follow. The "free market" believers think any and all government regulation is a disaster and the market will right all wrongs through the wonders of competition. If only it were true. The reality is most people live in areas with one or two "choices" for broadband at best. That is best described as an oligarchic business environment. It is unrealistic to think that a half dozen or so companies will be allowed to string fiber lines on telephone poles that do not have the space to accommodate them. Where is the competition to come from? Stop making absurd statements about economic theory that cannot apply to this industry!