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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
 Posted - 01/24/2007 : 04:45:27 [Permalink]
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Malicious intent isn't the issue, Ricky, billion dollar monopolies are the issue.
The thing I am concerned about is our current mainstream news. For a multitude of reasons but particularly the result of profit market influences we no longer have real news. There is very little investigative reporting. It's more economical to hold the microphone in front of the person spouting the latest talking point than to pay for any investigative reporting. There are commercials disguised as news in the form of video news releases.
Most everything is formula news, regardless of the other problems this one is the worst. A 90-10 controversy becomes 50-50 because the formula says everything is a controversy and both sides must be presented, and so on and so on until there really is very little actual news at all.
Right now it is disgusting on the net to have one marketing intrusion after another in our face. Spam now attacks forums not just email. Pop ups and pop unders are so pervasive everyone has spyware protection as a matter of course. We don't need more profit motive invading the net space. There is no doubt it is crap.
Here's the real deal. The companies in question here already collect on both ends. The subscribers pay and the server owners pay. Now they want to bill even more aspects of the Internet. And is it for capital expenditures? No, the phone and cable companies already got rate hikes and monopolies on the promise of upgrading to fiber optic cables and instead pocketed the excess profit instead of investing it in new cables.
It's just a profit grab. That's all and it comes in the guise of this crap about "clogged pipes" if you want to use Ted Stevens' asinine analogy.
I'll edit in some links, give me a minute.
Start here and I'll get more stuff tomorrow.
The phone/cable companies are lying outright. Do a Google for 'net neutrality fiber optic'. You get BS about, "if we install fiberoptic we just want to be able to charge more for faster service". Really? And some law prevents that now? What law is that?
That is a fraudulent impression since nothing says one can't charge for different levels of service whether you are paying as a server provider or a consumer. What these guys want to do is more akin to owning the airwaves rather than the TV sets and broadcast companies. They want to collect money from people with the servers in order to offer them levels of service unrelated to their equipment or lines, and not the service payer who upgrades to fiber optic cables. Pay more and we'll send your commercials to anyone who wants to surf the net. They can watch the commercials and connect to their target site or they can pay us more and skip the commercial.
It's actually the cable and phone companies trying to get a piece of the pie from the internet servers' who currently own the whole thing. But the cable/phone companies aren't giving anyone anything for bullying their way in, except of course the lobbying money they are giving to politicians to pass favorable regulations.
The same regulations they already got from their bought and paid politicians when media consolidation act was passed increasing the monopoly ability of news and other broadcast companies.
I'll rant more tomorrow with more citations about all this.
Here's an excellent source of additional sources of information.
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| Edited by - beskeptigal on 01/24/2007 05:09:06 |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 01/24/2007 : 05:06:58 [Permalink]
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Media consolidation
"In 1984 the number of companies owning a controlling interests in America's media was 50 — today that number is six. (See Who Owns Your Media.) Critics of consolidation say that it has resulted in a scarcity of voices and a lack of local news coverage. Proponents say it's give the market freedom to deliver what audiences want.
Some media watchers are worried that the much-touted "free for all" of the Internet will go the same way. Proponents of "net neutrality" worry that the cable and telecom companies providing the bulk of Internet connectivity will use new fee structures which may favor some content providers over others. Below you'll find a timeline of media consolidation in the U.S., and information on the current legislative battle over the future of the Internet."
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2007 : 15:31:00 [Permalink]
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Dave W. wrote:
quote:
No, we're talking about AT&T purposefully delaying packets because a site doesn't pay for "premium" response times across their network. That's the scenario that the "Net Neutrality" people are saying will happen to everyone, and slow 10-year-old Tammy's website down so much that nobody will view it anymore. There is no reason that AT&T cannot do that right now, but the neutrality folks want to mandate that it will never happen (at least not on U.S. soil).
Yes, they deliberately delay packets because their hardware can't send out all packets instantaneously. Some may have to wait. Net neutrality is a debate about in the case that some have to wait, should ISPs be able to choose which have to wait. It's not about the ISPs charging different rates to receive a faster rate of packets, as you claimed in your original post which started this line of discussion.
quote:
Why not? If such behaviour is allowed by your contract with your ISP, and the equipment transmitting packets to you belongs to the ISP, then why must they bend to your wishes and transmit content which is objectionable to them?
All other forms of media transmission regulate their content, from newspapers to TV and radio stations. Why would you deny that right to an ISP?
Because the internet is a different medium than newspapers, TV, and radio. In all three of those cases, it is the companies (whether the company be newspaper, TV, or radio) job to get content to broadcast. On the internet, this is not the case. Such a company has to go out and actively find things to broadcast. On the internet, one must actively go out to block things from being broadcasted.
In general, you can't compare other mediums of communication to the internet because of the vast amounts of differences.
quote:
And whether or not it crosses some line of moral outrage, it's legal, and doesn't even cross First Amendment boundaries since the ISP isn't Congress.
So the conclusion follows that it should be made illegal.
quote:
What is it about your local ISP (for example) that you think you should be able to force them to provide content across their hardware that they would despise, when every other media-content "channel" is not so obligated?
An ISP's job is not to produce content, only transmit it. It is this which separates it from every other form of media.
Beskeptigal wrote:
quote:
It's just a profit grab. That's all and it comes in the guise of this crap about "clogged pipes" if you want to use Ted Stevens' asinine analogy.
Evidence, please. |
Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov |
| Edited by - Ricky on 01/30/2007 15:38:22 |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2007 : 15:33:08 [Permalink]
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I believe you are buying the false information from the corporate spinners, Ricky. I posted pages of citations, did you look at any of them?
I'll see what the specific evidence is to the contrary and post some more here.
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| Edited by - beskeptigal on 01/30/2007 15:35:00 |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2007 : 16:33:53 [Permalink]
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Here's the business argument from an op ed in the WA Post:
"If, instead, telecoms companies are required by law to charge everyone the same amount for the next upgrade, there is a real risk that the charge will be so high that only a few data heavy sites will be able to pay. But because they, in effect, will have been subsidized, there will not be enough revenue collected to pay for the new networks. And they won't get built. And the brave new world of telemedicine and wondrous economic and personal benefits it could bring-- let alone the benefits of all other kinds of uses for higher speed broadband networks-- will be stillborn."
I don't even need the citations I already provided to expose the BIG LIE in that argument. People do not pay the same regardless of service.
When I go on the net, I reach out and retrieve information. If I pay for dial up, it comes slowly, if I pay more for new fiberoptic, data will come faster.**
If you are a business and you do a lot of net business and have a large website, you don't pay the same as the SFN to have that site. You pay more or less depending on the size of your website.
So tell me where people are paying the same for different levels of service? Spammers? I wish they would charge spammers for sending massive amounts of mail. If that were the argument you'd have lots of agreement. I suspect they haven't figured out a way to charge these folks or for whatever reason the ISPs won't crack down on them.
Where is it these companies what to add charges? They already charge at both ends. They want to create a false ghost product to sell by charging for speed in the middle. They don't have to add anything to the infrastructure, just new fees and discrimination against the guy who can't pay the extortion.
You can already pay a fee and they put your address at the top of a Google search. Control of search engine results is an area that needs watching. In this case, though, competition can drive people to other search engines so at least there are market forces maintaining less not more monopoly control. The redirection of links and the misleading use of similar address names is currently annoying but tolerable. But without Adaware and Spybot programs, our computers would be constantly hijacked by commercial sites. What do you think will happen when a company can pay Viacom or AT&T to stick ads in front of your data stream? Want commercial free Internet? Pay to have Viacom not send what the advertisers pay them to send? That'll be next.
What is being requested now? That you pay a fee or they will actively slow down the file download from your site when a customer, who paid the same for service as the next guy, BTW, visits your site? You are not 'sending' information. People are retrieving it.
There was this big argument: downloading videos as opposed to text or whatever was slowing and clogging the net. What does that have to do with the source site? It has to do with the person retrieving the data, not the person sponsoring the data. The person who owns the data source already pays for a large site. People retrieving the data get the data at the same rate whether it is a big file or not and a big file takes longer than a small file if the rate is unchanged.
I get mad just thinking about this BIG LIE. People like Ted Senile Stevens believe the pipeline analogy. But data is not delivered out, it is pulled in. A big website pays for a big website. A person downloading big files already waits longer than someone getting a text file.
Fiberoptics will solve any file transfer speed issues for quite a while. Extortion fees for website owners will only put commercial control back over freedom of information the Internet gave us back just when media consolidation put a huge damper on information flow from mainstream media.
**(BTW, Europe and Japan have fiberopitc already. We paid for it with increased telecom rates and the companies pocketed the profits instead of investing in the cables as promised. They are now being sued by consumer class action suit. It's in the links I provided.) |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2007 : 17:43:19 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
The first one is a glossary. The second is a list of sites. Should I read through all of these? I'll get back to you in a month. The third is a time line focused on the consolidation on American media companies. None of these have to do with companies fighting against net neutrality in order to simply increase their profits.
Just as a note, I have yet to read your most recent post, which I'll hopefully get through tonight.
The glossary is more than just a few terms defined, it defines the issues. And the Moyers site is much bigger than just the glossary.
The timeline about media consolidation is there because it is relative to loss of access to information.
And the second citation was to the list of sources the Moyer's site linked to.
You don't need to read them all. Can you not use a variety of resources to find the information you seek? This is a broad issue. Educate yourself. Read both sides. Read what you want. Skim everything. It doesn't take long to become informed about this critical issue.
Or would you prefer I lead you only to the specific information I think supports my beliefs? |
| Edited by - beskeptigal on 01/30/2007 17:47:03 |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2007 : 20:16:43 [Permalink]
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quote:
Here's the business argument from an op ed in the WA Post:
Snip
I don't even need the citations I already provided to expose the BIG LIE in that argument. People do not pay the same regardless of service.
Snip
If you are a business and you do a lot of net business and have a large website, you don't pay the same as the SFN to have that site. You pay more or less depending on the size of your website.
So tell me where people are paying the same for different levels of service? Spammers? I wish they would charge spammers for sending massive amounts of mail. If that were the argument you'd have lots of agreement. I suspect they haven't figured out a way to charge these folks or for whatever reason the ISPs won't crack down on them.
I can't tell the quote context because I don't have the full source. However, I think you are conflating rate of packets with priority of packets, as I was discussing with Dave before. Net neutrality is not about the frequency of packets are sent. It has nothing to do with this. A neutral net sends out packets at exactly the same rate of a non-neutral net (ignoring other factors). The only difference is the order in which they get sent out. Thus, your argument about people paying more for faster service has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
quote:
What is being requested now? That you pay a fee or they will actively slow down the file download from your site when a customer, who paid the same for service as the next guy, BTW, visits your site? You are not 'sending' information. People are retrieving it.
Wrong. A client (user, one who looks at web pages) sends out a request to a http (typically) server. This server receives the request, and in response, send out data (the page) to the user. The server is active, not passive, in this respect. It is sending out, you (client, user) are not retrieving it.
And the problem isn't only videos. Massive multiplayer online role playing games are becoming more popular by the day, as are online first person shooters. On the average, web technologies are increasing the size of individual pages. What used to be HTML with a few images and maybe Javascript, now there are many pages developed in Flash. P2P networks are growing ever so popular. |
Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov |
| Edited by - Ricky on 01/30/2007 20:17:02 |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 01/31/2007 : 05:11:01 [Permalink]
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Ricky, it doesn't matter if the sender sends something, I don't get it unless I want it. IE I choose the data, not the site I visit. Except for spammers, you're just arguing semantics. I ask they send - I ask I retrieve. There is no difference.
Let's take this one concept at a time.
Do people not pay on both ends? Do people not pay for the level of service at each end? So how is it the cable companies are claiming everyone pays the same but get different levels of service?
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 01/31/2007 : 10:46:21 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
Do people not pay on both ends? Do people not pay for the level of service at each end? So how is it the cable companies are claiming everyone pays the same but get different levels of service?
And here I thought the primary opponents of neutrality were the owners of the huge pipes in the middle, not the ISPs on either end.
I pay my home ISP a certain amount every month for a certain level of service. If they are arguing that neutrality should be avoided because they've undercharged me for that level of service (a limit I hardly ever hit), then it's their problem, and they need to deal with it (probably by raising the rates they charge me).
Likewise, the SFN pays its ISP a certain amount for a certain amount of bandwidth (a limit we've never hit, so far as I know), and if they're undercharging then they just need to admit it.
Instead, it's the people with the big pipes in the middle whose equipment is getting clogged, because the people who connect on either end offer more and more bandwidth (and data).
I don't know what it costs to connect into (for example) AT&T's cross-country network, but they're obviously complaining about it. And the clear message from the neutrality proponents is to not let AT&T (for example) charge more for larger usage of its hardware.
As you've acknowledged, the ISPs on either end of 'Net communications are already not "neutral," and paying more gets more service. But what about the companies in the middle, the ones who seem to be arguing against neutrality? How are they getting paid? Can a local ISP increase the service it gives to its customers without giving the nation-wide communications carrier it plugs into more money? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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JohnOAS
SFN Regular
Australia
800 Posts |
Posted - 01/31/2007 : 16:00:57 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
I pay my home ISP a certain amount every month for a certain level of service. If they are arguing that neutrality should be avoided because they've undercharged me for that level of service (a limit I hardly ever hit), then it's their problem, and they need to deal with it (probably by raising the rates they charge me).
...
Instead, it's the people with the big pipes in the middle whose equipment is getting clogged, because the people who connect on either end offer more and more bandwidth (and data).
I don't know what it costs to connect into (for example) AT&T's cross-country network, but they're obviously complaining about it. And the clear message from the neutrality proponents is to not let AT&T (for example) charge more for larger usage of its hardware.
I think that's certainly a big part of the problem. ISP's in general are selling plans they can only just deliver. The plan I'm on (@ home) gives me a certain transfer speed (8Mbps down, 384kbps up, it's ADSL) and a certain allowable download limit (around 50 GB a month, with certain other caveats). I, like many, rarely use my "allowed" amount. Most ISP's absolutely rely on this fact. The redundancy required to guarantee that every user could always connect at their contract speed and download everything their plans allowed would put many of them out of business.
I don't like the fact, but I foresee a time when it may well get more expensive, or move to a model where individuals and companies more directly pay for what they actually use.
With some oversight to protect against blatant collusion/price fixing and other monopolistic behaviours, I don't think we can legislate in an attempt to preserve the current scenario. I believe that competition and other free market forces will have to do most of the work. Governments are notoriously bad at this sort of thing, and tend to move far too slowly to be wholly effective.
quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
Net neutrality is not about the frequency of packets are sent. It has nothing to do with this. A neutral net sends out packets at exactly the same rate of a non-neutral net (ignoring other factors). The only difference is the order in which they get sent out.
You are technically correct. However, re-ordering packets within a finite bandwidth and temporal envelope does result directly in a frequency change. If it's dispersed relatively uniformly , it looks just like a "slow down". If you transmit all the "high" priority packets first, then it looks like a lag. The two cases can result in the same "average" frequency, but with remarkably different reactions from the user.
I'm not intending to be condescending here, Ricky, I know you almost certainly know all of this. Sometimes we just don't think about the bigger picture, or the that peoples perceptions don't necessarily reflect what's going on under the bonnet.
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John's just this guy, you know. |
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JohnOAS
SFN Regular
Australia
800 Posts |
Posted - 01/31/2007 : 16:12:17 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
Ricky, it doesn't matter if the sender sends something, I don't get it unless I want it. IE I choose the data, not the site I visit. Except for spammers, you're just arguing semantics. I ask they send - I ask I retrieve. There is no difference.
There actually is a difference. You ask for a relatively large "thing". Depending on the nature of the web page or data you're asking for, there are a number of ways that data can be delivered to you. It can be changed around in order /priority of delivery, and can be routed in a number of ways. It may also have data added in a nber of ways (think of banner ads and the like). These parameters have inputs from the designer of the content, the host of the content, the middlemen who carry the content most of the way, and your ISP who finally gets it to you.
Apart from the designer, all of these groups can generally look fairly comprehensively at the traffic, perform a relatively sophisticated analysis of what it is, and make decisions appropriately. Some of this may be seen as (and sometimes is) intrusive, but some of it is absolutely necessary.
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John's just this guy, you know. |
| Edited by - JohnOAS on 01/31/2007 16:15:22 |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 02/01/2007 : 14:05:47 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
Do people not pay on both ends? Do people not pay for the level of service at each end? So how is it the cable companies are claiming everyone pays the same but get different levels of service?
And here I thought the primary opponents of neutrality were the owners of the huge pipes in the middle, not the ISPs on either end.
I pay my home ISP a certain amount every month for a certain level of service. If they are arguing that neutrality should be avoided because they've undercharged me for that level of service (a limit I hardly ever hit), then it's their problem, and they need to deal with it (probably by raising the rates they charge me).
Likewise, the SFN pays its ISP a certain amount for a certain amount of bandwidth (a limit we've never hit, so far as I know), and if they're undercharging then they just need to admit it.
Instead, it's the people with the big pipes in the middle whose equipment is getting clogged, because the people who connect on either end offer more and more bandwidth (and data).
I don't know what it costs to connect into (for example) AT&T's cross-country network, but they're obviously complaining about it. And the clear message from the neutrality proponents is to not let AT&T (for example) charge more for larger usage of its hardware.
As you've acknowledged, the ISPs on either end of 'Net communications are already not "neutral," and paying more gets more service. But what about the companies in the middle, the ones who seem to be arguing against neutrality? How are they getting paid? Can a local ISP increase the service it gives to its customers without giving the nation-wide communications carrier it plugs into more money?
OK, Dave, help me out here. You are saying the ISP SFN pays uses the "pipes" for free or pays the same regardless of usage? I don't think so. I would think your ISP either owns into the system or has a setup similar to how phone lines are shared. AT&T originally owned all the phone lines but they were split into the "Baby Bells". That included the phone lines as well.
My provider is Comcast and they own a fair amount of those cables I am connected to the Internet with. Cable companies have internet connections now rather than just local cable systems. If they connect to the phone lines they pay for the connections.
If the issue was charging for the pipes, then why not raise rates uniformly? Pay for volume not for privilege.
It is the people already charging on both ends who plan to profit from selling the middle. I will reaffirm this in light of your understanding, but that was my understanding. |
| Edited by - beskeptigal on 02/01/2007 14:08:59 |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 02/01/2007 : 14:16:56 [Permalink]
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From the unreliable but probably correct here, Wiki: "Most telcos now also function as ISPs, and the distinction between telco and ISP may disappear completely over time."
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