Fifth, we want the broadband infrastructure to be a platform for innovation. Therefore, our proposal would allow broadband providers to offer additional, differentiated online services, in addition to the Internet access and video services (such as Verizon's FIOS TV) offered today. This means that broadband providers can work with other players to develop new services. It is too soon to predict how these new services will develop, but examples might include health care monitoring, the smart grid, advanced educational services, or new entertainment and gaming options. Our proposal also includes safeguards to ensure that such online services must be distinguishable from traditional broadband Internet access services and are not designed to circumvent the rules. The FCC would also monitor the development of these services to make sure they don’t interfere with the continued development of Internet access services.
It seems reasonable, but this is a subtle distinction. Prioritizing internet traffic isn't allowed, but selling services that might get priority over internet traffic is, so long as they aren't called "internet." I guess the hope is that the internet will always be important enough that they'll never throttle the whole thing or risk losing business, hence the FCC monitoring bit at the end.
I think it's easiest to think about in terms of AT&T UVerse (an easy example). You have TV, Internet and VoIP service delivered over the same network connection. TV and VoIP (the VoIP isn't carried over the Internet, instead it's direct to the internal switching network and just happens to use IP for the packets) are independent of Internet access. TV and the VoIP service can be prioritized as needed, but Internet is just Internet and is only prioritized in relation to the other services (i.e., all Internet traffic is prioritized identically for a connection).
I actually like this distinction. It will encourage more broadband rollout as companies add more services that use the same infrastructure but aren't used for just "dumb pipes".
I have TV and Internet services on Telus' network here in Canada (I think they use the same platform that AT&T uses, which is a Microsoft IPTV solution).
TV and Internet come through the same connection at my house as a shared pool of bandwidth. They are sold separately, and TV actually hinders Internet performance.
I have 25Mbps down, total (which is freeeaking awesome for the price, about $50/month). Each HDTV channel used consumes 5Mbps. So if we are watching two TVs, we'll see only 15Mbps remaining for other data services.
I have no issue with this, either in practice or in principle.
In practice, Telus backs up the bandwidth truck and unloads it at my house every month, and I can't consume it all.
In principle, the market will decide whether to support the model longer term.
I for one won't hesitate to turf the dedicated TV services if Internet services can equal it in terms of quality/availability/price. But until then, I'm happy.
Sorry. Believe me, I know how good I've got it, and I was reminded again this past week while on holidays at my father's cabin. It is in a valley, so below the line of sight required for mobile phone access. It was like a return to the early 90s, when one had to go to the University for Internet access and didn't have it at home. How did we live?
Thankfully, the iPad was loaded up with Kindle books beforehand, so the week wasn't a total disaster.
Everyone in Canada hates him too - this sort of connection isn't the norm. For example, see Rogers and Sympatico pricing. They have a monopoly on the Toronto area, mostly.
I get a rock solid 16 mbps here on the Toronto area for 39.95 and it doesn't matter how many HD channels I'm watching. This is Cogeco using coax and they preassigned a bank for television a bank for voip and a bank for the internet. The crowding is generally a problem of telcos that are sticking with twisted pair (i.e. ADSL)
Guess I'm lucky. I have Verizon fios where I live (Long Beach CA). I get 25 Mb up and down. (I only pay for 25/15 but I get 25/25, not complaining). I pay $100 a month for that and HD TV. Not super cheap, but cheaper than Comcast which I previously had been using.
I get 20 Mbps in the US- from Cablevision in CT. It costs 29.95 a month. For $20 more a month I could get it upgraded to 30 Mbps. Btw, my upstream is 2 Mbps.
I don't think this is a good precedent. What happens when you want HDTV and each channel is 20 megabits? Well, your Telstra connection gets upgraded to 50 megabits but only 40 is available for TV - 2 HD channels at the same time, and the remaining 10 Meg is for Internet. Now, you have a situation where you can get 2 simultaneous HDTV feeds from Telstra but you can not get a single feed from an Internet TV provider, because they only give you 10 Meg for Internet. This is EXACTLY what net neutrality is supposed to prevent.
I'll say it again. Google says they want to push network neutrality but they just created a loophole big enough to drive a truck through.
They got Verizon to agree to what exactly? Being able to provide enhanced TV and other services over IP that aren't constrained to any net neutrality guidelines? LOL
They've always been able to do that. They agreed to:
Consumer Protections: A broadband Internet access service provider would be prohibited from preventing users of its broadband Internet access service from--
(1) sending and receiving lawful content of their choice;
(2) running lawful applications and using lawful services of their choice; and
(3) connecting their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network or
service, facilitate theft of service, or harm other users of the service. Non-
Discrimination Requirement:In providing broadband Internet access service, a provider would be prohibited from engaging in undue discrimination against any lawful Internet content, application, or service in a manner that causes meaningful harm to competition or to users.
Prioritization of Internet traffic would be presumed inconsistent with the non-discrimination standard, but the presumption could be rebutted.
What if your ISP reserves those 40 megabits for only THEIR IPTV traffic - all other carriers get to fight over the remaining 10. This is exactly the scenario that net neutrality is supposed to prevent - and exactly the scenario the Goorizon want to create.
Youtube and FIOS get the fast lane- everyone else gets leftover bandwidth.
I'm not sure I like that allowance, if that's indeed what the terms are. Are you saying the broadband carrier, like AT&T or Verizon can prioritize the delivery of their TV service as needed, to always be faster than say a Google or YC backed TV startup/service?
They can prioritize the delivery of the TV service and telephone service that is delivered on the same physical cables as the internet service. There's only so much bandwidth available on each physical connection, and they're delivering several services on that physical connection.
If the startup service is using the internet service, and the Internet service is prioritized under the telephone service, indeed it will potentially be slower, but not because the startup is being discriminated against. It would be slower because ALL Internet traffic over that link is discriminated against.
The most likely reality is that any additional services will have a minimum QoS set that is required for a reasonable experience. This would only be hit if the customer premise is utilizing the entirety of the physical connection...essentially they're providing guarantees that TV/Phone/Internet/etc. would work at at least a certain level of quality, which would be at the expense of other services based on what those minimum level of qualities were defined as.
What happens if you want to move to another phone provider which operates through the Internet? As people have said, nowadays most phone connections do anyway. So why should the ISP phone connection be any faster than another one?
And while today this may sound weird (we are used to have phone connections via our ISP) what happens if tomorrow's technology (say an interactive film) ends up in the same situation? A startup creates a field, just to get squashed by the ISP who picks up the idea (that clearly works) but gets extra priority because it is their own service.
But can't the QoS and prioritization be left to the customer to decide dynamically? If they have too many video streams open, they'll see reduction in quality of all of them. And they can decide to close / pause the ones that are of lower priority. Why should Verizon's TV _always_ be prioritized?
Bandwidth and Service are two different things. Everyone is paying for bandwidth. Why also give priority to Verizon's service when Verizon's bandwidth requirements is already subsidized by it's customers?
Thanks for elaborating. Hmm, I suppose that is fair since it is their wiring investment at the "last mile". I like the idea of a minimum QoS for the different data traffic. As long as consumers could transparently see, expect, and receive minimum numbers for any given service, that should be okay, especially if they can opt to increase Internet bandwidth in lieu of buying any "specialized" service offerings.
On the other hand, one of the reasons for Net Neutrality in the first place was to encourage an open market for services like video.
The fact of the matter is that it's 2010, and I still have to subscribe to UVerse/Comcast/whatever if I want cable TV, and have to pick from their packages, and endure their stupid upstream contract disputes. If it's all packets, why can't I subscribe to a cable TV provider over the Internet?
Hulu, YouTube, etc. are addressing part of this problem, but anything that puts the legacy carriers at an advantage seems counterproductive to me.
Those two services are NOT equal. UVerse/Comcast/whatever deliver cable TV to your house via real multicast with a shared tree all the way from the distro point to your door.
There is no multicast in the public internet so every stream is actually unicast. There are some tricks you can play but it's nothing like PIM on a private network. The public internet would simply fall over if everyone started streaming unicast TV stations from folks like Hulu.
I'm not sure it's quite this simple. Yes, my ISP streams cable TV to my house via multicast, but it's a multicast not just of the 1 or 2 channels I am using at any given moment (2 if I'm recording DVR on one and watching another), but of all 150 or so channels on the menu. If each household were only getting the actual TV channels they were watching, unicast might be feasible. (It would, of course, require more upstream bandwidth, so each household could tell its TV provider what it was watching.)
That's exactly how the multicast works. It's not broadcast, it's multicast. Your local set tells the next closest router the streams it's interested in. If it's already receiving them, the packets are forwarded to your on-site router. If it's not, it calls to it's next hop router and does the same registration. A multicast stream is a "limited broadcast" in that it only goes to the nodes that wish to participate and is managed by a tree structure in the network so that any given link only has as much travelling over it as the child nodes are requesting.
Yes, but what about the "if it's already receiving them" part? I don't know exactly how the cable providers provision their networks, but I'd be very surprised if my local set's registration had to go more than one or maybe two hops up the router chain to find one that was already receiving all 150 channels. Otherwise it's hard for me to believe that changing channels would be as fast as it is (effectively instantaneous). (Note, I'm not saying this is a necessary feature of any multicast setup, just that it seems like it would have to be set up that way for the cable providers because of user expectations.)
Cable distribution of channels is completely different from the U-Verse example. Cable uses a certain band of frequencies for channels, each HD channel requiring a larger band. The Internet access they provide is delivered the same way, but with a smaller band for upstream. The bands for Internet service are shared by all customers on the segment, with rate limiting at the maximum rate you're paying for. For cable carriers, there is no "profiling" ability to prefer one over the other, they each have separate channels. U-Verse and similar services (like the Verizon fiber solution) use a multi-homed router on your premise with one network for TV, one for VoIP and one for Internet. They are all 3 IP based networks and travel over the same copper, meaning they share the same bandwidth, but only one of them is actually connected to the Internet. For those services, you only receive the channels over the copper that your local router has requested the multicast streams for, allowing for a much more efficient use of the bandwidth but providing the possibility for services to interfere with each other.
You're confusing terms that are independent of what's actually being discussed. If it is Internet based, it's Internet service and prioritized with all other Internet traffic. If it's traffic that does not go over the internet, but instead through another infrastructure (such as a public switched telephone network, or a local multi-cast network for TV service) it gets prioritized however is deemed appropriate. Just because you watch it on your TV doesn't make it separate from Internet service.
it means if I want to compete with AT & T's 'official' TV service delivered over IP, I have to do so only within the confines offered by the 'Internet' service.
This is a total crock that relies on everyone interpreting 'The Internet' as being the world wide web, and conveniently forgetting the rest.
I can understand objections, but what about this: currently, wireless data and voice is carried over the same medium and is subject to the same network overloads. Is it necessarily unreasonable for carriers to give priority to voice data made through telephony protocols (as opposed to data protocols)?
I understand a lot of people are approaching this from the perspective of "how would this be abused?", but I think there is also worth in thinking about it from the point of an honest businessman in "how do I make sure my customers are guaranteed good service?"
I think this is Google and Verizon saying "we're afraid some idiots are going write some idiotic laws, so here's a not-completely-idiotic reference implementation to help make sure nobody does anything stupid".
Google agrees that having an open internet has been beneficial to the development of the internet. But somehow this is not needed for wireless broadband because there already is a lot of competition? What???
For a start, the approach to wireless seems to be more "wait and see" than "never regulate", since the proposal tasks the GAO with monitoring the market for signs of failure. Wireless seems prima facie likely to be a more vibrant market anyway and therefore more likely to settle to a less consumer-hostile equilibrium - there aren't true monopoly wireless providers in the vast majority of regions like there are cable providers.
Wireline broadband is limited in many areas by (near-)monopoly providers. It often isn't economic for multiple providers to chase each others' wires into the home.
Wireless might be restricted by spectrum licenses, but there are usually a number of options.
Sure. So you point out that wireline broadband is less competitive (in the USA) than wireless. But wireless with 3-4 competitors is hardly a free market either.
I don't debate that wireline is less competitive (again, in the USA), I argue that wireless is not so different, and in particular so much more competitive, as to need no regulation.
No, they believe that regulation is not needed because they believe that competing wireless broadband providers will be forced to offer openness by the market.
Competing wireless providers? In the US we effectively have a duopoly of AT&T and Verizon. The fall off to T-Mobile/Sprint in terms of coverage is dramatic. There may be some spots where you have 4 good choices but for many of us it's AT&T or Verizon if we want acceptable service & speeds. Both AT&T and Verizon mimic each other's pricing structures and policies. We just need to look at Sprint who is trying to offer lower prices and faster speeds yet is still losing money. The duopoly owns the most valuable chip -- coverage. The other players are at a permanent disadvantage because they can't grow with inadequate coverage nor can they address the coverage problem with poor growth.
But if you were correct then the regulation would be irrelevant. It would only make a difference if wireless broadband providers will indeed take advantage of loose network neutrality regulations.
On the other hand Google/Verizon agrees that we need to thank the openness of the Internet for the current amazing spread of the net.
EDIT: My notes below are mostly "what if" scenarios possible with this legislation. But I like this legislation and its intent by and large. These were just the most interesting things for me to comment on.
Fifth, we want the broadband infrastructure to be a platform for innovation. Therefore, our proposal would allow broadband providers to offer additional, differentiated online services, in addition to the Internet access and video services (such as Verizon's FIOS TV) offered today.
moultano already made one observation [1], I'll add that this point could get even stickier. Say Google partners with Verizon on their Google Health service to create a "Health Channel" service on Verizon, which ensures that subscribers get priority access to health information, you know, because that's important stuff, so it's in the consumer's best interest. And let's say it has enough of a differentiation from general internet access that the FCC allows it. Now, you've effectively prioritized Google Health over any other enterprising startups in the online health record space, which goes completely against the intent of this proposed legislation.
Ok, so maybe the FCC will have the foresight to disallow this type of additional "service". But I have trouble imagining any type of additional service that doesn't somehow encroach on this problem.
Furthermore, I have a little trouble with this bit as well:
The FCC would also monitor the development of these services to make sure they don’t interfere with the continued development of Internet access services.
So, if some communications company currently provides internet access, but then they find that the "added services over IP" space is more profitible than general internet access, it seems they have two choices. Continue pumping resources into their less profitible internet access service such that the FCC is content, or shut down general access completely and ONLY offer the differentiated services. Did I misinterpret this part?
And finally Part 7:
Seventh, and finally, we strongly believe that it is in the national interest for all Americans to have broadband access to the Internet. Therefore, we support reform of the Federal Universal Service Fund, so that it is focused on deploying broadband in areas where it is not now available.
Ah, there's where Google's agenda becomes apparent within this legislation (you know, in addition to the fact that they've always been publicly pro-net-neutrality). Of course, I like this part of their agenda, so more power to them.
I think the "differentiated online services" part is a reasonable compromise, and they say there are safeguards and limits in place.
Your broadband provider is in the unique position of having super-cheap bandwidth directly to you, cheaper and faster than the vanilla internet they can provide. They'll be forbidden to prioritise one site over another, or to discriminate against individual sites. The question really is, do you want to forbid them from selling useful services based around this cheap bandwidth? That's what IPTV and health imaging are all about.
Enterprising startups in these spaces already have barriers to entry based around cost. They can either wait for the bandwidth to become cheaper, try to cut similar deals, or come up with a way of providing these services without the same bandwidth needs.
Precisely. First they say that no broadband provider may provide priority to any given service, then they create a loophole big enough to drive a truck through. Any broadband provider that wants to offer IPTV, IP telephony, or any other new service can just do so and give it priority over other Internet traffic.
Sixth, we both recognize that wireless broadband is different from the traditional wireline world, in part because the mobile marketplace is more competitive and changing rapidly."
Not anymore. We'll probably get 4G fairly soon just because 3G capacity is already getting taxed but going forward wireless providers can simply gimp traffic to save money on infrastructure improvements. What incentive is there to push forward on 5G when you can just go tell the network engineers to adjust a few variables and save you billions of dollars? Of course if Google or some other gigantic company wants to pay to have that variable turned down less aggressively that seems to be fair game. I can't believe how naive/dishonest Google is being about this.
To my mind this does not address the issues honestly. The basic issue: Laying cable is expensive, but the marginal cost of fiber over bandwidth can be driven down in a variety of ways, and we have abundant fiber and rapid progress in photonics improving it at least as fast as Moore's law.
Wireless spectrum, by contrast, is horrifically expensive. These two companies own a lot of both, and would like to trade the uncertainty of the auction model for a set of agreed industrial targets.
Some parts are a joke, like the FCC having the authority to fine companies up to $2m after investigating bandwidth abuses on a case-by-case basis. Verizon has annual revenues of about $27 billion; a $2m cap is about as imposing as a nerf gun.
I'm still not entirely clear about the implications of this. Does this mean that Verizon can prioritize V-Cast over "Internet" when sending data to their phones? That seems like a big win for Verizon. They've always promoted their psudo-internet.
Why do we anticipate a market failure with net neutrality? If one broadband company throttles services in a way we don't like isn't there a market for one that doesn't?
In other words why won't a competitor come along and offer a neutral service if some providers start throttling?
I must be missing something in the argument, broadband companies don't have monopolies do they?
If I remember my Economics studies your argument applies to a free market. But broadband companies have a very large initial capital investment which raises the bar for entrants. For wireless you also have a limited number of frequency licenses that limit supply.
And when supply is very limited, and you know that it will be very very hard for anyone else to enter the market, then you oligopolies can appear.
That said, I don't know the USA market enough to say if they currently have a monopoly or not, or if they are colluding or not.
Yeah. You're right. On reflection I think there is a problem much like termination in mobile phone markets where the only way to reach a subscriber of a particular company is via their network...
The problem isn't you offering that service, it's Verizon offering that service and being the only game in town. If we had real competition, network neutrality would be a non-issue because the market would punish violators. But we don't.
Then why not use antitrust and other policies to create actual competition where it's missing? As the 'backdoor' meetings of Google and Verizon hosted by the FCC show, federal rulemaking just cements the power of incumbents who can send planeloads of lawyers and lobbyists to DC.
If lack of competition is the problem, address that, don't try to simulate competition via slow, often braindead, eventually-twisted-against-upstarts regulation.
It can create chilling effects that work to inhibit free speech and put the Internet under the control of ESPN, YouTube, and the other people who subsidize your service.
A theoretical risk of chilling speech is enough to ban a service that could bring high-speed internet connectivity to underserved communities?
Free weekly newspapers exist in most major cities. They are -- gasp! -- entirely advertising-supported. That money could chill speech! It could drive small operators who can't afford to advertise out of business! Perhaps we should ban that dangerous business model.
And yet, those weeklies present a lot of interesting commentary. And help a lot of businesses thrive. Turns out, the payola pays for a lot of community benefit.
There's a lot of fearmongering going on about how small changes in the internet delivery/pricing model will destroy everything good about the internet. That's irrational paranoia.
The internet will survive whatever conspiracies Verizon, AT&T, Disney, and Google dream up -- as long as their backroom strategizing isn't carved into federal law via regulatory capture.
And if the incumbents manage to shake down customers for a few more dollars -- that will incent the creation of the next generation of route-around communication technologies.
I won't argue your actual point, but your examples about free newspapers is wrong.
There is much evidence that newspapers because newspapers are heavily dependent on their revenue from advertisement (around 70%-80%), advertisements have a lot of power over them.
Examples are when CBS could not broadcast a documentary on the environmental damages done by large industries (we are talking a few decades ago), or when newspapers did not report many of the evidence on tobacco's damage. In Italy Berlusconi even went as far as asking his industry friends to stop advertising in the newspapers who wrote stories against the government in an attempt to shut opposition.
So there's ample evidence that the strong dependence on advertisement has damaged free speech.
Until the Internet came along though, there was no alternative. As you point out without advertisements' revenues free newspapers would not exist. That is because printing newspapers and broadcasting tv shows is very capital intensive. But the Internet is making publishing costs very low, and hence letting everyone have a word (as shown by blogs or comment boxes such as this).
You've confirmed my point; yes, advertiser payments can and do influence speech and competition via free newspapers. But it would be insane to say that because of that influence, we should ban the entire business model.
Yet that's what net neutrality advocates like inklesspen above are saying we should do to network providers. They want subsidized-service models like I proposed banned, simply because it could lead to some 'chilled' speech and corporate influence.
Speech and the internet are tougher than that; they don't need 5 political-party-hack lawyer-appointees in DC -- aka the FCC -- to protect them (when there's time between handing out broadcast-indecency fines).
There is no cap on advertising bandwidth. You can advertise on your on body and walk around the town. But bandwidth is limited and prioritizing one over the other isn't a "open system".
And the traditional businesses of course aren't "open".. hence the much higher barrier to entry and success than on internet.
For the next 20-30 years, your "512 anywhere" will remain at 512Kbps since they don't give you money. And your select sites would be getting 100 Mbps since you put all your resources to where money is..
Hence these few companies would have lockin on infrastructure critical for future innovations like Virtual reality, 3D games, High def videos etc.,
And so the internet would not be open anymore. And so it wouldn't be called internet.
That's quite some crystal ball you have there! If the internet were that fragile, it would have lost to Compuserve and Prodigy. Do you remember them?
Instead, just like pay-for-placement helped pay for city daily newspapers, free-over-the-air radio and TV, and storefront bookstores, pay-for-priority on the internet could subsidize new last-mile capacity and services. But based on concocted nightmare scenarios, net-neutrality regulators want to preclude all experimentation into such models.
How net neutrality deals with customers who run their personal server at home. My view is that they should also get equal preference as public online service providers. At least they are paying the money for the bandwidth used.
Most of the explanations i see in the internet about net neutrality deals with only content downloaded or streamed from public online services. I think it is ironic.
Non-Discrimination Requirement
: In providing broadband Internet access service, a provider would be prohibited from engaging in undue discrimination against any lawful Internet content, application, or service in a manner that causes meaningful harm to competition or to users.Prioritization of Internet traffic would be presumed inconsistent with the non-discrimination standard, but the presumption could be rebutted.
Network Management
: Broadband Internet access service providers are permitted to engage in reasonable network management. Reasonable network management includes any technically sound practice: to reduce or mitigate the effects of congestion on its network; to ensure network security or integrity; to address traffic that is unwanted by or harmful to users, the provider’s network, or the Internet; to ensure service quality to a subscriber; to provide services or
capabilities consistent with a consumer’s choices; that is consistent with the technical requirements, standards, or best practices adopted by an independent, widely-recognized Internet community governance initiative or standard-setting organization; to prioritize general classes or
types of Internet traffic, based on latency; or otherwise to manage the daily operation of its network.
Additional Online Services
: A provider that offers a broadband Internet access service complying with the above principles could offer any other additional or differentiated services. Such other services would have to be distinguishable in scope and purpose from broadband Internet access service, but could make use of or access Internet content, applications or services and could include traffic prioritization. The FCC would publish an annual report on the effect of these additional services, and immediately report if it finds at any time that these services threaten the meaningful availability of broadband Internet access services or have been devised or promoted in a manner designed to evade these consumer protections.
Wireless Broadband:
Because of the unique technical and operational characteristics of wireless networks, and the competitive and still-developing nature of wireless broadband services, only the transparency principle would apply to wireless broadband at this time. The U.S. Government Accountability Office would report to Congress annually on the continued
development and robustness of wireless broadband Internet access services.
Case-By-Case Enforcement:
The FCC would enforce the consumer protection and
nondiscrimination requirements through case-by-case adjudication, but would have no rulemaking authority with respect to those provisions. Parties would be encouraged to use non-governmental dispute resolution processes established by independent, widely-recognized Internet community governance initiatives, and the FCC would be directed to give appropriate deference to decisions or advisory opinions of such groups. The FCC could grant injunctive relief for violations of the consumer protection and non-discrimination provisions. The FCC could impose a forfeiture of up to $2,000,000 for knowing violations of the consumer-protection or non-discrimination provisions. The proposed framework would not affect rights or
obligations under existing Federal or State laws that generally apply to businesses, and would not create any new private right of action.
All of the above is the most evil thing I have heard being said about the internet!
I was hardly thinking of taxes and I am not American so I do not care much about that aspect, but it would cost more in taxes as the FCC would need to become a much larger entity.
I simply think that all of it kind of sounds like a compromise but when you look it from the perspective of a lawyer it has no teeth. It is a bit like saying the judiciary is independent but the president can set the salary of any individual judge.
I do not quite understand to be honest why would we need the FCC to be a middle man and why would the Non Discriminatory paragraph not grant rights to individuals. Any other entity than the court is very different. A court has the protection of contempt of court, it has the luxury of developing the law through applying it to specific cases, and its independence is enshrined in law and in the culture of the judiciary.
The whole statement is engaged in double speak and you would really need to be a lawyer to understand they are fooling people. The FCC might take test cases to court, but being a test case the court would be much more confined than if it was a specific case. So it would have to interpret the provisions strictly, including what does meaningful harm mean, which was downvoted in another comment but when you are dealing with the law such a thing as meaningful has quite a significance. You aren't talking to your friend and yeah we get the idea. You are trying to apply the law to facts and the facts can be very diverse and to find that meaningful threshold where it differs with insignificance takes many years and many highest level court judgements.
That is only one point. Each sentence if scrutinised carefully shows you how the statement has more holes than cheese and just how fundamentally different and much the worse the internet would be.
Finally, it is a matter of principle that no differences whatever should there be on the internet. I do not understand why anyone would support any traffic prioritization at all. Performing surgery one might say, I say let us get to that point first. To make a phone call to your granma, what is that more important than me getting the research when the paper is in due tomorrow and otherwise I would fail? To invest in the infrastructure and make it better! Why I'd much rather it develops as it has been. My internet is quite fast and it is just average package.
I do not understand why would anyone support any deal whatever between two giant and self interested companies which clearly have in mind screwing the public. If you think that is merely speculation, I repeat again the FCC has stepped in and stopped the talks because they, and as it seemed rightly thought, were conspiring against the public.
You write like lawyer, leaving me convinced that you stand nacently on both sides of every junction of opinions regarding this issue, except this one:
If the Internet existed to serve some obvious goal, it would be trivial to determine whether prioritizing packets would help or hinder its achievement, but as far as I can tell, It does not exist to accomplish any obvious goal. The net neutrality debate is essentially the Internet's own existential conflict.
Part of the supporting argument in favor of net neutrality says that prioritizing packets would not be wise because we cannot predict what the Internet will be used for in the future, and that those packet prioritization rules will inevitably end up in conflict with the goals of future internet users. (eg. The I. doesn't know what it want's to be when it grows up. boo hoo)
Ironically (is it?) the very act of prioritizing communications in any way, would set the I. on a one way path towards serving a particular purpose, settling the issue of whether it should have done so in the first place. (eg. The I. wants to be a good targeted advertising delivery system, nothing else.)
So what is at stake for the Internet is that same thing that is at stake when a conscious person has a mental breakdown over the purpose of their life.
Well to just provide one example, Verizon would only have to pay $2,000,000 if they knowingly violate the statue. No criminal sanctions. They can thereafter continue to violate it and just pay another two million. It is a bit of a business deal. If you can get in more money then out, then you are good. The FCC, or anyone else, has no other authority.
Why such a low figure, we are dealing with massive corporations who would notice 2 millions as much as I would notice 2 dollars.
The general public, that is people like me and you, would need to depend on the FCC, and have no rights, which is not quite understandable. Why should I not be able to sue them for discriminating against me? Because of course Verizon is a party to the "law proposal".
Besides, there are exceptions clearly. The FCC would need to enlarge very much if they are to deal with all the complains and have the time to analyse them and follow them through and in the end only be able to impose a miniscule fine.
Not to mention that the providers would have the authority to outright prioritise internet traffic provided they go through some hoops and any lawyer would know just how difficult that is.
>Well to just provide one example, Verizon would only have to pay $2,000,000 if they knowingly violate the statue. No criminal sanctions. They can thereafter continue to violate it and just pay another two million. It is a bit of a business deal. If you can get in more money then out, then you are good. The FCC, or anyone else, has no other authority.
I don't know enough law to understand the granularity of this. Is it 2M per infringement? Could the potentially be shelling out 2M per customer? It seems like this is what would determine whether it's a high cap or a low cap.
"meaningful harm" - meaningful? Is this a statue we talking about? Is there such a thing as meaningless harm? Is for example meaningful harm to prioritise slightly someone else's traffic. How slight does it have to be. Would it depend on circumstances and create a complex system of law which no one understands?
"the presumption could be rebutted" - Of course. To save the children I am sure, we must always think of the children! - and fat pockets.
"reasonable network management "includes"... to ensure service quality to a subscriber" - What kind of subscriber is he? Could google be a subscriber? Could an internet content provider be a subscriber? I mean, the presumption can be rebutted to save the children as we said!
"to prioritize general classes or types of Internet traffic" - well finally. You could not hide it much longer could you?
"could make use of or access Internet content, applications or services and could include traffic prioritization" Now what you even use the real deal word?
"Wireless Broadband" - Meh, these guys can be the third class citizens, we are only worrying about the second class citizens right now.
" community governance initiatives, and the FCC would be directed to give appropriate deference to decisions or advisory opinions of such groups." - Yeah community, that is, well, what is it? What is a community? What is a governance initiative? Can there be a google governance initiative? Of course to take care of us all.
"forfeiture of up to $2,000,000 for knowing violations of the consumer-protection or non-discrimination provisions" - how much? No I mean if I ear $1000 dollars and get "punished" by being charged $2 I would most definitely be deterred. Perhaps about three more 0s should be added seeing as it is "knowingly violating".
"would not create any new private right of action" - of course not, why would big daddy give the little kids any rights! They will think of the children we are all sure.
We knew you would be selling your soul soon google, but so early? What happened to our romance, was it just a blip, you want to join the evil side too?
Also, why would you do this, why would you just tell the world how self interested you are when the FCC has stopped the talks because and I roughly quote "the guys were becoming bad and greedy.
Fifth, we want the broadband infrastructure to be a platform for innovation. Therefore, our proposal would allow broadband providers to offer additional, differentiated online services, in addition to the Internet access and video services (such as Verizon's FIOS TV) offered today. This means that broadband providers can work with other players to develop new services. It is too soon to predict how these new services will develop, but examples might include health care monitoring, the smart grid, advanced educational services, or new entertainment and gaming options. Our proposal also includes safeguards to ensure that such online services must be distinguishable from traditional broadband Internet access services and are not designed to circumvent the rules. The FCC would also monitor the development of these services to make sure they don’t interfere with the continued development of Internet access services.
It seems reasonable, but this is a subtle distinction. Prioritizing internet traffic isn't allowed, but selling services that might get priority over internet traffic is, so long as they aren't called "internet." I guess the hope is that the internet will always be important enough that they'll never throttle the whole thing or risk losing business, hence the FCC monitoring bit at the end.