Imagine if you were talking on the phone and Verizon or ATT decided they didn't like where your conversation was going. You'd be in the middle of a sentence and suddenly disconnected. Or maybe they didn't like the person you were talking to, or the subject. You'd be unable to connect or your conversation would become so slow and poor quality you'd give up and call someone else. Or maybe you lived in an area of the country where they didn't want to give you telephone service. So you'd be unable to call at all. The telecom companies would justify all this by explaining that the fiber optic lines or wireless frequencies were simply their private property. They had a right, they'd say, to do whatever they wanted with them.
They can't do this because telephone service has long been held to common access standards. The Internet has similarly developed and flourished as a commons open to everyone, through what we've come to call Net Neutrality. But Bush's FCC ruled that all our new communications technologies were in a different category, effectively the property of their physical carriers. In the wake of this decision Verizon refused to distribute a text message alert from NARAL Pro Choice America and AT&T muted singer Eddie Vedder's criticism of President Bush during a live Pearl Jam webcast. The telecom companies are also pushing to be able to sell the right for websites or applications whose owners wanted them to load faster, while relegating other sites to second-class service. Such a shift would devastate nonprofits, small businesses, and all kinds of political advocacy groups, which couldn't afford the rates that the most lucrative sites could pay.
As a candidate Obama spoke out strongly for reversing this policy, promising to "take a back seat to no one on Net Neutrality." His FCC appointees were at first strongly supportive of extending the protections of equal access to online technologies (which would make moot a federal court decision based on the Bush-era rulings). But now, following massive telecom company lobbying, they're seriously wavering. Google is now exploring a private deal with Verizon, where Google would pay for YouTube content to get higher priority delivery to consumers, shifting them from Net Neutrality advocate to de facto opponent. With a final FCC ruling coming any day now, an equal-access internet is now in serious jeopardy.
In the Soviet Union, cultural commissars determined who would see what information and in what context. In the US, it's corporations, and their choke-hold is about to get tighter unless we speak out and act. The fight to keep Net Neutrality has produced some important victories as when MoveOn and the Christian Coalition joined in an unlikely partnership to help block Congress from destroying Net Neutrality four years ago. FreePress.net, who's led on this issue all along, is now organizing now to help people speak out before final FCC decision. But we'd better act while we still have a chance if we don't want to be cut off in midstream from equitable access to all the new media whose promise and power we've come to take for granted.
Paul Loeb is the author of "Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in Challenging Times," recently published in a wholly updated new edition after 100,000 copies and The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear," the History Channel and American Book Association's #3 political book of 2004. For more information or to receive Loeb's articles directly, see www.paulloeb.org. To sign up on Facebook visit Facebook.com/PaulLoebBooks
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Verizon and AT&T smartphone money prospects
http://www.phibetaiota.net/?p=27736
Don't know if this person works for one of the telecoms or is simply ignorant, but their approach is the same. Those of us who are backing Net Neutrality are in fact backing the very process through which the Net has flourished. Those opposing it want to carve it out and privatize it. And the existing examples of censorship are not hypothetical.
I believe what Verizon is doing is "edge routing", essentially routing favored sites traffic "around" the Internet. If that is true, in no way is this a takeover of the Internet, this is perfectly fine. Other sites will now run faster with that load being removed from the "main" Internet.
I'm was a software engineer, but not in networking, and I'm not sure about all this.
But I likely have more of a clue than someone with no computer background.
Can anyone point me to a technical article about all this, with the real info?
That much I'm sure of, as a 30-year software engineer with a patent on digital video, but not a network expert. I believe this has nothing to do with the Internet, just your access to it on Verizon, e.g. you use Verizon wireless or Fios, their fiber-optic network, mostly available to only urban users.
I'm unsure of the technical aspects, that's why I was hoping someone who knew a little more would reply, didn't happen. I'm pretty sure this entire thing is not what everyone has made it to be. Like I said, the author has no technical background, read his bio. No offense, only geeks understand what is actually going on here, I'd like to hear from one.
http://nbyslog.blogspot.com/2010/08/googleverizon-internet-stitch-up-why.html
A democracy requires an educated electorate. Do we care anymore? Will we just let this country become a corporatocracy?
Heck, I'd settle for one...
WHY is his FCC NEGOTIATING with ANYONE????
They run the show. Lay down the law. You tell Verizon what to do...not the other way around.
Plus this is a slippery slope. Remember back in the good old days when private citizens could not be wiretapped by the government, the good old days pre-Bush? Well, this country is experiencing 'desensitivation' where the more we get used to our rights being stripped away, the more normal it appears. Polls already show that a large portion of 20-somethings think it is fine to strip privacy rights, and arrest private citizens without due cause if it 'helps the government'. Unfortunately they came of age under the Bush admin.
And for the record, as long as wiretapping has been around, the government has been doing it. The warrantless wiretapping, however, was expanded greatly under Bush (I believe since about the 70's there was a 72 hour window that didn't require a warrant). But this is just further erosion of the separation of powers (executive, legislative, judicial). But so too is the idea of a government enforced net neutrality. Ignoring the fact that the federal government has no constitutional authority to tell telecoms what info they should provide (unless making different rules for states), the FCC (as well as all regulatory agencies) firmly violates the principles of separation. The agencies enforcing the rules also makes them.
http://tiny.cc/3tmv9
"The only way the telecommunications companies will be successful is if we fail to raise awareness about this situation. If people find out about the fact that we are about to lose our Internet freedom there is no way they will allow congress to do this."
I hate to say I told you so, but Obama is looking worse and worse as time goes by. Someone needs to tell him he ran as a Democrat, was elected mostly by Democrats and we would like to know exactly when he plans to govern like one. We could start with this issue- it's way more important than most realize.
remember once upon a time there were special charges for adding a fax machine to the telephone line...things got competitive and every one droped the charge. same here.
If the big players all decide to change the rules of the game, we're practically powerless to stop them (short of ant-competitive suits). This is why the FCC could (and should) be stepping in.
Baaaaaa
Fakes News has prospered using this strategy, operating on the theory that it is impossible to underestimate the intelligence of large groups of people.
It worked for Germany, for Italy, for the USSR and virtually all of its satellite nations, it works really well in many African countries, and it is working like gangbusters in the good ole USA.
Is it a tragedy or a joke?
Or both?
The Constitution shows the Feds have a compelling interest in commerce and the various Radio and Communications acts reserve communications regulations to the Feds. The Internet is VITAL to commerce and democracy.
What the majority wants is a free speech forum, unregulated and untouched by the same entities that own the majority of MSM. They want the Verizons, the Comcasts, the ATT's, the Googles, etc. to stop seeking and having control over any part of the content delivery except to serve as a conduit.
NO GATE KEEPERS. Nothing more, nothing less.
KEP YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF OF MY INTERNET !