Internet NEUTRALITY is VERY BAD

[Redcard]

Who owns the internet?

Do you also support affirmative action?

UUnet (now a division of Verizon), British Telecom, AT&T, Sprint Nextel, France Télécom, Reliance Communications, VSNL, BSNL, Teleglobe (now a division of VSNL International), Flag Telecom (now a division of Reliance Communications), TeliaSonera, Qwest, Level 3 Communications, AOL, SAVVIS and XO Communications.

Those companies (borrowed from Wikipedia) , own the majority of the backbones. A few small government lines still exist, and there are some educational ties that link into these. VERY few educational backbones come in at IXPs. Every person on the internet in some way or another pays money to these companies, and everyone's information is distributed and controlled by these companies.

Further, companies control the domain names as well, and can control whether or not you get to keep your domain name, how traffic reacts along your domain name, whether or not your domain points to your IP address, etc.

As for affirmative action, no, I don't support affirmative action, but that is apples and oranges to this. On the net, every packet IS treated as neutral by default. It takes an effort to make packets NON neutral. Affirmative action is taking a situation of neutrality, and then applying an effort to make some people non-neutral, and giving them preference.

Now, just to show you how "owned" things are..

Let's take RPF.

The Registrar is Godaddy. That's one company.
The Nameserver is owned by softlayer. That's a datacenter.
The IP address too, is owned by Softlayer. They own all IPs from 74.86.0.0 to 74.86.255.255
Softlayer gets its bandwidth from NTT America, Inc.. which is a wholly owned subsidiary of NTT Communications, which is a private company in Tokyo Japan.

See, it's all company owned.

 

[Mini-Me]

Proper legislation will protect the internet from big government or big business. Net Neutrality means just that. The internet belongs to the people. The government belongs to the people.

Take back your government and stop with the all caps and bold colored lettering.

You are like a screaming ranting car salesman for my eyes.

More specifically, each site belongs to the owner of each site. The infrastructure belongs to the owners of the infrastructure. Now, the companies who own the infrastructure think they have us by the throat...their view is, "HAH! Without our infrastructure, the sites you own are completely worthless! Bow before us!" However, as I mentioned in my last post, they forget that the only reason they even have infrastructure is because the public permits them to run their tubes through public property! Therefore, without the consent of the public to run their tubes through, their infrastructure (and source of money) is equally worthless That's why, based on property rights, state and local governments can act on behalf of the public to force telecom companies to agree to certain terms (like net neutrality) in exchange for the privilege of running their tubes through public property.

This is an angle that people easily miss, and I think it's a shame. Although I mistrust all government when it comes to regulating business (as you can see by local monopoly contracts, even local governments can be corrupted), there really is an easy solution based on property rights that can be implemented without the "help" of unconstitutional federal legislation.

 

[Kade]

More specifically, each site belongs to the owner of each site. The infrastructure belongs to the owners of the infrastructure. Now, the companies who own the infrastructure think they have us by the throat...their view is, "HAH! Without our infrastructure, the sites you own are completely worthless! Bow before us!" However, as I mentioned in my last post, they forget that the only reason they even have infrastructure is because the public permits them to run their tubes through public property! Therefore, without the consent of the public to run their tubes through, their infrastructure (and source of money) is equally worthless That's why, based on property rights, state and local governments can act on behalf of the public to force telecom companies to agree to certain terms (like net neutrality) in exchange for the privilege of running their tubes through public property.

This is an angle that people easily miss, and I think it's a shame. Although I mistrust all government when it comes to regulating business (as you can see by local monopoly contracts, even local governments can be corrupted), there really is an easy solution based on property rights that can be implemented without the "help" of the federal government.

That is my stance.

 

[Zyphlin]

I could just imagine this place if this was happening 10 years from now when the Telecoms have a stronger grasp on everything and restrictions becomes more normal.

"OMG! Those bastards over at Comcast and Cox are in the conspiracy to stop the Ron Paul rEVOLution! They've slowed our data crawl to 14.4"

 

[Redcard]

"OMG! Those bastards over at Comcast and Cox are in the conspiracy to stop the Ron Paul rEVOLution! They've slowed our data crawl to 14.4"

It's funny that there are threads screaming at the MSM for keeping RP off the air, and yet, somehow, the same MSM that owns large chunks if not all of the internet distribution stream gets a pass on Net Neutrality.

Hint: If the conspiracy is as big as you say it is regarding the MSM, you should be clamoring for Net Neutrality, not resisting it.

 

[Mini-Me]

It's funny that there are threads screaming at the MSM for keeping RP off the air, and yet, somehow, the same MSM that owns large chunks if not all of the internet distribution stream gets a pass on Net Neutrality.

Hint: If the conspiracy is as big as you say it is regarding the MSM, you should be clamoring for Net Neutrality, not resisting it.

There are ways to enforce it without unconstitutional federal legislation, though - and if we're going to be consistent in our principles, we must explore those other avenues.

 

[Fox McCloud]

UUnet (now a division of Verizon), British Telecom, AT&T, Sprint Nextel, France Télécom, Reliance Communications, VSNL, BSNL, Teleglobe (now a division of VSNL International), Flag Telecom (now a division of Reliance Communications), TeliaSonera, Qwest, Level 3 Communications, AOL, SAVVIS and XO Communications.

fortunately, Sprint "owns" most of the Internet (with Level 3 Communications, I think, coming in second, and AT&T 3rd...though I'm not sure...but Sprint is definitely #1), and they have proven to be very pro-customer (little restrictions on their EVDO access, Sprint SERO, etc).

 

[Redcard]

fortunately, Sprint "owns" most of the Internet (with Level 3 Communications, I think, coming in second, and AT&T 3rd...though I'm not sure...but Sprint is definitely #1), and they have proven to be very pro-customer (little restrictions on their EVDO access, Sprint SERO, etc).

You mean the same Sprint that powers my laptop wifi and has in the ToS:

"Customer is not to use Sprint's EVDO Service for any features save Web Browsing, Internet Mail (EMAIL) , and Internet Relay Chat."

Granted, they're better than most, and they've not come down on me for my WoW playing or my telnet, but.. still.

 

[dementedme]

no....


net neutrality gives GOVERNMENTAL control over the internet.

legislation and all that other jazz...


the internet has worked FINE this long, it will CONTINUE to work fine.

DO NOT SUPPORT NET NEUTRALITY. PERIOD.

 

[dementedme]

You mean the same Sprint that powers my laptop wifi and has in the ToS:

"Customer is not to use Sprint's EVDO Service for any features save Web Browsing, Internet Mail (EMAIL) , and Internet Relay Chat."

Granted, they're better than most, and they've not come down on me for my WoW playing or my telnet, but.. still.

XO Communications owns most of the backbones around the united states.
http://www.xo.com/SiteCollectionImages/about-xo/xo-network/maps/map_complete_1600.gif

 

[Mini-Me]

no....


net neutrality gives GOVERNMENTAL control over the internet.

legislation and all that other jazz...


the internet has worked FINE this long, it will CONTINUE to work fine.

DO NOT SUPPORT NET NEUTRALITY. PERIOD.

While I agree that federal network neutrality legislation is unconstitutional and not the way to go, your statement that "the internet has worked FINE this long, it will CONTINUE to work fine" makes me think you need to do a bit more research. For several reasons (some of them technical*), telecom companies have long abided by the principle of network neutrality voluntarily. However, that is actually about to change, and they're gearing up to discriminate for and against certain kinds of traffic based on whatever criteria they choose (source, destination, what kind of packet it is, what protocol is being used, etc.). Don't kid yourself; this is a huge problem for the Internet as a whole and "subversive" sites like this one in particular. However, federal regulation is still not the way to go (this can be fixed by either opening up the ISP market to competition and making it a true free market, or by state and local governments invoking property rights on the public property the ISP's are given the privilege of running their infrastructure through).

*One of the biggest technical reasons why telecom companies have abided by the network neutrality principle (which is precisely what made the Internet a bastion of free speech in the first place) is because the old IPv4 standard was based on routing packets via "best effort" (kind of like, "first come, first serve"), but the newer IPv6 standard includes provisions for QoS, or "quality of service," which makes it easier to give "different levels of service" to different packets based on various factors that I mentioned above.

 

[hypnagogue]

The internet is too important to leave up to our current corporate culture. When the day comes that we can once again rely on the markets to give the people what they desire, then we can do away with neutrality regulations.

We can debate individual bills, but the principle behind net neutrality is extremely necessary at this point in time. Net neutrality is simply the idea that Internet Service Providers must treat all traffic the same.

 

[Xenophage]

While I agree that federal network neutrality legislation is unconstitutional and not the way to go, your statement that "the internet has worked FINE this long, it will CONTINUE to work fine" makes me think you need to do a bit more research. For several reasons (some of them technical*), telecom companies have long abided by the principle of network neutrality voluntarily. However, that is actually about to change, and they're gearing up to discriminate for and against certain kinds of traffic based on whatever criteria they choose (source, destination, what kind of packet it is, what protocol is being used, etc.). Don't kid yourself; this is a huge problem for the Internet as a whole and "subversive" sites like this one in particular. However, federal regulation is still not the way to go (this can be fixed by either opening up the ISP market to competition and making it a true free market, or by state and local governments invoking property rights on the public property the ISP's are given the privilege of running their infrastructure through).

*One of the biggest technical reasons why telecom companies have abided by the network neutrality principle (which is precisely what made the Internet a bastion of free speech in the first place) is because the old IPv4 standard was based on routing packets via "best effort" (kind of like, "first come, first serve"), but the newer IPv6 standard includes provisions for QoS, or "quality of service," which makes it easier to give "different levels of service" to different packets based on various factors that I mentioned above.

You're throwing out a lot of techno-jargon that most people here won't understand, but in essence, you're not talking about *content.*

Free-speech on the internet is not going to be compromised by IPv6. That's absurd. Routing protocols *need* to change and improve. There are many more efficient ways to move data around, and forcing net neutrality simply hinders the progress of the technology.

Free markets will keep the internet a bastion of free speech and the free flow of information.

 

[Conza88]

Sure, instead of government protection of a free speech outlet, which is demanded in our constitution, let's let Rupert Murdoch and the big telecoms buy up the net! The philosophy of liberty will really flourish then!

/sarcasm

That is not a FREE market, it is a MANAGED market - with practically NO competition & oligopolies all round.

 

[roXet]

whatever it takes to prevent THIS, I am all for.

</thread>

 

[dementedme]

but the newer IPv6 standard includes provisions for QoS, or "quality of service," which makes it easier to give "different levels of service" to different packets based on various factors that I mentioned above.


you seem to be neglecting the idea that the types of traffic that travel across the internet are DIFFERENT... if you research QoS, you will see that it is a GOOD thing, and is absolutely necessary to continue the growth of the internet.

different technologies need to be implimented in order to manage the massive amounts of data that are traveling across the internet today. its not just basic data, its multimedia, streaming audio/video, etc.

various network equipment... WITHOUT optimization... will do a terrible job at moving data, and will bring the internet to a crawl.

the easiest way to do this is via a "Fair Use" policy where providers are NOT allowed to restrict traffic other than a bandwidth cap.

look at all the other projects the government is involved in. yeah.


"In the fields of packet-switched networks and computer networking, the traffic engineering term Quality of Service, abbreviated QoS, refers to resource reservation control mechanisms rather than the achieved service quality. Quality of Service is the ability to provide different priority to different applications, users, or data flows, or to guarantee a certain level of performance to a data flow. Quality of Service guarantees are important if the network capacity is limited, for example in cellular data communication, especially for real-time streaming multimedia applications, for example voice over IP and IP-TV, since these often require fixed bit rate and are delay sensitive."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_Service



what you may be concerned about is "Traffic Shaping" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_shaping

Traffic shaping (also known as "packet shaping") is an attempt to control computer network traffic in order to optimize or guarantee performance, low latency, and/or bandwidth by delaying packets.[1] More specifically, traffic shaping is any action on a set of packets (often called a stream or a flow) which imposes additional delay on those packets such that they conform to some predetermined constraint (a contract or traffic profile).[2] Traffic shaping provides a means to control the volume of traffic being sent into a network in a specified period (bandwidth throttling), or the maximum rate at which the traffic is sent (rate limiting), or more complex criteria such as GCRA. "


now... you may be against this sort of thing... but if it's written into the companies contract that you sign when you sign up for their service, its LEGAL!
you are using a service of a private company, and they are allowed to do whatever they want with it. if YOU dont like it, you can find another ISP... which is FREE MARKET! the more people that get their internet restricted, the more people will look for an ISP that does not restrict their internet.

 

[Mini-Me]

but the newer IPv6 standard includes provisions for QoS, or "quality of service," which makes it easier to give "different levels of service" to different packets based on various factors that I mentioned above.

you seem to be neglecting the idea that the types of traffic that travel across the internet are DIFFERENT... if you research QoS, you will see that it is a GOOD thing, and is absolutely necessary to continue the growth of the internet.

different technologies need to be implimented in order to manage the massive amounts of data that are traveling across the internet today. its not just basic data, its multimedia, streaming audio/video, etc.

various network equipment... WITHOUT optimization... will do a terrible job at moving data, and will bring the internet to a crawl.

the easiest way to do this is via a "Fair Use" policy where providers are NOT allowed to restrict traffic other than a bandwidth cap.

You and Xenophage seem to be under the impression that I think IPv6 is a bad thing. It isn't - you're right about that! Routing protocols do need to change in order to feed the expansion of the Internet. HOWEVER, the point I was getting across is that this newer protocol/technology allows for our ISP's to do some very anticonsumer things that were not easily possible before. In other words, I'm not arguing that IPv6 is bad, as you and Xenophage seem to think; I'm merely arguing that it DOES change the ballgame. I was explaining to you why net neutrality is becoming an issue now, after all of these years. We are moving into a new era with this, and things aren't just going to stay the same way they always have been (with companies voluntarily enforcing net neutrality).

<SNIP>

now... you may be against this sort of thing... but if it's written into the companies contract that you sign when you sign up for their service, its LEGAL!
you are using a service of a private company, and they are allowed to do whatever they want with it. if YOU dont like it, you can find another ISP... which is FREE MARKET! the more people that get their internet restricted, the more people will look for an ISP that does not restrict their internet.

As I've mentioned, I agree that the federal government has no place forcing net neutrality with legislation (besides, it's unconstitutional). However, you need to get one VERY important thing through your head - and repeat after me:
We do not have a free market with ISP's!!! To think that we do is simply delusional. The whole reason the net neutrality thing is becoming an issue is because government involvement has destroyed any semblance of free market competition in the ISP market! You seem to be under the impression that the free market will solve everything, and while I would agree if we actually had a free market, our situation is very, very different. Local governments give cable and phone companies monopolies through contracts (for instance, 15-year exclusivity contracts based on which company wined and dined the politicians the best). Furthermore, although the situation is a bit complicated (the regulations aren't as bad as they used to be), the federal government also plays a role here in limiting competition. We need to change this if we want any hope of a free market.

However, we need to be realistic: It doesn't look like we're going to get a free market back for a long time...therefore, rather than rolling over and letting government-mandated monopolies dictate terms to us, we can actually take advantage of a very ironic fact about property rights: In order to function at all, these "private" ISP's (at all levels - local, regional, and backbone) absolutely have to route their own infrastructure through public property! In other words, we the people have the right to deny them this privilege or impose conditions on such a privilege (such as - you're not allowed to "traffic shape" if you want to make use of such a privilege). These telecom companies do not have some God-given inalienable right to route their pipes through public property and then turn around and claim that their networks are wholly theirs and to use them, we have to agree to whatever terms they set. It doesn't work that way - the door swings both ways.

 

[Xenophage]

You and Xenophage seem to be under the impression that I think IPv6 is a bad thing. It isn't - you're right about that! Routing protocols do need to change in order to feed the expansion of the Internet. HOWEVER, the point I was getting across is that this newer protocol/technology allows for our ISP's to do some very anticonsumer things that were not easily possible before. In other words, I'm not arguing that IPv6 is bad, as you and Xenophage seem to think; I'm merely arguing that it DOES change the ballgame. I was explaining to you why net neutrality is becoming an issue now, after all of these years. We are moving into a new era with this, and things aren't just going to stay the same way they always have been (with companies voluntarily enforcing net neutrality).





As I've mentioned, I agree that the federal government has no place forcing net neutrality with legislation (besides, it's unconstitutional). However, you need to get one VERY important thing through your head - and repeat after me:
We do not have a free market with ISP's!!! To think that we do is simply delusional. The whole reason the net neutrality thing is becoming an issue is because government involvement has destroyed any semblance of free market competition in the ISP market! You seem to be under the impression that the free market will solve everything, and while I would agree if we actually had a free market, our situation is very, very different. Local governments give cable and phone companies monopolies through contracts (for instance, 15-year exclusivity contracts based on which company wined and dined the politicians the best). Furthermore, although the situation is a bit complicated (the regulations aren't as bad as they used to be), the federal government also plays a role here in limiting competition. We need to change this if we want any hope of a free market.

However, we need to be realistic: It doesn't look like we're going to get a free market back for a long time...therefore, rather than rolling over and letting government-mandated monopolies dictate terms to us, we can actually take advantage of a very ironic fact about property rights: In order to function at all, these "private" ISP's (at all levels - local, regional, and backbone) absolutely have to route their own infrastructure through public property! In other words, we the people have the right to deny them this privilege or impose conditions on such a privilege (such as - you're not allowed to "traffic shape" if you want to make use of such a privilege). These telecom companies do not have some God-given inalienable right to route their pipes through public property and then turn around and claim that their networks are wholly theirs and to use them, we have to agree to whatever terms they set. It doesn't work that way - the door swings both ways.

You brought up some good points and you're right, most utility companies hold monopolies through contracts with local governments - especially phone companies. Where I live there is a bit of competition between the phone and cable companies to provide high bandwidth internet, but it could certainly be *more* competition.

When everyone started getting online in the 90's with dial-up modems, ISP's were everywhere and there was very heavy competition in the industry, with lots of locally owned small businesses offering service. Broadband killed the little guy ISP, but only because phone and cable companies held a monopoly on providing the technology.