network neutrality

[Scratch705]

there are two bad sides here.

Comcast ect have spent so much money per home for connectivity that in some cases they can't recoup the actual costs for 50 years and are heavily leveraged in debt as a result.

The people that use those networks don't care about the costs or how much they use or how they open up Comcast to legal consequences for there file sharing. they are spoiled children who want everything for nothing.

Where the providers are grossly wrong is like in the case with ATT where it reaps ungodly profits and still does'nt upgrade the much cheaper network option of 3g or go to wimax or LTE like it has been saying forever.

Thats where the fed should get involved it should say OK ATT you've made 177 billion dollars profit we want you to take 75% of that and reinvest it into your network capability.

that will never happen but thats what should happen.

bad example. ISP's are not responsible for what the end users do with the service. this logic would then make it so gun makers are responsible for all crimes committed with guns. and as we all know that is not the case, and there is even a bill that Bush signed in that put that to rest too to prevent all those frivolous lawsuits that people brought against gun makers.

If you're unhappy with your ISP you can use another. That fact will keep ISPs from doing a lot of what you describe.

R

and then what is to stop all the ISP's from adopting similar policy and plans?
once one ISP starts to see the extra profits that adopting a tiered/throttling system they will all start to do it. Especially now when they know the there are many people "addicted" to facebook/twitter/etc and will give in and fork out the additional money per month to get faster access to these sites. Sure there may be some small start ups that would pop up and offer unfettered internet, but one issue is that they will be local and not nation wide.

[Someoneelseok]

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't trust the government (especially the one currently controlled by Obama's crew) to not make this into the exact opposite of what it's supposed to be.

But Congress writes the laws not Obama's administration. and EVEN if, I think the current administration probably favors having net neutrality the way it's supposed to be anyway.

[Mute]

But Congress writes the laws not Obama's administration. and EVEN if, I think the current administration probably favors having net neutrality the way it's supposed to be anyway.

Congress may write the laws, but it's naive to think that a sitting president doesn't have any influence into how the law is written, especially when his party is in the majority. As to the current administration favoring net neutrality as it's supposed to be, his actions thus far when it comes to dissenting opinions certain suggest otherwise.

[Can'thavenuthingood]

Given the governments propensity for taking over business entities I'd just as soon they stayed out of the internet stuff all together.
What ever the gov does will add another layer of cost to all of us. While it wil also cost more to the government, they will come to us and our wallets to recover those costs.

Keep them away.

Vick

[Scratch705]

Given the governments propensity for taking over business entities I'd just as soon they stayed out of the internet stuff all together.
What ever the gov does will add another layer of cost to all of us. While it wil also cost more to the government, they will come to us and our wallets to recover those costs.

Keep them away.

Vick

but left unchecked, the ISPs will be charging us to death. unless all you do is forum surf and check email then it wouldn't affect you. but for those that use VOIP, online gaming, online video viewing (hulu, network sites to catch reruns) we would be stuck paying $50 a month to get 56K speeds b/c the ISP didn't get paid off enough to boost the content speed for the site i'm on.

[Can'thavenuthingood]

but left unchecked, the ISPs will be charging us to death. unless all you do is forum surf and check email then it wouldn't affect you. but for those that use VOIP, online gaming, online video viewing (hulu, network sites to catch reruns) we would be stuck paying $50 a month to get 56K speeds b/c the ISP didn't get paid off enough to boost the content speed for the site i'm on.

Then wouldn't it be a viable plan for someone else to open an ISP with lower rates?
As in competition?

Vick

[Scratch705]

as i said, in my previous postings, sure someone can open a new ISP, but how hard will it be to lay new lines nation wide, and have the capital to setup a new ISP, and also compete with the big 4 companies that are already established. plus anyone with that amount of capital to invest into a new ISP will also see that the practice of charging for different content will earn more money for them since it will allow them to alter behavior by making people not stream high data streams such as video/music over low stress streams such as email and websites.

that is like saying using ammo for example. hey there is a shortage, why don't someone open up a ammo plant in CA to offer more ammo supply to pre-obama rush? not as easy as it is to just type. there are many governmental paperwork to go through and the same goes for ISP. I'm sure dealing with the FCC is just as bad as DOJ.

[bigmike82]

"Then wouldn't it be a viable plan for someone else to open an ISP with lower rates?
As in competition?"
This was true back in the dial-up days, which is why the price came down so quickly.

New broadband ISPs must use existing infrastructure...they can't build new ones (per local, state, and fed regulations). Which means that new ISPs are limited by the big guys on how much bandwidth they can offer. There's no motivation for the big guys to up their capacity because they have a monopoly over a certain area. At your house, you're basically limited to either DSL or Cable (Or FIOS, if you're one of the lucky few). Though you can get, generally, a few different DSL providers, they ALL run over the SAME telephone line. None of the providers compete to improve their infrastructure, because they don't own it. It's not a very healthy place for capitalistic competition to occur.

[AJAX22]

"Then wouldn't it be a viable plan for someone else to open an ISP with lower rates?
As in competition?"
This was true back in the dial-up days, which is why the price came down so quickly.

New broadband ISPs must use existing infrastructure...they can't build new ones (per local, state, and fed regulations). Which means that new ISPs are limited by the big guys on how much bandwidth they can offer. There's no motivation for the big guys to up their capacity because they have a monopoly over a certain area. At your house, you're basically limited to either DSL or Cable (Or FIOS, if you're one of the lucky few). Though you can get, generally, a few different DSL providers, they ALL run over the SAME telephone line. None of the providers compete to improve their infrastructure, because they don't own it. It's not a very healthy place for capitalistic competition to occur.

Which is why CLEC's exist (in theory).... although in practice they tend to be subsidiary's of the primary carrier.

The government f's up everything they touch.

I would prefer they NOT f'up the internet any worse than they already do.

[bigmike82]

"I would prefer they NOT f'up the internet any worse than they already do."
Agreed. And to do that, in this case especially, they need to enforce network neutrality.

[AJAX22]

"I would prefer they NOT f'up the internet any worse than they already do."
Agreed. And to do that, in this case especially, they need to enforce network neutrality.

any time you create a large, governmental regulatory mechanism instead of allowing market forces to work you inevitably will NOT like the results.

net neutrality may be the greatest thing since sliced bread.... but it will have intense and negative long term effects if it is implemented by government.

increasing the scope of government = bad things will inevitably happen

decrease the scope of government = good things have the potential to happen.

EVERYTHING you don't like about government bureaucracies that you deal with today STARTED because people thought that the creation of that bureaucracy was a good idea that would make life easier/better/more fair/etc.....

There is ONE truth in politics... Bigger government BAD, smaller government GOOD

[JimmyD]

you guys are forgetting that you are paying for internet connectivity, just like when you use your phone you are paying for connectivity to the phone network. you are paying for a pipe, what you do with that pipe doesn't matter, if you need a bigger pipe you pay more, that's it.

its not about government intervention, its about phone companies changing your contract at their will and people getting confused on what they are actually paying for (connectivity not content)

[bigmike82]

"decrease the scope of government = good things have the potential to happen."
Generally speaking, yes.

This does NOT happen when you have a large, entrenched monopoly...which is what the case is right now. There are two companies that have a potential monopoly over your broadband internet access. It is either a single cable company, or a single phone company.

That's not the free market at work, bro. And the free market isn't going to come into play in a situation like this.

[Telperion]

"decrease the scope of government = good things have the potential to happen."
Generally speaking, yes.

This does NOT happen when you have a large, entrenched monopoly...which is what the case is right now. There are two companies that have a potential monopoly over your broadband internet access. It is either a single cable company, or a single phone company.

That's not the free market at work, bro. And the free market isn't going to come into play in a situation like this.

Has it occurred to you that network neutrality will, in fact, entrench the status quo more effectively than any supposed monopoly? Ten years ago, if you wanted broadband internet, you could pay $150/mo for ISDN or hundreds more, plus thousands in setup costs for a T1. Depending on where you are, today you have choices of cable, DSL, FiOS, 4G wireless, satellite, municipal WiFi, and wide-area WiFi meshes. Technology marches on, and I expect we will have more choices tomorrow, unless we create a cartel through government intervention.

Could a network neutrality-free world lead to content constraints? Possibly, but much of it would happen to the consumer's benefit. I can imagine some twitchy gamers or day traders would pay extra for service that has priority, low-latency access to game servers or stock brokerages, respectively. On the other hand, consumers wield power too; many ISP took notice of the drubbing Comcast received after it tried to stealthily throttle P2P traffic. Some people would opt for metered, per-bit pricing, and content providers could partner with service providers to colocate their applications to reduce bandwidth costs for the consumers. Some other would want to pay for discounted internet service in exchange for viewing partnered ads before connecting to any website. These choices benefit consumers and reduce costs but would be impossible under network neutrality.

If you don't like the way broadband is structured today, with caps, limited speeds, and poor service, then you ought to consider that network neutrality will entrench the present situation permanently. Any innovation that involves rethinking network access will be met with resistance from content providers. Similarly, innovative content services that need bandwidth, and that would benefit from partnering with carriers will be shut out. You will have two large corporate lobbies, each vying to use the big stick of .gov against each other in order to protect their turf. The consumer and innovator will lose.

[Ech0Sierra]

Isn't this regulation of the internet? Disagree. Competition will always be more effective than regulation.