The FCC Isn't Joking about Internet Regulation

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r7mr7m

Besides, anyone who thinks that, right now, what they are surfing is in
some way secret or confidential hasn't been reading their newspapers.

 

HA HA! Newspapers. Almost nobody is reading newspapers anymore. Especially, the people visiting this site.  That's why they are asking politicians for a bailout. Newspapers... good one.

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UndeniablyPC

Read below to see what else was included in the new Net Neutrality rules:

Under the draft rules, reasonable network management would include reasonable

practices employed by a provider of broadband Internet access service:

- to reduce or mitigate the effects of congestion on its network or to address qualityof-

service concerns;

- to address traffic that is unwanted by users or harmful;

- to prevent the transfer of unlawful content, such as child pornography; and

- to prevent the unlawful transfer of content, such as to prevent copyright

infringement.

The draft rules also permit other reasonable network management practices.

For all of you that think yahhh! more bit torrent bandwidth for me, might want to think again.  This not only gives ISPs the ability to inspect packets, but demands that they inspect packets to enforce copyright laws.  Now, I am not a law man, or a politican, so I could be wrong in any account, but this seems to me like a very, very bad thing indeed. 

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Biceps

I pay for the copyrighted content I download... so should everyone else.  I am tired of paying MORE because of pirates who get it for free, everyone knows illegal downloads are the largest portion of bittorrent traffic.  Inspect away.  Besides, anyone who thinks that, right now, what they are surfing is in some way secret or confidential hasn't been reading their newspapers. 

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LVmonkey

For three reasons,

1) Bittorrent is not the issue. Copyright is the issue...and that battle has been waged since the cassette days. It was even an issue before then with 'free radio broadcasts'. And i guess you don't play WoW as the updates are Bittorrented to the client.

2)The "loss in sales due to pirating" has no firm basis in reality. NONE. There is no quantifiable way to accurately guess sales lost to pirating. Unless you are able to track it, accurately, which if it could be done would result in lawsuits.

3)The countries with the highest "reported pirating rates" per capita also have the "highest reported sales rates" per captia, accross the board, from music sales to movie sales to game sale...on the same products.

 You have google, bing and yahoo! search and I would assume by your abilty to write a comment that you also have an ability to read. Maybe you should educate yourself on the topic. It's been a wash out for sometime with both the copyright legal speed bumps and the "ooOOOOoo evil pirate" excuse for raising prices on everything for sometime now.

Very convient excuse to raise prices, if you ask me. Especially on CDR's for example (in Canada). It's nice to know my digital pictures from my camera are helping to fund RIAA for their battles with 12 yr old "pirates"...

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arch-chancellor

Internet is not free. Even in those cities that have "free internet" what is that costing the taxpayer? Hotels and coffee shops have "free internet" what does that do to the price of a room or cup of java?

If Con-cast has to provide the same level of service to someone torrenting to their cell phone as to me having diarrhea of the keyboard on some blog, how are they going to make up the costs? Is the government going to step in and freeze prices? Nixon tried that, we all know his place in history.

I thought I paid too much for my internet until it broke. The cable guy came out to my place, took out all the old crappy wire that had rotted, put in brand new wire, stayed around to make sure it worked to my satisfaction, and then turned down the adult beverage that I offered for his hard work. I was not charged for any of the time and material. Also my bill hasn't gone up in four years.

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davidflory

I don't really care what the providers do with their networks as long as they provide what they sell you.  I pay for unlimited, 24/7, 16 Mb internet access.  That is what I paid for and that is what I should get.  If providers cannot or do not want to provide that then don't sell it.  What has been bothering the public, especially heavy users, is that we are being sold one things then being given something less than that.  And yes, their is the fine print, but if the fine print is contradicted by the advertisement, it is null and void - can't say unlimited internet big and bold only at the same time limit it in the fine print.   Problem for the ISPs is this, if they told you up front what you were really going to get, they would lose hundreds of paying customers but they also don't want to pay for the infrastructure to support what they are selling.  I believe the net neutrality rules will actually help with this issue by making ISP support the Internet service they are selling.

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JusTalkin

 

I still smell a rat.  The FCC is a political organization and if you look at their recent history at least there's always something else coming.  I'll bet that the final rule will have something added at the last minute that won't have anything to do with the actual debate of neutrality.

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lien_meat

Personally, I would vote in favor of net nutrality.
My reason:
I don't want packet shaping to become prevelent.

I understand that bittorrents and other traffic can max out bandwidth, but the consumers of the bandwidth should have a right to do that if need be.
I don't believe an ISP should be able to say "Oh, well, we don't want to give you what you PAID for, cause our crappy infrustructure doesn't support it, and we dislike torrent/ssh/rcp... traffic, so we are gonna packet shape the hell out of you".
It's just wrong.  You don't get that from the electric company.  They don't get to say that you can't use more than X amount of electricty for making a 6 foot tesla coil...why should ISP's be able to do essentially the same thing?

If the current infrustructure doesn't support the traffic, then you are either hording profits instead of building decent infustructure, or you aren't charging enough.  Make a good infrustructure, and it's just not a problem.  ISP's are just greedy.

Sorry if I ranted, but I think the government's intended rules make PERFECT sense (this is odd, I usually think the government is full of it...), and if one of these companies gets them to change it, I will be really really unhappy with the government, not really with the ISP's, as I expect as much out of them.
### I'm an idiot, and I approve this message ###

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LVmonkey

While they are at it I would suggest the phone companies place someone to monitor your phone calls and give you a cap on the amount of dirty words you can use. Maybe even bleep your conversations while you speak...I'm sure if they have enough money (as many isps offer phone services) for DPI services they should also have enough money to introduce something automated and simular for the phone services, as well.

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xs0u1x

who gets to decide what "lawful content" and "lawful traffic" and the likes are? the internet companies or the government?

 

would this bill eliminate bandwith caps and the charging for higher bandwith limit's?

 

is the consumers "right to competition" stated in the bill mean basically it's not gonna change from what it is now, being either I get to "choose" between comcast, verizon, or some hole in the wall 9.95 dial up service?

 

 

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Biceps

Ok, so you tell us there are 6 rules the FCC is going to put in place, but you aren't going to tell us what they are?  That is not exactly what I would call detailed reporting.... come on, Bart, you can do better.   You complain that the public isn't being included in the debate and then omit the most important information from your article?  Seriously?  What are the rules, dude?

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Biceps

From the FCC document, in case anyone cares.

1. would not be allowed to prevent any of its users from sending or receiving the

lawful content of the user’s choice over the Internet;

2. would not be allowed to prevent any of its users from running the lawful

applications or using the lawful services of the user’s choice;

3. would not be allowed to prevent any of its users from connecting to and using

on its network the user’s choice of lawful devices that do not harm the

network;

4. would not be allowed to deprive any of its users of the user’s entitlement to

competition among network providers, application providers, service

providers, and content providers;

5. would be required to treat lawful content, applications, and services in a

nondiscriminatory manner; and

6. would be required to disclose such information concerning network

management and other practices as is reasonably required for users and

content, application, and service providers to enjoy the protections specified in

this rulemaking.

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routine

Government action always always always leads to unintended consequences: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequence

 

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Fiercedeity

I think any action comes with unintended consequences. That's just part of being human since we cannot foresee the future. However, there are times when government interference is necessesary for a healthy free markent economy. I feel that this is one of those times. Is this the right way to do it, though? That we will see.

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