I'm just going to link to this one, due to the formatting & my lack of patience.

"Net neutrality gets a kick in the teeth

Summary: A US court has ruled against the FCC's Open Internet regulations, putting the future of net neutrality completely up in the air."

http://www.zdnet.com/net-neutrality-get ... 000025154/

Changed thread title to include all of the topics that the discussion ended up taking in. -- Linda

Crazy question--how come this isn't considered a form of "FUD"?

Do you mean that quote specifically? Seems to me that would qualify as FUD, since the internet as we know it didn't exist then (nor was it called "the internet").

The big companies are clearly moving in this direction of trying to control content delivery in some pathetic attempt (which may succeed) to hold onto their old outdated business models. The monopolies in most major cities mean they can pretty much do whatever they want.

I guess I find the issue more conceptual--something of a rocks-paper-scissor situation in which legislators attempt to regulate markets, markets attempt to control technology, and technology tends to confound legislation. But I doubt Congress will simply roll over based on this on this single decision, and the FCC is not going anywhere. Also, there's always the Sherman Anti-Trust Act looming over any corporation that does manage to hijack the internet for its own gain. Ultimately, my gut tells me that if history is any indication, by the time "universal broadband" is in place in the US, there will already be an active push for universal fiber optic cable, or some such next-generation technology--or wireless smart phones will simply displace computers as the primary means of internet access, leaving Comcast with a fiber optic network that nobody is using.

Don't get me wrong: I have no problem with net neutrality, and I like the internet as it is--it's just that I took a class in telecommunications law last summer, subject so incredibly complicated that I have essentially forgotten everything I learned in the class, other than what I just summarized in the preceding paragraph.

Smartphone telecom providers are already taking advantage of exemptions from net neutrality (Verizon, specifically). That won't help anything. Broadband = "high speed internet", not the type of delivery system. Fiber/copper makes no difference, so I'm not sure what you mean about the universal broadband will be replaced by something else thing, apart from the idea of phone networks.

IMO, the jist of this is your streaming video is about to double in price, & Com Crap A,T & Turkey, etc are about to get richer.

No clue if & how this will impact regular downloads.

It could well be the end of the internet as we've known it. A select group of elites hogging all the bandwidth and returning all the top search results, with the rest of the web creeping along in a black hole at slow speeds. Broadband should be a telecom service, with ISP's classified as common carriers. Nothing but dumb pipes we get our data from (all at the same level of service, thanks).

I agree with your post, & the rich corps are already getting all the top search results where applicable (at least on Google).

Maybe so, but it appears that in the 1970s, the FCC distinguished between telephony and computer data services. Congress agreed with them and passed that separation into law with the 1996 Telecoms Act. Any business abuse in computer data falls under the jurisdiction of the FTC, not the FCC. So, as far as I understand it, the FCC cannot make ISPs common carriers like telephone companies. Maybe the Federal Trade Commission could?

I would certainly love to see at lot more competition at the ISP-level of the Internet, and somehow reduce their monopolistic control over the "last mile" connections, especially in small towns where I live. Still, it pretty much gets down to a pyramid plan: users pay the ISPs, and ISPs pay the Internet backbone carriers, who have peering agreements not to charge the other backbone carriers that they connect to and through. The reasons that any ISP would want to filter is because they don't have a peering agreement with the big pipes. They have transit agreements. The more data that transfers through the ISPs to us, the more the ISPs have to pay the backbone providers.

If ISPs were just dumb pipes, wouldn't the users have to contract directly with the backbone providers? I'd actually love to have a a direct connection, and then pay usage fees—as on a toll road—for the actual bandwidth that I personally used.

Who is this Murray, anyway?
Where are all of these young people? Who are all of these young people? Glancing at the links provided with the commentary: "The meeting today was disrupted twice by protesters who were led out of the room while shouting opposition to rules that degrade network neutrality." (from Ars Technica) and "As the commissioners voted, a growing group of activists gathered outside the FCC headquarters, with 'Save the Internet' banners" (BBC News)
Not sure exactly what this is referring to. Originally, Ma Bell was permitted to operate as a monopoly because it built and owned the infrastructure, but after achieving critical mass, was ultimately broken up as the result of a DOJ anti-trust suit. Is Murray referring to regulation of Ma Bell as "stifling and inefficient", or regulation of the Baby Bells who, whether or not they had a de jure (or even a de facto) monopoly, were not "granted" those monopolies "as a means of achieving critical mass". And how was this regulation stifling and inefficient, anyway?
Where exactly does one get this sense? The FCC voted 3-2 (with two abstentions). Is that a "simple lead-up", or Murray trying to tell is that this is merely what the FCC wants us think? (After all, a 7-0 vote would be too obvious.) Going by the links provided (presumably) by Murray, we can find quotes such as "The FCC's prior net neutrality rules issued in 2010 were largely struck down in court, and there is already speculation that the new proposed rules could be threatened in court as well," and "The proposal faces widespread protest from people who believe that rich companies paying for greater access to Internet subscribers will disadvantage startups and companies with fewer financial resources." (from Ars Technica). Again--a "simple lead-up"? Exactly where is he getting that sense?

I have a hunch that it really doesn't matter what the FCC does or does not do, that people like Murray will still allege regardless that it's all a big dog and pony show designed to distract the public from a far more sinister government conspiracy. (Unless, of course, I'm in on the conspiracy, and am merely trying to discredit Murray, the sole voice of reason left in our otherwise Orwellian utopia.)

The solution is probably just for big bandwidth-using companies like
Netflix to build more and more Content Delivery Networks (with more
and more of their content cached) near the largest population centers.

If Netflix users consume 30% of the bandwidth, which I read online recently
(but didn't confirm), this would localize their actual Internetwork traffic much
the same way as a bridge/switch separates LAN traffic. It's not even that
far fetched that Netflix (with a few other big content providers) could build
its own (lower-case) internets, and have the regional ISPs route user requests
for movies onto those instead of through the Internet pipes. Then the ISPs
wouldn't have to pay those pipe carriers for that traffic at all.

Heck, you could probably just start adding a mess of Netflix content servers
in the actual buildong sites used by the ISPs.

I believe Netflix has actually started doing that.

The ISPs already have the peering agreements; Netflix (and other big volume content providers) already pay their own internet costs. Comcast and the other monopolies are now trying to double dip to get more money, without providing an ounce of additional services. Now if you were talking about some small ISP that did not have peering agreements, it might be another story. But that's not the case here. The problems we have are lack of choice, and the big ISPs taking massive advantage of it. And now they are trying to turn it into cable television. Argh!

As Ted said, they are already doing this. They have offered and been turned down by Comcast to do this in some markets, because Comcast is a monopoly whose interests are best served by making Netflix "slow" (from a user perspective) since to do so encourages the sale of their own PPV and premium content cable channels. This is all about gouging everyone for more money. And they're getting away with it because the head of the FCC is a damned Comcast insider.

Yes. I wanted companies like Netflix to build more and more CDNs.

Yes, there are several large "upstream" Tier 1 ISPs that have peering.

And I'm all for the removal of Tom Wheeler as FCC president.

I just read that due to content providers charges, cable TV prices are about to rise significantly again. Putting the same system on the internet helps us consumers how...............?

Yeah, I thought I had read a couple months ago that Time-Warner Cable added
an $2–$3 Broadcast TV fee to their cable users. I wonder if they tried sticking
that to their users who didn't have Internet access through them?

The paper said it would be at least 6% here on the city owned system based 100% on increases in program content prices from the "providers" (stations/Networks).

If USA law would require an ala carte option, i would get cable again, with the 3-5 stations I actually would watch & nothing else.

That'd be nice, but they'd make you pay too much for that.

Not sure whether to say, or .