US court rules against FCC on `net neutrality’
It marks a serious setback for the FCC, which needs authority to regulate the Internet in order to push ahead with key parts of its massive national broadband plan.
There will be disappointment…
Personally, I find it sad that it has come to this to decide whether this country really gets serious with high-speed Internet access. I know among the more conservative readers on here, government regulation is not very popular. But it’s a simple fact in this capitalist society that the almighty dollar is what companies are most interested in. Regulation does put a crimp on profits, and I believe nobody can really argue that.
Via Drudge
Um, Kate. I think you may have the wrong link up.
The FCC’s authority was predicated on limited resource – broadcast bandwidth, in this case, as the old radio and broadcast TV were bandwidth hogs. The FCC was supposed to allocate scarce resources.
The internet does not have a bandwidth limitation, and it’s not broadcast over the air. The FCC has NO authority.
Plain & simple.
Ahem. Apparently so. Thanks for the heads up, catch.
Mojo
There is merit to your position but the problem for the current us aspiring dictatorship is to curtail criticism/dissent of THEM on the internet.
Why do I get happy every time I see a court slap down a government proposal?
Could it be that every government proposal with do one or more of the following.
Restrict my freedoms
Tax me more heavily
Create an unfair advantage for some group
Waste my tax money
Make more people less self-reliant
Piss off people who should not be pissed off
Destroy the family
Create more tension between groups
Support lunacy like global warming controls
Increase immigration of undesirables
Restrict my freedoms
and did I mention … restrict my freedoms?
I have no doubt that this issue is not done with. The Obongo Tribe will not give up a chance for more control of the flow of information, goods and services … for they are Marxists and that’s that.
We’re getting to the point where the Internet is no longer a luxury, but rather a necessity. At that point, regulation of the industry is necessary in order to ensure that it is accessible by all, rather than only where it is the most highly profitable. Of course, it’s not going to be as profitable for a company to offer Internet access in rural North Dakota as downtown Los Angeles.
I have an idea, let’s make a railroad build a line to some North Dakota farm, chosen at random, because rail transport is no longer a luxury. Oh wait, somebody else had that idea and used it in a novel…
Kate I think you missed this for Rural Customers :
We’re getting to the point where the Internet is no longer a luxury, but rather a necessity. At that point, regulation of the industry is necessary in order to ensure that it is accessible by all, rather than only where it is the most highly profitable. Of course, it’s not going to be as profitable for a company to offer Internet access in rural North Dakota as downtown Los Angeles.
But should access be determined by geographical location, or potential profit margins? Therein lies the argument. And now it appears a court case in Washington, DC could possibly set the course of broadband access for years to come.
Rural saskatchewan would still be on Party lines ( if they had phones at all) if it was not for regulation forcing the same services in urban vs rural settings.
too funny – Saskatchewan has broadband in smaller communities than most other places and this did not happen by force of law. Satellite broadband covers those areas of Canada not covered by wired or mobile access. Technology is lowering the cost of broadband but the big savings will be realized first in the more densley poulated areas. The less dense areas will be brought along later as the cost to cover them gets lower.
The question is, what is the basic service. Net neutrality has the danger of making basic service in downtown New York the same as basic service on the back 40, 2 miles south of the correction line, by the coulee, where no one lives anymore. And if the rural residents living in places like that want more broadband than they currently have sooner than it will get there with technology advances, I’m sure they can buy it in.
There is no need to regulate this. The market (in the broadest sense of that word) will do it.
I live out in the back 40 and have high speed internet. With all the advances in technologies such as satellite internet, I think almost everyone now has access of some kind. I don’t see why this needs to be regulated. Once the infra structure is in place, they want to sell as much of it as they can, as the infrastructure is the costly part.
My God where are they teaching these Marxist economics?? Like the private sector and demand can’t “build” full Broadband capability? We need gummint to stand in for private enterprise? We need big brother’s highly regulated internet vision?
Piss off!
Actaully it was done by CRTC force of law.
Ask Sasktel, they would do almost anything to stop having to provide equal services phone wise to rural saskatchewan. They have only recently been able to charge differently (an only by a little bit) for rural service customers.
Obviously I agree with the free-market argument.
OT/ I believe we must find a way to engage the “geeks” in the freedom of speech struggle. There is a sleeping monster out there, the Geek Collective. If we could somehow pry their attention from World of Warcraft/MSN and expose them to the ever growing threat to freedom on the internet, which they covet, and take for granted; I think the smackdown we could lay on the prying hands of the government would one for the ages.
That said, I think politically, the desire to control the internet and the movement of information has been settled.
Abe Froman, Hear! Hear! I could not have said it better.
OK I asked Sasktel as you suggested and they say you’re not even close to funny, just bitter.
Abe Froman @11:43 – isn’t that the current NDP platform? I think I’ve got that list of pledges on a pamphlet here somewhere…
Much of Saskatchewan has high speed Internet service and a lot of that was brought in by a number of private companies such as Yourlink. Satellite service is also becoming more affordable lately.
Sasktel is continually playing catchup as it does not have enough resources to provide service to everyone at once and concentrated on the higher density population centres. The small private companies filled the gap.
Abe Froman, what you said at 11:43, except we would include the Canadian Dippers, Liberals and “Progressive” Conservatives.
The desire by some to regulate everything in our lives seems to generally revolve around the so-called theory of “it is good for you or it is for your safety”.
These were the excuses given by Lenin, Hitler and now by Marxist left-liberals.
I must have missed the funeral for classical liberalism.
This is reason #456 that conservatives should never complain about judicial activism, which has been recognized by the other small-government minded ideologies as essential to restraint of government.
“…simple fact in this capitalist society that the almighty dollar …”
Is’t it interesting somebody would say that.
The question though is, “who is it that is not interested in the allmighty dollar?”
Governments seem to be sucking the maximum, it there were no capitalists, one wanders where would they get the dollars from.
The current president thinks that all he has to do is print some.
Indy @12:44 – here’s what we do: We promise the geeks unlimited access to one of those creepily-realistic animated medieval-princess type characters they like as a reward for bravely girding their weapons of cyber-cunning and nerding forth to slay the Dragon of Internet Censorship. With any luck they’ll never know that they brushed up against “reality”, and the online world will be safe for the rest of us…
Cytotoxic – but who will judge the Judges?
Great……The Government wants broadband access directly into everyone’s house. Of course they may not have a computer. But the Government can then supply that. Isn’t it great to live in such a screwed up time? If the Obama tribe is for it, then I am against it.
“Obama tribe is for it, then I am against it. ”
Are you really so blinded by hatred that you automatically assume everything Obama does is ‘bad’?
So far, that’s been a pretty safe bet.
Those who want equal access at equal cost are nothing but a bunch of Socialists.
“Are you really so blinded by hatred that you automatically assume everything Obama does is bad?”
It is not hatred. Only following his track record. The real reason I did not vote for the man is his rhetoric did not match his small but liberal voting record. I watched him throw people he respected under the bus to achieve his goals. That is the trait of a liar and someone who does not care about what he says, only that he looks good when he says it.
So, if Obama and his gang of little evil men are for it. Regardless of what they say, you can be sure it will benefit one of their social agendas and will not improve the U.S. in any way.
And that’s the facts Jack……Obama speaks, lies follow. IMO. more than any politician in the last 100 years. Even tricky Dick had more redeeming qualities than this man.
I actually feel sorry for you, Kate.
Ricktus: Could you please list a few people Obama has thrown under the bus? I’d actually like to know.
The internet should be viewed as infrastructure, nothing more, nothing less.
I actually agree that internet pricing should be based on usage….. in a true free market that typically that means the more you use, the less you pay. Google ISPs etc should pay less than I do. The only problem is that there is no free market, never has been and never will be. Free markets require perfect information and lots of competitors.
Comcast as an actor in our so called free market is doing what all good capitalists do….. i.e. it seeks to become a monopolist so it can grab you by your favorite appendage and either ignore you or charge you whatever they want.
People who shout about the virtues of the free market are, such as Milton Freedman and more recently Alan Greenspan, are naïve and/or have no knowledge and/or understanding of history and/or are just plain basically greedy. Free market rants are now officially declared boring and should be limited to only one place, Fox News so the rest of us can conveniently ignore them.
The Feds should focus more on promoting competition and less on pricing just like they did back in the days at the end of the Standard Oil monopoly and Rockefeller’s reign of terror. We will all be better for it.
Broadband is not limited by a scarcity of wavelength. Old- style telephony was. Highways and railways create physical impediments to any competition andthus need to be regulated Old-style telephony had enormous upfront costs and this could be a barrier to paralell competition as do pipeline services and thus profits need to be regulated to some degree.
Internet Therefore does not require regulation.
Cytotoxic: my brief reading of the ruling shows no sign of judicial activism. The court simply ruled against the FCC. It did not write the law – it only ruled on it nor did it read into the law as is done often here in Canada.
Judicial activism is an affront to the democratic system as it is a crossing of juristiction by the court. (Which is why roe v Wade is such an abomination.)
Mrkitpyr:
bollocks.
Markets do not need to have perfect information nor do they need lots of competitors – often 2 is sufficient. More players and more accurate information is always desirable but it is not a necessity and there are countless examples of where that is the case.
There is the accurate adage that the best cure for high prices IS high prices and we have seen that in spades recently in oil and gas and oilseeds. Provided there is not a barrier to new competitors entering a market (see my previous post for examples)there is no need to regulate – note that comcast has lots of competition.
As for the breaking-up of standard oil – it was a collosal mistake. Lots of new cometition was on the horizon and from the american perspective it handicapped SO’s ability to compete not just in america, but around the globe. And it is ironic that the five pieces have now consolidated with themselves or others.
Mrkitpyr:
bollock$.
Markets do not need to have perfect information nor do they need lots of competitors – often 2 is sufficient. More players and more accurate information is always desirable but it is not a necessity and there are countless examples of where that is the case.
There is the accurate adage that the best cure for high prices IS high prices and we have seen that in spades recently in oil and gas and oilseeds. Provided there is not a barrier to new competitors entering a market (see my previous post for examples)there is no need to regulate – note that comcast has lots of competition.
As for the breaking-up of standard oil – it was a collosal mistake. Lots of new cometition was on the horizon and from the american perspective it handicapped SO’s ability to compete not just in america, but around the globe. And it is ironic that the five pieces have now consolidated with themselves or others.
What’s all this talk of satellite internet? Terrestrial wireless providers has way less latency, and Saskatchewan’s mostly flat terrain makes it easy to deploy cheaply. That is the main reason we have decent access to internet in the middle of nowhere.
K Stricker, anyone that puts satellite out as a viable rural option has either not used it, or never had to pay the bill for what amounts to glorified 56kb.
batman asks: “Are you really so blinded by hatred that you automatically assume everything Obama does is ‘bad’?”
No and yes. Although it is possible Obama may eventually do something beneficial for the USA, even a blind pig finds the odd truffle.
too funny said: “We’re getting to the point where the Internet is no longer a luxury, but rather a necessity.”
Uh huh. Necessity like cell phones and strawberries in January? Should we make it free as well?
People do get by without Internet access, or a phone, or a car, or electricity for that matter. They’re called Mennonites. There’s a whole bunch of ’em up around Kitchener, ignoring the hell out of modern life and doing just fine at it.
Cytotoxic says: “reason #456 that conservatives should never complain about judicial activism…”
That wasn’t judicial activism. That was a reading of the actual law. Which to certain factions I guess seems really f-in’ radical. FCC does not have the power to dictate to communication companies how they will control their OWN NETWORK, which the company built or purchased, which belongs to them, not the customer, not the government.
Simple matter of private property, which explains why Leftards can’t understand it.
Off the top batman: Samantha Power, Austan Goolsbee, Rev. Wright…
“Free market rants are now officially declared boring and should be limited to only one place, Fox News so the rest of us can conveniently ignore them.”
Yea, you and the other 10 people not watching FOXnews. If only we had the brains to ignore those like you.
I think that the kind folks in the USA will have taken a lesson in what sort of things need to be asked of a presidential candidate, so yeah The Phantom, that’s one thing good that Obama will have brought, of course the price will have been quite steep…
http://www.thirdway.com for all your Mennonite queries… There are plenty of Mennonite dating sites too. 😉
The Supreme Court of Canada will have “the internet” in its sights in the short term future, and they have in the past looked at other first world supreme courts for insight, so any appellate court that provides an opinion that leans toward freedom, I welcome that.
marc in calgary-
The Phantom wasn’t referring to those Mennonites
that go to dating lists for contacts, he was referring to those who marry thir cousins.
They can be distinguished by their mode of transportation, their thick eyeglasses and their presence at the local beer store cashing in their “ditch empties”.
@ Black Mamba: The judges will be appointed and not judged (barring fantastic screwup). That is how the judiciary works to keep the rest of government in line by judicial activism, which is simply applying the constitution to the laws passed by legislature, with Roe vs Wade a great example.
I guess I could’ve picked a better reason for conservatives to stop complaining about judicial activism: Citizens United. That was another powerful blow struck for freedom by judicial activism. It is when the judiciary is meek and deferential to The Majority Rule that freedom suffers, like in the Slaughterhouse cases.
I thought there were more engineers/techies around these parts….
Actually, net neutrality is absolutely essential if the internet is to be a useful communications network. Otherwise your internet bill is going to start to look more like your cell phone bill. Oh, you want access to youtube? Another 5$ per month, please. You want to use skype/video calling? Sorry, thats another 10$. Oh, and sorry, but you’re having trouble loading smalldeadanimals.com? Well, thats not a Roger/Shaw/Bell premium partner website, so we’re purposely bungling your communication with them. Why not go to cbc.ca or google news, those will give you a better experience (ie they’ll load in under 1 min).
If network operators can discrimate against packets based on the sender or recipient, then the internet cannot be a fair market with fair competition.
Oh, and just in case someone brings it up, quality of service (QoS), which is letting latency-senstive packets (such as a skype call) go ahead in the queue is not incompatible with network neutrality. If Bell decided that skype calls would get high priority but a different VOIP
client wouldn’t, well that’s what network neutrality is there to prevent.
IH:
That’s the best you can come up with?
Samantha Power said ridiculous things about Clinton. Power screwed up and she apologized for it. She’s now on the National Security Council, thanks to Obama.
Austan Goolsbee may have said something to a member of the Canadian government. Obama didn’t publicly come after Goolsbee at all. In fact, Goolsbee remained a member of the Obama campaign and is now one of his topic economic advisers.
Rev. Wright said ridiculous things and Obama tried to stand by a man he respected. When Wright went too far, Obama distanced himself respectfully. He didn’t attack Wright or say anything insulting about him. Wright responsible for his own undoing and Obama gave him more respect and tolerance than he deserved.
Surely if Obama has really been ‘throwing people under the bus’ you can come up with better examples than this. Can’t you find someone who was close to Obama but didn’t do anything wrong who Obama then used as a scape goat?
It matters not to me batman, I was simply responding to your initial question.
“Could you please list a few people Obama has thrown under the bus? I’d actually like to know.”
I was not privy to the stipulations you added after I responded to your initial question. Like I’ve told my wife numerous times “I can’t read your mind”.
Actually…Honey, is that you?
My bad, IM. I guess we have different definitions of “thrown under the bus.” I think means to betray or back-stab someone for your own personal gain, particularly someone you are close to. You seem to think it means “treat with respect even when they don’t deserve it.” I can see where the confusion came up.
Maybe Ricktus will drop by again. He’s the one who hates Obama, citing Obama’s willingness to throw people under the bus as one of the reasons.
People…don’t feed the troll “batman”.Good nick.It’s batty,but it ain’t a man.Go read the Zero’s healthcare bill.Forced to buy insurance or the IRS will be after you?Oh wait.Reading comprehension is beyond your grade 2 level of feelings and emotions.Better take a logic course.
And are the “supremes” getting a little scared? They know their days are numbered.
@Cytotoxic – politicians are wretched, meretricious, greedy power-mad sewage and most of them have the brains and morals of tape-worms, but at least we voted for them. So there is at minimum a balance to be struck. (And not to get sidetracked but whatever your position on abortion Roe v. Wade was a joke of a legal decision.)
Indy – is the missus obsessed with Rick Astley?
BM: You have been rickrolled.
Lucky me.
I do hate Obama. I hate all people that purposefully lie to gain a benefit to themselves. And make no mistake. EVERYTHING Obama does is to his benefit. His only concern is to be listed as a great POTUS.
Under the Bus: His grandmother, as a side to this, remember he did not bury her until she was dead for one month. Had to much on his plate apparently. All about him
Under the Bus: Auntie Zeituni, a relative that is here illegally. Did not help either way. Maybe put her in process to become an U.S. citizen. Maybe send her home with some money and promise to help along the way. LOL……he ignored her. Nice guy.
Under the Bus: Rev Wright, Batman, you give the usual MSM lean that he tried to stand by his friend. Are you kidding me? After 20years and having this man marry him and Michelle, plus baptize his children. HE CANNOT REMEMBER HIM EVERY RANTING AGAINST THE U.S…….lol….what a putz.
Under the Bus: William Ayers……Who he say’s. You know, the man you served on the school board with. Obama say’s…….huh? Who?
The list goes on batman. And lets not even go into the people he wanted to place in positions of power. The MSM says his people are doing a poor job of vetting…….HA……he knows the persons background. He just thought he could push them into the area of the government he needed control of.
So yes Batman, I do hate Obama and all people that have such low standards and attain such high power. They must be found and taken out of office. That goes for white, yellow, brown, black or multi-colored. And I do not care if they are Republican or Democrat. We as U.S. citizens have to start doing our duty and make sure that people of low standards do not get into office.
Gord Tulk:
Perfect information is probably an overstatement on my part. Ample accurate information is more reasonable characterization. Thank you. My own business experience and my reading of history tells me that markets do not function well or at all unless you have multiple players in fair completion with good information, otherwise you get price fixing cartels or monopolists or Wall Street investment banks and opaque credit default contracts and disaster.
Markets consist of sellers (the Comcasts of the world) AND buyers (smaller ISPs, companies that depend on internet access to exist, and consumers). High prices and poor service that result from the lack of completion (monopolies or cartels) eventually kill markets. Comcast has few national competitors primarily because of its multiple acquisitions of cable companies. It has virtually none in local markets. Regulation is the gate between you and the wolves.
By the 1880s Standard Oil controlled: 90% of all refining in the US, 80% of the marketing of oil products and a quarter of the total crude output. At that time you would have needed a telescope to see any competition on the Martian horizon! Hindered its ability to compete around the globe? There was no global market to speak of at that time – unless you are speaking about kerosene. SO was broken up because of it’s anti-competitive behaviors: price fixing, bribery, collusion, putting smaller competitors out of business, withholding product, to name a few. This is my point. Any time any aggressive company has the opportunity to corner a market, it will do so and the results are always 100% bad for society. To say this was a colossal mistake is just not consistent with the facts.
Mamba
Nope, she’d “give me up” in a heartbeat.
RE:geeks
I think you’re on to something, but we mustn’t forget the ladies. Some Warcraft gold and jewels bonuses should have the lady geeks out in droves with swords-a-swinging.
Also, you must know that some of the geeks here just might have associated some kung-fu hotness to certain posters because of images associated with certain screen names.