Argument against net neutrality

by Richter

Back to The Real World.

Richter2006-07-05 17:15:11
QUOTE("Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska)")

There's one company now you can sign up and you can get a movie delivered to your house daily by delivery service. Okay. And currently it comes to your house, it gets put in the mail box when you get home and you change your order but you pay for that, right.

But this service isn't going to go through the interent and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and guess what you can order ten of them delivered to you and the delivery charge is free.

Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet?

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.

So you want to talk about the consumer? Let's talk about you and me. We use this internet to communicate and we aren't using it for commercial purposes.

We aren't earning anything by going on that internet. Now I'm not saying you have to or you want to discrimnate against those people

The regulatory approach is wrong. Your approach is regulatory in the sense that it says "No one can charge anyone for massively invading this world of the internet". No, I'm not finished. I want people to understand my position, I'm not going to take a lot of time.

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.

It's a series of tubes.

And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

Now we have a separate Department of Defense internet now, did you know that?

Do you know why?

Because they have to have theirs delivered immediately. They can't afford getting delayed by other people.



Now I think these people are arguing whether they should be able to dump all that stuff on the internet ought to consider if they should develop a system themselves.

Maybe there is a place for a commercial net but it's not using what consumers use every day.

It's not using the messaging service that is essential to small businesses, to our operation of families.

The whole concept is that we should not go into this until someone shows that there is something that has been done that really is a viloation of net neutraility that hits you and me.


Source

Whee, tubes.
Saran2006-07-05 17:41:31
I feel... dumber... like after watching a few seconds of jackass
Sylphas2006-07-05 17:55:02
Yes, of course. Without regulation, everything I use on the internet, not being commercial, isn't going to have to wait in line anymore. I'm sure all my free software is going to be much faster when people are allowed to charge fees for faster service.

I wish people weren't such idiots, especially when they're making important decisions.
Shamarah2006-07-05 17:57:56
QUOTE
I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?


He sent an entire internet? laugh.gif

learn2speak
Jahan2006-07-05 18:23:48
The department of defense internet is severely crippled by regulatory measures and encryption too :-p
Daganev2006-07-05 18:57:57
http://blog.wired.com/27BStroke6/?entry_id=1512499&page=6

I suggest reading the 27 pages of comments as well.


I still find it amazing how people don't know that "Net Neutrality" == MORE goverment regulation of the internet, not less. (thats a comment on the comments from the website I linked)
Sylphas2006-07-05 19:10:56
I don't want the internet to be a free market. It's a crappy system when people aren't working for profit.
Daganev2006-07-05 19:24:37
QUOTE(Sylphas @ Jul 5 2006, 12:10 PM) 305033

I don't want the internet to be a free market. It's a crappy system when people aren't working for profit.


What do you mean by "free market" your two sentences seem to contradict eachohther..

Do you mean free market, as in capitalism, or free market, as in everything costs 0?

Heh, great quote from Skype..

QUOTE

He said that a tiered system for consumers, rather than for application and content providers, is the best course of action.

"It's absolutely appropriate for consumers to be able to pay more for a tiered system," he said. "Put access tiering on the consumer, but put that choice in the consumer's hand."


Sylphas2006-07-05 19:40:21
Free market, as in unregulated capitalism. It's HORRID unless everyone is working for profit. The only reason non-profits get by IRL is because of government funding and donations. If the intent is to kill off a large portion of the internet, so be it, but realize that is what will happen.

If they want to charge ME more for faster service, that's fine by me. That's what happens now. Charging the content providers more for faster service is silly. I pay for what I get from them, why should they pay as well, in order to send it to me?
Verithrax2006-07-05 20:38:05
That's called a 'just-because-we-can' fee. It's roughly comparable to say, FedEx paying more for gas and airplane fuel because they profit from it and have lots of money.
Daganev2006-07-05 20:45:09
QUOTE(Sylphas @ Jul 5 2006, 12:40 PM) 305043

Free market, as in unregulated capitalism. It's HORRID unless everyone is working for profit. The only reason non-profits get by IRL is because of government funding and donations. If the intent is to kill off a large portion of the internet, so be it, but realize that is what will happen.

If they want to charge ME more for faster service, that's fine by me. That's what happens now. Charging the content providers more for faster service is silly. I pay for what I get from them, why should they pay as well, in order to send it to me?


I'm assuming part of it is because of Intelectual Property Piracy.
Verithrax2006-07-05 20:54:28
IP has nothing to do with it. It's just the telcos trying to confuse the issue. Microsoft, one of the biggest adversaries of IP infraction, is on the other side.
Sylphas2006-07-05 21:02:17
People who pirate music and video still pay fees for internet access and bandwidth. That's not the issue here.
Daganev2006-07-05 21:23:39
QUOTE(Sylphas @ Jul 5 2006, 02:02 PM) 305056

People who pirate music and video still pay fees for internet access and bandwidth. That's not the issue here.



Not according to some of the articles I read.

Microsoft issues with IP(bad choice of abrevation when talking about the internet I might add) are very different than Hollywood's issues with IP.

Based on what I have read and heard on CSPAN, quite a lot of this issue is comming up now because of plans people have for HD.(High definition DVD , TV and Radio)
Sylphas2006-07-05 21:44:47
No, piracy really isn't the issue, and anyone putting it forth as such is doing it only to muddle debate.

If you pirate your internet access, that's a crime, and you should be punished. If you pirate files, that's also a crime, but it has nothing to do with this argument.
Roark2006-07-05 22:03:29
There are four things I've not seen discussed by the politicians in this dispute, neither refuted by its supporters nor used as talking points by those opposing net neutrality.

1) If my ISP sends the cost of bandwidth over to Google and my ISP has to compete with other ISPs, it may give them a competative opportunity to cut my rates with Google picking up the difference. So it could mean lower rates for me. IE - It shifts some of the bandwidth costs from the consumer to Google and Micro$oft.

2) The primary people fighting for net neutrality are not people nor even small business but rather gigantic multi-billion dollar corporations like Micro$oft, Google, eBay, etc. Using the "follow the money" logic, that implies that those companies are the ones who will be footing most of the bill if net neutrality does not get enacted. The whole thing smells to me like a scam to line the pockets of the big corporations by scaring consumers into thinking that those big corporations are on their side. It is worth noting that a large amount of government regulation of business, possibly even most of it, is supported by business. For example, domestic gun makers supported gun control in the 20th century because it made it harder to import firearms (ie-their foreign competition was partially shut down). Cable companies lobbied when they got started for regulated government protected local monopolies figuring that it's better to be a monopoly even if you are regulated than to worry about competitors out-inovating you. Another common reason large businesses like Google and Micro$oft support government regulation of industry is because they know it will make it harder for small business (like Lusternia!) to compete in the market. Whenever any company lobbies for regulation of the industry, this should be an immediate red flag: it is without fail always for alterior reasons, never because they care about you.

While no one who knows me well would consider me a leftist nor a conservative, that paragraph does sound pretty lefty. Yet most of the support for net neutrality comes from the left. I find it ironic that leftists are the ones behind this! Basically some fairly unregulated big multi-billion dollar trans-national corporations have used vague egalitarian utopian buzzwords to slander other less big and more heavily regulated corporations. The end result is it feels like Micro$oft and Google are supporting the little guy even though it's probably just the opposite. To those politicians on the left: do you realize you are doing Micro$oft's bidding for the interest of their profit?

3) Some technologies may be stifled by this. For example, if your IP packet will cost the same amount to deliver regardless of if it is high or low priority and no matter what its size and how many routes it hops through... What incentive is there to develop technology for flagging your most important packets as higher priority than low packets? To develop smarter routing software that finds the most cost effective, efficient route? Or to develop software that uses less bandwidth chatter or compresses data on a wire better? All of that would be a benefit for consumers. There may be some nominal incentive to develop those technologies, but a fiscal incentive would very likely take things further.

4) Spammers consume insane amounts of bandwidth. Would not having net neutrality make sending spam much more expensive for the spammers?? If so, I'm 100% against net neutrality. Spammers need to die die die die die!!!!
Daganev2006-07-05 22:47:12
QUOTE(roark @ Jul 5 2006, 03:03 PM) 305069

There are four things I've not seen discussed by the politicians in this dispute, neither refuted by its supporters nor used as talking points by those opposing net neutrality.

1) If my ISP sends the cost of bandwidth over to Google and my ISP has to compete with other ISPs, it may give them a competative opportunity to cut my rates with Google picking up the difference. So it could mean lower rates for me. IE - It shifts some of the bandwidth costs from the consumer to Google and Micro$oft.

Hmm, thats pretty much what the Telecom Website on the issue argues.

2) Stuff

I've thought the same thing, although I also havn't actually seen anyone state it directly

3) Some technologies may be stifled by this.


Comcast has been arguing this point

4) Spammers consume insane amounts of bandwidth. Would not having net neutrality make sending spam much more expensive for the spammers?? If so, I'm 100% against net neutrality. Spammers need to die die die die die!!!!

Hadn't heard that one either..only heard about pirates hosting illegal goods.. GOOD POINT!

Unknown2006-07-05 23:15:01
I'm sorry, but if one of your politicians cannot communicate to the people I'm not going to give him or her the time of day. Geeze. Someone replace his writers, please! I could write a better argument for the guy and I've only had a year of media training. That was pathetic.
Daganev2006-07-05 23:19:59
QUOTE(Quidgyboo @ Jul 5 2006, 04:15 PM) 305094

I'm sorry, but if one of your politicians cannot communicate to the people I'm not going to give him or her the time of day. Geeze. Someone replace his writers, please! I could write a better argument for the guy and I've only had a year of media training. That was pathetic.



Its also very misleading...

He said a lot more than what was posted, and it wasn't a "speach" it was a responce to a question, which rambled as most of those things tend to do. The speaker is also 83 years old, so his analogies may seem a bit off to people who are only listenening to the words, and not to the message.
Unknown2006-07-05 23:34:08
Politicians are usually briefed on probable questions though and have a fairly good rundown of what needs to be said. I'd hate to see Question Time (the time in parliament over here in Aus where people throw questions back and forth across the Floor of Parliament) where politicians answered off the cuff.

I understand the message he is trying to portray and I'm not even attempting to address the argument at all, just the failings of the politician. I know that is a fallacy in critical thought and argument, but it irks me when a politician fails to communicate a message.