Net Neutrality

[Tiggeroshii]

From the nerd's comic

http://www.pvponline.com/archive.php3?archive=20060515

[yellowjacket]

1. As someone who's lobbied against net neutrality

before Congress, I must say that there's a lot of misunderstanding out there about exactly what net neutrality is and what it will mean for consumers. It's not about blocking websites at all.

[papau]

2. OK - but as proposed it has the potential to block web sites & regs that

prevent unfairness can be dropped later - as in Reagan and equal time.

[yellowjacket]

3. As in the fairness doctrine?

You're going to have to further define "unfairness." Are you talking fairness doctrine type unfairness?

The Bells and cable have no interest in blocking websites. That makes no business sense in an era where wireless broadband is currently and option for some and will soon be an option for many.

Pretty soon there will be too many wires into the home for the big guys to do any monkeying around in that regard.

[papau]

6. Yes - the regs that Reagan killed and then vetoed the law Congress passed

restoring them.

The existence of wireless broadband does not stop the potential problem of turning off left of venter sites. The current media is only 5 companies for 95% of the audience - and they work together - although not illegally of course, the owners (meaning the non-owners who are the hired management who are GOP and act like they own the company - setting policy and setting how much they will rip off the shareholders each via appointments to the Boards "compensation committee". I spent 40 years watching from the inside how corporate power without laws and regulations allows the crushing of freedom.

Bright lines work best - and I like the bright line of Net Neutrality. As for corporations being only profit motivated, I have been instructed in the past to buy companies so my CEO could fire their CEO because he was pissed at him - and loss of future profits post purchase was not a problem as long as the GAAP accounting was set up to show improvement in profit in the first two years. Indeed just buying a home in an area that thinks it self too exclusive for you may get a resident to plan your corporate demise.

Many wires into the home all owned by the same 5 corporations, with understandings worked out over dinner, will not change the potential problem.

Web inventor warns of 'dark' net (BBC) {Berners-Lee disses telco plans}
By Jonathan Fildes
BBC News science and technology reporter in Edinburgh

The web should remain neutral and resist attempts to fragment it into different services, web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee has said.

Recent attempts in the US to try to charge for different levels of online access web were not "part of the internet model," he said in Edinburgh.

He warned that if the US decided to go ahead with a two-tier internet, the network would enter "a dark period".
***
But telecoms companies in the US do not agree. They would like to implement a two-tier system, where data from companies or institutions that can pay are given priority over those that cannot.
***
The internet community believes this threatens the open model of the internet as broadband providers will become gatekeepers to the web's content.
***
more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5009250.stm

[yellowjacket]

10. You're way off the mark.

This has nothing to do with media ownership. I read the Berners-Lee story today and I've heard Google's "Chief Internet Evangelist" Vint Cerf speak on the topic many times. This has nothing to do with media ownership, censorship, or the Fairness Doctrine.

I'm sorry for your bad experiences in the corporate world, and I'm sure if Berners-Lee had his way he'd make the Internet free for everyone and we'd all hug, but the problems is that the Internet is big business now and someone has to build and improve the network.

[papau]

33. Do we have a capacity problem? - Do Dark lines still exist? - Do fees not

generate income?

Does light travel faster in new lines?

Must new lines come with proprietary pricing - or even monopoly pricing?

Beyond the new pricing model, and the presumed new investment because of greater returns, does society really get capacity that it needs in excess of what it would normally get in the current pricing model? Is speed improved in a way not available on current lines? Are the new functions brought by the new investment not coming under the old pricing model?

"Yes" to those questions, with reasons why, and I'd join your lobbying effort, rather than oppose it.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. tell us then, what is it about? nt

[yellowjacket]

8. Strictly speaking...

it's about network management and about how bandwidth is partitioned inside the wire coming into your home.

Net neutrality came about as a result of the new high-speed fiber optic networks that are being installed in order to allow the Bells to deliver TV-quality video to your home. In Washington these started out as separate issues but became inextricably linked.

Basically, if a Bell company puts millions of dollars worth of fiber optics into the ground at its own expense, it wants to be able to recoup that investment. The best way to do that is to offer high-revenue services like TV service over those fiber optic lines or over DSL lines in certain cases. In order to offer TV over fiber or DSL, the Bells have to be able to guarantee a high quality-of-service, because if parts of your video screen or your phone conversation don't make it through the pipe fast enough, you have a blank screen or no sound in your phone. In order to offer these services, it's critical that the Bells be able to guarantee quality. The only real way to do this is to reserve the majority of the bandwidth in that fiber or DSL line for Bell traffic only. That is, if you have a fiber optic line coming into your house with a maximum capacity of 20 mb/s, 12 mb of that will be reserved for video service offered by the Bells. The remaining 8 megabits (these numbers are hypothetical) will be available for whatever else one wants to do on the Internet.

Now here's the crux of the issue: The very people lobbying FOR net neutrality on the Hill are those that want to force the people who paid to put the fiber in the ground (ie the Bells) to open up the ENTIRE 30 mb/s to the public Internet. These companies are Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc, basically content and application providers. What goes unsaid here is that those who are for "net neutrality" want access to that bandwidth because they'll start offering their own multi-channel TV packages over the public Internet. Why is this bad? Because the person who paid the money to put the fiber in the ground isn't going to recoup the investment they made in the network. Basically, the application provider and content providers want one company to subsidize a high speed network, and then get out of the way while someone else makes the money.

So why should you care? Because if net neutrality passes in the form sought by Reps. Markey and Boucher, the Bells would be forced to offer all 30mbps to anyone who wants it. So why is that a bad thing? Because if such language passes, Wall Street will eviscerate the Bells and will not allow them to go forward with the deployment of ultra-fast fiber. If that happens, the Internet will be stuck in a rut, and will soon max out speed wise. The fundamental problem is that none of the pro net neutrality camp has the capital to actually pay to have the fiber put in the ground. If left up to them, in 10 years we'll all still have 3mb DSL, or maybe 6 mb cable connections, if we're lucky, and the US will be 50th, not 16th in broadband penetration worldwide.

[Llewlladdwr]

Ah....got it.

It's all about corporate greed.

[yellowjacket]

32. Lame response.

The profit motive made the Internet what it is today. Good intentions and anti-capitalist rhetoric won't build a future proof network.

Sure, it was built by a small cadre of enthusiasts (one of which I've met), but that only got us so far as the 1200 baud modem. After that, people had to come along and make faster modems, better computers, cable modems, DSL modems, even faster computers, upgrade the cable to hybrid fiber-coax, upgrade the electronics all throughout the network, lay fiber criss-crossing the country (and underneath the oceans), and all that infrastructure is useless without people (and companies) on the edges that generate content.

I love Mapquest. It's free to me, but someone, namely advertisers, pays for it to be free to me. Corporate greed? Who cares, life is better with Mapquest than without it.

Corporate greed, corporate greed. Without corporate greed, you'd still be sitting at your computer with your Rockwell 1200 baud modem trying to connect to a BBS to download Wolfenstein 3D to floppy disk. Give me a break.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

14. Ahh. Profits. That's what I thought.

This is a bunk argument. The net has been neutral since the beginning, and look at what has been done. From 14.4baud to High Speed Cable in 15 years. All neutral, all shared equally, profits for all.

It's not going to stop if it's not in the hands of a few companies. Not to mention it goes against the whole idea of the internet. free, fair access for all.

You also fail to mention that they are getting government subsidies to lay all that fiber optic cable. Well, at least they were until Bush took over...

Until recently, the United States led the world in Internet development. In the late 1960s and 1970s, the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency conceived of and then funded the Internet. In the 1980s, the National Science Foundation partially underwrote the university and college networks -- and the high-speed lines supporting them -- that extended the Internet across the nation. After the World Wide Web and mouse-driven browsers were developed in the early 1990s, the Internet was ready to take off. President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore showed the way by promoting the Internet's commercialization, the National Infrastructure Initiative, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and remarkable e-commerce, e-government, and e-education programs. The private sector did the work, but the government offered a clear vision and strong leadership that created a competitive playing field for early broadband providers. Even though these policies had their share of detractors -- who claimed that excessive hype was used to sell wasteful projects and even blamed the Clinton administration for the dot-com bust -- they kept the United States in the forefront of Internet innovation and deployment through the 1990s.

Things changed when the Bush administration took over in 2001 and set new priorities for the country: tax cuts, missile defense, and, months later, the war on terrorism. In the administration's first three years, President George W. Bush mentioned broadband just twice and only in passing. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) showed little interest in opening home telephone lines to outside competitors to drive down broadband prices and increase demand.

When the United States dropped the Internet leadership baton, Japan picked it up.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20050501faessay84311/thomas-bleha/down-to-the-wire.html


As the Baby Bells falsely complain about how people aren't paying them for the internet, or whine about how it's unfair to expect them to compete against muni-broadband, there's something important to remember. For the last decade, those same telcos have made promise after promise to local governments concerning the delivery of truly open fiber optic connections to the home. In exchange, they've been granted all sorts of privileges and rate increases by the government, costing all of us money. And where did the money go? Not towards what was promised. Bruce Kushnick, who we've written about before is now coming out with a book that details how the telcos scammed approximately $200 billion from all of us (about $2,000 per household), promising fiber to every home with symmetric 45 Mbps speeds and an open access model that would allow anyone to offer competitive internet services over that connection. This is a promise that they have not kept... though, they have kept our money. That fiber was supposed to be delivered this year (earlier in other cases), but it's not coming. The fiber that telcos are finally starting to offer is much more expensive, much slower, and locked down. In fact, after all of these promises, remember that the telcos said they wouldn't offer fiber at all, unless the FCC promised not to require them to let others offer services on it.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060131/2021240_F.shtml


there's lots more, just Google "fiber optic government subsidy"

[yellowjacket]

30. I'll have to do some research on this aspect of it.

I'm am not up to speed on this part of the issue.

[RoyGBiv]

16. I respect your argument ...

But you're excluded or at least glossed over another end of it.

One reason the Bells want to put that fiber in the ground in the first place is so they can start offering the video services without the restrictions that are placed on cable companies today who are in turn offering phone and Internet service and cutting into the Bells' profits. IOW, they want to be able to "compete" without the franchise agreements, no money to the cities, no "must carry" channels. The Bells are framing this debate in the context you describe above and of "fair competition," but that's only the surface of their true goal, which is actually to stamp out competition.

[yellowjacket]

25. You're partially right.

They want to put fiber in the ground to offer video services. And yes, they want out of the franchise obligations that cable had to endure. But the flip side to that is that cable began offering phone service a couple of years ago under much different terms than the Bells had to. Cable entered as a CLEC, basically a competitor, under much better terms than the Bells did.

On the flip side, the Bells want to enter the video market as a competitor, which they are, under less regulation than the cable companies entered with. US regulation has always imposed more restrictions on the monopoly provider than on competitive providers (ie the 2nd company to offer a service). Cable entered the video services market in the 70s and 80s in a monopoly situation, which meant no competition and a relaxed build-out schedule. In trade, cable took on certain obligations like building networks for government entities, providing public access TV, and paying franchise fees of around 5% of revenues.

The Bells have agreed to pay the 5% (6% in the House bill) franchise fee. They've agreed to offer free channels to the government. Furthermore, depending on which bill passes (House or Senate or a hybrid), the cable guys will be relieved of their franchises as soon as the bill passes. Basically, that means that the cable guys can choose to continue with the franchise they were operating under, or get the same on the new entrant (ie the Bells) got.

This will do anything BUT stamp out competition. In the few communities where the Bells have begun offering video, cable prices dropped immediately by 10-30%. That's competition pure and simple.

[RoyGBiv]

37. With all due respect ...

I've seen the business models and projections. This is *not* about competition. This is about eradicating the competition. The Bells' definition of "fair competition" and "monopoly" is sure a bizarre one. For example, SBC, prior to merging with ATT, was involved in a measure it started in OK claiming that due to the influx of cable and other phone providers, it no longer was dominating the market and should be relieved of certain types of regulation. This claim was based on the fact that SBC no longer has above 75% of the market in *some* individual locations, defined in one brief as a suburb of a city with about 10,000 residents. That is, competitors, of which there were two, had a 25% market share, SBC 75% in this one location while in the city at large it maintained higher than 90% of the market. And somehow this equated to not dominant.

As for video, the Bells are generally willing to endure a loss in video for a certain period of time in order to drive down video provider prices and lure customers to them, which they intend to make up with broadband and phone services they will bundle. They are also in the process of slashing customer service staff, outsourcing call center operations or consolidating to low wage centers in the US, doing all they can to cut worker's pay, etc. To compete, cable companies, most of which still maintain vast customer support teams, will have to cut as well, closing walk-in centers and forcing customers to use a call center to deal with issues, cutting field service staff, etc.

Yes, prices will go down, for a time, but the driving factors behind the cost of video services other than customer service will not change, these being the prices charged by content providers such as ESPN, Lifetime Networks, Disney, etc. Once the support system has been effectively desimated to bare bones levels, prices will eventually bottom out and then rise again. This is *expected* and *desired* by the Bells because in the end, they have the cashflow to weather it while most cable companies do not. Time-Warner and Comcast may survive as well as Cox and a few other smaller providers, but they will be shells of what they are now, or at least were a few years back. Recently cable providers have been building warchests to deal with what they know is coming, and in so doing, they are already cutting support, and in the end, quality of service and people's jobs.

I do not support that sort of business model.

[yellowjacket]

42. What you're talking about is called

a request for non-dominant carrier status before the FCC. Qwest petitioned for the same status in Omaha a year or so ago, and it was granted. However, I'd be interested to see a link to the market share stats you attributed to SBC since the Qwest filing for non-dominance had all of the market share data redacted for privacy. Based upon my calculations and a little reading between the lines, I estimated that Qwest held about 55% of the market at that point. In this case, I believe the competitor was Cox cable. There's more to a finding of non-dominance than just the consumer market. It has alot to do with the high-dollar enterprise market as well, and the two are distinct.

You are correct that the Bells intend to bundle services to make more money. That's what companies do. And yes, prices will be lowered, and then matched, and then lowered again. When prices reach their lowest acceptable point, providers will be forced to compete on quality of service and on new and innovative services. I have seen early version of Bell TV, and it is very impressive. It can do everything cable can do, but a lot more. Cable's offerings will look paltry compared to Bell TV, and cable will be forced to innovate. By the way, since when is three competitors (cable, satellite, and the Bells) worse than two (cable and satellite)?

You don't think that major providers like cable and the Bells can put downward pricing pressure on the networks to slash the price of their channels? Ask anyone in the industry and they'll tell you, the only "must-have" channel for a cable package is ESPN, and it's priced accordingly.

I need links for the rest of what you're asserting. I'm not going to take it as an article of faith that cable and the Bells are outsourcing call centers and whatnot. That's a convenient meme. And they can't get rid of all tech support, someone has to deliver the cable boxes.

[RoyGBiv]

44. I can't give you many links ...

Regarding the outsourcing, I could give you several. Google is rich with them. Here's the first one that came up in a search:

http://www.blogsource.org/2004/05/sbc_to_strike_i.html

SBC/AT&T is a union busting company.

The rest is based on information I have in my possession, which I cannot due to the nature of my employment share in explicit detail. For rather obvious reasons, my superiors don't care if I summarize and lay out certain details, but the documents themselves I cannot share. Some of it is in the public record, via OK Corporation Commission documents and reports as well as court proceedings, and you can get a general overview if you'd like to subscribe to the Daily Oklahoman's online news service and look back into issue published between July and December of last year. The Daily Disappointment (Oklahoman) is a Republican rag that clearly sides with SBC, so you might even find nuggets to support your view if you choose to do so.

So, if you don't accept what I'm saying, that's fine. I never expected you to. I'm simply providing a public counter to the argument you're providing, which I've heard so many times now I can probably recite it as easily as you. If this puts us at an empasse, that's fine too. I'm not trying to prove anything other than more than one version of this story exists, and consumers would do well to consider that. Also, I will freely admit my own interests are directly opposed to that of the Bells, so everyone should take what I say with just as big a grain of salt as what you say. We're on opposite sides here, and the literal truth is certainly somewhere in the middle.

That said, I would like to address you last comment, again with some personal knowledge. Yes, someone has to deliver the cable boxes. Someone has to fix the cable lines, install the service, deal with the billing, etc. Let me tell you, precisely, what is happening at two major cable providers as we type and describe how it affects service. Further, allow me to note that what these cable providers are doing is slowly (more rapidly now) moving in the direct of SBC and other Bells because the powers-that-be have come to a realization that no matter how much consumers scream about wanting customer service, they will happily abandon it, with vigor, when they get a deal that costs them $2 less per month. I see it daily, people falling for the advertisements and then getting pissed, after signing a contract they can't break of course, because they get no after-sale support worth a damn.

Installing Service and Delivering Cable Boxes: How to Cut Costs 101:

Basic Strategy: Reduce number of technicians required to install services.

Tactic 1 : Reduce allotted time allowed for technician to install services.
Tactic 2 : Hire independent contracters who aren't provided benefits.
Tactic 3 : Increase allowable time between order and install from 3 - 7 days.
Tactic 4 : Eliminate storefronts that allow customers to pick up equipment rather than wait for technician.
Tactic 5 : Require technicians to be salespeople and routinely fire technicians who do not meet sales goals.

Result, the work force is reduced by one-third, delays for installs are doubled, quality of work done is reduced, ability of customers to speak to humans is eliminated. Price of service goes down, temporarily.

I could offer multiple, similar examples. The key is that someone has to install and support the service, but they can put you into call queues with 30 minute delays and put you on 7 day waiting lists for field service with no option do do it yourself via a retail center.

[me b zola]

18. No, they don't get to set the terms

"...if a Bell company puts millions of dollars worth of fiber optics into the ground at its own expense, it wants to be able to recoup that investment."

Do they own all of the land that they are putting their cable? No, they are putting into MY land (and your land). Bullshit on these big companies making millions off of public land without giving something back. Hell, no one even attempts to negociate a fair deal for the people (all of us) who own the land.

These bastards *have* recouped their investment and then some.

[yellowjacket]

26. They pay for rights-of-way

Cable does too. The pay each local community 5% of revenues for the right to dig on public property.

[smartvoter]

21. Makes you wonder how cables ever managed. Spin, spin, spin.

Anyone who knows Bell history knows they kill competition at every front with arguments like these. Funny part is they never invested in anything until competition was introduced. For the first 100 years, we had to big developments -- above-ground wires and the ability to dial directly (which was the result of an operator strike). 20 years of competition and they "see the light," but want to control everything they develop. These companies only invest when faced with competition. History proves it.

[high density]

5. enlighten us then

To me it seems like everybody is already paying for the bandwidth and now the Telcos want more money for priority service... Sounds like BS to me.

[bananas]

7. "Consumers" is the key word

Big companies will get to pay for extra bandwidth to "consumers"
Little companies will get packet loss
"Consumers" will get their choice of content from a few big companies.

Are we consumers or producers?
Where does the content on DU come from?
Us - we are producers, not "consumers".

[yellowjacket]

9. Do you know how much bandwidth DU takes up?

Reading DU on a 1.5 mb DSL connection is surprisingly similar to reading DU on my 6 mb cable connection. It's all just text!

The Bells and cable are not fighting to block consumers from getting to DU. They are worried about putting expensive fiber in the ground only to have Google and Yahoo force them to give them access to all 25 mb/s so that they can offer video service too. See post above for further details.

[bananas]

11. It's not a matter of Google or Yahoo "forcing" them

it's a matter of us "consumers" forcing them.
I pay for a connection to the internet. If I upload a text post or upload a video, it's still me providing content. And the content I am "consuming" comes from other internet users.
Read this: http://journals.democraticunderground.com/benburch/8

[yellowjacket]

13. You're right.

And consumers will force them by defecting if they block access to the things consumers want. They know that. I know from private conversations with Bell representatives that they know that and know that it's bad for business.

But Google and Yahoo and the like are looking for a free ride. They want someone else to build a superfast network so they can then deliver high-quality video. High-quality video requires a high-quality network, and since Google isn't going to pay to build that network, the Bells think they should have to pay to use that network.

Basically, it would shake out like this:

Regular searches on Google would run over the public Internet, and would work great. Google is fast now, it will get even fast on a fiber optic connection.

GoogleTV (which doesn't exist yet, but will) could not reliably run on a public Internet connection, so if Google wants to use the super-fast network they did not pay for, they'll have to make arrangements with the Bells to guarantee that their TV will look as good as the Bells.

From where I sit, that's fair. The person who laid down billions of dollars to future-proof the Internet should have the right to recoup their investment first.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

15. "The person who laid down billions of dollars to future-proof the Internet

should have the right to recoup their investment first."

Well, I paid my taxes, and the Government subsidized the installation of Fiber Optics, so I should be first along with all my fellow taxpayers.

[me b zola]

19. Not to mention their cable is in OUR land.

Now that they have use of our land they want to use it against us.

[bananas]

24. Your argument would be like the telcos realizing...

Your argument would be like the telcos realizing that people are calling doctor offices to make appointments. "Hey, those doctors are making money off our wires THAT THEY DIDN"T PAY FOR! It's not fair!" That's a ridiculous thing to say.

You also make a nonsense statement: "GoogleTV ... could not reliably run on a public Internet connection" - but Google is in favor of net neutrality - they wouldn't be in favor of it if it wouldn't work.

[yellowjacket]

27. They would if fiber were put

into the ground and the Bells had to offer all 30 mbps to GoogleTV. You can do just about anything over a 30 mbps connection, public Internet or not.

[javadu]

17. Correct ---- It is About Slowing Some of Them Down -- (nm)

nm

[yellowjacket]

12. Well, I am going to bed.

I'll check back tomorrow for replies. I will be lobbying against net neutrality extra hard tomorrow. ;-)

[GoneOffShore]

20. Let me see if I've got this right

EFF, People for the American Way, Common Cause, etcetera are on the wrong side of the fence as regards 'Net Neutrality'?

It looks to me that you are defending the corporations that want to extract even more money from consumers. Tell us, please, do you hold stocks in Verizon or Comcast?

This is the next 'land grab' but it has to do with bandwidth.

Enjoy your stay, I suspect it will be short.

[yellowjacket]

29. Oh no! This guy is making a capitalist argument!!!

Someone go tell Skinner!!

I've been around a long time.

Those groups are on the wrong side of the fence unless you want the Internet to be just as slow in 10 years as it is today. Someone has to build the network, people, and it won't be the government.

[papau]

34. As I asked above - Does light travel faster with new fiber? - Do repeaters

not work as fast on old fiber.

What is the "must have" here?

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

22. Democracy NOW:Telcoms to write law that gives them control of the internet

COPE Telecom Bill Affects Net Neutrality, Local Cable Franchises and Funding for Public Access

Transcript:

"AMY GOODMAN: We're joined right now by Professor Bob McChesney. Bob McChesney runs Free Press. He is a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, co-founder of Free Press. His books include Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communications Politics in Dubious Times. Welcome to Democracy Now!

ROBERT McCHESNEY: Pleasure to be here, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain this bill and where it stands now?

ROBERT McCHESNEY: Well, in one sense, the bill is extraordinarily complicated. There are different versions in the House and Senate, and the nuances get tricky, because we have these enormous lobbies fighting it out to get the best deal for themselves. But in a general sense, the way that I understand it is that the phone companies and the cable companies, which provide internet access to 98% of Americans and almost all businesses, are viewing -- you know, they are companies that were set up by the government. They're not free market companies. Their entire business model has been based on getting monopoly license franchises from the government for phone and cable service and then using it to make a lot of money. And they’re using their political leverage now to try to write a law basically which lets them control the internet.

AMY GOODMAN: Their money? Their lobbying money?

ROBERT McCHESNEY: Their lobbying money, which is an extraordinary amount. And they can't spend too much, because the future is they can control the internet. And what they want to do desperately is be in a situation where they can rank order websites. And websites that come through the fastest to us, to the users of the internet, are the ones that pay them money or the ones they own. And websites that don't pay them come through slower, much harder to get, or in some cases, they’ll have the power to take them off the internet altogether.
.."

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/08/1352255&mode=thread&tid=25#transcript

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

23. www.SAVETHEINTERNET.com

From their FAQ:

"What is this about?

This is about Internet freedom. "Network Neutrality" -- the First Amendment of the Internet -- ensures that the public can view the smallest blog just as easily as the largest corporate Web site by preventing Internet companies like AT&T from rigging the playing field for only the highest-paying sites.

But Internet providers like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast are spending millions of dollars lobbying Congress to gut Net Neutrality. If Congress doesn't take action now to implement meaningful network neutrality provisions, the future of the Internet is at risk.

What is network neutrality?

Network Neutrality — or "Net Neutrality" for short — is the guiding principle that preserves the free and open Internet.

Net Neutrality ensures that all users can access the content or run the applications and devices of their choice. With Net Neutrality, the network's only job is to move data — not choose which data to privilege with higher quality service.

Net Neutrality is the reason why the Internet has driven economic innovation, democratic participation, and free speech online. It's why the Internet has become an unrivaled environment for open communications, civic involvement and free speech.

Who wants to get rid of Net Neutrality?

The nation's largest telephone and cable companies — including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner — want to be Internet gatekeepers, deciding which Web sites go fast or slow and which won't load at all.

They want to tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data. They want to discriminate in favor of their own search engines, Internet phone services, and streaming video — while slowing down or blocking their competitors.

These companies have a new vision for the Internet. Instead of an even playing field, they want to reserve express lanes for their own content and services — or those from big corporations that can afford the steep tolls — and leave the rest of us on a winding dirt road.

What's at stake?

Decisions being made now will shape the future of the Internet for a generation. Before long, all media — TV, phone and the Web — will come to your home via the same broadband connection. The dispute over Net Neutrality is about who'll control access to new and emerging technologies..."

http://savetheinternet.com/=faq

[yellowjacket]

31. Thanks.

I understand what their arguments are. I combat them everyday. You need to look at what they aren't saying.

They know that if their bumper sticker message is: "The Bells want to control the Internet." alot of people will support them without thinking it through.

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

35. On whose behalf, what organization, do you lobby against net neutrality?

How about a little transparency here?

[yellowjacket]

46. No way would I reveal that.

Too risky.

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

48. Okay. Duly noted.

Uses "authority" of having lobbied, but it is too risky to say for whom he lobbies.

Interesting.

[yellowjacket]

53. Basically, I'm saying I won't name the company.

No one in their right mind would get on a political message board, write their opinion, and then attribute it to their employer. Not smart.

[papau]

36. Sorry but I am still a bit lost - dark fiber does not exist? - more fiber

is needed so bandwidth is not allocated in chunks below 30 mbps per home?

How is Long Island wired since Cablevision’s Optimum Online cable modem service offers a standard downstream bandwidth of 15 megabits per second, with no additional charge to current 1.52 million Optimum customers - THERE IS NO ADDITIONAL CABLE BEING WIRED TO THE HOUSE. Cablevision is also offering two premium bandwidth tiers - 30 megabits per second and 50 megabits per second - by using technology from Narad Networks. The premium offerings are called Optimum Online Boost (speeds of up to 30 Mbps downstream and 2 Mbps upstream,) and Optimum Online Ultra, offering symmetrical data connections of up to 50 Mbps upstream and downstream. Boost will cost an extra $14.95 per month, or $9.95 for those who buy company’s VoIP phone service. The cable line is shared - so how do they guarantee 15 mbps? Can the same technique be used on fiber with no new fiber?

Summersault in Indiana offers 30 mbps wireless (LMCS) requiring an outdoor antenna - is this a non-guaranteed speed - and if guaranteed as I believe, why do we need traffic carried by the telco's beyond trunk lines?

T3 maxes at 44.736 Mbps on Optical fiber, OC-1 maxes at 51.84 Mbps on Optical fiber, and OC-3 maxes out at 155.52 Mbps on optical fiber. Does any Telco have lines at OC-3? Why do they need more? If they need more, why will the current fee structure not provide a return on investment adequate to justify installing such fiber?

I really do not see the capitalist real world need for killing Net Neutrality.

[GoneOffShore]

39. You are going to wait a long time for an answer.

I asked the question in a different form and the response was was "Oh no! This guy is making a capitalist argument!!
Someone go tell Skinner!!"

I have no problem with someone making a fair profit, but the telcos are doing exceptionally well. Maybe it's time to go back to classing them and cable companies as public utilities and regulating them. A tighter rein would be a good thing.

[papau]

40. I suspect you are correct - and it is sad.

:-(

[yellowjacket]

43. I'm back. Sorry I had to work.

Dark fiber is simply fiber optics that isn't "lit" - that is to say, it's not being used. There is a ton of dark fiber criss-crossing the country right now, but most of it is what's called "long haul fiber" or fiber that connects different parts of the country to carry traffic coast to coast. The US has all the long haul fiber it needs and may ever need.

I am talking about fiber to the Bell central office or in some cases to the home (or the little green box in your neighborhood).

As for Long Island, without knowing the particulars, let me be more general. When cable rolled out digital cable a few years back, they replaced alot of their "plant" (or wire in the ground) with hybrid fiber coax (HFC), which is faster than copper, but slower than pure fiber optic cable. They spent alot of money to do this. I will take you at your word as to the achieveable speeds with Optimum Online. This is possible with most households as I understand it. It's simply a matter of turning up the juice further back in the network. Optimum must've decided that it was worth it to wire Long Island with HFC or fiber, I don't know which. If 50 mbps is achieveable there as you say, it may indeed be fiber. But don't take that to mean that 30 or 50 mbps is available to most cable customers. I think I can only get up to 8 with Comcast. It's not hard to offer a 15 mbps stream into the house, but the service provider has to massively upgrade their equipment to do so, and it is very taxing on the local network in general.

I have also heard from reliable sources that if you live within 3000 feet of a Bell central office, DSL can be made to achieve speeds of around 25 mbps max under the right conditions. Again, just as I said, HFC is faster than copper (which is what DSL is), but slower than fiber.

I looked up the Indiana provider Summersault that you mentioned and they do not actually provide the LMCS service you mention - they are only offering that as a means of comparing the speeds of different technologies. I am well-versed in different wireless and wired broadband technologies and I've never heard of this. I don't doubt that it's possible, but it might be an outdated standard that's been shelved in favor of newed ones, like WiMax, which is VERY promising.

T1's and T3's and the like generally go into schools and businesses and are split between multiple users. But those speeds are achieveable with fiber going all the way to a person's home. See, currently telcos use high-capacity fiber to get traffic from California to Virgnia, then once it's in Virginia, it's offloaded onto progressively slower wires. Why are we still using copper wire? Because it's already in the ground, and something that's already in the ground is bought and paid for. So, where possible, the Bells will continue to use the copper in the ground. But most people do not live within 3000 feet of a central office, and therefore cannot receive Bell TV over copper. They need fiber buried all the way up to their front door.

As to your final question, it's relatively inexpensive to lay fiber from a collocation point (the place where one cross-country fiber strand meets another and they exchange traffic), but it get VERY VERY expensive to dispatch crews to literally tear up the ground and string fiber from each central office to every home in a territory. AT&T estimates that in the first five years of offering their video service, they'll have to deploy to 15 million households. Probably at least 10 million of those will need fiber strung all the way to the house. That's alot of money and alot of man hours. But once it's done, it will future proof the broadband infrastructure in this country for the meaningful future. The reason the Bells are laying this fiber is to offer TV services, not to provide a better Internet. The reason the current fee structure isn't sufficient is because Internet only revenues aren't sufficient. They need the TV component to justify the time and expense of laying the fiber in the first place. Therefore, they want to be ensured that once the fiber's in the ground, Congress won't force them to allow Google TV and Yahoo TV to use the segregated part of the wire for THEIR TV service.

It would be like Cox Cable coming into your town and telling Comcast that Comcast had to let Cox offer TV over Comcast's wire. Comcast paid to put that wire in the ground, so only Comcast gets to offer TV over the wire. The fact that Internet is offered over Comcast's wire is irrelevant. Comcast can do whatever it chooses with the closed portion of that wire, and it happens to choose to offer TV service.

The Bells want the same treatment. Once they put the fiber in the ground, they want a portion of it reserved for the Bells and only the Bells so they can offer TV service over the closed portion. That's the only way they'll recoup their investment. If they don't get that guarantee, they may do fiber VERY slowly, or not at all. But again I ask, if they don't upgrade the network, who will?

I hope this answers your questions. I am going to bed.

[papau]

51. Excellent answers - but getting TV to the home via DSL may not be worth

changing from Net Neutrality for society as a whole. If the market lets it happen, great.

As to investment and return, the key appears to be unfair allocation of the cost of investment onto the backs of only the telco's who currently own "the last hundred feet" of the line to the home.

It would appear that fees on TV video could be done, with blocking of those that have not paid. Indeed the choice is a generally higher telco price on everything as "society" pays for the investment - and no blocking, or a dedicated income stream and blocking.

The problem with dedicated and blocking becomes competion with WiMax and no fee providers, plus cable that is already in the ground and upgraded as on Long Island. It appears Long Island simply has a monthly fee for the better internet service. Why is that feasible for L.I. and is not feasible for other areas? Does one not collect now for bandwidth used by Google and would not Google payments to the Telcos go way up if they offerred TV video? Could a "progressive" fee structure with a minimal fee for the first modest size of bandwidth used, and higher for the big boys, not accomplish what the telco's seem to need in terms of justification to upgrade?

[rman]

28. SaveTheInternet (video)

http://www.chomskytorrents.org/TorrentDetails.php?TorrentID=1317

--
How to deal with torrent files
To download these videos you'll need a bittorrent client such as Azerus (works on windows and mac) or micro torrent. Also see bittorrent.org.
http://azureus.sourceforge.net/
http://www.utorrent.com/
http://www.bittorrent.org/introduction.html

[Hippo_Tron]

38. Quick, somebody explain Net Neutrality to me

I tried wikipedia but my ADD mind can't keep focused. Anybody have a REALLY simple explanation?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

41. it's simple...

from the beginning of the net, it has been free, equal access for everyone. Companies pay for some, Customers pay for some, Government subsidizes it.

They want to pass a bill which will effectively give them the right to decide who gets faster service, and who gets slower service, all in the name of corporate profits.

They want to Privatize the internet.

[yellowjacket]

45. The Internet has been private since the first ISP started.

Sure, the Internet was "free" back in the 60's, but it also sucked.

When fiber is in the ground, and your Internet connection is 30mbps, there will be no "slow" Internet because there is no current application that cannot run blazingly fast over a 30mpbs connection. You can stream 2 channels of HDTV over a 30 mbps connection. I know because I've seen it and the Bells are planning on doing just that.

Now hear this: The only reason the Internet is worth using is because people privatized it. Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, and that's cool. I thank him for it. But until people started innovating the electronics in the network and generating content, there was no compelling use for the Internet.

If DU was the only site on the Internet, and it was still free, would that be enough to compell you to pay $50 a month for access? Don't kid yourself. It's only because there's now a TON of content available - some free some not free - that there has been the drive to innovate to enable newer and better things.

Mapquest is a perfect example. Mapquest is free to me, but not to the advertisers who subsidize my enjoyment of it. If no profit motive were involved there, does Mapquest ever come to exist? Absolutely not. The Internet hasn't been "free" since the days of AOL, Prodigy, and Compuserve, circa 1994.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

47. "Free" as in FREE ACCESS FOR EVERYONE.

Same content, same speed, limited only by the amount you (the customer) can pay for service, and the amount the website can pay for bandwidth.

MaBell has no business putting in a gateway between us. Period.

Just like AOL, when I realized I could get to the WHOLE WEB (and not just what they let thru their gateway) I dropped them. It felt like corporate Big Brother then, just like it feels now. The Sheeple may go along with this, but those of us who remember the beginning NEVER will.

Viva La HACKER Revolution! It's not like we forgot how.

BTW - you still haven't divulged who you are (obviously) still lobbying for. I hope you're getting paid.

[papau]

52. advertiser income to AOL w/ no large use fee to telco's seems to be

the problem.

No net neutrality appears to be one of many solutions.

What am I missing?

[blogslut]

50. I have a simple explanation

Think of the Internet as a public utility like water. You already pay a monthly bill (plus local taxes) for your water. If your usage surpasses a certain level, you pay extra. This is a fine relationship because everyone gets the same, clean water no matter who they are or how much they use. The cost of cleaning, delivering, maintaining and oversight of your water is already paid for with taxes and direct billing.

Now imagine that one day, your water utility decided to charge extra for full flowing water. The kind of flow already running through your pipes. If you refuse to pay a higher cost, you get a trickle. In addition, imagine that you would also have to pay extra for clean water. If you could only afford the lesser price, you would have to settle for dirty, unprocessed water.

This is basically waht the Telcos want to do with the Internet. They want to charge content providers and customers more for the stuff you're already paying for right now.

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

49. More from the Democracy Now interview

"...AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Bob McChesney, professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and head of Free Press and freepress.net. Professor McChesney, are there other bills that are being introduced right now in Congress to counter what we're seeing?

ROBERT McCHESNEY: There are a couple of wonderful amendments that have been offered: one by Edward Markey of Massachusetts in the House that was voted down, but it might come to the floor again, which defends net neutrality and requires the cable companies and the phone companies to maintain the ongoing First Amendment of the internet, letting all websites have access without discrimination, without favor shown to any, without payoffs having to be made so you can get fast treatment and access to the public; and there’s a similar amendment now in the United States Senate by Senator Olympia Snowe, the Republican of Maine, Byron Dorgan, the Democrat of North Dakota, also a net neutrality amendment, which is going to be coming up for a vote in the next month or so.

And, again, if listeners and viewers go to http://www.savetheinternet.com you’ll find actually all the information. There's a map you can click on with every member of the relevant committees, how you can contact them, let the know. And what we’ve discovered is this is an issue, that if you let members of Congress know you care, we will absolutely win this issue, because there's no support for this. And I’d urge people to get involved..."

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/08/1352255&mode=thread&tid=25#transcript

[yellowjacket]

54. For the record, that's not the only amendment

Markey offered. There were several.