Mozilla asks FCC to unleash the nuclear option on net neutrality Mozilla has filed a formal request to the US Federal Communications Commission asking it to reclassify internet-provision and content-provider's traffic under Title II of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which would ensure the net remains neutral. The Firefox firm's proposal is twofold. First, it petitions the FCC to …
Ah but it does have a price or a cost if you like. There's paywals for site specific information (content) and also the cost/price of delivery of the information (ISP) The catch is that we as consumers/users/customers shouldn't pay more for the delivery of that information.
For example: If the ISP is charged more, for say delivering Reuter's information and less for, say Fox News information, which one is the ISP going to pay for? Which one will they charge you for? It can come down to economic censorship. If no ISP wants to pay for Reuter's, you won't have a choice.
Paywalls on the destination sites are one thing. The ISP and other carriers putting up a paywall between you and your destination is another matter.
If a company wants to hide behind a paywall, that is its decision - and your decision as to whether it is worth paying for. Being forced behind somebody else's paywall, whether they want to be or not, is another matter entirely.
I left claranet when it vectored all my web requests to a site demanding money before they would let me continue surfing.
I had paid my bill on time fir years. Now they didnt trust me to do it and pay the bandwidth surcharge?
Hell they lost my business forever.
The answer is simply: If your ISP is throttling you, change to one that doesn't.
IF BT, Virgin et al want to be content providers that's their business. It doesn't have to be yours.
If Netflix wont push packets down a 'free' network that is also their business. And doesn't have to be yours.
The answer is simply: If your ISP is throttling you, change to one that doesn't.
Easier said than done. Many people are in captive markets where the only way to switch from an ISP is to switch to NO ISP. It's like the concession stand at a ballpark or theater. They can deny outside food for health reasons and then charge a mint for the food inside because it's the only source available.
The problem in the USA is that, generally, there is no choice. You have one Cable provider and one telephone provider, if you are lucky.
If you are very lucky, there might be 2 cable providers in your area (Austin, for example) or you might get a VISP like Sonic (parts of California).
"The problem in the USA is that, generally, there is no choice. You have one Cable provider and one telephone provider, if you are lucky."
This is a direct result of collusion between Telcos and the local PUCs. The incumbents have managed to get local loop unbundling banned and sucessfully shut down virtually all of the LECs which used to operate in the late 20th century by simply denying them access to the network, whilst claiming to foster greater competition.
The american telecommunications setupis one of the most corrupt in the world and has been for a long time. It won't be much longer before all phone companies are the same one again at the current rate.
"and also the cost/price of delivery of the information (ISP) "
Consumers are paying the ISP for that already. ISPs want to doubledip and that's the big issue.
"If the ISP is charged more, for say delivering Reuter's information and less for, say Fox News information, which one is the ISP going to pay for?"
Why would the ISP pay at all unless they're putting it on their webpage. The contract for data delivery is between Reuters/Fox and the customer. ISPs are attemtping to insert themselves in the middle as a toll collector, forgetting that they are already charging for access.
It's rather telling that the largest proponents of this activity are the monopoly telcos which are part of the reforming amoeba which used to be the largest privately owned monopoly telco in the world.
Agreed. BUT... you can see why this is happening.
It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall in an ISP board room.
"FAST" web browsing makes them competitive. The logical business strategy would therefore be to make the most popular web destinations for their users as fast as possible.
So long as you are using those sites/services you should be OK.
BUT this results in the monopolization of t'interwebs. If your site/service is slow/unreachable due to being caught in the waves of the bigger fish what can you do? Um... Complain? Ha.
There needs to be a compromise of some sort or another but it'll take a smarter mind than mine to come up with it!
Obama is incapable of following through on any past statements and would probably just deny that what he was referring to IMO.
The man simply spin a lie on top of past lies IMO.
I would love for a reporter to read that quote back to Obama today. The reporter would get a stern look from the POTUS and an audit from the IRS.
King Obama is simply not a man of conviction IMO.
Great effort by Mozilla though.
Props to them.
"How is the Internet classified now? A floating brothel?"
It's classified as an information service, ie, the same as Google or Amazon. Regulation of information services is not as tight as it is for telecommunication services. This debate has been going on for years. IMHO, ISPs should be reclassified since they perform effectively the same function as a telephone network.
I know - it was remiss of the author not to clarify this in the article. Oh, wait - he did: "Internet traffic was designated an information service, rather than a telecommunications service, back in 2002 by the then–FCC head Michael Powell ..."
You no doubt get multiple channels, mail boxes, and routing features. Probably also call treatments allowing filtering similar to e-mail spam. I do, and I love it. The reliability and voice quality is often better than POTS and I get real service.
So you see, when we have a company who offers both internet and phone service as separate revenue streams, they won't be too interested in saying goodbye to one of them. Europe may have a hope, but in Canada and US we're hooped.
1. Obama will come out in support of net neutrality, though can't actually act on it very much.
2. In response to this, many republicans and conservative organisations will start opposing net neutrality.
Expect their arguments to focus on the evils of big government and regulation in general while extolling the virtues of the free market, paired with some overblown rhetoric trying to argue that net neutrality is a threat to internet freedom and the first stage in a government takeover aimed at eventually banning christianity as 'hate speech.'
All they will do is follow the lead of other "content companies", e.g. film studios and record companies. They will arrange to have razor-thin taxable profits in-country while for some unknown reason buying almost everything from "third-party" vendors at well over market rates. Of course, those vendors would be found to share quite a few shareholders with the ISP. Well, would be found if the IRS could actually get to the records in whatever tax haven they were incorporated.
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