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Obama: "Regulate the 'Net!"

ThisBrotherOfHis

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Obama calls for more regulation of Internet providers, industry fires backhttp://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/11/10/obama-wants-ban-on-internet-fast-lane-deals/http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/11/10/obama-wants-ban-on-internet-fast-lane-deals/

President Obama threw down the gauntlet Monday with cable companies and Internet providers by declaring they shouldn’t be allowed to cut deals with online services like YouTube to move their content faster'

It was his most definitive statement to date on so-called “net neutrality,” and escalates a battle that has been simmering for years between industry groups and Internet activists who warn against the creation of Internet “fast lanes.” The president’s statement swiftly drew an aggressive response from trade groups, which are fighting against additional regulation.

"We are stunned the president would abandon the longstanding, bipartisan policy of lightly regulating the Internet and calling for extreme" regulation, said Michael Powell, president and CEO of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the primary lobbying arm of the cable industry.
He's giving in to the shadowy likes of "Anonymous" and other Internet terrorists who are too stupid to realize that "net neutrality" doesn't mean "free Internet," it means "Internet too expensive for anyone but the very elites I want to bring down." Prohibiting broadband providers from cutting deals with services like Netflix to fund the infrastructure and network improvements necessary to deliver adequate service for their content would result in higher prices for everyone whether they use those services or not.

To the naïve Internet anarchists, net neutrality means they already pay their broadband provider for that data pipeline from their home to the Internet. The provider offers a few different tiers -- or speeds -- of Internet service, so the subscriber chooses the one that makes sense for their household and that’s the end of it. It is none of the broadband provider’s business how people choose to use the pipeline, or which sites or services they stream content from over the pipeline, and the broadband provider shouldn’t be allowed to extort additional money from those sites or services for the privilege of delivering that content to the end user.

As with most utopian stupidity, reality is bit more complicated. It isn’t just a question of whether or not Netflix movies gets streamed to customers' PCs at an acceptable rate to watch a movie without stuttering and buffering, and it isn’t purely a matter of “extortion” for a broadband provider to charge a company like Netflix some sort of additional fee. The broadband provider has committed to providing a specified level of service to its customers, and to deliver broadband content within a certain range of speeds. A service like Netflix that streams video content consumes an inordinate amount of network bandwidth -- much more than downloading email, or surfing the Web -- which can result in degraded services for all customers whether they use Netflix or not.

It’s also not an issue that necessarily impacts the whole network. Netflix customers are scattered around the world, but the Netflix servers only connect in to the Internet in a few select locations. Where the Netflix content enters the Internet, those nodes can easily become saturated, which means the broadband providers have to add more nodes and expand the network to accommodate the load from Netflix -- even though the demand is an issue unique to Netflix more or less.

If a broadband provider like Comcast can’t negotiate a deal with a service like Netflix and collect additional fees to fund the necessary network infrastructure, it has to bear the cost of upgrading the network itself. That cost would then be passed on to all Comcast customers regardless of whether they actually subscribe to Netflix or not.

From that perspective, the push for net neutrality doesn’t make much sense. Then again, very little of what Obama does, supports, or advocates makes much sense. He doesn’t understand that insurance is legitimately based on the level of risk assumed. He doesn’t understand oil and gas need to be left alone until other energy sources become commercially viable. And he doesn’t understand supply and demand. So we can add one more piece of idiocy to the list of stuff Obama doesn’t understand.
 
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Archie the Preacher

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More of the same old ploy from "The President Who Would be Divine".

The more he regulates, the more he controls. Since he lost the mid term elections, he's not even pretending to be anything else.
 
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ThisBrotherOfHis

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Actually, this is the president acting on behalf of the millions of people who support net neutrality, including the internet's key players and the vast majority of the tech industry.
And what "key players" would that be? Anonymous? Gamers who sit on their butt all day and have no idea how the real world works? People who have nothing better to do than post cute kitty videos to you.tube all day? Please, let us know who these "key players" are.
 
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Drekkan85

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Cearbhall

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This OP brought to you by ComcastTimeWarnerCoxCable.
Indeed. I'm glad Obama is finally getting involved. Internet fast/slow lanes would be awful.
Please, let us know who these "key players" are.
I take it you haven't been following this issue at all...
Look - between those major internet and technology companies and Ted Cruz - who do you think really understands online infrastructure, technology, and economies?
^_^
 
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USincognito

a post by Alan Smithee
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And what "key players" would that be? Anonymous? Gamers who sit on their butt all day and have no idea how the real world works? People who have nothing better to do than post cute kitty videos to you.tube all day? Please, let us know who these "key players" are.

Or, as they're known in the business world, "customers".
 
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Senator Cheese

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He's giving in to the shadowy likes of "Anonymous" and other Internet terrorists who are too stupid to realize that "net neutrality" doesn't mean "free Internet," it means "Internet too expensive for anyone but the very elites I want to bring down." Prohibiting broadband providers from cutting deals with services like Netflix to fund the infrastructure and network improvements necessary to deliver adequate service for their content would result in higher prices for everyone whether they use those services or not.

To the naïve Internet anarchists, net neutrality means they already pay their broadband provider for that data pipeline from their home to the Internet. The provider offers a few different tiers -- or speeds -- of Internet service, so the subscriber chooses the one that makes sense for their household and that’s the end of it. It is none of the broadband provider’s business how people choose to use the pipeline, or which sites or services they stream content from over the pipeline, and the broadband provider shouldn’t be allowed to extort additional money from those sites or services for the privilege of delivering that content to the end user.

As with most utopian stupidity, reality is bit more complicated. It isn’t just a question of whether or not Netflix movies gets streamed to customers' PCs at an acceptable rate to watch a movie without stuttering and buffering, and it isn’t purely a matter of “extortion” for a broadband provider to charge a company like Netflix some sort of additional fee. The broadband provider has committed to providing a specified level of service to its customers, and to deliver broadband content within a certain range of speeds. A service like Netflix that streams video content consumes an inordinate amount of network bandwidth -- much more than downloading email, or surfing the Web -- which can result in degraded services for all customers whether they use Netflix or not.

It’s also not an issue that necessarily impacts the whole network. Netflix customers are scattered around the world, but the Netflix servers only connect in to the Internet in a few select locations. Where the Netflix content enters the Internet, those nodes can easily become saturated, which means the broadband providers have to add more nodes and expand the network to accommodate the load from Netflix -- even though the demand is an issue unique to Netflix more or less.


If a broadband provider like Comcast can’t negotiate a deal with a service like Netflix and collect additional fees to fund the necessary network infrastructure, it has to bear the cost of upgrading the network itself. That cost would then be passed on to all Comcast customers regardless of whether they actually subscribe to Netflix or not.


You're 100% spot-on in what you're saying about the definition of "net neutrality" and what it means in terms of rising costs for consumers.

Nonetheless, I believe that governmental regulation can, at some points, promote economic growth and (more importantly) hinder economic or political power aggregation.
For me, the issue of net neutrality is more a social one than an economic one. Already, internet media consumption is growing in market share - the inevitable death of most printed press is just the beginning of many more individuals gathering most if not all of their news from the internet.

By providing different speeds for different content, internet providers will have the power to regulate content-specific access and therefore gain much more political and economic momentum. The problem with a lack of complete net neutrality is that there are no limits on differences in speed or the fees involved for companies - there's no law that's going to stop Verizon from completely freezing speeds of some "non-paying" companies to ridiculously low speeds while paving the way for high-speed access to other sites. When you add political clout into the mix (e.g. the Democrats promoting high-speed access to Twitter while Fox News lags behind), things get really ugly.

The "even access" accessibility of the internet has enabled start-up companies that now provide considerable contributions to the nation's GDP. Though I'm not a fan of them, Google and Apple have grown to become the international players by providing online services.
Online Entrepeneurship would be considerably slowed if the fees for high-speed access are set too high. Considering the relatively low starting capital of most companies, even "light" fees might be enough to drown out competition.

I guess it really boils down to the question of whether or not the internet is to be considered to be a service or an integral part of infrastructure. I believe that in the past two decades, the internet has evolved to become a major infrastructure that has enabled an economy of its own, and can therefore be subject to governmental regulation.
An analogy to basic services such as roadwork or water supply would follow similar lines. We'd both agree that it would be bad if companies could buy a larger share in water supply if that meant that other, smaller companies might not be able to afford the basic supply they need for their business to keep going.

In short, while some provider regulations that enable corporations to purchase more bandwith are hardly something to get upset about, the danger is that this might be taken to extremes (i.e. having a "slow internet" speed of 200kbps versus a "fast internet" of 100.000kbps).
As such, I'm absolutely in favor of more governmental oversight, and not less.

From that perspective, the push for net neutrality doesn’t make much sense. Then again, very little of what Obama does, supports, or advocates makes much sense. He doesn’t understand that insurance is legitimately based on the level of risk assumed.

Obama's campaign was populist, and his foreign policies are leaving most of the people in my country shaking their heads - especially given the "messiah-like" appearance he promoted by holding his campaign speech at the Berlin Wall. So, don't get me wrong, I'm far from being an Obama supporter.

Nonetheless, insurance is based on the level of risk assumed only in a purely market fashion. Insurance that isn't based on level of risk is a component of social welfare - it should be labeled as such, but that doesn't make it inherently bad.
I would go so far as to argue that social security and public health insurance has promoted economic growth in Germany because everyone is more prone to spend his money, knowing he won't have to worry about expensive medical bills. Furthermore, I find it to be our Christian duty to provide the best medical treatment even to those who cannot afford it.

Then again, the US is not my country, and I can understand differences in culture and actually find it refreshing to see that not everyone picks up on all European legislation.
I'm just trying to say that public health insurance isn't necessarily something bad, even though as you rightly pointed out, it is definetely an expensive component of social welfare.

He doesn’t understand oil and gas need to be left alone until other energy sources become commercially viable.

For Europe, I can only say that I fully support any investments in renewable energies since it makes us independent from the fanatics that rule the Islamic World.

For the US, I would be inclined to agree with you, seeing as how the US is currently a net exporter of oil. Once those reserves are depleted, though, I think it's best for the US to be self-sustaining in terms of energy supply instead of needing to resort to further deals with dubious "allies" in the Middle East.

I'm just trying to say that there are very conservative reasons to get crackin' in renewable energies.

And he doesn’t understand supply and demand. So we can add one more piece of idiocy to the list of stuff Obama doesn’t understand.

Like I said, I'm counting the days until this administration is out of office, but I think in terms of Net Neutrality, you and I might have differing opinions.. :)
 
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Warmduscher

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Very well said Senator Cheese. The very real risk of opposing net neutrality is that smaller content that barely can afford the operation costs in the first place gets dial-up level service no matter what individual costumers of the IPs want. Especially stuff like forums. You think this forum could afford to pay a premium fee to keep all the members from taking minutes to load a page?

Free speech and non-profit content would be the first to suffer from a for-profit bandwith distribution. Net neutrality should be in the top issues of conservative politics, but instead they prove that they only care for bottom lines.
 
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cow451

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ThisBrotherOfHis

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Indeed. I'm glad Obama is finally getting involved. Internet fast/slow lanes would be awful.
With the government involved, it will all be slow. I'm guessing you probably buy high-speed Internet service, or at least you could. Do you really fail to understand that option would be taken from you with net neutrality?
I take it you haven't been following this issue at all...
That would be a mistake. You should take it that I've completely rejected the arguments for net neutrality based on how free enterprise works.
 
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Glass*Soul

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And what "key players" would that be? Anonymous? Gamers who sit on their butt all day and have no idea how the real world works? People who have nothing better to do than post cute kitty videos to you.tube all day? Please, let us know who these "key players" are.

Key players would be companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Netflix, Amazon, Vonnage, Yahoo, and eBay and individuals like Steve Wozniac and Mark Zuckerberg.

You may have heard of them.
 
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PsychoSarah

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It seems like there is a whole lot of misinformation on both sides of the aisle.

I freely admit to having no clue. Although, if Internet providers are making deals with the most popularly visited sites to make them work faster, I honestly don't see the issue, unless it results directly in other sites going slower.
 
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