I'm on the fence with it, but lean more towards not this way.

A points to toss out.
Yes, the companies like Netflix are already paying, but it is a bit like X rented N a house, and then they moved in but brought 6 other people to live with them, and X is asking for more money for extra wear and tear. N says no.
X to put pressure on them, can't kick them out (stopped service), but puts a control on the water pipe (slower service).

Much is that the payment/service plans don't really match how it gets used. Should company A which constantly uses the internet 1000 times more than company B pay the same amount for it's use?

You also had major government payout (
Idiotically) to build those "pipes" in the first place. Often making it a monopoly situation. Since the gov't built it, they feel they should have some say. But how much say??

On the other hand, any time the gov't gets it's hands in things, to promote safety for the consumer, they tend to go all TSA on it. Making a one size fits all and violating every ones rights.

My 2 cents: Something should be done, ie have the companies pay back the pipes money, opening more of a real marketplace, and keep the gov't out of it. But the proposed bill, rubs me the wrong way.

Hey! I know your population of commenters here.
You have no excuse for not knowing the pros and cons of net neutrality before now!

That said I don't understand the current debate.

Military, scientists and engineers created the Internet sui generis about 1970 and net neutrality has ruled since then, often based on a long experience with telegraph, telephones and the railroad.

Net Neutrality is a 45 year old thing by now, so when I hear people claiming that suddenly the gov't is going to regulate this, and deny that, and mandate some other thing, I wonder why that hasn't happened until now.

What is new about this latest go around that causes these statements to arise?

The gov't / commercial Information Highway (NII) was tried and died almost 25 years ago. And that almost certainly had no net neutrality.

The Internet is the rogue network created by nerds in the face of gov't and commercial interests, and the one that worked and works.

So what will change do and who will benefit?

I'm torn on this one.

On the one hand, I don't want there to be pay as you go billing. Then again, there hasn't been, other than the one case with Netflix and Comcast, which they came to an agreement on. There is no crisis as many would have you believe that "needs to be fixed now!"

On the other hand... it seems to me like there's huge abusing of the meaning of "net neutrality" going on here. 300 pages of rules that we can't read before it's voted on, for some reason? Come on! Who here actually believes there aren't people in gov't salivating at the opening of the door this will be to allow "fairness" or other regulations of what happens on the Internet, within the US at least? We already know there are plenty that want to find ways to tax our usage of it.

With the higher traffic stuff, like netflix.. if they're not already working together to use something similar to, if not directly, akamai caching appliances inside the ISPs to aggregate/cache streams.. they're stupid.

"Yes, the companies like Netflix are already paying, but it is a bit like X rented N a house, and then they moved in but brought 6 other people to live with them, and X is asking for more money for extra wear and tear. N says no. "

No, it's not like that at all. Companies pay for the amount of bandwidth they use, they do not get unlimited bandwidth. They do not get a free pass to use more then they pay for.

That's the problem Matt... WHO IS GETTING PAID?

I browse Amy's site from home, and comcast is the provider, UNLESS I look in from my phone, at which point Verizon is the provider...
and if I look in from my friend's house via her wifi on my phone... then centurylink.

You want to explain to me how Amy's service provider pays each of those companies for the bandwidth required to serve her pages to me?

Now imagine I stream a video in similar fashion, some obscenely high amount of data transfers, versus this webpage... does netflix owe verizon money for that?, and what if I switch to wifi in the midlle and go off the verizon network and to the comcast one?

One reason this will be a dog's dinner, beyond the secrecy, is that everyone has a different opinion of what the net even is. Is it hardware, or is it a way of serving up data over a network, and WHO OWNS THAT?

Why does the government need 330 pages of new regulations to enshrine what was a founding principle of the Internet into regulatory law?

Why are the examples of bad things that float around things like T-Mobile letting you stream music for free (effectively a "paid priority lane" for Pandora and Spotify, but it's not really that) or MetroPCS letting you stream YouTube for free?

Why are we in this age of mega-bills, mega-regulations, and things that we are only allowed to know about how we will be governed after the laws and regulations are printed in the federal register?

Why did the same actors, just like as with amnesty, claim before all of the elections that mattered for the current administration that they didn't have the ability to do this, yet now they believe they have this authority without new legislation?

"Now imagine I stream a video in similar fashion, some obscenely high amount of data transfers, versus this webpage... does netflix owe verizon money for that?, and what if I switch to wifi in the midlle and go off the verizon network and to the comcast one?"

These are generally solved problems, which is why this doesn't make any sense if making your Netflix fast is the issue.

Everybody thinks the Internet works by point-of-presence (POP) juncture points of the big networks. This is a very academic view. If you read Tanenbaum's networking, you'll walk away thinking that this is how the Internet works (and people really should implement OSI). This is not how the world works.

We've had non-POP peering for as long as the internet has had commercial traffic, and probably before. All data is IP packets. All routers have little counters that get added up into billing, just like your call billing records for voice, because voice becomes data and has to be billed, too - where the big boys settle based on how many packets in or out they took.

All networks can tell you if traffic is or isn't in their network, and, if it isn't, they can throw it out to the POP or to a peer who is closer to send it along. Peering has been used for some time to make things faster - the general protocol at the POP, where all the big networks get together, is "not it" - please, please, don't give me that packet, nobody wants to take and route your crap. Peering reverses this relationship So, something on Level3 wants to get to Comcast, Level3 and Comcast set up a peering relationship, they don't go to the POP, they use their established relationship.

All of this has forever been how the lower levels of the Internet work. Furthermore, Amy's blog - she has no money to pay them, just like 99.99% of websites. You can't collect from somebody with no money. If you couldn't load a regular page on your home computer, you'd cancel the service, as you can at least choose between broadband wired and wireless in most of America. So, network providers have had one side that can't pay, and the other side that can switch competitors if they go to far. (Do you hate local cable monopolies? Well, then, rip those up; don't try to fix the corporatism with more corporatism.)

Cui bono? The easiest example: Google wants you to argue for every packet being independent and equal, because they own YouTube, and YouTube generates a large amount of traffic.

A handful of the wealthiest companies in the world are content providers that currently use their network providers as shields for payments. They have an issue with the handful of extremely wealthy network providers, because it boils down to five things:

1. When you generate 1%, 10%, 25%, 50% of traffic - they can identify you, so it's no longer a sea of sand, it's one giant boulder surrounded by sand.
2. When you are one of the biggest companies in the world, somebody can reasonably expect you can pay real money. (Whether you should is the issue, but, you could pay.)
3. Application providers who made a lot of money taking advantage of how things were done and consumer rebellion do not want that to change, rightly so, except network providers who see themselves carrying the freight disagree.
4. It's easier for you to keep a dollar by shoving the cost onto somebody else, and, one of the things that's certainly true - for example, if Google can keep from subsidizing competitors to YouTube by making costs uniformly high rather than having the big dog pay the money, they like that. (This is the converse of the big dog being easy to find and having the ability to pay money.)
5. Socialists and bureaucrats absolutely love big businesses and hate small companies as they are harder to control and don't like to "play the game". The government is probably seeking to placate the application providers with a general solution that sounds like they won, but then turn around and give the bigger network providers a "Waiver", just like they did with Obamacare.

The only sure thing: you as a consumer are not who anybody is really thinking about here. Nobody is looking out for you - if you think otherwise, look at how close the application providers and network providers are to the government. The application providers are currently better at fooling you into thinking they care about you.

That was a good concise way to describe net neutrality. People have started to really abuse the term. When the FCC's Wheeler talks about net neutrality he really means the government gets to choose who gets a better deal so bureaucrats and politicians can solicit graft. Nothing Obama or Wheeler are planning to do will in any way implement net neutrality. It is like 'lead from behind' with these guys.

"So what will change do and who will benefit?"

Good questions. Here's how it will all work out. We know these things by examining the history of regulated utilities, and adding to that Washington's current theory of government.

What will change do? There will be massive consolidation. First, the small and independent ISPs will either see the light and sell out, or they will fight to the bitter end and be crushed. Then, there will be waves of mergers among the big carriers. This will end when there are only two or three ISPs remaining. By then, territories will be divided up and in most cities there will be one monopoly carrier.

At that point, costs will began going up and service will begin going down. Bandwidth, which is plentiful now, will become scarce. Government will use the scarcity as a pretense to regulate, regulate, regulate. There will be licensing of content providers, and the process and accompanying lobbying will be so expensive that only a handful of content providers will be able to survive. This is what Hollywood and Washington have wanted for 25 years -- for the Internet to be modeled after the broadcast TV model, where there are a handful of government-approved gatekeepers and a large, completely passive audience with few choices. Your choices in online entertainment will be Comcast, Microsoft, and Google. You'll like it or lump it. Every now and then "pirate stations" will turn up, but the government will quickly find them and shut them down. Finally, the artificial scarcity means that government has leeway to dispense favors, and to use your money to do it. There will be numerous taxes and fees imposed on Internet service, like there is on landline phone service now. The charges will be opaque (not detailed on your bill) and if you inquire as to what the purpose is, you'll be politely told that as an ordinary citizen, you aren't smart enough to understand it. If you persist, you will be denounced as a racist and will lose your job.

Who will benefit? Government, which will gain an enormous amount of power in being able to control content, keep track of malcontents, and force the transmission of propaganda. Crony capitalists, will will make more money for less work and will be shielded from competition. Politically correct advocacy groups, whose opinions will go intellectually unchallenged. And, last but not definitely least, lobbyists, whose services will be necessary to grease the wheels and slap the backs in order to make anything work. (High-dollar prostitutes will play a seldom-noticed but important role in that.) The ruling class will move freely between employment among all four of these entities. All important decisions will take place in smoke-filled rooms, and the average citizen will have no representation whatsoever.

Thanks Cousin Dave, but maybe I did ask the wrong question.

What is changing with this legislation? Why is it claimed this legislation is anything other than business as usual, as the Internet has worked since 1970?

My personal experience w/the FCC (1980's utility/cable TV pole ownership/rights) is that communication lobbyists were there a LONG time before we (the pole owner) got there. Time = money spent = access = favoritism.

The FCC lawyers that I met with agreed that our rental contracts were fair and not unreasonable EXCEPT that those lawyers were gone (reassigned or gone gone) when the next scheduled meeting came around.

Bottom line, bend over and grin. You are going to enjoy it.

What is changing with this legislation?

It isn't legislation. It's regulation from the FCC. They're going to "ensure" that there is "fairness". Expect your rates to go up and your service to go down.

Or, to put it in terms we call all understand, If you like your internet service plan, you can keep your internet service plan.

Of course, if google really wanted to screw with the ISPs, they'd simply turn on the light on their dark fiber that they bought up for pennies on the dollar after the tech crash in 2000.

Also, expect your political speech on the internet to be regulated. And if they can regulate that, well, I guess we can say that the Internet is a First Amendment-free zone.

>>You want to explain to me how Amy's service provider pays each of those companies for the bandwidth required to serve her pages to me?

She doesn't pay for that, you or your friend do via your phone or internet service.

Amy most likely pays a hosting company for her website and that include a certain amount of bandwidth. If the website gets too many visitors for the amount of bandwidth allocated, it slows down, unless she purchased a higher bandwidth package.

Yeah, so far, everyone I ask, not just here, gives me a lot of FUD, but no one can point to a single concrete change in what will happen versus what the situation has been (off and on) for the past 40 years.

I understand the more than reasonable fear of gov't regulators. But my interpretation of being presented only with FUD is that this is mostly just a fear campaign to entirely overturn the apple cart of how the net runs primarily to enrichen the corporations at the expense of the taxpayers and users.

At that point, costs will began going up and service will begin going down. Bandwidth, which is plentiful now, will become scarce. ... This is what Hollywood and Washington have wanted for 25 years -- for the Internet to be modeled after the broadcast TV model, where there are a handful of government-approved gatekeepers and a large, completely passive audience with few choices. Your choices in online entertainment will be Comcast, Microsoft, and Google.

Actually, you've just described the exact opposite of 'net neutrality' there.

Yeah, so far, everyone I ask, not just here, gives me a lot of FUD, but no one can point to a single concrete change in what will happen versus what the situation has been (off and on) for the past 40 years.

Well now we're going to find out "what's in it" as it was passed this morning.

Jerry, I misunderstood your question. I guess I was spring-loaded for sarcasm...

Where we are right now with ISPs is that they are (with the exception of all of the ridiculous copyright mandates) pretty much unregulated. Anyone can start an ISP and offer pretty much any services they want, and charge whatever their market will bear. The exception is when "outside plant" (poles and cables) have to be put up. But the smaller ISPs in particular usually rely on existing outside plant that the lease from carriers.

What's going to happen, basically, is that the FCC is going to start regulating them they way it regulates local phone companies. If you have a landline phone service from, say, Bellsouth, the FCC has complete control over what Bellsouth can charge you and what services they can offer you. It also gives the FCC the authority to levy taxes and fees on that service, which it does to the hilt. Additionally, in most markets, the FCC historically granted a monopoly to the local exchange carrier; in the days before cell phones, if I was dissatisfied with Bellsouth, that was too bad because there was no other choice.

One thing that is interesting about this is that telephone companies were long ago designated by a law (whose title I forget) as "common carriers". That means, basically, that the phone company has to carry up any traffic that is offered up by a customer as long as the interface specifications are met. The phone company has no authority to regulate or censor the content of your phone calls. The advantage for them is that they bear no responsibility for what happens on a phone call; if you get a bunch of harassing phone calls, you can't sue the phone company for carrying them.

However, the FCC's position is that ISPs do not enjoy common-carrier status. This is because of pressure from the entertainment industry which demands that the ISPs be their copyright enforcers. The ISPs have mostly been willing to work with this (up to a point) because they were otherwise unregulated. But now it's a worst-of-both-worlds situation: the ISPs are regulated, but don't enjoy the common-carrier immunity against being sued for the content that is carried. Of course, this is the way the big carriers want it: by making costs go up, they can force smaller competitors out of the market, and then use their political influence to guarantee them captive markets and limit competition. Congress could fix this with legislation, but nobody in Congress is going to stand up to either Hollywood, which would like for copyrights to be a privilege reserved to itself, and the internal government/crony forces who want Internet content and access to be controlled by the government.

It's needed because in 2002, under Commissioner Michael Powell (Colin Powell's son) (now President of the lobbyist group the NCTA) the FCC started moving away from Net Neutrality and in the years since Comcast and other providers have been trying to force the FCC completely away from Net Neutrality.

Yeah, Comcast, the consumers greatest friend.

The new regulation is needed because for 10 years since Powell lightened the regulations, the broadband companies have consistently acted like assholes, bullies, and extortionists.

The new regulation seems to largely restore the situation as of about 2002.

I understand the reasonable fear of government regulation, but I weigh that against the known reality of how Comcast and others behaved as well as the 1970-2002 experience.

Thanks Cousin Dave,

I found this article which fills in some of the details.

FCC net neutrality vote: What happened and how it could change the Internet

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-net-neutrality-what-you-need-to-know-20150217-htmlstory.html

If the staunchest opponents of Net Neutrality weren't Comcast, lobbyists, and lawyers, if proponents of Net Neutrality were not the Level 3s and other backbone providers, if the history, architecture and engineering of the net itself weren't strongly biased towards Net Neutrality, I'd probably be more opposed to it myself.

What I largely see is this enormous value of the net created explicitly by net neutrality principles and a group of old fashioned robber barons and railroad magnates who want to end net neutrality so they can slice and dice the net up into their own little fiefdoms posting the Black Knight across all their new formed bridges shouting "None shall pass".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eMkth8FWno

You have more faith than I Jerry. I agree net neutrality is needed or even better true competition. I just have no faith in Obama and Wheeler delivering. It is not in their nature.

Any time someone from the government or a politician claims that something is "neutral" or "affordable" (Like the affordable healthcare act) or "fair" or "free" I know they are full of it.

This "net neutrality" is just another way of saying let's get the government's hands all over it.

In this case you can literally trace "neutrality" to the specific design of Internet addresses, Internet ports, and how routers, devices, endpoints, circuits were designed to work.

So engineers.

"If the staunchest opponents of Net Neutrality weren't Comcast, lobbyists, and lawyers,"

I can assure you that's all for show, like the Republicans that ran on an anti-open-borders platform in the last election was all for show. What Comcast and its ilk are really after is regulatory capture. The lobbying is all part of that process.

Evidence from the cable TV industry shows that regulation will bring about the very things you fear. For a while during the '80s, cable was de-regulated at the federal level. During that period, service improved (it was then that cable started moving from VHF-only, which limited service to about 10 channels, into high-band systems) and prices held steady or went down. In 1985 I was paying $3.95/month for 35 channels. There were experimental interactive and digital systems, and some systems were doing advance planning for a la carte service. That all ended after G.H Bush foolishly signed the cable re-regulation bill in 1989. And don't forget, Comcast got its start as a cable TV company.

Net neutrality is as neutral as the affordable care act is affordable. No, you cannot read the details. We have to pass it to find out what's in it.

Anyone who would fall for this now is a fool.

Next, let's call out an obvious conflict of interest. Time Warner has a vested interest in seeing Netflix and Amazon streaming fail, because they sell HBO, etc. Why should Netflix or Amazon, who I pay for content have to pay Time Warner to be allowed to deliver what I buy?

You won't have neutrality until the content providers are divorced from the content deliverers. We'll talk after that's done.

http://reason.com/blog/2015/02/26/3-charts-that-show-the-fcc-is-full-of-ma

To the extent that cable companies once had absolute local monopolies, it was precisely due to local governments granting them that. There are all sorts of things that local, state, and federal governments—not to mention nominally independent agencies such as the FCC—might do to reduce or remove barriers to entry for competitors. As FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai told Reason in an interview released yesterday,

"There are a lot of markets where consumers want and could use more competition. That’s why since I’ve become the commissioner, I’ve focused on getting rid of some of the regulatory underbrush that stands in the way of some upstart competitors providing that alternative—streamlining local permit rules, getting more wireless infrastructure out there to give a mobile alternative, making sure we have enough spectrum in the commercial marketplace—but these kind of Title II common carrier regulations ironically will be completely counterproductive. It’s going to sweep a lot of these smaller providers away who simply don’t have the ability to comply with all these regulations, and moreover it’s going to deter investment in broadband networks, so ironically enough, this hypothetical problem that people worry about is going to become worse because of the lack of competition."