Ted Cruz Hits Back At Al Franken On Net Neutrality

tacomancer said:

OK dude. If you want to debate like a grade schooler, go ahead.

Innovation happened.

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:doh
Said the one acting as a grade schooler.
Throwing your own juvenile behavior back at you is all you deserve.
You don't want it thrown back in your face, don't put it out there to begin with. It is that simple.

So again.


As he stated. He was making a simple contrast between one industry that was regulated by the telecommunications act of 1934 and one that wasn't.
The problem isn't his presentation, it is that you purposely refuse to understand the simple contrast.
Regulated industry under such like the the telecommunications act of 1934 was, and is, stifled.
While the unregulated is not.

You trying to poopoo what he said because of his exaggeration of calcifying or freezing it is ridiculous as well as dishonest because (as your were told) in context he was pointing out that in contrast the innovation of the current system has come from outside of regulation.

Excon said:

:doh
Said the one acting as a grade schooler.
Throwing your own juvenile behavior back at you is all you deserve.
You don't want it thrown back in your face, don't put it out there to begin with. It is that simple.

So again.

Why don't you read what Cruz said and keep it in context of regulating it like a Utility (as Obama wants) like the telephone services were.
Then maybe you will understand the point he was trying to make.​

As he stated. He was making a simple contrast between one industry that was regulated by the telecommunications act of 1934 and one that wasn't.
The problem isn't his presentation, it is that you purposely refuse to understand the simple contrast.
Regulated industry under such like the the telecommunications act of 1934 was, and is, stifled.
While the unregulated is not.

You trying to poopoo what he said because of his exaggeration of calcifying or freezing it is ridiculous as well as dishonest because (as your were told) in context he was pointing out that in contrast the innovation of the current system has come from outside of regulation.

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Then both you and he missed the greater point that innovation of telecommunications happened and your feared regulation did not stop it.

As I have pointed out.

obvious Child said:

Meaning you have nothing.

Expected.

All you can do is complain. You never, ever, ever offer any solutions.

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Stop being silly and are speaking nonsense. Which is expected of you.

This discussion (about Cruz's assertion) is about Obama's desire to classify it as a Utility and the possible ramifications of that.
Try addressing that and not irrelevant nonsense.

Zyphlin said:

Essentially, a law mandating that the principles of net neutrality be held up...which I believe is similar, but an expanded version, of what the FCC recently had struck down...but not actually classifying them as a utility, which gives the government expanded power to potentially regulate the industry BEYOND simply enforcing net neutrality and also requires the industry to start paying an additional tax.

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That ain't going to happen. So many Congress members like Cruz are bought and paid for by the telecoms that they will never, ever, ever vote for this. It's easier to get the GOP to remove nuclear and oil subsidies than it will be for them to vote to cut off the high revenue tier structure from their donors.

Ted Cruz's plan is to make NN sound bad as a tool to hammer Obama on during the GOP primaries. The amount of damage he can do purely by associating it with the ACA and Obama will cause plenty of Republicans to vote against it purely out of their own primary concerns.

That law would be nice, but it's not even remotely realistic given telecom contributions and what Ted Cruz is doing in terms of association.

SouthernDemocrat said:

How can the customer do anything when in most markets they have no other alternatives. Moreover, it already has been a problem.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/24/b...netflix-reach-a-streaming-agreement.html?_r=0

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as a netflix customer over vdsl, which isn't that fast, I am fine with the service. I'm not going to watch 3d content anytime soon, but I question your claims of a so called problem.

Excon said:

Stop being silly and are speaking nonsense. Which is expected of you.

This discussion (about Cruz's assertion) is about Obama's desire to classify it as a Utility and the possible ramifications of that.
Try addressing that and not irrelevant nonsense.

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Which is cop out.

Excon once again proves all he can do is complain. Never expect a solution from Excon. He has none. Nor will he have any.

ARealConservative said:

ultimately, you are going to have to rely on the consumer class to not get bent over and shafted.

Personally, I feel that when it is business doing the shafting, we have far more avenues to pursue then when it is the government doing the shafting.

So until I see real signs of big problems today, not potential for problems down the road, I am not giving any government agency more power.

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Agreed.....my fear is that all of this is to get the door opened just a little so the taxes (local and federal), excise taxes (local and federal) along with the usual fees that go along with utility regulations. Nothing good happens when the government gets involved......they don't do it for free, it's all about revenue.

SouthernDemocrat said:

How can the customer do anything when in most markets they have no other alternatives. Moreover, it already has been a problem.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/24/b...netflix-reach-a-streaming-agreement.html?_r=0

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ModerateGOP works in the industry and has stock options on telecoms. His opinion is literally bought and paid for by the telecoms and thus we should not consider anything he says to be of value as he has a direct positive financial incentive for a tiered system to be enacted.

obvious Child said:

Which is cop out.

Excon once again proves all he can do is complain. Never expect a solution from Excon. He has none. Nor will he have any.

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A solution? How about a lack of solution being the solution?

I haven't experienced any negative effects dealing with the internet.

tacomancer said:

Then both you and he missed the greater point that innovation of telecommunications happened and your feared regulation did not stop it.

As I have pointed out.

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And you are wrong. You have no greater point. It was stifled by regulation. And doesn't even come close to the innovation from the unregulated industry that he contrasted it with.

iliveonramen said:

You already pay for internet access at a certain speed. The video conferencing company adds value by the features they add to their software. The cable company charging them an additional fee above what you pay for broadband usage is a non-value added charge that is possible only because the cable company controls the method of delivery. No value is added to the product, the method of delivery is already something the consumer is charged for, yet you'll have to pay higher fees?

The only winner in this situation is cable companies. They don't lay more wire, they don't provide a better service, they get additional money for nothing.

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As an ISP, what do I need to provide "better" internet? I need better wire and better servers, right?

How do I get those things? I have to buy them, right?

How do I get the money to buy them? I charge my customers.

Right now I have all of my customers paying more or less the same rate no matter how much of my resource they're using. What I'd really like to do is charge my customers who use more of my resources more money for that benefit. So what I did is I looked at my customers' resource usage and noticed that "PornStream.com" is using a ****load of bandwidth. I turn around and tell them, "Hey, you guys are using a ton of my resource and that makes it hard for me to provide services to new customers so I need to either charge you more or cut back on the amount of resource I allocate to you. The good news is that if you choose to pay more then I'll be able to get more potential customers to come your way." PornStream hems and haws a little but they pay the fee anyway and a year later they have more customers and are making more money. PornStream's customers are happy because with that extra revenue PornStream added a naked asian midgets in lederhosen page. Sure, their cable bill went up a couple of bucks but who doesn't want naked lederhosen midgets?

Now I may be mistaken but my understanding of how "net neutrality" is going to work is that in the above scenario I, as the ISP, get to pay the government to make sure that I can't charge "PornStream.com" more for their bandwidth usage. That benefits...well, I guess it only benefits the government. Pornstream gets the same service they always had. Harry Palms gets the same porn he always had. The only thing that's changed is that there's a new fee on his internet bill every month and no naked midgets.

Meister said:

A solution? How about a lack of solution being the solution?

I haven't experienced any negative effects dealing with the internet.

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Okay, how about you offer a reason why ISPs won't throttle?

Please aside from magic, what is stopping monopolies from engaging in behavior to literally charge you extra for every packet of data you want delivered or received within a reasonable period of time?

Are you COMPLETELY UNAWARE that ISPs have throttled Netflixks?

obvious Child said:

That ain't going to happen. So many Congress members like Cruz are bought and paid for by the telecoms that they will never, ever, ever vote for this. It's easier to get the GOP to remove nuclear and oil subsidies than it will be for them to vote to cut off the high revenue tier structure from their donors.

Ted Cruz's plan is to make NN sound bad as a tool to hammer Obama on during the GOP primaries. The amount of damage he can do purely by associating it with the ACA and Obama will cause plenty of Republicans to vote against it purely out of their own primary concerns.

That law would be nice, but it's not even remotely realistic given telecom contributions and what Ted Cruz is doing in terms of association.

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I disagree. I think similar to you in terms of actually busting up the telecom psuedo-monopolies...which is my preferred method but I realize it's a fools errand and a philisophical debate not a realistic one...but I don't think it's the case here. Are the telecoms influential? Absolutely. But I think this is a burning enough issue to actually have ramification on campaigns, and that can get attention of the parties. I think there's enough chance of putting some republicans together with a majority of democrats (ridiculous it's become this politicized, but not shocking that it has) and actually getting such a thing passed.

Is it as easy a making it a utility would be? No. But I don't think it's unrealistic as an option, and I think the POTENTIAL damage that making it a utility would be greater than the potential damage from taking a few years to get it passed as a law.

I'm in favor of the utility route over doing nothing. I'm in favor of taking a few years if necessary to go the law route over the utility route now. While the telecoms are definitely making a race to get to an internet guided less and less by neutrality principles, we're still a ways off from it actually occuring in a significantly impactful fashion. If by 2016 or 2018, after the next presidential election, we've still not managed to get such a law passed then I'd be more open to looking down the utility path way. But I don't think this is something that "MUST BE ACTED ON NOW", but I do think action is needed.

And either way...Reverend's stance is significantly different than just getting on the Cruz and others bandwagon of "what it is now is perfectly fine" with no stated desire what so ever to take action to ensure neutrality principles.

Lutherf said:

As an ISP, what do I need to provide "better" internet? I need better wire and better servers, right?

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Your first question sets you for failure. You should ask "Why do I need to provide a better internet?" Not "what do I need." In a monopoly, you don't need to. Therefore the rest of your post is irrelevant.

obvious Child said:

Which is cop out.

Excon once again proves all he can do is complain. Never expect a solution from Excon. He has none. Nor will he have any.

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Your focus on me and for the reasons stated (which is wrong) is nothing more than an example of a person who can not form a coherent argument and instead attacks the poster.
Expected typical liberal bs.

Try discussing the actual topic for a change.

Excon said:

And you are wrong. You have no greater point. It was stifled by regulation. And doesn't even come close to the innovation from the unregulated industry that he contrasted it with.

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Its the same industry, telephony. Phones have data services and enhanced technologies, but unless one goes pure VoIP like skype, you are still using phone numbers.

911 is still regulated to work. You have taxes on your cell phone bill. You have access to tty for the deaf. Etc...

But all of the back end stuff was converted to digital packet switched protocols in the 80s and 90s regardless of the last mile being a copper wire or radio waves. Regulation didn't hinder that. Just because you and Cruz didn't see the upgrades right in front of them doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Did you ever use a party line for example where multiple houses had to share? That doesn't happen for example, in your scenario we would still be in that situation.

obvious Child said:

Okay, how about you offer a reason why ISPs won't throttle?

Please aside from magic, what is stopping monopolies from engaging in behavior to literally charge you extra for every packet of data you want delivered or received within a reasonable period of time?

Are you COMPLETELY UNAWARE that ISPs have throttled Netflixks?

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Not aware of it, I don't use netflix.
Like I said, what I use the internet for hasn't been affected one iota.
Seems the liberals think the only answer to a problem is G-O-V-E-R-N-M-E-N-T.
I bet there are avenues which to alleviate your problem with 'netflix' without the government.
I don't know what just yet because I didn't know you had a problem with 'netflix', But, I will look into it.

Zyphlin said:

I disagree. I think similar to you in terms of actually busting up the telecom psuedo-monopolies...which is my preferred method but I realize it's a fools errand and a philisophical debate not a realistic one...but I don't think it's the case here. Are the telecoms influential? Absolutely. But I think this is a burning enough issue to actually have ramification on campaigns, and that can get attention of the parties. I think there's enough chance of putting some republicans together with a majority of democrats (ridiculous it's become this politicized, but not shocking that it has) and actually getting such a thing passed.

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Ideally, competition removes the need for such laws entirely. Look at auto insurance. I can't agree that there will be enough Republicans to vote on this. The #1 threat politically to Republicans these days is a primary challenge. And if Ted Cruz can associate NN with ACA and Obama that's going to create a picture in many primary voters minds that it's a government over reach regardless of whatever NN laws get passed. Plenty of Republicans are simply going to vote no on that because of primary issues. Guarantee you that Republican primary challengers are going to link the incumbent's vote on NN to government take over even when it's not. The country is too polarized, primary are way too extreme and gerry mandering is seriously screwing up everything. Maybe in 2008 we could have done this, but it's not going to happen when often the first thing Republican Legislators are think about is how this affects their primary election. Call me cynical, but gerrymander right now is the #1 problem of America as it causes all of these other problems down the road. That is the core rot of America and until we solve that, actual good laws that you and I think should get passed won't.

Is it as easy a making it a utility would be? No. But I don't think it's unrealistic as an option, and I think the POTENTIAL damage that making it a utility would be greater than the potential damage from taking a few years to get it passed as a law.

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Is that worse than moving to a pay per page view internet? IMO, doing nothing as Excon wants is not the solution.

I'm in favor of the utility route over doing nothing. I'm in favor of taking a few years if necessary to go the law route over the utility route now. While the telecoms are definitely making a race to get to an internet guided less and less by neutrality principles, we're still a ways off from it actually occuring in a significantly impactful fashion. If by 2016 or 2018, after the next presidential election, we've still not managed to get such a law passed then I'd be more open to looking down the utility path way. But I don't think this is something that "MUST BE ACTED ON NOW", but I do think action is needed.

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There is another solution. Offer loans and tax credits to firms to start up competition. Essentially follow the Japanese government model that busted up their monopolies and now lets Japanese users have some of the fastest internet on the planet at some of the lowest rates. They have do have throttling there, but the capacity is so high and pricing so cheap that it rarely happens. Utility is the least preferable option over doing nothing.

And either way...Reverend's stance is significantly different than just getting on the Cruz and others bandwagon of "what it is now is perfectly fine" with no stated desire what so ever to take action to ensure neutrality principles.

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I will agree to that. I just really despise people who complain and offer no solutions.

ReverendHellh0und said:

Verizon and comcast throttled Netflix until Netflix paid the ransom,

Netflix Agrees To Pay Comcast To End Slowdown

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Actually, your article says different and notes that this WAS NOT a "net neutrality" issue.

As we’ve pointed out before, the issue of peering was not covered by the recently gutted net neutrality rules. Those guidelines only dealt with whether an ISP deliberately blocked/throttled or unfairly prioritized traffic to a website. The congestion at peering ports occurs further upstream and is a matter of capacity.

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added emphasis is mine.

Meister said:

Not aware of it, I don't use netflix.
Like I said, what I use the internet for hasn't been affected one iota.

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By that measure, France and Britain should have just let Hitler take over the rest of Europe before he attacked them. If you cannot see the writing on the wall, I cannot help you.

Seems the liberals think the only answer to a problem is G-O-V-E-R-N-M-E-N-T.

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Then Zyphlin is a liberal then. Rather than just relying on idiotic labeling, how about you offer a solution?

I bet there are avenues which to alleviate your problem with 'netflix' without the government.
I don't know what just yet because I didn't know you had a problem with 'netflix', But, I will look into it.

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So you, like Excon have nothing but complaints? No solutions? Worthless.

Excon said:

Your focus on me and for the reasons stated (which is wrong) is nothing more than an example of a person who can not form a coherent argument and instead attacks the poster.
Expected typical liberal bs.

Try discussing the actual topic for a change.

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I am. You are not. Your solution is to do nothing and rely on magic,

Hence why your opinion is of no value whatsoever.

Ted Cruz Hits Back At Al Franken On Net Neutrality

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i'm not going to waste a lot of time worrying what Ted Cruz thinks, but i'm not surprised that he profoundly misunderstands the consequences of an internet with slow lanes. he has a lot of company in that area, though.

telecom companies want a slow lane internet, and they are doubtlessly spending a lot to get it. let's hope that they fail, because otherwise, sites like this one will become like a regional store having its access road reduced to a narrow alley, while the big box down the road gets five lanes added. it takes a lot of nerve to promote that idea on a site that would suffer because of it. either that, or a lot of willful partisan blindness.

Meister said:

Not aware of it, I don't use netflix.
Like I said, what I use the internet for hasn't been affected one iota.
Seems the liberals think the only answer to a problem is G-O-V-E-R-N-M-E-N-T.
I bet there are avenues which to alleviate your problem with 'netflix' without the government.
I don't know what just yet because I didn't know you had a problem with 'netflix', But, I will look into it.

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I understand it doesn't affect you. Whether or not something affects you personally doesn't necessarily mean it's a problem.

I don't own any firearms at this point in time. If there was a ban on "assault rifles" once again it would have zero direct effect on me. That doesn't mean I shouldn't be concerned with the larger implications of what such actions could mean, or what it potentially opens the door to in the future.

Maybe you don't use Peer 2 Peer file transfer services, and so Comcasts throttling of those services in the past wouldn't affect you.

Maybe you don't use vonage, so telecoms that provide phone service blocking or hampering that service over it's networks may not affect you.

Maybe you don't use netflix, and so a telecom having ridiculously slow speeds for it until Netflix agreed to pay them money at which point their speeds took a precipitous spike may not affect you.

Maybe you don't use firefox, so a telecon hijacking it's google search abilities to be routed to it's own personal web search browser may not affect you.

But that doesn't mean those aren't potential problems. It doesn't mean that Verizon arguing before a court that it should be able to discriminate against data on it's network for any reason it likes, and should be able to charge content providers extra money for data from them that transfers over Verizon's network or be punished with throttling can't lead to a potential problem for many people, or even for you. It doesn't mean that an abandonment of net neutrality principles over the next decade to two won't end up impacting you.

Should I simply not oppose aims at restricting gun usage because I don't own a gun? Or should I have the wherewithall to understand that issues exist beyond those that directly impact me, and a problem is a problem regardless of it's personal touch on my life.

Lutherf said:

As an ISP, what do I need to provide "better" internet? I need better wire and better servers, right?

How do I get those things? I have to buy them, right?

How do I get the money to buy them? I charge my customers.

Right now I have all of my customers paying more or less the same rate no matter how much of my resource they're using. What I'd really like to do is charge my customers who use more of my resources more money for that benefit. So what I did is I looked at my customers' resource usage and noticed that "PornStream.com" is using a ****load of bandwidth. I turn around and tell them, "Hey, you guys are using a ton of my resource and that makes it hard for me to provide services to new customers so I need to either charge you more or cut back on the amount of resource I allocate to you. The good news is that if you choose to pay more then I'll be able to get more potential customers to come your way." PornStream hems and haws a little but they pay the fee anyway and a year later they have more customers and are making more money. PornStream's customers are happy because with that extra revenue PornStream added a naked asian midgets in lederhosen page. Sure, their cable bill went up a couple of bucks but who doesn't want naked lederhosen midgets?

Now I may be mistaken but my understanding of how "net neutrality" is going to work is that in the above scenario I, as the ISP, get to pay the government to make sure that I can't charge "PornStream.com" more for their bandwidth usage. That benefits...well, I guess it only benefits the government. Pornstream gets the same service they always had. Harry Palms gets the same porn he always had. The only thing that's changed is that there's a new fee on his internet bill every month and no naked midgets.

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A cable companies customers are people that pay for access to the internet. You pay for either unlimited or for a certain level of usage. You pay for a certain speed. That is the value the cable company provides, your access to the internet. If the cable company artificially slows and puts some content in a "fast lane" doesn't provide any value to a customer. In fact if what you are trying to access is in the "slow lane" you're actually getting cheated.

It's cable companies using their monopolies to take advantage of their control over those wires. That's all it is. It would be like an electricity company charging you for the amount of power you use to wash your clothes then tell Maytag they won't power their appliances unless they also pay a fee. It's a hostage situation. It's the classical example of a rentier.

obvious Child said:

By that measure, France and Britain should have just let Hitler take over the rest of Europe before he attacked them. If you cannot see the writing on the wall, I cannot help you.



Then Zyphlin is a liberal then. Rather than just relying on idiotic labeling, how about you offer a solution?



So you, like Excon have nothing but complaints? No solutions? Worthless.

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You act like all conservatives have to be in lockstep on this issue....not so and glad you noticed that.
We talking about the internet, not some geopolitical issue from 75 years ago.
I have no complaints with the internet, just your solution to a fix for a problem which most people don't feel.

If there is a problem with the internet, let's take the time to get the fix right, not some quick fix and end up with some clusterf*** like bummercare.