Net regulator, ‘dazed, confused’
p2p news / p2pnet: Alaska’s senator Ted Stevens is chairman of the Commerce Committee and, “one of Washington’s leading players on technology policy,” says the Los Angeles Times.
According to him, the Net is a “series of tubes” and not only but also, with, “one company now you can sign up and you can get a movie delivered to you daily by subscription, by delivery service”.
“And currently it comes to your house, it gets put in the mail box when you get home and you change your order,” says Stevens. “But you pay for that. Right?
“This service is not going to go through the internet and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and guess what? You can order ten of ‘em delivered to you! And the delivery charge is free. Right?”
However, “his disjointed description of how the Internet works – digitally recorded and spreading like wildfire through those ‘tubes’ – has led some opponents of the legislation to portray him as a Luddite doing the bidding of phone and cable companies that want to charge websites for faster content delivery,” says the LA Times OpEd.
“Stevens has amplified for the country the extent to which he and his colleagues don’t understand the fundamental issues that are at stake,” Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, a nonpartisan media-reform organization, is quoted as saying. “The group, along with many others and leading Internet companies, wants to prohibit the building of ‘toll lanes’ on the World Wide Web. The issue is known as network neutrality.”
In a bid to get his boss out from under, a Stevens aide who, understandably, asked not to be named (did the aide originate the material Ted parroted? – one wonders) said the experts often describe the wires and fiber-optic strands that carry Internet data as pipes, says the article.
But many bloggers and others called Stevens “dazed and confused,” “a backwoods hick” and “completely clueless� and on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” says the story, Jon Stewart, “mused that Stevens sounded like ‘a crazy old man in an airport bar at 3 a.m.’ And there was a simple explanation for why his e-mail was delayed, the comedian continued.
” ‘Maybe it’s because you don’t seem to know about computers or the Internet,’ he said. ‘You’re just the guy in charge of regulating it’.”
(Thanks, Rob)
Also See:
Los Angeles Times – Senate Telecom Overseer Not Plugged In to Web, July 15, 2006
series of tubes – Ted Stevens on Net Neutrality, July 4, 2006
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July 15th, 2006 at 6:25 pm
Even his example of mailorder doesn’t quite tell the tale.
We’ve already heard of members of “the pay to rent, get it in the mail” claiming how unhappy with the service they are. It sounds to me as if the deal is it is ok if you use it once in a while. If you are a steady demander, then the service looks at the cost of postage they pay for as a business expense they would rather limit.
If you can get three movies sent to you a day with one overnight hold on them while you watch them that means the most you are going to get for your subscription is 15 days receiving movies in the mail. Or that’s the way it should be theoretically. In limiting the cost of postage it seems the services would rather hold your choices a day so as the end results are far fewer deliveries. That drops the amount of delivery days to only 7 1/2 days out of the month. So instead of getting 45 movies a month for the payment of the service plus rental costs, you may only get 22-23 movies a month. When looked at it that way, it’s not a very good deal is it?
Once again the good senator shows he really has no clue to what he is talking of.
July 16th, 2006 at 10:25 am
Ted Stevens is an 82 year old Senator from Alaska (not Oregon.) He’s been a politician in Alaska and held elected office since Alaska joined the union in 1959. Therefore, it isn’t the least bit surprising that he’s ‘clueless’ about the internet. He probably yearns for the days when he picked up the phone and Mabel (whose husband Vern ran the Bait and Tackle shop) would come on the line promptly and say “Number please.” No messing around with technogizmos like a rotary dial or pesky touch tones.
He should probably spend more time discussing these matters with his fellow Republican Senator John Sununu (No, not that Sununu, his son.) of New Hampshire, who has an engineering education and effectively derailed the broadcast flag when it first came up in committee.
–TG
July 21st, 2006 at 1:28 am
Quote/…do a google on him and you’ll see just another facet of the corrupt republican administration./Quote
It isn’t the republicans that are the problem…….It is the entrenched politicians from both the Dems/Repubs. Until a 3rd party strong enough to defeat these corrupt dimwitted fools we keep electing arises, things are just going to keep getting worse. I mean for ChristSake, there just is no choice in an election between 3 stooges. (Bush, Kerry, or Gore)
Those in power will do anything to keep it while they whittle away at our freedom.
Tom Jefferson said it best of course: “A little revolution now and then is a good thing; the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants”
I just wonder how long it is going to take to get the american people angry enough to get off their lard-asses and fight for their stolen freedom.