Telecom and Net neutrality

[unixronin]

Or,as it happens, not.  The Senate Commerce Committee today released a 135-page draft of the new telecom bill (562kB PDF).  Conspicuously missing from the bill is any mention of "Net neutrality" -- the idea that common carriers should treat all traffic equally, rather than prioritizing traffic from those willing to pay the most for prompt delivery or dropping traffic originating from competitors.  It does, however, include authorization for the FCC to start outlawing digital radio and satellite receivers that permit recording of broadcasts.

Follow the money, folks.  This is your tax dollars dropping their pants and bending over.

"...the bill does say that Americans should enjoy the right to share recorded broadcast TV over their home networks, make "short excerpts" available over the Internet, and that news programming generally should not be flagged."

Not surprisingly, one Hollywood source was quoted as saying "the movie industry has real problems with the broadcast flag language as it appears in the bill", because there will be some broadcasts which it will remain legal to copy in limited ways.

The bill will, it appears, also require all analog TV broadcasting in the US to cease by February 17, 2009.  So, if you plan on buying a new TV any time soon, plan on buying a HD-ready one, or you'll have a white elephant on your hands in three years.  But if all else fails, you can always hook it up to your PlayStation or Nintendo.  The MPAA hasn't figured out a way to legally stop you from doing that yet.

Comments

[plutosonium.livejournal.com]

The HD-ready ones were pretty pricey when I looked.

[koyote.livejournal.com]

SD digital broadcasting is also there. it's not necessarily HD only, and ED (aka HD ready) is all over the place.

digital broadcasting ahs been coming for a long time.

the priority to money internet (aka I$3) is a bitch. there's some petitions out there, and of course, i've written senator boxer on this one.

[genuine-snark.livejournal.com]

It won't be a white elephant. You just won't be able to receive analog SD OTA. You'll almost certainly be able to get it via cable and a set-top box, at least until the installed base of SD TVs goes away. If all the SD sources become toast, someone will come up with a downconverting solution.