Net Neutrality

I just wanted to get some more information regarding the Net Neutrality issues and clear up the mental fog about "Verizon and Comcast are the Sauron of the internet" metaphors. I've heard a lot about this issues, but mostly from the mouths of people who can't give me believable information.

Rather than erroneously believe that Verizon/Comcast are big and bad greedy corporations that want to force people into spending more money on their internet, and starve competition and sites they don't agree with, I wanted to find out the real truth.

Who are the companies who are opposed to Net Neutrality and why?

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IIRC, according to The Oatmeal post against Ted Cruz's "Obamacare of the internet", Comcast did mug Netflix for money as soon as they got the chance.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

The ones opposed to net neutrality are pretty much the established telecoms, because they really want to get as much money out of consumers as legally possible, and many Republicans, who somehow think giving IS Ps a level playing field is somehow communism, nevermind that much of the US's broadband landscape is already monopolized by companies who have basically marked their territories and will try to violently attack incoming competition in any way they can. The former are greedy fuckers, the latter are idiots and being actively paid off by the aforementioned greedy fuckers.

How's the Australian internet market?

Only in the US, mind.

edited 22nd Nov '14 5:20:17 AM by Greenmantle

Keep Rolling On

Hate to say it but Verizon and Comcast being greedy dicks trying to choke out anyone they don't like is the truth.

Oh really when?

Depends on where you live, really, in urban areas there's actually healthy competition, but Telstra is the dominant player with a lot of power (they used to be owned by the government before the Howard government went on its unpopular privatization spree), and the National Broadband Network was supposed to improve things in the long run, but then the new government messed everything up by being gigantic cheapskates and going for the 'multi-technology-mix' bullshit, which means bargaining with Telstra because they need their copper lines to do it, which could make the NBN even more expensive than it should be and giving Telstra even more power.

edited 22nd Nov '14 5:22:29 AM by Cronosonic

Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and Time Warner Cable, and just generally the National Cable & Telecommunications Association

The simple fact is, they essentially want people to spend more money. Essentially, major internet service providers want the ability to charge people tiered plans and companies for network priority to increase their bottom line. More specifically, major service providers desire the ability to:

• A) Discriminate internet traffic (basically their own sites or affiliates or paying companies get priority in internet service and speed)
• B) Block content they don't like (Regardless of legality)

Complicating the situation is that Comcast owns NBC and Universal Pictures, while Time Warner owns Warner Brother Studios and Warner Music. Generally, for one reason or another, the Music and Movie and Television Industries have not been very fond of the concept of digital music or streaming video (Part of this is those industries have generally not been fond of keeping up with newer technology (and would prefer things stick to C Ds and DV Ds, or did) and part of it is the general issue of unlawful downloads of music/TV shows/movies that went on from the 90s to 00s.)

Also complicating this is most of those four companies and other service providers and members of the NCTA are also cable companies who would rather people access their TV/Movie content through pay per view and cable channels, than be able to use streaming.

What it essentially comes down to is the major internet companies due to monopoly size want to be able to charge rents for prioritization of traffic and quality of service (they do on the latter), along with conflict of interest due to the other divisions of their companies generally being part of industries that are ultimately getting a raw deal (in their view) with not being able to prioritize their services or cable. Basically it's rational economic self interest at play: Monopolies generally desire the ability to charge more for less quality of service.

The essential problem currently going on is the FCC Chairman, Tom Wheeler, is a former industry lobbyist and would prefer to split the baby by offering Network Priority to the companies in exchange for not blocking content and general transparency.

However, courts ruling on this so far have generally stated that Wheeler's plan is illegal, in the neutrality of forbidding blocking and network blocking and corporate transparency combined together can only be done if the Internet, as an industry in the U.S., is declared a utility like gas/oil or the phone lines, a.k.a. a Common Carrier, and companies would be subject to government regulation.

President Obama has thrown his support in favor of a Common Carrier System in recent weeks, however, the FCC is a generally independently operating bureau of the government that isn't beholden to the whims of Congress or the Presidency in that so it can do its job without being in the throes of public opinion and moral panic. Or at least that's how it's supposed to work.

Are there any big players from Comcast, Warner and Verizon publicly spearheading this operation or are they generally hidden from the public view when trying to make these decisions? Do they have anything to lose beyond the promise of more profits?

Aside from Brian L. Roberts and Lowell C. Mc Adam, but I haven't found any of their statements on the issue.

edited 22nd Nov '14 11:48:11 AM by Aespai

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Generally hidden. When companies explain these policies, it's usually as a monolithic corporate structure or by a K-Street lobbyist or some firm/group representing them. Most of it basically seems to be derived from they don't like their markets being disrupted and don't like losing profits. Market disruption/not being able to rent seek means they don't make as much money.

Some might ideologically detest the concept of new media/technology as a lot of the cable companies and internet corps tie back to Hollywood, which has generally never been fans (studio wise) of new technology. A lot of the same people that preceded these guys equated VC Rs/Betamax to Serial Killers in Congressional hearings.

But mostly it's a circular logic of "We don't like market disruption, we want to quash competition, we want to quash break out companies that could disrupt our system, so that our bottom lines aren't damaged.", near as can be told.

Companies really have no motivation in modern America other than the acquisition of more money. Well, not true for every one, but companies generally act on the premise "What brings me the most money that's by the letter-of-the-law legal???"

http://corporate.comcast.com/openinternet?utm_source=google&utm_medium=ppc&utm_campaign=TWCMerger_NB_Natl_MBR&utm_term=+for%20+net%20+neutrality-73498212-VQ16-c&iq_id=73498212-VQ16-c

I found this on Comcast's site. From what I can parse, what they mean is "We will support an open internet if we have control over it"?

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Which of course, is impossible. Well, they'll never have control over the Russian or Chinese internet, for starters...

Keep Rolling On

I want to do anything I can from stopping this monopoly event from happening and possibly killing a ton of sites I regularly access. Problem is, I don't know where to start.

If I know anything from working as a secretary, any letters written to high level players are discarded and never read unless they are financially beneficial in nature.

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@Aespai: Two questions: 1) Have you visited the Electronic Frontier Foundation's website yet? They have suggestions regarding how to help out 2) Is your avatar you?

No I have not yet learned about that site. Oh my god it's 501(c)3! :3

I've viewed the amount of cases they have currently succeeded in, and some of their legal team's aims. I can see that TMC has been trying to fight against parodies of it's company very relentlessly.

Warning: This poster is known to the state of California to cause cancer. Cancer may not be available in your country.

Those guys are awesome. Do some exploring, there are some other organizations around as well.

I want to do anything I can from stopping this monopoly event from happening

Hate to break it to you, but Comcast is already a monopoly (by their own admission).

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

Shouldn't there be anti-trust laws against this kind of thing?

Stand Fast, Stand Strong, Stand Together

There are, nobody really cares to enforce them is all.

Oh really when?

@Greenmantle post 24 (I'm aware I'm way behind the curve here)

In Canada we have a situation where the different companies are technically competing, but they all offer exactly the same service and the same awful customer service. Bell is rolling out a fiber network, but it may just be so they beat Google to the punch because they are incredibly slow about it. The really big difference is the presence of little companies that buy bandwidth wholesale and offer unlimited plans.

The Canadian companies also aren't really trying to do anything about Net Neutrality technically (the CRTC, our equivalent to the FCC, loves Net Neutrality), but they are trying to figure out how to put more and more restrictive caps on everyone. Essentially, they won't do anything about Net Neutrality, but they want to make it so that Net Neutrality won't mean anything with the caps they want to give.

Not Three Laws compliant.

There are, it's just been considered an enormous political faux paus to do so ever since Reagan/Nixon basically went "Eh, if there are 5 or so mega corps, it isn't a monopoly", which is around the same time Republicans became the reasonable folk to ask questions about how to seriously and maturely run the country on Sunday Talk Shows.

It's considered competitive because companies can compete for municipal contracts. The trouble is that they really don't bother horning in on each other's turf, so behave more like a cartel (for cable and telephone, at least. Satellite fights each other something fierce, though they also endlessly ponder mergers between the big two)

Well not stopping the monopoly, but stop the grisly future if they get everything they want and stomp out all competition etc.

Warning: This poster is known to the state of California to cause cancer. Cancer may not be available in your country.

Most of the time, those futures don't last for one reason or another (mostly it becomes "Too many people become pissed off" and things happen from there)

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is hinting he might be giving up on his split-the-baby "high speed lanes" plan, and might be planning to use Title II of the Communications Act to regulate broadband providers, as he's said Title II would not harm investment, he's been leaning towards Title II for a while, Wireless carriers flourish under Title II, and admits his "commerical reasonableness test" was unworkable in reality.

Seems like we've won. All that's left is to drink the delicious tears of the big telcos.