Republicans: Net Neutrality is an attack on our "basic freedoms"

[Asher]

The real question of course is:

How will this affect my ability to download animal porn?

Lack of net neutrality means your p2p downloads are throttled, so you get less animals per session.

[Whoha]

Where does the FCC get the authority to enter into this arena after a court ruling last year that stripped it of the authority to regulate the internet?

The same thing that gives the Government the right to prevent(or rather seriously impede) me from setting up a competitor to the telco monopolies.


Speaker Boner

[Dinner]

Republicans are stupid, news at 11. Hell, I've been telling you for years they're drooling idiots ("Da Barack HUISSAN Obama is trying to kill granny by making sure people have health insurance!") but I guess people have to learn on their own.

[Thoth]

Lack of net neutrality means your p2p downloads are throttled, so you get less animals per session.

**** that noise. Where's Guidio Fawkes when you need him?

[Kuciwalker]

The actual behavior that net neutrality is supposed to prevent is bad, IMO. I still don't know whether letting Congress regulate the technical design of the Internet is worse.

[Asher]

I think you're grossly overstating it -- congress isn't regulating the technical design of the Internet. They're simply trying to legislate high-level philosophy -- that you can't restrict or inhibit one form of legal traffic in favour of another.

[notyoueither]

I think they are trying to regulate what the owners of the last miles can do to people who do not have a lot of choices.

The significant issue in Canada recently was the major ISPs (telcos and cable cos) were trying to force independents to charge extra for things like netflix. They needed this to be able to charge the fees themselves, or large numbers of people would bolt to the indies.

[Kuciwalker]

I think you're grossly overstating it -- congress isn't regulating the technical design of the Internet. They're simply trying to legislate high-level philosophy -- that you can't restrict or inhibit one form of legal traffic in favour of another.

Which to me sounds like QoS is illegal.

Comcast giving its own VOIP priority and degrading the quality of other VOIP = bad.

Comcast giving large VOIP providers who pay some amount of money priority = possibly good.

Both seem to be excluded.

[Asher]

I'm not convinced we need internet-wide QoS. We can cross that bridge if we get to it.

The potential bad outweighs the potential good at this moment. It can be changed if circumstances change.

VOIP functions just fine now with a neutral internet, and it'll only get faster.

[Kuciwalker]

It can be changed if circumstances change.

Hoping that Congress will react appropriately to new technology and give up powers it previously claimed is... naive.

[Asher]

Why would it need to give up power? They retain the powers they had to regulate it, they can just clarify the laws as needs arise. There's tons of precedent (see crypto export restrictions).

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Which to me sounds like QoS is illegal.

Comcast giving its own VOIP priority and degrading the quality of other VOIP = bad.

Comcast giving large VOIP providers who pay some amount of money priority = possibly good.

Both seem to be excluded.

People have interpreted it both ways, but I don't think that's the intent. It's more about paid prioritization than straight-up QoS. I think that was part of the reason that there was a follow-up statement specifically addressing paid prioritization. Comcast giving VOIP packets priority regardless of source and destination = possibly good. Paying for it, not so much.

[Asher]

It also depends how they write the law.

There could very well be a reasonable provision that upon FCC approval, they can implement QoS/paid prioritization for types of services rather than per specific providers.

Fact remains that some kind of insurance that the information continues to flow freely and without bias is required. The internet is far too powerful and ubiquitous to be completely controlled by questionable corporate interests of a few cableco/telcos, especially given their history of abuse.

[Kuciwalker]

Why would it need to give up power? They retain the powers they had to regulate it, they can just clarify the laws as needs arise. There's tons of precedent (see crypto export restrictions).

Crypto export restrictions are an excellent example of Congress passing wildly inappropriate laws regulating computer technology, yes.

[Kuciwalker]

It also depends how they write the law.

There could very well be a reasonable provision that upon FCC approval, they can implement QoS/paid prioritization for types of services rather than per specific providers.

Fact remains that some kind of insurance that the information continues to flow freely and without bias is required. The internet is far too powerful and ubiquitous to be completely controlled by questionable corporate interests of a few cableco/telcos, especially given their history of abuse.

I would say that the Internet is far too powerful and important to be touched at all by the American government.