Attached is the President’s statement on Net Neutrality and what he would like to see:
An open Internet is essential to the American economy, and increasingly to our very way of life. By lowering the cost of launching a new idea, igniting new political movements, and bringing communities closer together, it has been one of the most significant democratizing influences the world has ever known.
“Net neutrality” has been built into the fabric of the Internet since its creation — but it is also a principle that we cannot take for granted. We cannot allow Internet service providers (ISPs) to restrict the best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas. That is why today, I am asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to answer the call of almost 4 million public comments, and implement the strongest possible rules to protect net neutrality.
When I was a candidate for this office, I made clear my commitment to a free and open Internet, and my commitment remains as strong as ever. Four years ago, the FCC tried to implement rules that would protect net neutrality with little to no impact on the telecommunications companies that make important investments in our economy. After the rules were challenged, the court reviewing the rules agreed with the FCC that net neutrality was essential for preserving an environment that encourages new investment in the network, new online services and content, and everything else that makes up the Internet as we now know it. Unfortunately, the court ultimately struck down the rules — not because it disagreed with the need to protect net neutrality, but because it believed the FCC had taken the wrong legal approach.
The FCC is an independent agency, and ultimately this decision is theirs alone. I believe the FCC should create a new set of rules protecting net neutrality and ensuring that neither the cable company nor the phone company will be able to act as a gatekeeper, restricting what you can do or see online. The rules I am asking for are simple, common-sense steps that reflect the Internet you and I use every day, and that some ISPs already observe. These bright-line rules include:
* No blocking. If a consumer requests access to a website or service, and the content is legal, your ISP should not be permitted to block it. That way, every player — not just those commercially affiliated with an ISP — gets a fair shot at your business.
* No throttling. Nor should ISPs be able to intentionally slow down some content or speed up others — through a process often called “throttling” — based on the type of service or your ISP’s preferences.
* Increased transparency. The connection between consumers and ISPs — the so-called “last mile” — is not the only place some sites might get special treatment. So, I am also asking the FCC to make full use of the transparency authorities the court recently upheld, and if necessary to apply net neutrality rules to points of interconnection between the ISP and the rest of the Internet.
* No paid prioritization. Simply put: No service should be stuck in a “slow lane” because it does not pay a fee. That kind of gatekeeping would undermine the level playing field essential to the Internet’s growth. So, as I have before, I am asking for an explicit ban on paid prioritization and any other restriction that has a similar effect.
If carefully designed, these rules should not create any undue burden for ISPs, and can have clear, monitored exceptions for reasonable network management and for specialized services such as dedicated, mission-critical networks serving a hospital. But combined, these rules mean everything for preserving the Internet’s openness.
The rules also have to reflect the way people use the Internet today, which increasingly means on a mobile device. I believe the FCC should make these rules fully applicable to mobile broadband as well, while recognizing the special challenges that come with managing wireless networks.
To be current, these rules must also build on the lessons of the past. For almost a century, our law has recognized that companies who connect you to the world have special obligations not to exploit the monopoly they enjoy over access in and out of your home or business. That is why a phone call from a customer of one phone company can reliably reach a customer of a different one, and why you will not be penalized solely for calling someone who is using another provider. It is common sense that the same philosophy should guide any service that is based on the transmission of information — whether a phone call, or a packet of data.
So the time has come for the FCC to recognize that broadband service is of the same importance and must carry the same obligations as so many of the other vital services do. To do that, I believe the FCC should reclassify consumer broadband service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act — while at the same time forbearing from rate regulation and other provisions less relevant to broadband services. This is a basic acknowledgment of the services ISPs provide to American homes and businesses, and the straightforward obligations necessary to ensure the network works for everyone — not just one or two companies.
Investment in wired and wireless networks has supported jobs and made America the center of a vibrant ecosystem of digital devices, apps, and platforms that fuel growth and expand opportunity. Importantly, network investment remained strong under the previous net neutrality regime, before it was struck down by the court; in fact, the court agreed that protecting net neutrality helps foster more investment and innovation. If the FCC appropriately forbears from the Title II regulations that are not needed to implement the principles above — principles that most ISPs have followed for years — it will help ensure new rules are consistent with incentives for further investment in the infrastructure of the Internet.
The Internet has been one of the greatest gifts our economy — and our society — has ever known. The FCC was chartered to promote competition, innovation, and investment in our networks. In service of that mission, there is no higher calling than protecting an open, accessible, and free Internet. I thank the Commissioners for having served this cause with distinction and integrity, and I respectfully ask them to adopt the policies I have outlined here, to preserve this technology’s promise for today, and future generations to come.
What say you?
MikeJake
Benghazi.
deep
THANKS OBAMA.
Jamey
Brilliant political tactic: Puts the GOP in the position of opposing (as they regularly have) a clearly-worded set of principles that have great popular appeal and energy.
But it’s an empty gesture; the GOP will prevail in supporting Ed Snider yet again. We’ll get half-measures–unfettered access for non-profits… and expanded definitions of GOP groups created in the wake of Citizens United as “non-profits.”
JPL
@Jamey: That sounds about right.
Kropadope
Or, as my libertarian friend will put it: “The government is trying to take over the internet and make the net 2.0, where you can only get service to big sites like Amazon.
beth
I’m assuming that the GOP will be against this because Obama’s for it but what’s their angle? How are they managing to oppose this and still talk about FREEDOM!!
Belafon
@Kropadope: Remember what the internet looked like without that government part? I do. It involved knowing the number of the BBS you wanted to connect to.
Libertarians who want to talk about the internet that doesn’t involve the government need to be ridiculed.
Kropadope
@beth: It’s the freedom for the wealthy to exploit people, duh!!!
Kropadope
@Belafon: It just amazes me that he is accusing the Obama administration of precisely what it is trying to prevent.
Jamey
@JPL: Wish I could claim some sort of prescience, but, really, it’s how Dems fight. Mostly theatrics, set against a backdrop of devotion to the principles of good government, with none of the full-blooded action necessitated by an enemy (GOP) so dedicated to complete fucktardery and spitefulness.
I suspect a jerry-built expansion of telecom protections (“Title II Lite!”) for ISP users will pass in [tacit] exchange for approval of the Comcast TimeWarnerCable merger–and then Snider will unleash his flying monkeys to harangue the FCC into poking the protections full of loopholes that bring us back full-circle: Netflix paying for access to customers–and then passing that expense on to same.
Morzer
@beth:
Easy: government interference.. Benghazi… golf… Ben Carson… real racists… Bengay…..free market… Benvolio…
GregB
This will be devastating to the poor job creators.
I say hand the internet over to Comcast.
Hunter Gathers
Don’t see it happening. Best case scenario, you’ll have to pay an extra ‘fast lane’ fee on top of what you already pay if you want anything over 10 meg down. These fuckers practically print money, and they need to print more, or Verizon’s Executive Vice President of Dynamic Marketing Outside the Box may not get his expected bonus. He’ll withhold his productivity if that happens. The FCC going to split the baby. There’s going to be a exemption carve out for the big carriers that will allow them to set up a so-called fast lane. They’ll still throttle down content providers who won’t play ball, but by the time the rules take effect, they’ll be getting payments from all the big players anyway.
Morzer
@Kropadope:
Being a libertarian means never having to make the fantasies in your head confront such indecorous and unfair things as facts.
Bobby B.
The Woodcutter is sincerely trying to help the Fox hide.
Amir Khalid
I say, you Americans had better do Net neutrality right. You’re going to be a big influence on how it’s done on the rest of the planet, and if you screw the pooch on this one a lot of countries might do like you and wind up screwing the pooch as well.
Not that I want to put pressure on you guys or anything.
Morzer
@Amir Khalid:
I think the good ship Americans For Internationally Responsible Behavior was last seen playing kissy-face with an iceberg about 20 years ago.
The Other Bob
Educate me. What happens when Netflix sucks up a majority of the bandwidth of the internet? Should they have to pay something for slowing down the whole system?
Kropadope
@Morzer: I’ll play the president’s net-neutrality speech for him and see if that makes a difference…
Next on my list, convincing my sister and her boyfriend Obama isn’t trying to destroy the coal and oil industries.
JPL
@The Other Bob: Uverse is considering getting into the streaming of movies. If you have u-verse, do you think that netflix will get a fair chance?
catclub
Is there a difference between paid prioritization and relegating non-payers to the slow lane?
What is the standard lane?
I really wish there was a very good ‘This is my connection speed’ monitor so that you could see when you were being throttled. I had a strong suspicion that the second day my bit-torrent pipe was open, everything had slowed down by a factor of almost 10. … Somebody had noticed the torrent.
But because I did not have a good monitor, I could not tell for sure.
catclub
@Amir Khalid: You know, of course, that all kinds of countries already do it much better, and have faster pipes to the home, as well? Korea springs to mind.
Why not say that you are watching their example?
Citizen_X
DICTATOR! DEAD HAND OF GOVERNMENT! OBAMA’S TAKING OVER THE INTERNET!
Next time you have an urge to turn to Fox, just read that instead. It’ll save time.
dp
I say he’d be more likely to get this if he hadn’t put a telecom lobbyist in charge of the FCC.
Amir Khalid
@catclub:
Good point. But a lot of countries will still be following America’s example, wisely or not.
GregB
@Kropadope:
Hey, you can use some old school jingoism and blame the German’s for the destruction of coal.
You can also tell them that a nation as advanced as Germany must be full of morons who think that climate change is an issue that needs to be addressed.
Link.
chopper
@Citizen_X:
or hit yourself in the head with a brick.
Villago Delenda Est
I missed the part where he was announcing the immediate terminations of the bloodsucking MBA assholes who run ATT, Verizon, Comcast, and Time Warner, the most prominent criminal organizations seeking to fuck everyone over.
Well, I can dream, can’t I?
Belafon
@The Other Bob: When US companies are matching the throughput of places like Eurpose and South Korea, and Netflix is bringing it down, then we’ll talk. Considering that the internet isn’t crumbling due to Netflix, I’m not really worried.
This isn’t about bandwidth issues, it’s about ISPs trying to get every penny out they can, by 1) charging both ends, and 2) not building anything to increase their bandwidth.
JGabriel
John Cole:
I ask: Why Title II instead of Title I of the Telecommunications Act? Title I regulates telecom companies; Title II regulates broadcast services.
Any telecom lawyers out there?
Belafon
@Kropadope: Do they ever mourn the demise of barber shop medical care due to the rise of trained physicians?
RareSanity
You know I’ve been a supporter of the President for the great majority of what he has tried to accomplish, with very few exceptions…this is one of them.
If these are really the core principles of how you would like to see the internet “regulated” going into the future, then WHY THE FUCK did you appoint the head of the lobbying group, that is directly opposed to most of that, as FUCKING CHAIRMAN OF THE FCC?!?!
I love you Mr. President, support you 98% percent of the time…defend you to numerous idiots that I encounter…but you can kiss my ass on this one, you sold the fuck out.
RAught
@The Other Bob: Netflix is not soaking up the bandwidth, nor are they slowing down the whole system. Their customers who are streaming may be, but then they are already paying for access to the internet.
GregB
I just checked over at The Ministry of Disinformation and we now know the exact tactic the conservatives and the Republicans will use.
The headline: Obama Makes His Move On the Internet-make it a public utility.
So, Obama is giving the internet to the big fascist government and the only response will be to turn it over the steady hands of private enterprise.
It will be a winning argument for them.
catclub
@The Other Bob:
It is an interesting question. Netflix apparently IS supplying all the bytes being requested of IT, by its customers. The rest of the internet is then ‘responsible’ for routing those bytes back to the customers who requested those bytes. Like I said, it is an interesting question.
elmo
@Belafon:
I remember those days. And the twang, dee-dong of the modem…
catclub
@RAught: Beat me to it.
flukebucket
EBOLA!…….ISIS!!!
Villago Delenda Est
@Belafon:
If that doesn’t put them in their place….well, tumbrels have their uses.
I had an argument in the WaPo comment section with some vile piece of shit who insisted that the government had nothing to do with the creation of the Internet, that it was all “the market” that came up with it and made it work.
Stupid that severe cannot be corrected, it can only be eliminated.
Kropadope
@Belafon: No, but like my friend, they are making accusations that completely oppose the truth. The oil industry is doing better than it has in years. Coal is dying out due to competition with natural gas, however the administration has been financing them to improve and clean up their technologies.
The Obama administration’s approach to energy production is “all of the above.” I definitely think that domestic fossil fuel production needs to be part of the picture, however most friends of fossil fuel think it’s the only viable alternative and will be mad at Democrats no matter how much they benefit the FF industry.
Villago Delenda Est
@Belafon: T
Shorter Belafon: This is about corporate greed.
Time to start stringing Ferengi ears on strings.
Kropadope
@RareSanity:
Knowledge of federal communication policy and needs perhaps? I know it’s a little unsettling to have someone who once had a stake in the coopting of the internet by private industry in charge of the FCC. However, hasn’t he been fighting on behalf of the administration in favor of et neutrality laws, despite what his former colleagues would have preferred?
Villago Delenda Est
@flukebucket: I’m afraid we’ll have to dock you severely for failure to mention BENGHAZI!
Lesser demerits for not tossing in FAST AND FURIOUS! or IRS!
50 points from Gryffindor.
Belafon
@Kropadope: Saw an ad for the Nissan Leaf this morning, touting the thousands people would save in gas each year by driving one. I wonder if people like your friends can even hear those commercials (Yes, I know it’s a different fuel, but I wonder what they think when they see an LED bulb, or a solar panel).
It’s always going to be hard when your livelihood depends on your ignorance, but steamrollers don’t really care if you don’t know they’re behind you.
JGabriel
@JGabriel (aka me):
Okay, I think I found an answer, if anyone’s interested in the question, at Slate:
Seanly
@Amir Khalid:
There are 2 things that the American system is extremely good at:
1) Screwing the pooch
2) Killing the goose that laid the golden egg
We’re governed by idiots, grifters, and a few well-meaning people who give too much leeway to the first two.
“You can depend upon the Americans to do the right thing. But only after they have exhausted every other possibility.”
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: You need to go model yourself on Sweden, where they’re working on getting fiber access to every home and business.
Not this fucked up country that invented the damn thing then turned it over to parasitical leeches who are doing their damnedest to put a fucking coin operated meter on the entire magilla.
Sloegin
@Kropadope: The FCC is an independent agency. The only influence the Administration has is in the choice of appointments.
Wheeler isn’t fighting on behalf of the Administration, he isn’t tied to them in any way. Perhaps he is grateful for the appointment, but it pretty much ends there.
It’s nice that the President is talking the talk now, but he didn’t walk the walk with the Wheeler appointment.
scav
I’m rather having fun imagining if the physical road and interstate (transportation) infrastructure was run in such a fasion. Alarms in the cars that would go off if one were driving faster than you had paid for, while vehicles next to you in the jam waft by. a road to your destination existed, but no driveways or offramps permitted to connect the twain (one has to get a little ingenious to get it all physical, maybe a bunch of tollboothes and speedbumps that pop up for the wrong sort of user? It starts to look like pinball a bit?)
Ruckus
What I say.
Fuck undue burden on them. They make plenty of money giving us crappy service. It’s time they take on the undue burden rather than us.
Kropadope
@Sloegin: OK, my mistake. However, that still doesn’t get to the core of my question. Didn’t he support and help craft the net-neutrality regulations that the FCC tried to implement?
@RareSanity: This goes for you too.
RareSanity
@Kropadope:
There are literally thousands of people that possess the requisite knowledge of communications policies and needs. As much as people with an agenda would like you to believe, it ain’t necessarily rocket surgery.
I’ve worked in wireless for 15+ years, we can’t get coffee without clearing through the FCC first, so even I am well versed in a significant amount of FCC regulations and policy. I’ve even submitted official comments on behalf of my employer to the FCC.
Michael Clayton Powell being the former chairman tells you all you need to know about that position. That it is a majority political position, and the person placed there selected for political reasons. This guy, was not just employed by, he was THE HEAD of the lobbying group of the companies that fought in court to get what few net neutrality rules that were around thrown out.
This was a deliberate violation of two principles that President Obama claimed to follow…wanting net neutrality, and not wanting lobbyists running Washington. In this case, he put a lobbyist, that was paid to oppose net neutrality, as chairman of the body that governs the internet.
That’s a double fail if you’re keeping score at home.
Belafon
@Villago Delenda Est: Just had a great idea for a company: Restroom management, Inc. This company owns and manages the restrooms and restaurants and stores throughout the country. Remove the need for them to be managed from the companies, so they can get back to doing what they love.
We can bring back the coin operated stalls. And just think how much money people will save when the company goes public, because as we all know, things get cheaper when a bunch of people demand shareholder profits.
Snarki, child of Loki
If ISPs want to play games with extra charges, throttling, banning access, etc., FINE.
Then make it 100% clear they are no longer “common carriers” and are legally liable for everything they carry, because it’s their net, and they control it.
So they’re on the hook for libel, copyright violations, terrorist material, et fuckin cetera.
I, for one, look forward to the CEO of Comcast getting a perp-walk for the kiddypr0n on his network.
CONGRATULATIONS!
The Internet: a spy network collecting vast amounts of your personal data, and one that somehow gets you to pay enough to insure that the collectors of said information make a decent profit doing so.
see also: cell phone, sucker, useful idiot
Roger Moore
@The Other Bob:
They’re already paying. I pay my ISP for bandwidth. Netflix pays their ISP for bandwidth. Those ISPs are supposed to have arrangements with intervening backbone providers to handle the bandwidth for transmitting the bits between Netflix’s ISP and mine. What the ISPs are trying to do now is add on an extra charge for actually providing the services they’ve already promised. I could almost accept that they’ve priced assuming that total usage would be lower than it actually is and they need to raise prices, but it’s deeply suspicious that the service they’re most worried about is one that’s serving in an area- streaming video- that the ISPs are desperate to break into themselves. It looks very suspiciously as if the ISPs are trying to choke off a competitor by adding on unjustified extra charges.
BR
I’m jumping in late here, but I’m a bit disappointed that the problem of net neutrality has never been properly understood by the public, activist groups, and now even president Obama. (I study networks professionally and have been discussing this question with some top people for a while.)
That is, the main problem isn’t prioritization, or throttling, or whatever — it’s monopoly power and conglomerates. It’s near impossible to properly enforce a ban on throttling or prioritization without impacting other benign network operation (e.g. spam/virus prevention, providing good VoIP service, etc.) and at the same time, the problems that we now want net neutrality to fix are almost entirely due to Comcast’s monopoly / conglomerate status. The solution is to break it (and any others that are similar) up, and also to regulate Comcast’s cable lines like the phone system — any company should be allowed to lease the line between houses and the central office and provide service to the home user over it (just like with DSL where you can buy service from multiple ISPs).
President Obama mentions this in passing, but I wonder why it’s not the focus and why he mentions all the prioritization stuff.
JPL
@Roger Moore: It looks very suspiciously as if the ISPs are trying to choke off a competitor by adding on unjustified extra charges.
This. Pay me the money or the kitten gets it.
JGabriel
@Kropadope:
Not noticeably. Wheeler has been mostly squirming, under the weight of all those comments sent to the FCC supporting net neutrality, for a way to permit a multi-tier network with fast lanes instead – while simultaneously, and unconvincingly, searching for rhetoric to describe that multi-tiering as if it were still neutrality.
RareSanity
@BR:
What you’re saying plays a part in it, but the biggest problem right now it how Comcast and Verizon are playing games at the Tier 1 peering level, and not providing adequate ports for the traffic their (Comcast/Verizon) customers are requesting to flow through.
It’s throttling and prioritization by inaction, and allows them to publicly deny that they doing something to throttle this traffic. Technically that’s true…they aren’t doing anything to throttle this traffic, it’s their non-action that’s throttling the traffic.
I agree wholeheartedly with you on the fact that the subject is just not understood well enough by the general public for them to make informed comments about it.
flukebucket
@Villago Delenda Est:
I left it out since it had been taken care of with the first comment :-)
I once had the same discussion with a libertarian. When I said DARPA he lost his shit completely.
Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™
@Kropadope: the coal industry is trying to kill the coal industry.
…
scav
@JPL: “OH! You want your luggage to accompany you on your flight!? And a seat space somewhat larger in volume than that of a theoretically average human rearranged as a cube? Will that be that debit or credit?”
MikeJake
@SenTedCruz
“Net Neutrality” is Obamacare for the Internet; the Internet should not operate at the speed of government.
NotMax
In actuality, the mandate was (and remains) “the public interest, convenience and necessity” pursuant to developing any regulatory regimen.
Belafon
@flukebucket: I would love to see how they get around that fact.
JGabriel
@Kropadope:
The regulations that the same companies paying Wheeler sued to get overturned? I don’t know if Wheeler had a hand in setting up those rules or not, but if he did, and I were a greedy telecom engaging in bad faith negotations with the FCC, then I’d have given Wheeler a big fat bonus.
Kropadope
@JGabriel: Right, after the court rejected the previous regulations that would allow actual net neutrality. True, they could have attempted this “Title II” approach sooner. But do you expect an organization run by political appointees to get so far out ahead of the politics on this that not even the politicians have taken notice yet?
Sloegin
@Kropadope: The FCC supporting net neutrality was a set of rules enacted in 2010. The commissioner at that time was Julius Genachowski.
The Supremes tossed that set of rules back in January of this year, they left open the option of the FCC just labelling the providers ‘common carriers’. The FCC could easily do just that and call it a day.
Wheeler was appointed in 2013. The FCC took public comments on new policies after the court decision for about 6 months? (and got about 10 bazillion comments urging net neutrality). All those comments and $5 will get you a cup of coffee.
Villago Delenda Est
@Belafon: I’m sure Adam Smith would heartily approve, while wearing one of his Adam Smith ties, of course.
BR
@RareSanity:
I agree — that’s true that’s going on but it’s near impossible to regulate how much peering Comcast is willing to do with whom without running their network for them.
Also, people who are hardcore net neutrality advocates should really be advocating what I call content neutrality — where each piece of content can be accessed as easily as every other piece of content. (This could be implemented as, in essence, a global CDN that’s available in every network — basically would be a free Akamai for all content.) This is a bit radical, but I think it serves the role of showing what a fully neutral Internet would look like.
Villago Delenda Est
@MikeJake: Someday, justice will be served, and Ted Cruz will be forced to take a long walk off a short pier over shark infested waters.
Lee
@MikeJake: The Republicans keeping telling us he is supposed to be the smart one.
Villago Delenda Est
@NotMax: When “the public interest” is in conflict with “shareholder value”, you’re going to have problems.
Kropadope
@Sloegin: Oh, it was the former commissioner who set those rules. I see. Was Genachowski an Obama appointee also?
It’s tough getting reliable on these politically charged subjects. When I was trying to research the rules that got thrown out, all I found were a bunch of articles written by people either mad at the administration for not trying enough or mad at them for trying at all.
Lee
@Sloegin: Wheeler is doing everything he can to avoid classifying them as a common carrier. My guess is he is hoping to just run out the clock for the next 2 years and make it someone else’s problem.
NotMax
FOX Chyron “Obama calls for your kids having access to pornography!” in 3… 2… 1…
MikeJake
@Lee: Spray enough diarrhea into the discourse, and you can coat everything in a layer of shit.
MomSense
@flukebucket:
EbolaISISBenghaziIRSFastandFuriousCzarsExecutiveOrdersCAESARWEAKLAWLESS!1!1!!!11
Villago Delenda Est
@flukebucket: You can never have enough BENGHAZI!, at least by wingnut standards. Best said while jumping up and down like Homer Simpson missing a chili cookoff.
Villago Delenda Est
@Lee: What should happen is some small jurisdiction goes after the ISP of a child porn suspect for providing him access to the porn in the first place.
ISPs need to be put in a position where they DEMAND common carrier status, not where they seek to avoid it because they don’t like the rules that impact the slush funds for hookers and blow for their executives.
JGabriel
@Kropadope:
Perhaps I misunderstood your question. If you thought Wheeler was in charge of the FCC when the last set of rules was implemented, then, no, Julius Genachowski was running the FCC then (as noted by Sloegin above).
Wheeler was still at Core Capital Partners at the time.
When you asked, Didn’t he [Wheeler] support and help craft the net-neutrality regulations that the FCC tried to implement?, I assumed you knew Wheeler wasn’t part of the FCC at the time and were asking if he helped in an advisory role – thus my previous answer.
Lee
@Villago Delenda Est: IIRC, Verizon already did this in one case. They got common carrier protection from a judge but still fight against that classification in other areas.
bemused
@Villago Delenda Est:
Finland made internet access a legal right for every Finn in 2010.
Sloegin
@Kropadope: Genachowski was an Obama appointment in 09′. If you look at his bio, he was more of a pol than an industry front-man like Wheeler.
Genachowski went from the FCC to the Carlyle group. Wheeler probably has a VP spot waiting for him at Comcast after his tenure.
Kropadope
@JGabriel: Oh, yeah, someone else disabused me of that notion. Like I said, the politics of this debate is so charged that my research process was stunted by the presence and prevalence (dominated the first several pages of search results) of thousands of opinion pieces and no primary documentation.
Sherparick
Eduardo Porter has column today in the Times, and buried in it is a paragraph that explains completely why the 1% hate President Obama despite the fact their fortunes have multiplied under his Government and he rescued the economy.
“Obamacare has also added 0.9 percentage points to the payroll tax for richer families and imposed a 3.8 percentage-point tax on their investment income. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center projects that the richest 1 percent of households will pay 33.4 percent of their income in federal taxes this year, on average. That’s almost six percentage points more than in 2008.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/05/business/economy/seeking-new-tools-to-address-income-inequality.html?rref=business/economy&module=Ribbon&version=origin®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Economy&pgtype=article
Reasons the Democrats have a South and Midwest problem: 26% of the electorate is white, Evangelical, protestants. of that group, 76% voted Republican. In Mississippi, 90% of the white vote voted Republican. Similar voting % through out the old Confederacy with the exceptions of Virginia, Florida, and in the Great Plains and Mountain states has allowed Republicans to establish one party states in these regions. Scott Walker’s skill a racial polarization and anti-tax ideology has allowed him and the Republicans to put a hammer lock on Wisconsin State Government.
JGabriel
@Sloegin:
Actually, it wasn’t the Supremes – it was the DC Circuit. The FCC didn’t appeal to the Supremes.
Judge Crater
Ted Cruz has already come out against it. Really.
RareSanity
@BR:
But CDNs pay Tier 1s for bandwidth to deliver content, they are not the bad actors in this situation.
Akamai pays Level 3 to deliver content on behalf of it’s clients (let’s say Netflix). Level 3 then has a peering agreement with Comcast at the Tier 1 level to deliver that content…which is being requested by Comcast’s customers.
This traffic has been steadily increasing over the years, so Comcast…as a bad faith actor…say, “Hey! You’re sending us way more stuff then we’re sending you, so this isn’t really a ‘peer” relationship. You should pay us to add additional ports at data centers for this traffic!” Level 3, as a good faith actor says, “Hey Comcast! This traffic is headed for YOUR CUSTOMERS that bought service from you! You are not being used as a transit point, YOU ARE THE ENDPOINT! Add more ports at the data center so we can deliver the content YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE REQUESTING!”
This whole thing would be different if Comcast (or Verizon) were just a waypoint for this massive increase in data while it was headed somewhere else, then I could see their argument. But that’s not what’s going on here, they are trying to double dip by getting paid by their customers for the access to Netflix content, then they want to charge Netflix for the access to their customers.
Not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.
They are trying to get paid for something they have no business getting paid for.
rlrr
@Judge Crater:
Ted Cruz has already come out against it. Really.
Obama should publicly state his opposition to drinking Drāno®.
Gin & Tonic
@Belafon: Just had a great idea for a company: Restroom management, Inc.
You’re too slow by far.
trollhattan
@Belafon:
Simplified for accuracy.
Calouste
@Belafon:
FTFY.
Calouste
@trollhattan: High five!
RareSanity
@trollhattan:
@Calouste:
Jinx!
Buy each other a Coke!
trollhattan
@Calouste: GMTA Monday.
Belafon
@trollhattan:
@Calouste:
So true. But if I’d started out with that, the next question would have been “What have they done this time?”
gnomedad
Don’t forget “Just like Hitler!”
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
A favorite (related) bit of signage.
“No wonder it’s always so clean! No one meets the user requirements! Give Smith a bonus for coming up with that one.”
Gin & Tonic
@RareSanity: IOW, a peering model built on the concept of a mesh of functionally roughly equivalent networks is not surviving the stratification of the Internet into content networks and eyeball networks.
Gin & Tonic
@NotMax: I’m assuming the HTTP Error 1011 is not the signage you were going for.
Villago Delenda Est
@Gin & Tonic: Well, this here is the fundamental problem with the Intertubes.
It’s designed to be used. Not metered.
The big telcos/cable companies hate that idea.
DFH
Haven’t read what everyone else has said, but I saw this story, and thought gee, maybe taking this stand before the election would have been good. If you want young voters to turn out, tell them you’re saving their Internet.
gene108
@RareSanity:
I’m sorry, but what is the point of having a monopoly, if you cannot get paid for stuff you have no business in getting paid for?
The internet access has become effectively another utility, which we need to live our modern lives.
Law needs to catch up with that.
Lee
@Villago Delenda Est:
That is great. I had never thought of it that way before.
Villago Delenda Est
@RareSanity: True story. When I was in my mid teens, my younger sister and brother both latched on to that meme like remoras, using it incessantly, so my late father picked up on it, but didn’t get it quite right. .When he and my aunt said something at the same time, he started yelling “Coke! Coke!” I just shook my head and told him he was doing it rong.
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
Hm. Works fine for me.
Try this link instead and scroll down to example #6.
Belafon
@DFH: I doubt it would have changed much. Most people don’t even understand the concept. Who do you think Ted Cruz is trying to appeal to? They think that the government is trying to interfere in the operation of the internet.
Jeff
This will be as damaging as Michelle’s “Whitey” tape.
Jeff
In all seriousness, this will be spun to the wingnuts as “Obama is trying to control the internet”
Linnaeus
Obligatory YouTube video: The First Honest Cable Company
Note: Contains some NSFW language.
Villago Delenda Est
@Sherparick: So, their piece of the pie has increased much more than what the government takes back from them, and they’re still pissed.
This is why I talk about tumbrels and Ferengi all the time. These people will kill going, profitable concerns because they’re not profitable enough.
gnomedad
@Jeff:
So that we won’t be tipped off when he comes for our guns.
JPL
@DFH: Democrats have a tendency to wait until Fox news scares everyone. They then say well that’s not true but it’s too late……
scav
@gnomedad: Are you one the gun-stealing detachment? I’m on the abducting the children, vaccinating, floridating and gay-marrying brigade.
ETA: that is to say, my sonic toothrush has a glitter setting!
mr_gravity
@Snarki, child of Loki: Exactly!
A little reminder that corporations are not exactly like people.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jeff: They really are of two minds about this. Obama is simultaneously the worst, most incompetent President, ever, yet he’s also as ruthless and efficient at totalitarian government as an amalgam of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Saddam. Toss in a few African strong men for good measure.
One thing they are absolutely certain of is that he’s near, and wasn’t actually born in Honolulu despite reams of documentary evidence that was obviously planted there via time travel.
Villago Delenda Est
@scav: I’m commander of Bravo Company, 21st Freedumb Stomping Battalion.
Omnes commands Charlie Company.
Jeff
We will soon be hearing about “government-run internet” mark my words.
Villago Delenda Est
OT, but Noisemax is at it again….
Putin Defends Hitler-Stalin Pact
Hmmm….I wonder how Gospodin Romanov will react to this….
Villago Delenda Est
@Jeff: Good. It was less fucked up when it was fully under DoD control.
GregB
Cruz has dubbed net-neutrality as Obamacare for the internet.
They will beat that phrase into the flipping ground.
I hate to be a gloomy gus, but they’ll ride that all the way to a big win for the media giants.
Jeff
On cue:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ted-cruz-net-neutrality-obamacare
RareSanity
@Gin & Tonic:
Shorter Comcast/Verizon/AT&T: How dare society attempt use this “technology” for any other purpose than the ones we directly profit from? This injustice shall not stand!
@gene108:
Exactly.
Not one half of it…none of this split the baby shit. In a just world, not only would internet be reclassified as a utility..there would be another round anti-trust breakups where content provider businesses must be separate from content delivery businesses.
It should not be legal for one to used as leverage to strengthen the other.
beth
@GregB: Oh why the fuck can’t we have snappy sayings? There’s got to be a short, sweet way to phrase our side of the argument? Look what Savage did for Santorum – it’s not like we can’t get our side out there.
stinger
@Kropadope: “my sister and her boyfriend Obama” This is why I encourage the use of the word “that” whenever possible.
Sloegin
@JGabriel: Doh! Thanks for the correction.
scav
There’s some fun stuff coming out about the Sainted Ronnie and his Iron Lady. He’s on tape asking for forgiveness about invading random places despite advice and because of mole fears (so much for his impregnable team of patriots!). My favorite bit is her take on him
. How’d I miss that gem for so long?!
MomSense
@scav:
HA!!!
RareSanity
@beth:
Because it’s easy to oversimplify everything and make pithy sound bites.
Unfortunately, rationally discussing issues with facts, differing opinions, and nuance, doesn’t lend itself well to bumper stickers.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: That’s Battery, damn it.
Davis X. Machina
Obama doesn’t mean it. You can tell.
(I have this stored as a macro. Saves time.)
gene108
@RareSanity:
I’m not sure that would work now.
Comcast bought NBC, because they need to hedge against what happens, when people can get content via wireless networks.
Being a content provider allows them to make some money, when this happens (which I think will be in another 10 years, when the 6-10 year olds, who grew up streaming content on mommy and daddy’s iPhones start becoming consumers, in their own right, because their relationship to T.V. is not to watch a show at a certain time in the family room, but to access content when and where they want).
Cable providers, who are essentially resellers of other people’s content (i.e. retailers in a way – buy at wholesale from content providers, sell at retail to consumers), may not be able to sustain their business model, as there are other ways for people to access content.
To rap up the rant, just sayin’ the whole telecom segment is pretty fluid, with some pretty big demographic and technological shifts looming over the horizon. Some of what cable companies are doing is hedging against these potential shifts.
Cable internet providers may soon be going the way of landline (old copper wire switches) phone services, which are dying off but have to be maintained, with no real potential for growth or recouping the costs any recent investments.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: ROTFL.
Cannon cockers. Sheesh!
burnspbesq
@catclub:
You mean someone objected to you stealing their content? Oh the horrah!
burnspbesq
@Villago Delenda Est:
You really have a thing about MBAs.
What B-schools did you not get into?
Gin & Tonic
@burnspbesq: You know, certainly, that there are completely valid, legal uses for BT.
JGabriel
@Jeff:
It’s already being spun that way.
Amanda Carpenter, Ted Cruz’s Communications Director:
Ted Cruz and his minions are Right-Wing Sociopaths.
scav
@Gin & Tonic: That whole blahblah of rigorous legal proof, rulings, procedures, etc. applying everywhere and in all human circumstances only really applies when burnsie decides it should.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq: Someone noticed the resource was being used. TOO MUCH!
“Say what? You’re not just using it to download simple text? You’re using it to download pictures, or programs, or….heaven forfend…2 hours of Motion Picture content? We’re going to slow down THAT shit, but good!”
Belafon
@JGabriel: Yeah, because, before now, internet pricing was totally being decided by the government.
Also:
Obama: “Service providers should allow ALL content to go through.”
Cruz: “See, he’s trying to control the content.”
GregB
Digital death panels!
Villago Delenda Est
@JGabriel: It’s not just wingnut sociopath behavior, it’s outright lying about what Obama is talking about.
But that goes with the former, as a matter of course. These are the people of the lie. It’s what you expect from Christianist Dominionists. Vilest scum, the lot of them. Pretty much like ISIL, but without all the shooting.
Yet.
JPL
What repub will say the government wasn’t involved, the defense department was.
Amir Khalid
Well off-topic, but I’m sure no one wants to miss The Further Adventures of Ted & Hellen.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq: If I went to a graduate school, it would have been for history (my major as an undergrad) or law.
MBAs are notorious for missing the forest for the short term tree harvest. They train on static models, when the essence of the market is fluidity, change, and unpredictability. American business has been hopelessly crippled by the short term profit mentality which is all that MBAs know. If we’re losing to the Chinese, it’s because they’re smart enough not to think short term profit is the be-all and end all of business. We used to have guys like Henry Ford who thought things out longer than the current fiscal quarter. Now we’re stuck with dipshits like the “MBA President”, the deserting coward, who fully subscribes to the “You’ll be gone, I’ll be gone” mentality of business. Make your pile and run…no matter what the cost to those who actually made your pile for you.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: They’re like Frick and Frack. Which one is which?
Both would look much better if their heads were on pikes.
stinger
@RareSanity: “Not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.”
I unfriend you.
Amir Khalid
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’m blessed if I can tell from the likenesses which one is Herbert. George Walker Bush is as gifted a portraitist as he was a national leader. All his portraits are obviously copied from photographs, and if you don’t remember the photo you can’t identify the subject.
Tree With Water
The democratic rank and file deserve no less from a democratic president. I just wish Obama would make plainer what forces are intent on subverting net neutrality. He should names and identify corporations (and not necessarily in that order), and call them all out for a fight, because it’s a fight he could win.
JaneE
I would like to see more government-provided internet. Some smaller cities have proved that they can provide internet service to their citizens faster and better than the for-profit companies. I would love to see this go nation-wide. I would also like to see the government build and operate its own refineries, to provide gas and diesel for government vehicles without relying on private providers. Build a state-of-the art refinery with all the needed pollution controls and show the public that it is possible to produce a cleaner product and and what actual cost. Most of what I want will never happen, not in my lifetime, and probably not ever.
Rommie
Immigration Reform = Obamacare for immigrants!
Emissions Reductions = Obamacare for the Climate!
Infrastructure Investment = Obamacare for our roads!
More investment in space tech = Run NASA like Obamacare!
They have their boogeyman, and they are going to ride it for every penny it’s worth. When there are actual Democratic candidates for Pres. in 2016, that’ll be the question they slam onto them – “Will you reform/repeal Obamacare?” to make it “Did you vote for Obama?” from 2014. Whomever is running has to be prepared for the question and have a Slam-Dunk Bury It answer they push early and often.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: Copying from photographs (photograph the model, then use the photograph to paint) is a legitimate technique that saves a great deal of needless boredom for the model.
Still, the artist (ahem) needs to demonstrate some talent, regardless of a live model or a photographed one.
This Bush impressionism is so jejune.
Villago Delenda Est
@JaneE: The corporations fight this sort of initiative tooth and nail, because actually providing a service to a community is not their mission. Making money whether service is provided or not, at any level of quality, is.
RareSanity
@gene108:
You’re right, I phrased that incorrectly.
Wired internet infrastructure businesses should be kept separate from wired internet service businesses.
It is the wired internet infrastructure that should be classified as a utility, be strictly regulated, and allow for many entities to compete to provide service over that infrastructure.
Wireless is a whole other ball of wax, and with the limited amount of spectrum available, at least with today’s technologies, there’s not much that can be done in that space.
RareSanity
@stinger:
One of my favorite commercials ever…
Amir Khalid
@Villago Delenda Est:
Which is fine if the photos are taken specifically for the portraitist’s reference. George fils just copies, badly, photos he has seen in the news.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
Complain about them now, but remember who you’re screaming to for help when the shit hits the fan.
Villago Delenda Est
@RareSanity: Aye, this applies to POTS as well. The fact that building multiple sets of infrastructure for each phone company out there is prohibitively expensive and very inefficient applies to the Intertubes as well. It’s a textbook example of a “natural monopoly” that needs to be monitored and regulated by a disinterested party, that is, the government that acts on behalf of all (at least in theory).
Wiring up a city is a daunting task, and the only ROI is long term (which conflicts fundamentally with the MBA mentality). It’s not going to be splashy ROI, which is why grandma’s investment portfolio always included Ma Bell stock. Steady, conservative returns over a long period, very low risk, not flashy. Which is BOR-ING to the Ferengi on Wall Street nowadays.
The short term profit mentality undermines long term prosperity every time. I harp on this, but Adam Smith figured all this out 238 years ago, and his book sits on shelves unread by modern business types.
d58826
Lets see, the Gop was going to play nice now that they have won the election. Isn’t that the convention wisdom? Calgary Cruz is making a ridiculous link between net neutrality and Obamacare and Orangeman is all upset because it will cost jobs or something. So much for an informed debate..
pseudonymous in nc
Someone should ask Ted Cruz (and Amanda Carpenter, his wingnut welfare flack) what the internet equivalent of his wife’s Cadillac Goldman Sachs health policy looks like.
gene108
@RareSanity:
To be clearer on my point. I was trying to illustrate the downside risk a cable provider would have, if they were treated as a utility, with regards to high speed internet access.
Copper-wire phone lines have been regulated, to some extent, as a utility. The problem telephone companies face is people are dropping copper-wire phone service, in favor of various digital voice phone systems. There’s a losing proposition in maintaining these landlines for the telephone companies.
The point of regulating a utility, like power companies, is that though the rates the power company can charge are limited by the state, by granting them a form of monopoly over certain regions they should be guaranteed a steady level of business in which they can turn a profit and continue to invest and provide services to rural areas, for example.
If you treat fiber optic lines as a utility, there is no guarantee people will still be using them 10 years into the future, for example. So, if you limit what Comcast can charge / do, because it is a utility, you cannot conversely guarantee they will have a stable customer base that relies on their service for long enough to recoup their investment cost.
To some extent, I can see where the cable operators are coming from, with regards to try and protect what they have but the situation they are creating is not sustainable.
There has to be some trade-off that can be done between investment in high speed fiber optic infrastructure and the potential the technology may be supplanted in the near future, reducing the allure of such investments.
I just do not know what that is.
To some extent regulating the fiber optic “pipes” as a utility makes sense to me, because access to the internet has become a public necessity.
The question is who foots the bill for building out the infrastructure.
Does the government do it, like it did with the interstate highway system? Or does industry to do it, with some protections and guarantees from government to recoup their investment, like we do with power companies?
I think once the infrastructure is built out maintaining it is the less daunting task.
'Niques
@MikeJake: I’m afraid this is all it will take . . . Cruz got his bumper sticker phrase out early, and it is all the rwnj will hear. A free internet is doomed. We might as well move to China.
(I don’t really believe this, but sometimes it’s nearly impossible to remain optimistic. Koch evil is relentless!)