Oh yeah, like I'm going to trust this administrations FTC to protect the consumer against rapacious big business.

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geoduck wrote:
Oh yeah, like I'm going to trust this administrations FTC to protect the consumer against rapacious big business.

Oh yeah, the fox is guarding the hen house.

This WH has done the very opposite a number of times:
1. No, I am not going into Iraq.
2. We will find WMDs.
3. I am compassionate
4. I am a conservative
5. Privatizing will actually make SS more secure.
6. Less taxes means I have more to spend.

You guys above are first class idiots, and I mean that affectionately. Just like all my Democrat/liberal friends, wet your pants first, then confront the facts later. If there is a problem, please point to it. That is what she is asking. They can't solve a problem if they don't know about one. They can't solve a problem if there isn't one. They already have a wealth of legal and regulatory tools at their disposal to solve these types of problems should they crop up.

If you think there is a net neutrality problem, open your terminal and diagnose it. Mac OS X makes it easy. ping, traceroute, wget, nslookup... A modern Apple spreadhseet might help, but AppleWorks does the job. Hell, put it in Keynote and make a preachy movie about it like Algore. They are all you need to make a technical assessment of network slowness, figure out who the evil culprit is, and share your findings with the world.

This is important for the future of Internet usage and citizens should encourage every aspect (i.e. gov't studies) that will keep the Net an open marketplace for ideas & content.

Keeping the Internet free & open to new developers is important to the growth of this new medium. We should support any study & effort that will keep the free flow of independent information and services available to the average citizen.

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Bosco wrote:
You guys above are first class idiots, and I mean that affectionately. Just like all my Democrat/liberal friends, wet your pants first, then confront the facts later."

Bosco: Your arguments would hold more weight if you'd just leave out the childish insults. Really.

As for the net neutrality... the internet isn't a big truck. It's a series of tubes.

Personally, I feel better that the FTC is looking into this matter rather than Ted Stevens. They have a bit more competency... regardless of whose administration is in power.

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brett_x wrote:
Bosco: Your arguments would hold more weight if you'd just leave out the childish insults. Really.

Typical September 10th thinking.

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Bosco wrote:
You guys above are first class idiots, and I mean that affectionately. Just like all my Democrat/liberal friends, wet your pants first, then confront the facts later. If there is a problem, please point to it. That is what she is asking. They can't solve a problem if they don't know about one. They can't solve a problem if there isn't one. They already have a wealth of legal and regulatory tools at their disposal to solve these types of problems should they crop up.

If you think there is a net neutrality problem, open your terminal and diagnose it. Mac OS X makes it easy. ping, traceroute, wget, nslookup... A modern Apple spreadhseet might help, but AppleWorks does the job. Hell, put it in Keynote and make a preachy movie about it like Algore. They are all you need to make a technical assessment of network slowness, figure out who the evil culprit is, and share your findings with the world.

You missed the point. Major ISPs like Comcast have already said that they WILL make sites pay to get "full speed" access. It's not hypothetical. It's not about what's happening NOW, but what WILL happen.

In many areas of the US, the fastest connections are through the cable tv systems. In many communities, those are government-franchised monopolies. The local phone companies (the owners of the wires--also usually a franchised monopoly) also want to charge access fees for independent DSL providers to bring their prices well above what the phone companies charge.

"Capitalism" as practiced today by large companies is seldom really about competition. When big companies tout "competition," they usually mean, "Make it harder/more expensive for everyone else." (Just recall Microsoft's methods. They weren't interested in fostering competition, at all, and would do almost anything--including stuff that they should have known was illegal--to kill competition.)

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brett_x wrote:
As for the net neutrality... the internet isn't a big truck. It's a series of tubes.

Wow that really makes you think. You've totally changed my opinion on Net Neutrality. It's now the opposite of whatever it was before.

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gslusher wrote:
You missed the point. Major ISPs like Comcast have already said that they WILL make sites pay to get "full speed" access. It's not hypothetical. It's not about what's happening NOW, but what WILL happen.

Where did they say this? What has been said is that some high bandwidth "sites" could be offered dedicated access with certain performance parameters. Think video on demand. Or think in-home medical monitoring. As I've said before here, if you support the net neutrality cause, you basically support killing and/or bankrupting grandpa. There are a myriad of applications where dedicated guaranteed performance Internet over already deployed lines (think cable, DSL) would reduce costs and provide new services. Add in net neutrality and you can't even start to think of those apps.

As I have also pointed out before, Andrew Orlowski at El Reg has written the definitive obituary on the Net Neuter movement. You ought to go over there and read it. You'll feel silly for having fallen for all the FUD.

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Bosco wrote:

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brett_x wrote:
Bosco: Your arguments would hold more weight if you'd just leave out the childish insults. Really.

Typical September 10th thinking.

Oh, BS, Bosco. Have you enlisted in the Army or Marines, yet? If not, why not? If you're not physically able, have you volunteered in some other way?

IMNSHO, every reasonably abled-bodied "conservative" under the age of 42 (they recently raised the maximum age for enlistment) should make a beeline for the local recruiter and sign up and insist on going to Iraq as soon as possible. Why let someone else fight your war, when you could get the glory--or, are you like Dick Cheney and find it "inconvenient"?

Oh, yeah: it took me 22 years to become a civilian again, but, now, I can put "Lieutenant Colonel, USAF (Retired)" after my signature.

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Bosco wrote:
Where did they say this? What has been said is that some high bandwidth "sites" could be offered dedicated access with certain performance parameters. Think video on demand. Or think in-home medical monitoring. As I've said before here, if you support the net neutrality cause, you basically support killing and/or bankrupting grandpa. There are a myriad of applications where dedicated guaranteed performance Internet over already deployed lines (think cable, DSL) would reduce costs and provide new services. Add in net neutrality and you can't even start to think of those apps.

As I have also pointed out before, Andrew Orlowski at El Reg has written the definitive obituary on the Net Neuter movement. You ought to go over there and read it. You'll feel silly for having fallen for all the FUD.

"Killing grandpa"? Now, who's spouting FUD? The cable sysems put very low limits on UPLOADING, which is how medical monitoring would work. (Besides, medical monitoring would probably be relatively low data rates compared to VOIP and video.)

Want evidence? Would Bloomberg News suffice? See this article, for example, or this article in the Washington Post, which quotes the chief technology officer for BellSouth as saying that his company would like to be able to charge Yahoo more than Google. It's interesting that Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, etc., are for "net neutrality," even though they could easily afford to pay the extra fees and, thus, drive out competitors. It's also interesting that conservative political groups and bloggers, including "Gun Owners of America," are for net neutrality. They don't want someone to be able to block their sites, as AOL has done with sites that criticize its policies.

There's also a good argument that allowing "prioritization" could stifle innovation. Priority would go to those able to pay for it, not necessarily to the best. For instance, a new search engine that was better than Google could be killed off by Google having preferential access. It surprises me that libertarians are against net neutrality, as prioritization would favor large companies over small, corporations over individuals, etc. It would restrict consumers' choices and stifle competition among the sites and services. (Remember, again, that many large ISPs are local/regional monopolies.)

The Wikipedia article has more information (on all sides) and links.

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gslusher wrote:
"Killing grandpa"? Now, who's spouting FUD? The cable sysems put very low limits on UPLOADING, which is how medical monitoring would work. (Besides, medical monitoring would probably be relatively low data rates compared to VOIP and video.)

Thanks for 3 things: (1) proving my point with your example. (2) Your service to our country. (3) Having a refined enough sense of humor and awareness of context to know that the September 10th quip was a joke.

When the kid across the street is uploading music to 10,000 of his closest friends on edonkey (or whatever comes next), and grandpa's bits really need to get through to a trained tech in India, net neutrality will kill grandpa. But more likely, because the pants wetters insisted in net neutering, home medical monitoring won't be an option and grandpa will be in an expensive nursing facility or hospital. Hey, if you can't kill him, bankrupt him!

Your view of the Internet as a commons is only slightly more informed than Ted Stevens' view of the Internet as a bunch of tubes and pipes. In actuality (metaphorically speaking) it is a bunch of public and private roads and houses, each with owners and policies. Like, on my mail server, I don't like spammers, so I use a bunch of block lists to keep many spammers out. I also do not operate an open relay. I openly and proudly violate the principle of net neutrality at the mail transport level to reduce spam and keep my server access bill affordable. Many employers block gambling and porn sites to keep their employees productive, again, flashing their collective giant naked ass at net neutrality proponents. And guess what... Some Internet application will come along that will be expensive to transport and for which some customers will be willing to pay a fee specifically for. And an ISP will offer it to them. And you'll wring your hands, but we will be a lot better off for the market deciding rather than pants wetters on the government payroll.

It's like toll roads. This past week, I have been commuting every evening from South OC to Rivertucky to see an old friend who is in the hospital (a WWII veteran if that counts for anything). I am willing to pay $5 to use the 241 toll road to save an hour of my time and 10 extra miles vs. using free streets. So are a lot of other people. The 91 actually has a toll lanes that cost as much as $8.50 for 10 miles between Anaheim and Corona. And lots of people pay that to save time and drive on nicer pavement. It's how the real world works pal. Get used to it.

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Bosco wrote:

It's like toll roads. This past week, I have been commuting every evening from South OC to Rivertucky to see an old friend who is in the hospital (a WWII veteran if that counts for anything). I am willing to pay $5 to use the 241 toll road to save an hour of my time and 10 extra miles vs. using free streets. So are a lot of other people. The 91 actually has a toll lanes that cost as much as $8.50 for 10 miles between Anaheim and Corona. And lots of people pay that to save time and drive on nicer pavement. It's how the real world works pal. Get used to it.

Would you support the owner of a toll road going over to the 'free road' and taking a jackhammer to it to raise his own revenue?

Just wondering.

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Small White Car wrote:
Would you support the owner of a toll road going over to the 'free road' and taking a jackhammer to it to raise his own revenue?

Just wondering.

Depends if the toll road owner owns the 'free road' or not. If he does, he can hire the Israeli IDF to bomb it for all I care. But I imagine it would be cheaper, if he indeed owned the 'free road' to either stick a toll on it or cut back on maintenance.

But you know, if he screws up on servicing his customers, even his 'free customers' (who actually do pay for service if we're talking ISPs here), his free customers might choose to go to another road or a hungry upstart might come in and make a better deal for them.

You don't mean to suggest that a toll road operator would destroy someone else's road in order to jack up revenues do you? That would be criminal! But then again, you also will have a tough time admitting that the ISP owns the lines and all that entails. Well, they do. Deal with it.

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Bosco wrote:
You don't mean to suggest that a toll road operator would destroy someone else's road in order to jack up revenues do you? That would be criminal!

Yeah, I kind of DID mean it that way.

Your whole "killing grandpa" example led me to think that you agreed that one service should have the right to interfere with another's service because it's more worthy.

You picked a life-and-death situation because it's easier to declare who's "more worthy" in that situation.

But I was just wondering, in a situation where both services were providing a very similar service, if you thought the right of one to mess with the other would still apply.

I'm glad to see you think that's criminal, but I'm still left wondering how we decide who's interfearence is justified and who's is criminal. You think some are ok and some are not. I'm just not sure how to tell the difference.

EDIT: And yes, I can tell the difference between these 2 examples as they are the extremes. What I'm more confused about are the less obvious ones.

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Small White Car wrote:

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Bosco wrote:

It's like toll roads. This past week, .

Would you support the owner of a toll road going over to the 'free road' and taking a jackhammer to it to raise his own revenue?

Just wondering.

Ya gotta love Bosco, if it isn't pregnant coeds it is toll tubes

The toll road operator just needs to influence the elected officials and highway departments to defer maintenance on public roads. Campaign contributions go real far in getting special interest's needs met. South Orange County in California eh, the buckle of our State neocon belt? They are wanting another toll road that will impinge the on San Onofre State Beach. Not to worry, Representative Darryl Issa will get it rammed through the process, if he doesn't join his buddy Cunningham in the slammer, these guys are worse than Network 23 executives.

Control communication, meaning both information and movement, and you control the population.

For all of the nail-biting about these evil big busineses that are going to STEAL the internet away form the "common man" most of the pro-net-neutrality crowd seem to forget who exactly is providing the actual service...those same evil big businesses. We want fiber at our curb nationwide (that is after all why I am STILL paying a universal service charge on each phone line I own, isn't it Mr. Gore?), but we won't pay more than $49.00/month for high speed access. Sigh...I loathe to even get into a lengthy discussion about this because those who see this Administration as evil and dead set on raping and pilliaging the "common man" won't be swayed...back to my big comfy chair in my Club Gitmo shirt.

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Edison Carter wrote:
The toll road operator just needs to influence the elected officials and highway departments to defer maintenance on public roads. Campaign contributions go real far in getting special interest's needs met. South Orange County in California eh, the buckle of our State neocon belt? They are wanting another toll road that will impinge the on San Onofre State Beach.

Yeah, extending the state owned 241 from RSM to San Onofre really serves those special interests. Especially when those special interests is the community of Rancho Santa Margarita, a city with one major free flowing traffic artery to and from which is a state owned toll road! A whole city of people who either pay the state every time they leave town or take side streets. And you know what? They're happy to. They also all pay Mello-roos (sp?) to support infrastructure like sewage, etc. that North County gets in their regular property taxes.

So yeah, it's special interests who want toll roads. What a dumb-ass, and I don't mean that affectionately. One very nice thing about the toll road system we've accepted in South OC (and yes, I did have a bumper sticker 15 years ago that said "Pave Laguna Canyon")... People who use the toll roads give some thought to how necessary each trip on the toll road actually is, and if it's not that important, sometimes, they defer a trip or try to do a few things in one trip rather than sit in traffic on the free roads. This reduces pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, dependence on foreign oil and all that other stuff we're supposed to worry about. And yeah, between paychecks, when the Fastrak is about to charge $100 to your bank account to replenish your account, you sometimes start thinking about the cost of driving.

In short, toll roads are a great thing. Market mechanisms on oversubscribed infrastructure are a good thing. Net neutrality is stupid. Good night now!

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Bosco wrote:
As I've said before here, if you support the net neutrality cause, you basically support killing and/or bankrupting grandpa.

Which was awarded the pointless/stupid hyperbole award for 2006 but was not a meaningful argument.

As far as the toll road analogy; personally some of the worst roads I've driven are toll roads. And yes if it were up to the free market, the owner of the only toll road from city a to city b would let those that pay through and keep those out that do not, and would only do enough maintenance to keep traffic flowing even if the road is full of potholes. That is how capitalism works. (A real example is BPs record of neglecting its pipes and systems on the Alaskan North Slope and covering up it's horrible environmental record.) It is not about servicing the customer, it is about getting as much money from the customer without actually driving them away, and as long as you have a monopoly then it's pretty much wide open. Only when laws are put in place saying that they may not to this or that does the citizen have a chance. BTW I spent most of my life working in one corporate environment or another so I'm not some ivory tower liberal. I've learned through experience.

Take the example of American news outlets. Important issues are strikingly absent from primary American news outlets when they are front page on the BBC, Haarats, or domestic "alternative" outlets like Truthout. Why is that? As Bill Moyers disclosed in a series he did something like 10 years ago, most of the major news outlets are owned and controlled by large corporate interests. Do you think GE is going to let a story critical of its corporate behavior appear on its news programming? How about FOX, which is effectively a subsidiary of the republican party? No, Americans are spoon fed tripe about a murdered little girl from 10 years ago and "news" stories about American Idol, not what they need to know.

This is what we are trying to prevent on the Net. If a limited group of monied corporate interests gain the right to throttle whomever they see fit then what makes the Internet valuable will be lost. Want to start a company, sorry unless you pay extortion to the carrier on top of your ISP fees no one will see your web site and your e-mail will take 24 hours to get through. Woops, sorry your business would compete with our parent company so we just can't seem to get you anything faster than dial-up access. Want to e-mail a friend, sorry to limit SPAM we have imposed a 25 cents per message and 10 cents per IM fee. Want to shop for a new computer? Sorry, any search for Computer goes to Microsoft or Dell. Apple, HP, Linux and all the rest just haven't paid enough for Prime Real Estate on the web.

The list goes on and on. The issue is that in my 40 some years on this rock I've never been wrong when I bet on greed winning out over freedom in corporate America. The net is the Golden Goose that will be killed if it isn't free and neutral.

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geoduck wrote:
Want to e-mail a friend, sorry to limit SPAM we have imposed a 25 cents per message and 10 cents per IM fee. Want to shop for a new computer? Sorry, any search for Computer goes to Microsoft or Dell. Apple, HP, Linux and all the rest just haven't paid enough for Prime Real Estate on the web.

You know what I just love about the Net Neuter crowd? 7 years ago, they were all wrapped up in the Cluetrain. David Weinberger, for example, is a huge Net Neutrality pants wetter. The Cluetrain said that "markets are conversations" and that the power of the Internet (broadly speaking) is that if there's an error, it routes around it. With Net Neutrality, you have all lost faith in what you said you believed. Not that I thought you really believed it to begin with...

Under Net Neutrality, markets are still conversations, but English only, and none of that no accent California English either. Use your Harvard accent or get labeled corporate and evil. I honestly can't decide if you guys are hypocrites or just stupid. There is ample evidence on both sides. But my pet theory is that you can't stand not being in control, being just part of one mob rather than controlling the strings of the mob leaders. There is so much more freedom to lose from your side than from any corporate Dr. Evil like AT&T's Ed Whitaker.

And the faith you have lost in routing around errors! If e-mail becomes $0.25 a pop, doncha think some coder somewhere will come up with a free messaging system we can all use? Maybe he'll design the server protocol so it isn't so inherently trusting and impose higher costs on spammers (violating net neutrality principles of course).

geo... before you move to Canada, I would be happy to take you on a toll road tour of South Orange County, CA. We have 2 main state owned toll roads (the 73 and 241). We also have a toll road financed by a French company that runs parallel to the 91 (in the old median). They actually look and feel and move like roads. Contrast to the 405/5/91, which often look and feel and move like something from South Lebanon. Our tour would cost about two large cups of coffee each at Starbucks, to put it in perspective.[/url]

Why bother arguing with Bosco? No one will change his/her mind. It's the cyber equivalent of p*ssing into the wind. Don't waste your time and energy. There's been enough said and enough links posted for those who are interested to investigate further, or one can just Google "net neutrality."

Bosco seems to enjoy this, so I won't suggest that she/he stop posting. However, if there are no responses, Bosco will go on to another topic, like Apple's stock price.

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Bosco wrote:

You know what I just love about the Net Neuter crowd? 7 years ago, they were all wrapped up in the Cluetrain. David Weinberger, for example, is a huge Net Neutrality pants wetter. The Cluetrain said that "markets are conversations" and that the power of the Internet (broadly speaking) is that if there's an error, it routes around it. With Net Neutrality, you have all lost faith in what you said you believed. Not that I thought you really believed it to begin with...

You can only route around local issues. When the small number of companies control all access there won't be any routing around, and one of the fundamental advantages of the Internet will disappear.

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But my pet theory is that you can't stand not being in control, being just part of one mob rather than controlling the strings of the mob leaders. There is so much more freedom to lose from your side than from any corporate Dr. Evil like AT&T's Ed Whitaker.

Frankly the net currently works like a mob. everyone has an equal right to put up a web site, or sens a message. What those of us that support Net Freedom want to avoid is exactly the situation where a few people, corporate bosses, the government, or even us have control over who says what.

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And the faith you have lost in routing around errors! If e-mail becomes $0.25 a pop, doncha think some coder somewhere will come up with a free messaging system we can all use?

And any messages from this system could be blocked by AT&T (for the sake or argument, I'm not picking on them in particular) from traveling over their part of the net because they want everyone to use their fee based service. Right now anyone can set up a free e-mail system, or free web hosting, or free IRC, or whatever system they want. On the Internet they have as much right to do this and the free market will determine if they get rich or go back to flipping burgers. Those who want to end Net Freedom want the right to squash competition before it has the ability to grow. Without Net Freedom Google, AOL, Amazon, etc. etc. would not have had the opportunity to grow. Only when everyone has a level playing field can the marketplace work.

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geo... before you move to Canada, I would be happy to take you on a toll road tour of South Orange County, CA.

[offtopic]This is outside of the debate but personally I am just viscerally opposed to toll roads. I just feel that charging people to travel around a supposedly free country is wrong. I know that some great strips of pavement have been built that way, I just don't like the concept. Roads are a public asset that benefits everyone. They should be built with public funds, and open to anyone whether or not they have a quarter in their pocket.[/offtopic]

At this point I'm leaving the debate. I'm heading out on vacation and by the time I get back this thread will have become ancient history.

Bosco; this has been fun. We'll have to do this again some time.

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geoduck wrote:
[offtopic]This is outside of the debate but personally I am just viscerally opposed to toll roads. I just feel that charging people to travel around a supposedly free country is wrong. I know that some great strips of pavement have been built that way, I just don't like the concept. Roads are a public asset that benefits everyone. They should be built with public funds, and open to anyone whether or not they have a quarter in their pocket.[/offtopic]

It's not really off-topic. Why am I surprised? I brought the toll road discussion to the table because the toll approach solves a similar problem that packet prioritization solves. That problem is bandwidth contention. If there is no cost for people to just get on the freeway, you get the 5 or the 405, both parking lots during commute hours. The toll roads are priced so that they present prospective users with a decision: is it worth it to pay the toll and encounter less traffic on a nicer road? The 91 toll road, with its traffic sensitive pricing, actually gives drivers a lot of information in the price before they make the decision. If it's $8, I can count on Anaheim to Corona being 45 minutes to an hour drive in the free lanes. And since I value my time a lot more than $16/hour, I can decide to pay to save time. You may decide different. You may even decide, in the face of variable tolls, to alter your work/commute hours so that you can save money. If enough people decide this, maybe we get more uniform use of the highway lanes rather than expensive peak usage patterns. All while giving individuals the freedom to do as they want -- as they weigh the costs.

Similarly for bandwidth. If I have an application that requires guaranteed bandwidth and guaranteed low latency, like video conferencing or voice chat or medical monitoring, a company ought to be free to offer me a product that can guarantee the performance I need, and I ought to be free to buy it. With network neutrality as law of the land, it's not allowed or highly regulated (meaning options will be severely limited and non-reactive).

The only strength of the network neutrality argument is "what if". What if SBC decided to hold Google hostage for a transport fee? What if ISPs who also play in the long distance game start blocking Vonage? We have an FTC that has said it is able and willing to deal with those kinds of issues. It is eager to find out if they are really playing out. And we have customers who would never stand for it. Believe me. If we can reject New Coke, if we can tell McDonalds we don't want salads and fruit parfate, if we can tell AOL and eWorld and CompuServe and Prodigy to come to the Internet or get left behind, we can stand up to any ISP that oversteps reasonable principles of non-discriminatory content access.

One last example... I'm glad many ISPs block port 25 by default, again totally against the principle of network neutrality. It means that compromised computers can still be connected to the net and not do as much damage as spambots. This kind of unneutral behavior by ISPs keeps the Internet available to all.