Thousands of Citizens Protest Move to Regulate Internet

[Apoptosis]

Thousands of Citizens Protest Move to Regulate Internet

10,000 IFL Supporters File Comments with FCC

Regulations Not Necessary to Offer Americans the Open Internet They Already Have

(Washington, DC) - “Americans are increasingly concerned about government intrusion into nearly every aspect of the economy and their lives,” according to Andrew Langer, President of the Institute for Liberty, “and the thousands of citizens who have told the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to keep its hands off the Internet is proof that the technology sector is no exception.”

“Over ten thousand Institute for Liberty supporters have filed comments with the FCC in the past week, opposing FCC regulations claiming to enforce some form of ‘network neutrality,’ even though we already have a free and open Internet, and there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that freedom and openness is threatened,” according to Langer.

Langer concluded that “the FCC should acknowledge that network neutrality regulations are a solution in search of a problem. The American people are awakening to the fact that these so-called ‘network neutrality’ regulations are part of the radical leftist agenda of organizations such as Free Press, and the more the American people learn about such vast expansions of Federal power, the greater their opposition.”

The Institute for Liberty supports keeping the government focused on the primary mission of making sure our nation is safe, while keeping it from unnecessarily interfering in the daily lives of America's entrepreneurs.

[DMB2000uk]

Does the FCC do a crappy job of regulating or something? Because as far as I know, net neutrality is a good thing, and making sure the regulations are there to keep it neutral IN THE FUTURE, is a good thing.

Dan

[Skippman]

There's a bigger picture in play here.

Strictly speaking cellphone companies and telco's could potentially go bankrupt if something isn't change in how the telecommunications regulations are written. Take Vonage and the iPhone for example. AT&T has spent literally BILLIONS upon BILLIONS building a world wide cellular network to deliver voice communications to people. It's designed to handle fairly large loads but these loads are VOICE loads. AT&T charges a monthly rate based on usage to cover the costs of providing these services, playing it's employees, and deploying newer technologies. Along comes Vonage with an iPhone app that lets you basically bypass that. Now you can make as many calls as you want but instead of being voice, it's now data. So not only is AT&T loosing revenue due to people no longer using minutes they're also having to spend more money to provide data service over a network that was never designed for the capacity. Look at cities like New York where slow wireless internet is just a way of life due to market saturation.

Lets take that a step further. Now we have things like the Magic Jack which completely bypass the cellular network all together. Again, you're not using your minutes. Again the telco is deprived revenue. Soon revenue starts to dry up as people look for cheaper and cheaper solutions to the problem. We all know traditional POTS service is on it's deathbed. I give it another 10 years before VOIP is THE standard. With that tremendous loss of revenue comes loss of jobs, loss of ability to update the network, and loss of innovation. If something isn't done to allow the telco's to recoup some of their losses eventually the networks going to start going bankrupt. Not overnight mind you, but in the future it's possible.

People forget that in the US it doesn't matter who your phone company is, eventually your calls and data travel across the nationwide backbone network owned by the telco. Your cellphone maybe wireless, but the call itself is still carried over a wire once it hits the tower. Cellphones are glorified cordless telephones. Maintaining all of that costs billions of dollars annually due to wear, elements, natural disasters, upgrades, and theft of physical material like the very copper wire that makes up the network.

I agree that I want as little government intervention as possible but lately the American people have this idea that they can have a free ride and do whatever they want for nothing and someone else will pay the bill. Eventually somethings going to give. The rules will need to be changed. I think pretty soon you're going to see an end to unlimited wireless internet packages. It's the only thing Telco's can do to counter things like Vonage and the new Google phone service. If you won't pay for the minutes you'll pay for the kilobits.

[bubba]

The big thing I see is the shift to pure data communications... VOIP, email, hell even movie rentals. There are TV's now that have internet access WHY?!? its a fargin TV. The rate we are moving from one to the other is faster then the backbone can keep up. To me this is almost their way of slowing the move.

I don't see an issue with having a pay levels for connections. You want a 15+mbps connection buck up and pay for it. I'm just fine with my piddly 1.5 DSL. you fell you need 20TB of transfer a month, either 1 step away from the PC a little more often, or 2 pay for it.

The whole iPhone VOIP apps have been a pain for a while. Seen more then one story how networks in New York a crippled all the time due to the data use. People are using data that much and tearing up stuff, make'em pay for it. Raise the rate for unlimited data access, bet that slows **** way the hell down.

What I don't want is a regulation telling me that I can access a network, at my purchased speed, for the fact that its on a network other then the one I connect with.

As for POTS going way of the dino, true, but those doing that work will need to be re-tasked to just keep the grid going for the data.

As for the "something for nothing attitude" I agree completely. With the down turn in the economy changes at home have been made, my kids are old enough they noticed and started to ask questions. One of which was from my daughter while grocery shopping. She asked why there is no more "free sample days" at the store. I told her that just because it says free, its really not free. It cost someone, somewhere, something. That the store was handing out the food in hopes we would like it and buy it. With places slowing down or closing the store cant afford to do it anymore. she replied "well that sucks".



but Obama says that hes for Net Neutrality..