President Obama Says He's Against Fast Lanes On The Internet, But FCC Proposal Would Allow Them
from the time-to-call-mr.-wheeler dept
In some comments at the US Africa Leaders Summit in DC yesterday, President Obama claimed that he's absolutely against fast lanes and slow lanes on the internet -- which is pretty interesting given that his own FCC appears to be poised to allow exactly that:Net neutrality in the United States -- one of the issues around net neutrality is whether you are creating different rates or charges for different content providers.Again, the current proposal from the FCC would actually allow just that. Of course, prepared remarks like these are carefully scoured by White House staff, so this isn't an offhand remark. As with Harry Reid's recent statements, it's entirely possible that this statement is a public nod towards Title II reclassification -- something that Wheeler has previously suggested there wasn't enough political support for. But if powerful Senators and the President are standing behind blocking fast and slow lanes, it certainly seems like the "there isn't political support" argument is quickly disappearing.
That's the big controversy here.
You have big, wealthy media companies who might be willing to pay more and also charge more for spectrum, more bandwidth on the Internet so they can stream movies faster.
I personally, the position of my administration, as well as a lot of the companies here, is that you don’t want to start getting a differentiation in how accessible the Internet is to different users.
You want to leave it open so the next Google and the next Facebook can succeed
This certainly doesn't make it a done deal by any stretch of the imagination, but there is reason to believe that Wheeler has been using this comment period to see if there really would be political support for recassification. It's increasingly looking like there is -- and it's going to be up to Wheeler to see if he's willing to be a true leader and make the right call for how to protect an open and free internet, rather than the "easy" call.
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Filed Under: barack obama, even playing field, fast lanes, fcc, net neutrality, open internet, reclassification, slow lanes, title ii, tom wheeler
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Willing , that's laughable more like they were extorted " an or else "
He needs to fire Wheeler and get someone in there that will actually take the position that it's the American people they're working for we still need a push to take the lobby out of politics , that is the main issue and topic or else loopholes will be created no matter what the rules .
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However, fast lanes and hyper-speed lanes sounds great!
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Let's call them what they really are: Throttled Lanes. Throttled for those sites that are not willing to pay twice.
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'this was done intentionally, knowing what was going to happen and give Wheeler all the blamev'
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Obama does not do difficult decisions
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Re:
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Re: Obama does not do difficult decisions
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But he can't do anything
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Lanes should not exist period.
An electricity company do not decide if you should use your purchased electricity to watch TV, vacuum clean ("normal lane") or use induction welders ("fast lane") as long as you pay for the electricity. The same applies to ISP: as long as you pay for x bandwidth, they do not get a say in what you're use that for.
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I'm shocked.
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Sorry, it has been sold. Wheeler and obama are doing exactly what they were paid to do. and that is, give the appearance of 'hope,' but of course, the end state is known all along, and progress is towards the desires of big media.
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Re: 'this was done intentionally, knowing what was going to happen and give Wheeler all the blamev'
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Obama
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The essence is to protect small businesses from getting a higher entry-to-market costs. He doesn't specifically mention users.
The gist seems to be to allow throttling a.la. "network optimization". I am certainly interested in his take on the model used by Netflix in this context. If both user throttling and a cooperative network optimization like what Netflix does is allowed, I would say the hole for having a combination thereof is wide open. The last step would be to sell packages with or without throttling based on the bitrates and other technical numbers to distinguish "the right services" and we have a complete circumvention.
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You want fast lanes?
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Or Obama is just telling people what they want to hear, like he's been doing since first campaigning to become president...
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...nothing up my other sleeve....
I mean, its not like he hasn't done the same sort of thing in the past.... repeatedly.
Personally, if it comes out of his mouth, I'd give it about a 10% chance to be even partially true. I mean hell, he was hired by Wall Street because he can sell shit as shinola better than anyone else they interviewed for the job.
But if its about something that Corporate America holds near and dear to its heart, I'd assume its 100% pure bovine fecal matter, delivered as usual, on a silver palate.
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*Off to delete a Beacon account.
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Beacon?
Is that like the "service" that took over the posting process at TruthDig??
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