By 
Verizon has taken it upon itself to challenge the set of rules regarding net neutrality laid out by the FCC. The challenge is going to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and in it Verizon and their legal team state they are “concerned” with the FCC’s “assertion of broad authority for sweeping new regulation of broadband networks and the Internet itself.”
This comes after Verizon and Google issued their own opinion on how net neutrality should go down, something the FCC disagreed with slightly. Sit back for round two (or is it three) in the battle for net neutrality.
[via Gizmodo]
Good. The government should not be involved in regulating internet. It is something for the people by the people. It will only inhibit innovation.
They should have left well enough alone… See what happens now all this unnecessary activities that are court related… the Internet belong to the people not verizon or google and not the government’s either
But it was still invented by Al Gore right?
Lets see if you feel that way when your cellphone company says you can only access sites x, y,& z on your phone. Oh you want facebook? That’ll be another $1/month. Twitter? $2/month. Google.com? oh that’s exclusive for android phones. ESPN.com? Exclusive to Verizon.
Internet needs to be free of both government restrictions on consumers and carrier greed and manipulation.
This is no different than the FCC regulating ATT, Verizon, Sprint, bell south, etc on how they operate in providing you phone voice services. Cox, Comcast, etc on how they provide bandwidth, charges, fees, etc for cable.
While I hate the government getting involved in anything and especially making more laws. Verizon is just mad that they can only use their fingers to ass rape us. They are suing for the right to be able to fist us.
The Supreme Court and Congress has already TOLD the FCC that they did NOT have the authority to regulate the net.
Way to go Verizon….now I am questioning why I should renew my wireless plan with you guys….I guess at the end of the day it’s all about ripping off the middle class…oh well, guess I’ll sign up with Sprint instead
Scblacksunshine: the reason you will be[should] renewing your contract is because you are given the best service available in the US. the people who doubt this don’t have Verizon. Anyone, and everyone who says their coverage is the best is either lying or they don’t actually have Verizon and are actually disappointed with their service but are to proud to admit it.
@ 1. swehes
What you say doesn’t make since “for the people by the people” and you think a private organization like Verizon who’s only motive as is all corporations is to make a profit, care about the “people”. The government should definately regulate the internet to protect its “people”, especially in a representive democracy like our own in which the government represents (for the most part) its citizens/”people” whom elect the officals who are in government. Dont forget governments are not perfect but it is becuase of our democratic government that we have child labor laws, general workers labor laws, work place safety laws, and such other laws and regulatory mandates that protect us and our truly “for the people by the people”. If you want to know what happens when the government doesnt regulate something just look at the housing market crash of today, and the stock market crash that caused the great depression. Private entities that exist for profit will always undermine the “peoples” safety & stability because they seek to maximize profits at whatever cost (to us) and dream of zero government regulation (aka no democracy) in order to achieve that goal and not be held accountable.
ksizzle9: While i agree that verizon does undoubtedly have the best service currently, if they were to start charging us for use of Youtube and facebook out side of our regular data plan, i would argue that verizon would have the poorest service.
@KSIZZLE,
While I agree with you, there is something to be said about a company that is immoral. Regardless of how good their coverage is, if you deem them as immoral, that is a perfectly fine reason to look elsewhere. For many, Sprint is great. For those that travel to some more “remote” areas of the US, maybe not. Why pay for service in area’s you won’t ever be using it?
@KSIZZLE,
While I agree with you, there is something to be said about a company that is immoral. Regardless of how good their coverage is, if you deem them as immoral, that is a perfectly fine reason to look elsewhere. For many, Sprint is great. For those that travel to some more “remote” areas of the US, maybe not. Why pay for service in area’s you won’t ever be using it?
lol not sure why there was a double post there…
Listen, the hugwe telecom companies are screwing us over, net nutrality laws keep people INCLUDING GOVERNMENT from prioritizing or limiting access. Not all regulation are there for taking away freedom. The concept of net neutrality is to ensure it. STOP MAKING GENERAL STATEMENTS ABOUT CONCEPTS and thing about the actual impact of what is actually logistically affected. To make a broad statement like “the government is controlling this” is for antiintelectual extremists.
2nd on Nexusforce.
I’m pretty sure this is just going to be another failure of government to protect the interests of the citizens. Why did taxpayers get left holding the bag for the investment bankers? This time, it’ll be users holding the bag for Verizon et. al. profits.
Verizon is certainly doing this for their commercial/corporate reasons. Verizon is govern by profit and their motivation in this matter is driven by it. I applaud FCC for stepping up to corporate interests and actually supporting consumer interests.
Some of you people are completely ignorant. The government is for once protecting our freedoms here. Verizon wants to be able to nickel and dime us for particular parts of the internet that we access. I am a Verizon customer but I am strongly opposed to what they want to accomplish here. The internet should be a complete experience, not just what parts of it they want us to have for a certain price.
The FCC is exceeding its authority. They got slapped down by the courts for basically the same thing when Comcast sued them.
The rules the FCC imposed are basically the same as when Verizon and Google wanted, but they wanted those rules imposed the correct and legal way: through legislation, not regulation.
Yayyy more people putting their 2 cents on politics ^_^ these are always a blast. Since most will say what they want, should happen, or what they PLAN to do ( Yet in reality never do). Time to watch the show *Sits back, and opens up a Sprite*
My problem with this lies with a slightly different focus. I’m not so much looking at the merits of net neutrality here, but the fact that the courts told the FCC they didn’t have the power under the paradigm they had, so they just changed their rules to give themselves the power. An executive bureaucracy that can just decide it has the power to regulate an industry not included in its charter is a frightening thing, even if initially they are doing what appears to be a good thing. Verizon should sue, not because they are evil, but because they have the resources that we do not to fight this power grab. And don’t forget, when talking about corporations, that they are the people, too. Made up of individual people, run by individual people, and owned by individual shareholders who are, you guessed it, the people.
I am sorry people call me a crazy but if the government gets in involved with out net, then they will have the power to block or ban a site that they don’t like. Don’t you think wikileaks would have been blocked a few months ago, it the government had the power to do so then. I am sorry but I do NOT want the government to be more involved, I want them LESS involved, a LOT less. Stay out of health care too.
Those who are commenting on here that government should regulate the internet…ask yourself this question. What has government done in the past that makes you think that they will be able to regulate the internet in any kind of efficient manner? Did you know:
Government regulation lengthened the Great Depression by as many as 8 years? These findings from two UCLA professors.
Government regulation and intrusion helped plant the seed that became the sub prime mortgage bubble, which was one of the linch pins of the economy tanking in 2008-09?
Government regulation has cost millions of jobs in the form of ridiculous overreaching environmental regulations?
I could go on and on.
Ask yourself this question. Why does the internet need to be regulated? The open nature of the internet is the very reason the internet has grown into what it is today.
And finally a qualifier. Name 5 things that the government does well. If you can, then I am with you on net neutrality. If not…well…think about it. You want the government regulate and control the internet. They can’t even run the Postal Service.
Jeremy is correct; Stephen, the US government ALREADY has the ability to block/ban sites, under separate legislation passed under the guise of ‘protecting us’. Look it up.
Without any regulation (some regulation is a good thing; too much, is not), any company that provides access to the ‘net can do anything they want for the most part, depending on how far consumers will let them take it.
In general, whenever a corporation goes against the government, I can promise that it’s not good for the consumer either.
NOBAMA!!!
It is unfreaking believable how many people have no idea what net neutrality is about…
It is NOT regulating the Internet, it is regulating the Internet PROVIDERS so they give you what you’ve paid for!!
It is supposed to stop IPs from throttling your connection when you are viewing sites that are affiliated with their competitors.
For example: a Comcast customer is viewing the AT&T site but it is virtually impossible because your connection is only moving at 3 kbs.
IPs aren’t doing this yet (that I’ve heard of) but it is to prevent it from happening in the future as Internet providers are delving int to also providing content (comcast/nbc for example)
Come On People, educate yourselves a bit huh?
@17. ShadowGTX
People should discuss politics and other matters of great importance without discussing it, we can never reach the optimal solution.
18. JaylanPHNX
Where do I start….well for one I am happy we have one section of government standing up to protect the internet how it is & our rights, instead of being like the senate/house etc. where politicians and public servants are bought out(paid, using lobbyist etc.) by corporations like Verizon to pass legislation that is in there best interest and not of the public i.e. so that they profit more. Your saying that Verizon should sue to fight the FCC’s supposed “power grab”, what power? The power to assure that companies like Verizon do not block content (websites etc.) you like at their discretion and charge you extra to access such content? If thats the power your talking about, which is what the FCC wants is what your talking about well then I hope they do gain such power. Don’t forget the FCC is part of our democratic government, which in turn we are part of the democratic government because of our right to vote, which in turn means we dictate the FCC indirectly through our representative democracy. Also corporation as an entity is not a person, and yes a corporation as an organization is composed of individual people obviously, however that does not mean that they are inherently good. Corporations as a whole and specifically upper management & the top investors (with hundreds of thousands to millions invested) usually and for the most part are vested and in their self interest…and that is to make more money. So given that, yes there are people in corporations but not all of those people are good (mainly because they care solely about making a profit and a return on their investment) just remember the Nazis were an organization composed of people and look what for the most part they did(i’m not saying all corporations are like the Nazis just making an analogy about people).
@19. stephen
Okay first remember to read about the subject before commenting I am not bashing just suggesting. Second the government will not be controlling the internet no one controls the internet (technically) and if the FCC gets its way no one will ever control the internet, the only thing they will do is make sure that ISP’s (internet service providers), wireless cellular carriers (hopefully), etc. will not control the internet and that they do not dictate what websites/content you can visit, throttle our download/upload (mainly slow our internet connections) speeds to certain websites based on price schemes or however they would want to decide, that they do not dictate what is allowable and not, and basically prevent any draconian method/process/plan that would change the internet from being uncontrolled/unrestricted today to becoming a horrific walled garden like the apple app store except the ISP’s would charge us more and limit us.
if Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Google, all internet businesses get a grip on the internet, will they not try to regulate it, for us?
Even though, we may not want them too…
@20. deckard
I have a question for you describe to me a world in which there is no government regulation or laws on private entities like corporations, what kind of life would we have? How would it be to live under such circumstances? I can help think of feudal Europe, think of private entities as the lords and what ever weak federal government if any as a weak king who has no real power, because the money (land) is controlled by the private entities (lords)and we the people are only serfs. As some very prominent true “free market” think tanks in Washington say there is no need for democracy and that in fact democracies (the people/serfs) are detrimental to private entities…I say of course! we do not want to be abused, treated unfairly, or be cheated and democracy is the only wall we have protecting us. Oh what has the government done well? They have dealt with a polar opposite (capitalism) which is contrary to its political inclination (democracy) since its inception and has survived and thanks to “Democracy” we were the first to evolve socially (equal rights, womens suffrage, labor laws, etc.). Now onto the other points, the great depression had many factors as a cause, however the main two cited by economic historians is the collapse of private banks and the failure of the stock market, which were unregulated and thus both failed (duh). Just think of banks and investors doing whatever they want speculating extravagantly without restraint screwing themselves and everyone else just to make a profit with no government there to provide oversight and restrain there harmful actions. Next you say the government helped cause the collapse of the sub prime mortgage bubble? Thats ridiculous, lets refresh on what sub prime mortgages were, basically banks were making tons of loans to individuals whom couldn’t and wouldn’t be able to pay the interest on their loans once the grace period in fine print came to pass, the bad thing was that they knew that according to the individual’s/families income they would not be able to afford the mortgage on the houses and if there was government regulations in placed they could’ve been stopped from providing such volatile loans, so now that they’ve made the shabby loans that are gonna fail they had planned a “genius” way of writing off the loans, and that was to be accomplished by bundling the loans as investment packages to unsuspecting investors around the world as hot/great investments to jump on, which because of that allowed the collapsing of the bubble to affect many other countries who bought the investments composed of mortgage loans destined to fail. If there was regulation basically a check on there activities any logically inclined person (regulators)would’ve known that sub prime loans and the investments composed of them were just one big scam to gain profit fast and would not have let them be made/sold by the banks. Continuing, environmental regulations are needed, the science is there describing the horrible state of our global environment and the necessity of action being taken. You could argue against it but it would be absurd because the science is there backing it up, and science is facts and to go against facts is to appeal to its opposites lies & opinions, which are not things to base anything on even less policies. Now what you say here totally does not make sense -quote “Why does the internet need to be regulated? The open nature of the internet is the very reason the internet has grown into what it is today.” end quote- Well the open nature of the internet is net neutrality, to against net neutrality is to say that private corporations like Verizon can change the open nature of the internet into something that is closed,blocked,restricted all according to what they (someone like Verizon who controls the connections)believe want which in all cases is against what the people should want a free open internet that allows equal access for all websites and content. So 5 things the government does well…hmmm…well considering the political atmosphere right now (a lot of right wing opposition) not much, however the government has always handled the military well, they’ve handled the internet excellent up to now(till & unless ISP’s like Verizon destroy net neutrality), they’ve handled the best space program of any other nation, they were the first to establish a modern full representative democracy(this one is a big one should be worth 2) that still exists(thank god), and they have pioneered the establishment and maintained national parks which is of great importance to the environment and to securing a naturalistic visage of our country. Oh to be fair to the postal office not as much people send snail mail anymore with the advent of email, texting, and IM also not everyone use the USPS for shipping, there other popular service (Fedex, UPS, DHL etc.)and because of that there revenue is taking a hit. So with all that I hope you consider that not supporting net neutrality is against all good benefit for us the people.
For all those who agree with vzw must work for them and been brainwashed to thinking they are going to get a raise if the company wins. lol dumb asses
@Armando that was very insightful, I am undecided on net neutrality.
Okay, this thread is getting to just arguments. Net Neutrality is a good thing.
@26. Armando, I agree, very much. Why’re people blinded that Carriers(And whatever else is trying to take away Net Neutrality…) are trying to control what we do on the internet?
We all need to be a little more informed on what net neutrality means. Aren’t most things settled in fair way in court?
@zack because by PASSING net neutrality they are GIVEN the ability to block users from accesing internet content or chargin more for certain content… the Government needs to stay out, if you are concerned then create an organization to handle your concerns, don’t let the government touch it
@Armando: You miss my point. I’m not arguing net neutrality. I’m not arguing good regulation vs bad regulation. You ask about power grab, “What power?” What I mean is the power to decide arbitrarily what powers they do or do not have. Yes, we have a representative government and yes we indirectly control the FCC by who we put in the executive branch, but that control is tenuous and must be held onto tightly. Allowing a group of appointed bureaucrats to decide for themselves when/if/how to expand their powers is poor stewardship of our own sovereignty. We must remember what Thomas Jefferson said after the constitutional convention when asked if we have a democracy. He said, “No. We have a republic, if you can keep it.”
The FCC (Government) is NOT trying to regulate the Internet. They are trying to prevent others (Comcast, Verizon, ATT and more) from doing so. Currently, the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) & the Wireless providers can thottle your through put (Decrease your download speed) & want to charge extra for specific premium (populat) internet content like videos, file sharing and Facebook. The FCC wants to prevent this and that is whats called Net Neutrality. The FCC, myself & hopefully everyone else believes that access to the Internet should be unfettered. You pay for internet access at a certain speed and that is what you should get. If the providers are permitted regulate themselves it will be about how to squeeze every dollar they can out of us (consumers) thay can to increase thier bottom line (PROFIT).
I wanted to provide a little more information about “who owns the internet” for those interested.
I would suggest you see http://advice.cio.com/node/209. This article includes a map of the data backbone of the internet which, as you can see, is owned by a number of private companies. Furthermore, I would point you to IANA (http://www.iana.org/), which is the organization which is responsible for the top-level domains (.com, .org, .net, etc.). If somebody wants to create a new TLD (you remember the .xxx controversy), they talk to IANA. Individual domains are controlled by smaller organizations; VeriSign controls .com, for example. If you want to register a new .com, ultimately that is the responsibility of VeriSign. IANA also coordinates the IP address registries. ARIN (https://www.arin.net/) is the IP registry for North America. The DNS system relies on a number of root nameservers, and you can see a list of the US servers at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_nameserver.
So when we say that nobody owns the internet, what we really mean is that the internet is not owned by a single entity. It is actually owned by a mix of private, public, and semi-public (like NASA) organizations. The only reason that it works so well is that these organizations have done a pretty good job of cooperating with each other.
It’s a commonly-held belief that the service providers oppose net neutrality because it would prevent them from nickel-and-diming us to death. Consider another perspective: perhaps they are afraid that net neutrality would drive them out of business. By providing lower levels of service, they can provide internet access at a lower cost. Video streaming is incredibly bandwidth-intensive. If somebody doesn’t want to watch videos online, their bandwidth use would be much lower. Why shouldn’t an ISP be allowed to offer that user a lower price? It might be cheap enough to get grandma online. Alternatively, if net neutrality is passed, the cost of internet access to everybody might go up. Your $30 cell data plan might suddenly become a $60 plan. Sure, you won’t be nickel-and-dimed; you’ll just pay it all up front.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m actually undecided about net neutrality. I like the spirit of it, but I also realize that there is a cost. I also recognize the dangers of a government who feels the need to establish regulations for problems that don’t yet exist. I just hope that people understand that it’s not a simple issue.
@swehes Yes, that works on paper. However, I only have the choice between AT&T and Comcast where I live. Therefore, I can’t “vote” with my wallet. I need the government to tell the ISP’s what they can and can’t do, because I am unable. Without neutrality, we’re in the same area as radio/TV stations, only those with the $ can afford to get their information out. Google wouldn’t exist without neutrality, because the ISP’s would’ve prioritized their existing search engines over google. Same with facebook, twitter, and Netflix.
Also, wasn’t there some stipulation a while back that when the government gave AT&T and other telcoms money, they had to invest NN% of their money back into their networks? And they didn’t do it?
Lastly, wasn’t Comcast’s stance when they introduced the 250gig cap “This way we can be neutral”? How does that fit with what they’re doing now?
WTG Verizon! Keep the .Gov away from regulating peoples lives. We need healthy corporations for a healthy economy.
I have come to the conclusion that most people are completely ignorant of the “big bad government”. The usps is a shining example of what the government does right.
The USPS? Seriously? We pay similar prices to private parcel services, but the USPS is loosing millions of dollars a year. If it were a real business, it would have folded years ago.
But it isn’t a real business. They are designed to not make a profit, by law. And real business have been losing money too. Fed ex, for example has lost 6 billion since 2007, they are not bound by the uso, and are suppose to make money. The usps receives no taxpayer money, has pre-funded retirement, and is the only way you can mail anything to some remote areas of the country. Let alone the cost. They are a shining example of what government does right.
Going to explain the net neutrality issue as simple as I can for those who haven’t been following it.
My understanding (correct me if I’m wrong, I know you will) is that Verizon and some other ISPs are trying to make the internet modular like cable TV. Which is to say (as someone else did already) they may make you pay extra for youtube, or facebook, or possibly those would be included and independent websites would be extra.
People thinking this is the government trying to mess things up are dead wrong… this is about huge telecom corporations who we are pretty much stuck with trying to find ways to make different internet plans the same way we have different phone/cable plans. Considering we get the WHOLE internet for whatever we pay now this is most likely a loss for us (unless they implement cheaper plans and have the premium service cost what regular service costs now [not likely]}.
Sadly without support from the public this will pass, these companies have great lobbyists and as evidenced by the comments here the public is too ignorant to even understand the issue let alone do anything about it.
If Verizon gets what they want you will get less internet unless you pay for premium service.
@ Dan
The IPs already have tiered service…
10 mbs for basic email users
then:
15 mbs
20 mbs
30 mbs
50 mbs
If I am paying for 20 mbs then I want and SHOULD get the maximum speed avainlable by the network at any given time UP to the 20 mbs I am paying for.
The IPs shouldn’t be able to limit our speed if we are viewing sites that they don’t have a stake in.
Verizon is against any regulations, not because they care about the free and open internet. They want to have freedom to throttle your download speeds according to content. It’s all about profit. When they give priority to their own preferred content over competition, they restrict freedom and position themselves as arbiters of what you can access and the cost and speed that they deem acceptable. They aren’t in this fight like some champion of the first amendment! Verizon=greed! Yet so many love to pay their exhorbitant prices…crazy……
@Read
I agree with you in principle – you should get whatever service you pay for. But unfortunately, bandwidth isn’t free. The ISPs don’t have enough capacity to guarantee that every user can, at any time, hit their rate cap. To do so would require orders of magnitude more infrastructure than we currently have and, furthermore, most of that capacity would go unused most of the time. So they supply enough capacity for the likely need of the network. If you want to learn more about this, see http://www.engineerguy.com/videos/video-lines.htm (it deals with telephone trunk lines, but the principle is the same).
I bet that if you look at your contract, it doesn’t guarantee any given speed. This is a measure to keep the cost low. If you really need to be able to get 20 Mb/s whenever you want, you can arrange for such a plan, but you’re going to pay for it. A lot. My guess would be at least 10x whatever you currently pay for internet access. And most people wouldn’t be able to afford that.
FWIW, the fairest way to charge network users and providers would be to charge per megabyte (like electric companies charge per kWh), and also to weigh that charge by how congested the network is at the time of use. But consumers would hate that, since it would make their bills unpredictable, so it will never happen.
Verizon wants to regulate VoIP. They don’t want to loose moreu than 50% of their revenue to free VoIP. Well if you ask me this right there is violation of free market spirit. All that the FCC did was to rule that internet traffic is equal.
Of course verizon does not want regulation, read this site and tell me that you still don’t want regulation.
http://www.increa.com/computers/verizon-dsl-hacked-my-network/index.html