Senator Stevens Speaks on Net Neutrality

Senator Stevens just doesn’t get it. The excitement of the Internet isn’t that it’s a niftier TV. In part, it’s that “consumers” get to choose among tens of millions of media voices, in whatever combination they want. Even better, “consumers” can use the internet to create, refine, and post content, even high-bandwidth content, for next to nothing.

On today’s internet, “consumers” are also editors, creators, and promoters. In other words, we’re not just consumers. We’re users, which means we all get an online voice. This is built on the backbone of a neutral internet.

Amusingly, Stevens claims that it took him 5 days to get an email due to internet congestion—no doubt caused by all these commercial download services clogging the internet pipes with their infernal video (and not paying their fair share).

In all due respect, Sir, you may be mistaken about the dates here. Even if not, you certainly don’t have a reasonable explanation for why your email was delayed for five days.

Senator Stevens DOES NOT “get it” when it comes to Network Neutrality.

And I think that his “claim” that “his email took 5 days due to those ‘infernal’ commercial video services” is NOTHING MORE than a MISLEAD9ING STATEMENT…in a vain attempt to “curry sympathy” towards his anti-net neutrality attitude!

I hope Senator Ted Stevens is up for re-election come this November, and that the voters of Alaska vote him OUT OF OFFICE!!

It’s a shame, but this long-winded MORON is just about an average legislator these days. Unfortunately we get what we pay for, and big business pays these bastards a lot more than their constituents do.

How does a moron like Stevens get elected? He can’t speak in complete sentences, has no idea what he is taking about, and can’t articulate a clear thought! He is a complete bumbling idiot! He also completely fails to realize that there is an overabundance/glut of bandwidth in the US, and that we ALL pay to use OUR internet!

Alaska, wake up! Get this bum out of office - and as for corporate lobbyists, tarring and feathering should make a comeback in Washington.

How does a dude like Stevens get elected? by voters—that is the part that scares me. If Stevens is the voice of a certain segment of the population—we are fucked!!

Our nation has various types of people but the truth is Stevens is a just a reflection of our society—it may not be popular to admit that our national average IQ is about 40-70 but it is true. As long as our educational system keeps failing the average person will just get dumber—in turn the public officals voted into office will be—well u get the point.

Politics is never the realm of the intelectual superstars of any society. The core is again improving education and therefore improving the lowest common denominator.

The other side is that, every country who functions via “big government” needs a large middle/lower class to support this “system”. We need manual labor workers, we need people to stock shelves and we need middle managers the think they will be CEO’s one day—not everyone is going to be an cosmonaut.

The point is, guys like Stevens lower our cumulative IQ—but we do not have to far to go.

As for the NET—it is a concept and limits can be set however no one can control an idea regarless of speed.

His email was slow because he hit the “send” button slowly—LOL

Stevens is the quintessential example of how the system works, and how it is broken. He has been re-elected faithfully for close to 40 years and will continue to be well after he is a babbling invalid because he is the king of pork. From a huge position of power based on senate committee and appropriations subcommittee control he continues to funnel large amounts of money back to the people that elect him. The Alaskan voters don’t care if he is lucid or care about what’s best for you and me and the country. They vote with their eyes wide open and their hands outstretched for your tax dollars.

I live in the wine-region of NY State. I have a few bottles of wine to be shipped to the good (hic!) Senator Stevens….he could (hic!) probably use them. Moron is actually a nice way to describe him. Sad! He does not have a freakin’ clue what this fight - or the internet - is all about.

If the internet is hijacked…I hope that (we the) people in this country who care about the internet will make people like Ted Steven’s life completely unlivable until net neutrality is firmly enforced.

He can’t be stupid enough to not see what he’s doing is immoral and wrong. If the cable/telecom giants are paying these retards off, we have to make them regret it.

Senator Stevens is really on his last leg. He has the understanding of facts and the ability to relate but only as much as the next mild alzheimers patient in the local assisted living.

He is way in over his head and his head works better when it’s more concerned about winning more money for his state by pimping the beautiful Alaskan land to the oil companies. He is the poster child for senators who should be ashamed of themselves and insomniacs anonymous. For I do not know how he can live with himself. It looks like not too well. It’s time for the Sith to find a new recruit, one much younger and much stronger…

It is sad that so many of the comments above are not about the pros and cons of net neutrality. When I first heard the issue raised, I debated whether to support the idea of regulation to keep the internet “neutral”. I did not learn anything from this thread. I would hope that if this site intends to be taken seriously, it will clean up or remove the threads that bring nothing to the conversation.

Almost every single post above includes insults and show disrespect to Senator Stevens as a person and as a representative. Some even dishonor the elderly in their tirades. He may not be a techocrat, but his arguments were not rambling, nor were they painful, as John Dvorak suggested in the e-mail I received from e-week. I had never heard Mr. Stevens speak until I listened to this recording; however, it appears that, like almost every other human being I have heard or met, Mr. Stevens, when flustered, gets a little repetitive. His analogy of the internet being like tubes holds water (I feel certain that most of you have heard of Denial-of-Service attacks), so I do not see why Mr. Dvorak sets this apart as an example of an explanation “from his diatribe”, except to make Mr. Stevens appear paranoid. Yet, the comment Dvorak makes about the section of text he presents, takes the very text out of context. Mr. Dvorak does the idea of net neutrality a disservice. It appears he has found good company here. If someone can point me to a thread (or a different site) that truly discusses the merits of regulation-free internet vs. neutral internet, please include the link in a post.

Thanks for the feedback. While I would not support a decision to censor nearly any non-spam, non-libelous comments (we take free speech even more seriously than we take this blog), I do hope we can get back on topic.

I have supported network neutrality legislation in an article forthcoming in the Federal Communications Law Journal. The current draft of the article, Opening Bottlenecks: On Behalf of Mandated Network Neutrality, is online and available for download.

Additionally, I suggest you check out the rest of the Public Knowledge blog posts about network neutrality. Art Brodsky has a great post discussing how the broadband market is a frightening duopoly, Tim Schneider drops some insight on how cell phone providers are really, really scared of network neutrality, and guest blogger Herald Feld explains why antitrust won’t prevent network owners’ anticompetitive practices.

In short, if you’re looking for something a little more topical to read, jump right in.

To RyanBrown: Thank you for the reply. I wish that it were not such an ad hominem attack against Mr. Steven.

You state “There is no debate about net neutrality.” This is the very mindset against which my post railed. (As an aside, abortion is murder in God’s eyes, even if not in that of the majority of the Supreme Court justices. By the way, if you have never read the majority opinion from that decision, please do so, and I will stand aside as you rant as you wish against such convoluted and ill-conceived thinking.) This battle, as Mr. Stevens points out is one between “…providers versus the owners of content, and all that sort of thing, that is a battle between billion-dollar people. They should hire their own lawyers, not the FCC.” Most Americans agree (not necessarily good for my argument here, I understand, but just for emphasis of point), that the government keeping its hands off (laissez-faire economy) of things is usually the best for all concerned. When injustices come up, then address those. To write law for perceived future injustices that might occur, is simply bad policy. No law could possibly account for future variations on a theme, and the law itself would be rendered useless. I am not speaking here against obvious future abuses; after all, the first ones slighted would have no recourse, since the law was not yet in existence, and so nothing “illegal” was done. Specifically, here the main issue that I have heard brought up ad nauseum, is the worry about the little blogger. Two (2) problems exist with this argument; 1) most bloggers are on blogger sites, and those blogger sites are making money (I believe I read that Murdoch owns MySpace.com, and he ain’t in it for the fun.) 2) It is highly unlikely that a lone blogger (one not on such a site) would generate sufficient traffic to be financially penalized, and if he were, this does not make his first amendment rights impeded, anymore than having to pay for a gun license impedes my second amendment rights. Freedom is not free. Responsibility is its price. Here it is as simple as asking those who wish to hear you to help shoulder the costs incurred. You could always go talk together in the park. The internet and its bandwith cost money. And whether we share those costs (like comrades in arms) or apportion the cost to those who make the greater use of it (think, gasoline tax — the more you drive, the more you pay,) the costs must be paid. I know I did not come to work this morning intending to be a volunteer, and I hope that the extra effort I put into it makes for a good outcome for me. The same is true for those who build the bandwidth we use. They invest their money and effort, intending to make money. If they have to create larger and larger “tubes”, and continue to get the same number of monthly ISP fees, those fees will have to rise.

I was writing my last post while Ryan was writing his post. It’s ironic to write a comment defending a policy of general non-editing while somebody else is writing a post that clearly deserves to be removed.

I discussed it with some long-time PK staff, and we agreed that a post insisting that somebody should have been aborted was in fact worth deleting. In the future, please do not use our blog comment space to wax longingly about how you wish somebody had never been born. Ryan, please do resubmit your comments, sans violent fantasies.

I also second the emotion that we can move beyond the ad hominem attacks, and I am happy to discuss the merits of the issue. I will, however, also express the sincere hope that our Senators and Representatives come to better understand the technology they’re regulating. This is partly because the cable and telecommunications companies have way, way, way more access on the Hill than, say, computer science professors. But we the people can also do a better job organizing, rising up, educating them, and letting them know these issues matter to us.

Hey everybody. T

he abortion thing was a joke - meant to express a certain frustration.

The fact that everyone has equal access is what makes the internet the internet. It’s simple! It’s the people!!!! Not a small group of “fatcats.”

And it’s about to be screwed over by said fatcats.

That’s sad and frustrating. Sometimes humor, like jokes about abortion, helps the hurt.

I’m sorry but this guy HAS TO BE fired. He also has to fire his whole research staff. 5 days to send an email , the reason : sending about 3gb of porn on that email.

Someone mst please explain to him how the internet works, and how one download CANNOT clog the “pipe” as he calls it, since there is no way that the channel can be held by one comunication for longer than what is called a “quantum”of time. also he might want to read a bit on multiplexing, and the whole network of “dark fiber”that exists in the US, which is simply Fiber optics that were layed out and have never been used due to the comming of multuplexing over fiber optics that essentialy increased the capacity of sendind data on one single fiber by about 16x. So you have a whole network of fibers already layed out that HAVE NOT BEEN USED.

Please someone send him a good porn movie so that he stops downloading it at his office and sending it to himself at home ( or just a pendrive)…

Give this MORON a clue.

To cromestant: Obviously, if it were one download, we would all kick that person off of the public internet. The issue Mr. Stevens described most likely was an internal network or ISP issue, and fault could not be laid on the internet. Just the same, if you have never experienced variation in speed, then you are probably still using dial up. When I first went to high-speed many moons ago, I was on DSL. A co-worker was on Cable Modem, and I heard it should be better. However, he lived near a college, which was most likely on the same network. Trust me, the speeds he obtained were so close to dial up, it was not worth the extra money he was spending. If a single leg of a network can be clogged up by your neighbors, the same can hold true to a lesser degree to anyone whose data path would have been normally going through that section of the public network, it is either slowed or re-routed and thus perhaps still slowed a little because of it. Once peer-to-peer file-sharing sites came about, only DOS attacks proved worse for those who had pressing business to conduct using the internet — business e-mails, college papers. Spam does something similar to your e-mail. If much of the disk space and processing power is taken up to deal with parsing incoming mail, much of which ends up going into bulk folders, mail delivery is delayed. Obviously, not by five days; certainly, something else must have been amiss.

Your accusing Mr. Stevens of something of which you hold no such knowledge is libel. You should hold your keyboard’s tongue, before it gets you into trouble. Even public servants can sue for defamation of character.

Now perhaps, you would like to write a sentence or two regarding “net neutrality”. That is, by the way, what this thread is about.

Charles,

Did you listen to the “speech” this guy gave? It’s right there, please listen to it. Click on the media player above.

You can’t listen to that and not think that Frankie Munez, the kid from that show “Malcom in the Middle,” is even more fit to be in charge of this issue.

Come on Charles…this is serious…we need you on our side, not the dark side.

Contact your Senators yet?

For everyone’s reference, the current Senate draft of the telecom bill (the one drafted by Senator Stevens) is S. 2686, the Communications, Consumer’s Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006. The network neutrality amendment is sponsored by Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Byron Dorgan (D-ND).

If you have an opinion in either direction, use that dialing finger and call your Senators! Calls from a small number of constituents can go a long way.

Now let’s try to get back on topic here…

Nobody has yet mentioned the in-depth resources I referenced earlier, or any of the other dozens and dozens of pro- and anti-neutrality pieces from journals, magazines, newspapers, and other websites.

We’d love to have your feedback on our content. If you think our blog posts stink, please tell us so and explain why! Our bloggers, like all writers, can always do better. My forthcoming article, written before I got to PK, is not due to the journal in its final form until August 11th, and I would be happy to see what people think of the current version.

Thanks for participating. Now let’s please talk about the merits of the various policy options.

Hey Orvillec

For the sake of us all, please don’t send the wine over them Internet pipes. They might get all clogged up. Or worse, the next “internet” his staff sends him might get all sticky. You’ll need to set up your own Internet tubes for that kind of material.

By the way Senator, the DoD has a separate Internet backbone because they use it to transfer classified data. That makes it more difficult for people to hack. They use the same Internet as the rest of us for unclassified business. But since you are in the Govt, you may not have been aware of this. It’s not for speed.

Charles,

Your blogs aren’t very entertaining. Please clean them up a bit and re-submit.

back to Charles’ comment about your friend with cable… cable works in a fundamentally different way then DSL which is way you get varied speeds. It is true that the internet can be drastically slowed down when used over cable lines. However the future internet will not rely on cable. Cable wires are inefficient and if IPTV were to truly run off of them it would fail miserably. On the other hand fiberoptic is a significanty more reliably medium. Utilizing fiberoptics would completley avert the whole “pipe” theory. The pipe theory is true with regards to cable. Which is why the cable is significantly slowed down by full bandwith usage of nearby users. Trying to cram alll of the data in at a rate that the router on the other end cannot handle will create a bottleneck. With DSL this does not happen as the network is handled in a different way. The same goes for fiberoptic. The internet does not get “clogged” and filling pipes does not correlate to a DOS attack. The falsified threat that is continually made by those against network neutrality is that an internet meltdown will occur. Basically a DOS attack on the entire internet or at least the main servers. However this is as unrealistic as the senators flimsy grasp of IP networking. The dangers of not defending network neutrality are not immediate but instead are wide gaps were large tel-cos such as Verizon could easily exploit for monopolistic purposes. Not that they will but that they could. This exists for the same reason that there are laws against you walking around naked in public. Not because you will but because you could. Network Neutrality is all about closing those loopholes and to call it a consumers bill of rights is bullshit. Some things in the bill need to be pushed forward so that the larger companies are able to deploy their fiberoptic networks faster. However a two-tier internet is not necessary. To argue that you can trust a large coporation to respect the rights of the consumer is nonsense. This only occurs when competition or regulation forces them into this corner. Since Telcos and cable have not been the kinds of things that actually compete with others… I doubt this will work. In my area the ONLY phone company who owns the wires is Verizon and the ONLY cable company is Comcast. However thanks to Verizon I do have a wornderful FIBEROPTIC internet connection and so does almost evreybody I know. It has never “fluctuated” once and although I do know it is theoretically possible for it to reacte the same way as cable. The amount of data being pumped through the line would have to amount to an incredible sum. The line is capable of well over a gigabit so why would it flinch at IPTVs 5-40mbps? Even if evrey TV in the local area had it AND were using the internet a failure would only happen if they OVERSOLD their bandwith. Somthing I certainly hope they are not stupid enough to do… unlike cable.

also on another note there are no cons to network neutrality from the users stance. At least from a privacy/personal liberty/quality of service perspective. Buisness wise the outlook is a bit different. Network Neutrality can be used effectivley to charge for specific things as well as to stiffle competition and even possibly open up your internet habits to unwelcome eyes. (Not that your that safe as it is thanks to the “PATRIOT” act)

To: RYANBROWN Re: Post on July 11, 2006 - 7:29pm.

I did indeed listen to the speech and admitted readily that he sounded very unlike a technocrat, and was indeed flustered to the point of repetition. Nothing in his speech, however, gave me the impression that he is stupid, nor that he is eeevviiiil. (Insert your own sound effects here.)

Name-calling still — too bad that. Not a single word yet defending “net neutrality”, nor arguing against the “dark side” (insert more sound effects here — they really should expand the options on posts at this site.)

By the way, After reviewing the original post, I can see now that I may have been wrong. This thread does appear to be about Mr. Stevens, not about “net neutrality”. So, please accept my apologies for taking you to task.

(Exit stage right)

To: pony express Re: your direct reply to me at 12:05

Funny. Nea, hilarious. Yet, point taken, but it may take awhile, so bear with me as I remember to infuse humor (sorry, not much in

the reply below) into my ramblings.

To: pony express. Re: your post at 12:08

You are right. The DoD network is separate for security. I believe I read, however, that it piggybacks (at least in part) on the public internet. [Please someone correct me, if I am wrong.] I cannot imagine the government being so stupid (nevermind, please strike from the record) as to build a system which could be brought down with the same simplicity as was done to telegraph systems in the Civil War, i.e. cutting the wires in a couple of places — backhoe, anyone. Bringing down the entire internet would involve more than having physical access to wires, since communication is rerouted as bottlenecks and outages occur, since DOS attacks are more quickly stopped by ISPs now. So, I believe the issue is that they have reserved bandwidth/ lines.

Relatedly, when I worked in payroll and accounting just a few years ago, when doing business with financial institutions, we transmitted ACH (check) data via modem. You bypass the internet for security — you must know the phone number, a login ID and password, and must be calling from a previouly identified number for that login info.

For this to work securely and without fail, most companies have direct lines that bypass the pool of internal numbers, thereby ensuring a single point of call, and avoiding getting blocked by there being too many calls at once during busy times of the day. Point being, we still use the same POTS as everyone else, we simply use a reserved line, with security credentials.

Also, please read my reply to AzureX120 below.

Last post for a while folks. Did not mean to “clog the tubes”.

In response to AzureX120 (NOTE: This was not meant to be a book. Sorry for the length — no time to edit. I will shorten future posts.)

I now live a little farther out from the Metro area, and DSL is not available where I now live. “Net neutrality” would continue to affect me. You write:

You make my point. Thank you for that. When we get to that “future internet” about which you write, maybe we can take a look at the idea again.

For now, by disallowing the ISPs to charge increased fees for increased levels of usage, you have indeed made the internet “free” for the taking, but someone has to pay for the expanded bandwidth necessary to allow for all those downloads or Quality of Service (QoS) will not be met. Guess who those someones are. ISPs will simply up their rates. Grandma won’t be able to afford to be on the net to receive pictures of her grandbabies (or to order her meds) — she simply could not afford the fees caused by the increased costs being passed on to the consumer. Now, some municipalities are looking at paying ISP fees for the poor, so guess who ends up paying for her net access. The internet is not free. The bandwidth must be paid for. The argument against “net neutrality” is that, for fairness, the ones using it the most, should pay the most. This is similar, in that regard, to the arguments for and against state and national park fees — many may argue that, like parks, the “government” (read: our pocketbooks) should pay for the base costs (I agree,) and some might argue it should cover all the costs (I disagree.)

AzureX120, I do not get the impression that you believe that the internet is only for the “city folk”. Yet, since I am not aware of any near-term plans to provide fiber-optic to the curb where I live, that is in effect what a “net neutrality” policy offers.

When neighbors “clog them tubes” with video surfing and music downloads, I am affected. If either the sites they visited or the users themselves were charged for the extra bandwidth consumed, then either the usage would diminish or my ISP would gladly (with all those extra dollars flowing in) increase the bandwidth in my little area of the world — more bandwidth equals better response and more usage, thus higher ROI.

You write: “The line is capable of well over a gigabit so why would it flinch at IPTVs 5-40mbps? Even if evrey TV in the local area had it AND were using the internet a failure would only happen if they OVERSOLD their bandwith. Somthing I certainly hope they are not stupid enough to do… unlike cable.”

Let’s take these one at a time. First, doing the calculations: gigabit (1000 mbps) / 5 mbps (the lower of your estimates) = 200 concurrent viewers. Do you live out in the country also? A single apartment complex can have more households than that. Let the kids tell each other to check out the online video on (insert website here) and the entire neighborhood is down for an hour. Do you think that websites are going to stop at little video snippets? If the cost is the same, and they can throw in a commercial here and there, IPTV is only as far away as the website having a large enough server. Second, we all know that businesses just live to have extra (read unused) capacity — who cares about ROI? — so, you’re right, they would never oversell bandwidth (look up definition for sarcasm.) Obviously, they will build extra capacity in, so as not to have to dig it right back up, but having that capacity used before it is paid for will result in increased fees to cover the need to go in before payback has occurred.

The naive view that the internet is free and the related inverse-socialist idea of everyone pays the same, and everyone takes what they want, fails for one reason. There is not enough money (at the current rates) to build out the network to everyone everywhere at the ever increasing capacity needed, so the system as it exists is inherently unfair. I understand and agree with my having to pay more than an equal amount, since the cable system had to build out into the boondocks for me to have accesss. My only issue is that I ought to be able to use it at a reasonable level. If certain users are able to create bottlenecks, then the expected QoS is not being met for the remainder of users.

The funniest part was when he mis-pronounced “Deutsche” Telecom as “Douche” Telecom.

A Freudian slip? Or just another sign of his ignorance?

To review:

Deutsche means German (i.e. where Freud lived).

While Douche is: A stream of water, often containing medicinal or cleansing agents, that is applied to a body part or cavity for hygienic or therapeutic purposes.

Aberrant Equation

OK, hilarious. Obviously Stevens doesn’t have a clue about the internet. But, really, his much vilified statement about “tubes” is just a parroting of what AT&T mogul Ed Whitacre stated in BusinessWeek when he said Google was using his “pipes”. What I would call to task are the comments about Alaska. Yes, Stevens has been around forever. But you have to realize that with an electorate as small as we have in Alaska, we have to strategize. We have a state that’s rich in resources and small in population. So, if we don’t want, say, California to dictate what happens in our state it is necessary for our Senators to have seniority. Who wouldn’t do the same if they were in our position?

NOBOGY GETS THIS!!!!!!!!!!!

wHY? SWEET GOD! WHY?!

1)DDoS attacks occur due to low (RELATIVELY) bandwith “last mile” connection - DDS/DoS does not occur due to internet congestion - it is due too too much traffic being aimed at the connection connecting the server to the isp… so the internet is not affected - the damn “tubes don’t get filled” - data finds different routes away from congested routers - if you don’t believe me, check your routing tables each time you connect to a website, eg: - cnet.com

2) EVERYONE PAYS FOR USING THEIR INTERNET!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GOOGLE DOES NOT HAVE A FREE RIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They right billion dollar checks for their internet access You pay for your access at your end The reason for this wholw issue is that IPTV over Tel networks was not possible (efficiently) uptil now… and now when it can be done, the telcos wan’t to have a soft , “competetion - free” ride into the business!

3)Think of it… If your dsl provider throttles your bandwith when accesing bbc news (for example), and bbc is the only current network having coverage of a current world tragedy, what will you do 99.999999…..% your local Cable provider too will throttle bandwith….. They BOTH WANT you to access THIR OWN USELESS NEWS SITE!!!!!!!!!! They wan’t you to use their video, email, IM services in the same way…..

Remember! it is not just a question of speed - If you think you don’t mind the competing websites opening slowly - think again!! They can literally cause connections to keep “resetting” (believe me - I know how the TCP protocal works) thereby stopping your page loads halfway through……

Sometimes I feel that this is the golden age of the internet and it qill be ending soon……

Email me if anyone is up for a sporting debate…..

If you ask me, the major point to note in the whole net neutrality debate is not that you pay more for faster access, some people have high-priority traffic that they are prepared to pay a premium for guaranteed delivery. The major problem we are seeing, is restriction on content based simply on the companies’ interests. When you buy a net connection from an ISP, you are entering into a contract / agreement. Your side is that you will pay them regularly and won’t suddenly decide to stop. Their side is that they should be pass you whatever data you request from the internet, irrespective of where it comes from. If someone wants to get a lot of data, fine then, charge them extra over someone who only wants a little. But if someone wants to use a competing internet phone service instead of the one that the ISP provides, you shouldn’t have to pay extra to do that at the same speed.

Wow!!! The internet is slow… i just registered with PK and it took a whole 5 seconds to open Thunderbird… though the e-mail with my password was there when it opened… hmmmmm i guess I sound like a rambling idiot, I guess i fit in pretty well with good ol’ Teddy. Does he realize that we — the folks who pay the broadband companies — are complacent with spending the 40 bucks or so to get high-speed service only because of the availability of THE CONTENT THAT WE WANT. Would you pay $50 a month for really quick e-mail???? Businesses make profit off this medium because WE want it and are willing to pay for it. Telecom makes profit off this medium because WE as the consumer are willing to pay jacked rates to get high-speed INTERNET service — which includes all the available media (not to be confused with high-speed EMAIL). Ted Stevens makes profit because of our f*$@ed up political system which benefits the crooked rather than the righteous. Who’s losing out?? LEAVE THE SYSTEM ALONE, IT WORKS!

PS - the email probably took 5 days because Ted (slowly slipping into senility) forgot to press the ‘Send’ button until a few days later.

kiratpandya, I am game for the argument. To avoid pettiness, let’s agree to not mention spelling and grammatical errors and get down to the meat of the argument.

First things first. You actually make my point. I have not read any posts here that equate DDoS with internet congestion, per se. I, myself, did write that they have equivalency in “clogging the tubes” for everyone using that portion of the ISPs wires. This is true, and you write as much in your first paragraph. I don’t personally know of anyone who links directly to the backbone — there is a “last-mile connection” to (most) every connection. So, your argument fails here. Yes, traffic is re-routed, but not without affect upon the ISPs (and their users) through which it routed, and in the meantime, while the excess traffic continues, everyone else on that “last mile” suffers. Ever experience a traffic detour? So, in fact the internet bandwidth is affected. Thus, if Chicagoans decide, en masse, to watch da Bears on IPTV, then not only will their Quality of Service (QoS) be affected, but everyone whose normal route of information flowed thru Chicago would be affected, however minimally.

Second, following your logic, trucks should pay the same fees as cars to use the roads, even though they cause the roads to bear a greater burden. Continuing to follow your reasoning, this would be fair, since consumers pay for the goods at the end of the route, and thus it is only by our graces that the roads have purpose. Yet my argument here is simple. To those who create the burden, should go the costs. This may keep that broom with an attached internet connection from ever making it to market, but so be it. If there exists enough of a market for a product, it will overcome having to pay its fair share for the interstate system. The same is true for those using the internet. (By the way, Google ain’t writin’ no “billion dollar checks for their internet access”. Exaggeration, exclamations and excess capitalization detract from your points.) I work with and read much about internet access and security. When a company experiences a DDoS, the ISP begins to keep an eye on that company. If it continues, they will cut access off. Why? Because it affects all of their customers. They don’t want to; they have to, in order to stay in business.

And finally, the remainder of your argument appears to be about content control and competition.

Senator Stevens points out that if those who have the connections — cable and phone companies — block access to content, simply to thwart competition, then those issues will be addressed through current laws, including monopoly laws.

Since, in many locations, (although, admittedly, not all, and maybe not most) there is competition for ISPs, it is doubtful that those who practice such actions, would survive the consumer fallout. With or without competition, certainly the FCC and FTC fines and litigation would make it in their best interests to behave. When they don’t, call your senators to ask for their help.

I must be missing something here regarding this discussion of additional fees. Hopefully someone can clarify this for me.

In my experience, companies already pay tiered access fees based on the level of service that they receive. Typically (for any ISP I’ve dealt with) this is based on the size of the pipe(s) that the company requires. If I use dual 128kbps pipes for a satellite uplink to my offshore operations, I pay $50k/month. If I end up having to upgrade to dual 512kbps pipes, I’ll pay commensurately more. The same is true regardless of whether the pipe is satellite, fibre landline, wireless, etc.

The same goes for home users, though of course on a smaller, but braoder, scale. A local ISP will offer tiers of service based on upload/download speeds and transfer limits. For $30/month a user gets 5Mbps download speeds with 50Gb transfer per month. If you need to exceed that, you’ll need to pay $50/month for 7Mbps and 100Gb limit. And so on.

Now, while Google may not pay ‘Billions’ as kiratpandya mentioned, the point is well-taken. The internet access fees to support an infrastructure the size of Google’s is no doubt sizeable. I guess I’m missing how we can be arguing about this type of ‘tiered service’ when this is really already in place. I see this discussion here and elsewhere surrounding the net neutrality debate. What am I missing here?

As knight_rider11 points out, the real issue to me is the potential to throttle or prioritize individual data packets based on whatever tier of service that packet is entitled to. This seems a fairly large technical hurdle to overcome, not to mention a political one as the internet becomes less and less ‘US-centric’ as time goes by, and that more and more of it’s tubes (haha) will flow through other countries, who may have different/opposing legislation on how to prioritize packets. Does the net neutrality legislation address this?

I’d ask Senator Ted, but I’m afraid I’ve got to agree with the bulk of the postings here: the man appears to be clueless (at least so far as discussions of the internet go). Yes, as Charles points out he seems to be flustered. He’s flustered because he’s attempting to defend a position he doesn’t understand, and he knows it. There’s a saying that if you can’t explain a concept to a layman, then you likely don’t understand the concept well enough yourself. Senator Ted puts the truth to those words.

And lastly: Charles (or anyone), if you truly intend to avoid pettiness by not mentioning spelling or grammar, then just don’t mention it. Making a comment that alludes to it without specifically mentioning it is still petty. I’ve no desire to start a flame war, I just wish we could all stick to the issue at hand and maybe find a grain of truth somewhere at the end of the road.

End Ramble.

After listening to this reject ramble on about something that he obviously has no grasp of, I have one question. Why are they letting the screwed up government clones go on to be real politicians? This guy can’t even talk correctly, a prerequisite of being a good politician. He knows a miniscule amount about the subject in question. And somebody correct me if I am mistaken, but unless this guys’ IQ is borderline sentient, then there is no excuse for why he has been allowed to get in such a position so as to help form more brainless policies for the citizens of the U.S. It’s pathetic that he was even allowed to speak, let alone ramble.

Bwana, While my comment about spelling and grammar were meant as I said them, (to avoid having anyone jump into the fray because of kiratpandya’s poor grasp of spelling and grammmar,) I did indeed realize that by bringing it up, I was opening up myself for such an accusation. The intent was not to bring attention to it, rather to lay the ground rules from the start. Most everyone is subject to making typos, and to deleting parts of sentences, thus making their formerly coherent statement unintelligible.

Regarding the rest of what you write: Yes, most users — corporate included — are charged based a tiered-pricing scheme. The issue is that only such much data can get through a given ISPs network at a time, and while it is rare for data to be stopped, the issue is the Quality of Service (QoS) may not be getting met — think Internet Phones (VoIP.) [To achieve QoS for VoIP, a certain level of bandwidth must be reserved.] Only a given corporate account’s ISP gets revenue from that account (whether that account be Google, MSN or other). The issue remains that all the ISPs networks between point A (the user) to point B (corporate website) are getting hit by heavy traffic such as IPTV. If a small bevy of corporate users are hogging that system, then that ISP has a right to throttle such traffic. The result is that the data makes an end-run around that network, and the ISP keeps its QoS agreements with its paying customers. The ISPs affected have to decide to follow suit.

The argument I have heard made for “net neutrality” is that, obviously, the downside could be that that very data is what the ISP’s customers are retrieving. As such, the ISP is already being paid for access to that data, because it is their customers that are retrieving it. Since those customers are paying on a tiered-pricing scheme, the accusation is that this is double-dipping. Charging the user for bandwidth and then charging (someone) additionally for access to specific websites labeled as hogs, or, if not paid, limiting how quickly the user can access that data.

The argument against “net neutrality” (at least my argument against it, see my earlier posts) is two-fold. First, even if a given website is very popular, that does not give it the right to “clog the tubes”, and that is the effect to me, especially if it is my neigbors on the same ISP accessing it. ISPs don’t really sell you bandwidth, they sell you maximum download/ upload speeds, with the caveat “results may vary.” So, the earlier remark AzureX120 made about overselling the capacity does not take into account that just like most businesses, ISPs base their customer capacity ratings on average traffic for given times of the day. And just like other businesses (your call is important to us. Please stay on the line), sometimes they miscalculate. The problem is that, with most companies, if one of their products causes too many call-ins to customer service, they can choose to drop the product or raise their price to account for the extra logistics costs incurred. ISPs are simply suggesting that this is what they want to do. If ISPs were to charge additionally for time-of-day and amounts of data usage, like wireless carriers do, then they could either gain the resources to expand the net, or would have effectively throttled the usage. To avoid upsetting the great majority of their paying users with average usage, they have chosen to go after the source.

The ISPs are not saying “pay or be cut off completely.” They are saying, “pay a toll for excessive usage, or have a limit set to how much bandwidth your webiste can consume.

I hope this has been helpful.

By the way, regarding your last remark, it would be easier to stick to the argument at hand, if the moderators would moderate and delete the postings, such as Xandyr99’s, which add nothing except insults to the mix. That would be very helpful, indeed.

Quote:

“Let’s take these one at a time. First, doing the calculations: gigabit (1000 mbps) / 5 mbps (the lower of your estimates) = 200 concurrent viewers. Do you live out in the country also? A single apartment complex can have more households than that. Let the kids tell each other to check out the online video on (insert website here) and the entire neighborhood is down for an hour. Do you think that websites are going to stop at little video snippets? If the cost is the same, and they can throw in a commercial here and there, IPTV is only as far away as the website having a large enough server. Second, we all know that businesses just live to have extra (read unused) capacity — who cares about ROI? — so, you’re right, they would never oversell bandwidth (look up definition for sarcasm.) Obviously, they will build extra capacity in, so as not to have to dig it right back up, but having that capacity used before it is paid for will result in increased fees to cover the need to go in before payback has occurred.”

Ok im in a city, denver, I live in a ten stroy building, I have comcast cable internet, I have yet to feel these ‘outages’. Why do we need to put a price tag in something that is supposed to be free for all mankind? Schools use this to teach kids in the USA and its free information for them to learn from, the highschool in denver is poor enough as it is, now you want to charge them more money? Linux, the picture of freedom in my opinion, and other BSD and Opensource projects will die, Why? Because they dont make any money they are all non-profit. I think this guy just got mad because his “mail” took 5 days to deliver, Which I have yet to experience also. I doubt this man will succeed, if he makes it, he will not last long. All of that free stuff will die out, not everyone is made of money.

I may be dumb or mal-informed but if my local school needs to pay extra for the much needed BW then I dont agree with it. This is not about you mail getting there in a few seconds, its about getting the information to the children of today so they can learn. Anyway the super computers that handle and redirect the flow, will only get better as our grasp on computer tech grows. There will be a time when the internet should be flushed and restarted, but untill then lets not screw with something that works. If its not broke dont fix it.

What exactly are we considering “free” here? The usage of the internet is most certainly not free - individuals pay for it, companies pay for it, and your schools where kids in the USA are learning (lol, learning in the USA) pay for it. That’s not free.

And free for all of mankind? What about those who don’t have computers? What about those too poor to afford them? Wait, doesn’t one have to pay for a computer too? I suppose you could go to a public computer, but then you have all sorts of fun restrictions, whether it be government computers censored from some content, or corporate computers similarly choosing what to disalow. Then, I suppose, we are no longer in the realm of the “free” either.

What are the recurring costs of internet use? For the user, we require the necessary cables and computer platform, which would defray into yet another cost (though if you’re smart about it, not too much). How much does actual internet usage erode the performance of existing networks? The physical cables, do they become overheated or disloged, requiring repair? The computers that host information, servers that pass data along, do they require increased attention from system administrators from someone using it more? I just find so little actual validation for either side, concrete data pointing towards a weighted cost or uniform, and then also considering the corporate use of the internet, that I can hardly come to one side or the other (what, the “Dark Side” is it now?) with much satisfaction or assurance.

And I’m sorry, but the average computer user does NOT have the skill or time necessary to run open BSD or Linux; they have to fall to paid OS (Windows, Mac). It’s really not practical for, say, an attorney making $400/hr + to spend his time fiddling around with his computer because he can’t run some command in Linux. (The same can be said that these people and corporations will be willing to spend much more money on the internet, and when you get right down to it, guys like this are the ones who make policy, the New York Lawyers and their fairly-ignorant yet powerful political allies). Yes, RedHat and such are easy to putz around with, but have you ever taken a good look at your grandmother using the computer? It’s like Ted Stevens, only imagine him actually using the computer- it’s like a blind monkey with two fingers and (obviously, lacking eyes) no eye-hand coordination.

Does Linux make “no money?” How do the designers live? And non-profit does not mean what you’re alluding to. I work at a non-profit software company, yet the engineers are paid quite well- we just do not accumulate corporate profits, and our “executives” are not paid ridiculously high wages.

Even if they do make “no money,” people will continue to generate open-source software in the same manner that they have been doing. Limiting bandwidth or internet access won’t stop people from working with code on their own computers.

From my standpoint, I use the internet for way too much for my own good, but hey, it’s fast (yes), easy to use, and there are loads of content out there, whether it be gaming, research, or this oh-so-fun blogging. How much do I pay for it? Somewhere aroudn $35 a month. That’s roughly how much one would spend on meals and transportation in one day - eating to breakfast, busing or driving to work, lunch, dinner, and the trip home. For something that occupies such large amounts of my time - several hours daily, minimum, why wouldn’t I be willing to spend more money? It is sort of ridiculous that I spend the same amount on internet as my parents, yet use it at least 10 times as much.

This all said and done, I still have at best a very basic grasp on the Network Nutrality subject. Much of it just seems like providing-assurance clauses, similar to what we see with these local “wireless assurance bills.” If preservation of “neutrality” is all that is entailed, sure, sounds fine. But, I question exactly what people mean by preservation - does this include any preemptive actions? - and “neutrality” mean. Have you ever listened to a lawyer twist your words? It’s the same sort of thing that they can and will do in court, which is where this will all end up anyways.

If we start trying to legislate what we think ISPs will do in the future, we could run into some problems. We can’t see the future or how it’s going to play out with the internet, just make educated guesses.

On the topic of the government/DoD’s internet usage - what ever happened to the GiG? Is this “piggy-backed” onto the internet’s structure? That’s not the understanding I got from it.

For his own good, and for the good of the American people, Ted Stevens should be put in a rest home. His cognitive functions are obviously greatly diminished. I hope he gets some treatment soon.

For the pro-tier camp:

Since the ISP’s customers are the ones requesting all the extra bandwidth for the tubes (everybody wants to watch the baseball game on the internet) why are they not being charged for clogging the tubes? The bandwidth is not being used without their request. With regards to Charles’ truck example, trucks are charged higher fees for toll roads (usually a per-axle fee) due to the increased wear and tear on the road, not for creating a traffic jam. Since we’re on the care metaphors, cab companies do not pay higher fees because more of their cars are on the road at any give time, thus slowing access to the offramp to your neighbourhood.

Personally, I feel it is entirely understandable for this forum to ramble and digress from the topic of net-neutrality, since Sen. Stevens has clearly pointed out that “no one has defined just what net-neutrality is.” If the good senator is allowed to ramble and dance around the issue, then certainly everyone else should be. Just so long as we realize that obfuscation clogs up the tubes, and generally decreases QoS.

I must confess that I am curious to see if Mr. Beard can twist my words around to show how I “make [his] point.”

Moy: You make some interesting comments. I’d like to move them along, and see if they go anywhere, if I may.

Let’s start with your ideas about distinguishing “free”, or “free for all mankind”. We all collectively own the airwaves. The government took charge at one point, and slapped some regulation on our airwaves in order to bring order to what might otherwise have been a chaotic mess. Technology, today, allows individuals to utilize our airwaves as we see fit, and the need to prevent a chaotic mess has diminished to a seeming nonexistence. In other words, the problem of how to prevent interference with the enjoyment of our airwaves is no longer a problem. We see a nice demonstration of that when we utilize the Internet. In fact, with the advent of wireless technology, it appears we, as owners of the airwaves, should be able to dismantle every telephone pole in the country, and use an infrastructure that literally consists of tin can antennas on every rooftop. A cheap tin can antenna that costs $3 to $7 each.

As you know, file transfer between computers on a home network are generally considered broadband speeds. Most desktop computers, today, are capable of many Mb/sec. In fact, it is a common feature of many computers to enable users to drag and drop large files from one computer to another rapidly. Together with cheap tin can antennas, those same two computers can be moved further apart, and other computers added to the network, and, soon, you have an entire community sharing files across town, without relying on telcos or cable companies, or even an ISP. Of course, the community might elect to bring on such companies to facilitate maintenance of the network. I suspect any contracts would be negotiated in favor of the community, rather than controlled by the companies.

You made some comments about Linux. It’s 2006, and things are a lot different, today. Most Open Source distributions are as easy to install and maintain as Windows. The only difference lies with the stability of Linux, and the lack of virus penetration usually associated with Windows users.

The telcos and cable companies want you and I to believe that they need to provide access to the Internet. They also want you and I to believe that legislating net neutrality will kill their business, and wreck the economy. Let’s consider what might happen with net neutrality in place.

A tin can wireless community is constrained by how many tin can antennas can “see” each other. While the country builds out this tin can antenna network across the country, and around the world, we would have a whole bunch of little internets. Each community would create audio and video works. Some of those would be of interest to the next community. In fact, some might be so valuable, as to generate revenues. Let’s take one musician in one community, and have her create a CD. She could sell 100 of them to friends and family at $10 each. She would generate $1000. Suppose there were 100 communities that wanted to purchase 1 CD each to add to their local tin can community network to share with each other. Our musician has now generated $2000. If each county in my state of Iowa had one musician do the same (there are 99 counties), then roughly $200,000 would be generated within the state. Let’s now add one nonprofit organization that creates a CD for a fund-raiser. The same things happen, and the state now has generated $400,000. I’m going to go out on a limb, and suggest that as we see with public television, and with public radio, there are tens of thousands of listeners and viewers in every state that might want to support local works on community tin can networks. We’ve seen this support demonstrated through such sites as youtube.com and mp3.com (long gone, as the RIAA made sure that happened). Without going beyond nonprofit fund-raisers, it is quickly realized that with community wireless networks in place, a state can expect to generate $50 million dollars a year, without any overhead or up-front costs involved: 1CD x $10 each x 100 sales x 100 counties x 10 communities per county x 10 nonprofits = $10 million per year. And the state governments won’t have to give away the farm in tax breaks, utility breaks or any other incentives to these community tin can networks.

It doesn’t happen, though, if the telcos and cable companies continue to convince you and I that they alone control our airwaves. Legislation to prevent complete monopolization of our airwaves by the telcos and cable companies is needed, now, not later. Stevens may be speaking about tubes, but the telcos and cable companies are talking about our airwaves. Why else would they be focusing on the upcoming airwaves auctions?

http://tubes404.ytmnd.com/

Says it all

My dear Mr. Charles Beard,

I can assure you that I am adept at English grammer and and am able to articulate my thoughts perfectly. When writing my previous post, I was using my friend’s laptop, the keyboard of which I was not familiar with. The post was typed in a hurry, thus causing quite a few gramatical and spelling errors. I hope you will forgive me for that!

Now, to the point,

Personally I am sick of this debate.

I personally (everyone please note - this is my PERSONAL opinion!) feel that if this system were implemented in UK, there would be no reason to worry due to extreme ISP level competetion.

I am an Indian and have moved to the US just 6 months agoe. There was only one broadband provider in my area in India, and boy! I had to fight with the company practically every day!!!!!

Firstly, it seems to me that just 2 options - cable or dsl, are no better than just one company. Firstly, local ISPs are just reselling bandwith baught from the larger local ISPs. Eg - “Virtual Los Alamos” a local ISP in my area resells bandwith they buy from Qwest (and Qwest provides its own dsl service in my area)

Secondly, not everybody has even 2 options - most rural areas and outer city suburbs have only Cable service from one company (due to distance constraints on DSL service)

And, going a bit off-topic, i have set up a website TechnoHelpWeekly

I invite anyone who is inteested to discuss this topic in more detail in the forums there (where I can throw out flamers - which is not done a lot at this website)

If nothing else, I invite you just to check it out and see if my weekly podcast interests you!!!

Kirat Pandya

heya,

check out Ted Stevens Soundboard it’s quite a laugh !

Kind Regards,

Marek.

Stevens should have been taken out to the woodshed a long time ago.

Consider the following bit of fictional legislation: “We all drink water, so we should all contribute to the drinking water supply. From now on, anyone who wants to is allowed to pour any substance they want into our drinking water; but please try to do your best to add clean water only”. Thirsty?

Ted Steven’s is exactly right. Heres another analogy: Everyone needs rain, right? Right. Nobody OWNS rain. Rain can not be directly regulated. So we limit what people can put into the air. Just because someone REALLY REALLY wants to operate a highly polluting vehicle doesn’t mean we allow them to; we have emissions laws. A horribly polluting factory can be closed down because it’s not up to standard. Its unfortunate that those that can’t afford to comply with emissions laws are forced to ride the bus, but by the same token, if anyone is allowed to do whatever they want, it ruins everything for everyone. Net Neutrality isn’t about free speech, it’s about letting everyone do whatever the hell they want regardless of whether or not it damages the community as a whole. One bad egg ruins the omlette so to speak.

If you look at your connection from one place to another it goes through a few dozen nodes (tracert; look it up). These are tubes. If you go to google.com, you’re making 30 stops along the way. If one of those nodes is destroyed, you have to find another path to bring you to Google. If a vast majority of the nodes are weak or damaged or improperly run, it doesn’t just affect itself, it affects me and it affects google, and neither of us have any say in who’s regulating our connection. This is bad.

One last analogy: What if everyone was responsible for maintaining the bit of road in front of their house? Net neutrality proposes that everyone should take care of the road in front of their house. Not only that, but it goes on to state that you have no business questioning what your neighbor decides to do with his piece of road. If we do it this way, isn’t it going to make it very difficult for those of us that simply want to drive in a straight line and get to where we’re going?

“His analogy of the internet being like tubes holds water (I feel certain that most of you have heard of Denial-of-Service attacks)”

What does a DoS attack have to do with the internet being “tubes”?