AT&T will inflict data caps on it’s customers tomorrow. A 150 Gigabyte cap on it’s internet customers is somewhat generous. It would take 130 hours of Netflix to equal 150 gigabytes. Or about 64 hours of HD Netflix (HD uses more bytes). This means AT&T would not be charging the casual viewer extra, but people who share internet connections or parents with children who (use more than 130 hours per month) will see the AT&T’s overage charges. After triggering the extra fees, AT&T will charge $.20 per Gigabyte.
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Exclusive-ATT-To-Impose-Caps-Overages-113149
This is based on Netflix’s numbers.

Also torrent downloaders would be affected.
Downloading http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6354888/Whos.Nailin.Palin.2.XXX.720p.Bluray.x264-Jiggly (4.36 GB) would cost pirates one dollar.
Since AT&T only pays $.02 – $.05 per gigabyte of bandwidth, that dollar is nearly all profit to AT&T.

Perhaps what AT&T wants is more customers for it’s “U-verse” service, which provides video on demand. Yes, AT&T wants your entertainment dollar (before you spend it).
Remember AT&T has a monopoly on DSL (internet over telephone installations) in most areas. Since AT&T has a lawful monopoly, I tell you the government must act to keep data charges down to $.07 per gigabyte or less.

follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/bittersublime Thank you FDL.

If you don’t know, unemployment is part of the government policy to reduce wages to a “competitive” level.
http://www.therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=6108

Let me quote the late Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?
Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The President does.
You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don’t write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don’t set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don’t control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 555 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.”

I believe the problem is not the incompetence of our elected government, although they have hit our country like a disaster.

The problem is simply our representative goverment operating on corporate cash. Our politicians depend on a constant flow of corporate cash to fund their elections and social life. Politicians are dependent on the corporate cash.

Lawrence Lessig just gave a new presentation on the subject at the National Conference for Media Reform;

Lessig’s marching orders? To Twitter-Tag the examples of corporate cash tipping the scales of justice with #rootstriker (Inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root,”)

This is our democracy. Corporate money controlled by the amoral and licentious has to be stopped. Stamp it out by tagging it with #rootstriker

Follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/bittersublime Thank you FDL.

**** EDIT
apparently the twitter tag is #rootstrikers That’s the plural of rootstriker. I’m so tickled that my grand call to action was to send people to the wrong tag.

FCC commission meeting will vote to give away the store to big telecom on December 21. The FCC grinch will bury internet freedom. Leaving us with nothing but memories of a free internet.

Why? First of all there’s plenty of opposition to net neutrality; Let me list what the net neutrality opponents say:

1. net neutrality = job losses
2. net neutrality = keeping minorities off the internet
3. net neutrality is radical politics by left wing ideological zealots.

Haven’t we heard this job losses thing before? Isn’t that why we have to give bank bailouts? The job losses?

Corporate profits depend on the FCC giveaway staying covert. After net neutrality is neutered with the corporate giveaway, telecom corporations will become enriched with consumer entertainment dollars.

First of all, The FCC rules are a threat to internet porn. Let me explain with analogy from my childhood.

I was 9 years old living in married student housing at ETSU. Anyhow I was racing bikes with my friend, JJ. I loved it, because I had a Schwinn dirt bike with long pedals. He had a Huffy. Hell I always won, and I never minded a race. Never.

Net Neutrality affects YOU.
The FCC rules will cover high definition porn. Will your favorite porn site get the bandwidth to connect with high definition porn? Not if your local internet provider has partnered with a different porn site instead.

I encourage you to tell your family and friends, in no uncertain language that you oppose the corporate version of “net neutrality”. Explain how important it is that you have equal access to EVERY PORN SITE on the internet.

This regulation is not important because of the media we will SEE, rather loss of authentic net neutrality means that corporate profits are the gatekeeper that keeps media from reaching your eyeballs. Do you ever wonder if television could be any more unwatchable? It will be more awful If you let a few corporations choose the channels that reach your home.

follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/bittersublime

I want to start this post with a travesty of public opinion.
Some idiot over at reddit.com said Rorschach from the Watchmen comic book was “Chaotic Neutral” in the D&D alignment system.
I’m still in a such a conniption fit that I just feel funny. He’s clearly chaotic good.

Level 3 Communications complained that Comcast is charging Level 3 for internet traffic.
http://www.level3.com/index.cfm?pageID=491&PR=962

Comcast replied by saying that charging for traffic is normal.
http://blog.comcast.com/2010/11/comcast-comments-on-level-3.html

Level 3 is the Tier 1 ISP. They own internet backbones, everyone pays them to carry traffic, Level 3 never pays anyone. Back in the day, no smaller ISP like Comcast could mess with a Tier 1 ISP. If a Tier 2 ISP like Comcast didn’t pay for peering with one of the Tier 1 ISPs, they simply wouldn’t be on the internet. Therefore, there was no conflict. The world was in order.

Level 3 started doing content delivery for Netflix, one of the competitors of Comcast. For Level 3, their contract with Netflix put them in a compromised position when they negotiated with Comcast.

I have this little analogy. Copyright 2010 Marinara Spaghettificus.

Lets say internet users are patients at a nursing home. The patients are tired of Comcast food from the nursing home, so they send out for some Netflix, and Level 3 is the delivery boy. Now Comcast, or the nursing home, knows that it’s patients aren’t going anywhere. Comcast has a monopoly. So Comcast can charge the delivery boy an extra fee, for delivering to the nursing home. The delivery boy pays, he can’t afford to lose business.

So is this a net neutrality issue? The nursing home can say that they HAVE to charge the delivery boy, since he’s delivering SO MUCH FOOD. They can even make a show of charging the same toll to EVERY DELIVERY BOY.

HELLS BELLS! WHO IS RIGHT?

“Internet interconnection is not regulated in the same way that public telephone network interconnection is regulated.”

Actually DON’T READ THIS WIKI on internet peering. The mind reels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering#Law_and_policy

Conclusion:

Comcast has figured out another way to make a fast buck off it’s captive customer base. Level 3 Communcations wasn’t expecting a threat from Comcast, and Comcast landed the first blow in what will be a war over the dollars spent by Comcast’s captive consumers. So unexpected is this, that net neutrality folks don’t even understand it. Follow the money!

Follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/bittersublime

P.S. If you want further confusion you can read the HuffPo
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/29/web-delivery-firm-says-co_n_789557.html
I warned you.

Why is AT&T against net neutrality?
Just like Apple’s IPhone was married to AT&T, AT&T wants video on demand providers to partner with AT&T premium internet service. Internet small business will have to purchase AT&T services or be left in the slow lane.

Just like when I was a kid, I had a Schwinn with long pedals. I never lost a race. Small business that doesn’t get the fast lane to internet users, will never win a customer back.

Image by Matt Blaze

Does AT&T own the internet yet? No!

But thanks to TED, a multimedia conference dedicated to spreading ideas, AT&T spreads it’s doublespeak about internet deregulation. Right now, TED is pushing fearmongering ads about the internet for AT&T. Stay classy TED.

Here’s the Ad:

Investment in broadband high speed internet can help small businesses create new american jobs. ( sounds like how corn flakes saves me from colon cancer)
small businesses are being formed; dreams are being launched, and at AT&T, we’re investing billions- to upgrade and build out our wired and wireless networks. Now is not the time to stall momentum. Or stifle innovation or investment. Jobs, dreams and the future at stake. AT&T. Your world, delivered.

TL;DR= You can’t regulate us, If you do, you will kill jobs and put America Behind on internet.

Some of you know that Americans already are behind on the internet.
according to atelier-us.com

“U.S. broadband is thirty times slower than Japan’s. If American speeds keep growing as slowly as they are now, it will take the U.S. 100 years to reach Japan’s current level, according to the Communications Workers of America’s second annual Speed Matters survey.”

Ma Bell is (Editor’s Note: we don’t use that word at FDL), isn’t she? You could contact TED and tell them how sleazy they are: http://www.ted.com/contact

AT&T doesn’t stop there. AT&T astroturfed ADE, Alliance For Digital Equality.
ADE is a activist organization for solving the digital divide, the lack of computer literacy that afflicts minorities and the poor. Like an pale plutocratic hand in a minority sock puppet, ADE shills for deregulation of the internet.

According to the ADE sock puppet, Net Neutrality is the bad voodoo that is keeping jobs out away from our African and Hispanic brothers. From huffpost:

Increased regulations by the FCC will not create jobs nor will it lower the price of high-speed Internet for low income families. The bottom line is simple, Americans need jobs and investments in broadband technology can create them.

Fuck you. Is your real job pretending to care for the disadvantaged, or is it sucking AT&T dick?

REAL disadvantaged people can’t even afford AT&T services. The poor are moving to prepaid mobile phones as they can’t handle AT&T grilling them with long distance plans and wire maintenance plans and so on.
http://www.turn.org/article.php?list=type&type=150

Anyhow! I leave you with this obtuse connection. Mortaring a USB stick into a brick wall.
http://gizmodo.com/5677377/theres-a-usb-stick-in-my-brick-wall

Thx for reading! FUCK THE GIANT EVIL TELECOM CORPORATION!

Rep. Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, the committe that oversees telecommunications was leaked on yesterday. Now we have a copy of Waxman’s plan to subvert Net Neutrality. Copy of the leaked Bill (in legalese) not yet submitted to congress. Leak Source is techdailydose.nationaljournal.com

Let’s say the internet is made of tubes. This bill gives the tube companies license to start selling premium tubes. Big shiny tubes. However anyone with the misfortune not to partner with the tube company will find themselves stuck in the smaller, collapsing tube system.

For example, Google partnered with the Verizon tube company to use it’s new tubes. Anyone trying to compete with Google, simply won’t be able to.

Waxman, is teaching Republicans a thing or two about whoring for Telecom money. Waxman’s bill would prevent the FCC from enforcing the most important part of net neutrality, that is, standard tube size. The corporate johns, pumping Waxman up with corporate cash, know that there is money to be made here. Read on for an example.

Take a quick description of the streaming video industry, currently in a growth phase. thx dailytech.com

35.7 billion people watched video online in June (up from 19.5 billion in 2009)

Hmmm, exponentially growing by 80 percent or 16 billion people. Yeah. that’s where the money is.

For telecommunications companies to take what used to be public tubes, and twist them into private corporate piggy banks, You need traitorous turncoats like Henry Waxman to sell us out. I would say, fuck you Waxman, but Indeed, he’s already fucked us all.

Thanks for reading FDL people! My earlier top 10 blog on Net Neutrality:

First of all, David Dayden’s post is exactly what i’m going to avoid here. It’s Neutral. I’m far past neutral. First, I wanna call out Obama, our net neutrality candidate. (irony intended) I am way past hoping this surrendermonkey is going to have his administration or the FCC do anything. My hope just dried up like my under-watered lawn. Just like when Mrs. Clinton was downstairs when the President was polling Ms. Lewinsky. We got fucked over.

The Bush administration exempted the internet providers from complying with common carrier laws. The common carrier laws were legislated after decades of corrupt railroads did corrupt things. Example is on page 11 of this document here. Basically the South Improvement Company, A shipper for Standard Oil (yeah the one owned by John D. Rockefeller) Negotiated a secret rate. They even got a cash rebate for any oil shipped by competitors. To wrap it up, I quote Answers.com

These costly rate wars led carriers to avoid general rate cuts and to develop the practice of making secret agreements with certain shippers, whereby the shipper would get some form of rate reduction in exchange for his promise to ship his goods over the line offering the concession. Such concessions enabled the favored shippers to undersell their competitors and thus increase their business and the business of the railroad offering the rebates. The public objected bitterly to the practice of rebating because of its obvious unfairness and because the process of building up one shipper at the expense of others promoted the development of monopolies, with all of their attendant evils.

Now for an episode from my childhood. I was 9 years old living in married student housing at ETSU. Anyhow I was racing bikes with my friend, JJ. I loved it, because I had a Schwinn dirt bike with long pedals. He had a Huffy. Hell I always won, and I never minded a race. Never.

OK, Forget all that about the bikes. We’re going to talk about the killer application for the 21 century, Internet TV on demand. Watch your TV show without commercials when you want to. Everyone. And I mean every consumer household will have TV on demand.

Well, a funny thing happened while the internet providers were upgrading their networks for all this Video on demand. They realized that the real action was in the content. The value of the content was even more than what the network hardware cost. Naturally, they weren’t going to see any of that cash flow…. unless they had an arrangement with the media company.

Fast forward to Monday this week when Google and Verizon released a policy statement intended to replace network neutrality on the internet. Here’s the fine language.

In providing broadband Internet access service, a provider would be prohibited from engaging in undue discrimination against any lawful Internet content, application, or service in a manner that causes meaningful harm to competition or to users.

Actually, the policy paper was cover for the special arrangement between Verizon (the network provider) and Google/YouTube (the media company). Verizon’s FIOS TV (a video on demand system) will have "the fast Schwinn" when it connects to YouTube.com.

Now how do they expect us to believe that giving YouTube the fast lane, would not affect any of YouTube competitors? Indeed, the Google/Verizon Policy document is hogwash.

Just like any good con artist, Google and Verizon are such nice people who shouldn’t be disappointed. Don’t believe it for a second.

Thanks for reading FDL people! Hope you like this more than the other guys Net Neutrality Diary!

After Comcast won a lawsuit against the FCC that allowed it to continue to degrade certain internet apps for its own profit. Net-neutrality folks (everyone here right?) are waiting for the FCC to hit back.

a "Newspaper" called Washington post uses anonymous sources to say that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will not reclassify internet as a communications system. This is another victory for Comcast. If true.

put your comment on record at the FCC:
http://www.savetheinternet.com/fcc-comments