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During the Bush years and Obama’s campaign the majority of the press was for the Democrats. Now they are upset because the nation is waking up to the fact that we have been misled about what is going on in Washington. I think they need to back down and quit forcing all this crap on us including these FCC rule changes. I would vote against any politician that made this change to get their own way and increase their power , all against American’s wishes. Where were they the past 8 years? Now they are scared because we’re listening to a different drummer? It’s our right – freedom of speech is in the Constitution, not messing with FCC rules to get people they don’t like what they are saying to shut up but can’t shut them up by proving their statements wrong. America is changing and we are sick of Washington little ploys!
What are you talking about? What dream are you people ‘waking up’ from? Conservatives had control for the last 8 years, how can you claim to be a victim?
Your comments demonstrate that you don’t understand what is at stake. A politician who supports net neutrality is not trying to increase their own power; just the opposite, they’re trying to disseminate as much power as possible. An internet that puts barriers to communication (ie fees) is an internet that tries to limit democratization and freedom of speech.
America is changing; to be more open, diverse and free. Which side are you on?
Net neutrality has nothing to do with political preferences. As for forcing, how would you feel for the corporations to filter your internet, allowing you to become brainwashed into thinking that they are your only choice of internet provider by blocking all content from their competition’s websites or servers? Would you like to be tricked into believing that you’re not being swindled while being so right under your nose?
You believe that government intervention seems wrong and that all they want to do is control we the people, but you lack to state what NET NEUTRALITY means! Net neutrality is to treat ALL data equally, and that blocking this information from the users of the internet (we) for their own personal beliefs or gains is wrong!
You say you believe in freedom of speech but would like less of it by giving power to the corporations instead of to the rightful owners of the internet (WE, THE PEOPLE)???
I agree, we need less government interferring with our lives. Quit messing with our lives and try running the country with some common sense. Quit bailing out big business, banks espc. Fannie & Freddie, apoligizing for our country and try helping our troops in the Middle East. Let the free market thrive and quit trying to regulate everything!
How does requiring phone/cable companies to allow anyone to access any part of the internet and not restrict them based on what company pays them the most, or what stuff the phone/cable companies want us to see shutting people up? Instead it is giving everyone on the internet an equal voice with an equal chance to be heard regardless of how deep their pockets are.
Amen — this is just another way to stop us from speaking our minds and to speak the truth with these government controls. “Beware of those who control the meda and the right to dispense privilages”.
I too am tired of the government getting its hands into all aspects of our lives. The internet provides an opportunity to be heard. I want less government control…not more. Let’s look at other countries whose internet is controlled. Scary!!!!!!!!!
So right you are there and if all this comes about because of the supporters of Obama – don’t forget, the guy in charge of FCC is also an Obama supporter, the Internet will be run soley by the Government if we let this happen – no doubt about it – America should not condone a Chavez like President when it comes to the Internet or the Media and TV!
A few have the type of courage that is being exhibited by a few individuals in the FCC at this very moment. Blocking content, from being delivered over the internet, is counter productive and makes little sense to most of us. Are we going to let corporate greed dictate what content will be distributed over the internet? This is a fantastic opportunity for us to lower our individual Federal Income Tax burden and at the same time increase the Federal government’s income. It’s time to FINE each company that blocks content being sent over the internet. A good fine would be a $1000 per byte that the company blocked. Such a move would discourage corporate greed from destroying internet content flow and provide added income to the Federal government in a fair way.
what about having people pay for what they use, isn’t that what free enterprise is about? Should a company be required to let someone use more than there share? Its like holloween, put a tray of candy outside your door with a sign, please take one. Sure there are those that will follow but someone will come along and take what is left. Not charging for high bandwidth consumption or at least allowing network companies to manage the network ruines it for all. The additional cost is paid by all.
And who do you think is going to make up for the corporations loss? Do you really think they will just absorb the extra cost and NOT pass it on to the consumer? This is not realistic logic when it comes to corporate finances. This would be nothing more than ANOTHER indirect tax on the American Taxpayer.
How is the internet a “public” entity? Does the government of the people spend the billions needed to design, install, augment and maintain the infrastructure? Does the government of the people hire, pay and train the resources needed to make the internet a stable reliable form of communication? Of course not. So how does one come to believe it should be totally regulated according to government mandates. No one is saying the telcos should have free reign, including the telco’s themselves. Matter of fact, if you read their positions they advocate a free and open internet; however, on the other hand, it doesn’t make sense for the telcos to spend billions more on captial investment when the return on that investment is at risk.
Can you site an instance of content blocking where the FCC did not fine the company for blocking that content? That enforcement already exists. The issue really isn’t blocking of content but “rationing” resource consumption (bandwidth). No company that provides internet access wants to block content because that would simply drive consumers to providers that are open. What ISPs want is to ration the use of a finite resource IF someone is using a lot of it. Most of us already are familiar with this concept. Utility companies like electric/water/gas already do this via tiered pricing. If you consume X KW of electricity, you are charged $ per KW. If you use Y KW over X, then you are charged $$ for the amount over X and so on.
It’s not about how “open” the internet is. It’s about how a resouce (bandwidth) should be allocated/consumed/billed.
Hands – What would happen if there were no restrictions and your connection was frequently bogged down to a crawl because someone (or 1,000 people), maybe your neighbors, maybe in another city, wanted to send a constant stream of high quality video onto the network? Will you be happy when you call to complain and hear “sorry, you’re slow because someone else is taking all the bandwidth on the servers and we don’t block bytes” or that your rates are going up 10% a year to keep upgrading the network? You have to pay for the level of service that you want and the network providers need to manage their networks as they see fit. You have choices, some more expensive than others.
There is no such thing as a free lunch.
If you are really worried about blocking content, just wait until Net Neutrality allows a gov’t takeover. This is another way for gov’t to control our free speech and ability to have mass communication with others that believe the gov’t is not working for our good, but theirs!
Are you concerned at all that the Government through these new wonderful regulations might become the ones regulating what’s said / written over the internet? I for one don’t like the idea of an elected official getting to decide on whether or not my blog or my IM conversation is appropriate. More regulation = less freedom in my book. I am not comfortable with the government taking over any type of internet managerial role. As for your fines, if that were applied do you think the companies might pass those costs on to the end users and customers?
Two questions:
1. Cybersecurity – what will the FCC do to encourage enhanced international cooperation, for making the Internet safer?
2. Couple of years ago I talked with the FTC on Net neutrality (http://blog.veni.com/?p=155), but also about the fact that there is no competition on the Internet market in the big cities – one has only two choices: cable TV or the phone company. The two companies provide usually 1-2 Mbps service, which costs $ 40-50. At the same time, in European Bulgaria the Internet is 100 Mbps, and costs $ 20.
What will the FCC do to address these issues?
1) What kind of taxes do they pay in Bulgaria to get so called $20 internet? My guess is it’s higher than $50/month.
2) How geographically diverse is Bulgaria vs. the United States of America? A quick internet search tells me it’s about the size of Ohio.
Not a good comparison. I’d submit that the INVESTMENT needed to build to 100 Mbps service everywhere is great enough in a country this large that the phone or cable companies you talk about whould have done it already if it would pay off.
my web http://www.mirskiy.us hacked two times , do you think why and who ?
FYI – The Internet is not very popular in Bulgaria. Capitalism ( Supply vs. Demand = Price) is why the cost is lower. You have to remember that other countries are not just like America where the demand for Internet is high ,which equals higher cost. It is the law of economics.
This is not the role of government to address these issues. Please think a few steps down that road… What might the unintended conseqences of FCC addressing pricing issues be? I don’t think you truly want the real-world results of what you are advocating.
First – There is no such thing as net neutrality. Second, if you want what they have in European bulgaria, move to European Bulgaria.
The difference is that the ISPs in Europe charge $20/month for a connection and a static amount of data (1-5 GB). People that go over that are charged additional fees per GB. In the US, the monthly cost is higher, but the amount of data is (supposedly) unlimited.
Make the torrent users pay for their habit, and then see how popular it remains. Most of them will realize that paying for the DVD is less expensive than stealing it. Charging based on utilization will make connectivity more accessible for everyone, and the costs will be shifted to those who should be paying them. This should please the US ISPs and the government.
Theft is what we used to call this in our civilization. The pleasant man in the nice suit with the wire rim spectacles is advocating stealing. Let’s not kid ourselves.
Net neutrality is a nice way of saying you want to take private property (yes, private property–the absence of which would render this conversation moot) from one group of people and–laundering it through our impeccable, incorruptible regulatory regime–give it to others according to your extra special sense of what’s optimal.
This will, of course, spur many others to invest their own private property in our IT infrastructure, secure in the knowledge that the government will always be there to second guess the manner in which the investor elects to deploy its own capital and sell its own services.
This approach is not right. As an aside, nor is it effective.
The “private property” to which you are referring is actually owned by the people of the US and it is simply licensed to “that group of people” also known as for-profit corporations. This fact is mentioned by Lynn Rowe above and it should be quite easy to understand.
It is my opinion that:
1) Spectrum licenses should remain the property of the citizens of the US
2) Infrastucture build-out and maintenance should be outsourced to Ericsson, Lucent-Alcatel, Nokia-Siemens, and any others capable (via competitive bidding process)
3) Provider access be made available to businesses at wholesale pricing for hundreds of different companies that can, in turn, offer service to end-users
Under this scenario, true competition through market forces will allow for both innovation and prosperity.
What does spectrum mean without the wireline or wireless (e.g. towers) infrastructure? I don’t think it means anything. The founding fathers stated that we have a right to life, liberty, and the *pursuit* of happiness (note the word pursuit is not the same as a guarantee). Government’s job is to remove the barriers to these. I don’t think they would have ever supported forcing businesses to allow just anyone to use their land/property at will. In effect, net neutrality does just this. Are you willing to allow anyone who wants to use your resources to advance their wants without getting your permission or paying you for use of your resources? Let’s face it, the government’s overall record in using/managing our resources (i.e. our tax money; social security) hasn’t been acceptable to date. Why do you think their ownership of spectrum or the government dictating how businesses should operate will result in a different outcome? Advances in wireless technology have been possible today simply because the government hasn’t been involved. Let’s keep it that way!
These companies spend billions of dollars investing in the infrastructure required to provide these services. If you want to stop innovation then net neutrality is the way to do it. Why should a company invest anything if they are then forced to give it away.
The dollars invested to purchase the rights to the use of the airwaves and to was private capital, hence it is private property. In your world, who will pay Ericsson, Lucent, et al for the build-out maintenance? Who will upgrade the systems in the rapidly changing environment? The government? God help us!
And who is going to fund Ericsson, Lucent-Alcatel, Nokia-Siemens to build and maintain this infrastructure? Are you? Last time I checked they were “for-profit” corporations as well. It takes a lot of money and know how to run this infrastructure. not to mention all the jobs it supports. The current proposal is a one sided proposition that will only encourage Google to continue to build it’s monopoly.
Correction on the private property point, Thomas.
1) The citizens of the US do still own the spectrum and yes, it was licensed to private businesses. These businesses paid MILLIONS of dollars to the government for the right to use this spectrum. Are you saying that they should have just paid the money but not be allowed the use?
2) WHO should require that infrastructure build-out and maintenance should be “outsourced?” Do you think that the government owns all of the millions and millions of miles of connective infrastructure that currently makes our communication /wireless/Internet system work? Do you think that the government should just take over that infrastructure without paying anything for it?
3) Provider access IS being made available at wholesale pricing, by the private businesses that own the networks.
There is no “free lunch,” folks. If you want the government to direct that networks be used in a certain way, you need to think about who owns the assets now and how to pay for government acquiring those assets. You need to think about taking money out of your own pocket to pay for this – in the form of increased taxes.
Please explain to me what “market forces” would drive a company to “innovate” when there doesn’t appear to be profit potential in your scenario so there doesn’t appear to be any prosperity involved.
On the contrary, the private property is the hardware that would be used to channel the “free” internet. These “for-profit” companies, own, maintain, and pay to build these pipelines, and they should be private property.
It would seem that you have no idea what it takes to first engineer and build the wireless network, then to daily provision service and maintain that network. None of the above mentioned equipment manufacturers are remotely capable of doing any one of these required steps to having a wireless network. Take note of the many wireless networks that have gone out of business over the past two decades. It is a difficult business to manage, and certainly one in which government is totally incapable of providing. In addition, the wireless spectrum can be claimed by the public, even though with intense investment and knowhow the public will never benefit from, but the internet is totally provided by private companies, and the wireless spectrum has no value without the wired landlines connecting every single cell tower, and those landlines are provided by private companies. Take away the private companies like AT&T and Verizon and there is no wireless network, no internet, nothing. It all rides the wired infrastructure built by these companies, which they funded, provided R&D throughout the past century to invent & develop, create, engineer, install, provision service and maintain. Oh yes, in doing all of this they also created and provided millions of good paying jobs the past century.
How much money do you think the federal government makes on leasing the spectrum? Billions paid to the tax payers. The government leases spectrum, sometimes roads, airports etc. Outsourcing is to who? Who would pay the network equipement companies?
The “private property” that Matt refers to is not the airwaves, it’s the billions of dollars of infrastructure it takes to get those airwaves to the internet. If the government wants to build that out with taxpayer dollars (which is a horrible idea but for the sake of arguement I’ll suggest it), then the government can provide access equally to all people. It’s ridiculous to think that corporations should spend billions of dollars to build a service that then the government will tell them what to do with it. We got rid of the crazy system of the government dictating phone service in the early 80s. Why would we bring it back for the internet?
What’s wrong with profit. You make it out to be a bad thing.Honestly more innovative ideas come from the free market. Government has over extended their hand way to much as it is. Tesla , remember him. His ideas . Read about him sometime.
Just because they “own” the infrastructure doesn’t mean that they can or should be able to control it without regulation. In the last two decades, the government handed out millions of dollars to the telecommunications industry with the goal of improving the networks that more and more people were using.
They pocketed the money, swelling their bottom line, and now, are claiming that they can’t be regulated under neutrality rules because it’ll make their networks no longer effective. Had they used the money they got in the first place for the purposes it was intended, this wouldn’t even be an issue.
That is our network. It was paid for by the tax money of the citizens. Taking something that should be public property (as the public paid for it) and enforcing their own draconian, money-grubbing rules on it is the real theft.
I think you need to go back to your research. You’ll find that we’re talking about public property paid for by my tax dollars. No, I don’t need to protect someone else’s right to claim our property for themselves.
Matt, I think you are a reflexive anti-government person. “our impeccable, incorruptible regulatory regime” … as though corporate control was better.
The Chairman concluded saying, “Our work is to make sure that, in the 21st century, the garage, the basement, and the dorm room remain places where innovators can not only dream but bring their dreams to life.” Very true. But, the Chairman grew up in New York, as did I, let’s not forget about all of the innovation not taking place in apartments and public housing units in low-income neighborhoods. Part of challenging the old ways of thinking is not presupposing these communities have nothing to contribute to innovation.
I agree. How are people voting negatively on this comment? Seriously? Negative vote for people innovating new ideas in cities? There is a serious anti-administration part of the population that is voting on this page. It seems that no matter the comment, if it is not against the administration it gets negative votes.
Come on people, really? You are going to give negative stars for a comment celebrating innovation?
Thank you, Chairman Genachowski, for your advocacy on this issue. Like many others, I became aware of what net neutrality — and the current lack of it — means through experience. Verizon offers residential consumers a first-class technical internet connection through its innovative fiber optic network. Yet through its Terms of Service (TOS), it limits the innovation and progress of internet users generally, precisely as you describe in your speech. I refer to Verizon’s prohibition against residential subscribers hosting servers. (”You also may not . . . use the Service to host any type of server.” Verizon Online TOS, http://www.verizon.net/policies/vzcom/tos_popup.asp , para. 4.3)
Although Verizon does not define the term “server”, based on general usage, this clause might prohibit subscribers from using such innovative and widely available products as Opera Unite, HFS, Apache, game servers, or P2P applications such as bit torrent — limitations that stifle progress in the utility of the internet and clearly fall within the net-neutrality concept of attaching end-user applications that are not harmful to the network.
Because of its undefined terms and likely spotty enforcement, Verizon’s prohibition against servers is principally a threat that deters scrupulous and fearful subscribers from fully exploring the benefits of the internet. Moreover, language similar to that in Verizon’s TOS apparently is common in the service contracts of other ISPs.
I urge the FCC to examine and get in front of this issue, making it clear that provisions such as that in Verizon’s TOS are not enforceable.
If provisions such as the one in Verizon’s TOS at one time were intended to discourage consumer subscribers from using excessive bandwidth, today this means is a blunt and irrational tool in addressing that concern. Abusive bandwidth hogging ought to be tackled directly, through either transparent monthly limits or speed limitations imposed on high-bandwidth users when congestion actually occurs — but without discrimination based on applications.
All that said, spare a thought for the ISPs. As Chairman Genachowski indicated, net neutrality when implemented correctly, will boost both consumers and business. At the same time, the viability of the ISP business model must be assured in a more highly regulated environment. But that appears entirely achievable with an intelligent approach. If the FCC takes such a course, it should have the support of household internet subscribers such as me as well business generally. Good luck.
I have to completely support the concept of internet neutrality and even the providing of free or low cost internet service to all Americans. It is the way of the future and must be available to all on an equal basis. Obviously, the large, commercial organizations will need more bandwidth but a certain basic package with sufficient bandwidth for typical home and SMALL BUSINESS applications should be part of this basic package and basic price.
I am and have been in the broadcast industry (TV) for the past 39 years. The spectrum that is going to be used for wireless internet was basically taken from the broadcasters who had used it quite well to serve the public interest. I do not want it to become a windfall profit for the likes of Microsoft and AT&T to create a super expensive network for their own profit – which incidentally, they WILL NOT SHARE WITH STOCKHOLDERS. It must serve the public interest, not line the pockets of a very, very few whose pockets are already overstuffed.
It is refreshing to finally see an FCC that is concerned with the average citizen. Thank you.
Why am I not able to buy ANY phone and use it with ANY wireless service? Why am I restricted to buying a phone that the carrier chooses? Should I not be allowed to choose what phone is right for me?
What’s going to happen next? If I subscribe to Time Warner’s Road Runner Service, will I be required to buy a Time Warner laptop? Will I only be able to purchase a computer that Time Warner believes is the right computer for me?
Please put a stop to this. Please let me have the choice in what cellphone I want to purchase, with the choice of carrier I want to use.
Please,
A concerned U.S. Citizen / customer.
U.S. Citizen has no idea what he is asking about. As the wireless world has exploded over the past 15 years, companies have INVESTED in technologies that they believed would provide them a competitive advantage, create jobs and profits that would allow for additional investment. Those technologies are not all compatable. Handset manufacturers decide which phones they think will sell on the different technologies, with the capabilities of those technologies. Seems like there has been quite a bit of inovatoin this way. If U.S. Citizen was to make it that a phone can work on ANY network, then he should start a company that makes phones and do so himself. If there is an actual market for that he should do well. If not — enough said.
This is an excellent point about the ability to purchase any phone for wireless. That was one of the points of the AT&T divestiture in 1984. Not just long distance separation, but also equipment. Consumers could simply buy any phone from any manufacturer and plug it into the wall jack of their home regardless of what company provides the service. It has proven to be quite successful and now wireless needs to do this as well.
Earl Apel
Cincinnati, Ohio
An added thought, people could buy phones before the divestiture in 1984, but I think 1984 caused a change in mindset in that the phone company wasn’t the end all of everything. It is simply crazy that one has to be stuck with AT&T, for example, if one wants an iphone. One should be able to buy the phone, then go to the carrier of choice that provides the best service for one’s needs. Wireless at many times seems to be much more like the old Bell system, except there are more Bell systems to choose from. Who knows, if I can tell one company I’m going to leave because of their poor service, yet keep my physical phone not just the phone number, might that provide some more incentive. Just like the good old 1984 divestiture?
Earl Apel
Cincinnati, Ohio
The reason you cannot buy ANY phone and use it with ANY wireless service is due to a large number of factors; but the major ones are as follows: 1) Carriers do not use the same technology. 2) The cost of each phone is subsidized by each carrier. The $20 to $300 you pay for a phone is not what the phone costs. The actual costs of the phone to the carrier is much higher than this. Finally, you can actually buy pretty much any phone, if it is the same technology. It will cost you a lot more for being “unlocked.” Carriers lock their phones because they want to make sure that they get the money back that they have invested in the phone.
Because each mobile phone provider does not use the same technology, and the wireless providers do not manufacture devices. Take the iPhone for example. Apple manufactured it using the most predominant wireless technology in the world, GSM, and there are only two major players in the US that use technology.
Until the US based carriers adopt one technology, this will not become reality, and I do not see them all moving to the same technology anytime soon. Do you honestly think that any carrier can afford to convert all of their towers to a new technology which would be needed to fulfill your wishes? On the other hand, do you honestly think that the phone manufacturers will begin to produce devices that work on ALL technologies?
The carriers use different networks on different radio frequencies. The radios in the phones and the cell towers are tuned to the frequency that carrier has rights to. That is why they are not universal. Phones with compatible radios are transferable from network to network, not because of some anti-competitive conspiracy. Also, if you are willing to pay full price for a phone, you will find a much larger selection available from the internet or non-carrier retailers.
If you think you are limited now, wait until the government controls it and you get the ONE program they have — they’ve done such a wonderful job of bankrupting social security, and medicare, maybe we can get them to ruin telecommunications as well!
I don’t know if this is the proper place to complain about our ISP, but I have had an AT&T aircard, which was a joke as far as speed is concerned. I have a Verizon aircard now, and it started out pretty good, but then in the second month, I don’t have Broadband Rev-A anymore; it’s only National Access, which is about the same as dialup. I’m still having to pay $60/month. I have complained to Verizon, and they blame it on technical difficulties, but based on what I’ve read from other people, this is a cover for “throttling” my service. I’ve never went over my 5-gig monthly allowance, and with National Access, I might not have to worry about that, because it would take a month to get that much.
What America needs is for the ISPs to start supporting Net Neutrality. I use TWC with RoadRunner and they throttle me daily. I am paying for higher speeds, but when using bittorrent, they act like arsholes and throttle me!
You get throttled because you are paying for best effort speeds. Quit crying!
I use Time Warner and I never get throttled. Mabye you should check your network settings
The Internet and Our Founding Fathers: The internet is as essential for Americans as a telephone, everyone needs to have access to it, internet providers should be required to provide a basic minimal cost internet access service, like \life line\ to everyone. Many working poor, and single parent, families, and elderly people on fixed incomes who do not qualify for government assistance of any kind because they may have more than $2,000 in savings, are currently unable to have any access to the internet. Today, access to the internet is a essential to being a participating member of our society, not an luxury option. For example both of my children’s schools, now communicate exclusively through the internet. The NYC board of education now tells parents to check the internet for their standardized test results. School surveys, and applications are found on and submitted through the Internet. All of the public schools now have their own web sites, and each class has its own web page for assignment and communication with their teacher. Students are expected to do research assignments on the internet and collaborate with their fellow students on projects through the internet. I have met many low income working families, and single mothers who have no internet access at my children’s school because it is just too expensive and they cannot afford it, their children’s ability to receive an education is being negatively impacted by their lack of access to the internet. The government must mandate some form of low cost public access, and keep net neutrality. Big companies should not be allowed to cap modems or control what people see/use on the internet. The internet can provide a way for everyone to participate in our democracy as our founding fathers envisioned, if access to the internet is made available to everyone, and big companies are not allowed to control it for their private profit. As Thomas Jefferson said; \The price of freedom is eternal vigilance\
Please keep the Internet Free
It is certainly true that ubiquitous, low-cost Internet access for all US citizens would be a great social benefit. However, it must come at a cost. All of those devices in the apartments and homes, and the substantial network to connect them back to the Internet cost real money. Are you, Elizabeth, prepared to pay more income or sales taxes to raise those funds (since you don’t want to charge the low-income users much themselves)? The money has to come from somewhere.
In today’s Intenet, the really large flow of funds is for advertising. If you want to pay for ubiquitous broadband, let’s have the FCC, and/or the FTC, levy a tax on Internet advertising. There are many billions of dollars there with huge profit margins. They can certainly afford a small tax.
Dail Up service can be obtained for as little as $4.95/MO and DSL as little as $9.95/MO. What’s next, the Gov’t should make luxury car manufactures seel their cars cheap enough so everone can drive a Cadillac?? Keep it real, who is goign to pay for this? Competition is alive and well and we have the best system in the world! You don’t try to fix something that isn’t broken??
Hey its called a library! Free membership and they provide internet! ?Get off your lazy butt and go there. Dont cause ME to have to provide YOU “free internet”.
No one would argue that the internet isn’t essntial for Americans. But so is gasoline! How much more do Americans use gasoline every day, than the internet. Personally, I’ve never met anyone, even in the rural back woods of Mississippi and Alabama, who doesn’t have internet access of some kind. How come no one is protesting that gasoline prices should be regulated? Why is it the fuel industry is a “free market”, and the internet needs to be regulated more? So lets recap! Gasoline prices shot through the roof over the last 3 or 4 years, causing many people to choose between, buying groceries or buying gas, paying their mortgage or buying gas, buying internet access or buying gas, buying a new cell phone with wireless internet or buying gas, buying new clothes or buying gas………………..and the FCC feels the need to add more regulations to the internet????? Now if I’m not mistaking, the internet has not caused or contributed to our current economic recession like gasoline prices have, but rather has sparked fierce competition in the technology industry and lowered prices from all the major carriers, created new jobs in the marketplace to keep up with demand, provided unprecedented new technology like smartphones to make our lives as Americans easier, and has helped boost our economy in spite of greedy oil companies, CEO’s, and banks! So here’s an industry that is working wonderfully, and the government wants to make it better! Why should we worry, because we all know how wonderful the post office and social security is working! And soon to be health care too, boy I can’t wait! Americans…..I suggest you wake up. There is an old saying…..if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it!
The founding fathers either walked or rode their horse or ass to the town square, town hall or school to participate or to communicate to those who needed to be spoken with.
Do you think Thomas Jefferson would have the Government buy a horse for the citizens because they did not have one? Get on your ass and participate. To help your fellow school district families that can’t afford a computer and the Internet, ask the school district to buy it for them. Let the district patrons’ tax dollars support those in the district.
If internet providers should be responsible for providing internet, then computer companies should be required to provide computers, electric companies should be required to provide the electricity, chair companies should be required to provide the chair to sit in, training companies should be required to provide free training, operating companies should be required to provide free software on the free computers… Of course, this is ridiculous, but do it in one area makes no sense unless you do it in all.
What our government should do is to ensure that all citizens have the power of choice in all of these areas. Low-income families need low cost options in many areas. If they need assistance, provide it in a manner where they can receive funds to spend as they see fit as well. Provide for something similar to food stamps, like credits, which can only be spent on certain services such as Internet, utilities, housing, and transportation. Then you will only create one government bureaucracy to control it instead of one to control each individual industry.
I am pretty certain that our founding fathers did not envision the internet. As a matter of fact, I am 100% certain that you and I both are unable to find any mention of the internet in any of the founding father’s writings. Incidentally, telephone service is not a “right” in America. It is a utility that must be paid for by the consumer. Before we worry about providing the internet to every citizen (as a tax-payer subsidized entitlement) let’s try to get congress to post bills on the internet for all to see.
Truly, we are not a paperless society. I am glad to hear that your schools post scores and information on the internet, but I do not believe that they do not provide paper scores at the families request.
The internet is a service and someone must pay for that service. Today, the people who use the service pay for it. Your idea would require my tax money to not only pay for legitimate use, but also pay for another citizen to sit at home and play games or view pornography. Your solution is unacceptable.
The internet is NOT and entitlement. People need to pay for things they want. Giving people things that are paid for by someone else is essentially thievery. If someone wants free internet, they can go to the library. If they want free anything – someone has to pay for it. I think each American needs to pay their own way, instead of demanding someone else pay their way.
People are not free if they are forced to support other people against their will. We used to have that kind of thing in the US but we ended it in 1865. Don’t you dare beg to bring it back! That’s not what freedom is.
That you like the recipients and hate the people whom you think should be forced to work for others without compensation seems irrelevant to me as to the fundamentally immoral nature of what you are calling for here. If you want to help kids, old people, and whoever else then spend your own money.
I think net neutrality is a good thing. But I also think that internet service providers should be required to provide by law, free or low cost basic dial up and/or broadband internet to income eligable customers including people that are not on public assistance but have a low income. It is important for their to be more competition between new and old internet service providers. I say this because it would be fair to consumers like me and internet service providers. In this new Millenium having internet access and some type of a computer has became a necessity, just like home heating and a phone.
Should the Internet companies be required to provide a computer too?
There are a number of choices available for ISP’s. You have a number of ISP’s offering broadband (satellite, cable & DSL) and dial up services all over the country. The competition is there.
As for providing free or low cost service… that is already happening now. Define low cost. Also, how are you going to get on the net if you are low income? Computers cost money. Should those be free too? What ever happened to going to the local library or school for free access to these services?
I am all for helping people in a lower income bracket… but Internet is not as important as jobs, health care, food, housing, etc. A family in that lower income bracket has prioritized their needs – if you ask them you’ll probably find free/low-cost Internet access is toward the bottom of that list.
Where to begin, you said “…internet service providers should be required to provide by law, free or low cost basic dial up and/or broadband…”. The internet is not a right (nor should it be) and why is it ok to use the government to take that money by force from someone else to give it to you just because you cant afford it? Also you said “… it would be fair to consumers like me and internet service providers. In this new Millenium having internet access and some type of a computer has became a necessity, just like home heating and a phone”. Again, why it it the governments job to take something from one group and give it to another that hasnt earned it? If you dont have a job that allows you to afford simple dial up than I think that you should address that first before you ask the government to take someone else’s money and give it to you so you can afford dial up. If you cant afford it than go to the library!
Dear Mr. Cohen,
Regarding your statement, “I also think that internet service providers should be required to provide by law, free or low cost basic dial up and/or broadband internet to income eligible customers including people that are not on public assistance but have a low income.”
What if the “customers” don’t have a computer, do you want the Government (with our tax dollars) to buy the computer too? Good grief! Mr. Cohen we, as American, make choices in life to educate ourselves, to seek employment for ourselves, and choose how to spend our income. The solution to all things affordable is not at the hand of the Government, it is in the hand of THE INDIVIDUAL! ! If you are looking for a way to help those with ALL incomes, then work to have the Government take less of everyone’s income. If you want fairness then ask your legislators to enact a FAIR TAX. The Internet is a want, not a need!
Dear Mr. Cohen,
Regarding your statement, “I also think that internet service providers should be required to provide by law, free or low cost basic dial up and/or broadband internet to income eligible customers including people that are not on public assistance but have a low income.”
What if the “customers” don’t have a computer, do you want the Government (with our tax dollars) to buy the computer too? Good grief! Mr. Cohen we, as Americans, make choices in life to educate ourselves, to seek employment for ourselves, and choose how to spend our income. The solution to all things affordable is not at the hand of the Government, it is in the hand of THE INDIVIDUAL! ! If you are looking for a way to help those with ALL incomes, then work to have the Government take less of everyone’s income. If you want fairness then ask your legislators to enact a FAIR TAX. The Internet is a want, not a need!
Dear Mr. Cohen,
Regarding your statement, “I also think that internet service providers should be required to provide by law, free or low cost basic dial up and/or broadband internet to income eligible customers including people that are not on public assistance but have a low income.”
What if the “customers” don’t have a computer, do you want the Government (with our tax dollars) to buy the computer too? Good grief! Mr. Cohen we, as Americans, make choices in life to educate ourselves, to seek employment for ourselves, and choose how to spend our income. The solution to all things affordable is not at the hand of the Government, it is in the hand of THE INDIVIDUAL! ! If you are looking for a way to help those with ALL incomes, then work to have the Government take less of everyone’s income. If you want fairness then ask your legislators to enact a FAIR TAX. The Internet is a want, not a need!
I disagree. You’re asking people to subsidize for those who can’t afford the internet. I pay an outrageous price as it is, and it goes up yearly. What you suggest is for me and other paying consumers to shoulder the burden so others can have the internet. That’s wrong and socilistic. The internet is NOT a necessity as you have stated. It’s a privilege, just like owning a car.
If you want net access, BUY IT LIKE WE HAVE!
I will not pay for more freebies!
So you want the government to supply you with a computer and free internet along with a furnace and a telephone. You know f course that after you get your gov’t computer and phone they will monitor who you talk to and what you say. oh! and that furnace, you’ll have to keep it at 65. But that’s ok the gov’t will give everyone the same brown jacket pants and a hat.
It would be interesting to note that since video distribution is the main culprit in the center of fears about future network traffic, their are numerous means of more efficiently distributing this type of traffic than is currently being deployed.
Less than 20% of available content is driving 80% of the demand. It’s probably closer to 10% and 90%. This content is being repurposed and restreamed on many networks on a stream by stream basis via nationally centralized systems thus eating up capacity to send the same thing over and over again.
If for example the TV Network, local TV distribution system were used as a way to get high quality content to the edge of the network where is could be sent via local networks and an IP enable wireless TV distribution system to downstream consumer and business caches, a tremendous amount of capacity would be freed up. It is simply a matter of coordinating and jointly deploying a vision of a future system. Sometimes the open market is not the best of achieving these types of change.
I argue that atomic, aerospace, computing and IP technology did not spring up by itself. It was the result of many decades of government investment in base technology development.
I believe the previous actions of the FCC regarding auctioning of frequencies and management of the HDTV transition should be reviewed.
First, I believe the activities of the FCC over the last two decades regarding these issues has been well beyond it’s original authority; i.e., manage frequencies to insure non interference and maximization of the public good.
Previous to this periord, frequencies were managed on a first come, first serve basis and allocated for immediate use with minor application and license fees created to finance ongoing management by the FCC; i.e., a self funding relationship.
From the period of the Reagan White House and the Wiley FCC, the birth of the notion that the airwaves (the property of the people of the US) could and should be auctioned to the highest bidder. This practice was primarily initiated to provide funds to cover growing inability to manage the federal budget.
What is an auction in this context? In other words, it is the taking of the resources of the people by the government for sale to private entities to be used in an exclusive means as a resource to maximize the profitability of its shreholders as opposed to the citizens of the US. Moreover, the obvious result of this practice over the last couple of decades is that the vast majority of these airwaves were either speculatively warehoused for the good of the license holders (e.g., Aloha Partners and the 700 MHz frequencies it recently sold to AT&T and Verizon – in which case the citizeen’s of the US did not benefit from this process nor the underutilization of these frequencies during this period) and/or used for the profitability of the license holder; i.e., the use of these frequencies by license holders is marked up and resold to its clients who are in this case the citizen’s of the US. In short, the people of the US have been made to pay recurring fees on the resources of the people; i.e., a tax, a tax levied by private entities.
In both cases, this has not been based on the original authorization of the FCC. The result has been the delay of broadband wireless due to federally created costs to business;i.e., frequency auction fees, costs which in the long run are inevitabily charged back to the original owner’s of these frequencies; i.e., the people of the US.
It is my contention that frequencies should be allocated in the old fashioned way so as not to create undue costs for communications companies and/or fees for US citizens for use of their resources. Moreover, the systems that utilize these frequencies should be managed as common carrier facilities. This is not a new area of thought and is well founded as a basis for effective nation building. In short, a small regulated return should ensure the profitable operation and roll out of future networks. Of course, this is a rate that will have to be continually monitored to maintain a proper balance between enabling innovation and collection of undue profits for a key catalyst for the economy. Moreover, common carrier principle dictates a clear seperation between the carrier and the goods that are being carried by it. In short, open access to common carrier facilities and net neutrality come from the same philosophical roots.
IP Networks must allow all products to be transported on an equal rate basis; i.e., no pricing preferences; standards to be impacted, Tru2Way, ISP operations, Cable Modem, DSL, Wimax, 3G/4G, etc.
Inventive deployment of the 700 MHz D Block is a potential way of creating a public private partnership to provide a counter balance to the current market so as to enable the reinvigoration of wireless broadband in such as way as to enable and encourage grassroots business development at a local and entrepreneurial level to assist in the development of new solutions to create health, education and business development in the United States. This would also provide for the recreation of the government/broadcaster covenant; i.e., for use of these frequencies the local broadcasters will be held to the necessity of providing local news coverage as a means of education, informing and enlightening the public – a keystone of our democratic republic, a covenant that was broken with the auctioning of frequencies.
DTV should also effort to transform ATSC 8VSB into an IP OFDM standard in an effort to rectify many of the know weaknesses of the current implementation; i.e., poor rf performance, inefficient use of spectrum to enable companion mobile service, higher costs due to single purpose technologies, etc. A reasonable example of use of existing standards to create new generations of low cost chips has been used by Intel for decades. Similarly, the Korean development of DMB based on DAB Eureka 147 ensured lower cost products that what a new generation of ATSC chips would cost. Yet another cost hurdle to business development.
http://www.oneworldtech.com
I’m an independent consultant that wishes to see the peoples resources used for the maximum good of the people vs. the maximum good of corporate interests representing the Telco, Cable and Internet industries. One is clearly, not the other though it can and has been made to seem so.
This is just a summary of my ideas. I have many very specific approaches to the many areas of this topic.
There are some basic misunderstandings here. First, it is suggested that previously “frequencies were managed on a first come, first serve basis and allocated for immediate use with minor application and license fees created to finance ongoing management by the FCC; i.e., a self funding relationship.” Actually, much of the spectrum was licensed through comparative hearings — a long and involved and unproductive process.
Second, it is suggested that auctions were “primarily initiated to provide funds to cover growing inability to manage the federal budget.” To the contrary the auction idea had little to do with raising money but was intended as a means of getting the spectrum into the hands of entities that valued it most highly and would make the most efficient use of it. Giving it out on a first-come, first-served basis was thought to result in the initial licensee auctioning it off directly or through merger rather than the government auctioning it.
Really? My favorite quote in your comment is “Of course, this is a rate that will have to be continually monitored to maintain a proper balance between enabling innovation and collection of undue profits for a key catalyst for the economy.” The government hasn’t exactly shown much prowess in doing this for regulated markets. History shows that when the government regulates a market, consumers pay through higher costs and lower innovation. You shrug this off as a minor sentence in your lengthy comment. This is the heart of the issue. How about spending more time explaining how that will work?
Do you REALLY believe that your cell phone or data bill would go down if frequencies were reduced in price or some how capped at auction!? I think ATT and Verizon would very quitely announce a very large year-end profit for their stock holders. Economics 101: Once a price point has been established with the consumer the only thing that will move it over time is SUPPLY or DEMAND (or I dare say regulation)! What is apparent in the US is that the pure capatalist approach to the development of the wireless network in this country did not work, and is extrodinarily inefficent.
I feel that the disruption and deception of our electronic information is an infringemen on our intellectual and constitutional rights. I back what the FCC is doing and hope this ultimately helps us in the end.
Free Wifi
The United States is ranked 25th or 26th in the world when is comes to ISP infrastructure; why do you think that is? The ISPs are charging more for less.
Japan; one of the most expensive places to live; charge $60 a month for 160 megabits per second and Comcast charges $139 a month for 50-megabit-per-second. Laughable!!!!
The cost of the Docsis 3 that provides the 50-megabit-per-second bandwidth is less than the equipment that provides 6 megabits per second bandwidth. But Comcast charges 150% more to use it.
Companies like Comcast uses undocumented and invisible bandwidth limitation to interrupt consumer ISP service, so I am all for regulating an industry whose track records do not match there factious concerns.
I’m glad this is happening now. I don’t want to worry about Verizon, Comcast, AOL, etc. limiting me on how much I’m aloud to download at any given time. Though this will be difficult, this bill can possibly be a major step in the right direction in both America and the world.
Thank you and please keep it up.
Simple- tax wealth in a highly HIGHLY progressive way. WTF do we need biillionaires for if we have the internet? Thx!
In his speech i didn’t hear one word about the caps put by isp’s, i was sold unlimited bandwidth, but i hear its caped at 250 gb
So i use my bandwidth to watch my live stream of horse racing and others surf the web, so am i one of the people who are “heavy users from crowding out everyone else” i bet if comcast where selling the stream it wouldn’t be a problem.
what i am trying yo say is if i was buying comcast product to stream over the web no problem but if i others product your a hog!
This comes down to national competitiveness. Without incentives in place to promote competition (and thus network deployments), we lag the rest of the world in mobile broadband speeds and technology and ultimately in the productivity of our people. This is just one tiny segment of the technology sector where the US lags our Asian peers and while nobody will agree with all of the FCC’s policies, these things are a good first step. Yes, carriers should be able to make a reasonable return on their capital but their are ways to bring more capital deployments and I would like to see those next steps too.
Dear Chairman,
I want to point out that eBay Inc. has a very interesting opinion about net neutrality. I am a seller so my opinion may be biased by the outlandish statement they have made on the government relations page. They refer to double dipping for fees as something they are against happening with internet use. Yet they charge sellers for listing on the site and then charge when a sale is made.
I also pay for a store that at one time provided brand to my goods on their site across the internet. Now my listings are maybe sent to search engines by eBay and blocked by google(yes I will drag them into this as well) if I want to publish them for users of the internet to find them. So basically I pay for my listings on eBay again.
Finally I am starting to see that slowly eBay descriminates against small sellers. They have devistated over 50,000 small sellers who were not scamming anyone. eBay made it impossible for the customers who pay them money to continue to progress or stay static in sales by creating an impass. Outrageous approval expectations, and published data to back it up that no one has any way of knowing if it has been tainted, or manipulated or corrupted. I am very worried because they can make the data look however they want to and bounce me as a seller. Even though I am a hardworking honest person who is making ends meet in this broken economy.
I pay the same as any seller why should I not be treated the same way as the large sellers who by default of more volume do not fear having the carpet yanked out from under them. Mr Chairman Sir I hope this gets to you because if the FCC ever had a place to step in and protect anyone, and boost the economy back up, this is it. I request that you review ebay policy for sellers(customers), and the way the transmission of ratings from buyers match up to the feedback left(a secondary system of approval ratings). This is acctually the third rating system in place now for sellers. As a seller of under 400 items in a 12 month period I am allowed only 3 1 or 2 ratings I must keep my DSR scores above 4.5 in each category, and have greater than 98 percent feedback. Or I will be suspended or bounced from the site, after I pay the company ebay and paypal(which is the triple dip) money to use the service they will not provide.
My personal Feedback is 100 percent all of my 30 day DSR scores are 4.5 or higher, and during the month of Sept I got one 1 rating for shipping time which is subjective, and possibly unfounded. But my items do not make it past the 20th page of listings in the categories I sell in. For all i know ebay could have given me the one low rating.
I will end this I hope you understand what I mean.
Yet I agree with eBay’s position on net neutrality.
Thank you for your time.
The FCC’s original “four principles” were not based on the results of any data gathering or fact-finding process (they didn’t need to be, because they were presented as not being enforceable). They are also now also several years old, and the landscape has changed greatly since that time. They are also flawed because they failed to take into account many contingencies. They therefore constitute a questionable and shaky foundation upon which to base proposed rules.
When the Chairman was confirmed, he pledged that the FCC would be data-driven and would only regulate when the data showed that markets did not work. In this spirit, perhaps the Commission should issue an NOI (Notice of Inquiry) rather than an NPRM (Notice of Proposed Rule Making) at its October 22nd meeting. An NOI would likely be approved by a unanimous vote (as opposed to an NPRM, which is likely to be contentious) and would allow new data to be gathered and new facts to be considered before any rules were drafted. It would also conform to the wishes of Congress, from which the FCC derives its authority. And it would allow time for the data from broadband mapping projects to arrive, giving a much better picture of the competitive landscape. There’s still half a month before the October 22nd meeting; I hope that the Chairman will consider making this change to ensure that any rules that do get enacted are fair and based on actual fact-finding rather than the unverified assertions of corporate lobbyists.
Telecommunication companies should not be given the right or responsibility to decide what sort of data is allowed or preferred. The very essence of free communication depends on internet neutrality. Surely this is something we want to protect.
I see some people complaining about the FCC trying to regulate the internet but that is not what this is. This is the FCC regulating the service providers to ensure that you receive unmodified traffic with no bandwidth biases imposed or service degradations. The FCC does not regulate the content of the internet or the traffic past the point of ensuring that all traffic is treated equally. It is understandable that some people will not trust the government regulating any laws applying to the internet but by allowing you, the end user, to voice your opinions, give suggestions and quickly become informed on legislation regarding the internet we can work with the FCC to ensure that all regulations that are in the best interest of the internet. I would much rather this site and service exist then be left in the dark with all rules being made behind closed doors.
The Internet has a layered architecture. The network layer is only part of the Internet. It is a layer that bears the weight of other layers, which are built on the top of it: the applications layer and the content layer, where Google and the like belong.
An open Internet is not fully open if upper layers can constrain the network layer to limits unknown and this has the reasonableness of its choices presumed against. For those who “inhabit” the network layer, the Internet is now a less open construct.
That this is being lost by the FCC is rendered obvious when Chairman Genachowski refers to “the Cloud” as something that happens “on the Edge”. Some perspectives are missed here as the cloud is something that may actually constrain the freedom of the endpoints, and which is thus not necessarily a synonym to them.
Choices for the Internet may be made in the network layer or they may increasingly be made in the cloud. Unlike what the name suggests, the cloud may be dense, heavy, full of technological but also moral and political choices. The cloud actually *is* like that. And the cloud is increasingly dominated by a single company, which embeds its choices in a layer that the lower layer of ISPs will then need to support.
In the FCC order on the Comcast case one may read a reference to applications, though what precisely will happen to the applications layer seems to lie beyond the FCC’s mandate. And here lies the problem of its choosing an open Internet for the layer that bears the weight of the cloud.
The Internet will only be fully open as the cloud dissipates. Once we can all see through it. The Internet will only be free as choices are coordinated amongst its many regulators and made with regard to all of its layers at the same time.
Otherwise, what the FCC will be doing is precisely what it says it will not do: picking winners and losers.
Something tells me that you have no idea what you are talking about. Nothing in your word-salad made any sense. The network layer is a technical term, which is part of the OSI model of computer networking, that describes a set of functions which provide end-to-end data delivery for packet switched networks. NOTHING described in the OSI model has any concept of ‘weight’ or morals or politics. All layers are contractually obliged by their specifications to perform their layer specific functions; nothing more, nothing less. You are throwing such technical terms around to appear as a knowledgeable expert but in reality all your arguments are pseudo-intellectual twaddle.
The FCC here actually has the right idea here and wishes to preserve the concept of an open internet. The anti network neutrality movement seeks to destroy the concept of an open internet and replace it with something that is undemocratic and anti-American.
Unfortunately by allowing free and total access you also allow for the constant state of insecurity both of ID and of the dynamic system of computers.
Also one would think after 40 years we would be so much further along than the primitive system we must contend with if we are to use the internet.
I fear my future with the so called dynamic computer/system shall be that it will be a modern word processor/typewriter,and on a occassion a offline game.
This website seems somewhat contradictory against the FCC, which works to keep communication regulated. Interesting site, but sort of unexpected, coming from the gov’t.
‘Net Neutrality” is a really broad term that can mean a number of things to various people. It is great as a concept, but that concept can run head on into the reality of network management. As a former network administrator for both a large medical center and a community college I can tell you that absolute net neutrality is not always possible or even desirable.
If all portions of the internet had unlimited bandwidth we would not have an issue, but the itnernet, like the highway system, is not an unlimited resource. There are times when any network administrator has to throttle high-bandwidth applications to keep that network from imploding and/or reducing the “QOS” (Quality of Service) of delay-sensitive applications like VoIP to unacceptable levels.
Much has been made of the incidents with Comcast over delay and slowdown of P2P file transfers. This may not be a popular stance to take but I think Comcast did the right thing, though I DO fault them for not being more forthcoming in their explaination of what they where doing and why it was being done.
Having said that, the definition of “net neutrality” I would and do support is that, if an ISP or backbone carrier needs to limit a particular TYPE of traffic (P2P or large video content file downloads, for instance) that type of restriction should be done on a non-discriminatory basis – in other words, if that ISP is going to limit bandwidth for movie downloads, ALL providers of movie downloads should be under similar restriction. An ISP must NOT be allowed to favor one provider of a particular service (especially if they happen to have a “tie-in” relationship with a particular provider) over any other provider of that same type of service.
As a non-internet example, if, bacause of traffic conditions the DOT bans trucks from a freeway for a time it bans ALL trucks – it does not ban UPS but let FedEx still use the road. ISPs should operate under that same type of rule.
Once the Chairman releases the NPRM on this subject I intend to draft a complete position paper on this issue, based on my 30+ years in the electronics industry at all levels from user of the services to the CEO of a telecommunications consulting company. I’ll bet both sides of this issue will find things in my thoughts that they will agree with AND things that they’ll want to tar and feather me over, but this IS an important issue. While I think that some government guidence is needed in this area I do NOT want the government regulating the internet the way the legacy telephone companies where regulated: that would be bad for everyone concerned.
Interesting how the audio on this video only comes out of the LEFT channel… Read the text found on the link at top of page “READ THE SPEACH”. In this text note the use of the phrases “lawful internet content” “lawful traffic”. Wonder who gets to decide what “lawful” means… Will it be Local, State, or National laws? Maybe some kind of International law?
He totally gets it! He’s not saying the FCC should control the Internet or access to it, but quite the opposite. He is saying that there needs to be rules to keep the companies that have a near monopoly on access to it from controlling it.
The best thing that the FCC could do is to totally ban usage-based plans. We don’t get charged a higher fee if we ‘use our cable TV too much’ so why should we get charged more when we ‘use our internet too much’.
It’s time for the internet companies to realize that they need to start putting out some REALISTIC numbers that take into account the maximum speed people can use when EVERYONE is on the internet, downloading, surfing, watching online videos, etc.
Right now. their numbers pretty much only say how much speed you get when it’s ONLY YOU using the internet, and that is not right and would be called ‘false advertisement’ in any other industry.
We also need to realize that if we allow companies to make ’speed lanes’, the prices will be jacked up and service for the people who REFUSE to pay for those ’speed lanes’ will be reduced for no good reason.
Network Neutrality is the right thing to do as a nation, since the internet is becoming more and more a NECESSITY instead of a optional.
IF you are the same Christopher as the one at this comment
http://blog.openinternet.gov/?p=1&cpage=8#comment-558 –
The Christopher who said this: “Well, I happen to argue that that ‘unlawful’ content, by which I assume you are referring to child pornography, is okay and I really have no problem with it to be totally blunt or pedosexuality in general.”
If you are that Christopher … and your speaking style seems to coincide … why would I and how could I believe anything you say about what is or isn’t “the right thing to do for the nation” or for anyone at any time? Your discenment in regard to what is or isn’t ‘the right thing to do” is by default, in question.
This is a terrible decision for the government to make. By regulating the internet more you are going to make us all pay more for the internet services. We will probably end up paying by the MB. Everyone benefits but the consumer. The government gets more power and hires more regulators. The broadband providers get to make a lot more money charging by the MB and we as consumers have to pay more. This is going to decrease how much time we spend using the internet. A lot of the growth and productivity this country has seen in the past 20 years has been due to internet usage. By creating a more \free\ internet you are going to make consumers pay more for less thereby stifling innovation.
ATT, Verizon, Comcast, Roadrunner, Satellite internet, if I don’t like how they regulate my internet usage I can change providers. But now with having the government regulate the system I can’t change governments if I don’t like the way they run the show. The free market is better than the \free” internet by a long shot. \Free” internet is just a cover for increased regulations and more cost to consumers. You guys really need to go let Americans do what it is we do best, chose for ourselves what we like.
This net neutrality thing isn’t the only thing you guys are doing that is wrong. You pushed that “Fairness” doctrine and now you’re pushing for those principles in a different format. Believe me when I say I will vote for any politician who promises to neuter the FCC, fire the chairman, and revamp the organization. I’ll encourage others to do the same. Fix yourselves before voters have to.
I’ve got news for you; you’re already going to pay by the Gb without government intervention. Remember that Time Warner fiasco? Well AT&T is currently running capping trials in TX without the same outrage from customers. You can bet within 12 months that capping will spread across the entire country and other providers will buy in. There’s too much money to be made this way for it not to come. When all the providers in your area move to the pay for consumption model, then you’ll have no choice.
Who’s going to come to your rescue then? You can’t just change providers as they’ll all be doing the same thing. When you have a monopoly or duopoly as in most cities for broadband access, someone has to step in to regulate. I can guarantee you none of the broadband companies have your interests in mind.
I fully support Net Neutrality!
This will cause broadband prices to increase. The Internet costs more to build and maintain than the sum of people’s willingness to pay for it.
This is like saying everyone has to have the same food in their grocery stores. That may be possible but how much will it cost?
Wrong. The fact is that these internet companies are making MASSIVE profits on the service that you are buying from them, somewhere close to 1000% when it comes down to it. The bandwidth that is sold to Comcast comes at a VERY obscenely low price…… 500GB’s for 5 dollars a month! Seeing as how you are paying close to 60 dollars for service…. yeah, 1000% profit is actually UNDERSTATING it when you realize that they have a cap of 250GB’s a month.
IF you are the same Christopher as the one at this comment
http://blog.openinternet.gov/?p=1&cpage=8#comment-558 –
The Christopher who said this: “Well, I happen to argue that that ‘unlawful’ content, by which I assume you are referring to child pornography, is okay and I really have no problem with it to be totally blunt or pedosexuality in general.”
I must tell you that people who have *no* problem with child pornography “pedosexuality” (as the terminology of rationalization goes) have a bit of a loose screw somewhere and because of that any other opinion you might express is suspect, and quite worthless.
The Bill of Rights may defend your right to your views and the expression of same …. but that doesn’t mean I have to accept or even be tolerant of them. They are, and always will be aberrant.
If you are not that Christopher .. I apologize.
What about innovation in the Internet infrastructure itself, is that innovation not being blocked? For example, I would like to be able to “on-demand” request more bandwidth. So if I was doing something like watching a movie I could increase my bandwidth to 10Mb/s but normally I only have 1 Mb/s. Or another example, I am ok if my email traffic takes longer to get to me, but I need to have quality of service for my Skype VoIP connection. If I ask my service provider to do this, why should I not be allowed? That is preventing an open and free internet in my view! My SP and I both agree to prioritize my VoIP traffic but Genachowski says we can’t do it.
The problem that you are missing the point of is that someone could be calling a hospital, police, ambulance, etc. over VoIP… that is the reason why we accept that that service will be priorizized, because it is a case of ’severe physical harm coming to someone’ if it isn’t.
For anything else, the fact is that severe physical harm would NOT come to people if everything was treated as EQUAL, as it should be. It’s just bits moving across wires…. it’s time to realize that one bit is not more important than another, except in a VERY few cases: online gaming, VoIP, and online video being the only ‘exceptions’ to this rule.
“it’s time to realize that one bit is not more important than another, except in a VERY few cases: online gaming,…” an online gaming bit is more important than another bit – how?
VoIP and online video (if the persons connected are anonymous) I can see as having higher priority, but gaming, not so much. Frankly, there should be some mechanism to indicate emergency service usage (e.g., if I call 911 via VoIP versus calling my mother via VoIP).
What about caps, bandwidth throttling people to point of no connection because of playing an online MMORPG like World of warcraft and Sony Online Entertainments “Everquest II” playing games online, VOIP port blocking that is still going on and $100.00 for 3mbps down and 1mbps up…
Would like more choice here in rural town of Keene Valley in upstate NY…
And a demand for lower Prices for these “non broadband speeds”
http://www.kvvi.net/services.htm
Forgot one part about the VOIP blocking thing… 6 voip devices within 1 year.. have to change mac address then they work again for 2 days untill the ISP realizes it is on the network and blocks mac address again with analog phone adapter blocking software that i overheard them talking about (also known as APA port blocking applications which are installed at the local cable companies CENTRAL OFFICE)…
also directv on demand has been port blocked by ISP…
and docsis 1.1 help out our rural unconnected port blocked community please. Thanks Chairman and all of FCC…
If they are truly doing that…… call your local Attorney General or State Attorney General’s office. That is bluntly and blatantly illegal by federal law for them to do, and I would advise you to carry around a small microphone and RECORD them saying that if they have actually said it.
JESUS CHRIST BLESS! MY CONCERN EVEN THOUGH I DID NOT HEAR THE SPEACH IS THAT I NEED A LIFE LINE TELEPHONE/COMPUTER AND THINK THAT LIKE FOOD(CALIFORNIA)THE GOVERNMENT WILL NOT INSURE THAT EVERY ONE IN THE WORLD GETS A TASTE! OUR ABUNDANCE IS WASTED! TODAY THE EARTH QUAKE WAS NOT EVEN ON THE WEATHER CHANNEL AND IN HAWAII THAT MAKES ME SCARED AS TO FCC OVERSIGHT!
The internet must be neutral to promote democracy.
phone and cable companies can not be allowed to restrict access to services that they can’t charge for.
As a 14 year old in the United States. My life long dream has been set on being a Game Designer. To get that game out there and beta tested for whatever it is and what company. We need the internet free of filters. Even though I don’t live in Europe I would fight with fists to have my internet rights if I lived there.
Our internet should be NOT TOUCHED BY ANY GOVERNMENT. I can’t find a word but I found one similar to this. “Free Market” – A market not touched by government. Maybe create a word “Web filter free” – Internet that is not touched by government and/or ISPs. ISPs can give you the service but not filter it.
Free market doesn’t work for all things. The fact is that for NECESSITIES (and internet is becoming a NECESSITY little by little), capitalism fails. Fails like a dog that has been shot with a .50 caliber rifle.
Capitalism works well for optional things, but for NON-optionals, it fails because ’supply and demand’ don’t work when people HAVE to buy the things in question.
Considering companies are going to all online applications, that government forms are going online only, etc……..internet has come to the point of being a necessity that everyone has to have in order to do anything with their lives.
What we have right now is not capitalism. Everything we buy right now is regulated up the wazoo by our government. Have you ever considered the internet has grown so quickly and has remained so open because it hasn’t been regulated?!
What is going so badly with our current system? I can get to any website I want. I have to pay more for more bandwidth, but that makes sense!!
I think that while internet carriers should not be allowed to discriminate based on the source
of internet traffic, they should be allowed to promote conservative use of bandwidth by allowing internet content that is of a type that consumes bandwidth (eg text) to take precedence over content that is of a type that consumes more bandwidth (eg video). Text before voice; voice before video. That makes sense to me. But, no discrimination based on whose text (voice, etc), and no using any criterion other than bandwidth consumed to determine precedence between types.
No. The fact is that video is more ‘time pressing’ than text is, and the fact is also that ‘bandwidth intensive’ applications are just BITS ON THE INTERNET. They look NO different to a router than a text document does, just 1’s and 0’s, so there is NO reason that one should be discriminated against over the other, save in ONE situation: time-intensive applications.
Such as MMO’s, video, VoIP, etc. Things that if they are NOT prioritized over other things, would make someone’s experience bad OR cause physical harm to someone, i.e. someone calling the police over VoIP and not being able to get through because their service isn’t prioritized.
IF you are the same Christopher as the one at this comment
http://blog.openinternet.gov/?p=1&cpage=8#comment-558 –
The Christopher who said this: “Well, I happen to argue that that ‘unlawful’ content, by which I assume you are referring to child pornography, is okay and I really have no problem with it to be totally blunt or pedosexuality in general.”
Again, you might need to just stay off the internet altogether – you especially need to be blocked or confined. People who have no problem with “pedosexuality” deserve very few rights as far as I’m concerned. And in light of your opinion on pedosexuality, your opinions on most everything else are worthless, less than useless and your agenda will never become mainstream and your comments here should be deleted.
This is all fine and dandy, but the largest phone company provider if Internet wants to meter people on their usage. This is completely against “Open Internet” and will damage any time of multimedia delivery planned for the future. This plan shows that competition in the home Internet field is limited and is basically a monopoly or oligopoly at best, this robbing the consumer of choice and content. Please reign in this Teclo in particular since they are always at the forefront of anti-competitive and open Internet standards.
I know my statements most likely mean nothing to most people, but I’ve been hearing a lot about this internet “freedom” and “neutrality” but please understand that even with these principles the internet is still not completely free and neutral. The fact that“unlawful” material is still subject to ISP and third party discrimination diminishes the values these principles are attempting to preserve. In order to keep the internet neutral the act of piracy or any “unlawful” behavior need not be regulated.
Now, the previous statement may seem completely out-of-line and inappropriate, however it is this type of content that will allow ideas, innovations, and, amongst other things, the internet to grow. Consider the internet similar to an immune system; the more viruses it receives the more immunities it develops. Likewise, in regards to file sharing or “unlawful behaviors” the internet can grow in developing defenses against such acts. However, by simply calling this content unlawful and allowing ISP’s to continue throttling or cutting off internet for such users, will only delay progress, or slightly reduce the behavior.
To an extent, I do agree with these principles proposed by the FCC Chairman. However, I would have liked to have seen these principles taken further by mandating the neutrality of ALL content, as well as barring third party organizations from threatening ISP’s if no action is taken to curb such users.
The internet is a world in itself. If we continue to intervene by imposing regulations the internet will be unable to evolve and, moreover, will no longer retain the qualities of complete neutrality.
Well, I happen to argue that that ‘unlawful’ content, by which I assume you are referring to child pornography, is okay and I really have no problem with it to be totally blunt or pedosexuality in general.
As to ‘piracy’…… that is NOT an argument to limit the internet, and the fact is that simply by compressing things like games, you can EASILY get past piracy guards. It is simply time for the game, movie, music, etc. companies to realize that they have been OVERCHARGING for their products for many, many years now, and to start offering their products at REASONABLE PRICES.
I.E. 5 dollars a movie, 10 cents a song, and 20 dollars at most for a video game, unless it is an exceptionally large and complex videogame, i.e. Final Fantasy or another RPG game.
Christopher … glad to see you have no votes. In fact maybe you need to just stay off the internet altogether – you especially need to be blocked or confined. People who have no problem with “pedosexuality” deserve very few rights as far as I’m concerned. And in light of your opinion on pedosexuality, your opinions on most everything else are worthless, less than useless and your agenda will never become mainstream.
Christopher … glad to see you have no votes. In fact maybe you need to just stay off the internet altogether – you especially need to be blocked or confined. People who have no problem with “pedosexuality” deserve very few rights as far as I’m concerned. And in light of your opinion on pedosexuality, your opinions on most everything else are worthless, less than useless and your agenda will never become mainstream.
I’m excited about Chairman Genachowski’s clarity on the significance of this issue, and his apparent good intention in creating Internet openness for the people.
I’m curious about what he said about ISPs being allowed to “managed their networks”, and prevent “heavy users from crowding out everyone else”. Is this really a problem? I’m also curious as to whether or not the FCC will play a role in encouraging faster connection speeds.
Case study – What does the FCC say about the following situation:
The ISP in my residential building is MDU. They worked out a deal with the developer of the building (2025 S. Indiana Ave. Chicago, IL. 60616) before residents had a say in what service we could connect to. Owners are now locked into a contract with MDU for 6 or 12 years, and the service has proven to be poor. The system is frequently down, and connection speeds are low, interfering with my use of Vonage service and ability to upload content to my website. In addition, the developer of the building has not made it possible to wire in competing ISPs if one were willing pay for a second provider on top on the unfair MDU contract. Further, MDU does not offer any bandwidth upgrade options to users in this building who would be willing to pay more. This is one of those situations where “free market” capitalism has left a large group of people with no choice.
What will the FCC do to correct and prevent MDU and developers such as these from doing business in this way?
What they should do in this instance is REQUIRE MDU to allow other people into the building, as well as forcing the owner of said building to offer more than one ISP. There is no reason why someone should be FORCED to stay with an ISP just because of where they live or wish to live.
What the FCC says about this situation — in its OTARD rules — is that your building cannot keep you from putting up an antenna and getting wireless Internet service from a WISP or a cellular provider. Go for it! There’s lots of competition out there, so you have no need to deal with a provider whose service you don’t like. (Of course, this is also a good reason not to regulate. There’s robust competition among ISPs, even in very small towns. The unfortunate thing is that the FCC seems to want to start this proceeding before the broadband mapping data from the ARRA is in. That data is sure to show that there’s no need to regulate.)
Bret … does it really matter what Christopher thinks? Considering his foundational character and morality is at the very least tainted and skewed irt child pornography. How could anything else he says or believes be of any value to anyone? ie:
“”Christopher says: October 2, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Well, I happen to argue that that ‘unlawful’ content, by which I assume you are referring to child pornography, is okay and I really have no problem with it to be totally blunt or pedosexuality in general. “”
Fantastic! In a hundred years this speech might very well be played with horror filled fascination. Somewhat like the Cuban missile crisis. This is how close we actually where to disaster and the death of the free internet. Today its about comcast, iPhones and cell phone carriers. Imagine what will happen in a hundred years and just how much impact this decision might have!
In 100 years we will have moved on to a society where capitalism is looked upon as a mistake in human history and we will have finally moved on to socialism and individualism, with the rights of the individual as long as they are not causing physical harm to injury to someone else without their permission acknowledged and uninfringed upon
Hmmm, Christopher, Just exactly where in the world is socialism proving to be such a raging success?
Thanks to Chairman Genachowski for recognizing that the internet is the essential platform of innovations and that preserving a free and open internet is a must. While broadband and related unfair practices by the ISPs to boost their earnings are hot issues now, wireless networks providers are uncontested. FCC must restate its oversight in the wireless arena!
Anyone of you who would rather have the FCC in charge of internet access/content instead of the “evil” corporations is a complete moron. The private sector can be checked, and at least their motives are clear, yes they are trying to make a profit. On the other hand the FCC goals aren’t clear and more often than not when a government organization says that it is trying to do one thing, the exact opposite often happens, whether on purpose or otherwise. Example, limiting and regulating internet. Don’t be morons, don’t support the FCC here.
Who put the gov’t in charge of the internet?
The Constitution of the United States, which says that Congress can and will do things to promote the ‘general welfare’ of society as long as they are not infringing on Constitutionally guaranteed rights.
The Constitution allows no such control over a privately-run and privately-funded service. Access to the internet is nowhere near one of the inalienable rights protected by the Bill of Rights.
Guaranteeing openness by imposing more restrictions by the FCC is completely backward thinking. Giving the national government control over the internet is big mistake
Privately funded… right…
Last I checked the internet was started by the United States government. They subsidize the roll out of all of the new networks. They give these huge corporations giant blocks of the address space at bargain basement prices. And then these corporations make a fortune charging American citizens obscene rates for access to the network built with our money. Guaranteeing openness is the least the FCC can do. At least it means that those of us who can afford those ridiculous rates can use it for what we like.
That’s the thing. The govt is not having control over the internet and they want to make sure the telcos don’t either.
Constitutionally speaking, the emphasis is on “general” not “welfare”.
Rule #1-The airwaves are licensed not DEEDED!
Rule #2 is to follow.
Why is my comment not posted? Have tried before.
Rule #1-The air waves belong to the people still. People who apply for a license to use them is just that, a license. NOT A DEED.
I will give rule #2 soon.