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Fight looms over Net neutrality in Senate
June 22, 2006 -
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June 19, 2006 -
Senate ponders policing of Net neutrality offenses
June 14, 2006 -
Net neutrality fight returns to Senate
June 13, 2006 -
House rejects Net neutrality rules
June 8, 2006 -
Net neutrality field in Congress gets crowded
May 19, 2006
By an 11-11 tie, the Senate Commerce Committee failed to approve a Democrat-backed amendment that would have ensured all Internet traffic is treated the same no matter what its "source" or "destination" might be. A majority was needed for the amendment to succeed.
This vote complicates Internet companies' efforts to convince Congress of the desirability of extensive new regulations, especially after the House of Representatives definitively rejected the concept in a 269-152 vote on June 8.
Republican committee members attacked the idea of inserting Net neutrality regulations in a massive telecommunications bill, echoing comments from broadband providers like AT&T and Verizon, which warned the rules were premature and unnecessary. Alaska's Ted Stevens, the committee chairman, accused his colleagues of "imposing a heavy-handed regulation before there's a demonstrated need."
What's more, Republicans warned, adding the regulations would imperil the final passage of the broader telecommunications bill, which is the most extensive set of changes since 1996. "This is absolutely a poison pill," said Nevada Republican John Ensign.
Democrats had rallied behind an amendment, adapted from a standalone bill they offered in May, which would have barred network operators from discriminating "in the carriage and treatment of Internet traffic based on the source, destination or ownership of such traffic." That could have prevented Verizon from inking deals to offer high-definition video and prioritizing that on its network, for instance.Without new rules prohibiting such practices, "we're giving two entities, the Bells and cable, the power to be able to cut deals, and that will change the relationship of entrepreneurs to the Internet and to the financial marketplace," said John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat.
Congress' broadband battles
The concept of network neutrality, which generally means that all Internet sites must be treated equally, has drawn a list of high-profile backers, from actress Alyssa Milano to Vint Cerf, one of the technical pioneers of the Internet. It's also led to a political rift between big Internet companies such as Google and Yahoo that back it--and telecom companies that oppose what they view as onerous new federal regulations.
By a 12-10 vote, senators also rejected a second amendment that was broader. The amendment, proposed by Hawaii Democrat Daniel Inouye, included not just Net neutrality anti-discrimination language but also addressed topics such as video franchising and universal service.
Then, by a 15-7 vote, senators voted to send the broader telecommunications bill--called the Communications, Consumer's Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act--to the full Senate for a vote. Its fate there is hardly assured, though a Net neutrality amendment is likely to be offered in any floor vote.
In a statement after the votes, Verizon urged the Senate to act swiftly on the bill, claiming that delays in boosting video competition will cost consumers billions of dollars a year in higher cable bills.
But Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said Wednesday that he would seek to prevent a floor vote on the telecommunications bill because it did not include extensive Net neutrality regulations. "I will object to any further action on this telecommunications bill until it includes a strong net neutrality provisions that will truly benefit consumers and small business," Wyden said, a promise that has teeth because the Senate often works through unanimous consent.
The Republican-backed bill does include some Net neutrality regulations. It would, for instance, create an "Internet consumer bill of rights" to be policed by the Federal Communications Commission. That would permit punishment of network operators who interfere with their subscribers' ability to access and post any lawful content they please, to use any Web page, search engine or application (including voice and video programs), and to connect legal devices to the network.
Stevens defended those rules against Democrats who charged they were not extensive enough. If companies like Google, Microsoft and Amazon got their way, Stevens warned, "our costs for individual access to the (Internet) will double."
All the Republican committee members except Olympia Snowe of Maine voted against the more regulatory Net neutrality amendment. All the Democrats voted for it. The amendment was sponsored by Snowe and Byron Dorgan, a Democrat from North Dakota.
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What you are seeing is many led by a few. You have pressure from the whitehose, The pary whip, finacial considerations, bla bla bla. But do not say republicans and fasists together like they are one in the same. They are not.
The cause you are reved up for only looses support from republicans when you do that.. Instead look at it for what it is. This isn't left or right wing issue, it is a finacial and class issue. You do not hear much about class warfare these days, but a couple years ago, there were some right on point thoughts on the matter.
Sounds to me like the bells are getting greedy. I already pay almost $150 a month just for Cable and internet. Who are they trying to pull the wool over on?
I am amazed that the FTC allowed all the mergers we just witnessed in the last couple of years. Att&t W and Cingular; At&t and SBC; Sprint and Nextel; Verizon (bell south, gte and others) and MCI! Now that is a monster! God forbid you do something to **** off these mega bells!
I guess this next year or so we should charish the internet for what it is. Because one day it will be Alot more heavily "regulated" and commercialized to enrich these fat basterds at the top!
One thing I have to mention is that when this regulation occurs the Riaa and the Mpaa will have their say becuase now they can cut those bit torrent streams down to a trickle. This is one of the largest schemes to "regulate" (remove) our freedoms I have ever seen.
Speed controls and priorization of traffic is already in use (quality of service) and will continue to be in use and increase (some stuff is important, other stuff can be slower) but that choice shouldn't be based on economic factors but on keeping the important data flowing and the less important stuff a bit slower.
You can rent them - cheap!
Senate to act swiftly on the bill, claiming that delays in boosting
video competition will cost consumers billions of dollars a year
in higher cable bills." If I've read this correctly, Verizon wants to
save me money?
And Senator Stevens believes that "companies like Google,
Microsoft and Amazon got their way our costs for individual
access to the (Internet) will double." So, the republican wants to
save me money also?
It's a trick right?
This is all a matter of campaign contribution and who-knows-who, and is a result of a corrupt political system that is essentialy controlled by corporate America. I don't really blame the telcos, for them this is a pure business decision. But the senate and congress are elected officials that should have the best interests of its electorate in mind. The people who will benefit from this are a very, VERY small minority of that electorate. Clearly, money rules on the hill.
Google is famous for releasing incredible free apps. For example, google earth, 2 giga bit gmail accounts. When was the last time the phone company released anything free? They want to rush this through because of up coming elections and with almost 8 years of a republican controled congress, it is likely Democrats will take over quite a few seats.
The telco's bought the republicans you see. This is fact. Google tryed to lobby, but found almost all Republican based firms in DC would have a conflict of intrest as the telco's had already paid BIG money. Not to mention IT firms like Yahoo, Google, Ebay do not pay what these firms are used to getting. They pay a measly few hundred thousand buck.
Politicians are expensive to own. The cost of Business on the hill needs to be addressed by these firms if they want to make head way.
In short, Republicans(so far) and telco's will create an artificial shortage of bandwidth, charge more(as we know economics 101 supply and demand).
http://www.thex3dxperience.com/liberty2.html
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http://www.thex3dxperience.com/liberty2.html
installs activex 3dplayer(flux) in IE PCs.
cube3
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installs activex 3dplayer(flux) in IE PCs.
cube3
X========| |===========X
The x on the left is you, You pay 19.95 to access the internet. Lets say there are 100,000 of you as verizon customers(there are more, but lets keep it simple) That is $1,995,000 a month going to verizon. Now the second X is Google, Ebay, whoever owns a web site on a big pipe, DS3 or bigger.
Now a DS-1 costs about $500 a month, a DS-3 has 28 DS-1's in it. Now lets say they get a break for buying in bulk.. Instead of paying $14000 a month they pay $13500(this is for DS-3's OC-3's and other fiber only connections would cost more). Now running a big web site, you never buy one pipe. If it goes down you are screwed. You need back up pipes. Even better you might want them from other Telco's in case something Goes wrong with Verizon you still have your AT&T pipe working. So lets say Google has 4 DS3's(They have much more bandwidth than that but lets keep it simple) That is $54,000 a month from that one web site.
Sooooo lets say each company has 5 major websites they run pipes to(once again, just keeping it simple) That is $270,000 a month from just 5 major web sites. Nowww...
For the DSL customers and the web sites...
$2,265,000 a month going to verizon. Now in my ascii diagram up there See the =| |=?
That is the telco cloud. What they want to do now is charge the web sites to pass through it. But the pricing structure will not be simple. They will check each data back, if it is video(mpg) it costs this much, audio(wma) it costs this much, but that is just the contract with company A. Company be might have a different contract.
Now here is a thought... What is to stop them in the future from coming back and charging YOU extra for video, audio, news streams. Tha answer is nothing.
Anyone wanting to rush a law into effect should be looked at twice.
Ed Whitaker has been stumping for months (and apparently effectively greasing the Congressional wheels as well--like that's hard to do these days) to spin this unabashed and unapologetic piracy into something legit. This could be enough to cause me to vote Democratic for the first time in 25+ years if the Republicans don't pull their heads out soon.
sign me, Frustrated in the Heartland
Lets see, Advertisement firm vs University of Berkly.
Who do you think will pay for fast service to thier users?
This is a way to make commercial money from big companies. The idea is create a artificial shortage and charge based on supply and demand.
Yet, for some strange reason, the government seems determined to stop me from burning it to the ground.
THERE ARE ACTUAL LAWS AGAINST BURNING DOWN MY OWN HOUSE! Can you believe it?
Nevermind that my little house fire could harm my neighbors homes or pollute the atmosphere. It's MY HOUSE!
And, nevermind that NOT passing net neutrality could harm small businesses - thereby harming the economy of the entire nation! Those wires are the phone companies' wires!
Screw small business! Screw the entire nation! Those wires are the phone company wires! They should be able to do whatever they want with them!
Screw my neighbors too! I can burn my house if I want to!
But....remember that those wires go across public land. So, maybe the taxpayers need to charge the telcos a new speed tax to send info across public land and down public streets. After all, with this new tiered internet, they can afford it.
Or, maybe the government should take over the wires and make the information network a public service. It IS vital to the public interest and to national security. Far too important to let anyone but the government oversee its use if you ask me. ;)
IF you think that the telcos paid for everything, and thus should be able to do with it what they please, you are clueless on many levels, the first being that the telcos paid for the infrastructure.
It is hijacking of data that is not thiers.
I suppose that if you aren't getting your 10MB of speed because the ISP has throttled a website that you can sue for breech of contract, right?
Now review the voting records of virtually any Republican. I rest my case.
# By 2006, 86 million households should have been rewired with a fiber optic wire, capable of 45 Mbps, in both directions. -- read the promises.
# The public subsidies for infrastructure were pocketed. The phone companies collected over $200 billion in higher phone rates and tax perks, about $2000 per household.
Now they want more money and net neutrality would be an obstacle to their plans for double and triple scooping customers.
gov't regulation...
but the overall telecom bill that the net neutrality amendment
belongs on, already contains such regulations as:
the broadcast flag:
"The mandate forces all future digital television (DTV) tuners to
include "content protection" (aka DRM) technologies. All makers
of HDTV receivers will be required to build their devices to watch
for a "flag" embedded in programs by copyright holders.
When it comes to digital recording, it would be Hollywood's DRM
way or the highway. Want to burn that recording digitally to a
DVD to save hard drive space? Sorry, the DRM lock-box won't
allow it. How about sending it over your home network to
another TV? Not unless you rip out your existing network and
replace it with DRMd routers. And forget about using open
source TV tools. Kind of defeats the purpose of getting a high
definition digital signal, doesn't it?
Responding to pressure from Hollywood, the FCC had originally
mandated the flag, but thanks to an EFF court challenge, ALA v.
FCC, it was thrown out. But that doesn't mean the danger is
behind us. Hollywood has headed to Congress to ask for the flag
again."
and that isn't an excessive regulation?
check out the rest of the bill...it's called the:
Communications, Consumer's Choice, and Broadband
Deployment Act...
there's some scary stuff in there...
- Just another thing about to be regulated to death!
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by fastdodge
July 1, 2006 5:35 AM PDT
- Everything politicians stick the noses in turns to crap. Social
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Reply to this comment
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See all 35 Comments >>Security, Taxes, Education, etc. have all been contaminated by
politicians. Once they stick the nose in, your going to suffer.
Both parties are to blame, they just can?t leave things alone.
What?s really funny is that somehow they are experts in anything
they take a look at.
Just because you use a computer at home and you use Word,
Explorer, and balance your check, this does not make you a
computer engineer anymore than driving your car to and from
work makes you a an automotive engineer or Richard Petty.
People in this country are sheep, they have abdicated their rights
to the millionaires club that has run this country from
Washington, DC for years. Most people are too busy trying to
make ends meet to keep track of everything these cretins have
done to what was the greatest nation on earth. The Roman
Empire didn?t see the end coming either. The only difference
between us and the Roman Empire is that we haven?t voted a
horse to the Senate, Several dozens Jackasses, but no horse yet.
They are spending 2.8 trillion dollars a year, where does it all
go????????