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Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
10/23/09
10/23/09
10/23/09
I vote that the internet be a FCC regulated interstate, not the Verizon Tollroad. #netneutralityjohnmccain
10/23/09
10/23/09
10/27/09
10/23/09
This is 'merican history, folks. Love it or leave it!
10/23/09
10/23/09
You took the words right outta my mouth! it's like those liberal fancy pants who oppose the Patriot Act! i guess they aren't patriots - they sure ain't actin' like em! they say 'oh but nobody even read it before they passed it' well duh! why would you even have to? it's the Patriot Act, so it's obviously patriotic to pass it as soon as possible! #netneutralityjohnmccain
10/23/09
10/23/09
Haha. Good one. #netneutralityjohnmccain
10/23/09
10/23/09
10/23/09
10/23/09
10/23/09
10/23/09
I doubt McCain's bill will amount to much and is merely a knee-jerk retaliation to the FCC's desire to control how the internet is operated. And would only open up the industry for different regulations.
If some ISPs want to prevent you from getting to Netflix, or whatever, fine. Different services from different companies IS competition, not forcing them to all operate under the same guidelines, yet this editor thinks homogeneity will. Absurd.
This type of soft fascism is what's killed the American economy and is only furthering its demise. #netneutralityjohnmccain
10/23/09
If the monopolies were abolished and there was open competition then sure I'd be for less regulation but as it stands if I want fast internet I have only one choice and I would like to not be raped by them thank you very much. #netneutralityjohnmccain
10/23/09
monopolies are not restricted to Rockafellerian methods.
PS. im a capital L Libertarian, BTW
10/23/09
However, giving them more regulations only makes them more strongly invested in government operation. The government needs to stop with the handouts and allow the competition to take foot in the first place. #netneutralityjohnmccain
10/23/09
10/23/09
While I understand and completely agree that ISPs should not be allowed to "regulate" content based on fees. But at the same time, do we want another organization, in this case the FCC, to start imposing rules?
Remember, like everything else, the FCC is just another organization that is subject to politics. You may like what they do now, but policies and laws change.
Look at how the FCC regulates TV and radio. Sure they coordinate certain aspects of it that keeps it organized. this station on this freq. etc. But don't they also try to "protect" us from offensive content? "Oh...If I pay for cable, I can get movies that haven't been filtered?"
Basically it comes down to: "It's not broken... So don't try to fix it" That goes to the ISPs and the FCC. Just leave it alone.
ISPs - if you filter MY content, I will take my business elsewhere.
FCC - you should not have authority over the internet. #netneutralityjohnmccain
10/23/09
10/23/09
So I would pose this question: True competition is being hindered by who?
To me, it depends on who you're asking. Ultimately, it is the abuse of power on both sides that should concern us. #netneutralityjohnmccain
10/23/09
Attention dick wads on both sides: stop. You're making this more difficult for everybody.
If you're arguing for legislation regarding the internet, and you're not discussing some really techy thing that a large percentage of the population doesn't understand, you're not doing it right! #netneutralityjohnmccain
10/23/09
Do we want the government to give the FCC widespread control of the internet within the United States so that they can change rules and regulations at a whim like they have been doing with broadcast TV (I.E. Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction")
Or do we want to keep the Internet Unregulated and have us be at the mercy of money-grabbing corporations such as Comcast, Time Warner, etc...
The FCC rules seem nice up front, but if you look at the gaping holes of exceptions they put in, the ISPs more or less can just keep doing what they're doing now, just title it differently.
McCain's proposal basically just says the government has no say in what the isp's do and allows the isps continue what they're doing now.
So the question is how do you want your Shit? candy coated (FCC) or straight-up (McCain)? #netneutralityjohnmccain
10/23/09
The FCC's "rules" haven't yet been established. In case you missed that part of the article, the 6 guidelines laid out by the FCC the other day were just that. Guidelines. They will be discussed further, and endlessly, on exactly how to implement them. Comments on these guidelines due in by January, responses to comments by March, actual rule-making to follow. We don't even know how this is gonna go down. So, no, the FCC "rules" aren't vague. They don't exist yet. Because they're still waiting to hear what everybody has to say on the issue.
And for the last freaking time. Net neutrality laws will not give the FCC control over the internet. It will give the FCC the authority to regulate abuses. Which is, you know, the role of government.
Don't panic, people. #netneutralityjohnmccain
10/23/09
I realize that the guidelines proposed right now are just that, proposed, but if they stick and become final, it won't really be true net neutral with all the loopholes they would establish to allow corporations to continue to do what they are already doing right now.
The FCC has a tendency of function-creep. They were originally suppose to just make sure everyone was playing nice with the radio spectrum, punishing people that were messing with someone elses signal that they were broadcasting on. Then they decided that they had to also make sure no one was saying naughty things "for the children". I can forsee the FCC doing the same thing with the Internet that enters and leaves the United States. Yeah at first they mean well and want to make sure everyone is being nice with each other and then somewhere down the line they decide to play content cops and start overstepping their original boundaries.
The thing is people need to think of the whole picture and make sure there are checks and balances in place so that function-creep can't happen.
Do i feel that the FCC should be policing the internet in the name of neutrality? No. Do I feel that laws like the one John McCain is proposing is the right method either? No.
Like i said previously there is a very fine line that has to be tredded on and one mis-step and everything will go to hell in a handbasket. #netneutralityjohnmccain
10/23/09
By "not final", I don't mean beta test. I mean roadmap. It's a mission statement. The idea that lawyers and courts would let those vague statements govern is ridiculous.
The FCC has some poorly defined authority, and I'll give you that. It's worth watching to see what they're going to do, and protest as is fit. But whatever it is the FCC is doing is yet to be seen. Hasn't materialized. Doesn't exist. They're determining what direction to take it right now. And they've been doing a rather large amount of questioning the public about how to proceed. Which is a very good thing. If you have an issue with the guidelines they put forth, now is the time to voice that. By January. Rebuttals to those comments by March. We'll start to see real legislation after that, which is where we'll argue the particulars. #netneutralityjohnmccain
10/23/09
10/23/09
10/23/09
10/23/09
There has to be detailed guidelines so that these ISPs can ensure time sensitive applications get the right of way.
10/23/09
That, to me, is what this is all about. The dumb pipes are still dumb, but the companies that run them have applications now that run on the dumb pipes in competition with other companies -- and they have the ability to compete unfairly. I don't want the cable monopoly's voice service. I've got Vonage. I don't want the cable monopoly's VoD service. I've got Netflix streaming. Those should be choices I get to make without cable monopoly interference. #netneutralityjohnmccain
10/23/09
Which provider are you on? #netneutralityjohnmccain
10/23/09
They can't what? #netneutralityjohnmccain
10/23/09
Their DigVoice offering is on another network and completely separate from your internet connection (as separate as separate can be considering it goes over the same coax). The FCC was on them about this as well which last I had heard was off the table because it is in fact on another network.
I'm off Comcast now because one of the other providers had a better deal going.
I have a 15mb connection now (I used to get 26-28mb on Comcast) which is fine, but the latency is just as bad with these guys. Networks need management, I'm all for net neutrality, but there has to be some basic network management lumped in there and strict guidelines on what they can and can not do. Just saying "you can't screw with customer data" isn't good enough, because we need them to screw with our data, but only to an extent.
People like to say "they should just add more bandwidth" well, the problem with that is, the additional bandwidth will get sucked up too, then what? Add more? It will just keep repeating until the business is no longer viable. We need real guidelines.
10/23/09
Would it have been a good idea if ISPs decided that 56k was as fast as they wanted to go and quit before broadband became prevalent?
Without the pressure of continuously adding more bandwith on ISPs, innovation of newer, faster technologies will be hampered. #netneutralityjohnmccain
10/23/09
Second, I know how their VoIP works. The fact that it's on a separate network has nothing to do with the fact that without NN rules, Comcast is free to degrade Vonage traffic. What would stop them?
This is not about bandwidth; this is about unfair competition. #netneutralityjohnmccain
10/23/09
Let's say you have a router at home running ddwrt or tomato or whatever. You also use Skype on a regular basis, would you or would you not go into your router and setup QoS and or throttling to ensure that your uploads and downloads do not screw up your Skype connection? If you didn't, your calls would suck because your downloads (or whatever) would suck up the rest of the bandwidth.
Their networks are the same way. Comcast is a bad example because everyone hates them, but the fact remains we need management with transparency and regulations (rules whatever).
@PunditGuy: They can't degrade it now, they can't do shit on their own network, no ISPs can, the FCC is all over them. All the stink about them degrading VOIP came up when they had to take this [arstechnica.com] down and VOIP got smashed to hell by everyone else.
The above also gave priority to real time applications. There are better articles but when you search you wind up with 1,000,000 stories about P2P which are unrelated to the portion we care about in this instance.
When you do not have priorities, QoS, shaping, and the rest the bottom line is that time sensitive apps begin to break down. When you download a file a slight delay will not slow down your download, but a slight delay in video or VOIP screws it up.
Let me say this again since you obviously missed it in your anti-comcast frenzy. The FCC needs to implement a strict set of guidelines which include network management practices. They are not evil, they are part of life and help the networks when done right. We want real time applications to get priority over ones that don't need it.
You mention "delay", what exactly is it that you think QoS or packet shaping does? It delays a packet... Oh no, your packet was delayed .01ms so a VOIP packet could get through... This is not the P2P thing, they weren't delaying P2P, they were spoofing and killing connections which is bullshit and thankfully has been stopped. #netneutralityjohnmccain