All of this will work if Verizon kills net neutrality. That's what VZW is banking $4.4 billion on.
The resolution of disapproval Rep. Doug Collins just introduced would destroy Net Neutrality and invalidate the new FCC rules.
Millions of people urged the FCC to pass these protections, which are based on decades of solid law and a bipartisan legal framework.
I urge you to stand with Team Internet and speak out in opposition to this resolution.
Regardless of the FCC ruling, the politics of the Net Neutrality fight boil down to any combination of court challenges or congressional attemptes to undermine the FCC ruling. $ 57k (the second industry on this list) might be a tidy amount for either of us to earn annually, but it is a drop in the bucket for most internet service providers. I'd be willing to bet that it would make for a very nice luncheon with the ladies for my ISP.
Bad news: we cannot give up the fight for net neutrality any time soon.
President Obama and the FCC have taken a stand to protect the Internet’s future, but the cable companies are spending millions to block them and turn this into a partisan issue. We have days to show Congress that the public fully supports Obama’s call
The next few days are critical to keep corporations from killing the Net as we know it.
Verizon alone has spent $100 million lobbying for new powers to decide which sites load fast (hint: if you're a huge company paying Verizon big bucks, your site will fly; if you’re a citizen journalist or a cash-strapped startup, good luck).
FCC regulators just proposed strong new rules prohibiting Internet discrimination. The biggest threat now is fear of a Republican backlash in Congress to strip the FCC’s authority if they do the right thing.
Sign the petition to Congress not to kill Internet equality. When we get enough signatures to show the public is concerned, Avaazers will descend on the US Capitol to deliver our call directly to key Senate and House committees.
The Internet has always been a level playing field for anyone to put out content, creativity, innovation and information. It’s what’s made independent media outlets like Democracy Now! reach a massive audience that would otherwise be left to choose from corporate media channels like Fox News. This principle, that all sites have equal access to reach people through the same internet, is called Net Neutrality.
President Obama recently demanded the "strongest possible rules" to protect the Internet and his top regulator has indicated that he'll follow through. With a citizen brigade from around the country, we can show Congress -- in person -- that we're not going away until the free Net is fully protected.
The corporate censors, and the politicians whose elections they bankroll, are fighting tooth and nail. We've got to speak up now to prevent this 21st Century corporate censorship.
Your part to play in this is signing this petition.
Cuban, like so many successful businessmen, is a devotee of Ayn Rand and her writings on Objectivism. He has often argued for the purest form of laissez-faire capitalism, in which the best ideas and execution win out, free from onerous government rules and regulations. Net neutrality, he assures us, would enrage Rand and will ruin the internet, just like government intervention wrecked the railroads.
But here’s the thing: our internet service providers don’t exist in a true free market. Cable providers and telecom companies function like utilities in many respects, with a single provider blessed by the government to tear up the roads and move through private property to lay the infrastructure needed to deliver this data. That’s why President Obama, among others, has called for the FCC to reclassify broadband internet service as a utility. And it's why Verizon, when it needs to lay fiber for its FiOS service, calls itself a Title II common carrier, in order to get taxpayer subsidies and rights of way for construction
What Cuban and many others fail to grasp is that net neutrality has always been about ensuring those monopolistic internet providers don’t play favorites. Open internet advocates don’t want things to change, but rather to stay the same. Net neutrality has always been about preventing rich incumbents from stomping out new ideas. It’s actually about fostering just the kind of world Cuban and Rand claim to love. It’s shameful that a man who benefited so greatly from that level playing field is now advocating to destroy it.
I beleive that saying that acolytes of Ayn Rand explicitly support laissez-faire markets gives them much more credit than they deserve. Laissez-Faire economics works when you want to get some for yourself; but after you get enough money to buy a professional sports team and would like to hold on to it, you don't give a damn about those kinds of principles.
Source: theverge.com
I asserted that Clyburn had deleted all of her comments on an IAmA session on Reddit. I was mistaken, the comments had not been deleted, but had been down voted in to the earth's molten core. It's part and parcel of Reddit's algorithm: a program lets the community regulate content that appears, lest a very keen observer can save the URL of a pummeled comment. It's something that the source Huff Po article doesn't tell you.
After reading Clyburn's insultingly insincere replies on the IAmA, I don't feel particularly motivated to apologize for my mistake. It's just one of the pitfalls of relying on Huffington Post as a record of events — one simply cannot expect complete and thorough work from that publication; this event was my turn to draw a short straw from HuffPo.
One of the ways that the TPP fails to accommodate the needs of 21st century technology is by locking the US into its current rules for when online service providers should be liable for others’ infringement, in addition to subtly chipping away at the protections given to online service providers.
They say that I've been spinning my wheels here...nice.
Source: tppinfo.org
{snip}
The FCC is an independent agency, and ultimately this decision is theirs alone. I believe the FCC should create a new set of rules protecting net neutrality and ensuring that neither the cable company nor the phone company will be able to act as a gatekeeper, restricting what you can do or see online. The rules I am asking for are simple, common-sense steps that reflect the Internet you and I use every day, and that some ISPs already observe. These bright-line rules include:
- No blocking. If a consumer requests access to a website or service, and the content is legal, your ISP should not be permitted to block it. That way, every player — not just those commercially affiliated with an ISP — gets a fair shot at your business.
- No throttling. Nor should ISPs be able to intentionally slow down some content or speed up others — through a process often called “throttling” — based on the type of service or your ISP’s preferences.
- Increased transparency. The connection between consumers and ISPs — the so-called “last mile” — is not the only place some sites might get special treatment. So, I am also asking the FCC to make full use of the transparency authorities the court recently upheld, and if necessary to apply net neutrality rules to points of interconnection between the ISP and the rest of the Internet.
- No paid prioritization. Simply put: No service should be stuck in a “slow lane” because it does not pay a fee. That kind of gatekeeping would undermine the level playing field essential to the Internet’s growth. So, as I have before, I am asking for an explicit ban on paid prioritization and any other restriction that has a similar effect.
{/snip}
Every now-and-then, something good comes out of the Obama Administration
Also, there was this action that kept FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler from getting to work this morning:
I have to say that Wheeler did an inadequate job of engaging in a dialogue with the protesters. I will tell him as much and I invite you to do the same. As self serving as this suggestion may be, do include the URL to this post in your comment to Wheeler.
Prominent Latino civic organizations who represent our communities' interests are opposing policies that would keep the Internet open— policies that are critical for Latino communities to thrive in the 21st century —while benefitting the telecommunications industry, which doles out millions to these groups in exchange for their support at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
When Latino groups like the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) speak out against policies that will protect an open Internet, it gives cover to telecom efforts to boost their profits.
Join us in telling the FCC that groups who oppose an open Internet don’t speak for us.
The Internet as we know it is under attack like never before. And now some members of Congress are ramping up the fight.
Rep. Bob Latta has introduced a bill that would prevent the FCC from reclassifying Internet service providers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon as common carriers. This is the exact opposite of what will protect the open Internet.
Reclassifying broadband under Title II of the Communications Act is the only way to protect real Net Neutrality.
A vote for this bill is a vote against the open Internet.
Tell your representative to reject this bill.
This is a potentially tragic turning point in American politics and policy. We are on the verge of turning over the internet – the most important communications system ever invented– to telecoms that grew huge through the government granting them monopoly status. Barring a genuine shift in policy or a court stepping in to ensure fair treatment of captive customers – or better yet, genuine competition – companies like Verizon and Comcast will have staggering power to decide what bits of information reach your devices and mine, in what order and at what speed. That is, assuming we're permitted to get that information at all. Do we want an open internet? Do we want digital innovation and free speech to thrive? If we continue down the regulatory road pursued by the former cable and wireless industry lobbyist Tom Wheeler, all of those good things will be in serious jeopardy.
Did you know that Wheeler has a comment page? Do you care enough about the way that the internet is presented to you to tell him what a rotten rule he has proposed? Are you genuinely upset to enough about the death of net neutrality to actually write someone who has something to do with it?
Source: theguardian.com
People everywhere understand that the Internet is a crucial driver of free speech, innovation, education, economic growth, creativity and so much more. They demand real Net Neutrality rules that protect Internet users from corporate abuse.
But the Federal Communications Commission is proposing rules that would kill — rather than protect — Net Neutrality and allow rampant discrimination online.
Under these rules, telecom giants like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon would be able to pick winners and losers online and discriminate against online content and applications. And no one would be able to do anything about it.
We must stop the FCC from moving forward with these rules, which would give the green light to ISPs eager to crush Net Neutrality.
The agency can preserve Net Neutrality only by designating broadband as a telecommunications service under the law. Anything else is an attack on our rights to connect and communicate.
Tell FCC Chairman Wheeler to throw out his proposed rules. Demand nothing less than real Net Neutrality.
In an already uncompetitive market with high prices that keep going up and up, a merger of the two biggest cable companies should be unthinkable.
This deal would be a disaster for consumers and must be stopped.”
Source: thewrap.com
Latinos and other people of color have long faced discrimination at the hands of mainstream media. What is exciting for us about the internet is that we are able to share our own stories fairly and accurately, to push back against discrimination, to organize our community for positive change, and even in many cases to earn a living. So this is vitally important for communities of color.
And it's also vitally important for anyone who does not have broadband today. Nearly a million Americans, mostly black and brown people, have no broadband access at home. This is an opportunity to divide. It's a digital divide that is creating further barriers for some of our most disenfranchised communities to get equal access to education, to job applications, to healthcare, to civic engagement opportunities, and to get informed and communicate with their family and friends.
And so it's vitally important that the FCC go back to the drawing board, reclassify broadband providers as common carriers, and get the ball rolling to not only ensure equality and network neutrality on the internet, but also expand federal policies that help make broadband more affordable. It has an authority problem right now that is related to this case. And if it asserts Title II authority and treats broadband providers as common carriers, there are a variety of options that they can pursue to help make broadband more affordable so that our communities start getting more and more connected.
Latinos, the Latino community is one of the least connected communities. Just over 50 percent of Latinos in the U.S. have broadband internet access at home. That number drops to 38 percent for Spanish speakers. And so we really need to close the divide.
And one way to do it would be for the FCC to assert its authority over broadband and ensure that it's actually affordable, because it's not today. We have some of the most expensive and least of--and slowest (excuse me) internet of many of our allies in the international community. And so we need to change that.
Gonzalez is covering the transmission end of the pipe. What isn't covered in this piece is that Latinos have little access to the reception of he pipe.
Source: therealnews.com
Verizon struck the final blow against Net Neutrality when a federal appeals court ruled in its favor and struck down the Federal Communications Commission’s Open Internet Order. The FCC must take action now to stop the corporate takeover of the internet. I just signed a petition about this. It only takes a moment at the link .
So who lost net neutrality? Tasked by President Obama with codifying the principle, the previous chairman of the F.C.C., Julius Genachowski, was cowed, leading to the present debacle. In 2010, the F.C.C. introduced formal net-neutrality rules, in what it called the Open Internet Order. Genachowski, inexcusably, did not use his agency’s main authority over wire communications to enact it. Since its creation, the F.C.C. has had the authority to police all communications by wire in the United States. Instead, Genachowski grounded the rules in what is called—in legal jargon—the agency’s “auxiliary authority.” If the F.C.C. were a battleship, this would be the equivalent of quieting the seventeen-inch-inch guns and relying on the fire hoses.
What could possibly have convinced the agency to pursue a legal strategy that any law student could see was dubious? As in any big mistake, there were compounding errors. Members of Congress threatened to strip the F.C.C. of some of its powers if it enacted the rules with the full weight of its legal authority. (Indeed, Congress tried and failed to overturn the Open Internet Order.) A.T. & T. warned that it would cancel its ongoing effort to become a cable company, threatening to tar the agency with job losses. One senior F.C.C. staffer told me that it would have unduly affected the stock prices of the telecom firms. The agency also had a Kool-Aid-drinking problem; it started to believe its own legal arguments, however weak. Altogether, it was a cowardly reaction to empty political threats.
Tom Wheeler, the new chairman of the F.C.C., now has the unfortunate task of dealing with strategic errors made by his predecessor. Restoring the agency’s long-standing authority over broadband telecommunications is much simpler than it appears. Wheeler needs only to reaffirm that, for Internet firms that want to send information to customers, broadband is a “telecommunications service,” meaning that the F.C.C. has the authority to regulate it. He has both the time and the votes to do so.
It is possible that Wheeler will do nothing, confirming the suspicions of his critics. But it is hard to imagine that he wants to be the man at the helm as the F.C.C. fades, pricing wars break out, and the Internet stagnates into a version of cable television. To be sure, in the short term, one can attract plenty of praise within Washington for not doing one’s job. But Wheeler has been around long enough to understand both the importance of legacy and the judgment of history.
Again, who killed Net Neurality?
As in any big mistake, there were compounding errors. Members of Congress threatened to strip the F.C.C. of some of its powers if it enacted the rules with the full weight of its legal authority.
Thanks again, Congress....
Source: newyorker.com
Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) won its challenge to U.S. open-Internet rules as an appeals court said the Federal Communications Commission overreached in barring broadband providers from slowing or blocking selected Web traffic. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington today sent the rules back to the FCC, which may attempt to rewrite them.The rules required companies that provide high-speed Internet service over wires to treat all traffic equally. With the regulation voided, companies such as Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. could face new charges for the fastest connections.
Source: bloomberg.com
But what would happen in a regulation-free vacuum — essentially the wild west of the communications world — if the nation’s largest telecom company is allowed to operate with impunity? So far, public officials are not asking that question because they’re too busy praising AT&T’s announcements of billions of dollars of investment in new wireless broadband networks, supported with funds from President Barack Obama’s National Broadband Plan.
Because IP networks are regulated differently, they are not subject to rules that encourage universal access by making low-cost options available in under-served communities. The FCC also does not yet have rules for what reasonable exchange costs are with Internet-based communications.
Rules governing the networks that make landlines work prevent AT&T from telling smaller companies that connection exchange rates will suddenly double or triple for calls coming onto AT&T’s network. Without such regulation, AT&T could run an abusive monopoly with these exchange charges, leaving smaller carriers with no choice but to pay up and pass costs onto consumers. This means AT&T’s plan has the potential to drive up prices and drive down competition.
Source: rawstory.com