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Janus
July 3rd, 2006, 08:41 AM
Taken from http://blog.wired.com/27BStroke6/?entry_id=1512499

Thursday, 29 June 2006
Your Own Personal Internet

The Senate Commerce Committee deadlocked 11 to 11 on an amendment inserting some very basic net neutrality provisions into a moving telecommunications bill. The provisions didn't prohibit an ISP from handling VOIP faster than emails, but would have made it illegal to handle its own VOIP packets faster than a competitor's.

Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) explained why he voted against the amendment and gave an amazing primer on how the internet works.


There's one company now you can sign up and you can get a movie delivered to your house daily by delivery service. Okay. And currently it comes to your house, it gets put in the mail box when you get home and you change your order but you pay for that, right.

But this service isn't going to go through the interent and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and guess what you can order ten of them delivered to you and the delivery charge is free.

Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet?

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.

So you want to talk about the consumer? Let's talk about you and me. We use this internet to communicate and we aren't using it for commercial purposes.

We aren't earning anything by going on that internet. Now I'm not saying you have to or you want to discrimnate against those people [...]

The regulatory approach is wrong. Your approach is regulatory in the sense that it says "No one can charge anyone for massively invading this world of the internet". No, I'm not finished. I want people to understand my position, I'm not going to take a lot of time. [?]

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.

It's a series of tubes.

And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

Now we have a separate Department of Defense internet now, did you know that?

Do you know why?

Because they have to have theirs delivered immediately. They can't afford getting delayed by other people.

[...]

Now I think these people are arguing whether they should be able to dump all that stuff on the internet ought to consider if they should develop a system themselves.

Maybe there is a place for a commercial net but it's not using what consumers use every day.

It's not using the messaging service that is essential to small businesses, to our operation of families.

The whole concept is that we should not go into this until someone shows that there is something that has been done that really is a viloation of net neutraility that hits you and me.

Audio can be found Here (http://media.publicknowledge.org/stevens-on-nn.mp3)

Simply stunning to think that we trust [some of] our senators to look out for us and make decisions when they don't know their ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to technologies that are a big part of our future.

ass*assassin
July 3rd, 2006, 10:38 AM
the funny thing is, it is a senator, Al Gore, that invented the internet.. ;) just ask him...

VeeKaChu
July 3rd, 2006, 11:01 AM
What's funnier STILL is that this fellow is on the right side of the issue!

MitsuMan
July 3rd, 2006, 12:09 PM
the funny thing is, it is a senator, Al Gore, that invented the internet.. ;) just ask him...
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

Obscure
July 3rd, 2006, 01:35 PM
What a retard.

Ignatz
July 3rd, 2006, 01:49 PM
This is what we get for putting someone from Alaska in charge of anything more technologically advanced than a fucking toaster.

puFf
July 3rd, 2006, 06:04 PM
This is what we get for putting someone from Alaska in charge of anything more technologically advanced than a fucking toaster.
Rofl ...good one :D.

The topic reminded me of an interview I read in discover magazine with biochemist Paul Berg with regards to stem cell cloning ... http://www.discover.com/issues/apr-05/departments/discover-dialogue/ ... and this particular question and answer


Why don’t they get it?

B: I’ll tell you an anecdote. Thirty years ago, when recombinant DNA was being threatened with prohibition, some quite well known senator gets up on the Senate floor and says, “I don’t profess to be able to understand this at all. I never got past high school chemistry, so I couldn’t possibly understand this science. But I want to say that this is the most dangerous research ever conducted in the United States, and it should be prohibited.” He confesses his ignorance, says he doesn’t know anything about it, and comes to an amazing conclusion anyway.

Zogo
July 3rd, 2006, 08:19 PM
Simply stunning to think that we trust [some of] our senators to look out for us and make decisions when they don't know their ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to technologies that are a big part of our future.

I saw one of these hearings. they were talking about P2P programs like it was rocket science..I should've taped it..there were some amazing statements.

schtoofa
July 4th, 2006, 12:44 PM
haha, what a newb

Stayne
July 24th, 2006, 01:46 PM
Stevens is fucking retarded. He must be really rich b/c there is no way he got into office by his looks, brains or personal charm. Here's a little bit on him:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv4vj_vlIOw

That aside, the scary thing about this is that he is proposing a bill that will, if I understand it correctly, change the way the internet is used. He is proposing that the internet be tiered in such a way that governement and businesses internet traffic would get priority over other traffic.

Here are some Daily Show clips that are entertaining (and mildly informative):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DClkE64nFDY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgWrDzVdi9M

More info on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality

From CSPAN (need realplayer):
rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/de/com072206_neutrality.rm

**EDIT** I didn't understand what Stevens was doing correctly. He's not proposing legislation, he's against the proposed net neutrality legislation. The debate on CSPAN (see above) will help illuminate that issue.

I don't see how Stevens can be holding the right stance, Veek. If he is concerned about common people having access to the internet, as he says, he should be in favor of net neutrality, not against it. Again, according to my limited understanding. I look forward to a knowledgable person's respons :D

Janus
July 25th, 2006, 08:32 AM
that makes sense, unless he wants to be put in the higher-tier of people that receive the internet faster from their co-workers (haha) instead of from friends/family that would be clogging up all the tubes...

Stayne
July 25th, 2006, 10:48 AM
Actually, from the discussions I've seen it sounds like they are trying to make broadband more like cable television. When you subscribe, you sign up for access to certain sites. You pay more for more access.

The flip side was the discussion on making internet applications/sites pay to be carried. In addition to paying for thier servers, they'd have to pay the ISP to allow thier users to access the site.

It has been construed as a way for ISPs to make more money, essentially. The current contraversy is a byproduct of the internet being recategorized as an information service rather than a telecommunication service. Telecommunication services are protected by common carrier regulations, meaning all packets are treated equal. Now that it is an "information service", common carrier regulations no longer apply and ISPs may determine which packets are carried. That is where the net neutrality debate comes in. (as I understand it)

leg
July 25th, 2006, 01:08 PM
The only people more ignorant and stupid than that senator are the ones who actually voted for him. But yea, Smack has a good point.

Cyberdemon
July 25th, 2006, 11:16 PM
Actually, from the discussions I've seen it sounds like they are trying to make broadband more like cable television. When you subscribe, you sign up for access to certain sites. You pay more for more access.

End users don't pay to subscribe - content providers pay so that their content is appropriated enough bandwidth. Google, for example, pays each company through which they want content delivered quickly, or Google Video is relegated to a lower tier. AFAIK, of course.

Typically Senators are pretty rounded in their policymaking, and it's unrealistic to expect them to know every minute detail about the structure of the internet. He's basically complaining about high-bandwidth providers causing congestion which slows down his email, a fair mistake.

Stayne
July 25th, 2006, 11:42 PM
End users don't pay to subscribe - content providers pay so that their content is appropriated enough bandwidth. Google, for example, pays each company through which they want content delivered quickly, or Google Video is relegated to a lower tier. AFAIK, of course.

Yeah, I've heard both the end users paying for different access (like we pay for different channels) and that content providers pay for bandwidth in addition to already paying for thier servers (which is also in my post, second paragraph).

Typically Senators are pretty rounded in their policymaking, and it's unrealistic to expect them to know every minute detail about the structure of the internet. He's basically complaining about high-bandwidth providers causing congestion which slows down his email, a fair mistake.

Yes, but he's been pretty all-around retarded. Granted, he's 85 years old and not likely to be to up on current technology. But if he doesn't know, he shouldn't be trying to explain it to others.

Cyberdemon
July 26th, 2006, 12:47 AM
Yes, but he's been pretty all-around retarded. Granted, he's 85 years old and not likely to be to up on current technology. But if he doesn't know, he shouldn't be trying to explain it to others.

I agree, but consider that he's playing to a constituency less likely to hammer him on technology issues than that of, say, a senator from Washington.

Janus
July 26th, 2006, 09:50 AM
but when you are the man in-charge of e-commerce you should have some functional knowledge of your area. That would be like a doctor singing the knee-bone is connected to the thigh-bone during surgery.