Left In Lowell

FCC Public Hearing, Boston

8 Responses to “FCC Public Hearing, Boston”

1. Josh Says:
   February 19th, 2008 at 11:37 pm

   Yes, I’d much rather have the government in charge of what information I get…

2. Mr. Lynne Says:
   February 20th, 2008 at 5:48 am

   ????? What’s that supposed to mean Josh?

3. tim Says:
   February 20th, 2008 at 11:42 am

   I think it means he’s a not-quite-sophisticated program written by a 16 year-old libertarian. It searchs blogs for words like ‘corporations’, ‘ceo’, ‘government’ and using a basic algorithm, spits out things like ‘government, boo, scary scary’, and ‘market forces are the answer to everything’.

4. Jay Booth Says:
   February 20th, 2008 at 11:54 am

   It’s just right-wing boilerplate obstructionism. Josh, this is standard anti-trust. It wasn’t right when the railroad companies tried to take over other parts of the economy because they controlled the rail lines, and it’s not right for Comcast/Verizon to do so because they control the data pipes — if anything, control of the data is scarier.

   They can charge whatever they went for $ / bits, nobody’s begrudging them. But it is FUNDAMENTALLY important to our economy that they don’t charge more or deliver different speeds for one sequence of bits than another*. Period. And nobody’s talking about legislating a tiered content system so the gov’t controls it instead, they’re talking about mandating neutrality so NOBODY controls it except the 2 people on either side of the connection.

   *Exceptions for routing algorithms that shift packet delivery times by fractions of a second, content-neutral, for greater average efficiency and higher total throughput/second.

5. Mr. Lynne Says:
   February 20th, 2008 at 12:00 pm

   “…and nobody’s talking about legislating a tiered content system so the gov’t controls it instead,…”

   Thats what I was confused about. I found it a reach (even for Josh) to read ‘the government wants to control my information’ into the issue.

6. Josh Says:
   February 20th, 2008 at 3:20 pm

   Sorry, when I’m in a hurry I like to start with an inflamatory comment then come back to explain later:)

   The internet has brought us innovation and cost reduction at an exponential rate. One of the reasons is that government has stayed out of regulating the internet for all intents and purposes. “Net neutrality” would basically be the government’s first attempt at regulating the internet.

   Would anyone here want the government investigating the publication practice of publishers, magazines, or journals? I doubt it. But in order to enforce “net neutrality” that is basically what the government will do. Also, any new technology or practice will probably have to be approved by the government before we are allowed to use it. If you want to kill innovation then the best way is to let government give it a thumbs up or down before any of us can use it.

   And more importantly, this is classic rent-seeking by companies like Google who use up a lot of resources but don’t want to pay for it. Some of you just don’t understand that regulations beget more regulations as business divert resources away from information and direct at lobbying the government for special rules and exemptions. Jay Booth basically proves my point with the railroad example. The ICC was started to ensure competition in the industry, but look how far off it is from its mission nowadays (and even within a few years after its inception).

   The question is not “Will we have a closed Internet controlled by a small handful of giant corporations, or an open Internet controlled by the people who use it?”

   It is “Will we have an internet built and owned by private individuals competing for your money by constantly innovating and bringing the consumer what they most desire or will we have an internet controlled by a bunch of bureacrats who have no incentive to look out for the consumers and lots of incentive to garner more power for themselves.”

   I’m going to stick with choice #1.

7. Mr. Lynne Says:
   February 20th, 2008 at 3:46 pm

   Net Neutrality is already the standard. It is the standard that helped bring us “…innovation and cost reduction at an exponential rate”. It did this by ensuring that the networks’ managing of data was content and source neutral. This is very important because this is what allowed all these businesses that use the internet to have a low entry cost. This low entry cost allowed for much greater innovation because it invited more innovators rather than just big companies with enough investment capital. This is how ebay, expedia, google, myspace, etc. happened. The list goes on and on and is growing every day. Far from being a stifler of innovation, its a driver of information. It’s an innovation force multiplier. If you like the history of innovation and explosive growth the internet gave us, then you should really be on the side of preserving net neutrality, because that was a necessary component.

   Where are you getting that net neutrality has anything to do with the internet equivalent of “the government investigating the publication practice of publishers, magazines, or journals”?

   The internet is already “built and owned by private individuals” and net neutrality, as it currently is the standard, isn’t stopping them.

   I’m at a failure to explain why you think otherwise, but in the hopes that merely have some misconceptions about what net neutrality is. Here is a blurb from Google (emphasis mine).

   Network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet. The Internet has operated according to this neutrality principle since its earliest days. Indeed, it is this neutrality that has allowed many companies, including Google, to launch, grow, and innovate. Fundamentally, net neutrality is about equal access to the Internet. In our view, the broadband carriers should not be permitted to use their market power to discriminate against competing applications or content. Just as telephone companies are not permitted to tell consumers who they can call or what they can say, broadband carriers should not be allowed to use their market power to control activity online. Today, the neutrality of the Internet is at stake as the broadband carriers want Congress’s permission to determine what content gets to you first and fastest. Put simply, this would fundamentally alter the openness of the Internet.

   You may find this FAQ useful as well.

   This isn’t about government intrusion, and saying so is to misunderstand the issue.

8. K-R-S Says:
   February 26th, 2008 at 9:08 am

   On yesterday’s hearing on this issue, here is a report from the Boston Herald. http://www.bostonherald.com/blogs/news/hub_20/?p=203&srvc=home&position=recent

Leave a Reply