AT&T defends Verizon-Google mobile exemption from net neutrality - Page 3

Boilerplate net neutrality response:

Carriers don't want neutrality, so they're not going to give it to you willingly. The only way to change that is to make them want it. The only way to make they want it is to make them liable for not having it. And that will happen after the first person who sues AT&T for allowing everyone to access libelous material about them off of a random website, rather than suing that website. AT&T will say, we're just an ISP, we can't control content, and then the prosecution will point to all the violations of net neutrality in the past 10 years as a counter point.

You most certainly did. You made a flat statement that anyone who opposes Net Neutrality is an enemy of free society. That closes the door to any debate and says that there are no reasonable reasons not to jump onto Net Neutrality.

In fact, there are many reasons why someone might oppose Net Neutrality. One might, for example, think that signed contracts for spectrum take precedence over a theoretical advantage to Net Neutrality. One might think that government intervention is bad, in principle. One might take the pragmatic view that government control of the media doesn't work.

In any event, your statement that any opponent of Net Neutrality is an enemy of society is just plain wrong - AND inconsistent with your other stated view that contracts should be honored.

I did say that opponents of net neutrality are enemies of a free society (whether they intend to be or not), and I certainly stand by that statement. However, I fail to comprehend the logic by which a free society and property rights are mutually exclusive. Perhaps, if, as you seem to do, one values property rights above all others, then, yes, that position is incompatible with a free society.

Nor is this at all inconsistent with the idea that contracts ought to be honored. (Although, you exaggerate the nature of the contracts you refer to.) As I've said previously, sometimes, in the real world, where issues are often messy, and not black and white, one is faced with a situation where all available choices force one to do something that violates some accepted principle. The alternative, as in the case of not enforcing net neutrality, is to violate some even more important, more fundamental principle. The correct choice is the one that does the least harm over time, and clearly protecting the foundations of democracy does less harm than allowing corporations to trample upon them.

When AT&T agrees with something Verizon said, you know its bad for all consumers.

I love how corporations always talk about being "burdened" by "unnecessary regulations." I'm no fan of anyone telling you how to run your business, but if its to ensure the common good of the consumer, then its fair to consider. Should we get rid of health inspectors that regulate the food industry that monitor the quality of the food you eat? How about the rules imposed on creditors and loan officers in the banking industry to make sure your loan terms are fair? Arguably, if we had tighter control over the housing market, they wouldn't have been allowed to do the stunts they were doing that created the chain of events that lead to the recession in 2008.

Bottom line, if you give wireless networks a pass on neutrality on the basis of their network infrastructure, you ensure that their network will NEVER get better. Why bother? If they have the bandwidth and can allocate it to demand, then they can't use that defense any longer. The only way to ensure true competition in the mobile space, and more importantly, protect the internet as a whole, now and in the future, is to ensure that net neutrality has no exception or loopholes that allow the gatekeepers of the internet from keeping you, or someone else, out. By forcing neutrality, these networks have no choice but to build up to consumer demand in order to stay alive. That's the best position we consumers need to be in.

Regulation has a place in protecting the basic rights of all involved, including property rights, basic human rights (not government given "rights"), and fairness of opportunity, but not fairness of achievement. Other regulations may be necessary depending on the specific industry or situation, but should only be enacted after careful consideration, public review and general consensus, as in general, regulations are constraints on freedom.

Free markets certainly give the appearance of chaotic and anarchist, but that is where competition and customer freedom to choose close the loop, and transform it into "ordered chaos" that is not only super efficient and effective in satisfying the population's needs, but also approaches the morals of the people in ways unseen under any other economic system.

Do not condemn ideas just because your main source of influence says so. Under a dictator or a king, life is easy because they choose for you, and get to decide on everything. All that is left is for the people to gossip and wonder.

Under freedom, you need to get involved. Gossip is not enough. If you are from the right, read Marx, learn the facts of the new deal. If you are from the left, read and listen to the other side to be able to form a valid personal opinion, understand progressivism, learn how it started creeping little by little in US politics from almost a century ago with Pres. W. Wilson, FDR, et al.

Freedom is worth it.

It's hard to know what to even make of your remarks. In one post, you say the role of government ought to be only policing and national defense. In another that the government ought to get involved in protecting rights, and regulating other activities.

I agree that freedom is worth it (otherwise, why would I care that compromising net neutrality compromises freedom), but, I think it's naive to place one's faith (and it is no less "faith" than those beliefs that fall under the heading of "religion") in free markets and competition. Competition is a goalless force, with absolutely no guarantee that the outcome will be beneficial in any particular way, and certainly no guarantee that the outcome will favor freedom; that depends entirely on the goals of the competitors (who may or may not be concerned with, or even consider, freedom) and which competitor(s) succeed.

(And, I hardly think reading Marx will give those on the right any useful insight on the left in modern western society. Maybe some ammunition with which to score talking points based on misrepresenting the left's goals and motivations, but certainly nothing resembling insight.)

Enforcing the law is what I meant both times. I'm no ultra libertarian anarchist. I'm more in line with the founders, as many other people are.


You generally use faith when you don't, or you can't understand something. But that is only excusable in matters of the soul.

In more mundane matters, like economics and politics, faith is not excusable. If you don't understand it, you read about it, ask the people involved, compare. You don't follow blindly or repeat complaints from a single source, let alone from a detractor. You study both sides.

Note: I appreciate the heated discussion, but I've got to go now. This was my last post to the thread

Americans should look north...

We wen through all these battles in Canada. In the absence of any regulation at all, our telcos (who are also our largest ISPs) decided that they would start differentiating how they treat different traffic on their wired networks. They started using packet sniffing software to degrade competing VOIP services, throttle tethering, and in some cases even give preferential access to certain websites.

Public outrage after all that happened, prompted the CRTC (our FCC equivalent of sorts) to launch public hearings. They then mandated net neutrality across the board and suggested that industry could control traffic by imposing tiered service. So that's what we have in Canada. Now there's no unlimited service from a major ISP on both wired and wireless domains.

So, while I am no fan of Google's stance, I can certainly understand where they are coming from. In the absence of any regulation at all, it's easy to see how the telcos/ISPs can come up with their own rules for the wired domain. And that would be far more damaging to everybody. Google's doing its best to protect the wired side at least. Of course, that means they had to cave on something (there's no way Verizon would agree to absolute net neutrality after all...even status quo is better for them).

The more important question is why is anybody negotiating this in the first place? Just like Canada, shouldn't the FCC simply be mandating net neutrality across the board? Though some of you who download 90 GB a month might not be fans of the Canadian approach, at least we can do with our bitcaps as we please.

Also, I don't get Daniel's take that Google has a vested interest in sacrificing net neutrality and Apple doesn't. So Google, the company that does not sell phones itself and makes zero returns per handset sale is more likely to cut a deal with a telco than Apple, who does sell phones and has a music and movie sales service (that could benefit from traffic priority)? I call BS. Apple's consistently been quiet about net neutrality, because they don't want the PR hassles of taking a leadership position. And Jobs may well be hoping the wireless space goes non-neutral. Why not? Apple could always cut a deal with the telcos for priority access for iTunes. Imagine, Apple cuts a deal with AT&T for priority access for iTunes, and makes it exclusive (the slow lane for Amazon, Google music, etc.). Would Apple not benefit in that situation? I have no doubt that Jobs is pleased with the current situation. And that's why Apple hasn't uttered a peep on the current situation.

The only entity that protect the consumer in this situation is government.

If you want an interesting read with a scary perspective . . .

Published in the Capital Times of Madison WI

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opin...9cd620002.html

Google is doing absolutely nothing to protect the wired side. The entire plan is structured to be an entirely meaningless framework that telcos can circumvent at will. Google knows this and decided that they benefit more by gutting net neutrality than by continuing to pay lip service to it as a principle. This sort of net neutrality is worse than not pretending to have it.


Apple ought to come out strongly in support of real net neutrality, it's the right and responsible thing to do. I strongly encourage them to do so.

However, given the respective business models of the companies, clearly Google has a greater stake in getting into bed with carriers than Apple. Google's stands to improve their business position tremendously by currying favor with carriers. Apple might make a little money here and there by doing the same, but since it's not their primary business, any interest in cutting a deal that will get them special treatment is much less. Your hypothetical is just so much nonsense. We get that you're here to talk up Google, but spare us the disingenuous FUD: "Apple could become just as bad as Google, so you ought to be mad at them about this too." And, let us not forget that it is Google who has in this instance sold out and stuck a knife in the back of freedom.

Meh...Google has a fairly big stick on the wired side but no ready leverage on the wireless to compel net neutrality. So Google traded away nearly nothing to get what it wants on the wired side and got Verizon to do what it wanted.

That's two things:

1) Back Net Neutrality on the wired side where Verizon has been pouring billions into for FTTH.
2) Deploying 1 Gbit service faster rather than slower so Google doesn't have to after invest more $$$ after its 1Gbps trial site(s). Note that Verizon just showed 1Gbps service using existing FiOS gear (no big difficulty there).

If Google had purchased spectrum or a company like Clear then it might have more leverage on the wireless side without caving on anything. Without it is, there's no equivalent stick of owning lots of dark fiber and a huge war chest to make a real national deployment of 1Gbps FTTH to compete with FiOS.