back to article FCC flooded with anti-net neut letters

US regulators are only deciding whether or not they should begin the process of hammering out new net neutrality rules next Thursday, but you wouldn't think it's so early in the game by the screeching opposition. The Federal Communications Commission has been showered with letters this week penned by a terrified menagerie of …

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  1. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge
    WTF?

    Solving yesterday's problems with today's technology tomorrow

    "...net neutrality regulations could prevent web providers from offering US customers advanced and well-managed networks."

    But what has been preventing providers from doing that for the past 10 years?

  2. Version 1.0 Silver badge
    FAIL

    Can I have some of whatever they're smoking?

    "It goes on to say the proposed net neutrality regulations could prevent web providers from offering US customers advanced and well-managed networks."

    cough - splutter - we have "advanced and well-managed networks" ... well, compared to two tin cans and a piece of wet macaroni I guess so.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Verizon should become PRO net neutrality

    Verizon CEO was the man that decided one day, he would charge Internet companies money to access it's customers. So at one end the customer buys the service, but unless the Internet site also pays he doesn't get the service he paid for.

    And even though nobody paid, there is such a backlash to prevent it ever happening that they're getting net neutrality! The voters turned on them, well f** em.

    IMHO what they should get is more competition, because Verizon's CEO showed that he believes he is in a position where many of his customers cannot transfer to competitors if he did that, and that indicates a lack of competition in the market.

    IMHO, at this point the game is lost, it's retreat time, you will never get to charge web sites to access your customers and all they will ever get is a net neutrality law, or some serious anti-competition pain.

    THE TELCOS HAVE LOST. TIME TO RETREAT.

    They should head it off with a voluntary contract agreement with the FCC to not traffic shape. Verizon should become PRO net neutrality.

  4. adnim

    Damned if you do....

    A double edged sword to be true.

    On one hand we have greedy and monopolistic entities vying for control of the Internet, it's products and services in an attempt to manipulate such products and services to suit their own agenda be that altruistic or otherwise... Usually otherwise.

    Yet if that control over potential markets and profit is rested from them then what is the motivation for such entities to innovate and provide such services?

    Still I am for net neutrality, one does not need control and or dominance to make a comfortable living. Of course if one wishes to fleece the sheep, impose control and restriction, a neutral Internet is not the way to go.

    I know life is instinctively and genetically predisposed to survival, but greed? Where did that come from? It seems to be a wholly human trait.

  5. Les Matthew

    Translation

    "all claiming an open internet would hurt the economy and hinder the spread of high-speed internet networks."

    We won't be able to sell our expensive traffic shaping/filtering hardware.

  6. Anton Ivanov
    Flame

    Austine, do you have an attitude problem?

    Austine, with all due respect the Internet has not been neutral since the mid-1990es. Cisco and co are defending the possibility for it to continue to develop along the current architectural lines instead of being legislated to go on a strange tangent into the big nowhere.

    Even in those prehistoric days every node connected to the backbone was already running either WFQ or some form of priority queueing on the link making it very non-neutral. Every router then (and most now) was prioritising traffic and is still doing so. Every Linux box out there is strictly non-neutral unless you tune it to be. It will perform those obscene and blasphemous prioritisation of traffic by default. This by the way includes all el reg servers including the ones emitting net neutrality rants. It is also by the way one of the reasons why it actually works so good. Not that windows is very different nowdays. Even its rather lame network stack will perform such prioritisation as well.

    Anyway, technical realities aside, there are also the business ones. I ran an ISP as far back as 1998 whose business model was based around it being non-neutral and being able to provide a differentiated service for the different types of traffic. Users came to us in flocks from other ISPs because the user experience was way better than what they provided.

    If used in the interest of the user non-neutrality is a key in providing better experience.

    That is what Cisco and most other vendors are advocating for - not to throw the baby out with the bath water. The Internet is non-neutral at present, has been non-neutral for the last 15 years and better remain non -neutral. There is nothing wrong with it provided that: THE NON-NEUTRALITY IS DRIVEN BY THE END-USER AND IS IN THE END-USER INTEREST.

    In order for this to be possible the actual possibility for the net to be non-neutral should not be outlawed via legislation achieved through lobbists misrepresenting the goals and aims. Just like in your subtitle. It is a classic example of what I am talking about: non-neutral != closed and neutral !=open. That is a deliberate misrepresentation. Just like half of the neutral/non-neutral debate.

    In fact we should all applaude Cisco, Motorola and the others who finally intervened in this exchanges of lies and misrepresentations. It was about bloody time.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    1 Simple Rule

    Service providers should not be allowed to serve any content, or make any deals, alliances or any other form of contract with content providers.

    If the money is separate, then there is no perverse incentive, and this will work itself out.

  8. Qux
    FAIL

    Getting the agenda out into the open

    Wow! There seems to be a bigger sense of entitlement among big business than among the freetards whinging about BitTorrent throttling. Most users are already pissed off enough by their cable companies and telcos that this might just energise the net neutrality campaign -- provided that enough folks can choose between self-serving politician-speak and self-serving business PR.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Careful Now

    First of all, comparisons to smaller countries with a relatively new infrastructure are not really constructive. This is just more US bashing. I know you Brits love this but it has nothing really to do with the main issue.

    Secondly, although the motivation of "Net Neutrality" may be noble there is no doubt in my mind that the US Govt will be able to screw this up regardless. Witness their simple-minded solution to cover the un-insured by taxing the insured more heavily.

  10. tuna 1
    Megaphone

    Robot Marketing Arm(y) From Altaire Six: The Movie!

    Thousands of slave droids in their cubes assault the FCC with a veritable snail-mail DDOS, ready to shoot their lawyer-guns(like a scalding laser, only more expensive) at anyone who dares try to stop them. World domination and eternal quarterly margin growth are their ultimate conquests!

    Can the serfs join their powers together to battle off this menace? Or will Beck-E post pix of her puking last Saturday night on her Fecebook integrated Android Phone?

    DUN! DUN! DUNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!

  11. ConstitutionalAnarchist
    FAIL

    all packets are not equal

    "Net neutrality" is a vague term that the foolish often misconstrue. To claim that streaming video should be given the same priority as FTP is rubbish. "Net neutrality" ought to be about network access, not network behavior. How data is slung from Point A to Point B matters, and all traffic is not created equally. I'm certain that I'm fighting an uphill battle here, but someone has to point out that certain applications depend on consistent data feeds, while others are designed to be interrupted.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    can we have the list please

    I already don't buy Cisco or Motorola, I'd really like to know the other 40 companies to put on my "do not use" list.

    thanks.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Rotten to the core

    It never ceases to amaze me how much American politicians act on behalf of big business, rather than the people who elect them. It appears that vested interest wants to control what you can or cannot see on the net. They will win too, just as Monsanto controls what farmers in the US can plant, they want a monopoly.

  14. David 141
    WTF?

    Net neutrality straw man

    The ISPs who wanted to play favorites based on the DESTINATION of traffic (i.e. throttle traffic to Google) have now so successfully confused the issue by turning net neutrality into a debate about shaping traffic based on PROTOCOL of traffic (with the help of a few p2p junkies that know more compsci than economics) that the debate is now pointless.

    PROTOCOL is not DESTINATION!!!

    The economics is pretty simple. Protocol throttling is about cost and price structures between an ISP and their client, service guarantees and contracts. Important, but not something that can't be left to the market.

    Destination throttling is about using monopoly power to steal producer and consumer surplus from others (like Google and its users). This is pure evil.

  15. Aitor 1

    Dangers of Freedom

    Here we are warned of the dangers of freedom. Nice.

    To see the consequences of not open networks, you merely have to look at the "high speed" of mobile data services: they refuse to invest lots of money in the network, put ridiculous caps in bandwidth and prohibit competing services (VoIP, P2P, etc).

    When only a gandful of companies provide a certain service, they tend to form a cartel, and compete only in certain features.. and not the features that the clients need or want.

    What the clients want is high speed, low latency cheap and free internet acces. They don't want expensive, walled garden "premium" services..

  16. JohnG

    Shaping

    Whilst it would be unfair to block or otherwise impair access to legitimate services/content for anti-competitive reasons, if providers are unable to shape traffic types like P2P versus interactive types, everything interactive is likely to grind to a halt. However, they should be open and up front about their traffic management policies, allowing consumers to choose their provider accordingly.

    Perhaps the best approach would be for the providers to offers some demonstrations.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Why Americans are for net neutrality

    Highlighted for emphasis:

    "Genachowski said his plan is to prevent operators from being able to manipulate what's available on the web based on their own self-interests or squeeze out services that compete against them."

    This is what Americans are seeing already, and want to avoid. It's not uncommon for a telecommunications company to block, or slow VOIP packets (to avoid competition); or random resets to torrent trackers (legitimate or not), and the like. Corporations in the States don't seem to be concerned about streamlining. Instead, they are focused on making customers pay extra for the services they receive already.

  18. Ross 7

    NN is insane

    Networks need managing, whether they be data, voice, road or whatever. If you let anything happen at any time on your network, and it's relied upon by *lots* of people you can guarantee that all hell will break loose and productivity falls.

    The easiest way to illustrate it is to have every London Borough cease enforcing parking and moving traffic contraventions for a month. See how business fares then. Not very well obviously, as everyone will be doing what benefits them personally without regard to everyone else. Lord forbid you'd need a fire engine...

    The movement of data is vital to so many businesses today. How do they guarantee it? They pay for it. You can't do that with NN, because nobody can provide any better service than anyone else without a dedicated line.

    The best solution IMHO is to have networks properly managed, and legislate to force network providers to publish (on their website, with a prominent link on their index page) their traffic shaping and other management policies in plain English. That way, everyone can compare and contrast, and make their own judgement on who they want to pay and how much to get the service they prefer.

    If there is no company providing the service you want, well that's what we like to call a gap in the market - a buisness opportunity.

    The hippy crap about free networks is just that - crap.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    wankers

    The greedy telcos have had since the 96 telecomms rewrite to fiber up the whole country instead of wallowing in billions in profits and spending everything on wireless and now are beside themselves wondering if they can keep up the big ceo bonuses. hang 'em all.

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