David A. Windham

Congressional Lame Duck Session, Net Neutrality, and Why the Internet is Twice as Fast in Much of Asia.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
Undeclared on Net Neutrality
Call Sen. Graham now at 864-250-1417
Say: “I urge Senator Graham to protect Net Neutrality, which prevents the largest phone and cable companies from controlling the Internet. I urge the Senator to vote NO on Senator Stevens’ telecommunications bill (H.R. 5252 / S. 2686) unless real Net Neutrality language is added that prohibits network operators from discriminating against content and creating a tiered Internet.”

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC)
Against Net Neutrality
Call Sen. DeMint now at 864 233-5366
On May 16, the Senator made this statement:
“Opposing the heavy hand of regulation that network neutraliy represents is critical if we are to maintain the Internet as an open, evolving, and market-based tool, and to protect children and families from the negative aspects of Internet content that exist today.”

The politicians are out spending their 3 billion dollar stash, most of which comes from business and works out to approximately $60 a vote cast, to get back into office. And with broadcasters, publishers and telecommunications companies trying to stave off the effect of internet media publishing, the ipod, IPtv, VOIP, and HD radio, the effect is very similar to John D. Rockefeller buying up the train lines that carried thier oil to monoplize the market. Verizon, Comcast, AT&T and the like are spending 3 million a week lobbying congress. There is no way that AT&T or Bellsouth is going to stand idle while companies like Google and Vonage use their framework to provide voice over phone service and broadband media content when they could be the beneficiaries of these new technologies. Well… the FCC governs the industry and overhauled the Communications Act of 1934 into the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that resulted in a massive corporate takeover of broadcasting and publishing.
So what the ISP (internet service providers) want is a way to control how their networks are used by levying fees for large users of the internet.. ie.. google, ebay, vonage, etc. The AT&T CEO has declared that Google should no longer get a free ride, and should pay AT&T in order to be delivered to AT&T’s customers. Well…. this is a hustle. The telecommunications companies were supposed to be providing fibre optic connections for most of america during the 90’s after congress passed legislation to benefit them in that effort. They stuck the money in their pockets and that is why our copper lines are still the predominate connection to the internet and the Asia pacific network connections are twice as fast. For many years, Internet access across the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) was governed by common carrier regulations. These guidelines required unbundling of communications services and ISP functions. However, on August 5, 2005, the FCC reclassified DSL services as Information Services rather than Telecommunications Services. This sparked a debate over whether or not Internet Service Providers should also be allowed to discriminate between different service providers by offering higher network priority to higher-paying companies and customers, allowing some services to operate faster or more predictably and ultimately become more acceptable to end users. For more info….