Net Neutrality Day is July 12th, 2017 – a call to action

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Moves are again underway in U.S. to remove net neutrality, a subject that Woody raised a few years ago, more than once. Several groups have united to
[See the full post at: Net Neutrality Day is July 12th, 2017 – a call to action]

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DC, Elly, SueW, Jan K., AJNorth

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Mozilla also have a page for having a say on net neutrality:

“The FCC has a plan to destroy net neutrality. It’s up to us to stop it.
Make your voice heard: Stand up for net neutrality.”

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Elly

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I hope we win this battle, it might very well be the last couple months of open internet we have.

 

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I’ll admit this is one topic that has had me befuddled by the rhetoric. Pardon for not being here last time around. Naming players or parties for clarity only, not casting shade.

The wide open market place was bad. So then Pres. Obama had his FCC impose restrictions to attain freedom. The opposition party in the legislature blocked, or made this difficult, or somehow changed it back to bad. Now a new President’s FCC is going to do something good? bad? different? and we now have the last few months of open internet?

I have reading to do. Think I will start in the AskWoody search link, thank you Kristy.

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Cybertooth

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I think there are other countries watching how this plays out, before they also amend their rules and regulations.

PS before it’s too late, just a wee reminder of the Lounge Rules – politics are relegated to the Rants forum 😉

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I would have thought that is where any

CALL TO ACTION

would have started. Should this be relocated?

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Cybertooth

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Cascadian wrote:

Should this be relocated?

Hopefully that won’t be necessary 😉
The discussion doesn’t necessarily need to be political, but you are welcome to start a Rant topic, if you wish.

I dare say some people weren’t aware of this issue, or why net neutrality is seen as a good thing, or why some companies seek to make money out of restricting it… there’s lots of areas that could be discussed here.

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Elly, AJNorth

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OK, so I agree totally on the need for discussion on a subject that affects our jobs, hobbies, entertainment, and interest of any level. I present a statement of neutrality, then the frame as I understand, and admit confusion over, what has happened. I repeat someone else’s words. And redirect attention to Woody’s own articles.

Then you wave ‘political rant’ at me?

When your opening statement is a ‘call to action’?

I would have thought that proposes political action. What nonpolitical action did you propose to do in reference to all those ‘congress-critters’, whom I believe are all human regardless of affiliation.

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Cybertooth, AJNorth

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Cascadian wrote:

Then you wave ‘political rant’ at me?

Au contraire, @Paul – in no way did I have any problems with your message, which I saw as most worthy of its space here.
My “wee reminder” was to attempt to keep this discussion on-track, to any that may have read yours and seen an opportunity to take it way past where you had duly left off! I wasn’t intending to set off a fire-cracker; in fact, just the opposite. I apologise if you took my message as a personal affront 🙂 That was not my intention.

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Bill C., Elly, AJNorth

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Kristy, your kind words cause me to apologise in turn. I did feel singled out. Perhaps an edit to the original, or a comment at the left margin would have been received less directly. Thank you for taking the time and effort to help me read you better. It caused the passing shock that a ‘fire-cracker’ might. But your efforts to check damage are well received. Cheers.

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Bill C., Elly, AJNorth, Kirsty

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I don’t mean to be a wet blanket, but in this day and age of operating systems being able to get away with plainly anticompetitive behavior, not to mention the political climate of systematically undoing all that’s been done, I’m not feeling a whole lot of hope here… Sigh.

-Noel

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Bill C., AJNorth

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Indeed.

Sic transit gloria mundi

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Noel Carboni

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True, but if everyone gives up and doesn’t protest then they win by a walkover.

Windows 10 Home 22H2, Acer Aspire TC-1660 desktop + LibreOffice, non-techie

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Bill C., Elly, AJNorth, SueW, Noel Carboni, Microfix

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Greed is a virus with trojans within, ANY excuse is used to achieve the aim nowadays and those in power often abuse IT. May the force be with you to conquer this outrageous denial of service attack on the freedom of the internet. This virus will spread globally if the FCC get their way.

If debian is good enough for NASA...

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Elly

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Paul neatly summed up the state of play to date. To add a little context and background, you have to understand that this is settled law. The Supreme Court decided back in the late 90’s that the FTC(federal trade commission) not the FCC would be the primary regulator of the Internet.  It was Congress who passed, and Bill Clinton as president, who signed the law which was challenged in our court system. Those who challenged lost. President Obama illegally move jurisdiction over to the FCC, and was  slapped down by the Supreme Court for it. That is were we are today. There is much more, but the SC decided this on 1st amendment grounds. To put it bluntly, information wants to be free. The FCC by treaty and law, can control certain kinds of information and speech.(Treaty passed into law in 1932?) But the internet, being a cluster of new technology, is not covered by treaty and law, so the FCC can not regulate it. That’s it in a nutshell. Hope it helps.

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HiFlyer, Cybertooth, SueW

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The very large and rapid increase in the use o available bandwith, that seems to continue indefinitely with the ever-expanding use of video streaming services, etc., the use of “the Cloud” as an alternative to keeping data, moving data, and running software on users’ own computers, not to mention the apparently (and relentlessly) forthcoming “Internet of Things”, taken altogether, would suggest to me that, unless the communication links are increased in capacity by building parallel lines and, or increasing their speed (and who will pay for that: the government, the ISPs, the users, all of the above?) at some point the capacity of the Internet to handle packets at its full-rate will be exceeded and everything (as per Net Neutrality principles) will have to be slowed down without fear or favour: one’s emails, streaming, gaming, real-time processing of scientific data (one of my main interest), etc.

This is something that I have rarely seen discussed by either the proponents or the opponents of Net Neutrality, and am curious to know what others in this forum might make of it.

Thank you,

Oscar L. Colombo

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It seems to me that taking the internet out of the hands of free enterprise and placing it in the hands of Washington is not a good idea.  Here come government controls to what was a free and open internet.  If you pro “net neutrality ” people succeed, I think you will come to regret it.  Has the internet not been free for the last decade or so?  Why is inviting the government in going to improve things?

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Cybertooth

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I’m not sure I quite understand your point @anon #122096

Those for/pro net neutrality are trying to ensure the net stays “free and open”, as you say. The concern is that the upcoming changes will reduce this from what it has been for the last couple of decades…
The call to action is for the purpose of retaining the status quo.

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SueW, Bill C., Elly, AJNorth

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I’d gladly have “free enterprise” in charge of the net, if such a thing ever existed.

It does not, which is the crux of the matter. Net Neutrality is a response to the problem of having four or so ISP’s control the vast majority of the internet in the US. If you insist on allowing Comcast, AT&T, Charter and Verizon to not only control most of the internet in the US, but also for the most part agreeing to not compete in each others markets, then either you regulate them (the same as we do now with power utilities), or you make them compete.

ISP’s shouldn’t control the “roads” and the content. It’s a conflict of interest. They need to be broken up, just like the old Bell companies were, and forced to compete with each other.

The ISP’s need to be prevented from  buying up local politicians and preventing local cities from running their own connections (currently ILLEGAL in 20 states!)

Competition…equal access to markets…equal playing field under the same rules. That’s what free enterprise is. It’s what the ISP’s DON’T want to do. It’s also why the internet is in such bad shape today in comparison to other countries, where you really have ISP’s competing for customers. Amazing how well customers are treated when you have to compete for them (and I’m talking to YOU Comcast!)

 

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flackcatcher, SueW

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Kirsty, what ever became of my post #122112 which asked if a statement, mirroring the construction of your post #121999 but expressing a contrary viewpoint, would be acceptable in this thread?

 

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There’s some weird stuff going on around here with posts being removed or not appearing at all. Who knows anymore?

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Posts get auto-filtered before posting, and some never get posted nor make it through for us to moderate, with a flaw currently apparent in the system. We are aware of it, but are unable to fix it immediately.
Thanks for your patience 🙂

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flackcatcher

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@cybertooth
Contrary points of view, well presented, as always appreciated 🙂

woody wrote:

Dissenting opinions welcome – encouraged! – as long as they’re coherent.

In what way do you believe that net neutrality isn’t in the best interest of the users of the internet, such as the general public? How would you benefit from ISP’s throttling your access to certain sites?

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From @Sessh
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/kb4ewn/federal-court-says-net-neutrality-is-legal-trumps-fcc-wants-to-kill-it-anyway

Indications are that the battle isn’t already won…

(Hopefully this will get through the site’s auto-filter, where it wouldn’t allow it by @Sessh)

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Elly, Sessh

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Thanks for posting it. I guess the filter likes you more than me. Maybe it’s the butterfly, but yeah. The courts are already slapping down Trump and the FCC and I can’t imagine there will be less support now than in 2014. It seems the only way this is going to go through is if Pai just does it anyway. The backlash would likely be legendary, though. Messing with people’s internet is probably not a good idea.

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flackcatcher

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I’m sure it’s nothing personal lol
🙂

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Today, the Supreme Court slapped down every federal and appeals court for getting beyond ‘their skis’ on the travel ban. But the ban itself was not really the issue here. The SC sent a message to every federal judge, to stay on the case on hand, and not ‘make stuff up’. The SC does not like to overturn their own decisions, there has to be a major compelling argument to do so. So, this district federal judge is about to have his head handed to him by the SC in one or two years. It’s like watching a bad TV show or movie, you want to look away, but can’t. While the players on both sides focus on the political, the real issues here are engineering and technical, and can be solved. I fully expect advances in data transmission, and compression to fix moving the content issues, that ISPs are whining about. In many ways, this situation echos the railroad wars after the civil war. History does not repeat, but the echos… If the big boys (ATT Comcast etc.) do not build, some one else will, and they will be the winners.

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I have noted questions of exclusion. Rather than ask again for this subject to be relocated, I offer instead: https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/open-forum-on-isps-vs-neutrality/
Civility is still required, but opinions may range wider.

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Like most issues that have become politicized, this is a tough one.  Proponents for both sides claim their way is what will keep the internet “free.”  Seeing your way through the fog and distortions sure gets frustrating.  Trying to boil it down, it appears at this point the choice is control by unaccountable multinational corporations driven by profit, or unaccountable, unelected bureaucrats driven by ideology and job preservation.  Not much of a choice, and not enough to get me excited about “net neutrality day.”

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Kirsty wrote:

@cybertooth Contrary points of view, well presented, as always appreciated ?

woody wrote:

Dissenting opinions welcome – encouraged! – as long as they’re coherent.

In what way do you believe that net neutrality isn’t in the best interest of the users of the internet, such as the general public? How would you benefit from ISP’s throttling your access to certain sites?

The basic problem is that not everyone uses the Internet the same way. Some customers and some vendors are extremely heavy users: people who stream programming and the companies (Google, Netflix, Amazon) who provide the streamed shows. One recent estimate has streaming services accounting for more than 70 percent of downstream traffic in the peak evening hours.

On the other hand, some people are very light users: they check their e-mail and do some browsing. But at any given point in time, there is only a certain amount of available bandwidth; it is not an unlimited, cost-free resource. Unless this is properly managed, the result is that some people’s service is affected (slowed down or even interrupted) as a result of increasing bandwidth usage until capacity catches up.

The most effective way to address this situation and to finance expansion, is to charge differential rates based on volume and/or on the nature of the data being sent: customers who want to get more can pay more to get it, while businesses that want to send out more can pay to get it sent out. By their purchasing patterns, data buyers (the ISP’s subscribers) and data sellers (the streaming services) signal to the ISP that it’s worth investing in additional bandwidth.

However, the concept of “net neutrality” disfavors such differentiation. Under a pure net-neutrality setup, ISPs must charge the same rates to light Internet users that they do to the people and companies who do streaming. Hence the only way to increase revenue to finance expansion is to charge everybody more for the extra bandwidth regardless of how much they each actually need. As a result, light users end up paying more for Internet service to subsidize heavy users.

On the other hand, by being neither throttled nor charged for their use, heavy users in a net-neutrality setting are shielded from the true costs of their choices, which encourages them to continue their heavy usage at others’ expense (in either the price or the quality of service). To avoid these situations, ISPs need to be able to manage their networks by, if necessary, prioritizing usages or, if necessary, charging heavy users more until they sign up for a higher tier of service.

There is of course much, much more that could be said on net neutrality, including from legal, historical, and technical angles, but the above captures what I view as being at the core of the matter. Here’s one readable overview of this side, and here’s another.

 

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flackcatcher

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Good points, thank you.

I am concerned that ISPs would be permitted to throttle access to some sites, based on their own economic imperatives/best interests. If I pay for the same service as my neighbour, and use a similar amount of bandwidth, why should my speed be different to theirs, based only on the part of the internet we are accessing?

Your discussion on unequal usage (and limited supply) is a valid point, but I don’t believe this is necessarily a target of the impending changes. One user just checking their emails, compared to another who is streaming videos 24/7… should the small user get a lesser service speed (if they choose to pay for the same level/speed of service)? And if they decide to stream from a different provider, not affiliated to their ISP, should that be slower than the preferred provider? Should either user have to pay more to keep speed levels even, despite their choice of internet access?
(Yes, I’m playing devil’s advocate here, @cybertooth) 🙂

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Elly

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You have far more trust than most people if you’re willing to leave that discretion up to a bunch of greedy corporations that could care less about their customers beyond the point where they get your money. You can already pay for 100mb internet service and not even get half of that, so what’s going to happen in your scenario? People are already getting shafted and not getting what they are paying for, so what reason is there to think that’s going to change? What guarantee can you give me that ISP’s aren’t going to charge customers more money anyway?

You’re giving corporations more power who already have too much of it and are abusing it. I’d gladly continue paying what I’m paying to avoid that. These are multi-billion dollar corporations who already turn HUGE profits with the current set up. Why do they need more and why does something that is working need to be destroyed in order to make that happen? Spare me, these companies are expanding just fine. These people have mental disorders that leave them always wanting more even when they already have enough; it’s called GREED and it’s destroying the world. They don’t deserve the kind of trust and leeway they’d get without net neutrality in place and would certainly use it to take advantage of and abuse people to turn larger profits. Forget about it. 🙂

 

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Elly

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The idea of net neutrality is to allow the users… you and I… rather than corporations… decide how to use the internet. The number of ISP choices in many areas is very, very limited, so using the argument that the (non) free market will take care of it, is bogus. Promoting freedom of the corporate interests as more important than my individual freedom is just plain wrong. Net neutrality supports my/your freedom of speech and association by preventing ISPs becoming (benign or greedy) gatekeepers, making special deals and inhibiting new competition, innnovation, and expression. The Electronic Freedom Foundation has a good article on it at https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/06/attack-net-neutrality-attack-free-speech

Imagine… Microsoft is one of the big players, with lots of money. They already block new processors from receiving updates, with a valid Win 7 license… and an ISP could join up with them and throttle services to non-Win 10 operating systems… or non-Edge browsers… or to a website like askWoody… or all kinds of other combinations of companies and technologies that prevent you from making real choices. All hypothetical… but the information and technology to do so is out there. Or more current…

Imagine Google giving its own comparison shopping service preference over its competitors (don’t have to imagine hard, just check out the news today http://www.newser.com/story/244882/google-hit-with-27b-antitrust-fine-from-eu-watchdog.html)… only, it isn’t Google, it is your ISP, so you can no longer get accurate comparisons, or access to certain websites, or certain kinds of information at except at a slow crawl, or at all.

Who says they have to provide access to all that stuff, and not just their stuff? The rules on net neutrality do.

This is no small thing, affecting everything you and I do on line…

Thank you, Kirsty, for posting this and encouraging discussion. I believe that the more knowledgeable we are, the better choices we make.

 

Non-techy Win 10 Pro and Linux Mint experimenter

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JohnW, AlexEiffel, Kirsty, Sessh

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Don’t repeal net neutrality, ISPs tell FCC

by Greg Masters | June 28, 2017

 
…The plan by the FCC chairman would remove the Section 222 privacy obligations for all broadband companies. “In essence, Chairman Pai’s plan would be the nail in the coffin for broadband privacy that Congress started with its privacy repeal earlier this year,” Falcon asserted.

“Network neutrality – the idea that ISPs should treat all data that travels over their networks fairly, without improper discrimination in favor of particular apps, sites or services – is a principle that must be upheld to protect the future of our open Internet,” a spokesperson from the EFF said in a statement sent to SC Media on Wednesday. “It’s a principle that’s faced many threats over the years, such as ISPs forging packets to tamper with certain kinds of traffic or slowing down or even outright blocking protocols or applications.”

 
Read the full article on scmagazine.com

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Elly

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Another article on the same subject, this one in ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/06/30-small-isps-urge-ajit-pai-to-preserve-title-ii-and-net-neutrality-rules/

“We have encountered no new additional barriers to investment or deployment as a result of the 2015 decision to reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service and have long supported network neutrality as a core principle for the deployment of networks for the American public to access the Internet,” the ISPs said…”

and

“The current rules are necessary “to address the anticompetitive practices of the largest players in the market,” but “the FCC’s current course threatens the viability of competitive entry and competitive viability,”

Non-techy Win 10 Pro and Linux Mint experimenter

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Kirsty

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F.C.C. Announces Plan to Repeal Net Neutrality

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Elly

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