Net Neutrality

by Matt | Jun 28, 2006 | Aggravation

Maybe it’s the hour of morning that I’m writting this, but something really ticked me off about Senator Jim DeMint’s comments on Net Neutrality yesterday. I simply can’t understand why Senators and Representatives are voting on things they don’t understand. 99% of our politicians don’t get it, and that’s scary when you consider what they’re planning to do can and will effect most of us for decades to come. It makes me almost want to run for office. I’m in the same distict as Tom Delay was, it can’t be that hard. If that moron got elected, people must be hard up for someone to vote for.

Why can’t we take all these public officials on field trips, or maybe to a seminar or two, so they can learn that the “magic box” on their desk doesn’t come by it’s information from the elves running around inside of it. You can read the article if you like, it’s linked above, but here are the main points.

“The overarching idea is to bring the benefits of competition to consumers by streamlining the video franchising process. This will allow more service providers to enter the cable market and begin offering Americans more choices at lower prices.”

Riiiight. More competition, I see now. So, instead of breaking up these large companies into smaller ones (like we should), we’ll let THEM decide who and how to allow competition into their already monopolized markets and then lower their prices to compete. You know what happens when services like cable get deregulated? The big companies with the bigger market shares BUY the competition, not compete with it. Once you’re allowed to own 99% of a market, are you going to give that up to new rival services? Hell no. Anyone who tries to start their own cable company, ISP or broadcast service not only has to cover their costs but the cost of getting the service itself from their competition. You think someone like Comcast is going to give “Bob’s Cable” a break in price just because they want to offer a video on demand service? Hell no. They’re going to buy Bob, take his VOD service and charge the customer 25% more than Bob did for the same thing.

“In reality, the definition of Net neutrality boils down to the government telling network owners that they can’t provide higher speed or more capacity for Internet sites or services that have different needs to serve their consumers.”

No, the definition of Net Neutrality boils down to the government telling network owners the can’t provide shitty service to sites or services that don’t pay out the nose. It also means you can’t charge someone who uses more a higher fee for the same service as someone who uses less. Just because an RV uses 100 gallons of gas doesn’t mean he should pay $5 at the pump instead of $3. It also means that hybrid cars shouldn’t be penalized for buying less. It keeps everyone on the same playing field.

“It would also restrict the ability of these network retailers to reduce costs to consumers by charging content providers differently based on their network requirements.”

HA! Don’t make me laugh. When has a company EVER reduced it’s prices out of good will and not because of some marketing scheme. Give me a break. Without neutrality, the small guys will pay what they’ve always paid and the big boys are going to pay out the nose. Companies like Google, who are at the forefront of innovation, will stop working on new technologies because they have to divert more of their revenue to cover bandwidth costs. I’m not worried about “the little guy” getting price gauged, I’m worried about the people with the money not innovating and moving our technology into the future. It’s exactly what happened to cable. Cable is the same as it was 20 years ago and they were originally given all the freedom to create their own price levels and technologies. You can see how well the cable industry has really help the consumer and brought the price down. That’s why on average, most of us spend between $50-$100 on cable. HA!

“Proponents of this regulatory bonanza say that without government interference, networks will block basic Internet services and Web sites to consumers. Yet this has not happened without federal regulation. Unlike the current video franchising problem, Net neutrality remains only a theoretical threat.”

First off, you get minus 10pts for using the word “bonanza” you fucktard. Who the hell does that? Second, the reason they haven’t blocked services is because their idea of tiered service is a recent one. Sure, I’m sure they thought of it a long time ago, but this is the first time they’ve really made a push for it. They never had the motivation to do it before now. Recently, with video services, torrents, VOIP, etc, bandwidth usage has shot through the roof. Now that people want all this stuff, now they’ve got their panties in a wad and want more money for it. And, as for it being a “theoretical threat”, so is a caged tiger. He’s behind bars but he’s still angry and hungry and you’re head looks pretty damn tasty. I tell you what, I’ll let you be the one to open the cage and see if he wants to “play nice” once he’s loose.

“It would be commercial suicide for any network provider to limit the ability of their customers to access any site or receive any service: Their customers would simply go elsewhere!”

Yes, normally it would be suicide, except you and all your senator friends allowed the cable companies to establish local monopolies. In my area you have 2 choices, AT&T DSL or Time Warner Cable. Both TWC and AT&T want tiered service, so, who exactly should I turn to? I can’t “go elsewhere” because they’ve put everyone else out of buisness. That’s like saying, ok, if you don’t like WalMart, why don’t you go to the local hardware store… oh wait, it went out of buisness along with every other small buisness in town. You big buisness fuckheads think that “more options” mean I can choose between basic cable and cable with HBO. That’s not a fucking choice!

“Consumers have a growing number of choices of networks, and this competition will force networks to continuously upgrade their services.”

Really, growing number? So, when Comcast bought Savannah Cable in GA a few years back, that was a “growing number of choices”? Also, let me educate you my ill informed friend, the federal government GAVE the cable industries millions of tax payer dollars to UPGRADE their services. The cable companies upgraded nothing. The end comsumer is still on the same shit connection that they have been since cable modems were introduced. You have any idea what internet providers offer in other countries? People in Japan have 3mbit to their houses, and that’s considered old, they’re upgrading most of the country to 8 or 10mbit in the next few years. We can’t even get fiber to the fucking curb! The providers are perfectly content to sit on their asses and upgrade when the HAVE to, not because they’re “investing in the future” or some bullshit like that. You want to make the US a 3rd world country in terms of internet, go ahead, let them “regulate themselves”. Don’t come crying to me when Asian market cell phones can load a web page faster than most American homes… oh, wait, too fucking late.

“Federal regulation, on the other hand, would only reduce the quality and access of Internet services for all Americans.”

Yeah, because when we realized what was going on and started regulating the phone companies they just stopped working all together. Basic, low level government regulation isn’t a bad thing. That’s like saying municipal water supplies, which are regulated, would be serving us fresh tasty Perrier from the tap if we weren’t on their case all the time. Give me a break.

You know, for all the back and forth and all the complaining both sides do, if you look at it, it’s really a non-issue. As consumers we’re fucked anyways. We have no choice, we’re getting price gauged to death and our service is shit compaired to what we pay for it. $49.99 for cable modems, come on guys. You’ve recouped the cost of building that network a long time ago. The telcos haven’t done anything good for the consumer in at least a decade, and the Senators and Representatives are getting kick backs from the service providers yo turn a blind eye, so there isn’t going to be any change. It’s pretty much status quo. We’re taking a broom handle hard to begin with, now we’re just taking it sideways.