RSSMcCain's 'Real Stimulus' to go head-to-head against FCC's 'net neutrality'
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published October 23, 2009, 4:55 PM
The day after the US Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously to begin debate on the possible introduction of new federal regulations governing how Internet service providers may delineate and manage services for their customers, Sen. John McCain (R - Ariz.) announced he will be proposing simple and swift legislation that would forever separate the Internet from the FCC's purview.
Sen. McCain's office presented Betanews with the very latest draft of the bill this afternoon, which has yet to be reported to the floor (thus it does not yet have a number), and has within the last few hours been renamed the "Real Stimulus Act of 2009." Its earlier name, the "Internet Freedom Act," clashed too strongly with competing pro-net-neutrality legislation introduced earlier this year in the House. As it stands now, it's only a two-page bill, the principle clause of which reads: "The Federal Communications Commission shall not propose, promulgate, or issue any regulations regarding the Internet or IP-enabled services." Exceptions would be in cases of national security, to ensure public safety, or to aid in law enforcement activities; and existing regulations to that effect would still be considered in effect.
In a statement yesterday, Sen. McCain attempted to explain the "stimulus" theory of his bill: Although it contains no government subsidies, unlike recent stimulus bills, he feels that keeping wireless services free from government regulation will enable job growth through continued investment in service expansion.
"This government takeover of the Internet will stifle innovation, in turn slowing our economic turnaround and further depressing an already anemic job market. Outside of health care, the technology industry is the nation's fastest growing job market. Innovation and job growth in this sector of our economy is the key to America's future prosperity," reads a statement from his office. To that, the Senator added the remark that his bill "will allow for continued innovation that will in turn create more high-paying jobs for the millions of Americans who are out of work or seeking new employment. Keeping businesses free from oppressive regulations is the best stimulus for the current economy."
Sen. McCain is already very much on record as believing that the Internet, unlike the public airwaves, is a culmination of collected services that are contributed by private enterprises, and that each of those enterprises has an exclusive stake to its share of the contribution. At the All Things D conference in May 2007, when he was still seeking the Republican nomination for President, McCain told the audience, "When you control the pipe, you should be able to get profit from your investment."
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No- it's around for a while. But since it's used more by consumers than business users, I think opening it up will allow for some interesting consumer level products. In the enterprise, it's all about eliminating .pst files because of all of the technical and legal hurdles they present.
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|Say what you want about McCain there is one thing I really like about this bill. It is only 2 pages. You can't fit a bunch of loopholes and extra crap when the bill is 2 pages instead of the heathcare bill which is around 1500 pages. I wonder how many loopholes are in that.
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|Again, shortsighted politicians on both sides are missing one key point: it doesn't HAVE to be 100% net neutrality or 100% jungle.
It can, and should be, a mix of both. Each company should be forced to allocate 80% (or so) of their bandwidth to net neutral traffic, while they can bid/close-off the other 20% to do whatever the hell they want with it. AT&T wants to block iPhone from using third-party apps that lower their profits? No big deal, AS LONG AS that "closed off traffic generated by the iPhone" is part of the 20% of non-network neutral traffic. ALL traffic data/voice via iPhone should be counted as unneutral. So, in other words an iPhone user could simply go with some Windows Mobile phone ALSO on AT&T (say they're the only one covering his geographic area with DECENT signal) and install Skype/Google Voice/whatever on it.
Likewise when ISPs need to allocate bandwidth to their customers, both business and residential. They'll have to allocate 80% to net neutral traffic and they'll be allowed to bid away on the remaining 20%. Why would a biz pay for premium bandwidth when he can get connected with the cheap net neutral traffic? Because the net neutral traffic is allowed to be traffic shaped based on time-of-day or amount-of-data used, but is NOT allowed to be shaped based on protocol/content of data itself. So if you want to guarantee a transfer rate for a huge amount of data (say a backup data restore or some other cloud service), then you'd be willing to pay a preium not to get throttled down with the rest of the network neutral folks.
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|I don't like Obama at all, and I honestly think McCain is pretty out there too. While we wouldn't be talking about adding a trillion dollar debt for health care if McCain were in office, I'm positive he was only marginally better than Obama at the time we had an option. Since then Obama is making Bush look like Einstein.
This is a stupid argument for this particular issue, I don't like the FCCs way either, its even worse. McCain needs to watch Spiderman and learn "just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should do something". :)
McCain, Pelosi, Reid, and Obama have no clue. Vote em all out!!
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|http://sethf.com/essays/major/libstupid.php
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|+1 "Since then Obama is making Bush look like Einstein. "
+1 "McCain, Pelosi, Reid, and Obama have no clue. Vote em all out!!"
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|Mccain's position is hilarious. From his presentation on Thursday:
"The wireless industry exploded over the past twenty years due to limited government regulation. Meanwhile, wired telephones and networks have become a slow dying breed as they are mired in state and Federal regulations, universal service contribution requirements and limitations on use."
Attributing the course of technological adoption ENTIRELY to government regulation is just silly.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cg...1:./temp/~r1115ufoCy:e0:
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|to McCian's point, the technology advancement we have seen has been due to little govt regulation. Had the wireless regulation been in place like it was/is with POTS we would not have the technology we do today.
I work in the energy biz and we have a regulated side and a on-regulated side. On the regulated side our margins are limited by the govt and as a result we focus on the daily operations and rarely invest in newer/faster/better ways (to do so even takes govt approval). On the non-reg side we make a lot more money and are always finding new creative ways to do what we do better and advance our business.
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|I'm not Republican, but I think I back this ideology a lot more than I do the FCC's current proceedings. At first I was ecstatic that the FCC was going to legislate net neutrality, then I read how they were going to do it, and I realized it sucks. This particular approach isn't perfect either, but I guess its the lesser of two evils? I really hope something better comes along...somewhere...
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|Sadly though, the 'ideal' sounds good, but most people only have one choice for high speed internet, and if that company is allowed to keep them from visiting certain sites or for example makes a deal with Amazon and prevents everyone accessing the internet from them from buying books from Barnes and Noble, or dowloading music from iTunes or Zune, it kind of infringes on the liberties that the Internet was designed around.
Free market ideals for ISP level access fails when you get beyond your ISP, as you no longer have 'free market' access to the rest of the internet if your ISP is blocking you from it.
The FCC's 'warnings' are what have prevented this from becoming a major issue in the US already, and this is why starting with Clinton, and CONTINUED with Bush's FCC chairman these 'warnings' to ISPs were kept in place and waved when ISP did try restricting access to places on the internet or reducing bandwith.
This should not be a Reb vs Dem debate and an ISP shouldn't be allowed to 'control' people's access to the Internet. Now whether the FCC really has domain over this or a law needs to be passed to force net-neutrality is another debate.
However, McCain's bill is bad and the wrong direction completely...
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|Mccain trying to help us drop even lower on the list of countries that utilizes innovative technologies by telling corporations they get to police themselves at no risk of intervention! This means the big corporations set the rules.
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|That's one of the things that put the USA in the mess it is in now as well, forgie. If McCain had won he really would have just been a third term for Bush........ And further sunk the USA into more of a mess.
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|How can the US sink any lower than it is now? We have accumulated more debt this year than in the previous 200 years. There is a 10 trilion deficit projected by the Obama big spenders. Every individual in the US is responsible for $44,000 each to pay back as it is and Obama isn't through spending. Hello hyper inflation. You will need a wheel barrow full of dollars to buy a loaf of bread when the world tires of trading in dollars. Can't get any worse than Obama politics.
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|Don't we have the 3rd term of Bush right now? Whats the difference? Only bigger
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|John Mccain, the best senator money can buy.
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|Can you blame him? He's created a 'Real Stimulus' for his pocket.
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|all about Money! big surprise ! "When you control the pipe, you should be able to get profit from your investment." Next it will be "When you control the AIR , you should be able to get profit from your investment."
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|That's how it is already. Corporate interests are the primary bidders on available spectrum. They don't own these airwaves, their only licensed. But the licensees have exclusive use of those frequencies. Of course the entire process is utterly illegal and unconstitutional...nobody can own the airwaves, including the government, and yet like so many other things we tolerate Washington making billions selling this natural resource to the highest bidder.
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|You can't blame the government for that. Humans have been doing this sort of thing from the start..... It all depends on whom you elect.
BTW,
http://sethf.com/essays/major/libstupid.php
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