Who Needs the Internet?

[gyre]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8745078.stm


FCC to toughen internet rules

The stage has been set for what many predict will be an ugly fight over broadband plans for US citizens.

The Federal Communications Commission has taken the first formal steps towards tougher rules for broadband.

It asked for public comment on three different plans, igniting an expensive lobbying campaign by all sides.

The looming battle follows a court ruling questioning the FCC's right to regulate internet service providers after one throttled traffic to users.

That court ruling dealt a major blow to a central plank of the FCC's broadband plan called net neutrality which demands that all data traffic be treated equally.

The five commissioners on the FCC board were split 3-2 in putting out for public comment proposals on new regulations for the broadband industry.

'Third way'

One of the three plans the public is being asked to comment on, and which is favoured by FCC chairman Julius Genachowski, is called the "third way".

This would involve reclassifying broadband so it went from being a lightly regulated service to one with more vigorous oversight.

In return for this tightening up, Mr Genachowski has proposed the new classification would not regulate on how much people pay for their broadband. It would also shy away from overseeing internet content, services, applications or electronic commerce sites.

The other two options include leaving the existing regulatory framework in place or imposing the full force of stricter regulations.

ISPs, such as Comcast, AT&T and Verizon, prefer the status quo and have come out against the "third way" proposal.

"This is impossible to justify on either a policy or legal basis and we remain confident that if the FCC persists in its course - and we truly hope it does not - the courts will surely overturn their action," said Jim Cicconi, AT&T's senior executive vice president for external and legislative affairs.

Verizon said the FCC's move was "a terrible idea".

By contrast, web giants such as Google and Amazon extol the value of free-flowing web traffic and an open internet.

"Broadband infrastructure is too important to be left outside of any oversight," said Richard Whitt, Google's telecom and media counsel in a blog posting.

'To the death'

The political dynamics of the FCC board, two Republicans and three Democrats, imply that the "third way" looks almost certain to be the plan it adopts.

Some suspect this will provoke more lobbying and may draw legal challenges.

"There is a very big fight brewing and it's the carriers versus everybody else," said Erik Sherman, analyst with BNET.com, part of CBS's digital business network.

"There is little doubt it's going to be a right data Donnybrook and I am not sure the consumers are winners in any circumstances. These companies are not fighting for the little guy. They are fighting for themselves and higher profit margins."

That view was echoed by Public Knowledge, a Washington based public advocacy group.

"It's a tough road ahead and the telcos are going to fight this to the death," communications director Art Brodsky told BBC News.

"AT&T in the first quarter of this year spent $6m on lobbying. That is one company. One quarter. Compare that to Google which spent $4m in the whole of last year."

The Computer and Communications Industry Association said the "third way" option is the only realistic option.

"Without deliberate FCC action, consumers, entrepreneurs, small businesses and non-profits will be left completely powerless against the corporate commercial interests of their unregulated internet access providers," said Ed Black, association president.

'Misguided'

A research paper released ahead of the FCC vote warned that net neutrality rules could cost hundreds of thousands of jobs in the USA .

The report argued that a 10% reduction in investment by broadband
providers would cost more than 500,000 jobs before 2015.

"These regulations severely restrict the ability of network companies to manage their own network traffic, what technology and what techniques they will use to get a robust service and will close off important new business models in this new world we live in," Bret Swanson, president of technology research firm Entropy Economics told the BBC.

Fellow author Charles Davidson of the Advanced Communications Law & Policy Institute at New York Law School said: "With the US economy still in a fragile state, imposing restrictive regulation on one of the country's most dynamic sectors is misguided."


The US is rated 15th in the world for high speed internet access

[Sham]

I have a theory that this whole internet thing is just a passing fad. I'm not falling for this like I did the pet rock and the Furbies. I still have all my 8-tracks when those return.

[Trishntek]

Madam Palosi seems to equate the internet as a universal right,,,,,

"Reclassification, net neutrality, universal access for every American, these are priorities for us. And we see it not in isolation but as part of a new propserity, as a job creator, to make America healthier, smarter and an international leader," Pelosi said, according to left-leaning site.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postte ... i_sai.html

Anything she is for, makes me extremely suspicious.

[geekster]

Pelosi speaks like someone who doesn't have the foggiest notion what she is talking about. "Net neutrality" for one. It *sounds* like a great idea ... until your VOIP doesn't work anymore because some event happens and everyone has bandwidth sucked up with streaming video and the network is not allowed to prioritize telephone traffic over streaming video.

In fact, the network would not even be able to prioritize a lower bandwidth provider of the video stream over a HD stream of the same event so that the video would be watchable by a larger number of people.

The regulations ensure that the network becomes congested and prevents the network operator from doing anything about it.

Also, there is no such thing as "The Internet". If you are on AT&T or Comcast or Road Runner, what you call "The Internet" is AT&T's private network. If you want to see something on Google, chances are it goes via AT&T's direct peering connection to Google and never touches anything called "The Internet".

So what they want to do is control data communications. There is no monopoly in that market. If you don't like one provider, you can get a different one. Let the market decide. We *do not need* Congressional regulation of "The Internet". What they really want to do is regulate what sites you can connect to and when.

JUST SAY NO.

[Trishntek]

I suspicion Google has a dog in this hunt,,,, possibly they would provide the infrastructure to enforce these regulations and police the net? I did a brief search but cannot substantiate,,,, so it's just my wonderment at this point.

[geekster]

Damn right Google has a dog in the hunt. They want to produce higher bandwidth content, want unrestricted access to the end user, they want a clear pipe all the way to the user and they don't want to pay a dime for it.

So ... they start producing more HD content, demand for that content causes the provider's network to become congested. Provider can prioritize that content down so that other content flows unimpeded. Google wants to prevent that. Google wants to force the provider to upgrade their network and charge the end user for it all.

Without "net neutrality" the provider could say to Google, if you want to get your stuff to those eyeballs, you can kick in some of the cost of upgrading the network or your traffic will be prioritized down.

Google, Yahoo, MSN have very open peering policies. That means that if ISPs are in a data center where Google appears, they have no problem tossing a connection to you. That means Google's bandwidth cost is pretty much zero for delivering that content. The end user (you) end up bearing all of the cost of upgrading your ISPs network to handle increased traffic loads just because the provider of the content decided to change to a different format that uses more bandwidth.

Leave it up to the networks to do what they will. If you aren't happy with it, you can move. A network that does things that people don't like will lose customers. Let the market decide.

[geekster]

Actually, another reason occurred to me that is consistent with the way the government does things these days.

By preventing network operators from prioritizing traffic, you precipitate a crisis which the government must then step in to manage.

Example:

Some real world event happens ... say another 9/11 terrorist incident, anything that causes people to run to the Internet all of a sudden. As network providers are now prevented from adjusting traffic priorities to allow certain traffic types to continue flowing (VIOP telephone traffic, DNS requests, email, etc. prioritized over, say, streaming video), everything comes to a standstill. Then the government must step in and "manage" the situation by directing network operators to do what they would have done on their own anyway.

So the government creates an environment that makes a crisis requiring government intervention more likely.

Never let a good crisis go to waste.

[Trishntek]

Actually, another reason occurred to me that is consistent with the way the government does things these days.

By preventing network operators from prioritizing traffic, you precipitate a crisis which the government must then step in to manage.

Example:

Some real world event happens ... say another 9/11 terrorist incident, anything that causes people to run to the Internet all of a sudden. As network providers are now prevented from adjusting traffic priorities to allow certain traffic types to continue flowing (VIOP telephone traffic, DNS requests, email, etc. prioritized over, say, streaming video), everything comes to a standstill. Then the government must step in and "manage" the situation by directing network operators to do what they would have done on their own anyway.

So the government creates an environment that makes a crisis requiring government intervention more likely.

Never let a good crisis go to waste.

I think you are spot on with that assessment. IMHO. That actually sounds about as reasonable as subsidizing the over-production of corn with gubmint funds. Then they want to turn around and tax ethanol which is produced by the already-subsidized production incentives.

In addition to that, now they talk of raising taxes on sweets,,,, ESPECIALLY SOFT DRINKS! And what do soft drinks contain? Yup,,,, CORN SYRUP!

[geekster]

That actually sounds about as reasonable as subsidizing the over-production of corn with gubmint funds.

Well, those days are gone. There is no longer any grain surplus. Ethanol demand has resulted in millions of acres of wheat and soybeans being taken out of production. Next time we get an early (or late) killing frost in the midwest, people are going to be in a world of hurt.

[ygmir]

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