by Thomas Greene

A group of tech celebs gathered on Capitol Hill this week to brief Congressional aides on how Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) can, and probably will, make a complete mess of the Internet in about a year's time.

At issue are likely revisions to the 1996 Telecommunications Act and FCC regulations, which, thus far, have managed to do scant violence to the Net. Unfortunately, changes now being contemplated, urged by telecomms and media behemoths and their lobbyists, may soon alter that happy state of affairs. Broadband users are particularly at risk, because they enjoy little of the consumer choice available to dialup users. One can connect to a phone line and reach any of hundreds of dialup ISPs. Broadband users have no such luxury.

The deregulation scam
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, who fought FCC Chairman Michael Powell's effort to ease regulations preventing the colonization of America's airwaves and print media by a handful of cartels, understands the crucial difference between deregulation and freedom.

"Entrenched interests are already jockeying to constrain the openness that has been the Internet's defining hallmark, and they are lobbying the FCC to aid and abet them," Copps declared.

"They claim all they are advocating is a deregulated environment where the market can reign supreme. But in reality, they are seeking government help to allow a few companies to turn the Internet from a place of completion and innovation, into an oligopoly. Power over the Internet would then reside with the network owners, who could use choke-point power to constrain consumer choices, limit sources of news and information and entertainment, undermine competitors, and quash disruptive new technologies."

Complete Story at the Register

This willonly cause the US users to go underground, outside the US this doesn't mean squat. But there are always methods to which one can buy a politician or 2 or 500 in any country.

This morning Howard Stern was railing against Copps. Something about his position on indecency. I'll have to find what it was about.

Heh,
Howard pulled an "April Fool" joke today.
He came on briefly, and announced that
he had been pulled completely frm all of
the stations that carried him. He then
played Lameass Clear channel crap for
most of his morning show.
He later announced that it was a joke,
and wanted everyone to hear what the
radio would be without him and others
like him.
Kinda slick

Another attempt to enhance the "Fuck The Consumer" campaign philosphy.

Its all about Kontrol, Kopyright, and Korporatalism

(Wait, is the anagram KKK? hmm...)

The problem when they started making ya type that "www" crap at the beginning and that .com or .org. or .us or .edu or .gov or .net or .co.uk or .de or dot everything else....

remember the good old Arpanent days when you just typed "Hey General, where the Heck is so and so"

why is it .co.uk? everyone else just gets two letters for the country code but the uk gets all that shit? why are the brits making me type all that.

it is true though.. look at how BBand rates have risen here for the same old CRAP, while in japan individual homes already have 100 megabit symmetric fiber!

Code, pretty soon you'll be able to do that again.

At the very least, you'll be able to type in, "Dear DOJ/FBI agent..."

Technicly, the .com domain is supposed to be for international commercial usage only. But dot-com became such a buzzword all the US-only companies took them. They should be using .co.us. But they arn't, because .com attracts more customers.

There was a proposal to change www. to web. because its easier to pronounce. Many domains are already configured to work if the www. is ommitted.

We need more BB competition, but the cost of setting up a new company is huge. Theres the equipment of course, but most of the cost is in getting the link to the end user either by renting space on an existing system (expensive) or by setting up a dedicated cable network (more expensive).

It is important to note that many ISPs (all cable ISPs, AOL) are either linked to media companies or are media companies. That would give them a tendency to treat their users are passive consumers.

Again, please vote for Heather at http://www.newrock973.com/mizzmadness/final4.html for me. Thats my last request here, I wouldn't want to be accused of spamming

If that makes you shiver, check the story by Charles Cooper over at Cnet news http://news.com.com/2010-1032-5183646.html

"Power over the Internet would then reside with the network owners, who could use choke-point power to constrain consumer choices, limit sources of news and information and entertainment, undermine competitors, and quash disruptive new technologies."

Sounds really bad. But wait a minute. In a truely free market, there should be more than one network choice available.
Networks can consist of phone lines, cable, satellite, and (in the future) electric lines.

As goldenpi states, investment cost for networks can be quite large. Folks will not invest if they are not allowed to have some control over the network they create. But these investors would not want to limit consumer choice - they just want to make lots of money, and you cannot do that if you make consumers unhappy.

Damn this is amazing.. yet crazy