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New Obama's video today...
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/11/10/3590728/obama-fcc-net-neutrality/

In the clearest message to date, President Barack Obama called on the U.S. Federal Communications on Monday to do everything in its power to keep the Internet free and open for everyone by preserving net neutrality.

The FCC “should make it clear that whether you use a computer, phone or tablet, Internet providers (ISPs) have a legal obligation not to block or limit your access to a website,” Obama said in the two-minute video posted to The White House’s YouTube page Monday.

“The FCC is an independent agency, and ultimately this decision is theirs alone,” Obama said in a statement. “I believe the FCC should create a new set of rules protecting net neutrality and ensuring that neither the cable company nor the phone company will be able to act as a gatekeeper, restricting what you can do or see online.”

Under The White House plan, ISPs wouldn’t be allowed to block or throttle legal content. Paid prioritization, or fast and slow lane access, would be forbidden so web services can be accessed without paying an extra fee. Obama also called for the FCC to classify the Internet as a utility, because it has become indispensable in everyday life.

[...]


Note FCC Chair Wheeler's comment at the end.

I'm surprised that Obama came out so strongly on this right now. Sure, he's been for Net Neutrality before, but he seems to be pushing the FCC to get this right rather than coasting. I wonder if it's a sign of what's coming. Maybe Mike and Hugh and some of the rest of us will be pleasantly surprised.

Or maybe not. ;-)

Cheers,
Scott.
New since voice is switching to voip vs copper
that indeed needs to be common carrier regulation, the rest not so much. Why should your porn buffer and break up my 911 call?
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
New RareSanity has the answer.
Balloon-Juice:

RareSanity says:
November 10, 2014 at 12:18 pm
@BR:

But CDNs pay Tier 1s for bandwidth to deliver content, they are not the bad actors in this situation.

Akamai pays Level 3 to deliver content on behalf of it’s clients (let’s say Netflix). Level 3 then has a peering agreement with Comcast at the Tier 1 level to deliver that content…which is being requested by Comcast’s customers.

This traffic has been steadily increasing over the years, so Comcast…as a bad faith actor…say, “Hey! You’re sending us way more stuff then we’re sending you, so this isn’t really a ‘peer” relationship. You should pay us to add additional ports at data centers for this traffic!” Level 3, as a good faith actor says, “Hey Comcast! This traffic is headed for YOUR CUSTOMERS that bought service from you! You are not being used as a transit point, YOU ARE THE ENDPOINT! Add more ports at the data center so we can deliver the content YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE REQUESTING!”

This whole thing would be different if Comcast (or Verizon) were just a waypoint for this massive increase in data while it was headed somewhere else, then I could see their argument. But that’s not what’s going on here, they are trying to double dip by getting paid by their customers for the access to Netflix content, then they want to charge Netflix for the access to their customers.

Not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.

They are trying to get paid for something they have no business getting paid for.


(Lightbulb!)

Exactly.

Cheers,
Scott.
New if google pays to have peered servers inside the isp datacenter
why should netflix get the same for free?
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
New Maybe because it's not the same?
Are Comcast and Cox and the rest of the large ISPs making noises about getting in the Search business? Not when I last checked.

http://thenextweb.com/google/2014/05/22/google-fiber-says-wont-make-money-peering-colocation-agreements-netflix-others/

Much has been made of Netflix’s paid peering agreements with Comcast and Verizon. Peering, which is the process of directly hooking up the networks of two different providers, has been a longstanding practice in the industry. However, when a company like Comcast competes with Netflix, having to reach a paid agreement in order to restore degraded service feels more like a strong arm tactic than a friendly business cooperation.

Google, for its part, asserts that it doesn’t make money from peering or colocation agreements. Fiber’s terms of service also state that the company will “fairly allocate” bandwidth without regard to subscribers’ online activities, meaning that other companies can’t pay for a fast-lane to prioritize their traffic. That means that Google can’t play favorites and keep YouTube running for customers while slowing down Netflix and other non-Google services.

While Google Fiber has the benefit of already being fast, it has consistently been the provider with the best performance in the US for Netflix. The colocation agreement helps achieve that by reducing the distance that a request has to go from Google’s network to Netflix’s servers, while also reducing costs for both parties.


(Emphasis added.)

How about that. Everyone benefits when things are done sensibly. Yet Verizon and Comcast want to be able to throttle things (kill Net Neutrality) so that their offerings can have an advantage. Imagine that. :-/

FWIW.

Cheers,
Scott.
New so the post office should deliver amazon products free to the end users?
netflix charges a fee to users who want their content, yet they want to share no costs associated with delivering that content, even tho that content is a rising increasing cos of doing business as an isp.
You are trying to confuse content provider with an isp. That is a job for the feds to declare monopolistic practices and insist that content from Comcast be segregated into a different business entity than the ISP.
But like the wussies of yore wouldn't force Microsoft to put a chinese wall between OS and applications.
That type of regulation I would support.
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
New Eh?
I wanted MS to be broken up. E.g. http://forum.iwethey.org/forum/post/148167/

As RareSanity pointed out up-thread, Netflix pays for its pipes like everyone else. Comcast wants Netflix to pay more so that its customers will find Netflix to be too expensive compared to its own offerings (which obviously will also be bandwidth intensive). If Google Fiber can find a Net Neutral way of doing colocation with Netflix (which obviously competes with Google Play movies and YouTube), then Verizon and Comcast can as well.

I've thought for a long time, as you know, that ISPs shouldn't be in the content business. There are too many temptations to use ownership of the pipes as a way to constrain competition. ISPs should be boring utilities. If they want to be in the movie business, spin it off and be a movie business.

There are some later comments on that Balloon-Juice thread, by gene108 (sp?) I think, that one has to be careful about regulating ISPs as a utility because we don't want to lock-in a system that doesn't improve or that crumbles due to lack of investment. It would have to be done carefully. But it's not an unsolvable problem, and it's a better system than letting Comcast and Verizon put up toll-booths for content that they want to earn extra on.

My $0.02.

Cheers,
Scott.
New didn't mean you, meant the justice department back in the day
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
New Re: that content from Comcast be segregated into a different business entity than the ISP.
Agree full stop. However, a business based upon providing conventional cable tv content exclusively probably has a very short shelf life. Once content providers other than HBO decide to market their content directly to consumers, it's game over for cable tv.
New cable rides the same packets as the intarweb
the docsis cable boxes separate the streams for different devices. The cable portion would still deliver local sports with a small profit margin to be made. The ISP would still deliver content via the same set of wires.
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
New Hmmmm.
What I was trying to say is that if I don't need Comcast/MediaCom/TWC/etc. to "subscribe" to the channels I want to see (like HBO's decision this year) and as long as local foo is accessible via OTA, why would I need the Cable TV business at all? I could achieve the long time dream of subscribing to only those channels I wanted. Obviously, I'd still need the ISP business, but why would I need the Cable TV business? From my POV, and I could be wrong, while I'd love to see content providers split from service providers, in the case of cable companies, if you force them to split the ISP/Cable TV into two entities, one will thrive and the other will perish.

Having said all that, I cut my "cable" bill by more than half by dropping the TV subscription. We've streamed exclusively for about 2.5 years now and I haven't missed a thing - despite living far enough out in the boonies that receiving OTA transmissions now would require a rooftop antenna. Here, I get to jab the whole "digital is better" myth. Back in the bad old days of analog, we got 5 channels with indoor antennas and 4 of them were always crystal clear. We've always had cable, but my neighbor was over watching a locally broadcast game through my cable subscription and commented, "God, my picture at home is better than that and all I have is bunny ears." So, we went to his house and I'll be damned if he wasn't right. Exact same TV's, too.
New It might vary with the cable company.
My folks in Winston-Salem have TW. It seems to me that their channels are much more compressed than ours (Cox in NoVA) - it's very common to see blocky stuff, especially with fast action. But lots of commercials, and the BBC channel, are much more compressed with Cox than some of the big networks.

There's a whole mess of stuff about the big cable companies that is as transparent as depleted uranium. Similarly, the call quality on cell phones varies a lot and some of it must be due to the way the companies run their networks. Lots of luck finding anything more than plans (HDVoice! VOIP!! Coming soon!!!1) so that one could make an informed decision...

:-/

À la carte channel subscriptions sounds like a good idea (the NFL and the NCAA would hate it, of course), but I wonder what would happen to things like local news. I imagine it would make it worse, as hard as that might be to believe... But maybe it would make things like "community access" actually thrive. Who knows.

Cheers,
Scott.
("Eh? What did you say? Try again?")
New if I and the wife were not sports junkies I would cut the cable
although now living in a flat country just 80 miles from nola I may invest a buck to see what ota I can get. Need to convince spouse that watching Duke football and basketball is off the table. No, on second thought....
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
New Understood.
If it weren't for hockey streams, I'd be insane by now. ;0)
New You must not have Comcast then
http://forums.comcast.com/t5/Billing/Internet-service-only-62-95-a-month-I-m-not-paying-that-Bye-Bye/td-p/1335081

From the 1st reply:
The 48.95 price for Performance is the "With Cable" price.
The 62.95 price for Performance is the "Without Cable" price.

They'll clean you out one way or another and this is actually an improvement: when they borged our local cableco around ~2006, Comcast's take was that if you did not want cable, then you obviously had no need for high speed internet either and all you got was 1.5Mb/s (instead of the 6 we had before), for 150% of the old price.
New I do at the other shop.
Business basic, highspeed intarweb and phone cheap (or relatively cheap)
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
New Ah, that racket
I babysit 7 of those lines. The modems they originally delivered ("improved experience" SMC 8014's) had the wonderful habit of locking out frequently used sites after a few days. The fix was to switch the modems to bridge mode and put a real router and DHCP server behind them. But the only way to accomplish that is ... pay Comcast $15/month extra for a a static IP.
New MediaCom always line item broadband for us.
We've had them for years (only game in town). The *sucked* big time for a lot of years, I'd often get d/l speeds of 0.25 for my "up to 12 Meg" subscription. Happily that all changed over a year ago. But the bill was always 42.95/month (5.00 off each month because I used my own modem) and it still is *but* instead of unlimited, I pay 10.00 extra for each 50G above 250G I use in a month. The basic TV rate that we killed was around 60.00 a month.
New "Digital Is Better".
Unfortunately, sometimes that means better for the broadcaster, not the consumer.

Wade.
New Sometimes?
I think it's fair to say whatever changes a cable company (or telco, or other ISP) makes are always better for whoever is making the change. They're only ever better for the consumer by sheer accident.
--

Drew
New I meant more broadly.
Digital OTA TV is better for the consumer in a few ways: smaller antennae, less interference, more channels.

Wade.
New Except in cases like mine. Where it means fewer channels. ;0)
New While BHO's brief clip makes him a current White-hat..
does this "make it a Utility" phrase not look like a matter, about which we are certain to hear from the Ruling CIEIOs/their Congressional bond-serfs?

This is where they Live: roulette on a fixed-wheel; they're now experts at social-engineering of the croupiers as well.
I see strife. May the Admin not be out-classed in the legal dances.
(They seemed to do OK with the first few Fines, even if a pittance compared to
the perps' actual Haul. Still, not bad in an existing Corporatocracy, eh?)
New Agree. See, Scott, I can give the Devil his due.
But why didn't he do this *before* the election? Just as with Single Payer (which had 60+% support among the People) he has had HUGE clubs with which to beat the heads of the ruling class. But time and time again he's refused to use them. My more cynical self believes he waited until both houses were securely in the Neo-fascists hands before he could make such a comment - ensuring that Net Neutrality would never occur and he could keep his monied elite happy (See Wheeler, for example).
New Bring on the clowns!
Oh, wait, no need.

Here's Ted Cruz.

JTFC.

I know our politicos are slimy duplicitious grasping chiselling shits who would sell their own children for a chance at power, but at least they're not a pack of raging fuckwits like a significant fraction of yours are.
Edit: I a word out.
Expand Edited by pwhysall Nov. 11, 2014, 12:50:56 AM EST
     A net neutrality screed.. - (Ashton) - (43)
         Meh. Wheeler's counterpoint. - (Another Scott) - (8)
             Thanks; reasonable/al punte.. {sigh} ... relief-grade. - (Ashton)
             Comcast and "commercially unreasonable" - (scoenye) - (6)
                 Devil's in the details. - (Another Scott) - (5)
                     I do realize they got their legs cut out from under them - (scoenye)
                     Is this the spot for my Constitutional Convention screed? - (Ashton) - (3)
                         Sure, let's see it. :-) - (Another Scott) - (2)
                             'When the Gen Xers pass 50, they're going to start attending - (Ashton) - (1)
                                 We can see the trends, but nobody knows the future. - (Another Scott)
         Obama's video today... - (Another Scott) - (24)
             since voice is switching to voip vs copper - (boxley) - (22)
                 RareSanity has the answer. - (Another Scott) - (21)
                     if google pays to have peered servers inside the isp datacenter - (boxley) - (18)
                         Maybe because it's not the same? - (Another Scott) - (17)
                             so the post office should deliver amazon products free to the end users? - (boxley) - (16)
                                 Eh? - (Another Scott) - (1)
                                     didn't mean you, meant the justice department back in the day -NT - (boxley)
                                 Re: that content from Comcast be segregated into a different business entity than the ISP. - (mmoffitt) - (13)
                                     cable rides the same packets as the intarweb - (boxley) - (12)
                                         Hmmmm. - (mmoffitt) - (11)
                                             It might vary with the cable company. - (Another Scott)
                                             if I and the wife were not sports junkies I would cut the cable - (boxley) - (1)
                                                 Understood. - (mmoffitt)
                                             You must not have Comcast then - (scoenye) - (3)
                                                 I do at the other shop. - (boxley) - (1)
                                                     Ah, that racket - (scoenye)
                                                 MediaCom always line item broadband for us. - (mmoffitt)
                                             "Digital Is Better". - (static) - (3)
                                                 Sometimes? - (drook) - (2)
                                                     I meant more broadly. - (static) - (1)
                                                         Except in cases like mine. Where it means fewer channels. ;0) -NT - (mmoffitt)
                     While BHO's brief clip makes him a current White-hat.. - (Ashton) - (1)
                         Agree. See, Scott, I can give the Devil his due. - (mmoffitt)
             Bring on the clowns! - (pwhysall)
         Interesting view from a non-techie - (drook) - (8)
             how about con ed refusing to deliver your maytag for free? - (boxley) - (7)
                 False equivalency. -NT - (malraux) - (6)
                     make it a GE appliance then they sell electricity but not to you -NT - (boxley) - (5)
                         Umm ... that's what he said -NT - (drook) - (4)
                             netscape is a purchase that wants free delivery -NT - (boxley) - (3)
                                 Er... - (malraux) - (2)
                                     sort of, what regulation will end up doing - (boxley) - (1)
                                         Compare us to the rest of the developed world ... we're already *at* the bottom -NT - (drook)

I'm very sorry, but I'm not allowed to argue with you unless you've paid.
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