Comments on: Democratic win could herald wireless Net neutrality

The Bush administration has been skeptical of Net neutrality, unlike President-elect Barack Obama. Fans of more regulation hope to use this support to target wireless as well.

[vitamincm]

That's a nice thought, but don't you think that the Telco Lobbyists will just start bribing the Democrats now? These guys aren't stupid. <br />Watch how quickly a few key Democrats suddenly have "epiphanies" that "Net Neutrality is BAD for America". Then, see how their campaign warchest has miraculously grown.

[Penguinisto]

Err, Declan? Comcast's offense was bigger than you let on - they literally forged TCP RST packets - basically by pulling off the same trick that you'd normally find in a 'Man-in-the-Middle' attack. <br /><br />Also, I agree with vitamincm - this is just a big fat signal to get the telco lobbyists spending their money on the DNC side of the aisle.

[declan00]

Oh, I've written before in some detail about what Comcast did:<br />http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10021222-38.html<br /><br />But the point is that throttling BitTorrent even though that means is less invasive and sweeping than prohibiting all P2P applications in any form at any time for any reason.

[Penguinisto]

Re: "But the point is that throttling BitTorrent even though that means is less invasive and sweeping than prohibiting all P2P applications in any form at any time for any reason. " <br /> <br />Problem with that is, they can't possibly pull off the alternative and expect to keep their service running with any efficiency at all. P2P clients would simply start using TCP and/or UDP ports 80, 443, 25, 21... where they would (without uber-expensive, on-the-fly, high-volume packet analysis gear) hide neatly in regular traffic.

[Len Bullard]

There is one more issue. Wireless is effectively used in public safety applications which due to Federal and industry standards are fat content and bursty. If carriers cannot throttle traffic by type, then there will be emergency situations such as witnessed in the San Diego fires or a future earthquake where wireless will fail to serve first responders and emergency providers.

[jonsjava]

Joe Biden has been one of the biggest opponents to net neutrality. I'm surprised you aren't covering that. You can look at this link:<br />http://whatthecrap.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/naturally-on-net-neutrality-government-fails-especially-joe-biden/<br />Or this link: <br />http://gizmodo.com/5041044/vp-candidate-biden-is-no-friend-to-file-sharing-net-neutrality-protection-or-online-privacy<br /><br />Or many of thousands of other locations that explain Bidens voting trend towards Net Neutrality. Well, I hope a VP doesn't have any pull......

[declan00]

You realize that those two articles linked to our coverage here at CNET, right? Perhaps you didn't actually read them...<br /><br />I didn't mention it because the president, not the VP, gets to set policy (unless the president abdicates this role). But here's our take on Joe Biden:<br /><br />http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10024163-38.html<br />On Net neutrality, Biden has sounded skeptical. In 2006, he indicated that no preemptive laws were necessary because if violations do happen, such a public outcry will develop that "the chairman will be required to hold this meeting in this largest room in the Capitol, and there will be lines wandering all the way down to the White House."

[jonsjava]

Actually, I do realize that, but many companies swing one way before an election, and a completely different way after. I just want to make certain that people realize that Net Neutrality is enemy number one when it comes to Joe Biden. (O.K. maybe that's a stretch, but my point is none the less valid). I usually follow C|Net when it comes to news, because you cover things that matter to me. It just bothers me when I see an article that seems to say that Obamas teem is 100% pro-NN, when his number 2 man has shown time and time again the opposite. Maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, and reading into this article more than I should, but I just wanted to make certain that the point was made.

[knowles2]

"There is one more issue. Wireless is effectively used in public safety applications which due to Federal and industry standards are fat content and bursty. If carriers cannot throttle traffic by type, then there will be emergency situations such as witnessed in the San Diego fires or a future earthquake where wireless will fail to serve first responders and emergency providers."<br /><br />Well they just needs, literally need to add one paragraph to the registration to prevent this which is this:<br /><br />That during any state or nation wide emergency, the telecoms have the right to limit all non emergency or block all non emergency traffic of the network until the emergency situation has been resolve.<br /><br />Probably not legal language but you get the point, in fact I be surprise if their are not laws which allows telecoms to limit their networks to emergency use only, in times of crisis. <br /><br />We all know Google main priority is to make sure people can access the web or more specifically their web sites. With their people now at the heart of the obarma administration I would expect them to move aggressively to get congress to pass net neutrality laws. They will probably use any and all mean available to them.

[bob1xxxx]

Wow what are you guys smoke'n . The demo's are in the pocket of riaa /hollywood/record company ghouls. You should look forward to random police strip searchs on public streets to make sure no one has a illegally down load movie off bit torrant on a mirco sd flash cards in their body cavites . Silly the dumbest stuff that come down the pike has been bills forwarded by demo's like the lap top searchs by TSA for "pirated music" , look for the rappid end of any hope of neutral net under the hollywierd WOWed Demo's LOL.

[broomfighter]

I don't see why we need broadband to be private at all. Any thoughts on nationalizing the ISPs?

[jandawson]

broomfighter - if you knew anything of the history of the telecoms industry you'd know why these entities need to be private - nationalizing them means creating a monopoly (because one government entity competing against another makes no sense) and that leads to higher prices, fewer choices, less investment and slower growth. <br /><br />The privatization of the major telcos of the world (and the introduction of competition) over the last 20 years has been the single biggest factor behind the launch and subsequent explosion of broadband.

[broomfighter]

jandawson<br />you're right, it would be a monopoly, but it wouldn't a monopoly in the sense you described. When you nationalize a company, you remove the desire the make money, which completely changes the way it functions. No longer is the company simply a vehicle for profit. The company becomes an entity funded by the people to provide for a common good. Though this can create an industry that is slower to innovate, you get a company whose only goal is to provide a better product to consumers. So the question is, do we need to innovate so quickly? Are their so many advancements being made so quickly that government can't keep up? Are telcos really innovating at a such a tremendous rate?

[jandawson]

The wireless broadband networks have entirely different economics from wired broadband networks, and provide much lower speeds. The wireless carriers can provide unlimited broadband offerings for $60 per month only because traffic is limited to non bandwidth-intensive uses. If they allowed P2P and massive viewing of online video traffic would explode to the point that networks would become unusable for everyone and/or they'd have to massively increase capacity, raising prices considerably.<br /><br />In practical terms, though, there's only so much capacity the wireless carriers can provide using current technology in any given area, hence the restrictions. WiMAX (e.g. Sprint/Clearwire's XOHM service) and possibly other "4G" technologies like LTE may solve this problem in time.

[DivineOracle]

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Voyant-International-Corporation-917727.html <br /> <br />These guys are already manufacturing commercial-grade white space radio device not just for broadband, but also innovative uses such as long-range radio control of devices and data transmissions. <br /> <br />Think smart traffic signals that's solar-powered with LED signal lights, with software-defined signal processing, video streaming of traffic conditions, image/on-ground traffic sensors, automated with central control and central data processing. ALL WIRELESS and GREEN!