Federal Trade Commission & Net Neutrality ?

[sdtripper2]

Ira & All concerned:

We have an organization called the FTC, but when was the
last time you heard them DO anything?

You mention the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and what have they
done for you lately? Let me suggest you become involved and informed
about Net Neutrality and the "Internet Freedom Preservation Act "


Net Neutrality "Internet Freedom Preservation Act,"
Big Business has a thorn or a chink in its grip on we the little people, and
that is this thing called the Internet. Where freedom of speech and commerce
is working well. They would control this latest and some say the best tool
for our democracy. Beware of the hoards of lobbyists that are descending
on Washington D.C. to take even more of your freedom of speech away.
In their world only the rich would have high speed travel on the Internet,
through their premium paying business on-ramps.


lease consider becoming informed and aware of this assault, so you might
let your representatives know your feelings one way or another.

Well, I for one will be watching the lame duck session of congress this year.
The power of the Internet by the little guy having his freedom
of speech and commerce is in jeopardy.

The big phone companies want to have a two tier Internet . In my
opinion this is bad, bad, bad for our democracy. The idea is that two
speeds of the Internet is good for all we little users of the Internet. These
big money and democracy brokers who already have control of our
elected officials want to control this wide open frontier in a way that isn't
good for freedom of speech. They will charge a premium to use the higher
speed through ways on the Internet and make money from companies that
pay to have their store fronts thrust in our faces, squelching the new start
up businesses & blog users.

Two Tier Internet Service: Doc Searls has warned us before
about the danger of Big Telecoms taking over the Internet and stopping it
up with tolls everywhere. The recent consolidation news would seem to
bear out his concern. But a recent NYT article by Ken Belson
suggests they may have another strategy: One high-quality Internet for the rich
willing to pay, and a much slower, less robust, less reliable, poorer Internet
for the rest of us. This is, after all, the American way -- in education, in
political influence, in health care. Why should we expect telecoms to act
any differently?

Just a few links to brows:
http://www.ftc.gov/
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2006/10/techadeblog.htm

How Would Two-Tier Internet Work?
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=957

Net Neutrality "Internet Freedom Preservation Act,"
http://tinyurl.com/ljgbb

Key thinking here is:

Watch for Big business and telecoms to try to take advantage of the Internet
and further subvert our free speech. The FTC and congress legislation will
play a big role, maybe as early as this lame duck session.

Where will you stand when it comes to free speech and our Internet being
co-opted by the power brokers that would muzzle the masses?

Do any here have any opinions or thoughts on this subject of Net Neutrality?

[Elumia]

Steve,
It already exists. Just go to AT&T's web page.

DSL rates range from 14.99 to 34.99 depending on how fast you want to go.

Business doesn't need a law to do this. The market is defining itself. AT&T wants to offer a faster alternative to those that can only afford dial-up without losing customers to cable. In fact, Comcast also has two tiers of prcing as well.

A word of advise, call your provider, tell them you are going to switch to whichever is cheaper and they will lower your rate.

I called Comcast, told them I was going to quit there 49.99 cable plan and they lowered me to $27 for a year to keep me from switching.

When the government tells the services that they have to provide the same speed for all, we will just get collusion and higer rates for everyone.

Mark

[Joseph]

When the government tells the services that they have to provide the same speed for all, we will just get collusion and higer rates for everyone.

Spot on, Mark! If you want to screw something up, just get the government involved.

Joseph

[Ira]

Spot on, Mark! If you want to screw something up, just get the government involved.

Joseph

Spot on? Joseph's British? Is he actually George Telford?

Anyone who has this attitude about government's ability to do anything right surely can't be a libertarian.

[Sonetpro]

I work for one of the Big Telecoms. I think that the speeds that are in question are not even feasable to the consumer. We regulary install 10 Gbs for big business. I don't know of any person that would need a circuit that is capable of 10 Gigabit a second.
As far as consumer speeds, It is increasing at a fast clip. As with any other commodity, The market determine's the price.

Very high speed internet requires lots of bandwidth, lots of people like me to run the network and lots of money to buy the electronics to transport it. And yes the big corporate's pay lots of money.

[Joseph]

Spot on? Joseph's British?

No, I just hang with them a lot - mostly Scots, actually.

Anyone who has this attitude about government's ability to do anything right surely can't be a libertarian.

That is precisely the Libertarian point of view - that government governs best which governs least.

Joseph

[Nitetimes]

They been whining about something similar around here. Haven't paid much attention to it but it has something to do with video phones. At least that's what I understand.
Personally, I couldn't care less how much they charge or who they give it to. I wouldn't even want it in my house. Hell, I'd have to worry about getting dressed before I answered the phone!! Guess that would put an end to jumping out of the shower and answering the phone. lol Could make for some interesting conversations tho, just think of the telemarketers! hmmm

As for the phone and cable companies, I'm just glad the cable companies came up with a 'good' phone system that works. It's about time $print, Verizon, AT$T and others have somebody competing for phone service. They are getting absolutely out of hand for a simple residential phone.

I don't have a phone line in my house, it got cut off the house (literally) my phone is thru my cable company. My phone bill went from and average of $100+ a month to $35 a month. And I can and do call more places than I ever did. No long distance charges, no extra services charges, no time limits, just $35.

And my internet I can really bitch about, it's the fastest residential one and it's 40 bucks, not a lot more than AOL was charging when I first signed up.

My total bill for TV, internet and phone is about $135, about $20 less than a lot of my phone bills used to be. If they screw this up for me I'm gonna be lookin for people an I won't be in a good mood!!!!

[apratt]

They been whining about something similar around here. Haven't paid much attention to it but it has something to do with video phones. At least that's what I understand.
Personally, I couldn't care less how much they charge or who they give it to. I wouldn't even want it in my house. Hell, I'd have to worry about getting dressed before I answered the phone!! Guess that would put an end to jumping out of the shower and answering the phone. lol Could make for some interesting conversations tho, just think of the telemarketers! hmmm

As for the phone and cable companies, I'm just glad the cable companies came up with a 'good' phone system that works. It's about time $print, Verizon, AT$T and others have somebody competing for phone service. They are getting absolutely out of hand for a simple residential phone.

I don't have a phone line in my house, it got cut off the house (literally) my phone is thru my cable company. My phone bill went from and average of $100+ a month to $35 a month. And I can and do call more places than I ever did. No long distance charges, no extra services charges, no time limits, just $35.

And my internet I can really bitch about, it's the fastest residential one and it's 40 bucks, not a lot more than AOL was charging when I first signed up.

My total bill for TV, internet and phone is about $135, about $20 less than a lot of my phone bills used to be. If they screw this up for me I'm gonna be lookin for people an I won't be in a good mood!!!!

Rich, us deafies use the video phone. That was the best thing that came out for us. Now we can call other people that has it and it is so much faster form of conversation for us, with the old tty machine we had to type back and forth it was verryyy slooowww and our long distance phone bill would go way up. Now with the vp now we can chat just as fast as the hearing people could on the phone and sign langauge relies a lot on facial expressions. Also we can use the vp to call relay operators to call other people or doctors or what not that do not have vp.

[Nitetimes]

Whooopps, No offense meant, didn't think of that when I started my rant there.
You've got a good point, it's definitely something that should be considered for folks with disabilities and shouldn't be priced out of their reach.

[Ira]

Also we can use the vp to call relay operators...

I never heard of a relay operator until Howard Stern started playing some bits that his callers made using relay operators.

You can thell them ANYTHING and they have to repeat it.

It's HYSTERICAL.

[apratt]

Whooopps, No offense meant, didn't think of that when I started my rant there.
You've got a good point, it's definitely something that should be considered for folks with disabilities and shouldn't be priced out of their reach.

No Rich, I didn't take no offense. I understood what you ment. Different things work better for different people.

[apratt]

Also we can use the vp to call relay operators...

I never heard of a relay operator until Howard Stern started playing some bits that his callers made using relay operators.

You can thell them ANYTHING and they have to repeat it.

It's HYSTERICAL.

That is true Ira, what ever we say they are suppose repeat exact same expression. Nice thing about the vp I can lip read what the relay operator is saying (making sure they repeating what I said) unlike the tty I have no idea untill later I will ask my wife or my mother in law did you say that? They be shocked that the tty relay operator totally changed what they said!!!!

[sdtripper2]

The main issue of net neutrality is not whether they can charge more for faster speeds, its equal opportunity. Without net neutrality, ATT can decide speed on factors other than the service tier. For example they can decide to give republican sites faster bandwidth than democrat sites.

Ironically, I think it will backfire. Think about it. The only sites that will be able to afford the faster tier will be big companies. And they will do this because of their fat web content. But most people rarely spend time at big corporate web sites, they go to small sites like the T&TTT site which works fine with dial-up.

Now as they start tightening the speed screws, the little guy like me will notice that T&TTT works no better with a home cable modem than it does with dial-up. So I will drop cable and go back to $5.99/month dial-up. And all sites in general will thin down there content, which would actually be GOOD for the www . And the big sites will just be non-functional so the money they spend will just be wasted.

I remember back in 1996 with a 14K dial-up, the rule was: if the page doesn't load in 5 seconds then it was a badly designed page.

--rick

The main issue of net neutrality is not whether they can charge more for faster speeds, its equal opportunity. Without net neutrality, ATT can decide speed on factors other than the service tier. For example they can decide to give republican sites faster bandwidth than democrat sites.

Rick This quote strikes at the heart of the issue. Neutrality on the net says
everyone has the same right to compete for bandwidth and the big Corps.
want to change that for at least two reasons.

1) To make more money using the public owned service that is now free,
to the public and does not discriminate: Throttling this soon to be not free
service and charging us for it. Sort of like air and now charging for air.

2) To discriminate against the small or competitive market place of ideas
and services. From commerce to blogs where opinion reins in the hands of
the small opinion or entrepreneur now on an even playing field they as you
say will tighten the screws and make the world in their image of
accessibility features.

Ironically, I think it will backfire. Think about it. The only sites that will be able to afford the faster tier will be big companies. And they will do this because of their fat web content. But most people rarely spend time at big corporate web sites, they go to small sites like the T&TTT site which works fine with dial-up.

I might take exception to the idea of this type of calculated intrusion
"backfiring". They will choke the net and point the content to Corps that
pay for the rivers of the net to flow in their favor. Sort of like the oil
companies do now to us.



Mark my words:
Control of thought is the goal here for these parasites of darkness.
From extortion of money to political control over the masses. He who
controls the spigots of oil or the flow on the net has that power.

Examples:
1) My thought is that say you had a business the competed with I-net access
a big bell and you were relegated to slower speeds for uP and down loads.
This is what they really want. To have control of the net to the exclusion of
Neutrality. To make it for profit, sort of like what the recording industry and
movie models are becoming on the net. Free flow of information at a cost
and of course to their bottom line goes all the spoils.

2) The search engines could be skewed for faster pull up of content on
their sites and the mom and pop may not be in the top 10 search area.

Taxpayer monies paid for the Internet and it is therefore under the FTC
jurisdiction. The town hall meeting so far are running rampant with
opposition to this assault, and we as users and citizens should beware.

Look at what the FTC did by letting mega-conglomerate TV and radio stations
to buy up and merge stations across this land. For instance many
geographic areas don't have live people manning radio stations now. The
big guys just pipe in what they want, to the chagrin of the local people, who
don't have a local radio operator. When there is a local emergency or local
news it isn't reported or the airwaves aren't used for the good of the
people. There are stories about Katrina that I could talk about in this
regard, but they are to long.

My clarion call here is not just to be concerned with the cost of
service here. Be concerned to the stifling of ideas of people who now
exchange thoughts and services without the exact dictates of the
Corporate overlords. They have got your Government and most media
and communication outlets. This last frontier of the net will look more like
what you might surmise is happening in China if we aren't vigilant.



Do you really feel safe with the big chunks of our liberties being taken
away by this administration who subverts and does totalitarian actions
under the cloak of Republican, Christian values? The Patriot Act being an
oxymoron and the free speech noose now tightening around the Internet,
we might take pause and gasp when we awake from our stupor.




Lame Duck Alert: Don’t Let Senators Sell Us Out
http://tinyurl.com/ygjukq

More informative readings:
http://www.itsournet.org/ (Latest news and activist site)

http://www.savetheinternet.com/

http://www.dontregulate.org/ (Audio and video figure representation)
http://www.handsoff.org/


Cartoon: Our Bright, Non-Neutral Future
David Isenberg sends along this cartoon strip by Ben Smith. Smith
portrays a future where phone and cable companies have successfully
painted Net Neutrality as “Pinko-Commie Talk,” paving the way for
corporations “to do whatever they want.” Enjoy the horror.


http://tinyurl.com/yktnkj

Do others feel the sense of urgency that I do?
As in the name of Terrorism and the free market we give uP all that makes
us who we were, to the Imperial Corporate Overlords?