Fine. What does this mean, really?

/seriously

61 Mbps in Japan, 45 Mbps in Korea, 21 Mbps in Finland, 18 Mbps in Sweden and 7.6 Mbps in Canada.

The FTC report addressed the issue of faster broadband speeds in other countries, pointing to nationalized broadband policy and

Compared to 1.9 for the US.

Will someone tell me again how having the government run something is always bad and the free market always every time runs things better than the bad ol' gubmint? I forget sometimes.

I should just try and think about something else I suppose, like health care, maybe. The Free Hand is taking real good care of that, right?

Oh shiate.

61 Mbps in Japan

Well they *do* have a lot of tentacle porn in their 'tubes

"Fine. What does this mean, really?"

If you want to see the end result, look at the cell phone networks.

If told by Congress to implement network neutrality, they'll have no choice in the matter.

Call your congresspeople.

furiousxgeorge: If you want to see the end result, look at the cell phone networks.

Okay, but ,i>what does this mean?

61 Mbps. Jesus. That's insane!

From TFA: AT&T, which had previously announced political opposition to net neutrality, agreed to temporarily abide by the principle for its network as a condition of its mega-merger with BellSouth in 2006.

So now we have a giant MegaCorporation that can do whatever it wants. The bandwidth that people use has already been paid for TWICE - once by the client, once by the host. Now they want to tack Premiums on there?

I'd say "fark AT&T", but they are my only broadband option!

This report was utter bullshiat, and thankfully the author of the article puts it much more eloquently than I could.

They say that the broadband competition is growing, but many of the "non-AT&T" DSL companies, for instance, lease their connections from AT&T!

If our economy wasn't in the toilet, I'd suggest the government taking over and laying dark fiber all over the place. We'd increase penetration, and the Gov't will get a better piece of the pie.

It's just a matter of time before the FTC has to slice up Ma Bell again.

Sorry for the incoherent rant, this just really pisses me off.

Wait I thought we *wanted* Net Neutrality. Means we won't be stopped at some server telling us we have to pay a toll to continue. The federal government already paid billions to build a high speed infrastructure, and now they want to be able to charge us more for it.

Or do I completely misunderstand Net Neutrality?

Gwendolyn: Or do I completely misunderstand Net Neutrality?

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that no one really understands it...

Gwendolyn, the problem is that virtually no one understands it, which is why this has been allowed to happen. On one hand, the knowledgeable people looking out for consumer interests have noted that Net Neutrality is a must for the internet to remain a free market. At the same time, Cable and Phone companies are pushing an aggressive marketing campaign saying that Net Neutrality will cause consumers to have to pay more for the internet.

It's understandable that people are confused.

Basically, Net Neutrality means that "all tubes are created equal." It doesn't matter where your data comes from, it has access to the same paths as everyone else's data. Basically, what the telecoms want to do is create a 'premier' tier of the underlying infrastructure, that hosts would have to pay extra money to be able to use. This is a bad thing, and is at odds with the overall purpose of the internet.

A hypothetical example: You may be able to get to Amazon.com a little more quickly than you used to, but now barnesandnobles.com is unbearably slow. That's because B&N wasn't able to afford the outlandish fees AT&T are charging for the Premier tubes. And thus, B&N's business slides invariably downwards, leaving Amazon free to raise their prices.

That's just a hypothetical, but is very feasible.

I hate when people use the term "the federal government paid", as if it's their money and have some sense of entitlement.

If the federal government pays for anything, it means I paid for it.

KrunkSplein: A hypothetical example: You may be able to get to Amazon.com a little more quickly than you used to, but now barnesandnobles.com is unbearably slow. That's because B&N wasn't able to afford the outlandish fees AT&T are charging for the Premier tubes. And thus, B&N's business slides invariably downwards, leaving Amazon free to raise their prices.

It could get even worse than that. Suppose I run a website that's critical of AT&T's privacy policies and their willingness to hand over any and all information about their customers to the government without even so much as a "hey, please don't do that." With no law in place preventing it, AT&T could completely block access to my website to every single one of their subscribers, and be perfectly within their legal rights to do so. Similar for any other political, religious, social, or any other speech AT&T arbitrarily decides it doesn't like.

ISP's should be treated exactly like phone companies and be subject to common carrier regulations and significantly higher thresholds for competition. It's downright ridiculous that I have only two choices (expensive and more expensive) if I want broadband Internet in the heart of Los Angeles.

Oh, get over yourselves. If I spend millions of my own dollars to build a computer network, I'm not gonna let *you* tell me how to run it.

mistersite: It's downright ridiculous that I have only two choices (expensive and more expensive) if I want broadband Internet in the heart of Los Angeles.

At least you have a choice. Many in rural areas don't have anything other than satellite internet, which royally blows.

I think that is what confusing. They called it Net Neutrality but it's not.

scottso: Oh, get over yourselves. If I spend millions of my own dollars to build a computer network, I'm not gonna let *you* tell me how to run it.


By "I" I think you mean "we".

And we all should have a say in how the network *we* payed to build is run.

Scottso, the trouble is that this is one giant conflict of interest. Given this power, AT&T can prevent Verizon's website from displaying for most internet users.

scottso,

Oh, get over yourselves. If I spend millions of my own dollars to build a computer network, I'm not gonna let *you* tell me how to run it.

Very true.

How that relates to the internet, the vast bulk of which was developed using public tax dollars, I have no idea.

RIP *AMERICAN* internet.

There. Fixed that for you. TCP/IP is designed to route around damage, remember?

i like free market. it is good.

That's ok; the Internets are designed to be fault-tolerant and route around douchebaggery. Just give it a little more time for the routing tables to rebuild.

scottso: Oh, get over yourselves. If I spend millions of my own dollars to build a computer network, I'm not gonna let *you* tell me how to run it.

The baby Bells were given $200 billion in tax breaks (pops) to create a high-speed broadband network, and they did jack shiat with it.

As far as I'm concerned, they owe us money.

Can I get my net spayed though?

FTA-

Majoras asserted that broadband Internet access was "moving toward more - not less - competition."

--

Fine, when it's small providers being resellers of the big two (Verizon and Comcast) but those big Two can still jack up their prices, and there's bloody little than can be done about it, ultimately the line connects to a major backbone owned by one of those two

JohnnyDanger
That's ok; the Internets are designed to be fault-tolerant and route around douchebaggery. Just give it a little more time for the routing tables to rebuild.

The douchebags run the routers.

fark you, FTC. fark you with a giant red-hot fire poker.

SchlingFo: How that relates to the internet, the vast bulk of which was developed using public tax dollars, I have no idea.

Not to mention that the Internet connections run over PUBLIC easements. That means it should serve the PUBLIC first and foremost, and striking down net neutrality, with the Internet being a utility and having common carrier status, should dictate net neutrality as a requirement.

ftfa in the U.S. is 1.9 megabytes per second (Mbps)

Mbps or MBps ??? MAKE UP YOUR MIND WRITERS!

This is what you get when you have idiots who don't understand technology devating issues like this.

Stupid guy who said the internet was a series of tubes. Idiot.

scottso,

Oh, get over yourselves. If I spend millions of my own dollars to build a computer network, I'm not gonna let *you* tell me how to run it.

I'd be fine with that... first you refund the R&D costs for darpanet, with interest, and royalties, and ancillary royalties for subsequent technologies, and we'll be on our way.

On a side note, could someone please explain to me why we dismantled Ma Bell back in the 80s?

I cant drive down the road anymore without seeing a sign that says "XYZ Company is now the new At&t". I mean, didnt we spend millions to break up AT&T and now its re-conglomerating itself.

Either way, its a monopoly. Sure, you might have two choices, but in most areas it still sucks. When I got high speed I could either go with Time Warner, or AT&T. They charge about the same, and they all have packages. It just came down to whether I wanted a satellite connection or a cable connection.

Hell, Im not even sure who owns the company I get cellular coverage through anymore.

Yeah, corporate America!
Good bye free access!

FTA - "In the absence of significant market failure or demonstrated consumer harm, policy makers should be particularly hesitant to enact new regulation in this area,"

Sooooo, it hasn't happened yet, so it won't happen ever? Is that the logic behind this?

KrunkSplein
61 Mbps. Jesus. That's insane!

It's insane in exactly the same way as a grocery store full of food is insane to some starving person from Ethiopia.

We are the starving Ethiopians of teh intartubes. It's farking pathetic.

Wow; people may now actually have to get lives...

Have you noticed it takes longer to download pictures of fat chicks than skinny ones?

Calmamity: The Free Hand is taking real good care of that, right?

We have a free-market health care system? That's news to me.

I guess they have to do something to make up for ATT letting them peek in the tubes whenever they want. Well, that and allowing ATT to turn back into the monopoly.

Ceph,

Well, there's that, too.

I was trying to keep my snideness as simple as possible :)

61 Mbps in Japan, 45 Mbps in Korea, 21 Mbps in Finland, 18 Mbps in Sweden and 7.6 Mbps in Canada.

so THAT's how people get ridiculously high transfer rate when I check out my peers on BitTorrent..... I'm using Rogers in Toronto, and I'm only getting 5Mbps down/384/kbps Up. (although I could pay like $8 more to get 6Mbps/800kbps.. not worth it imho).. still not getting 7.6 though...

Ok I'm another old guy who really does want an explanation of this, but based on what has been posted so far, how about this:

What would stop somebody from starting up a company where all the tubes are created equal? There are ALOT more little guys than there are big guys.

The beauty of the internet is that it's a total free for all, and it looks like the big guys can't stand that.

Just a thought.

BiffDangler
In Japan, everyone is paying, through taxes, for an enhanced service that they don't need.

...yet

basnappl
i like free market. it is good.

I came in here to say what you said

/what's wrong with the free market subby?

I'm not stupid but I don't have a clue what's going on here.

Are my tubes clogged now?

RabidCanary,

The pictures of fat chicks get stuck in the tubes.

Try downloading some pictures of Crisco at the same time. That should speed things up.

Why is it that more and more the only thing I can think of to say to these articles is "Goddamnit, _________."?

I bet she was hot when she was young.

Great, and as the us government refuses to make its own publications available in paper - and refuses to allow its own people to signup for it its own services using paper -- thus forcing them online..AND closes its own service offices becuase OF COOURSE everyone has a computer and broadband connection and has the know-how on how to do it (like the 90 year old lady down the road)

So they go to public libraries, which can barely afford to support the computers and such for all this anyway..and they damn sure can not afford to pay the extra fees to ensure better connectivity fees so these folks can get to these sites and get to their services.

Lets kick these folks down a bit more, thanks.

Is it ironic that halfway through reading the article my browser decided to refresh the page and I now have a 404 error?