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Wed 17 May, 2006 05:23 pm
I've read a few articles indicating there is a bill being passed to allow phone and cable companies to charge more for certain content to be sent over their lines. Supposedly, this means Comcast, Roadrunner, BellSouth, and other high speed providers could charge the content provider (Craven?) a fee for allowing customers (us?) to have content load quickly via their lines. (I think that's what they're saying)
Anyone understand what all this is about? Why Congress / Senate would allow this? What the expanded implications such as allowing the carriers to decide what we see, might be?
Too much info for me to digest and it gets a little confusing trying to understand the politics of it all.
Here's some links if you aren't familiar with this legislation:
Keep Net Untrammeled
Information Highway Robbers
Save the Internet
I saw someone post this the other day:
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=74480
I had no idea what they were talking about - I'm doing a circular reference from that thread to this one.
Is everyone else overwhelmed with trying to understand it, too?
It seems pretty clear-cut. The high speed internet service providers have dreamed up a way to charge companies for the speed at which the companies' services can be accessed-- as if they needed more money. This sounds relatively innocent and free-market, except that it's entirely conceivable that controversial or unpopular (or just unpopular with the service provider) websites would be relegated to slower download speeds and thereby marginalized or consigned to the internet equivalent of a ghetto.
Personally, I prefer the internet to be as free and open as possible. The telecoms and giant cable monopolies are already rolling in dough and I see no need for another moneymaking scheme on their part, especially if it comes at the cost of restricting internet access in this fashion.
I understood that it was a way for high-speed internet providers, who are also often in the business of offering their own web content (portals, news sites, communities etc), to "tie" their customers to their own web sites.
Eg, if you visit the portal about subject X or Y that your own internet provider supplies, you pay less than if you insist on on looking up that other portal.
This would be a threat to the equal access to information of all sorts that has characterised the net so far, because it raises the spectre of a few large companies herding their masses of customers into limited sections within the web, using the advantage of the lower rates they charge for those.
It's a kind of oligarchy/monopoly/cartel kind of threat, except it effects to information rather than products. I suppose the result could be similar to that of network TV. You can pay extra and get satellite news from around the world, but most people settle for the cheaper, more limited offer of news, which is supplied (and controlled) by a handful of corporations.
It wouldn't just make access to the plurality of information and services that's marked the internet so far more difficult (more expensive). In the long run, by squeezing the flow of traffic to the external sites that suddenly find themselves in a more expensive-to-access tier, it could force them out of business, and thus also reduce the absolute plurality of available information/service providers.
Thats roughly the grit of it as I understood it so far, but I'll be gladly reading along to see what anyone else has to say.
Oh, now see, I was reading it the other way around. Rather than the consumer paying, it appeared to me to be the content providers that would have to pay to be on the higher speed download, or included in the internet "channel lineup" of the high speed providers.
If consumers pay, then it would be no different from me choosing between dial-up or highspeed companies in my areea, which I have already done. That wouldn't be any different and wouldn't require a new bill.
I think the new twist is that Craven will have to pay Comcast, Roadrunner, etc. in order to be allowed to transport content to us at high speed over their lines.
THAT is where the little guys, the bloggers, the Buzzflashes, and others will be weeded out by the big boys, and where WE get left with only the news and information sources that can afford to be online.
Yep, that's basically it in a nutshell, I think. Of course, the phone and cable companies are lobbying like mad for it.
Oh, ok, I see. Thanks Squinney. Yeah that would work too.
Effect would be the same, I suppose. Weeding out external sites/services by either making them pay more (and possibly running them out of business that way), or making access to them harder (on slower speed).
Long term, you're left with a more corporatized supply of info/services, with a narrower overall diversity and the non-corporate sites ghettoized where Joe Average dont get.
Something like that?
Yes, that sounds right. As with the current state of news media, we'd have fewer choices, essentially, and the ones we did have would most likely be the arm of an ever shrinking pool of corporations.
Personally, I don't have a problem with this.
I don't see it being much different from big broadcast networks competing with cable networks.
Except that, thanks to consolidation, all of your broadcast news comes from something like 7 corporate entities. Maybe less.
How would you like all of your available websites-- at least the ones that didn't take you 30 minutes to access-- to be owned by the phone and cable cos.?
Exactly. And, there goes your bloggers, unless you want to wait 10 minutes for their page to load. That is, if you can find them, since they won't be on your high speed providers channel list. And, the small business that sells online, will have to leave to make way for the Wal-Marts.
What I haven't figured out is, this is a bill that applies to the US. (Reminding me of China's limiting access to content that has been in the news of late). What happens to the rest of the world? Can nimh still access A2K at high speed if Craven doesn't pay for it since nimhs hi-speed provider is outside of the US?
You can find other news outlets if you search. Innovation on the 'Net will hardly cease to exist.
Think of it like an airport with airliners and tiny recreational airplanes.
Maybe innovation won't exactly cease-- although that's a debatable proposition, it seems to me-- but it will certainly be stifled.
And you can find other news outlets thanks largely to the existence of the internet as we know it!
To continue Drewdads example, it would be like making the airlines, even the recreational planes, all pay the same take-off fee. The large airlines could afford it, but the smaller plane companies couldn't, and would soon be out of business.
Yes, the smaller, recreational airlines could buy some land and build their own airport if allowed by the FAA, etc. But, how do smaller internet businesses, news outlets, bloggers, and those in political opposition to whomever is in office innovate a new world wide web?
innovation on the net won't continue, DD, because it simply won't be allowed to continue; the speed will be slowed to a crawl for anyone who isn't buying into corporate interests.
Here's an article about the misleading tactics used by Big businesses in order to try and get this passed:
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/06/05/edi06033.html
Cycloptichorn
Update on Net Neutrality.
Looks like a major push from the major corporations continues. Just the introductory sentence alone is more double speak than my brain can comprehend.
Quote:WASHINGTON - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission warned Wednesday against regulations to ensure providers of high-speed Internet service treat all content the same way, saying such rules could stifle innovation.
Network neutrality proposals, backed by Internet content companies like Google Inc. and eBay Inc., would bar Internet providers from charging extra fees to guarantee access to the Internet or give priority to some content.
In a report, the FTC sided with high-speed Internet providers such as AT&T and Verizon, saying the government should be cautious about imposing such regulations.
"This report recommends that policy makers proceed with caution in the evolving, dynamic industry of broadband Internet access, which generally is moving toward more -- not less -- competition," FTC chairman Deborah Majoras said in a statement.
"In the absence of significant market failure or demonstrated consumer harm, policy makers should be particularly hesitant to enact new regulation in this area," Majoras said.
The concept of net neutrality is being studied by regulators at the Federal Communications Commission and has been the subject of much debate among lawmakers in Congress.
Some lawmakers in Congress tried unsuccessfully to get net neutrality legislation passed last year.
Companies like eBay and Google worry that AT&T and Verizon will charge them more to get access to consumers or make it harder for consumers to access unaffiliated content.
The network providers counter that they would not block access to public Internet sites, but want to offer private Internet-based services with faster speeds for uses such as downloading movies.
The high-speed providers welcomed the FTC report.
"Proposals to impose new regulation actually threaten further advancements in broadband Internet connections. That hurts consumers by denying them new and better services," said Verizon executive vice president Tom Tauke.
But supporters of network neutrality rules scoffed at the premise of viable new competition that offers an alternative to the cable companies and major carriers.
"Despite the fervent wishes of the FTC staff, there is not a competitive market for high-speed Internet services. New technologies, particularly wireless technologies, are not soon going to have the same robust qualities or market penetration as the duopoly cable and telephone-company services," said Gigi Sohn, president of consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge.
Last year, the FCC approved AT&T's purchase of BellSouth Corp. after AT&T promised to maintain net neutrality of its high-speed Internet platform for two years. It was one of several key concessions that AT&T made to ease concerns about competition.
By: Peter Kaplan
dunno. seems to me that this is philosophically the same as if you had to pay the phone company extra to guarantee that your call was always put through. or that the phone on the receiving end would always ring.
pay regular rates? maybe it will, maybe it won't.
it's not up to a service provider to decide what flow of information is important and which isn't.
The last I heard of this was on NPR about a year ago. Here's what I found when I went to search their site.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5538363
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