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A good reason to get behind the President

mjvcaj

mjvcaj

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Jun 25, 2005
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I needed one after originally voting for BO in 2008 and regretting that decision since 2009.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-aaron/the-president-might-have_b_6134214.html

"An open Internet is essential to the American economy, and increasingly to our very way of life. By lowering the cost of launching a new idea, igniting new political movements, and bringing communities closer together, it has been one of the most significant democratizing influences the world has ever known.
'Net Neutrality' has been built into the fabric of the Internet since its creation -- but it is also a principle that we cannot take for granted. We cannot allow Internet service providers (ISPs) to restrict the best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas. That is why today I am asking the Federal Communications Commission to answer the call of almost 4 million public comments, and implement the strongest possible rules to protect Net Neutrality."
 
while i think the internet has other yet to be brought up future huge issues that will affect it, for now this is the biggie.

no way should infrastructure providers/distributors be able to charge content providers for enhanced distribution.


and while on the subject, distributors should not be allowed any ownership interest what so ever in any content, internet or cable.

and while there is no call for price regulation, there should be. (when cable 1st came to Indy, full basic was $6.95).

why? price regulation.

and the providers still made money hand over fist. .





on the wireless side, there is only so much bandwidth in the first place, which will always make free market competition impossible. (barrier to entry).

in addition, because of the limited amount of bandwidth, the more competitors you have, the less bandwidth available per competitor.

wireless already wants to suck up the bandwidth the broadcasters are using, due to using up what they already have.

once that's used up, there is no making more.



in addition, look at the amount of open collusion in the wired sector.

Comcast's and Time Warner's big selling point to regulators to approve their merger/acquisition, is that they don't compete anyway, therefore it isn't anti competitive.

yet no one in DC asks the question, "just why is it that you don't compete?".

can we imagine if Ford, Chrysler, GM, Toyota, Honda, and Nissan, or Walmart, Kmart, and Target, all operated under a gentleman's agreement not to compete in each other's markets for purely anti competitive reasons.

yet that's EXACTLY what goes on in the wired cable/internet industry.


internet fast lanes while anti competitive as they are, is a foot in the door to even worse.


on a side note, look for the GOP regulators and legislators to be the ones to side most with the cable/telecom companies on this. (they already are).

and look for the regulators with the most say in this, to be working for the telecom companies or their lobbyists making obscenely huge bucks, in their next job.














This post was edited on 11/10 4:25 PM by i'vegotwinners
 
The President was slow on this one

I'm glad he jumped onto the bandwagon, but I was disappointed it took so long. I think it is good for innovation.
 
I totally disagree.

And, no, it's not because I don't support the general concept of net neutrality -- but because I believe that involving regulators in such matters invites all kinds of unintended consequences.

People were flabbergasted when the FCC announced that they were going to push a "fast lane" policy. These same people seem to forget that they were the ones who asked the FCC into the room in the first place.

The FCC should keep its hands off the Internet. That's long been its policy -- and the Internet has done just fine without them dictating the rules.
 
So what would prevent Comcast from violating net neutrality?

Some evidence of this has already been documented. If there is no regulatory oversight (and you know me, I'm no fan of regulation), what mechanism(s) are in place to allow the market to actually make free decisions (i.e. many internet providers are monopolies in certain locations).
 
Well, what's prevented them to date?

They've had years and plenty of opportunity to do it. And, to be sure, at times they've made motions. But, mostly, consumer pressure has kept them in check.

If we regulate the Internet, we will stifle further competition from innovators who might seek to win market share in different ways. Again, the Internet has done fine for a long, long time without much in the way of regulation. It stuns me that so many people now seek it. I understand why they are -- and, actually, share the underlying desire. But I'm about 100% confident that the reality of what we'll get won't bear much resemblance to what they're seeking.

I've dealt with telecom regulators before. And one thing most people don't understand about them is that the major players carry a great deal more influence over them than anybody else -- be it consumers or smaller competitors (or potential competitors). That may accede to something like this, but not without getting something else in the way of concession. And those concessions will be bad news for those who like open markets, low barriers to entry, innovation, etc.

Again, the only reason the FCC is even involved in this is because of the push from net neutrality advocates. Look how it's turned out for them so far. There is much more disappointment in store for them -- even if they get something resembling net neutrality.

This post was edited on 11/10 7:21 PM by crazed_hoosier2
 
didn't we have net neutrality

I thought that was the law until an appeals court told the FCC they had to rewrite the justifications. That is why providers haven't leaped ahead, it hasn't been but 10 months and there has been this push that I suspect the providers did not want to fan.
 
That is a potential risk

At some point, if this passes, the FCC will undoubtedly experience a corruption scandal. However, the problem with Telecom and Utilities has always been tremendous barriers to entry, both regulatory and more importantly, financial. Google is entering the market and should help, but the Capex requirement is immense, meaning the ability of consumers to move from Comcast to another choice (e.g. Google) is tough because choice is limited for an extensive period of time.
 
That's just recently.

This is a subject that goes back at least a decade...particularly when IP voice services started traversing these pipes. The Vonages of the world, who obviously constituted threats to the big boys' dial tone businesses, complained that their bitstreams were being singled out and throttled (causing dropped calls and such).

Comcast, among others, has tried to institute various traffic-shaping policies. And it's typically been consumer backlash that has prevented this. You're right that the last few years have been dominated by regulatory uncertainty. But the issue is a lot older than that.

Again, I'm not at all opposed to the basic concept of net neutrality. But I think we're not going to like where we'll find ourselves if we ask the FCC to mandate and regulate this. The large carriers will insist on certain concessions to agree to it -- and those concessions will probably be designed to protect their investments from potential new competition.
 
Consumer backlash?

Comcast has never cared about its customers and customer preferences have zero impact on Comcast. Because of its monopoly, it doesn't need quality customer service or satisfaction, like businesses in other industries.
 
Re: I totally disagree.


Originally posted by crazed_hoosier2:
And, no, it's not because I don't support the general concept of net neutrality -- but because I believe that involving regulators in such matters invites all kinds of unintended consequences.

People were flabbergasted when the FCC announced that they were going to push a "fast lane" policy. These same people seem to forget that they were the ones who asked the FCC into the room in the first place.

The FCC should keep its hands off the Internet. That's long been its policy -- and the Internet has done just fine without them dictating the rules.
Click to expand...

"And, no, it's not because I don't support the general concept of net neutrality -- but because I believe that involving regulators in such matters invites all kinds of unintended consequences."


if you think there will be net neutrality without mandating it, then you know absolutely zero on the subject, and zero about providers.

you can either mandate it trough regulatory means, or do it legislatively.

regulatorily is much more fluid.




"People were flabbergasted when the FCC announced that they were going to push a "fast lane" policy. These same people seem to forget that they were the ones who asked the FCC into the room in the first place".




the FCC never announced they were going to push a fast lane policy, but the head commissioner did leave the option a lot more open than "people" would like. (to virtually everyone's dismay).

and by "people", i assume you mean virtually everyone in the country other than the big cable and telco guys..


as for unintended consequences, they can be dealt with if and when they come along, and are much better than the "intended" consequences of not addressing the issue.

to not act on this would either be insane or corrupt.

i can assure you Comcast is bribing commissioners and legislators big time as we speak.





as for why calls for regulation weren't prompted sooner, it is because only recently have over the top video providers (like Netflix), started edging their way onto cable's turf, and only recently that cable started extorting said over the top providers.

point being, only now have internet providers necessitated a need for such regulation.
 
I think this is a case where people overreact to the word "government."

Net neutrality is simply a policy. It doesn't require extensive regulation. It's just a rule that can be put in place, and all we need is some minimal amount of bureaucracy in place to allow the FCC to field complaints from companies and users when they feel their service providers are breaking the rules.

It doesn't need to go any further than that.

goat
 
in addition

Comcast charges Netflix a fee and Netflix pays it to ensure their customers do not have problems. If you use a different ISP that does not charge this fee, you are still paying Comcast as Netflix really can't charge me without charging you. As a Comcast customer, thank you.

As we have discussed before, if you and I wanted to enter into video/audio streaming, we would also have to afford to bribe, er, pay Comcast. Netflix and Amazon have this built in already, so it really kills new business and innovation.

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/net_neutrality
 
Re: in addition


Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Comcast charges Netflix a fee and Netflix pays it to ensure their customers do not have problems. If you use a different ISP that does not charge this fee, you are still paying Comcast as Netflix really can't charge me without charging you. As a Comcast customer, thank you.

As we have discussed before, if you and I wanted to enter into video/audio streaming, we would also have to afford to bribe, er, pay Comcast. Netflix and Amazon have this built in already, so it really kills new business and innovation.

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/net_neutrality
Click to expand...

just to add to your response, this really isn't just about charging a fee to insure there are no problems.

think about the, "time for some traffic problems in Ft Lee" fiasco in New Jersey, where they closed off lanes for no reason other than to deliberately back up traffic for miles, to try and extort the mayor of Ft Lee.

exact same thing here. pay us ransom, or we'll close off lanes to your site, and backup and degrade your product.

this isn't conjecture over some hypothetical, it's exactly what Comcast did.

what they will continue to do, and what they will expand on, till someone stops them.
 
Which risk

of abuse is a greater threat, now and I future? The risk that an Obama style federal government will use an FCC regulated internet as a political weapon or the risk that an unregulated internet will be abused by some?

Does the history of this administration's abuse of regulations - take your pick among the IRS, NLRB, EPA ...ad naseum - give us comfort and confidence that regulation will never be used to abuse members of the public?

IF we are to choose, aren't we almost always better to choose less government rather than more?
 
No, not at all

why do we want to support the goverment getting involved with private business? It is a bad trend to let the goverment start telling business how to run their companies.

As poorly as the federal goverment is run, why should they try and run siomebody elses business.

Another case of this president sticking his nose where it doesn't belong.
 
Re: Consumer backlash?


Originally posted by mjvcaj:
Comcast has never cared about its customers
Click to expand...
A truer statement has never been spoken.
 
Why haven't we gotten a la carte programming?


I hear everything you're saying, Marvin. But it's a fool's errand to think that regulation is the right path to take.

Cable television programming is a heavily regulated business -- some parts of it handled by the FCC, some of it handled by state or local entities. And, despite that, not only do the cable companies suck at customer satisfaction, consumer groups have never convinced regulators to force cable and satellite operators to offer a la carte programming.

But that's probably in the process of changing -- but not because regulators are forcing their hands. Rather, the advent of (non-regulated) streaming video services giving TV consumers more options (including the long sought-after option to get -- and pay -- only what you want) is forcing cable/satellite companies to rethink their models.

The recent announcement that HBO would begin offering their services on a streaming-only basis wasn't unexpected, but it was a bombshell.

See, what usually happens is that we seek regulation to ensure that we're getting a fair shake and such. But the actual upshot of it is that the regulators and the regulated end up more in cahoots than anything else. Look at what's been going on with taxi services with the advent of Uber and Lyft. The traditional taxicab companies are throwing a fit and insisting that regulators block Uber/Lyft from upsetting their gravy trains. And, to be sure, at least some of them have done just that -- or, at least, tried.

These regulators are being used to stifle innovative entrants that consumers might prefer to use in order to protect the established players. And this happens all the time. As such, regulators aren't protecting consumers from the ravages of providers -- they're protecting providers from the ravages of consumers.
 
No.


It's a case of "be careful what you wish for."

Look, I know what it is that's being sought. The problem isn't with what's being sought -- the problem is with what we'll actually end up with. You say "it doesn't need to go any further than that." Well, that would be fine if it was actually likely to be the case.

But mark my words: it will go farther than that....in ways you didn't anticipate, and in all likelihood, don't like.

And the worst part of it is that this new body of regulation will also serve to make it that much harder for somebody else to come along and do it differently. Because they'll be just as forced to comply with the regs -- regs that will, in large part, have been written by their would-be competitors.

Nothing ever comes for free. If this happens, the big carriers will get something out of it. And I strongly doubt the concession will be worth whatever benefits consumers might get. It's far better to let consumers and providers sort these things out with their buying and selling decisions.
 
They are not mutually exclusive choices Ladoga

Comcast and other Telco providers are already in bed with both sides of the aisle. Let's not act like your beloved Republicans aren't just as corrupt when it comes to big business interests.
 
It isn't getting involved with private business

It is protecting public works. I don't want the government to pick and choose, I want a level playing field for all web traffic and data transfer. Do you support monopolies too?
 
That is the way

it should be but mark my words that it would be a lot more complicated than that if the government does it.
 
Um, huh?

Look, there may be a case to be made in favor of this. As I said, I strongly support the general concept of net neutrality -- although I don't want regulators involved in it.

But of course this is a matter of government getting involved in private business. Public works are things owned by and paid for by taxpayer money. Water and sewer systems, roads and bridges, dams and levees, etc. These are public works. Telecom networks aren't paid for by tax money. They're the assets of private businesses, paid for with private capital.

Are you by any chance in Colorado this morning, mjvcaj?
smile.r191677.gif
 
Of course it will.


In fact, at this point, I think all the machinations that the carriers are making are more about jockeying for leverage on concessions than an actual defense against this happening. To be sure, they'd rather it didn't happen at all. But if it's going to, then they're going to get their own batch of considerations for implementing it. And I strongly doubt the considerations will be either consumer friendly or welcoming to new entries.

It's as predictable as the sunrise. And it amazes me that otherwise smart people are clamoring for this so naively -- as if it will unfold only as they're insisting. Nothing more. Doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.

Back when the "fast lane" proposal was announced, to the consternation of the net neutrality folks, I felt like about the only guy on the Internet who was utterly unsurprised by it.

"Hey....FCC! That's not what we're asking for!!!"

Well, duh. But it ought to be an indication about what you're likely to get. Aren't you glad you beckoned the regulators into this discussion?
This post was edited on 11/11 11:13 AM by crazed_hoosier2
 
Didn't say theyweren't

My default position is always - less government, more liberty.

How about criminal charges or civil sanctions to be brought by the party wronged with attorney fees and costs available?

As much as I detest the plaintiff's bar, and its a LOT, that is preferable to federal bureaucrats.

So give consumers a remedy - criminal or civil - but how about we kick the federal government to the gutter?
 
The crux of the problem here...

...is really two-fold:

1) The Netflixes and Hulus of the world present an existential threat to the core businesses of the owners of the pipes they rely on to deliver their services. And both sides know it.

2) They also consume an outsize share of the available network capacity to deliver these services.


It's perfectly understandable that consumers would want this status to quo to remain. However, it is almost certainly unsustainable -- as such, something's got to give.

If we try to institute a regulatory regime that preserves this status quo, then we're essentially trading what would likely give without that regulatory regime (in which case Netflix, etal would probably have to start paying access charges...which they would pass on to their customers) for something else.

My fear is that the "something else" we'll get will actually prove to be worse.

In other words, I don't think the market can bear that which net neutrality proponents are seeking. Enforcing it through regulation doesn't change that. It only redirects the fallout.
This post was edited on 11/11 11:21 AM by crazed_hoosier2
 
Shouldn't it be like any other business?

If Comcast is bad, then they will lose customers and change their way, or go out of business.
 
Network neutrality is a founding principle of the internet

"Network neutrality" refers to the notion that internet service providers must treat all data equally, acting as something like common carriers.for the content passing through their networks. This is the way that the internet has (mostly) always worked. If you want to keep the freedom of choice you currently enjoy on the internet, then you support network neutrality.

The real choice here is what sort of market for internet services we want to have and how much power we want the providers of internet services (like the hated Comcast) to have over us. The Upshot's Neil Irwin explains it like this:
___________________________________________________________________________



For all the arcana in telecommunications law, there is a really simple way of thinking of the debate over net neutrality: Is access to the Internet more like access to electricity, or more like cable television service?



Regulated electrical utilities perform a remarkable service. Nearly every time I flip a light switch in my home, energy that was generated at some distant power plant and that flows through a complex network of transformers and power lines makes its way to the bulbs overhead, so that I can see.

I pay my local electric utility (mine is Pepco, which serves Washington) a nice fee for this service every month, tied to how much of this energy I use and its current price per kilowatt hour, with some money built in for the utility to make a comfortable profit. But beyond that, Pepco has no role in determining what I use that electricity for.




Pepco doesn't get to offer more reliable, cheaper service if I go with Pepco's preferred brand of refrigerator, with which the utility has some financial arrangement. They do not know, let alone control, what types of light bulbs or clothes dryer I power using the electricity they sell to me.

Yes, there are some broad efforts by electric utilities to urge me and other consumers to conserve energy, especially at peak times, but those are less about Pepco having special deals and more about trying to reduce energy consumption at the times it costs them the most to generate it.

For all the technical complexity of generating electricity and distributing it to millions of people, the economic arrangement is very simple: I give them money. They give me electricity. I do with it what I will.

Things are completely different with cable service.

Comcast, my cable provider, offers me a menu of packages from which I might choose, each with a different mix of channels. It goes through long and sometimes arduous negotiations with the owners of those cable channels and has a different business arrangement with each of them. The details of those arrangements are opaque to me as the consumer; all I know is that I can get the movie package for X dollars a month or the sports package for Y dollars and so on.

Local regulators can restrict pricing for the most basic cable offerings. But more extensive cable service is considered a discretionary good, and cable companies have wide latitude to price their offerings at whatever the market will bear, and offer whatever mix of channels they think best.
____________________________________________________________________________

If you're the sort of person who'd prefer to pick their own electronic devices without intervention by the power company, then you support network neutrality. If, on the other hand, you're the sort of person who thinks cable companies offer great TV service, then you oppose network neutrality. This seems like an easy call to me, but "government = bad " is a thoroughly unhelpful way to approach the issue.
 
Who says it's unsustainable?

Net neutrality is better for consumers. Overturning it would be better for cable companies, which currently are making huge piles of money in this "unsustainable" system.
 
They have been bad for a long, long time

The problem is that the cable/ISP game can be expensive to get into and the big boys will sue you if you try (yes, they know they will lose but they hope you go bankrupt before then). See story. An interesting part about the cost, the product has no collateral value. According to the article, if you go to a bank seeking $1 million for fiber, the bank won't take that fiber as collateral. So you have to have $1 million in other assets they can see. That isn't true for many industries. Want to start a cab company, the cars you buy have some value.
 
More

Here is a very helpful explainer from Vox. It's impossible to understand what's really going on here without getting down into the weeds a bit.
 
Again...

The streaming services -- which are delivered over infrastructure owned by companies who largely rely on video subscription revenue to finance these networks -- present a direct threat to that same video revenue. And, beyond that, they consume a large share (Netflix is about 33% by itself) of the available network resources.

You now have content providers like HBO offering their services untethered from any cable/satellite services. And I'm sure they won't be the last to do this. ESPN already has a very popular app that allows subscribers to watch their programming on tablets and such. Is it really a huge leap to see them offer it to people who don't have cable or satellite?

And, make no mistake: this is a great thing for consumers. We're finally getting closer to the a la carte programming many have been clamoring for. But we're doing it not because regulators drove us there. Rather, because of technological advancement and innovation beyond the scope of regulators.

That said: if the incentives for people to drop their cable/satellite service in favor of a streaming-only paradigm continue to grow (and they will), then where exactly do you think the revenue to fund the last-mile infrastructure that we rely on to receive these bitstreams is going to come from?
 
Agreed.....

I rather suspect that if Obama had come out against Net Neutrality that the "R" voices that are upset today would still be upset - this smells like "anything Obama is for must be bad" thinking, and it needs to stop.

Think, people.... think.
 
Free market theory breaks down . . .

When the premises of free market theory aren't satisfied. In particular, free market theory breaks down when producers enjoy monopoly power, like cable companies do. As Laugh In".
 
Not me.

That may be the case for some.

But I've opposed regulating the Internet ever since the idea was first broached. It's a bad idea, with good intentions, that will bring us gobs of unintended consequences no matter who's pushing it.

And, no, it's not that I'm siding with the Comcasts and Verizons of the world. That's a false dichotomy. The Internet has done just fine as an unregulated entity for many, many years. It's been in popular use now for 20 years.

I know that the people who are clamoring for federal regulation don't intend to bring about anything other than neutral traffic policies. And few people not named Brian Roberts oppose neutral traffic policies.

But I'll be willing to bet large sums of money that we will end up with far more than that -- out of the gate as well as in the future. And much of the new body of regulation will be things few people not named Brian Roberts will like.

I'm not taking issue with what's being intended. I'm warning us of the scourge of unintended consequences. We should already have gotten the warnings signs with the "fast lane" proposal the FCC has already floated.
 
True

What most people don't realize is the shell game the cable companies have going. Most cable channels are owned by, cable companies. So they want to have them on their cable systems, even if you don't want to pay for them.

I still believe the cost of running fiber to, well, moosejaw alaska is so much that my guess is the people of moosejaw will never have a great deal of competition. It isn't of course just moosejaw, there are a lot of Americans who live where it is tough to get competition (even assuming the cities deregulate). If the ISP providers can charge more for content they don't like, I see that as stifling innovation in other fields. Without net neutrality, Google could pay Comcast to make it the sole search provider for Comcast users. Now if there were dozens of choices, Comcast would be stupid to take that. But I'm not sure there is enough competition to prevent that. Especially once Microsoft is forced to pay Time Warner the same to take their business to Bing. Now that is around 36 million households with this "feature", and many of them are in locations there is no alternative. So, good luck to Crazed to try and get his new search engine out there and profitable.

The internet is the information super highway, let's treat it as a highway. We don't let corporations wall off the interstate system. Can you imagine if that was allowed? Sorry, only Chevy's are allowed to drive on I 70, but you have other options if you want to drive East-West across America. But once Ford buys I80, I'm not sure I want to be driving a VW and want to cross the central US East-West.
 
If it is as simple

a model as electricity then I'm all for it but my fear is that it will become a lot more complicated.
 
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