F.C.C. Is set to regulate Net Access
Posted on: December 21, 2010 - 3:32pm
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F.C.C. Is set to regulate Net Access
This proposal is filled with loophooles for AT&T and others with power.F<>K -Joe Public. www.nytimes.com/2010/12/21/business/media/21fcc.html
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Only cellular net, which has inherently limited *public* bandwidth. The FCC is perfectly within its domain to regulate it.
FYI, this could be a good thing, because it may [will- I'd put money on it] produce a kind of free cellular internet which may be funded by advertisers instead of the user, yielding a broader reach of public internet, and free information dissemination.
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Huh. Anyway, what's good in the internet on a 3" screen?
Because of this "freedom" and "neutrality" I can't find a good normal phone now (no internet, no touch screen).
This is getting pretty deeply into politics (a place I like to stay out of due to lack of scientific methodology and reliable information), but "net neutrality" isn't an inherently good thing.
The internet is a highly crowded place, with a pretty extreme signal to noise ratio. Popular sites should be easily capable of sustaining their own traffic under the new rules and floating to the top, with framed advertiser browsing for everything else which will allow you to see anything you like (albeit with a small advertisement in the frame next to it). The idea that losing net neutrality would amount to censorship is just bunk. There's a reason Google argued *for* these policies. This will do more to extend the reach of free access to information than to constrict it.
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Not just "wireless", but specifically that in the cellular radio band. This does nothing to microwave band which is mediated by local transmitters/receivers.
There are city-wide wifi hot spots. As this infrastructure grows, cellular will likely become obsolete due to its severe bandwidth limitations.
Big surprise, the government is finding more things to regulate that don't really need regulating. I wonder how much this will cost us?
I find it much more concerning that the government has been aggressively shutting down websites in the name of copyright protection. Or certain politicians coming out and talking about a need to be able to shut down the internet for "cyber security". I can see how such moves can start out as relatively benign but become huge problems in the future. Fortunately, the internet is by its nature very adaptable and I suspect that all but the most draconian efforts to regulate it will fail. The computer geeks who don't work for the government are much smarter than those who do.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
Well, before getting all “chicken little” and running off to claim that the government is trying to censor us and they are automatically in favor of big business at the expense of consumers, I think that it would be useful to consider the facts of what has been going on up to this point.
First, many of the major ISPs have been engaging in what is known as traffic shaping. Basically, that is using resources to attempt to determine what is going on on the internet and intentionally slowing down certain activity that they believe to be undesirable use of the internet.
OK, now tell me who get's to decide what content is acceptable on the internet? Up to now, that has been the service providers and done so with no actual oversite.
Granted, one of the big traffic users right now is bittorrent. However, two points:
One, service providers are granted “safe harbor” status under copyright law. They are simply not going to be held liable for what the customer chooses to download.
Two, one of the large segments of the torrent phenomenon is downloading linux distros. No copyright issue exists, thus acting as a “substantial non-infringing use” of the torrent protocol.
The other current bandwidth hog is multimedia. Basically VOIP and video stuff like netflix and youtube. Of course internet providers don't want that stuff to get equitable treatment. If I can place a Skype call to some dude in Texas, then the service provider does not get paid for that call. Even though phone calls are like $0.05 cents flat rate these days, all of those nickles ad up to some big money for service providers. And the video services make it hard for them to set up their own television services where they can bleed us like cable TV has been bleeding us.
On that ground alone, gaining public oversight and control of what is going on is probably a good thing. Since the controls are differential for my in home connection (basically service providers will not be allowed to mess with my connection) and what I may do on my cell phone, I would rather prefer that there be rules that say that they have to give me a solid connection with no service differentiations.
Secondary to that it the major argument that ISPs have tried, specifically that they have to do this to provide fair access to everyone.
Well, the fact is that those people who are not using major bandwidth are just not really affected by those who do. The numbers show that the largest percentage of customers use the least bandwidth. Perhaps if you are on a crappy cable connection and you want to use youtube right after you get home, you are going to have to deal with the recalcitrant teenager living upstairs who is stealing games without regard to how he affects those around him. I don't because I pay for DSL service. You can too (all you have to do is stop believing the lies the cable company tells you about how wonderful shared bandwidth is).
If there is any merit at all to that argument, it comes from broadband providers who are already soaking customers for every penny they can squeeze from them yet refuse to build out their networks to provide for the service demands that they are clearly aware to be what their customers demand for the exorbitant prices currently demanded of customers.
Seriously, what justification is there for charging $30/month (or whatever) for a service that can trivially be reduced to near dial-up speeds by my idiot neighbors? Spend some of that money to segment the “last mile” of the network so that you can actually provide the speeds that you claim in your advertising. Oh, I forgot, the advertising is for “speeds up to...” not for average service provided.
Third is the fact that the new rules are for cell based internet. A dying idea that should go the way of the dinosaurs.
The fact is that if you live in a city of reasonable size, every restaurant, bus terminal, coffee shop and bar is providing free 802.11 g service. With the range and speed of G service, you don't even have to be in the place. With my tablet, I can sit in any place in the downtown area and have to option to connect to several wireless networks. I really have no use for crappy 3G connections that cellular companies only provide to those customers who are on a plan that costs north of $60/month.
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Thank you for your sanity.
Like I was saying, I think this is a good thing- Answers just added to the list of why.
You are welcome Blake.
The fact is that while I would not trust the government as far as I could throw it, it is nominally accountable to the electorate. Given some form of controls that go beyond what the big corporations would like to do, there is a procedure in place to fix problems when they come up.
Personally, I am not willing to place even that much trust in big corporations.
Edit: Even though a good part of my investments are in big corporations, While they are nominally accountable to me as a share holder, the fact that I hold tiny amount of any specific corporation through various funds tells me that they are not really accountable to me so much as they are accountable to procuring mad cash.
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I can't agree more with you on this one!
With the current "smart"-phone hysteria, people will soon stop looking on the walkways when they walk. Instead, they will navigate using their 3" displays. If something goes wrong they will be helpless. I think I've seen this in some recent movie that brings the idea to the extreme of all people on the streets being robots.
But I am optimistic, and I don't think we'll get any more close to such extremes. Thus, I agree with you the era of "smart"-phone and 3G/4G/5G will be over in a few years.
Dude! I have a book for you if you have not already read it. “Against the Fall of Night” by Arthur C. Clarke.
It is a picture of the very distant future. Probably at least billion years from now but the exact time is uncertain.
Here is the rub: A young person (who is only a few thousand years old) finds the edge of the city. He wonders what is beyond it and he goes exploring only to find a barrier. The barrier has a message with a name on it.
He goes to the librarian to ask for details. The librarian explains that even the machines sometimes do not know stuff from perhaps a hundred million years ago but he looks the name up anyway. The librarian sees something in his screen and turns to the “boy” and asks him why he would want to leave the city. Apparently, whatever is outside has been lost so far in the past that the machines have no information, yet the name of the man is recorded in enough detail to indicate that this is not a question which is proper to ask.
The rest of the novel follows.
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I have to disagree a bit. The problem with telecommunications companies is typically that they are either monopolies or neat-monopolies.
Provided a company is not monopolistic, that company is *very* accountable to the consumers, who have demonstrated willingness to pose massive strikes and boycotts of entire chains across the nation for (for example) funding political candidates who are anti-tolerant, or engaging in unethical business practices.
What we really need to worry about are the potential for monopolies, which deny boycotters viable choice, and thus deny consumer action against corporate practices.
And I've only been reading warnings about this every year for 5 years now.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
I think he was talking about corporations in general, but I agree.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
One thing that bothers me. When cable first came out, many locations, including Fairfax county VA made it mandatory for the cable company to provide public access tv, and only charge for the training using the studio and they were not allowed to censor the content beyond.
The last time I visited that same station, everything had changed and became overly produced and seems to have become a station for special interest and small business instead of for the general public.
Big Business is running our government and if left unchallenged it will monopolize content and restrict dissenting opinions, just like Fox wont put on Olberman.
There are far too many monopolies in big business, but the one that will destroy free speech if anti-trust laws don't kick in, will be media.
There should always be a venue for those who don't have the bucks to own a network or a global web server. Money is not the issue, monopolies are and once you start hording media everyone gets fucked.
The internet is still widely open and we need to keep it that way, not just for atheists or Americans, but for the world. Monopolies on media are dangerous and can only serve to hurt everyone.
The idiots on the right cry about ownership and copyright laws falsely in order to hord profits. The NFL, for example, will not go out of business by me simply talking about it here, which by their disclaimer(accounts) is illegal. That is nothing but bullshit.
The middle class and poor need to stand up to big media and need to have somewhere to have a voice. There is not one class in this country and those who have money do not have the right to shut people out of having a voice.
We still have a wide variety of places to voice our opinions. But the more concentrated media ownership becomes the less voice we will have. The internet is our biggest and most important stronghold and must be keep free.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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Well, you are certainly entitled to your opinion. However, perhaps I should go a bit further into my position on corporations to see if that help to clarify the point I was making.
Sure, monopolies can be a very special problem. However, that does not mean that big corporations will not be without serious issues. Even in a competitive business environment, problems can still arise.
One example could be the cell phone industry.
Personally, most of my waking hours are spent in easy reach of a telephone, either at home or at work. Thus, I find it reasonable to use a pre-paid cell phone. Basically, because I do not use my cell phone when it is not really needed, I can keep my bill under USD $100/year. So cell phone providers can provide service for that much if they are willing to do so.
However, they have, through marketing, convinced people that contract service is where it is at. Most people have a contract that ultimately cost them many hundreds of dollars per year. They think that they have a good deal because of all the free stuff that they are getting. However, the free stuff is not free.
I see people all the time sitting at their desk in easy reach of the company provided land line chattering away on their cell phone, based in large part on the idea that they are using the free time. Hold on, how do you figure that paying six or seven times more than I do per year equates to free?
Would you like to have an extra five hundred dollar per year? I know I would. All that you have to do is pick up the damned phone on your desk and stay the hell off your cell phone if you don't need it.
There is clearly no monopoly on cell service. Nor do I think that you can prove collusion and price fixing. The deal with expensive cell phones is that they can do that because they have been getting away with it for all these years.
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I don't see this as a problem. It's a different service, but there still remains a market for, and product to fill it, people with more sense than money.
People waste money on all kinds of things when they have it, and if they don't, or don't want to waste it, there's still a competitive market place out there to provide the more practical products.
Well, if people what to spend their money on things that are far more expensive than is strictly reasonable, that should be their right. In a properly competitive market, choices exist and people pick what they want.
For example, I just got a fat check from my employer because they discovered that they were making a wrong payroll deduction and they owed me much money. I am thinking of spending part of it to buy four 2TB hard drives that I will run in RAID level 10.
Is that somehow worse than some of the other things that people voluntarily spend cash on? I tend to think not really. If someone wants to spend the money on something that I do not understand, well, so be it.
If you want a $2,000 camera, then go for it. It will probably not do very much more than a $1,000 camera but there is a huge market for cameras. You can get a 12MP pocket camera for under $100 these days but if you want something more, it is an open market and it is your choice.
The reason that I use cell phone companies as the example of what is wrong with corporations is that they have sold the general public the idea that you need to have a service that is vastly more expensive than what is really needed.
Sure, if you are a rational consumer, you could do what I do and pay very little for the amount of service that you really need. However, that choice only exists if you are aware of it and you know enough to insist that they do that for you.
Really, walk into your local mall, go up to any counter for the cell phone company of your choice and say “Hello, I would like new service”. Will they tell you that it is possible to pay very little and in fact paying very little is something that probably makes the most sense for far more people than the number of people who really could use a more expensive service?
I am going to go out on a limb here and say no on that. They are going to whip out the promotional materials and sing the praises of having the contract that will provide the largest possible commission to the sale clerk that you are dealing with.
Seriously, I have done that. My provider tries to rook me into a contract every time I walk into the store. One time, my then current phone was dead and I needed a new one. That time, I finally told the guy to run the numbers and see if he could make me a better offer if I agreed to go with contract service.
He did that and got dollar signs in his eyes. The deal that he came up with involved me paying the fee for not having platinum level credit and getting a $300 phone for $50. Ultimately, I would walk out of the store with the phone that I was trying to buy for $300 but I would only pay $295. That and my bill would go up by about 6X monthly. How the hell does that not suck? Don't bother answering, it does suck.
Anyway, the battle with the guy came down to him insisting “What I will do for you is...”. Basically, he refused to sell me a phone for full price because he was going to save me a couple of bucks in actual cash. I had to walk out of the store with no phone just to get him to cut his crap.
Then I walked over to the nearest variety store that sold phones and bought the exact same phone for the price of $300. I moved my SIM card over and had exactly what I wanted. Heck but I did not even bother telling the company that I had done that. The phone just worked and nobody had to putt all of the numbers into the computer that are usually involved with buy a new phone directly from the provider.
So yah, the cell phone market is inherently running an anti-competitive business model that is based on rooking people into paying far more than they need to pay. There is no price fixing as far as I can see but even so, prices are way over the top and if they were regulated by the government, it is at least conceivable that the sales clerks would be required to properly inform customers of the real options.
Camera companies OTOH are in the business of providing as many options as are required for a proper competitive market and people can choose what they want based on whatever their specific priorities are. Just as my choice to have the hard drive array that I think would be good for me is.
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Answers in Gene,
What is your per minute rate?
I looked at available options and they do not seem to be good for me. I and my wife talk to each other quite a bit + the phone calls to companies ("while you keep waiting for the next available rep. please listen to our great collection of hypnotizing songs"
. It looks that per minute pays are not for all unfortunately.
100%
double post.
tripple post.
It is good that this website does not charge per post!!!!!!!!1
Well, no, per minute service is not for everyone.
For what it matters, I get 180 minutes for $100, so about a nickle a minute. That and $0.10 for outgoing text and $0.05 for incoming text.
The thing is that an informed customer will look at all the options that are available and decide what is right for them.
I don't know what you do for a living but just for grins, let's say that you are a construction manager and you spend most of your day in places where the wires have not yet been installed. You have to call suppliers all the time.
Let me consider three (theoretical) plans here:
Prepay. You pay for what you use. You have to pay your bill twice a month. That would really suck.
$60/month with not enough “free” time for your usage. You end up paying $200/month. That also sucks.
$120/month with unlimited “free” time. OK, your free time is not really free but you spend far less cash than you would with either of the other two plans.
Considered that way, the choice should be pretty clear. Get the most expensive plan because it is really the cheapest for your specific situation.
My nit with cell phone companies is that despite the theoretical choices that they offer, they really only offer a way to drive you directly into the most expensive service they can rook you for.
Again, no monopoly and no price fixing. Just bad corporate behavior.
So when I say that I do not trust corporations that lack government oversight, I mean that I do not expect corporations to act in the best interest of the people who will use them for whatever product or service they may be offering.
This, of course, does not mean that government regulations is all this and more. Many market segments do well enough without the government getting involved (or not as the case may be). The department store segment is a great example.
We got a Target locally a few years ago. Now Target is a great place to scoop up cheap stuff at low prices. Mostly they deal in cheap stuff and they leave room in communities for the regular stores that offer higher quality stuff at higher prices. If you need or want better stuff and you are willing to pay for it, there will be stores that will sell it to you.
Against that, we can consider WallMart. They clearly don't have a monopoly on being a department store. However, when they roll on in to a new community, they do everything in the domain of corporate power to crush the local stores. Once Wallly World arrives, you can pretty much forget finding a local store that sells what you want. You are stuck with what Sam Walton has decided that you need. Also, what you need is whatever increases Sam Walton's personal riches, even if it happens to be a crap product.
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I absolutely agree with you!
We use 200-400 minutes a month + 500+ minutes to talk to each other. Our 2 phone lines with unlimited phone-to-phone calling are $70 a month. No landlines for 6+ years. I think that for families multiyear plans work pretty well.
For the internet, I use cable, but without cable TV. The company seems to be unhappy about it and it is trying all the time to offer me cable TV services. I am afraid now that they may stop offering their internet service without packaging it with TV. Is this really possible or am I worries about nothing?
Well, I can tell you a story that is relevant here. It happens before the advent of the government passing a rule on the matter, so it addresses both questions.
There was a time, in the past, where it might have made some sense for me to have contract service. I was willing to switch but I only had a single thing that I wanted to make it happen.
I want contract service and I want to have the same phone number. I am not changing companies so how hard can it be? Apparently it is impossible. Seriously, I am asking to change the nature of my business while retaining my phone number. How hard can this really be?
Apparently it is impossible unless they are forced to do so and then it is trivial to do so.
Seriously, let me change my service plan but keep my phone number.
No, we can't possibly do that.
Why not?
Because your phone number is in a block of phone numbers that is set aside for the level of service that you have.
Apparently, my phone number is part of the block that is set aside for niggers. If I want to have white man's service, I need to have a white man's phone number. If I want to change my service, I need to change to fully white service, which includes having a white phone number.
BLAKE, SAY THIS WITH ME: CORPORATIONS THAT EXIST FOR THE PURPOSE OF ABUSING CUSTOMERS NEED TO GO!.
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That's just greedy salesmanship. You get the same thing at hotels, on airlines, and when buying a digital camera- somebody is always going to try to sell you shit you don't need, because if you aren't well informed it may sound like you need it, and if you have the money, you'll buy it. Whether that is some kind of rewards card, or useless insurance/warrant extensions, it's all the same everywhere.
People always have the option to be smarter shoppers- I've bought cell phones before, and I know the drill. First I have to convince the sales person that I'm not an idiot, then he'll let me buy what I need.
What we could do with is a new kind of company that assists people in shopping in the modern age- shopping assistants who can cut through the bullshit and save consumers money and time. It's a new industry waiting to happen- we don't need more regulation to solve the problem, we need more entrepreneurs.
Corporations exist to make money and to make rich people richer. If abusing customers brings money they will do it, if it is not bringing money they will not. Here is where we need the government to come on customers side and tell the corporations WTF GFYS.
Hmm... It sounds charming. How about "We'll think for you, all your worries will go away, .... for just $999 a month."
This subject is of particular impotance to me, because of what I do.... I would never be allowed to say the things i say on my Internet show if I were on a more traditional medium... and that includes Sirius radio, which has banned the word "Retard", among other things....
Within a year, (from what i understand) all new TV's are going to come "Google ready"... which means that people won't have to watch people like me on their computers... Now I can ramble about how there is no god and that monogamy sucks on your 52" flatscreen..... If we think that the Government, and the FCC wont put restrictions on internet content simply because its so accessable, I think we're mistaken. It will start like it always does, as a begnign "rating system... The adult industry was offered .XXX in leui of .COM as a domain registry ...They were told that it would make it easier for their customers... How difficult would it be to shut down every website that ends in .XXX? ....How difficult would it be to form a government body that determines what internet suffix every site should have? ... and *Then*... How difficult would it be to shut down entire portions of the net with specific registries?
Sen Joe Leiberman has already introduced the "Kill Switch" Bill... which is designed to do just that, in the name of homeland security.... In a Christian theocracy....Is it such a stretch that sites like This one could be shut down because we pose a "Threat" to the wrong people?
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