The FCC and Net Neutrality

[kalm]

Because of the threat of monopolies. Preventing monopolies and consolidation of power should be one of the key roles of government. I think, in this day and age, that monopolies pose as great a threat to liberty and choice as our government does.

How are we near monopoly on this? let's worry about "the threat" if it happens. We don't need to take more money out of the register on the threat at this point do we?

As I said if any of these companies start doing this then the advent of new choices in the market will push a monopoly even further away I would think.

if the FCC starts to regulate and control the ISP's then we will be paying for the regulation & control end and we will also be paying again on the other side with what we have to pay the ISP's to meet the regulations & controls. The corporations aren't paying that...we are...twice. To me, we would be the ultimate dumbasses again because we are so easily persuaded to let power be taken out of our hands.

I don't know why we're looking for a problem that isn't here and expecting the FCC to do the job the DOJ would do if the problem did arise which I'm pretty sure it won't arise.

Perhaps it's anecdotal but comcast appears to absolutely dominate the Spokane market - especially with bundling. And they are the largest cable provider in the U.S. so I'm sure we're not the only area where that is the case. Their dominance along with the proposed merger with GE should at least be cause for monopolistic concern.

I think we want the same thing here, you just mistrust government motives as much as I mistrust corporate motives.

[kalm]

Listen girls, one at a time. There's enough of Kalm to go around.

[ASUG8]

...How are we near monopoly on this? let's worry about "the threat" if it happens. We don't need to take more money out of the register on the threat at this point do we? ...

You are correct and kalm is playing the role of Chicken Little. Unfortunately for kalm and his commie buddies, the sky is not even close to falling. Any but the most obscure rural market has at least three choices: cable, dsl, and satellite. The vast majority of markets have a dozen or more content delivery choices.

Agree on the choices...let's take this several steps worst case. At what point does the FCC determine that the free market isn't regulating appropriately and becomes the US version of the "Great Firewall"? I'm not saying it's an eventuality necessarily, but the first steps toward regulation start the journey.

[Ursus A. Horribilis]

Wait a **** minute. Does Comcast have a deal in place with the local government that has barriers to entry for other business providing cable?

If that's the case then how **** dumb are we to let that stand while asking for more to stop that company from **** with the product?

Something is fishy here kalm.

Comcast built the cable infrastructure at the cost of $millions.

Yeah, I get that but that should not keep another company from offering service there if they wish to because the local government stops them. I don't know if that is the case or not.

I have a friend that builds and maintains these systems across the NW and the cable companies were improving everything a few years ago but have slowed way down lately (last year).

[native]

You are correct and kalm is playing the role of Chicken Little. Unfortunately for kalm and his commie buddies, the sky is not even close to falling. Any but the most obscure rural market has at least three choices: cable, dsl, and satellite. The vast majority of markets have a dozen or more content delivery choices.

Agree on the choices...let's take this several steps worst case. At what point does the FCC determine that the free market isn't regulating appropriately and becomes the US version of the "Great Firewall"? I'm not saying it's an eventuality necessarily, but the first steps toward regulation start the journey.

In my view, the point is "monopoly."

[dbackjon]

Wait a fucking minute. Does Comcast have a deal in place with the local government that has barriers to entry for other business providing cable?

If that's the case then how fucking dumb are we to let that stand while asking for more to stop that company from fucking with the product?

Something is fishy here kalm.

Some reading...

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news ... e-open.ars

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news ... a-plan.ars

http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/20 ... rality.ars

[Ursus A. Horribilis]

How are we near monopoly on this? let's worry about "the threat" if it happens. We don't need to take more money out of the register on the threat at this point do we?

As I said if any of these companies start doing this then the advent of new choices in the market will push a monopoly even further away I would think.

if the FCC starts to regulate and control the ISP's then we will be paying for the regulation & control end and we will also be paying again on the other side with what we have to pay the ISP's to meet the regulations & controls. The corporations aren't paying that...we are...twice. To me, we would be the ultimate dumbasses again because we are so easily persuaded to let power be taken out of our hands.

I don't know why we're looking for a problem that isn't here and expecting the FCC to do the job the DOJ would do if the problem did arise which I'm pretty sure it won't arise.

Perhaps it's anecdotal but comcast appears to absolutely dominate the Spokane market - especially with bundling. And they are the largest cable provider in the U.S. so I'm sure we're not the only area where that is the case. Their dominance along with the proposed merger with GE should at least be cause for monopolistic concern.

I think we want the same thing here, you just mistrust government motives as much as I mistrust corporate motives.

Dude, come on now. "Monopolistic concern"? You have got to stop reaching here cuz up until that I was in a good discussion.

We have choices so let's lay off that until it looks like we are really not gonna have them and let's not have the FCC handle it.

As has been said we don't need the FCC getting their foot in the door and regulating the internet via the cable companies or ISP's.

[Ursus A. Horribilis]

Wait a fucking minute. Does Comcast have a deal in place with the local government that has barriers to entry for other business providing cable?

If that's the case then how fucking dumb are we to let that stand while asking for more to stop that company from fucking with the product?

Something is fishy here kalm.

Some reading...

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news ... e-open.ars

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news ... a-plan.ars

http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/20 ... rality.ars

I'll have to read it later or tomorrow Jon but thanks for the information.

[native]

Wait a **** minute. Does Comcast have a deal in place with the local government that has barriers to entry for other business providing cable?

If that's the case then how **** dumb are we to let that stand while asking for more to stop that company from **** with the product?

Something is fishy here kalm.

Some reading...

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news ... e-open.ars

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news ... a-plan.ars

http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/20 ... rality.ars

Thanks, jon! The DPI discussion is particularly interesting!

[HI54UNI]

Wait a fucking minute. Does Comcast have a deal in place with the local government that has barriers to entry for other business providing cable?

If that's the case then how fucking dumb are we to let that stand while asking for more to stop that company from fucking with the product?

Something is fishy here kalm.

In Iowa you cannot bar another cable company from doing an overbuild. I believe that is true nationwide but I am not 100% certain. In many communities in Iowa the city itself has overbuilt the incumbent cable provider because they sucked balls so bad. Some states have taken steps to prevent municipalities from competing like is happening here but again I don't believe they can prevent private business from competing.

[native]

Wait a **** minute. Does Comcast have a deal in place with the local government that has barriers to entry for other business providing cable?

If that's the case then how **** dumb are we to let that stand while asking for more to stop that company from **** with the product?

Something is fishy here kalm.

In Iowa you cannot bar another cable company from doing an overbuild. I believe that is true nationwide but I am not 100% certain. In many communities in Iowa the city itself has overbuilt the incumbent cable provider because they sucked balls so bad. Some states have taken steps to prevent municipalities from competing like is happening here but again I don't believe they can prevent private business from competing.

The question becomes ROI. It is often easier and cheaper to compete with different media, i.e., wireless, DSL, satellite...

[kalm]

Perhaps it's anecdotal but comcast appears to absolutely dominate the Spokane market - especially with bundling. And they are the largest cable provider in the U.S. so I'm sure we're not the only area where that is the case. Their dominance along with the proposed merger with GE should at least be cause for monopolistic concern.

I think we want the same thing here, you just mistrust government motives as much as I mistrust corporate motives.

Dude, come on now. "Monopolistic concern"? You have got to stop reaching here cuz up until that I was in a good discussion.

We have choices so let's lay off that until it looks like we are really not gonna have them and let's not have the FCC handle it.

As has been said we don't need the FCC getting their foot in the door and regulating the internet via the cable companies or ISP's.

Read dback's first link. According to those 4 authors there does appear to be a legitimate threat from the big players, and ironically they will use a first amendment argument to protect their power. I get your beef with gov regulation, but I believe that 1) the Internet should be a part of the public commons, and 2) just like with the financial services sector and exotic financial instruments, shit is happening that most people don't understand including some of the so called experts. Our "free market" isn't always poised to provide competitive balance in a timely enough situation before everything gets fucked up. We had a ton of banking choices before the crash and still do now. That didn't prevent too big to fail and it doesn't mean the ship has been righted.

Sometimes there's a legit need for regulation. And I agree with you that it doesn't guarantee that it won't be expensive, wasteful, or effective.

[HI54UNI]

Interesting article from the WSJ.


The Net Neutrality Coup
The campaign to regulate the Internet was funded by a who's who of left-liberal foundations.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... n_LEADTop=

[kalm]

Interesting article from the WSJ.


The Net Neutrality Coup
The campaign to regulate the Internet was funded by a who's who of left-liberal foundations.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... n_LEADTop=

And Australian fascists fund the WSJ editorial board.

[Ivytalk]

I don't know all of the details on this stuff kalm but I am interested to learn. Thanks to you I'm getting the details filled in for me here. Why is it that we need a government entity to keep consumers from finding the options that suit them best?

Because of the threat of monopolies. Preventing monopolies and consolidation of power should be one of the key roles of government. I think, in this day and age, that monopolies pose as great a threat to liberty and choice as our government does.

Bust those Internet trusts, Teddy Roosevelt!!

[kalm]

Because of the threat of monopolies. Preventing monopolies and consolidation of power should be one of the key roles of government. I think, in this day and age, that monopolies pose as great a threat to liberty and choice as our government does.

Bust those Internet trusts, Teddy Roosevelt!!

The last great Republican president.

[GannonFan]

So getting back to my question, we're moving ahead with net neturality laws because we envision a future where things have gone wrong and Comcast is all powerful and decides to give me quick and fast access to Comcast owned sites but purposely slows down Verizon sites?

Forgive me for asking the question, but is that happening today? I understand the need to stop monopolies from abusing their power (I like the US model over the European one - monopolies are bad, but only when they act badly, not just because they are monopolies per se) but are we taking a big step here to stop a problem that doesn't exist? And we don't even know that if it did exist would the problem continue - if I had Comcast and they started screwing with my access, I'd switch to Verizon. If they did the same, I could go to AT&T. And there's about 5 more little guys constantly peppering me to change my broadband service that there'd be someone else to go to. It'd be like the iPhone - AT&T basically has a monopoly on that phone and for awhile, it was the best thing out there - other people had to find something to compete, found the Droid phones, and now everyone is happy. People that didn't like AT&T's coverage just moved over to other competitors. Not sure if that would've happened with internet providers, but it seems we may have jumped into the fray before there was a problem.

[kalm]

So getting back to my question, we're moving ahead with net neturality laws because we envision a future where things have gone wrong and Comcast is all powerful and decides to give me quick and fast access to Comcast owned sites but purposely slows down Verizon sites?

Forgive me for asking the question, but is that happening today? I understand the need to stop monopolies from abusing their power (I like the US model over the European one - monopolies are bad, but only when they act badly, not just because they are monopolies per se) but are we taking a big step here to stop a problem that doesn't exist? And we don't even know that if it did exist would the problem continue - if I had Comcast and they started screwing with my access, I'd switch to Verizon. If they did the same, I could go to AT&T. And there's about 5 more little guys constantly peppering me to change my broadband service that there'd be someone else to go to. It'd be like the iPhone - AT&T basically has a monopoly on that phone and for awhile, it was the best thing out there - other people had to find something to compete, found the Droid phones, and now everyone is happy. People that didn't like AT&T's coverage just moved over to other competitors. Not sure if that would've happened with internet providers, but it seems we may have jumped into the fray before there was a problem.

I get that sentiment but to use the financial crisis analogy again, we had the chance to regulate derivatives trading before it became a big problem and there were some who suggested we do so. But there was no real problem at the time and everyone knew housing prices would continue to grow forever.

[GannonFan]

So getting back to my question, we're moving ahead with net neturality laws because we envision a future where things have gone wrong and Comcast is all powerful and decides to give me quick and fast access to Comcast owned sites but purposely slows down Verizon sites?

Forgive me for asking the question, but is that happening today? I understand the need to stop monopolies from abusing their power (I like the US model over the European one - monopolies are bad, but only when they act badly, not just because they are monopolies per se) but are we taking a big step here to stop a problem that doesn't exist? And we don't even know that if it did exist would the problem continue - if I had Comcast and they started screwing with my access, I'd switch to Verizon. If they did the same, I could go to AT&T. And there's about 5 more little guys constantly peppering me to change my broadband service that there'd be someone else to go to. It'd be like the iPhone - AT&T basically has a monopoly on that phone and for awhile, it was the best thing out there - other people had to find something to compete, found the Droid phones, and now everyone is happy. People that didn't like AT&T's coverage just moved over to other competitors. Not sure if that would've happened with internet providers, but it seems we may have jumped into the fray before there was a problem.

I get that sentiment but to use the financial crisis analogy again, we had the chance to regulate derivatives trading before it became a big problem and there were some who suggested we do so. But there was no real problem at the time and everyone knew housing prices would continue to grow forever.

But that's not a good analogy - everyone knew that housing prices wouldn't continue to grow unfettered forever - there have been and always will be bubbles. This one just happened to be a pretty bad bubble. But no one with any sense really thought the market would grow uninterrupted forever. Sure there were some who may have thought that, but there will always be dumb people in the world - can't change that. And there were warning flags for several years running up to '08 that we were getting ourselves into a dangerous spot - the economic decline in '08 was hardly a shock.

I have no automatic distate for regulation, there's always going to be a need for it in some shape or form or size. I think we've just jumped ahead way too many steps in this one. Defending this new stance by saying it will finally prevent Comcast from blocking access to legal websites is about as trumped up of an argument as one can make - what websites was Comcast either blocking or threatening to block in the near future?

[Skjellyfetti]

Bittorrent:

Comcast Corp. actively interferes with attempts by some of its high-speed Internet subscribers to share files online, a move that runs counter to the tradition of treating all types of Net traffic equally.
The interference, which The Associated Press confirmed through nationwide tests, is the most drastic example yet of data discrimination by a U.S. Internet service provider. It involves company computers masquerading as those of its users.
If widely applied by other ISPs, the technology Comcast is using would be a crippling blow to the BitTorrent, eDonkey and Gnutella file-sharing networks. While these are mainly known as sources of copyright music, software and movies, BitTorrent in particular is emerging as a legitimate tool for quickly disseminating legal content.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21376597/ns ... -internet/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Ursus A. Horribilis]

Bittorrent:

Comcast Corp. actively interferes with attempts by some of its high-speed Internet subscribers to share files online, a move that runs counter to the tradition of treating all types of Net traffic equally.
The interference, which The Associated Press confirmed through nationwide tests, is the most drastic example yet of data discrimination by a U.S. Internet service provider. It involves company computers masquerading as those of its users.
If widely applied by other ISPs, the technology Comcast is using would be a crippling blow to the BitTorrent, eDonkey and Gnutella file-sharing networks. While these are mainly known as sources of copyright music, software and movies, BitTorrent in particular is emerging as a legitimate tool for quickly disseminating legal content.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21376597/ns ... -internet/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I've heard some tell of Comcast and the shit they pull and I just can't figure out why people aren't dumping them in droves to get FIOS where it's available. That's pure shit that they try to overlord their customers like that but as I said earlier they are a windsock. Tell them to fuck themselves and the sock would quickly blow the other direction.

I know FIOS isn't available everywhere yet but it is in many of the large areas and if Comcast starts taking a big hit (I think they are seeing that in those areas) then this kind of shit would stop.

I totally agree with you guys that this is bullshit but we'd be trading one piece of shit for another with the FCC solution in my opinion.

[GannonFan]

Bittorrent:

Comcast Corp. actively interferes with attempts by some of its high-speed Internet subscribers to share files online, a move that runs counter to the tradition of treating all types of Net traffic equally.
The interference, which The Associated Press confirmed through nationwide tests, is the most drastic example yet of data discrimination by a U.S. Internet service provider. It involves company computers masquerading as those of its users.
If widely applied by other ISPs, the technology Comcast is using would be a crippling blow to the BitTorrent, eDonkey and Gnutella file-sharing networks. While these are mainly known as sources of copyright music, software and movies, BitTorrent in particular is emerging as a legitimate tool for quickly disseminating legal content.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21376597/ns ... -internet/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And what's happened since '07? Three years is a lifetime in this field. Is what Comcast is doing today a problem? Is someone else doing it? And I guess even more importantly, is anything in the current net neutrality adoption going to really stop this from happening anyway? Plenty that I read says that Comcast will still be able to do essentially a lot of what they were being accused of doing in that article. Do the people pushing net neutrality actually know what they intend on doing with the regulatory power or are they simply getting the power in place now and they'll decide how to use it later? And since this doesn't cover mobile devices, and seeing how that is the real growth element out there, how is this even going to be relevant in 2 or 3 years? Certainly one of the problems of regulation in this field is that it tries to regulate what happened in the past rather than where we are today. Your article kinda confirms the look towards the past while ignoring either the current status or the future.

[GannonFan]

Bittorrent:


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21376597/ns ... -internet/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I've heard some tell of Comcast and the **** they pull and I just can't figure out why people aren't dumping them in droves to get FIOS where it's available. That's pure **** that they try to overlord their customers like that but as I said earlier they are a windsock. Tell them to **** themselves and the sock would quickly blow the other direction.

I know FIOS isn't available everywhere yet but it is in many of the large areas and if Comcast starts taking a big hit (I think they are seeing that in those areas) then this kind of **** would stop.

I totally agree with you guys that this is bullshit but we'd be trading one piece of **** for another with the FCC solution in my opinion.

Don't even need FIOS - even regular Verizon broadband was better than Comcast.

[Ursus A. Horribilis]

I've heard some tell of Comcast and the **** they pull and I just can't figure out why people aren't dumping them in droves to get FIOS where it's available. That's pure **** that they try to overlord their customers like that but as I said earlier they are a windsock. Tell them to **** themselves and the sock would quickly blow the other direction.

I know FIOS isn't available everywhere yet but it is in many of the large areas and if Comcast starts taking a big hit (I think they are seeing that in those areas) then this kind of **** would stop.

I totally agree with you guys that this is bullshit but we'd be trading one piece of **** for another with the FCC solution in my opinion.

Don't even need FIOS - even regular Verizon broadband was better than Comcast.

I wish it were available here (regular verizon) or FIOS but the competition is forcing the local company to not be such a bunch of pricks and they have doubled our speed in the last few months and left the price the same.

They've been fucking the business packages all along but now they are just fucking us a little less and leaving a mint on the pillow when they're done.

[bandl]

For what it's worth, I had Comcast for about 4 or 5 years and never had a problem. If anything, they were underbilling me as they thought I had the basic cable package when in fact I had a premium package all along. Then I had to switch to Cox and holy shit balls did they suck alot of dick. I got out of that contract as soon as I could and switched to Verizon FiOS a couple weeks ago. No problems thus far. As far as their service/speed/picture quality/channel availability is concerned, it's right on par with what I had with Comcast, although slightly better now that I can afford the upgraded items. I haven't had to deal with their billing yet, which is where I have heard they really try to skullfuck you.