Apparently, Google and Vorizon, are jumping into the whole net neutrality issue, by essentially coming up with an ingenious plan, to bulldoze over it over.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/203041/googleverizon_pact_proves_need_for_real_net_neutrality.html?tk=hp_blg

We made the mistake of trusting Google just like we made the mistake of trusting Microsoft. 

The government has a compelling interest in maintaining Internet neutrality for the sake of the First Amendment.  It's not 1995 anymore.  People rely on the Internet for more than amusement.  The Internet is becoming the dominant communications medium and it must be kept in the commons.  We cannot let for-profit corporations control it. 

In the old days, before the government repealed the Fairness Doctrine, the network news divisions always lost money.  News was expensive and taxed network resources far more than game shows and soap operas.  However, the networks had to put up with it because the FCC required news to be news and the networks to act in the public interest, not partisan political interest.  Twenty years later after the dismantling of the Fairness Doctrine we see FOX News and MSNBC slinging partisan political turdballs at each other and the news programming mere infotainment. 

Google and Verizon are conspiring in something much more insidious.  Commercial television was never considered part of the commons.  All the networks had to do is obey minimal FCC requirements.  You couldn't start your own television program the way you can start your own website.  If Internet neutrality goes the way of the Fairness Doctrine, you'll have to pay fealty to Gooberizon if you want a slice of the band width.  In turn, they'll breathe down your neck about content and slow your speed down to dial-up crawl if you don't promote their big-money interests!
>:(

This is the part, that worries me....

"Neutrality proponents claim that telecom companies seek to impose a tiered service model in order to control the pipeline and thereby remove competition, create artificial scarcity, and oblige subscribers to buy their otherwise uncompetitive services. Many believe net neutrality to be primarily important as a preservation of current freedoms."

"Vinton Cerf, considered a "father of the Internet" and co-inventor of the Internet Protocol, Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the Web, and many others have spoken out in favor of network neutrality."

I don't want the so-called "market" controlling the Internet anymore than I want the government controlling it.  The "market" is only democratic until the biggest fish get big enough to swallow the little fish.  It will be easier to quash the Google-Verizon duopoly before it starts than to file anti-trust suits later.
::)

I don't want the so-called "market" controlling the Internet anymore than I want the government controlling it.  The "market" is only democratic until the biggest fish get big enough to swallow the little fish.  It will be easier to quash the Google-Verizon duopoly before it starts than to file anti-trust suits later.
::)


Ditto.

I support the right of network owners to either deny access to, or restrict bandwith access speeds to, applications that are supreme bandwidth hogs.

The equivalent to this is you own a bar.  A group of twenty people come in and each orders a small Coke, and then they sit around and chat for the next 4 hours.  Nobody else can use the bar because these people are hogging the place and you can't make money.

Of course, the sort of bandwidth denial needs to be solely on the basis of bandwidth usage and NOT predicated on what the content of the bandwidth hog is.

I support the right of network owners to either deny access to, or restrict bandwith access speeds to, applications that are supreme bandwidth hogs.

The equivalent to this is you own a bar.  A group of twenty people come in and each orders a small Coke, and then they sit around and chat for the next 4 hours.  Nobody else can use the bar because these people are hogging the place and you can't make money.

Of course, the sort of bandwidth denial needs to be solely on the basis of bandwidth usage and NOT predicated on what the content of the bandwidth hog is.


Which applications are the "supreme bandwidth hogs"?
???

The equivalent to this is you own a bar.  A group of twenty people come in and each orders a small Coke, and then they sit around and chat for the next 4 hours.  Nobody else can use the bar because these people are hogging the place and you can't make money.


Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens is dead.  

http://isen.com/blog/uploaded_images/5z6vt4n-720249.jpg

...but his ghost lives on.


Of course, the sort of bandwidth denial needs to be solely on the basis of bandwidth usage and NOT predicated on what the content of the bandwidth hog is.


I was being a little too harsh on you, but had to illustrate the point.  Your position is actually a pretty reasonable position.  QoS actually makes sense: my P2P download can wait a few milliseconds so that my voice communications can go through.  Thing is, that's not what ISPs want anymore.  Indeed, the "ISP" has effectively ceased to exist; all that's left are incumbent telcos (and cablecos), hoping to cut in on a slice of the action.

Bad news, everyone, it's all over.....

>:(   :\'(

http://current.com/news-and-politics/88997864_the-end-of-the-internet-2012.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2XPiqhN_Ns

And we are expected, as usual, to take it and like it.
>:(

The major downside to Capitalism.

The major downside to Capitalism.


Unregulated capitalism.  Teddy Roosevelt knew it just as well with the railroads and the Standard Oil. 

Unregulated capitalism.  Teddy Roosevelt knew it just as well with the railroads and the Standard Oil. 


You're right... it's unregulated. Too bad I can't afford to move to another capitalist based country and see how it is in comparison.

So what does mean for Chuck?  I am presuming that if this cable internet package deal. goes through that this site will be subscription based, or will he unfortunately have to close this site down for good?

???

I can just see the cable big shots slobbering over all at the idea of a tiered internet, of course they want to make you pay for the highest package to have access to Hulu and Youtube. I don't trust these thugs at all, they know cable is dead and on demand internet content is the future and it scares the hell out of them.

The big difference between the Internet and cable TV is you always had to pay for cable and cable was always tiered (just not in the very early days when it was just HBO).  As for the 'net, you can't give something away for twenty years and THEN demand everybody pay for it.  If I'm nervous about what the fascists are trying to do, there are a lot of computer nerds who aren't just nervous about it, they're already planning how to subvert it. 

The Internet isn't exactly "free" either.  I pay for high-speed as part of the Comcast package.  Furthermore, millions of sites require a subscription fee for access.  Speaking of pay sites, don't discount the power of porn.  Pornography is a multi-billion dollar per annum industry on the Internet like it or not.  Perhaps bigtime smut peddlers such as Vivid Video and Hustler magazine will pony up to Gooberizon for top-tier speed, but mom & pop porn sites won't be able to afford it.  They're not going to go quietly and some of them are unsavory characters.  They'll respond with sabotage. 
8)