Verizon, Google Announce Net Neutrality Proposal

While Im glad they are willing to compromise on the wired networks, what they have planed for the wireless networks has me a little worried...

Let the boycott begin. What's Microsoft's stance on Net-Neutrality? If they're for it, I might be switching over to bing.

How are they figuring wireless is too much different from wired. The internet is the internet, it shouldnt matter if i get it through DSL, fiber optics, or radio waves, i still want all my stuff to get treated equally.

sounds like Google wants to develop it's own competitive nationwide wireless network...but...before this can happen they want to make sure they maintain absolute control over their new project for the foreseeable future...just my $0.02

Every day another End Of The World news story happens about something. Food, gas, net, whatever it may be, and does it ever happen?

Obviously not.

So Verizon and Google want the ability to control their phone's traffic. Have they said how? No, all they said was that they want the option to if need be, and if it [doesn't hurt the consumer].

"In addition, the Government Accountability Office would be required to report to Congress annually on developments in the wireless broadband marketplace, and whether or not current policies are working to protect consumers."

Additional, differentiated online services. So what I got out of this is they want to charge extra for services you could already get over normal service. I don't quite understand the gaming options, something like you get 250ms ping pay 5 extra you can get 50ms latency? My opinion on the gaming side is don't mess with it, since it's not broken. But I can understand the entertainment side, possibly offering movie premiers in your living room would be nice.

What is the difference between a wireless network and a wired network that it would constitute different rules? Is it not using the internet still? Isnt wireless supposed to be the future? If wireless is the future, and we dont have the same neutrality laws in place for the future then what is the point of having neutrality in place for today?

What is the difference between a wireless network and a wired network that it would constitute different rules? Is it not using the internet still? Isnt wireless supposed to be the future? If wireless is the future, and we dont have the same neutrality laws in place for the future then what is the point of having neutrality in place for today?

I can't believe it took Tom's this long to finally post a story on this controversy. It's almost like they're having a hard time imagining Google being involved in something this shady.

All of you Google fanboiz need to wake up and smell the greedy. They don't care about you. They care about maximizing profit. That's it.

Well, given going from dial-up to DSL takes a router, Now going from one wireless service to another is probably the samething. Wireless does give to more of an area of expansion or use unless developed otherwise. Even with cable , there would be difference means and use, cause if you can get internet over cable, and have the phone line bring in internet, it gets to which service are you going to pay for? Where and why are you going to either one? What would wireless be good for? Should you use wireless or wire?

Know wireless has its issues with gaming, but responses to everything else is good. Things have changed though giving closeness of wireless "things" and uses of them, controllers, cameras, phones to some sense, whatever else. Whereever there proposal goes, and what issues its suppose to fix, hopefully it maintains or balances some of the price fixing. And services used with it.

It’s just an agreement between Google and Verizon, while they have powerful lobbyist... the agreement isn't the law, so not much to worry about at this point. It does however show Google and Verizon to be "shady characters" and yes I probably will close my Google account and move to Bing...since I already hate Yahoo. Verizon sucks so that a no brainer.

Google is smart enough to realize that full spectrum wireless broadband is the wave of the future. The FCC currently places absurd limitations on what frequencies wireless devices can operate at, all in the name of safety and "unforseen consequences". Basically they dont want some new 100mbps cell phone to fry someones head off because the manufacturers didnt understand the technology. It's almost akin to disallowing cell phones on airplanes. It's all for "just in case".

But advances in technology will force the FCC to re-evaluate health risks, and new frequencies will be unlocked bit by bit. There is so much available bandwidth in the air that we havent even tapped into yet it's ridiculous. One day we'll all be communicating via camera in 1080p like in star trek. Google knows this, they're smart. They are counting on foolish citizens to be too nearsighted to predict the future at length like they can. They are counting on your naivety, thinking "welp wireless sure is slow today, I can only get 54mbps, I'd much rather have a land line because windows says I get 100mbps". They are sitting there acting all innocent like all they want to control is some worthless 3rd rate wireless broadband that's only mildly useful for making a few phone calls and nothing else.

WRONG. Once the world goes wireless they will have already established themselves as the gatekeepers 15 years prior and nobody will even think twice about it, everyone will just assume "thats always the way it's been". We are writing history right now folks, dont let Google think you're too dumb to know it.

hmmm nobody picked up on the amendment of the Universal Service Fund ( the tax they want to modify) so they can use said funds to build their wireless network with at the expense of every internet/telephone/cable provider.
either the FCC can take this idea and make the rules also enforceable to wireless, or they can allow wireless jammers XD or we can charge outragouesly to each wireless provider for access for their traffic on our wifi hot spots. this last type of behaviour is something already done with electric companies are required to buy excess electricity you produce, if you have a self power generation method (solar/wind/hydroelectric generation)

might as well expound upon that principle if you have extra wireless broadband not being used!

"put away our 'Jump to Conclusions' mats"
nice reference use Jane, wish more people used it still.

Corporations SHOULD NOT be proposing legislation! Have we not learned from big oil & banks?!!!

We'll need a way to fight back if they go ahead with net priority for some. The Net needs to be open equally to all.

A cap of $2 million in fines is pretty trivial for big companies like this. Personally, I say that no cap on the fine would be appropriate - especially at the scale that these companies deal with.

Also, I must agree that the wireless clause is a double standard. I could see this clause applying if, say, data rates were severely limited over that of wire lines; however, IMHO, current wireless data rates support equally as-large-as-wired-lines data transfers. As long as data transfers by one or a few entities out of the many do not saturate wireless transfers to the exclusion of a disproportionately large number of other users, then I see no need for a special rules-do-not-apply-here clause for wireless data.

Perhaps this is their concern - that the wireless pipe is not as large as the wired pipe and as such, the wireless pipe could saturate more easily than the wired pipe.

Then again, the wireless pipe is a "feature" that they can charge more for (like a voice mail provider charging you double for 50% more message storage space), and it seems to me that such a "feature" is undoubtedly one that has $$$$ in their eyes. Simple greed is perhaps the easiest explanation for their rules do not apply here statement regarding wireless access.

Thats fine google I will just go without a smart phone. You dont have enough market penetration that people absolutly need smartphones. I know I will give mine up. Garmin will be happy I will buy a standalone gps now.

While they've tried to word this as delicately as possible to avoid the inevitable anger they knew this would incite, they're basically saying "Well we left that loophole open, but don't worry we won't abuse it, honest".

I'm not necessarily against this. If they propose it to the FCC, hopefully the FCC's response is something like "Sure this looks great, except that wireless exception bit. We'll just cross that part out, there we go, now we can work with this."

I'm also a little concerned about the fifth point. I'm worried that the "differentiated online services" could include things like making a 'social consumer' package for people that only use the internet for social activities such as use social networks, blogs, email, online gaming, shopping (the consumer bit), etc. Then these packages wouldn't fall under the same neutrality as the regular 'internet'.

While I can see some services falling under this (like online TV), I personally think that this could potentially be one giant loophole that just isn't worth it. You want internet TV? Get a regular internet connection (no prioritized traffic) and use the TV provider's box with their custom software connected to your TV. This will also allow users the ability to chose whatever internet provider they want independent of their TV provider. Freedom FTW.

I sent this to sballmer@microsoft.com

Dear Mr. Ballmer. I have spotted an opportunity to propel Bing to number one search engine. Google, as I am no doubt you are aware, is planning on releasing it's net neutrality policy with draconian measures to take over the wireless part of the internet vis a vis the ISP's by making wired access net neutral, while limiting wireless access to the masses. This is clearly an opportunity for MS to go the other way, and declare itself a net neutral company. You could run an advertising campaign based on this fact, and propel Bing to number one! Just an idea!

I am very concerned that Google put their names on this page, but everyone is going hog wild on Google and not on Verizon? They're the ones who said they're going to go after people for using too much of their unlimited bandwidth!

I do wish I could have seen what the negotiations were, was it a quick instant agreement? or did one side have to concede certain points (wireless control) to get the other to sign?

What if someone wants to implement this? Is this a work in progress? Will corporate lobbyists get a hold of this if a senator proposes this as legislation? What if one side wants to put it in legislation and lobby hard to eliminate the passages that leave Wireless alone? Submarine Legislation?

While a step in the right direction for wired, it still is rather troubling as wireless is improving in leaps and bounds. I do agree though that we NEED to get broadband properly deployed in more areas, and faster at that. A lot of time, the real nice areas that are away from the city have really crappy access to internet if at all. Making sure that more areas have access to higher speed broadband would be really nice.

Who is going to run a 'wired' broadband company when this goes through? They'll just claim to be wireless even though their backbone etc is all wired.

Its f-tarded. Until they completely remove ANY wires from the net, its a wired internet. This is all about profiteering and tryuing to dupe the public (and a non tech savvy legislature/government) into helping private corporations benefit more from the public commons.

The fifth statement makes it sound like they will soon partition other services into special networks. E.g. imagine if you had to buy a special XBox Online connectivety package from Verizon to connect your XBox to the XBox live community? Imagine that they created a new Twitter aggregate service you had to buy separately, which would push your twitter updates to a special twitter client, instead of your web browser (also, imagine you give a rats ass about twitter). No more netflix through your web broweser, instead, you have to buy a special netflix home delivery service package.

My point is, currently everything is on the internet, what their statement makes me think is that the want to take a lot of things off the internet. Of course, they'd have to get the buy-in of the producers of the content too, but I woudln't put it past some of these companies.

Comcast and other cable companies already do this with their VOIP services. They were supposed to use regular broadband spectrum to support VOIP, this way, they could argue they weren't a dedicated phone provider, and didn't have to follow the rules imposed on telephone companies. Instead, it was found that some of these companies used a dedicated portion of their spectrum to ensure phone traffic got through. AT&T and others argue this is a dedicated network and thus made them fall under the jurisdiction of the FCC. Long story short, this is exactly what Google and Verizon laid out in their fifth point. Rather than open up the internet, they want to move more stuff away from the internet so they can charge more for it. They are simply redefining what "internet" means, to reduce its scope and get around the language of the FCC sanctions.

Do you people even know what the word Draconian means?

How on earth does "We recognize that wireless networks are different from wireline" equal Draconian measures in any way?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draco_(lawgiver) derpderpderpderpderp.

So let's say that your wireless network in LA isn't quite good enough to allow everyone there to be streaming video at high quality at the same time. Let's also say that improving upon this network would be fairly costly and just can't be done this quarter. Do you throttle video traffic so that everyone is forced to low quality but they're all allowed to watch or say "First come first serve!"?

DEEERP.

In my mind it's a step in the right direction. Currently ISP's can pretty much do whatever they want. I know where I am in Canada, bandwidth Caping is a common practice, and internet access is prioritized to higher paying users since the network is saturated. From what I am told, it's just as bad down in the states, so at least having Wired Networks totally Neutral is already a good step forward.

The retarded thing about all this is that in Europe, the ISP's all have unlimited bandwidth, and they have no problems supplying it. This is a cash grab, plain and simple. In the Netherlands I have 20mbps for 25 Euro a month. Most people have this. And the ISPs here have no problems at all! North America just needs more competition.

The wireless bit is bad, but you have to realize that ultimately, like power, competition and the nature of limited supply will put you all on $ per GB plans.

The other bit that I worry about is the differentiated online services.
Basically, I read it as prioritization of streaming TV, educational content and electricity pricing info, which can all come via regular Internet.
They're saying there should be net neutrality except for these products. Big oxymoron.