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US Lawmakers Propose New Net Neutrality Bill
Posted by
Soulskill
on Fri May 09, 2008 08:21 AM
from the round-infinity-fight dept.
from the round-infinity-fight dept.
An anonymous reader brings news that Net Neutrality legislation is making another comeback. A new bill, sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), would make ISPs who fail to provide service in a non-discriminatory manner subject to anti-trust violations. From the NYTimes:
"'The bill squarely addresses the issue of the enormous market power of the telephone and cable companies as the providers of 98 percent of the broadband service in the country,' said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge. But broadband providers and some congressional Republicans have argued that net neutrality legislation isn't necessary. The broadband market is becoming more competitive and net neutrality regulations could hamper investment in broadband networks, some Republicans said during a hearing this week."
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Firehose:US lawmakers introduce new net neutrality bill by Anonymous Coward
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Not necessary? (Score:4, Insightful)
Therefore I conclude, that large companies and congressional Republicans are lying. Of course, that was really my thought before I read this article.
Re:Not necessary? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would think not having such a bill would hamper investments. There is much money to be made in creating an artificially low supply of bandwidth.
Parent
Like those pesky Banking Regulations! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I've heard this story before. I like the regulations, they are necessary for capitalism to work in the real world.
Parent
Re:Like those pesky Banking Regulations! (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow, put on the hipwaders. The bullshit is thick today.
Our current "credit crunch" had nothing to do with banking deregulation of the late 80's and early 90's. It has everything to do with three issues.
One, the subprime mess. That's the fault of people buying houses they knew they couldn't afford, and banks lending them money they couldn't pay back. But why were the banks lending them that money, then? Because politicians decided that it wasn't fair that people with bad credit couldn't get home loans, so they created laws authorizing subprime mortgages, and indeed pressed banks to give these loans to "disadvantaged" borrowers. That's right, your beloved government regulations helped create this mess. And now these same politicians are promising to spend taxpayer funds to bail out these irresponsible people and banks, while people that played by the rules... the ones that only bought houses they knew they could afford, or when they couldn't, rented instead... well, your beloved regulators are about to stab those people in the back. The ones that played by the rules? Suckers and chumps, apparently, because they could have gone hog wild and let Uncle Sugar bail them out. THATS the fruits of your nanny regulation, not true free market economics.
The other two reasons are strictly because of monetary policy, not banking regulation. The Fed decided on too much liquidity, and the Bush Adminstration adopted a weak dollar policy, mainly because of complaints by people much like you that "our trade deficit is too high! Get the Chinese to buy more from US!". So Bush bought into that fraudulent thinking that if we made our domestic products cheaper via a weak dollar, foreign countries would come running to buy more of our products (never mind that in the US, throughout 400 years of our history, has had a trade deficit for 350+ of those years, and it hasn't retarded our economic growth. The trade deficit is a useless measure of overall economic health).
"I like the regulations, they are necessary for capitalism to work in the real world"
Ahh, the old bullshit that capitalism isn't "efficient" enough without government regulation.
The only thing capitalism needs to work "in the real world" is a seller that has something a buyer wants, and a buyer that has the means to pay for that product or service. Period. Regulation that does anything other than prevent fraud is nothing more than a drag on markets.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
One, the subprime mess. That's the fault of people buying houses they knew they couldn't afford, and banks lending them money they couldn't pay back. But why were the banks lending them that money, then? Because politicians decided that it wasn't fair that people with bad credit couldn't get home loans, so they created laws authorizing subprime mortgages, and indeed pressed banks to give these loans to "disadvantaged" borrowers. That's right, your beloved government regulations helped create this mess. And now these same politicians are promising to spend taxpayer funds to bail out these irresponsible people and banks, while people that played by the rules... the ones that only bought houses they knew they could afford, or when they couldn't, rented instead... well, your beloved regulators are about to stab those people in the back. The ones that played by the rules? Suckers and chumps, apparently, because they could have gone hog wild and let Uncle Sugar bail them out. THATS the fruits of your nanny regulation, not true free market economics.
Go rent the movie Maxed Out [imdb.com] and you'll get even MORE disgusted with the banks because the KNOW that these people can't pay the bills but they make most of their profits from them.
When they sue people Only $ 1 out of $ 3 is principle. The Other $ 2 are fees and charges.
It even mentions a new type of Credit Card that will go against your pension plan !
Re:Not necessary? (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Not necessary? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Not necessary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me ask you this, do you think it's a great idea to add a new procedure/function/module to a piece of software, that definitely interacts with the previously written and tested code, if you think that new code is unnecessary, just to make a PHB happy?
For the record, I do think net neutrality laws are necessary. I don't think however, that unnecessary laws are harmless.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
But, I still don't trust that we have the experts necessary in the government to enforce this correctly and it may still end up hampering invesetments.
If I'm an investor, I'd be less likely to put my money into a company constructing infrastructure resources that aren't in their power to control, especially when it's known up front that the benefit of the resources might not
Re:Not necessary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If I'm an investor, I'd be less likely to put my money into a company constructing infrastructure resources that aren't in their power to control
So you wouldn't consider investing in Power companies? Or Oil/Gas production companies? or telecoms? You're cutting out an awful lot of highly profitable and stable investment opportunities. But I guess if you prefer the unregulated industries, there are a whole lot of penny stock options for you. I've got some SCO shares for sale if you'd like ;)
Just trying to follow the dots here.
You are an investor.
Your local ISP provides an investment oppertunity.
Your local ISP has a near monopoly on the market.
The fed
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The broadband market is becoming more competitive and net neutrality regulations could hamper investment in broadband networks, some Republicans said during a hearing this week.
It's easy to argue the market is becoming more competitive when the starting point is 0. It's also true that net neutrality regulations could hamper investment in the 1 or 2 broadband networks currently in place -- because people would be investing in the alternative networks instead.
Talk about one-sided arguments. This is why unnecessary laws != net neutrality laws, and why net neutrality laws are necessary.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
why do the bad guys always come up with such names (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:why do the bad guys always come up with such na (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
The New York Times? (Score:3, Informative)
That's just from a quick read-through. This is the New York Times?
Re:The New York Times? (Score:4, Funny)
What you say?
Somebody set us up the FIOS.
Parent
Competition (Score:5, Insightful)
There's DSL now, but it costs the same price for much lower speed. I'd like to have options, and I'm moving across the country to Tempe soon. Hopefully things are better there.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
When I got broadband 8 years ago, Road Runner was the only option.
There's DSL now, but it costs the same price for much lower speed. I'd like to have options,
That situation is actually MUCH better than many, many people in the country. I have slow, expensive DSL at my house. My choices are to use that and accept whatever they decide (which thankfully, they've not imposed bandwidth caps or any throttling yet, but the reliability of the connection can be spotty sometimes), or if I don't like that I'm SOL. Even if I went back to dial-up the only company with a local access number to me is the same company that I get DSL from.
Comcast and Rogers.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Parse these lies (Score:2, Insightful)
One would think that after a while it would get to be a chore to have to lie day after day to millions of people, but I guess the payback for "some Republicans" is great enough that their willing to step up to the challenge.
And I guess they're being rewarded richly enough by their corporate masters that they are able to say things li
Re:Parse these lies (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a ridiculous simplification to attribute the presence or lack of economic success to the man in office at the time, because there are policies that take many years to take effect or unwind, but the idea that taxing wealthy people at 90% is smart is just silly. Wealthy people pay ~25% taxes on their income at the moment, that could easily go north of 35% without really hurting anything, but there is a good debate somewhere near 50%.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Until understand the difference, don't bother talking about taxes publicly.
Effective tax rates by household income:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/EffectiveTaxRates.shtml [cbo.gov]
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Your So Wrong.
First time poster, long term reader.
"The periods in our history when we had the most stringent regulations (and the highest taxes) also happened to be periods of greatest economic and job growth, as well as the strongest and most wealthy middle class."
Its well noted that reducing taxes on those that actually pay the bills in your country increases the amount of tax that they pay, i.e people stop running from the tax man and just start paying it because its less than the risk of getting caught.
Re: (Score:2)
Are you serious? (Score:2)
Tax burden in the USA has shifted significantly from the rich to the middle class. Sure, the tax rates tell one story but loopholes and dodges let the rich guys avoid most of their responsibility.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Current situation in commercial power: deregulated markets are seeing huge increases in rates; there is little-to-no new-plant build, the infrastructure is crumbling, and brown-outs all over the country are likely to be necessary within a decade unless something changes.
Current situation in media: there are 3 media companies, owned by even larger companies, that provide something like 85% of all
Explain this, then (Score:3, Insightful)
We de-regulated banks and got the Great Depression - that is, that whole economic collapse thing from unstable banks long before your Smoot-Hawley boogeyman ever came along. Oh and how was that Soviet grain production going around the 1970s? Compared to socialist America, I mean.
Tell us, what ruin came of America from the New Deal? Oh noes, that preceded a nice long run of American prosperity.
Re: (Score:3)
Because someone has to mow the lawns of the rich. Someone has to paint their fences, pick up their trash, sell them services, assemble household appliances, etc. The economy is not about the rich against the losers who should have gotten an education.
Your point is so completely besides reality that it hurts.
Re:Parse these lies (Score:5, Insightful)
The rich depend on public-school-educated employees to make them money.
The rich depend on public-school-educated workers to build the products they buy with their money.
The rich depend on public-school-educated professionals to fill their prescriptions.
The rich depend on public-financed road networks to move their products.
The rich depend on public-financed communication networks (like the subsidized phone system and the government-funded internet) to enable their businesses.
The rich depend on public-financed military to protect their business interests overseas.
The rich depend on public-financed military to protect their country from invasion.
The rich depend on public-financed social, medical, and economic safety nets to prevent the type of discontent among the poor that create revolution.
The poor depend on many of the above to survive, but, in absence of those things, the poor who have nothing to lose would revolt and restructure their society to provide them. Eliminating the safety nets and social programs would make things very bad for the poor for a time, then make things better after the revolution. Eliminating the safety nets and social programs would make things better for the rich for a time, then make things much, much worse after the revolution.
The rich have gotten far more out of the system than the poor, and they have far more to lose if the system breaks down. It is only and truly fair that they pay their fair share to fund it. That fair share, proportionally, is much larger percentage of their income.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Regulations only serve to raise prices."
The last major deregulation we had in the US was an energy deregulation that led to tripling of power costs in California and frequent blackouts due to massive collusion among energy suppliers. $20 billion was flat out stolen from Californians, but since the Texan energy companies that did the stealing were controlled by friends of Mr. B
Re:Parse these lies (Score:5, Insightful)
One would think that after a while it would get to be a chore to have to lie day after day to millions of people, but I guess the payback for "some Republicans" is great enough that their willing to step up to the challenge.
Parent
Even if this passes, it wont necessarily help (Score:4, Insightful)
Screw anti-trust... (Score:2)
A variant on "If you've done nothing wrong..." (Score:3, Interesting)
But ultimately the problem as I see it is that the telecoms don't think it's wrong to do what they have been doing and/or what they plan to do... especially since there is no law that identifies it as such.
competitive my ass.. (Score:4, Insightful)
A duopoly is not competitive, and I have no options for DSL or any other landline based solution other then dialup. Sat internet is not an option, too much latency
Well, the thing is, "free market" is different (Score:3, Informative)
1. well informed buyers making the choices, from
2. a choice of perfectly interchangeable products, from
3. many suppliers for each product
Basically it's like the market for, I don't know, almost anything in the 18'th and most of 19 century. Or like the market for sliced bread or orange juice nowaday
Rep.s lie again (Score:2)
won't hinder investment in the least (Score:3, Funny)
Competitive market? (Score:5, Insightful)
Outside of that last group, you really don't have a choice of providers, so you're stuck with whatever crappy TOS they give you. Just look at the recent news about Comcast throttling P2P, and now talking about monthly traffic caps. Guess how long that would last if they actually *DID* have competition for customers?
Sadly, the prospects of this bill getting anywhere in the current whores-for-corporations Congress is about nil, but it probably looks good for Conyers' re-election campaign.
More competitive? Don't make me laugh ... (Score:3, Insightful)
... and spill my coffee.
Oh really. In my town we have all of two options for "broadband": Comcast and At&T. Want a business class line from either of those? Prepare to pay through the nose. And I haven't checked out whether this is true with Comcast because, well, they're Comcast, but from AT&T a business class line is no indication that you'll be able to run servers on your broadband connection. You just get to pay more.
These two have a captive market so they have little to no incentive to make a better offereing. Heck, from what I understand the area that we moved away from nearly eight years ago still doesn't even offer ADSL. And when we moved it was two years past its supposedly scheduled installation in the local office. So that is ten years for that area. So just how would net neutrality keep AT&T from installing updated equipment in their local office?
There was a promising alternative to those two: a wireless provider that included a plan for small businesses for a pretty decent connection -- same bandwidth for upload and download -- for a price much lower than either of the two biggies. The catch? Well it turns out all that inbound bandwidth I'd get with a business class connection would be wasted since the local manager decided to prohibit businesses from running their own servers. I'll try again in a year and hope that their management has gotten smarter. Until then, we'll struggle along with our IDSL connection from Covad.
I never thought I'd wind up living in a country that's turning out to be such a technological backwater.
Good regulation, bad regulation (Score:5, Insightful)
Do we have an open, freely competitive market for telecommunications services in the US? The answer is clearly, no. We have a marginally competitive market composed of government-granted monopolies.
The problem isn't that we have "too much" government regulation. Without a grant of monopoly -- a government regulation -- the network operators wouldn't have a network to operate in the first place. The problem is we have the wrong kind of regulations. The government shouldn't be granting monopolies in the first place. Rather, it should be setting interoperability standards and requirements that keep the market as open and freely competitive as possible.
Seen in this light, then, these bills are a welcome addition. They at least set a standard for openness and nondiscrimination, which is a good thing for a government to be doing.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
From the TFA, which you apparantly didn't read:
'Conyers and Lofgren were cosponsors of a similar bill introduced in 2006, when Republicans held a majority in the House. With significant Republican opposition, the 2006 bill died, but Democrats were elected to the majority late that year.
"Americans have come to expect the Internet to be open to everyone," Conyers said in a statement. "The Internet was designed without centralized control, without gatekeepers for content and services. If we allow companies with monopoly or duopoly power to control how the Internet operates, network providers could have the power to choose what content is available."'
While Conyers has at times made efforts in Congress that reflect his consituency, he appears to be acting as the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee should be acting. I am actually not a fan of his (I tend to be far more conservative than he), but your vaguely racist comment made me scratch my head and say 'Huh?'.
I'll reserve further judgement until I've had a chance to read the text of the bill.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I don't care if he want's net neutrality because a puppet named banjo told him so. Net Neutrality is a good thing.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
holey run on batman....
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Re:RIAA, MPAA... (Score:5, Insightful)
Worded less politely, net neutrality boils down to the customer saying to the ISP:
"I pay you for bandwidth. Nothing more. Shut the fuck up and let me spend that bandwidth how and where I please.".
I can't believe it's even an issue in people's minds. If Comcast built a huge toll road that lead to a dead end, nobody would drive on it and their stockholders would throw mad fits. It would be a blessing if the Google Sushi Bar opened next to the road serving up the best sushi in the state for low prices. People would actually pay to use their road now. You'd think they'd be happy, but no Comcast wants to charge the travelers AND charge the Google Sushi Bar every time someone wants to turn into their restaurant. Or, if they don't pay up, they'll still let people go there, but only 3 cars every hour. You're welcome to go to the brand new Comcast Sushi Bar across the street though.
That's pretty much the situation that we're looking at, and it needs to be stopped, by law if necessary (and I've heard enough rumblings from the telecoms to believe it is now necessary). Claiming it'll "hinder investment" is just asinine. Of course companies would build more networks if they could unfairly extort money from people. That doesn't make it right.
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