Montana stands up for Net Neutrality; prepares for FCC lawsuits

arstechnica.com article

Once again, Montana charges forward with direct opposition to a federal body. Our last major stand was enacting Montana Firearms Freedom Act, which prevented a large swath of federal regulations from affecting Made-In-Montana firearms and accessories. The act is an affront to the ATF and many gun-control-friendly DCenizens.

Now we're standing up to the FCC for their lack of regulation with the repeal of Net Neutrality, which in essence gives ISPs free reign over technology and infrastructure that was vastly funded with public money. To the tune of $200 billion, at minimum. It isn't hard to track down with some Google Fu, and the best commentary I've come across is this (PDF LINK to .gov site) document published and recognized by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration as a valid criticism of the amount of public funding that has found its way into the private telecom industry.

I'd love to expound on the history of the technology that allowed for the rise of the WWW/internet. To save on TL;DR responses to this thread, I will state, in-a-nutshell, how the "interwebs" was first realized:

ARPANET (mid 60's to early 80's) The military's network. This is when the whole idea of interconnecting geographically distant computers first became a public works project. The technology (TCP/IP) had been around for awhile, originally developed mutually between Bell Labs and MIT in the mid 60's. During the development of this technology, DARPA decided that the military needed to have its computers interconnected (circa 1969). By the late 70's DARPA realized that TCP/IP was probably the way to go, and went ahead and had the original designers implement their TCP/IP technology to the military computers/infrastructure. Many a caveat was worked out in this process which, undoubtedly, was paid for with DARPA funds, which went to a public entity (MIT). Bell Labs had funded the development of TCP/IP to start, BUT, they funded it through MIT, which requires it's technology to be available to the public regardless of the origin of the money. By 1982 the infrastructure was complete and working wonderfully.

This history is not exactly spelled out in any particular place so I will refer you to this informative article and suggest reading some very underrated true-crime: The Cuckoo's Egg and The Hacker Crackdown.

Why would I suggest true-crime for information? Because those two books will paint the clearest picture of what the internet means to the government. The technology, software and hardware, was developed at a public institute with private funding, then implemented on a wide scale with government money, thus "proving" the technology and in a weird way, opening it up for abuse. It was - and still largely is - a frontier that was open to the public at large by the early 90's with the application of HTML as a standard to how things were presented ("The birth of the World Wide Web", so to speak) and the growth of the PC/MAC in homes. Almost every other "modern" or "western" or "just not backwards" nation favors open access to a neutral playing field. The US governments direct interests in the internet seem to still be military in nature. The redundancy that is created by a literal "web" cannot be beat, and if you need something to work in the worst situation, redundancy is utmost.

Going back to net neutrality in general. Has the notion of a neutral playing field caused some ripples? Of course it has- namely Google and Amazon. But the country where these corporations are based has a long history of upholding infrastructure and knocking down monopolies (Can anyone connect me with Ma Bell?). The kink here is the "digital world". The government can't regulate a single entity out of existence. It can push anti-trust laws, however, that action is very murky in terms of internet corporations. Google, for example, is providing a service that's closest physical equivalent is a phone book. Who provided the phone book? The phone company! Of course, it's a lot more nuanced, but let's think in terms of "How we explain ze Googles to Grandpa". Because that is exactly what is happening with telecom companies right now. They're taking advantage of a complex technology that was developed with public money and trying to pass it off as an invention of their own.

The concept and technology of the internet is not owned by any private company. It has been a public works project since the inception of ARPANET and prior to that was still a public technology, having been developed by a public institute, albeit with a healthy amount of private funding. To argue that Internet Service Providers can dictate where, what and when goes across "their" networks is heresy to the nature of the internet at its base and current state.

I welcome any replies, and if you've made it this far, thanks for reading!

a reply to: OrdoAdChao

Best video on net neutrality I've seen:

a reply to: dfnj2015

Burger King is gonna regret that.
They just lost a customer.

a reply to: dfnj2015


That's a fun video, and very illustrative of the most readily relatable argument out there. It goes a lot deeper, in my opinion. If the main argument against it was replacing TCP/IP technology with something better, I would at least entertain it. On its face, the argument against net neutrality is an argument against liberty. I don't think I can get behind that.

I've been waiting for an opportunity to go off on my opinions on why the Net needs to be "no holds barred". It is an evolving entity that is in its infancy. If anyone thinks that these protocols will be easily replaced in the near future, they're batsh*. In my honest opinion, evolving age-old anti-trust laws is the solution to the problem of net neutrality. We've had this kind of problem before, but it wasn't solved by throwing regulation to the wind.

a reply to: EvidenceNibbler

That's nice. Would you mind contributing some information as to why you're so opposed to BK's decision to make the readily relatable argument a focus of their business plan?

a reply to: OrdoAdChao

Not interested in debating Obamacare for the internet, it's gone and I'm glad.
My side won.
I am not sick of winning yet.

a reply to: EvidenceNibbler

Your side won while the consumer lost. Congratulations!

Glad my new home state is taking a stand against the horrible decision by Big Tele... I mean the FCC.

originally posted by: EvidenceNibbler
a reply to: OrdoAdChao

Not interested in debating Obamacare for the internet, it's gone and I'm glad.
My side won.
I am not sick of winning yet.

Hey Nibbles,

Could you possibly explain how "ObamaCare" has anything to do with Net Netnutrality or Burger King.

Also, how exactly did "your side" win.

Could you send us a pic of your 🏆??



MTUBY

smoke and mirrors

less government regulation = better

originally posted by: EvidenceNibbler
a reply to: OrdoAdChao

Not interested in debating Obamacare for the internet, it's gone and I'm glad.
My side won.

What side? Obamacare for the internet? Did you not read anything except a few lines?

The technology/infrastructure is directly related to defense purposes by the US military. It was developed with public money and the resulting infrastructure was subsidized with public money. $200 billion worth. Read my OP and read the main links before presenting that sort of dodging argument.

a reply to: toysforadults

Higher prices for the consumer = worse.

a reply to: OrdoAdChao

Right on for Montana.

I hate that net neutrality is a political issue, though I'm sure a lot of money went into making it one. Giving large corporations infrastructure worth $200 billion that was paid for by taxpayers is insane.

Especially considering it's to let them decide for us what the internet is and will become.

originally posted by: toysforadults
smoke and mirrors

less government regulation = better

This.
We live in America.
Free market lads.

originally posted by: 3NL1GHT3N3D1
a reply to: toysforadults

Higher prices for the consumer = worse.

anything being championed by the left needs to be seriously questioned

originally posted by: 3NL1GHT3N3D1
a reply to: toysforadults

Higher prices for the consumer = worse.

anything being championed by the left needs to be seriously questioned

a reply to: toysforadults

If anything, the government was preventing the major telecom corporations from holding a knife to their throats. Now that there is enough infrastructure to fall back on that was built on the public dole, we are now witnessing active crony capitalism that is the result of lobbying to neuter net neutrality.

The concept of net neutrality being some kind of hurdle is laughable. It is an incentive. Perhaps a challenge. It creates new innovations, like Netflix, which the cable companies that claim to own your access hate. Seriously, even if you pay a random wireless company for your internet access, the major telecom companies are claiming ownership over the physical media that has been funded with public money. Not 100%, but enough to make your eyes water.

a reply to: OrdoAdChao

So you're standing up to the government for not regulating enough.

San Jose mayor says he’s quitting FCC broadband committee because Big Telecom is running it

The FCC's decision on net neutrality is nothing more than Big Telecom's decision on net neutrality. It's about nickle and diming the consumer for higher profits, not better competition.

a reply to: toysforadults

I'd say the same thing about big business too. The telecom companies have been lobbying for years to get net neutrality repealed, do you honestly think that was because they had their customer's best interests in mind?

originally posted by: 3NL1GHT3N3D1
a reply to: toysforadults

I'd say the same thing about big business too. The telecom companies have been lobbying for years to get net neutrality repealed, do you honestly think that was because they had their customer's best interests in mind?

When was net neutrality passed?