Thread: "Net Neutrality" - entry poiny for gov't control of Internet?

[ED.: by "Net neutrality," the FTC here means that it will prohibit viewpoint discrimination by Internet service providers who might otherwise choke down transmission speeds of their political opponents' communications. The FTC is not here, at this time, using "Net neutrality" to mean that it might require equal programming time or equal column-inches for opposing political viewpoints.]


The FCC Says It Will Vote On Net Neutrality Next Month (Feb., 2015)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/01/02/get-ready-the-fcc-s


Federal regulators looking to place restrictions on Internet providers will introduce and vote on new proposed net neutrality rules in February, Federal Communications Commission officials said Friday.

President Obama's top telecom regulator, Tom Wheeler, told fellow FCC commissioners before the Christmas holiday that he intends to circulate a draft proposal internally next month with an eye toward approving the measure weeks later, said one official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the agency's deliberations are ongoing. The rules are meant to keep broadband providers such as Verizon and Comcast from speeding up or slowing down some Web sites compared to others.

FCC spokeswoman Kim Hart declined to comment on Wheeler's communications with his colleagues, but confirmed the February timetable, which ends weeks of speculation as to when the FCC would make its next move.

It's still unclear what rules Wheeler has in mind for Internet providers. Analysts and officials close to the agency say that momentum has been building recently for far more aggressive regulations than Wheeler had initially proposed. Advocates of strong net neutrality, including President Obama, have urged the FCC to begin regulating Internet service providers using the same law it uses to oversee telephone companies - Title II of the Communications Act. Industry advocates have resisted that call, saying the FCC should continue to lightly regulate Internet providers under Title I of the act.
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Here is background info since 2007 about "Net Neutrality."

h/t jp_48504 - 06-28-2007:

Originally Posted by David Utter for ???

The Federal Trade Commission issued its 'Broadband Connectivity Competition Policy' report and suggested caution on enacting net neutrality regulations.

FTC Cool To Net Neutrality

The FTC's Internet Access Task Force thinks all is well in the world of broadband connectivity in the United States.

"This report recommends that policy makers proceed with caution in the evolving, dynamic industry of broadband Internet access, which generally is moving toward more - not less - competition," Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras said in a statement.

As to the issues of "data prioritization, exclusive deals, and vertical integration into online content and applications," Majoras said these could benefit consumers. "We do not know what the net effects of potential conduct by broadband providers will be on all consumers, including, among other things, the prices that consumers may pay for Internet access," she said.

A concurring statement by Commissioner Jon Leibowitz took issue with the idea that legislation to protect consumers may not be needed:

There is a real reason to fear that, without additional protections, some broadband companies may have strong financial incentives to restrict access to content and applications.

One way this might happen is by now well understood by almost everyone - a broadband provider with monopoly power in a local market might use that power to block or degrade some applications or content that compete with applications or content the broadband company itself provides.

Leibowitz also cited how a broadband market without net neutrality could become an economic two-sided market that benefits only the broadband providers:

Once a consumer chooses a broadband provider, then that provider has monopoly power over access to that consumer for any application or content provider that wants to reach that customer. If a large national broadband provider were to begin charging Internet application and content providers to reach its customers, it would have monopoly power over access to potentially millions of customers nationwide.

This problem, which the Report identifies as "terminating access monopoly" ...

06-28-2007: Cisco response

h/t CarolinaMtnWoman - 01-26-2009:

Move to End "Internet Neutrality"

Blow to Bloggers. "Ten Pin Strike against Political Freedom"

by Sherwood Ross
Global Research, January 26, 2009

If the cable and phone companies that transmit Internet data are allowed to charge higher rates to some producers for faster service the result will be "a ten pin strike against political freedom" ...

h/t AirborneSapper7

Originally Posted by Warner Todd Huston

Net Neutrality Update

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

If you are as worried as I am about the left's effort to force ever larger amounts of big government onto our lives, then you should be looking into the issue of Net Neutrality. To that end a few times a week I'll be posting some links and info about Net Neutrality to help you all get your feet wet on this important issue.

Here are just a few of the latest articles on Net Neutrality for your information:

Draft of Waxman's net-neutrality legislation leaked amid talks
The Hill, by Sara Jerome
thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/121101-read-a-draft-of-waxmans-net-neutrality-bill

Here is a draft copy
thehill.com/images/stories/whitepapers/pdf/proposed_net_neutrality_legislative_framework-1.pdf
of the net-neutrality proposal under development by House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (Calif.), according to an industry source. This version was under consideration as of the weekend. Two non-Hill sources said Monday afternoon they believe the bill will come on Monday or Tuesday.

Rough week marks end of FCC Chairman's Summer in ...
The Daily Caller, by Mike Riggs

Among the Washington power set's favorite past-times is betting on an agency head's exit date. After all, it's usually a question of when - not if - he or she is going to burn out, throw up his or her hands in frustration, and get hounded out of the gig. The betting tables are especially hot after a long week for FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

An Open Letter to the Men and Women of the FCC
The Washington Examiner, by Seton Motley www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/Examiner-Opinion-Zone/An-Open-Letter-to-the-Men-and-Women-of-the-FCC-103865578.html

04-19-2013: FTC report: Broadband Policy & Consumer Welfare: The Case for an Antitrust Approach to Net Neutrality Issues

h/t JohnDoe2 - 11-01-2014:
F.C.C. Will Consider 'Hybrid' Approach to Net Neutrality

h/t NewMexican - 11-16-2014:
The Net Neutrality Tax Hike
and
Your Universal Service Fee at Work

That Universal Service Fee we pay as part of our phone bill each month has helped double the number of "free Obamaphones" in the hands of people in Ohio since last year to more than 1 million.

Originally Posted by NewMexican

...this new tax is needed with all of the illegals that will be flooding our borders - they have to have an Obamaphone (smartphone) to make it easier to organize.

www.alipac.us/f9/net-neutrality-tax-hike-314547/

h/t AirborneSapper7
11/17/2014

Rush Limbaugh: Net Neutrality Is the Next Con

Rush Limbaugh

You don't even need to know what it's about. All you need to know is who is behind it, and that alone should disqualify your support. It's the same people that had given us Obamacare and the same way they did it: They lied through their teeth, misrepresented it, ran a con game.



RUSH: There's nothing "neutral" about net neutrality, what the Regime wants to do.

Net Neutrality Is the Next Con

November 17, 2014


Windows Media

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The smartest thing to do is distrust anything coming out of this Regime. There's something out there that they're pushing, and it can be really complicated, if you listen to the wrong people about it, and that's called "net neutrality."

It's something that is totally mis-titled. There's nothing "neutral" about net neutrality, what the Regime wants to do. But here's the thing. I'm telling you, you don't even need to know what it's about. All you need to know is who is behind it, and that alone should disqualify your support. It's the same people that had given us Obamacare and the same way they did it: They lied through their teeth, misrepresented it, ran a con game.
They're still running the con. Here's the thing. You remember the movie The Sting? I remember that movie. I liked that movie, and one of the reasons I liked the movie is because I figured it out before it happened. It's one of the few times in a novel or a book or a movie that I actually was ahead of the plot and figured it out. Normally I read a novel, a mystery novel and wait for things to be revealed. I don't try to figure them out.

The Sting, for some reason, it all came to me. So when the final sting happened, I had already suspected that's what was gonna happen. So I wasn't as shocked as the rest of the audience was. There's one thing I remember about that movie. I think it was the Newman character, Henry Gondorff, said the key to the con is that it's never over. You never let the person you conned know he's been conned. Never. The con goes on.
Well, that's what's happening here. They run a giant con game on the population of this country with Obamacare, and they are continuing to run the con. They are not giving it up. They are not gonna admit they've been had. They are not gonna admit they've been exposed. They are gonna continue to operate on the belief that got them here, and that is that you're too stupid to figure this out.
And that you still love and respect the office of the presidency enough that you will believe what your president is telling you about this, that he didn't know about it, that he's angry about it, that what Gruber's saying didn't happen, that Gruber had no power. He was a simple advisor, he had no influence, and their process was wide open and transparent and everybody knew everything about it.

They're running a con game, and they're demanding you deny it. You never admit the con, because that would then -- in the case of a politician -- damage any future cons that you want to run. I'm telling you, net neutrality is the next con game they're running. The question you need to ask yourself is: Do you want the people...? You may not like Comcast and you may not like AT&T and you may not like Time Warner.
You may not like them, but do you want the people who gave you Obamacare running your Internet service? Do you want them in charge of what you can get and when you can get it and how much it's gonna cost you? Are you gonna believe anything they tell you about net neutrality, given what you know? That's how people need to be dealing with this. This is what frustrates me. Here we have a teachable moment.
This is indisputable and inarguable what happened. As such, Obama should have forever forfeited any credibility or believability. Obama is now fully exposed as nothing more, in common parlance, as a lying con man. He ought not ever get away with it again, not after something this big that is this damaging and this costly to this many people. And they're coming at us again.
I don't care what it is. Global warming or climate change or whatever gonna call it -- immigration, amnesty, or net neutrality -- the fact is they have forfeited any credibility and believability on any of this. Anybody paying attention ought to be suspicious of everything they say about what they intend to do, how they intend to do it, and what its intended benefits are. Because they are lying through their teeth.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here's Richard in Jackson, Michigan. I'm glad you waited. I'm glad to have you on the program. Hi.
CALLER: Hello, Rush.
RUSH: Hey!
CALLER: Mega dittos. I've been listening since you were on TV.
RUSH: Well, I appreciate that. That was 1992. That's many, many moons ago.
CALLER: It's been a while, yeah. Yeah. You were talking about the government wanting to do the net neutrality and take over the Internet.
RUSH: That's exactly the way to put it. The government wants to take over the Internet just like they want to take over every other utility and monopolize it, and they want to make it fair for everybody, isn't it a beautiful thing? Fair and equal for everyone, like everything is fair and equal for everyone now. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that, Richard?
CALLER: My thought was that their equalization will be the same way that they equalized education, which is the lowest common denominator. So whosever Internet was the slowest, everybody else will slow down to that.
RUSH: No, no. The same objective exists in net neutrality as exists in Obamacare. What's the objective in Obamacare? To wipe out private sector insurance, ultimately. You partner with 'em first, you butter 'em up, and eventually the government becomes single payer. That's where you go. Net neutrality, we know who these people are. Forget the title, forget net neutrality. The objective here is for Obama, the Democrats, the government to run the Internet. Now, if that's what you want, if you think the government should run the Internet, and if you think the government creates and causes innovation to happen, why, then, have at it, folks.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Net neutrality is about an accurate a title as the Affordable Care Act is a title for Obamacare. There's nothing neutral about net neutrality. Totally misnamed.
END TRANSCRIPT

www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2014/11/17/net_neutrality_is_the_next_con