The beauty of the Drudge Report right now is that Mr. Drudge is working against his very interests. He’s got some ridiculous headline right now, JULIUS AT FCC WANTS TO ‘REGULATE’ INTERNET, that’s meant to wile up his easily excitable readership. What’s going on is that the FCC has moved one step closer to bringin Net Neutrality to fruition, and has invited the public to weigh in until January 14.
Here’s my problem with the Drudge presentation: he’s using the word “regulation” to scare up opposition to Net Neutrality. Here’s a quick scenario that I pulled out of thin air the site would do well to consider:
My name is Mr Smith. I run a really big ISP in the United States. You know who I don’t like? That damn Drudge Report guy. He’s always talking smack about my company. So what I’m going to do is, now that there’s no Net Neutrality to get in the way, I’m go to either block access to his Web site, or just slow it down so that it’s practically unusable. Now Drudge gets no traffic from my subscribers, and his business suffers. Meanwhile, I’ve gone ahead and partnered with TechCrunch, and have rigged it in such a way that all of my subscribers can access the site REALLY CRAZY FAST, and there’s no ads. My subscribers now go to TechCrunch all the time. It’s a free market, right: I hate Drudge, so I’m gonna block his site. Now, of course, my subscribers are free to go somewhere else if they want to visit Drudge, but considering how little competition there is in broadband, have fun paying for a dial-up connection in 2010; I own all the fiber optic cable in this city!
That’s a gigantic oversimplification, yes, but it illustrates my basic point: Drudge here is so off the mark that he’s putting his own business at risk.
Not smart, sir.
The Drudge Report is the anus of the political world.
Hes not putting his business at own risk. The people who read Drudge are not concerned with facts or logic, they are only interested in loud noises and blind opposition.
You are so sure he is way off the mark? His, or whomever researched and posted, piece might be in immediate sense off the mark, but you are kidding yourself if you think net neutrality is really defined by the actual words. Government involvement is designed to do one thing, be involved, not be neutral or preach neutrality. We live in a time when we can share information in seconds and great a virtual storm surge of data that gets noticed. The government is not going to sit back and not bid time to lobbyists that want to define “neutrality”. It is a flux concept that begins to open the door. Where as if say in your admitted gigantic over simplification everyone on the fiber optic owned cable were to bombard that ISP owner with complaints we might stand a better chance at getting them to reconsider their actions.
der that should read “create”
most ultra-conservatives barely understand how the internet works. some of them can use it but by no means do they grok it.
This LOOKS really bad from an uneducated perspective. The last thing these people read about the internet is that Obama has some magic kill switch. hard to blame them for over-reacting when we are in effect giving a government body power to regulate and force companies to do things they dont want to do.
yes many times they want to do evil. But when the FCC forces comcast to provide free broadband in urban underprivileged areas in 2-3 years (yes that is eventually coming) and the rest of us have to pay the price through bill hikes we might regret supporting this.
The best thing we can do is stay active and informed. This is not health care. this is the internet and we are the loudest mother f*#@ers on the planet.
pass this shit for now but lets keep it on a leash.
I’d say don’t pass it and keep it on a leash always. We have more power to discourage a companies profit margin outlook than we do to sway a body politic. The politic answer is, “do you really want to vote for “them” I didn’t think so, therefore we define ‘neutral’ as xyz”.
Look what just happend to Hansen’s Beverage and their Monster product when they tried to take down a small brewery in Vermont for daring to trademark their own product in their own category. Rock Art brewery won, because Hansen’s began to fear the negative association. Money speaks louder than votes and bills unfortunately.
Please leave the internet how it is. Say no the “R” word.
However, if Mr. Drudge is willing to pay my big ISP for unfettered access to my customers, I’m sure we can work out a deal, but no way is he going to get through my pipes without paying my toll booth.
Nicholas Deleon ,
I believe, you are under the assumption that the current form/understanding of “net neutrality” is the only way to achieve what you believe it will and should do.
There is another way, a free market way. Where instead of applying a rule/law/regulation on the neutrality or not of the internet … what if the law/regulation/rule was “each company must have a policy on what they will and will not do in regard to shaping, preferring, forming, etc traffic”. That way if the market/people want non-neutral option then they can have it, though if enough people would (and I would be in this camp) want a “neutral” company, I could spend my money that way.
This is what I see is missed with this topic. It really does come down to a “government knows best” vs “free market” decision again, and Drudge is falling on the side he believes is the best for his goals/vision.
I addressed this in my little scenario. If I’m a big ISP, and I disagree with Drudge, then I’m going to block access to his site, or, more likely, give preferred access to his competitors’ sites. Here, Drudge loses out because there’s no Net Neutrality.
If Net Neutrality were to pass, the federal government would have rules in place to prevent me, the big ISP owner, from doing that to Drudge. How he can be against that, I don’t know.
Really, all Net Neutrality does is prevent the ISPs from playing favorites. If you wanna call that regulation, be my guest (as if regulation is inherently a bad thing. It may well be a good thing here.)
did you even read what I said?
I think you missed the first line; here it is again:
“I believe, you are under the assumption that the current form/understanding of “net neutrality” is the only way to achieve what you believe it will and should do.”
Well it that case, yes. Yes, I think Net Neutrality is the only way to ensure that Comcast, Time Warner, or Your Local ISP don’t turn around and make sweetheart deals with their preferred content partners, or whatever buzz word they want to hide behind. (Or maybe there’s another way to prevent it, perhaps under a different name; Net Neutrality is real, right now, so why ask for something else to accomplish our goal when a solution exists, and is in the process of being implemented?)
We already saw what Comcast did in throttling BitTorrent traffic without telling anyone until independent investigations discovered that yes, Comcast was messing with its users’ traffic.
I simply don’t trust the ISPs to “do right” by their customers; government action would work well here.
there’s a reason why “letting the market decide” won’t work…. MOST PEOPLE ONLY HAVE TWO OR THREE CHOICES OF AN INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER. AND IN SOME CASES, THE THIRD PROVIDER IS OWNED BY THE SECOND ONE BUT DOING BUSINESS UNDER A DIFFERENT NAME. THERE IS LITTLE TO NO CONSUMER CHOICE WHEN IT COMES TO BROADBAND. IN MOST MARKETS, USUALLY ONLY ONE COMPANY HAS A CLEARLY BETTER SERVICE, SO WE’RE STUCK WITH IT. IF THERE WERE 10-15 DIFFERENT ISPs IN EVERY MARKET THAN IT’D BE A DIFFERENT STORY. BUT BROADBAND PROVIDERS ARE JUST A MERGER BETWEEN THE TELECOM AND CABLE MONOPOLIES.
Howard, the reason that is the case is that the government has created the situation. It is not a market failure when the laws/rules/regulations are written where there will only be one cable net provider, and then multiple potential DSL providers.
Your example is the best case I have for why looking at additional solutions then “government action would work well here” … government action is part of what got us to the point we are at today.
Great example … it’ll be worse for the politicians I imagine. Can’t get any donations thru your web site because you pissed off the telcos? Good luck getting elected!
Net Neutrality – 10/22/2009
Posted October 23, 2009 by Joe Tighe
Categories: Contracts
Tags: 3458, AT&T, Bill 3458, Comcast, H.R. 3458, Internet Freedom Preservation Act, Markey, Net Neutrality, Time Warner, Verizon
The US government is proposing broad new regulations for telecommunications and cable internet service providers.
The new proposals appear to target specific providers for regulation and government oversight. Specifically, Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey has proposed the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009, or the “Net Neutrality” bill, outlining government policies to impose new governance and restrictions targeting telecommunications and cable providers AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner and Comcast.
The proposed is based on the unfounded fear that service providers will “control who can and cannot offer content, services and applications over the Internet utilizing such networks.”
The Markey bill indicates the vast majority of consumers receive services from only one or two dominant internet service providers. And, the bill says the national economy could be harmed “if” these providers interfered with access to internet applications.
The bill proposes regulations imposing equal treatment (eg price/performance) of all internet traffic and content, regardless of content type and delivery costs. Specifically, the legislation proposes internet service providers could not sell prioritized internet applications or services.
One of the main problems with the proposed legislation is the lack of recognition of costs to provide internet services. Some applications, such as video are bandwidth hogs and require significantly greater network infrastructure and associated costs to deliver when compared to the network infrastructure costs to deliver email access. Under the proposed legislation, services providers would have to charge the low bandwidth users (casual browsers and email readers) more to offset for the higher costs of the video users. One result of the proposed legislation would be less consumer choice and a hidden “bandwidth hog tax”. Today, most service providers offer tiered products and pricing to consumers and businesses to account for the additional costs to deliver bandwidth intensive applications. You pay more if you use more under the tiered pricing model. These are not “discriminatory” practices. Rather, tiered pricing and application prioritization are sound business models delivering reliable, profitable product choices and unburdened internet ecommerce. Consumers and businesses currently have choices. The proposed legislation takes away choice and increases costs to consumers and businesses.
Another problem with the legislation is, certain applications such as voice and video over the internet require prioritization and special treatment to work properly. The proposed legislation makes existing application prioritization products and networking practices illegal. Internet service providers would have to dismantle these services to make all internet applications “equal” with no prioritization schema. The new legislation would kill off reliable voice and video over the internet as we know it.
The other problem with the Net Neutrality legislation is anti-trust and federal trade regulations are already in place to protect consumers and business from monopolistic practices and unfair trade. For example, when AT&T disconnected MCI customers in 1974, MCI filed and won a successful anti-trust lawsuit resulting in breakup of the AT&T monopoly. Another example is, the Federal Trade Commission recently investigated possible antitrust violations caused by the Apple and Google sharing two board directors. Arthur Levinson has since stepped down from both Apple and Google boards.
The US government would better use taxpayer dollars and valuable legislation time by asking two questions:
Which companies are hiring lobbyists and launching advertising campaigns promoting Net Neutrality legislation?
What is their agenda?
Net Neutrality legislation is not needed. Consumers would have less choice and higher costs. Internet service providers would incur additional costs and compliance overhead. Taxpayers would pay higher taxes to create and support additional government oversight organizations.
What business and consumers need is effective interpretation, oversight and enforcement of existing laws and regulations.
Disclosure – Joe Tighe has no paid relationships, products or endorsements from any company, political or government organization cited in this article.
Net Neutrality – 10/22/2009
Posted October 23, 2009 by Joe Tighe
The US government is proposing broad new regulations for telecommunications and cable internet service providers.
The new proposals appear to target specific providers for regulation and government oversight. Specifically, Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey has proposed the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009, or the “Net Neutrality” bill, outlining government policies to impose new governance and restrictions targeting telecommunications and cable providers AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner and Comcast.
The proposed is based on the unfounded fear that service providers will “control who can and cannot offer content, services and applications over the Internet utilizing such networks.”
The Markey bill indicates the vast majority of consumers receive services from only one or two dominant internet service providers. And, the bill says the national economy could be harmed “if” these providers interfered with access to internet applications.
The bill proposes regulations imposing equal treatment (eg price/performance) of all internet traffic and content, regardless of content type and delivery costs. Specifically, the legislation proposes internet service providers could not sell prioritized internet applications or services.
One of the main problems with the proposed legislation is the lack of recognition of costs to provide internet services. Some applications, such as video are bandwidth hogs and require significantly greater network infrastructure and associated costs to deliver when compared to the network infrastructure costs to deliver email access. Under the proposed legislation, services providers would have to charge the low bandwidth users (casual browsers and email readers) more to offset for the higher costs of the video users. One result of the proposed legislation would be less consumer choice and a hidden “bandwidth hog tax”. Today, most service providers offer tiered products and pricing to consumers and businesses to account for the additional costs to deliver bandwidth intensive applications. You pay more if you use more under the tiered pricing model. These are not “discriminatory” practices. Rather, tiered pricing and application prioritization are sound business models delivering reliable, profitable product choices and unburdened internet ecommerce. Consumers and businesses currently have choices. The proposed legislation takes away choice and increases costs to consumers and businesses.
Another problem with the legislation is, certain applications such as voice and video over the internet require prioritization and special treatment to work properly. The proposed legislation makes existing application prioritization products and networking practices illegal. Internet service providers would have to dismantle these services to make all internet applications “equal” with no prioritization schema. The new legislation would kill off reliable voice and video over the internet as we know it.
The other problem with the Net Neutrality legislation is anti-trust and federal trade regulations are already in place to protect consumers and business from monopolistic practices and unfair trade. For example, when AT&T disconnected MCI customers in 1974, MCI filed and won a successful anti-trust lawsuit resulting in breakup of the AT&T monopoly. Another example is, the Federal Trade Commission recently investigated possible antitrust violations caused by the Apple and Google sharing two board directors. Arthur Levinson has since stepped down from both Apple and Google boards.
The US government would better use taxpayer dollars and valuable legislation time by asking two questions:
Which companies are hiring lobbyists and launching advertising campaigns promoting Net Neutrality legislation?
What is their agenda?
Net Neutrality legislation is not needed. Consumers would have less choice and higher costs. Internet service providers would incur additional costs and compliance overhead. Taxpayers would pay higher taxes to create and support additional government oversight organizations.
What business and consumers need is effective interpretation, oversight and enforcement of existing laws and regulations.
Disclosure – Joe Tighe has no paid relationships, products or endorsements from any company, political or government organization cited in this article.
Living in the Chicago area I have only 2 choices for “high speed” low latency internet. By the very definition this is very close to an oligopoly. Also, once fiber is connected to homes in this area, is it really necessary to have more then one cable? Now if someone proposed the owners of the physical cable are separate then the service provider, we may actually develop some competition for this segment.
Personally, I think it would be best to have fiber at each residence / business connected to some exchange point where there are multiple carries to select from. I know the initial cost may be high, but it would be nice to open the market more then it is now. Until then Net Neutrality sounds better then the current secrete network management practices of today.
The problems with net neutrality are:
The FCC does not have the legal authority to regulate the internet. This will go to court and they will eventually loose.
Government interference never ends once it begins. Can anyone out there give me one example to contradict this?
Based on statements made by administration officials, I believe that the ultimate goal of FCC regulation of the internet is content regulation. Hey, I’m not making this up.
Whenever I hear a politician say “we can’t afford to wait” I know that we can’t afford not to.
You asked for change. Now that you have change you don’t like the taste of it. I belong to the worst generation ever. The “Birthright” generation. I’m entitled to : equal high speed acces no mater the cost, free healcare, free wifi no matter who created the network, free movies, free music, free art.
Isn’t electricity and a phone line a birthright too?
The Free Market may not be perfect and craches every 40 years or so (ok not a real number) BUT it comes back. The Soviet Union system crashed only ONCE, not twice and never came back. To have a system with total control from a government everywhere NEVER WORKED. It is simply not the way human nature works.
A politician works hard to be reelected. That’s it.
Yes, and when the free market decides to selectively block your Internet traffic on a whim, without telling you, the paying customer, about it, well hot diggity, that’s just capitalism in action. Feel free to select another ISP, right? Wrong. I don’t know where you live, but wherever I’ve lived, a whopping one place has had multiple, competitive ISPs. So you can’t just exercise your free market muscle and take your business elsewhere; your ISP is the only game in town. Now, how that situation–only one ISP in town–came about is a discussion for another day. All I’m concerned with right now is Net Neutrality to prevent ISPs from screwing over their customers.
Another thing, I don’t see how health care is germane to Net Neutrality, which is what we’re discussing on this technology site. All that other stuff you mentioned is not our business, so to speak.
And as an aside, do you guys want zero government ”interference”? Like, is Somalia the greatest country on Earth? There’s no functioning government there to get in your way, letting the free market lead the country to prosperity? Or is there some middle ground that you’re OK with? I’m legitimately interested. I hope you’re not the guys who go around saying stuff like, “Bah! Government is inherently evil. Go away! We can make it just fine without you!”
The Drudge Report is in my opinion one of the greatest sites ever created… I’ve checked it daily for years, not becasue of its aesthetics, but because it rarely disappoints. When I check Drudge, I can be reasonably assured that I’ve seen the most important news of the day without having to visit multiple sites. I also use http://www.repolitical.com for unbiased daily political news even though it actually looks worse than Drudge.