Few people blink these days when some Chicken Little somewhere announces that the virtual sky is falling. The Internet has long been subject to such dire pronouncements, and no doubt both Turkey Lurkey and Henny Penny have set up blogs to give new life to old predictions. But when Chicken Big sounds worried (and in the online world, the poultry doesn’t… return to article
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Reader Comments (29)Page 1 of 1 pagesBig companies might be able to tell us what we can do,and make us pay for the privilege?Imagine that!
Corporate America vs.Public America:one long,and at this point,tedious,game of B&D.Where are the Bolsheviks when you need them?
Posted by wwoods@harnett.k12.nc.us on Apr 18, 2005 at 1:40 PM I have cable internet. It works great! I don’t think i see the problem here. . .
Posted by Tammy on Apr 18, 2005 at 6:10 PM Tammy, can’t you READ?
In the absence of common-carriage protections, as the ACLU explained in its Brand X brief to the Supreme Court, “cable companies can leverage ownership of the physical infrastructure into control of citizens’ access to and use of the Internet. This threatens free speech and privacy. A cable company that has complete control over its customers’ access to the Internet could censor their ability to speak, block their access to disfavored information services, monitor their online activity, and subtly manipulate the information sources they rely on.”Sure, it works great now. what will happen when you can’t get the sites you want to go to. It’s just another step in the loss of freedom of speech in this country. Myabe that doesn’t matter to you, but the internet is the ONLY place we can get the real story of what’s happening in this country, world and economy. Wake Up.
Posted by Medusa on Apr 18, 2005 at 10:40 PM I often have remarked to my friends that I can’t believe the government lets me have unlimited access to the internet. It’s imperative to keep the people ignorant and in the dark in order to suppress the masses. The above article explains exactly how they plan to limit my access to what’s going on.
Posted by mr wheat on Apr 18, 2005 at 10:45 PM Access to the Internet is already filtered. All free sites are blocked by the government from being accessed by any government computer including schools. You won’t see any non-commercial sites on an army base and you won’t see any community gardens in the city of New York.
Posted by cygnid on Apr 19, 2005 at 3:50 AM Can you say paranoid?
My government computer lets me access virtually any internet site. As does the one at the library. As does my home computer.
I don’t see a conspiracy of cable providers “limiting” access. Seems more like the dream of the left - you know, censor the “lies” of the conservatives and only allow the “truths” of the liberals.
While obvious, just let me point it out. The problem in the US is not limited access to information, it is lack of interest in news that does not directly affect our lives (Bolton who? (sic)). We have too many day to day concerns and want direct help (tax refunds, more daycare, whatever). News from any angle is widely available (hell, even the flaky right and the fringe left (!!!) are well represented!).
Anyway, I did not know I had stumbled into a fringe site. My bad. Ta ta.
Posted by Tammy on Apr 19, 2005 at 1:19 PM Tammy,
Limited access is not a dream of the left,it’s a nightmare.With corporatizing,what doesn’t make huge profits is discontinued.Unfortunately,honesty doesn’t sell very well.Guess how much of that we’ll see when the internet is corporatized?Corporations are also not very good at admitting they’ve made mistakes,especially when they can be sued.As a precaution,they’ve found it useful to control the media.It’s kind of hard to tell people how a corporation has hurt you without a major media source.As such,we rarely hear about their mistakes or criminal activity. You also seem to forget that corporations are nearly all controlled
by people with far-right views.Liberals may dream of censoring disagreement,but conservatives will make it reality.
Fringe site:one that disagrees with the far-right.
Posted by wwoods on Apr 19, 2005 at 1:37 PM Everyone says they were there during the 90’s when the boom was happening. Very few of us were there early enough to remember when blinking text was an innovation in html. Even fewer of us remember when you were lucky to find 2 ISP’s in a city as big as Houston. Very rapidly the ISP’s turned into Tribbles, and before we knew it, everyone was an ISP. No one did it well except the big guys. And even the big guys had problems. If something happened to the phone line, they had no control, and had to call Southwestern Bell, and SWB had to call AT&T. For some of us who were pulling the first T1 lines into our offices it was a nightmare, because our hands were tied and we couldn’t talk to AT&T. We made it through the boom, and the bust. Many low priced ISP’s went the way of the dinosaur and the balance of nature happened, we were left with some really strong ISP’s who had a lot of influence on the maintenance of the infrastructure. The slag came to the surface and got scraped away.
Here’s my argument. If you let any little mom and pop ISP get to the cable we are going to have the same problem. 100 ISP’s in one town, all using the same cable, all reporting problems to the owner of the cable, all selling chunks of the same bandwidth, all claiming they are the best option, its going to be a mess again.
Comcast, or Warner or Cox or whoever censoring what I can view on line is never going to happen. It’s like saying they are going to stop comedy central from running the Daily Show, or Fox News from spewing their bile on me. The task isn’t worth their time. I’m not scared of the Cable Company limiting my access because they would have to deconstruct the entire system, and its too late for that, just like it is with phone service. I’m not afraid of a Cable Company making me use their browser, riddled with ads, because someone is going to build a browser that gets around it. A bigger threat to my Free speech is destroying the infrastucture by letting any shmuck who thinks they know what they are doing take a piece of my bandwidth. I’m more worried about a mom and pop operation turning my browsing records over to the government because they don’t have the lawyers who can protect their records.
but hey, thats just me.
Posted by orinos on Apr 19, 2005 at 6:36 PM If I have a company and I employ 500 people to dig ditches for me - spending my time and money and life in building this ditch digging venture.
Then all of a sudden Mr. Jones from next door sees my ditches all finished, and so he goes to my other neighbor and say, “For $10 a month, you can use this ditch for whatever you want.”
Well, what am I getting out of it? My expenses made that ditch possible. If my neighbor that Mr Jones recruited ruins part of my ditch, you think Mr Jones is going to fix it? No, I have to fix it. If Mr Jones doesn’t want to pay me $500 to repair the ditch that he inadvertently caused, he just disappears. The ditch isn’t anything to him, not his time, blood, sweat, and money - it’s mine.
So I don’t begrudge Verizon not wanting a bunch of leaches on their wire. You want to offer an ISP? Go out and run the damn wire! You don’t have the cash? Then don’t try to play like a big dog!
Posted by Jay on Apr 19, 2005 at 6:46 PM Um, the miltary inventerd the internet, not Tim Berners Lee. Your records are compiled and satellites could call balls and strikes in the 1984 world series.
I for one am not worried because the lack of petroluem to drive the internet will make all this moot anyway.
Posted by anonymous on Apr 19, 2005 at 8:42 PM I noticed a very interesting thing in comments to this and some other articles (e.g. the one on giant ISPs using politicians in their pockets to smother cheap public wi-fi networks): the more right-leaning the posters, more *anti-competition* they are. One would expect it other way around, no?
BTW, yes, Tim Berners Lee did not invent the Internet, he invented the Web (or, rather, wastly improved it with http and html vs. text files on gopher and ftp).
Posted by Bonzi on Apr 19, 2005 at 10:14 PM As we get ever closer to a form of government very similar to that which the American Revolution was fought to refuse, we see ever more of our fellow citizens from the right who view those of us who do not agree with them as paranoid whenever we voice our concerns.
While we more frequently recognize the hypocrisies and deceits of those presently in power, our fellow Americans who buy into the politics consolidate their misconceptions into their new-found ideology, and become mentally warm and comfortable in their common belief that they will be rewarded. A large percentage of the populace prior to the Revolution had these same desires to rule; to be part of the ruling class and partake of its bounties. They were called Loyalists. And they welcomed the rule of the masses by the few by whatever means were necessary.
While Amendment X is, and has been for a very long time, violated frequently, we are now seeing the attacks begin on Amendment I. The populace can be controlled to a significant extent by manipulating economies and markets (while deceitfully claiming to be encouraging free markets). But by far the two easiest ways to gain control to the maximum extent are: Secondarily, either disarm the populace or own enough of the populace as loyalists that dissenting citizens are out-gunned. First and foremost, however, control communications at every opportunity; the less open are communications, the more impotent are the citizens. Is this paranoia? No, it’s well-founded concern about actual current events.
Posted by 1nonservilepeasant on Apr 20, 2005 at 6:23 AM Heh.. You guys in america have already lost it in my view. You have so many information pushers that propably you won’t miss free access any way. You get the kind of internet your culture wants. And you have a very commercial culture. Your culture filters here also and we also lose our freedom in favor of “economic development” .. thus also our culture becomes more and more centered on how much money you make. Your giant shadows us all. I don’t like it.
Posted by gimle on Apr 20, 2005 at 7:35 AM Ahh .. sorry for the blatant word choice. I would like to reword “you” as “american society as a whole”. So please don’t get offended, that was not my aim.
Posted by gimle on Apr 20, 2005 at 9:07 AM Orinos,
You are probably right that “Comcast, or Warner or Cox or whoever censoring what I can view on line is never going to happen. ... The task isn’t worth their time.” But why take the risk? Especially as legislating away all potential mom and pop ISPs is very anti-competitive as well. The price for broadband now runs some $30-$45 per month, depending on your provider. Opening the doors to competition will either lower prices or increase service options, as each vendor will try to differentiate itself from their competitors, or both. True, bandwidth and service may be compromised in the short run, but the former is essentially a workable technical problem. For example, in just the past 2 years my download and upload speeds have increased five fold. I suspect that the speed breakthroughs will continue. The latter issue, service, is fixed by the market. Bad service? Get a new provider. And all this assumes a fiber to the home scenerio. Wireless is a whole new game. Granted, it too has its share of limitations and bugs (security for sure), but again, these are workable, technical concerns. Wireless also has the big advantage of being much less expensive to install, thereby allowing municipal governments, coops or any other group or person with a modest amount of capital to offer broadband services (this addresses your point, Jay). Munis and coops offer the additional benefits of being non-profit and without shareholders, which lowers the town’s or coop’s operating costs - all else being equal. This also has the nice side benefit of the ISP being “owned” by the community(s) they serve. So concerns, such as censorship, service, etc. are addressed much more directly and locally. Not so with Verizon, Comcast and the rest.
Btw, there is quite a lot of history backing up the above assertions with regards to municipals and coops offering better rates and better service. They have been doing it for decades with electricity vs investor-owned utilities.
History has repeatedly shown that monopolies or oligarchies are not in consumers best interest. Seems to me, the American thing to do is to encourage competition, not discourage it.
Posted by tomkins on Apr 20, 2005 at 2:56 PM <gimle wrote: Your giant shadows us all. I don’t like it.>
Here in America, our Constitution’s Amendment I, the first of the Bill of Rights, guarantees not to prohibit or abridge “the right of the people peaceably to assemble” among other things. The Internet is the forum for assembly of peoples around the world by the billions. It is the assembly that will, after many trials and tribulations, bring about changes that will save the planet by educating us at light speed. Could there possibly be a better way to control, inhibit, and manipulate the masses than to control such assembly?
Maybe you don’t want us to know where “here also” is so that we may know where our “giant shadows [you] all,” but I am interested in knowing. I’m in Reardan, Washington (State) and use a local ISP with a dial-up connection. The service is great. The Internet is my source for higher education as I learn from the vast numbers of people and organizations inhabiting it, and, at this point, I am able to afford it. I’m not rich and never will be as it is not my goal, so I am subject to losing my ability to assemble and participate in free speech through the Internet should the mega-corporations, with the help of our federal government, manage to control pricing by limiting competition. History has shown that such price control always brings higher prices and lower quality services and products.
I believe we picked up on the anti-Americanism in your first post; the sarcasm of the second was unnecessary. Your posts have shown that you paint with a very broad brush and are willing to make judgments and complain while withholding your wisdom regarding solutions.
I cherish my ability to learn and hope someday to have the wisdom to properly use the knowledge gained. I’d like to gain knowledge from you as well. So, gimle, what is your vision of the ideal Internet for your culture and how would you bring it about if you could?
Posted by 1nonservilepeasant on Apr 20, 2005 at 3:25 PM Orinos said:
“Here’s my argument. If you let any little mom and pop ISP get to the cable we are going to have the same problem. 100 ISP’s in one town, all using the same cable, all reporting problems to the owner of the cable, all selling chunks of the same bandwidth, all claiming they are the best option, its going to be a mess again.
Comcast, or Warner or Cox or whoever censoring what I can view on line is never going to happen. It’s like saying they are going to stop comedy central from running the Daily Show, or Fox News from spewing their bile on me. The task isn’t worth their time. I’m not scared of the Cable Company limiting my access because they would have to deconstruct the entire system, and its too late for that, just like it is with phone service. I’m not afraid of a Cable Company making me use their browser, riddled with ads, because someone is going to build a browser that gets around it. A bigger threat to my Free speech is destroying the infrastucture by letting any shmuck who thinks they know what they are doing take a piece of my bandwidth. I’m more worried about a mom and pop operation turning my browsing records over to the government because they don’t have the lawyers who can protect their records.
but hey, thats just me.”
Orinos, you make a good point, in theory. The problem with your argument, like all republican arguments I hear in the last 25 years, is that it is based on false premises:
100’s of IPS?
The task isn’t worth their time?JMHO.
Posted by Lefty on Apr 20, 2005 at 4:42 PM Jay said:
“If I have a company and I employ 500 people to dig ditches for me - spending my time and money and life in building this ditch digging venture.
Then all of a sudden Mr. Jones from next door sees my ditches all finished, and so he goes to my other neighbor and say, “For $10 a month, you can use this ditch for whatever you want.”
Well, what am I getting out of it? My expenses made that ditch possible. If my neighbor that Mr Jones recruited ruins part of my ditch, you think Mr Jones is going to fix it? No, I have to fix it. If Mr Jones doesn’t want to pay me $500 to repair the ditch that he inadvertently caused, he just disappears. The ditch isn’t anything to him, not his time, blood, sweat, and money - it’s mine.
So I don’t begrudge Verizon not wanting a bunch of leaches on their wire. You want to offer an ISP? Go out and run the damn wire! You don’t have the cash? Then don’t try to play like a big dog!”Another false premise. Jay you think that the Cable companies paid for the creation of the infrastructure, out of their pockets? Hmm!
Posted by Lefty on Apr 20, 2005 at 4:48 PM Yep, censoring what you or I watch online would not be worth their time. Or, perhaps more accurately, not worth their expense. Despite the assault on it by many in this administration, the 1st Amendment still has some weight. Can you imagine the size of lawsuit against Comcast, Verizon, or whoever, if they started censoring the Internet? They would not want to touch that with a hundred-foot pole. It’s all the bottom line with these companies. The financial risk for Internet censorship just does not justify the rewards.
You are quite right though about the cable and telephone companies not paying for the infrastructure - or at least not paying for all of it. Among depreciation, tax benefits and incentives, and bond manipulation, their out-of-pocket costs were significantly less than the total costs. The difference being picked up by joe taxpayer. Not a bad gig, if you can get it.
Posted by tomkins on Apr 20, 2005 at 5:48 PM Tomkins, please recall the newly created legislation that makes class action lawsuits much more difficult if not impossible in many cases. Throw in a bunch of far-righter Judges in various places and look out! The plot is a complex one, but is well into its many acts. Paranoia? Nope, ‘fraid not.
Posted by 1nonservilepeasant on Apr 20, 2005 at 6:26 PM Ha! What’s that saying, “It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you?” Still, considering the rather deep pockets of Verizon, Comcast et al, and the convincing and populist case that could be put on, I’d bet on the plaintiff lawyers for this one. The telecom giants (especially their shareholders) just are not willing, under present circumstances, to pick that fight. At least until they manage to remove that pesky 1st amendment.
Again, it’s always the bottom line with these guys. If it is threatened, they tend to scamper in full retreat quite quickly. Too bad we can’t marshall together the withholding of the almighty dollar as easily as they coerce us to spend it!
Posted by Tomkins on Apr 20, 2005 at 6:51 PM People who think it only appropriate to let Verizon or Comcast determine who piggyback on their networks (“they dug the ditches” above) have not been paying attention to how broadband is developing in other countries.
People in Japan, Korea, and Canada get internet speeds at 5 to 10 times faster than any US customer for significantly less money (10M for ~$22/mo in some cases).
They got that level of service because the evil governments in those countries *forced* the incumbent phone providers to share their networks in precisely the way that horrifies freemarket fundamentalists.
If the only thing at stake were how fast i could reach the NY Times online, it would be one thing, but if other countries continue to offer higher speeds and lower costs, our economic development (read: your job prospects) will be severely diminished.
Letting Verizon and Comcast keep their cozy duopolies because that pleases Milton Friedman and the Cato Institute is *not* good public policy.
Posted by Munibroadbander on Apr 20, 2005 at 7:45 PM Tomkins,
I like the good feelings I get from the positive attitudes of others, so I’ll throw in with you and remain hopeful. But I will also remain suspicious and hope that everyone else will as well so that our vigilance will increase. After all, our ignoring our governance has gotten us where we are today. And it isn’t necessary to do away with the First Amendment to control information dissemination; it only takes money and manipulation to limit our sources, something this administration has made a science of permitting among its corporate oligarchs.
So, here’s to you and your positive attitude and I’ll pray to my higher power that you’re right. But, just to be on the safe side, I’ll not get too comfortable about the activities of our Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches.
Your position that it’s “too bad we can’t marshall together the withholding of the almighty dollar as easily as they coerce us to spend it” is one with which I agree wholeheartedly. It would be much easier in a free market to use our capitalist voice, our money, to achieve what free markets can do. But then, what this administration’s puppeteers want is faux markets purported to be free markets by its right-wing wordmeisters.
Posted by 1nonservilepeasant on Apr 20, 2005 at 8:28 PM <Munibroadbander wrote: They got that level of service because the evil governments in those countries *forced* the incumbent phone providers to share their networks in precisely the way that horrifies freemarket fundamentalists.>
I believe in free markets, but haven’t yet seen one operate in the major business sector. Those free markets that the freepers discuss aren’t free markets, no matter how much discussion they engage in. Free markets are not yet available and an entirely new set of changes must take place in governmental policies and corporate behavior before any can exist.
There are certain societal activities in which free markets have no place, in my humble opinion, and communications is one of the main sectors. Privatization of water is another. In fact, those things that protect society in accordance with the Bill of Rights should have the least interference by profiteers. I believe as the founders did that federal government should be barely noticeable except to enforce laws that keep us from doing harm to each other and to protect the Bill of Rights. Using force is something I’m against, but protecting the First Amendment is vital to our survival as a free nation and all interests and ideologies should get behind its protection; doing so is simply the right thing to do in accordance with our Constitution.
Munibroadbander, you’re absolutely correct, in my humble opinion, that “[l]etting Verizon and Comcast keep their cozy duopolies because that pleases Milton Friedman and the Cato Institute is *not* good public policy.” As we commonly used to say a few decades ago, RIGHT ON!
Posted by 1nonservilepeasant on Apr 20, 2005 at 9:41 PM In the “free” market, there are no enforceable contracts, no government, no courts of law, no law. Self described “free marketeers” have no idea what they are talking about. A prosperous economy CANNOT exist without the regulation, supervision and support of a competent government.
Posted by Lefty on Apr 21, 2005 at 12:25 AM 1nonservilepeasant,
I hear ya! Vigilance is indeed the operative word. And you and Lefty (and many others on this site) are correct regarding “free” markets. A monopoly or oligarchy is most definitely not free. Quite the opposite, in fact.
And great point Munibroadbander, promoting competition in the telecom market is not just about those of us in the USA. As the world grows smaller, advanced telecom can spell the difference between a competitive edge and the unemployment line. Leaving this ever-more-important sector to the whim of a few companies, each of which, by definition, looks out only for their self-interests, is not just foolish, but dangerous.
Posted by tomkins on Apr 21, 2005 at 2:30 PM The US needs new leadership, in more ways than one of course, but especially in the area of Internet access and related technologies.
See the article below for a fair run-down of where the US is right now, especially compared to Japan. I live in Japan now and am using my increasingly outdated 26 Mbps DSL line right now for both Internet use and telephone/fax line, and can only shake my head in dismay when family members in the US complain their downloads & web refreshes take so long with their meager 1.5 Mbps lines.
- - - - - - -
Down to the Wire
Once a leader in Internet innovation, the United States has fallen far behind Japan and other Asian states in deploying broadband and the latest mobile-phone technology. This lag will cost it dearly. By outdoing the United States, Japan and its neighbors are positioning themselves to be the first states to reap the benefits of the broadband era: economic growth, increased productivity, and a better quality of life.
By Thomas Bleha, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2005
http://tinyurl.com/bfyjz
Posted by ceruleandaze on Apr 29, 2005 at 3:13 AM “Misener’s remarks may sound a little too melodramatic, but most observers agree that the battle over “open access”—as that term has traditionally been defined (involving our right to choose among innumerable Internet service providers)—pales before the battle of “network neutrality,” which involves the control of broadband networks, particularly the vital “last-mile” connections to our homes.”
The nuclear strike comment was not melodramatic at all. Rather, it was true. A nuclear strike would only take out a few servers and the rest would pick up the slack. It’s just the sort of strategic contingency the internet was designed to work around. Limitting content through ISP dominance can do far greater dammage.
Posted by Daniel Davidson on Jul 11, 2005 at 12:10 AM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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