Control of the Internet

[tooblue]

Who or what controls the Internet may be the biggest legal and political issue our society faces over the next few years:

It's here: FCC adopts net neutrality (lite)

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...ality-lite.ars

Comcast-NBC Merger: The Hulu Rules

http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/18/com...he-hulu-rules/

No Easy Fixes as Internet Runs Out of Addresses

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/02/internet-addresses/

California Bill Criminalizing Online Impersonations In Effect Starting Today

http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/01/cal...tarting-today/

[Uncle Ted]

With the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses maybe we will finally get serious about moving to use IPv6. The spec for IPv6 has been around for at least 12 years or so.

As for net neutrality and the increasing demand for more bandwidth because of mainly video streaming I think ISPs may be pushed to consider just changing their pricing model to metered internet instead. Transfer caps are currently being debated (and re-debated) in Canada. Services like Netflix are giving the ISPs the (lame) excuse to change their pricing model but Netflix is calling their bluff:

"The ostensible, theoretical reason behind UBB is to conserve capacity, but that issue is very questionable," noted the ISP's CEO Rocky Gaudrault on TekSavvy's news page. "One certain result though, is that Bell will make much more profit on its Internet service, and discourage Canadians from watching TV and movies on the internet instead of CTV, which Bell now owns."

Given these dramatic changes, and the fact that ISPs around the world have made clear they wouldn't mind implementing similar schemes, it's no wonder that high-bandwidth businesses are fighting back. Last week, for instance, Netflix started publishing graphs of ISP performance in both the US and Canada, and it plans to update them monthly.

Netflix is also stepping up the war of words against ISPs who try to implement low caps and high overage fees:

"Wired ISPs have large fixed costs of building and maintaining their last mile network of residential cable and fiber. The ISPs' costs, however, to deliver a marginal gigabyte, which is about an hour of viewing, from one of our regional interchange points over their last mile wired network to the consumer is less than a penny, and falling, so there is no reason that pay-per-gigabyte is economically necessary. Moreover, at $1 per gigabyte over wired networks, it would be grossly overpriced."

[tooblue]

With the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses maybe we will finally get serious about moving to use IPv6. The spec for IPv6 has been around for at least 12 years or so.

As for net neutrality and the increasing demand for more bandwidth because of mainly video streaming I think ISPs may be pushed to consider just changing their pricing model to metered internet instead. Transfer caps are currently being debated (and re-debated) in Canada. Services like Netflix are giving the ISPs the (lame) excuse to change their pricing model but Netflix is calling their bluff:

It's unfathomable what large corporations are trying to do, backed by proposed legislation from politicians who have media conglomerates lining their pockets. At some point the entire legislative and legal model that regulates how we access information and entertainment has to change and keep pace with the technology.

Another frightening but real aspect of these issue is that the Internet is becoming less and less anonymous, especially with social networking acting as a defacto funnel to the Web and the deposits of information found on servers the world over. I read an article citing a study recently (can't find the link right now) that suggested more people access Facebook in a day, using it as search for information tool than they access and use Google. Imagine all of your search habits and results being tied directly to your Facebook profile. It's a marketers dream come true ... a dream that's already, in part, reality.

[wuapinmon]

http://qz.com/165238/the-biggest-land-rush-in-the-history-of-the-internet-begins-on-february-4/

Massive domain changes tomorrow. This is a well-written article that'll take you about 10 minutes to read.

[Uncle Ted]

http://qz.com/165238/the-biggest-lan...on-february-4/

Massive domain changes tomorrow. This is a well-written article that'll take you about 10 minutes to read.

Cool… I am going to register "UncleTed.WTF".

[wuapinmon]

Cool… I am going to register "UncleTed.WTF".

Be sure to lock down www.UncleTed.sucks

[Katy Lied]

How can 3 men, none of them publicly elected officials, cancel net neutrality?

[Topper]

How can 3 men, none of them publicly elected officials, cancel net neutrality?

Beware the power of the Bureaucrat!

[Paperback Writer]

How can 3 men, none of them publicly elected officials, cancel net neutrality?

The same way net neutrality was instituted in the first place.

February 26, 2015 – FCC passes the Title II Net Neutrality Rules. “In a 3–2 party-line vote, the FCC passes open internet rules applying to both wired and wireless internet connections grounded in Title II authority
December 14, 2017 – The FCC votes 3 to 2 in favor of reversing Title II regulations

[Moliere]

Embedded Tweet

Apparently gays won’t be controlling the internet.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[All-American]

Good work, Pai.

[Goatnapper'96]

The same way net neutrality was instituted in the first place.

February 26, 2015 – FCC passes the Title II Net Neutrality Rules. “In a 3–2 party-line vote, the FCC passes open internet rules applying to both wired and wireless internet connections grounded in Title II authority
December 14, 2017 – The FCC votes 3 to 2 in favor of reversing Title II regulations

This is becoming the direction of our democracy. It is becoming like a rivalry in sports. Whatever the opponent does our side will seek to undo when we win the rivalry game. Net Neutrality = the goal posts at Ravsten Stadium.

As a rural facilities based and owned ISP provider I do think that the content providers should participate in the costs of extending and improving the network. But in the end I tend to believe the same things that happened before network neutrality were what happened while we had network neutrality and will be the same things that happen now that network neutrality is reversed.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I used to be a net neutrality disciple but I am ambivalent at this point. It seems like some of the arguments against this recent action are grossly overblown.

[SCcoug]

I used to be a net neutrality disciple but I am ambivalent at this point. It seems like some of the arguments against this recent action are grossly overblown.

Same.

[Goatnapper'96]

I used to be a net neutrality disciple but I am ambivalent at this point. It seems like some of the arguments against this recent action are grossly overblown.

I really believe in most markets there is adequate competition to prevent the facility based ISP from slowing content. It is a solution in search of a problem. Even Pai's rules demand that network operations be made public. Slowing Netflix content for the benefit of your Comcast movie cache business makes no sense to me from a business perspective, but I suppose I could be wrong. Further, the real money in the internet is in browsing history and this puts the ISP on equal ground with the silicon valley content giants wrt that valuable info.

I do this for a living and I am convinced this is much ado about nothing.

Let me be clear there were aspects of President Obama's administration that slowed down business investment and facility deployment in the telecom sector. I think most sane people realize he was a fairly liberal ideologue. IMO, Net Neutrality was an indicator of that. A solution to an imagined problem that fired up wanker liberals to make them feel like they were living in the glory days of freedom rock, so turn it up man! But there were many reasons that investment under the Obama Presidency was slow, part of which was just the lingering economic malaise that while Obama might not have helped he certainly wasn't culpable in creating. Part was also how his administration ran things. However, to take that stew and attempt to pin the blame on net neutrality to justify reversing it is dumb. But that is what we are becoming as a people. All too many of us are dumb enough to believe it really was about freedom rock man and then all too many are dumb enough to believe freedom rock man is why google fiber decided to discontinue its fiber to the prem deployments.