All Things Net Neutrality

[Dirtbag59]

You think Cable Companies still wonder why people don't trust them?

Cable companies say we’ve got it wrong on net neutrality: Google could be the real villain | 9to5Google

TWC hilariously claims Google and Netflix are the real threats to net neutrality

Also FYI:
Now you can tell the FCC to overturn state limits on municipal broadband | Ars Technica

The FCC opened two proceedings, one for North Carolina and one for Tennessee. Initial comments will be accepted until August 29, and reply comments will be accepted until September 29.

These two proceedings will serve as test cases. Wheeler points to the FCC's authority to promote competition in local telecommunications markets by removing barriers that prevent investment, saying that this allows the commission to preempt state laws that prevent private ISPs from having to compete against municipalities. But he's already getting pushback from House Republicans, who voted to prevent the FCC from preempting state broadband laws. That vote may not become law given that the Senate is controlled by Democrats, but the FCC could also face a lawsuit if it grants the Tennessee or North Carolina petitions.

[Dirtbag59]

$12 A Month For Facebook – Sprint Tramples Over Net Neutrality With New Prepaid Plan | Droid Life

The new plan embodies the anti-net neutrality schemes advocates have been warning about for years. Instead of allowing data to flow unimpeded, Virgin Mobile Custom very clearly discriminates against a huge number of apps, ultimately segregating them to more expensive data plans. If Sprint’s goal, as Mr. Draper implies, is to provide the Internet at palatable prices for poorer consumers, perhaps lower-cost (the cheapest data package Virgin is offering starts at $8 a month) capped but unrestricted access with an option to pay for more might be more appropriate . Heck, T-Mobile does it free for tablets – why can’t Sprint do the same for prepaid phones?

For the record this is what people were saying was possible without Net Neutrality:


And this is what Sprint is doing:

The Virgin Mobile Custom plan, sold under Sprint’s Virgin Mobile brand, provides unlimited access to one of four social media services – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest – on top of your data plan for $12 a month. An additional $10 will net unlimited use of all four, while $5 more grants unlimited streaming from any one music app. The base plan also includes 20 minutes of talk time and 20 texts, both of which can be upgraded. Lines start at $6.98 a month, $5 extra for “unlimited” access. Plans can be adjusted on the fly, even daily if so desired.

Of course given the involvement of Vigin Mobile I guess we shouldn't be too surprised
Virgin Media CEO Says Net Neutrality Is A "Load of Bollocks"

The new CEO of Virgin Media is putting his cards on the table early, branding net neutrality "a load of bollocks" and claiming he's already doing deals to deliver some people's content faster than others. If you aren't prepared to cough up the extra cash, he says he'll put you in the Internet "bus lane".

Also look who finally decided to join the fight. Only took him what, 7 months to actually say something?
Reid Vows to Defend Net Neutrality From Republican Attacks - NationalJournal.com

[tshile]

Eh, I disagree.

The fear of packaged services being provided is about throttling or outright denying access to services unless you pay some arbitrary fee to the person you receive internet access from.

This isn't about blocking or altering the speed, it's about whether the data used for those services counts towards you data usage that is capped. If majority of your usage is over services like that, and they're now unlimited, you can lower (theoretically) your data package. I almost wonder if there's a problem with wifi usage dropping demand for higher data plans?

T-Mobile is doing the same thing with music services. They're just not adding a fee for it, they're using it as a promotion to encourage you to switch to their service.

[Dirtbag59]

@tshile
In regards to Sprint I'm more concerned with a provider essentially picking winners and losers on their own network. Not to mention the involvement of Virgin Media with their CEO outright declaring that he will put companies that don't pay up in the bus lane to be outright disturbing. You are right though in they're not blocking anything yet and in the big scheme of things not blocking or throttling sites and services is priority one which Sprint isn't doing at this time. Plus the plan is optional. However to me it represents a sign that ISP's really want to be able to turn the internet into Cable TV.

I'm starting to like Wheeler

FCC Chair Blasts Verizon For Plan To Throttle Some Users 07/30/2014

“'Reasonable network management' concerns the technical management of your network; it is not a loophole designed to enhance your revenue streams,” Wheeler tells Verizon. “I know of no past Commission statement that would treat as 'reasonable network management' a decision to slow traffic to a user who has paid, after all, for 'unlimited' service.”

FCC Chair Now Has Two Chances To Overturn Bans On Municipal Broadband – Consumerist

First up is Tennessee, where state law says that a city-owned electric utility may provide telecom services, but that it must go through a bureaucratic maze of disclosures, hearings, voting, and other requirements that a private telecom provider would not have to endure. Additionally, telecom services — including broadband and pay-TV — may only be offered to those within that utility’s electric service area.

The second petition filed this week comes from North Carolina, where a 2011 Time Warner Cable-backed bill put new restrictions on cities wanting to offer broadband service.

This story is easily among the most disgusting one's I've come across so far. Basically telecom companies are buying the support of civil rights groups.
Why Is The NAACP Siding With Verizon Over Net Neutrality?

More than 40 civil rights groups are supporting broadband providers that oppose strict net neutrality rules. The civil rights groups say they're siding with the Internet giants because it's in the best interest of minority communities.

Yet critics say many of those groups are against stronger net neutrality rules because they've received substantial funding from Internet providers. Many of the civil rights groups currently siding with the broadband giants also supported the controversial Comcast-NBC Universal merger, came out in favor of AT&T's failed takeover of T-Mobile in 2011, and supported broadband providers the last time the Federal Communications Commission ruled on net neutrality back in 2010.

In other news the prospect of Republicans possibly winning the Senate is outright terrifying. If that happens the only thing standing between the open internet and the worse case scenario will be the presidents ability to veto anything that would essentially give ISP's the freedom to do whatever the hell they want.

Heck Comcast would essentially become a good guy until 2018 because they would be the only ones legally bound by net neutrality. Of course in the short term Verizon is easily the most evil of all the ISP's in play.
Democrats troubled by Verizon's free speech argument in net-neutrality case | TheHill

In its lawsuit, Verizon claimed that it has a First Amendment right to decide what traffic to carry on its network just as a newspaper editor chooses what articles to publish.

The company said the net-neutrality rules "strip providers of control over which speech they transmit and how they transmit it, and they compel the carriage of others’ speech."

[tshile]

Yeah, it's a very, very thin line...

I just see the marketing appeal of "facebook and pandora no longer count towards your cap!" but they're doing in a weird way... T-Mobile's 'set your music free' campaign, which was essentially the same thing for music services except it didn't require an additional fee, went much better than this one.

hard to tell whether it's the start of the proverbial slippery slope, or just a poorly timed and articulated marketing campaign.

what irritates me is the number of 'tech blogs' misrepresenting what sprint's doing... in my opinion they're pouring gasoline on the wrong fire :\

[NC_Skins]

MLB Net Neutrality Comments reveal strong opposition to ISP fast lanes | BGR

Well, MLB has already came out and trashed the ISPs so I wouldn't expect anything less from the NFL. It's going to be interesting watching the cable companies duke it out with some huge corporations out there.

[Dirtbag59]

Originally Posted by NC_Skins

MLB Net Neutrality Comments reveal strong opposition to ISP fast lanes | BGR

Well, MLB has already came out and trashed the ISPs so I wouldn't expect anything less from the NFL. It's going to be interesting watching the cable companies duke it out with some huge corporations out there.

MLB kind of surprised me but I wouldn't expect the same kind of reaction from the NFL. As long as they have their money from DirectTV for Sunday Ticket they could care less. ~$20 a game (when you don't include National or Regional Broadcasts), only available to DirectTV subscribers and people who can't get DirectTV, if you follow one team and yet some people at the league office wonder why people put up with poor quality streams.

It's been stated over and over again but when going legitimate becomes a pain in the arse people resort to piracy. In essence a service problem as the great Gaben once said. Which brings me to this.

DOJ: Make Unauthorized Streaming a Felony | Multichannel

But yeah great idea. As if we don't have enough people in jail for petty crimes while guys who beat women get community service.

I guess this is the downside to get the govt more involved in the internet. However it did make me wish that there was a Napster for internet service. In every industry where providers were gouging customers piracy has been one of the greatest means to pave the way for a reliable and legal service. MP3 piracy gave way to I-Tunes. Torrented TV shows and Movies gave rise to Netflix. It's a shame that internet service can't replicate this because as long as local monopolies exist, providers can essentially get away with things they could never even attempt in a free market with competition.

In other news, oh how I would relish these peering agreements made public.
FCC asked six more ISPs, content providers to reveal paid peering deals | Ars Technica

The FCC has asked another six Internet service providers and content providers for copies of similar agreements, a commission official told Ars this week. The FCC will likely announce more details of its probe in the fall, but the public probably won't see any specific details of the contracts. Ars sent the commission a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to obtain Netflix's contracts with Comcast and Verizon, but it was denied due to their confidential nature.

"In this case, Verizon and Netflix assert, the agreement contains highly sensitive, detailed commercial and financial terms including pricing, forecasts, capacities, and network information that the parties do not make available to the public," the FCC's response to our FOIA said.

If I had to guess the capacities aspect would be pretty damming as it would likely either expose a refusal to upgrade infrastructure or it would show more then enough network capacity bringing rise to the legitimacy of data caps.

[Dirtbag59]

I swear some of these politicians are slower than Netflix on Verizon Fios. I guess better late then never but between Reid and Obama each respective politicians stories should have been published back in January not August. As I've frequently pointed out with Reid he's had more then enough time to make strong public statements against the name of an 80 year old football team name but only recently found the time to provide an updated defense towards net neutrality.
Obama on net neutrality: My administration is against Internet fast lanes - The Washington Post

The last time President Obama weighed in on net neutrality, it was to offer a vague, tepid response — claiming to support the idea without really defining how he understood it. It was a big contrast from what he'd previously said on the campaign trail in 2008.

On Tuesday, however, Obama offered a much more forceful defense of net neutrality, more clearly describing what activities he viewed as antithetical to the open Internet. Addressing reporters at a summit for African leaders in Washington, Obama said making the Internet more accessible to some at the expense of others was against his administration's policy:

[tshile]

I love what the MLB has done with the internet. They've been ahead of the other leagues by far and I think if diehard NFL fans had access to what die hard MLB fans have, NFL fans would love it.

I say that as someone that's not really a fan of the MLB.

The NFL won't follow suit - they just signed a 10 year tv deal that is closely tied to a lot of this, some of the TV companies owning, or being owned by, some of the ISP companies.

[Dirtbag59]

Originally Posted by tshile

I love what the MLB has done with the internet. They've been ahead of the other leagues by far and I think if diehard NFL fans had access to what die hard MLB fans have, NFL fans would love it.

I say that as someone that's not really a fan of the MLB.

The NFL won't follow suit - they just signed a 10 year tv deal that is closely tied to a lot of this, some of the TV companies owning, or being owned by, some of the ISP companies.

Same here. Honestly with the frequency of games during the summer for MLB I wish I was still a hardcore fan like I was growing up. However since then NFL, NHL, and NBA have drawn more of my attention over the years.

One thing I have learned though about NFL owners as a group, if they were players negotiating a contract their top priority would be guaranteed money. Every licensing deal I see the NFL involved with over the years seems to have an emphasis on guaranteed money.

Honestly I kind of feel like its gotten to the point where Congress should scold the league for abusing their antitrust exemption though I would never want the league to be rid of it. After all the antitrust exemption has helped the NFL create a uniform league where the best players and coaches can compete.

Though its kind of an apples to oranges comparison I would never want American Football to resemble European Club Football where you have the best teams scattered to maybe 3 or 4 good teams per league and no real limits on spending in hopes of creating parity. And you can forget things like the draft.

It might be dollars and cents for a handful of the owners but for the fans it's about competition.

[JoeRedskin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjOx...k0jMN&index=10

[Dirtbag59]

This is the closest I've come to a full documentary on the issue. Well it's kind of a mockumentary as the premise is 100% fake (guy doing market research for the ISP's on how to kill Net Neutrality) but the actual information is true. Ironically enough it features the PC guy from the I'm a Mac-PC commercials as a telecom lobbyist. It also features interviews with probably two of the biggest advocates for Net Neutrality in Tim Wu and Susan Crawford.

And no it's not a 30 minute commentary where a guy sits in front of a webcam giving a stump speech.

[Dirtbag59]

So now there's a second phone call that's gone viral.

If You Thought You Were Mad At Comcast Before, Listen To This Phone Call

All is fine until a week or two later when Davis receives a bill that includes $99.99 for “Failed Self Install,” another $32 for “Failed Video [Self Install Kit], and $49.95 for “Wireless Network SET Up.” That’s $181.94 in total:

“Every time we send out a technician there’s a $50 charge for that,” she explains.

“Well, I have a call recorded where the agent tells me in no uncertain terms that there will be no charge,” counters Davis. “You can not bill me for something that I did not authorize. You can not tell me that it’s free, then bill me anyway and then tell me that you can not un-bill me or credit me for the bill.”

“I apologize for that, but there’s no way that I can credit the account,” says the rep, desperately trying to jump back on to her script. “We value you as a customer, that’s why I am trying to check what I can give you.”

[Dirtbag59]

Net neutrality? The FCC's public commenters were overwhelmingly in favor - The Week

More than 30 percent of the comments were from letters or templates, primarily from five major advocacy groups — four in favor of net neutrality, one opposed — and Quid collapsed each template into one comment. The largest cluster of comments (15 percent) focused on how a pay-to-play system — proponents call it a fast-lane for web services willing to pay and a regular lane for everybody else — would harm the diversity of the internet.

But "taken with the entire body of comments sampled, there weren't enough unique or organic anti-net-neutrality comments to register on the map," explains NPR's Elise Hu.

On Net Neutrality, California Cares; Texas? Not So Much : All Tech Considered : NPR

[tshile]

you mean areas that contain majority of the tech workers and have developed areas (in some cases entire cities) around major technology corporations opined to the FCC at a statistically-significant larger rate than those that don't on the biggest technology issue at present in?

you don't say... awesome analysis there NPR. :p