Net Neutrality
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OK, I get your point. Good luck at finding and electing lawmakers with what it takes to understand and write their own regulations properly.
Where is it written that experts in some non-law field can't be consulted regarding the making of a law? I just want the legislative power where its supposed to be.. so that the public can make their voice known before a law is passed.. rather than silently having it foisted on us by a bureaucracy that answers to no one?
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One of the stories clogging my RSS feeds this morning was the court overturning the FCC's net neutrality stance. Let me first say that I have not studied this matter and don't know what the facts are on either side of the street. What I do know is that it caused the Internet to gnaw on its own ankle for the better part of the morning. So here's my question. Although I'm in favor of net neutrality conceptually, from a more pragmatic perspective it seems to me that the wires I get to use in order to interact with the Internet, at least in America, belong to companies. I get to use them because I pay them for the service, but it's their choice what service to provide and how much to charge. They bought the materials and paid to have them installed. Unless the government decides to take over an industry and seize the companies' assets, does it really have the right to tell a given company what it can do with the wires that it owns? Sure, it would be nice if we lived in a world where everyone played fair, and I'm in favor of such an idealized landscape. That said, telling a company how to run its business strikes me as unfair to the company. It's a complex issue with many points of view (and I have no interest in discussing partisan politics of any kind), but I was thinking about that this morning. The Internet howls that this is a travesty, but it seems to me that it's not really that simple. Was just wondering if I'm alone in considering how sovereign the property of a company is, as well as its business practices (providing it doesn't break any laws).
Christopher Duncan Author of Unite the Tribes: Leadership Skills for Technology Managers Have Fun, Get Paid: How to Make a Living with Your Creativity The Career Programmer
I've been following this more closely; you have the right idea. Companies should be allowed to run themselves as necessary, within limits. I don't think Joe User should feel they have the right to choke all of an ISP's bandwidth. So long as more than 1 ISP exists competition should serve to balance between providing user's needs and gouging them. Where only 1 ISP exists though, things could get ugly. But we do have laws on the books to deal with that and don't need another government body policing this.
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
Unless the government decides to take over an industry and seize the companies' assets, does it really have the right to tell a given company what it can do with the wires that it owns?
What happens if you want to create your own search engine. And google has contracted with every single provider in the country to allow cheaper access to google. So for anyone to use your search engine they will have to pay a fee every time they use it. Is that fair to the start up? Is that fair to the consumer?
No, it's not fair to the startup. It's also a violation of antitrust laws; we don't need more laws to prevent a situation like this.
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No, it's not fair to the startup. It's also a violation of antitrust laws; we don't need more laws to prevent a situation like this.
Patrick Fox wrote:
It's also a violation of antitrust laws
Perhaps. But that would only be decided by the Justice Department and would be meaningless to a small start up since it would post their demise. It would also be decided on a case by case basis. And wouldn't apply to the providers. Net neutrality would prevent the possibility in the first place.
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My analogies are great. And 4G is much, much faster than cable. Get your facts straight.
Simon O'Riordan from UK wrote:
And 4G is much, much faster than cable.
My cheap home cable has 50 meg down and 10 meg up. And I could pay more and get more. How much speed exactly do you think "4G" has? Do you think you have an option to get more bandwidth? How much bandwidth do you think a google farm has?
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Patrick Fox wrote:
It's also a violation of antitrust laws
Perhaps. But that would only be decided by the Justice Department and would be meaningless to a small start up since it would post their demise. It would also be decided on a case by case basis. And wouldn't apply to the providers. Net neutrality would prevent the possibility in the first place.
What makes the fcc more capable of making such a decision than the justice department? And why do you think the fcc would always side with startups whereas the justice department wouldn't?
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What makes the fcc more capable of making such a decision than the justice department? And why do you think the fcc would always side with startups whereas the justice department wouldn't?
Patrick Fox wrote:
What makes the fcc more capable of making such a decision than the justice department
First I didn't claim that the FCC was the only possibility. Second the FCC rule was placed on the providers and for all business. A anti-trust agreement would be unlikely to apply to providers nor all businesses.
Patrick Fox wrote:
And why do you think the fcc would always side with startups whereas the justice department wouldn't?
That statement has nothing to do with what I said and also has nothing to do with the FCC rule that was just struck down.
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Patrick Fox wrote:
What makes the fcc more capable of making such a decision than the justice department
First I didn't claim that the FCC was the only possibility. Second the FCC rule was placed on the providers and for all business. A anti-trust agreement would be unlikely to apply to providers nor all businesses.
Patrick Fox wrote:
And why do you think the fcc would always side with startups whereas the justice department wouldn't?
That statement has nothing to do with what I said and also has nothing to do with the FCC rule that was just struck down.
The FCC attempt at expanding its authority under the guise of net neutrality is not necessary. It's just more expansion of government. Any real abuses in the marketplace can be handled with existing law. The FCC with its net neutrality provisions does not make it any more efficient at policing ISPs, it's decisions would have been made on as case by case basis as well.
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Simon O'Riordan from UK wrote:
And 4G is much, much faster than cable.
My cheap home cable has 50 meg down and 10 meg up. And I could pay more and get more. How much speed exactly do you think "4G" has? Do you think you have an option to get more bandwidth? How much bandwidth do you think a google farm has?
From Wikipedia 4G article (you'll like that, it's not-for-profit). "In March 2008, the International Telecommunications Union-Radio communications sector (ITU-R) specified a set of requirements for 4G standards, named the International Mobile Telecommunications Advanced (IMT-Advanced) specification, setting peak speed requirements for 4G service at 100 megabits per second (Mbit/s) for high mobility communication (such as from trains and cars) and 1 gigabit per second (Gbit/s) for low mobility communication (such as pedestrians and stationary users)."
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The FCC attempt at expanding its authority under the guise of net neutrality is not necessary. It's just more expansion of government. Any real abuses in the marketplace can be handled with existing law. The FCC with its net neutrality provisions does not make it any more efficient at policing ISPs, it's decisions would have been made on as case by case basis as well.
Patrick Fox wrote:
Any real abuses in the marketplace can be handled with existing law.
So you claim.
Patrick Fox wrote:
it's decisions would have been made on as case by case basis as well.
What? The regulation would have made it illegal for any provider to differentiate service especially based on pricing. There is no "case by case" in that determination.