Net Neutrality, Title II Proponents "Assume Nothing Has Changed" Since 1995: Daniel Berninger
"All the logic that we are seeing in the Net Neutrality debate is assuming that nothing has changed; it's assuming that it's 1995. What's actually happened is that people get more and more service, year in and year out," says Daniel Berninger, a telecom activist who was involved in the early days of internet-phone service of Vonage.
Net Neutrality proponents, including President Obama, argue that internet-service providers (ISPs) need to be regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in order to keep the internet "free and open."
Berninger heads up VCXC, a nonprofit that is pushing for regulatory and policy changes to speed up the transition to IP-based networks for voice and data sharing. He's an unsparing critic of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's plan to implement Net Neutrality by regulating broadband network operators under Title II or "common carrier" provisions of federal law.
Title II has historically applied to telephone companies, which were regulated as public utilities and subject to government scrutiny regarding every aspect of service, including pricing and universal service obligations. Since the mid-1990s, the internet has been classified as an "information service," which is subject to much less regulation under Title I of the relevant federal law.
"Title II regulation has been around for 80 years," says Berninger, "and we know exactly what it can accomplish and what it can't accomplish…in all the things that it touched, it essentially destroyed innovation." In 1956, he explains, as part of a consent decree involving ATT, phone service was regulated by the FCC under Title II while "information services" were essentially unregulated. "We split communications and computing and treated them entirely different—essentially as a twin experiment. Well, one twin prospered and one twin did not do very well." Berninger argues that virtually all the problems that proponents of Title II regulation and Net Neutrality worry over—such as the blocking of specific websites and the deliberate slowing of traffic—haven't occurred precisely because ISPs are subject to market competition and must constantly innovate to keep customers happy. FCC regulation would hamper that.
The FCC will vote on Wheeler's proposal later this week and is widely expected to endorse it. The FCC has lost two previous attempts to assert regulatory control over the internet.
More Reason on Net Neutrality here.
Read the FCC's own report on Internet Access Services, which supports Berninger's claim that service and speeds have been increasing over the past several decades.
About 11 minutes.
Camera by Joshua Swain and Robert Mariani. Edited by Mariani.
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Net Neutrality proponents, including President Obama, argue that internet-service providers (ISPs) need to be regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in order to keep the internet “free and open.”
Just like network TV!
Just like network TV!
I wonder has that ever crossed the minds of any of its proponents?
Nothing crosses their minds except “I hatessss the Comcasts” and “don’t throttle my torrents bro”. They’re that fucking stupid.
Computer Geeks are supposedly notorious for being libertarianish in their leaning. Right up until they get the bill for the bandwidth to cover their data habits. I’ve had to hide half a dozen “friends” on facebook because of net neutrality.
Well once the FCC gets its hooks into the internet, you won’t have to worry about blocking people anymore because a) the Feds will be able to decide who gets to say what, and b) they’ll also decide who gets to use the blocking function.
I can go back to living without the net if I have to. I might be black-out drunk most of the time, but I could do it.
Me too, I’m this close to hiding one person, who I otherwise like a lot, because he’s fucking retarded about NN. And just today his wife, who I also like and brought on as a junior programmer years ago, posted some SJW article about how the tech industry discriminates against women. Sigh.
I expect I will be working for a woman engineering VP before I retire (in other words less than 10 years). But hey, that’s only one fortune 500 company. So it doesn’t really count.
You brought her on as a junior programmer….PATRIARCH!!!!
Wait ’til you see the casting couch.
Yeah…when she had no computer science degree or much experience at all, but she is smart and showed an aptitude. That’s patriarchy for you. I feel so guilty.
I’m glad I don’t have a Facebook account.
(Technically, I may have signed up for one to view some link somewhere that was only viewable if you had a Facebook account. I think that’s the only reason I’ve got a Youtube account, too.)
Comcast was caught red-handed throttling Netflix under “Fuck you, pay me.” A bunch of companies were caught in the crossfire.
Comcast could get away with it precisely because there is no competition. Most of their operational area is under exclusive contract granted by municipal government. So the solution to a problem created by the government is more government? Netflix should have sued Comcast for ignoring the gentlmen’s agreement that served the internet for decades.
Here are the views of Some Republicans in the tech field..
Ed Piper: As a Republican who works in the tech industry I can say that this statement shows you either have no idea what you are talking about or you are bought and paid for by the American Cable monopoly. This is amazingly an stupid statement and is disheartening.
Keith French: Ted, I am as conservative as they come…. I want government out of just about everything… and I hate to say it, really hate to say it, but Obama is right on this one. I do not want my access and internet speed controlled by my ISP. It will be. The internet has been an open forum with little to no restrictions, that will change and not for the better. Bottom line, do not go against freedom of the net just because Obama is for it. Even an old blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.
David Vogelpohl: Texas employer here… This is really the wrong issue for you. Drop this quickly and move on to something else before it’s too late. You’re starting to look like a Tea Party whacko growling for his corporate masters. Move on before you embarrass the Republicans out of the next presidency. Net neutrality is about ensuring a free market. America loves a free market. But hey, be against free markets and America. It’s cool. I’m sure no one will think of you when their Netflix slows down who wouldn’t have
http://m.dailykos.com/story/20…..t-Ted-Cruz
The FCC has lost two previous attempts to assert regulatory control over the internet.
We vote and vote and vote and vote until we win and then it’s settled.
Cue:
‘I live in a small town and my interwebz is slow, therefore…’
Don’t forget that Comcast is teh devilz
You can tell just from their logo.
That should be their logo. Bastards.
I’m telling you. Get Verizon Fios Triple Penetration.
I love getting triple penetrated.
Oh yeah, I’ll do that today, it’s not like Comcast has a government enforced monopoly in my area or anything.
Yeah – I hated Comcast, till I had Time Warner (Ohio). Moving back, our new house had only Charter. Which made me miss Time Warner.
See how this works?
IT ALL SUCKS!!!!
But, clearly, this government-created mess requires MOAR GOVERNMENT to fix! MARKET FAILYOOR!
When I moved in, my only option for internet was Time Warner (not even AT&T DSL!), such was the level of dealing in my not-quite-gated allotment. Or DirecTV/HughsNet (hahahaha).
I’m pretty sure that I can get Uverse now, but it’s only worth it if you go whole hog new customer, completely reliant on AT&T. Fuck that noise.
Uverse is pretty good. In my area its also no-contract. That pretty much puts them on the spot for quality.
It’s not in my area (I checked). I actually got super pissed (more than normal) at Comcast recently and wanted to switch, and I looked into FIOS (not covered), a local outfit that wires high speed broadband into apartment buildings and condo complexes (not in my complex yet), and satellite. The satellite was the only one that was possible (DirecTV), but I would still have to get a separate ISP for my internet, and that would have been CenturyLink, who do not have a good reputation in their own right.
Aren’t government granted monopolies grand?
Comcast is the worst company in the history of organizations. They take horrible to an entire new level.
TWC hardly ever goes out for me. There are a shit-ton of houses in my neighborhood, so I imagine I’m getting slightly screwed on speed, but I’ve rarely had it be a major problem for my use case (which doesn’t include binge-streaming the entirety of television).
TWC is, however, the WURST if you ever have to call them. Their website is even spectacularly awful if you have to, for example, change an auto-pay credit card.
The only time I’ve ever had to call has been about them fucking up billing something fierce, and their complete inability to sensibly handle auto-pay.
I NEVER yell at people on the phone. Yet, last year when they had charged me for returned auto-payments without telling me for several months (due to an expiration date change) I went ape-shit on them. Especially since they had a tech support “chat” feature that was 100% browser based, but “required” Windows or Mac OS (which I knew was bullshit, but they literally must have had code in there focused on the OS part of the UserAgent string, something I didn’t know about then).
They fixed that, but their auto-pay setup does not allow changes, but you must first cancel, then create a new one (which is NOT obvious by any sort of instructions or verbiage), and THEN you must MANUALLY cancel any pending payments over the phone (lest you get charged for a returned payment), and then MANUALLY set up a one-time payment because it takes a full cycle for them to “verify” your account.
Retarded bunch of shitheads.
and yet in my area, which has 3 ISP not including satellite, my mother complains about Comcast but refusing switching to Uverse.
“I hear ATT is just as bad.”
Maybe it was before. Uverse seems pretty decent to me.
And now that the FCC will be a bigger part of their operational workflow, we can expect the internet to revert to 1995. All I have to say is thank Al Gore that I saved all of those AOL CD-ROMs.
Now if only I could find my analogue Motorola flip phone, my Sony Diskman and my Stereo JVC VCR, I could live out the Clinton Administration once again. Hell, we may even get a chance to revisit HillaryCare!
I don’t know. I have a 300mbps up/down internet connection. Is that fast?
No, you’re living in the stone age man. I just stream 500 terrabytes a nano second, beamed directly from inside the hollow moon. You got to know the right lizards people, man.
Back when I was still a loser living in an apartment, I made a deal with the owners to install building wide broadband. Actually, I got paid a lot of money to do it.
My complex was actually offered the super speed broadband option a few years ago, but it was put up to a vote of the tenants, and no one even bothered to vote, so it didn’t happen. That was stupid.
Luckily I know a manager at Comcast and he gave me a code for their customer service team that is for company bigwigs and other people who are given preferential treatment, and they cleared up my issues right away. Well, all my issues except the fact that my ISP has a de facto monopoly.
This building was 280 units, so the owners saw the chance to make a lot of money. They paid wholesale for bandwidth, and then included it in rent as a “utility”.
It was a Comcast that gave me a Zen-style push towards enlightenment.
We had just moved into a Comcast monopoly area, and I was trying to set up our broadband Internet. The computers and routers were working fine until we got to the cable modem.
So I spent three hours on the phone with Comcast getting more and more furious as they told me to try things that didn’t work.
Then I got a tech that was a buddha who operated demonically. He asked me to do a bunch of things I had done before. I declined, politely but firmly.
He said OK. He asked me to put the CD that comcast had provided when they hooked up the house into every computer and to run a wizard. I asked him what the wizard did. He said it sets up your network settings. I asked him, “What does it set them to? I doubt the CD will do anything in my Linux box.”
He asked what Linux was. I explained “It’s a sort of Unix that runs on PC’s”
“Oh!” he exclaimed happily. “There’s your problem! The Internet only works with Microsoft and Macs! That Linux computer is confusing the cable modem!”
My white hot rage at all the hangups, the being placed on hold, the requests that I carry a windows machine into the room with the cable modem, etc. exploded. I was ready to scream in a fury at the idiocy of these people. I saw red, then white.
And then, suddenly, the rage fell away. I felt inner peace. And I said, sweetly, “May I speak to your supervisor?”
Eventually the modem was reset, solving the problem. 😉
Escalate. Escalate. Escalate. Usually, I can get what I need from a level 4 engineer
Oh. My. God.
I would have killed stuff. Luckily, I had almost no issues when I transitioned from Windows to Linux on every box but one. I had my own 4-port enet and wireless router, so all I needed was a basic cable modem. Cable modem-to-router rarely gets screwed up, and my nearly wholesale change to Linux was barely noticed (because the modem had an intelligent piece of hardware between it and the PCs).
TWC never even gave me CDs, so that’s sort of weird. I thought the companies generally stopped doing stuff like that a long time ago. Guess not. Next item is to future proof myself by buying my own cable/DSL modem so I 1. no longer have to pay the stupid monthly lease on a dumb bit of HW, and 2. make it easier to transition to something else for any reason.
“Oh!” he exclaimed happily. “There’s your problem! The Internet only works with Microsoft and Macs! That Linux computer is confusing the cable modem!”
I take it this was in the days before smart phones?
But smart phones aren’t computers, silly!
To provide political cover for:
“Why won’t you let me stream gigabytes of data without regard to simple economic principles?”
What debate? I wasn’t aware that there is a debate. What I heard is that King Obama gave the FCC 300+ pages of marching orders to create Obamanet. There’s no debate in that.
You’re assuming that the definition of “debate” includes the potential to have any effect on the outcome.
5 men in a room indirectly elected by the party honchos whose divine authority we’re not fit to question have spent the last three months delivering statements to their proxies in the media. They will vote on the matter in due course, which will settle the matter for all time. Sounds like informed debate and democracy in action to me.
Oh noes! Muh torrentz! HELP US OBAMA, YOU’RE OUR ONLY HOPE!
Do people still torrent?
How else are people supposed to watch Game of Thrones?
There are…. other ways.
What, like going to watch it over at Epi’s house? I’d rather risk prison or being gunned down by a SWAT invasion.
Oh, that would be fun! We can get chips and pizza and I can break out the party bowl for the bong! And then we can watch Girls! Bring your pajamas! And the anal lube!
Well I guess that’s better than the time I went to watch NCIS at Warty’s house. He didn’t bother with the lube.
Stealing the HBO Go login from their parents like a normal person.
Do people still torrent?
I get plenty of leechers on the stuff that I rip from my local public library.
Yes, and they are very annoyed that they have to pay for the internet, because they don’t even need to pay for movies.
Another legacy of FREEDOM from the Lightworker – MOAR REGULATION, MOAR!!!!
Nothing says “free and open” like MOAR GUMMINT!
Can’t wait! My internetz are soooooooooo fucked up….no….wait….
I’m trying to figure out the last group of people I’ve seen whose stated goals were so at functional odds with what they claimed to want…and that’s for themselves, not others. NN proponents have to be some of the stupidest mother fuckers I’ve seen in a long time.
Just wait until they get their beloved NN, we’ll see how much they like it.
We both know what will happen. Regulation will fuck everything up, and all the fuckups will be blamed on the free market and corporate greed. So they’ll get more regulation, which will fuck things up worse, and then be blamed on the free market and corporate greed. So they’ll get more regulation….
Someone’s got to regulate the regulations that regulate the regulations, you know. What do you want, anarchy?
You’ve pretty much nailed it down.
“Solutions” from “progressives” always seem to leave just a hint of private sector involvement so that they have an easy scapegoat when the whole mess blows up on them.
ObamaCare isn’t working as planned? It’s because of those greedy health insurance corporations!!
Minimum wage doesn’t magically lift everyone out of poverty overnight? It’s because those greedy corporations raised prices in response to one of their key commodities being made more expensive by government mandate!
And of course, if NN doesn’t lead to everyone having lightning-fast Internet at rock-bottom prices, it’s the fault of those greedy corporations!
Well, we cannot allow any sort of functional example of how a truly free market works to foster innovation while also democratizing a product to the point where it is practically ubiquitous. If such an example were to remain unregulated, the progressive religion would have no way to support its dogmatic belief that government intervention makes markets work and without government intervention in markets, we would be living in the dark ages.
Nuh-uh! Viscous government control will free us!
When it turns out to the worst nightmare of those who were screaming for it, they’ll say that Republicans made Obama do it, it wasn’t what he really wanted, which is free internet for everyone.
All of the crap that Obama has pulled would have gotten anyone else impeached a long time ago. He makes Nixon look like the Pope. But he’s untouchable because he’s half black.
If the leftists were really smart they’d run a woman this time. 8 more years and we will be the shiny new USSA for real and the debate will be over for good.
*continues reloading 30-30 and 30-06*
No Title II mongoloids have shown up yet, ready to school us on the Great Online Utopia that awaits us by putting Top Gubmint Men in charge.
Something’s wrong.
Yeah, where’s Tony and Shreektard? Well, Shreeky is shillin for Hillary I’m sure.
How can ISPs be free if they’re not asking permission and obeying orders?
this is a very good question
I was reading a little tract on the internet, and I had forgotten that Youtube didn’t even exist before 2005.
Think about it, up to 2005, and a few years after, thank you every much, we were all watching videos through real player at 240p and waiting every 22 seconds for them to buffer.
Yeah, nothing has changed. Nothing at all.
How did this happen without the wise and benevolent guiding fist of the FCC?
I think you must be mistaken.
The FCC will vote on Wheeler’s proposal later this week
Who? When’s the next election so we can vote these people out?
“ME HATESEZ COMCRAP!!!!!1!!!! ME WANTY MUH FREEE NETFLIX!!!1111!!!!!!” /Pro Net-Netrality tardo
Libertairans don’t want anybody to have good internets. All the good internets go to the Kochtopuss!
Wow. This succinctly explains the cognitive dissonance I keep seeing around this subject. Every time I have entered into a dialog with a pro-Net Neutrality person, they keep asserting that a majority of Americans have only one choice for their ISP and that there is a lack of innovation. Here’s an actual sample of a reply I received on one comment: “The reason local internet cannot be provided by the free market is simply a lack to [sic] technology. I am certain eventually some technology will be invented that allows local service to be competitive, just like the invention of microwaves allowed long distance to become competitive. But unit [sic] that happens, only companies that use government resources (easements, existing infrastructure, public spectrum, …) will be able to provide local service at a reasonable price. In another words, last mile diversification on a national level will not happen anytime soon.”
That level of ignorance is just stunning.
my mum in-law recently got a nice twelve month old Cadillac CTS Vsport Premium only from working parttime off a laptop
?????? http://www.jobsblaze.com
“haven’t occurred precisely because ISPs are subject to market competition and must constantly innovate to keep customers happy”
No they aren’t and no they haven’t.
If Reason was pro-free market, they would recognize that the ISP’s are not subject to market competition and would advocate for legislation that would create competition.
If Reason was funded by, among others, the ISP’s, and supported crony capitalism, they would write this exact same article.
If you live in an area with multiple ISP they indeed compete for your business.
Just for example, Uverse is no contract. That only would happen if there was competition to force them to offer that to get people to try.
Also, Google Fiber is even better…but they can’t enter many markets because of local monopolies granted by local government. (Hmmm, does that sound like an area that legislation could work, why yes it does, but it wouldn’t come down from the FCC, which essentially will freeze those monopolies in amber.)
So, are you accusing AT&T, Verizon, Comcast/TWC/Charter, other DSL provider, Hughesnet, various Wimax operators, electric companies providing internet over power lines, et al of colluding? If so, bring the evidence because that is already illegal and we can have it prosecuted by the various state attorneys general.
Title II worked and made the “web” what it is today. Title II is the ONLY honorable future and is the only future I will accept. I have demanded this for years and the FCC is simply partially resolving
Neeley v 5 Federal Communications Commissioners, et al, (14-3447) despite the sleeping Eighth Circuit panel mistakenly giving a District Court deference and NOT even READING the filings.
I hope they read the Petition for Rehearing but have no faith in United States Judicial Branch that was overthrown by America from the Copy[rite] Act of 1790 to Citizens United of 2010. The United States limped along for a long time but has ONLY one tiny chance left for the LAST U.S. AMENDMENT.
my friend’s aunt makes $62 an hour on the computer . She has been laid off for five months but last month her pay was $14934 just working on the computer for a few hours. Visit this site………
????? http://www.netpay20.com
Google pay 97$ per hour my last pay check was $8500 working 1o hours a week online. My younger brother friend has been averaging 12k for months now and he works about 22 hours a week. I cant believe how easy it was once I tried it out.
This is wha- I do…… ?????? http://www.netjob80.com
my neighbor’s step-aunt makes $85 every hour on the laptop . She has been without work for five months but last month her payment was $17746 just working on the laptop for a few hours. check out the post right here……..
????? http://www.netpay20.com