[Hrgeeks] Save the Internet: Support Net Neutrality!

[telmnstr at 757.org]

> This persisted up until the early seventies (but before the breakup) when
> the FCC put in place a licensing procedure for products to be licensed for
> interconnection to the telephone network.  If you were a modem manufacturer,
> you could get your product type-accepted by the FCC to establish it would not
> unbalance the line or cause crosstalk, then sell it to customers who could
> connect it without a DAA.

Ah okay.

> This remains the case today, although today the market is flooded with a lot
> of crap that hasn't actually passed type-acceptance testing, though there is
> nobody to enforce them.

Well, copper pair is dead anyways. DSL is a hack, and they have to go 
through some lengths to prevent crosstalk on the high speed transmission 
side of it.

> Depends on the exchange.  Long lines digital transmission started coming in
> in the early 1960s, replacing FDM "Telpak" cables with TDM digital circuits.
> (That's where the T in T-1 comes from.)  Digital switching was a different
> thing altogether... in fact you could argue the original Strowger switch was
> digital.  What you're talking about is "electronically controlled switching"
> and in general it was a good thing... and the phone company introduced it
> with no prodding from the government, because it was a profit center for
> them.

I ment the audio is digitized and played back using ADC / DACs?

> Of course.  They are the exact same things that the telcos want to do today.
> That doesn't change anything.  The pressures on the telcos are exactly the
> same... and if you think that there is actual competition between wireline
> telcos, you are very deluded.

I know that the ILEC is still a heavy monopoly, and that the CLECs are 
doomed as the ILEC moves to FTTP.

> No, but that sure didn't hurt matters.  The thing is, the Communications Act
> of 1934 _already_ made it illegal to divulge private communications to a
> third party.  What the politicians got busted for was already illegal, there
> wasn't any need for a new law.

Oh. I miss being able to listen to cell phone calls.

> The ECPA does a lot of really silly things, like define a subcarrier as a
> form of encryption... which means that listening to FM in stereo is
> technically illegal.  It was a law written without benefit of technical
> expertese.

Figures. I knew you were supposed to ask permission before pulling SCA 
feeds out of FM broadcasts, but didn't know there was a full up law 
against it. Wonder who wanted it. Do people still use FM SCA? I think my 
car stereo can use it to get a Microsoft mobile data feed, but it's slated 
to die soon.

> Whoops, you're right... I know that got moved, but now it has been closed so
> if you DID actually have an engineer come to investigate an interference
> issue, he'd be coming down from Landover Maryland.  The chances of that
> happening are... slim....

Wow. I got a visit once for operating an unlicensed FM broadcast station 
and the guy was local. Someone on a newsgroup told me who would come if 
someone ever did come, and said they operate out of Chesapeake.

In modern times, it's easy for them to run a sensor network all across the 
USA looking for problems. Not that they do (that I know of).

There are a number of operations that are listening to the radio stations 
and fingerprinting the advertisements and songs playing on the stations, 
though. Independent advertisement verification.

> Yup.  But I can also go to Wal-Mart and see plenty of consumer products that
> don't even come close to meeting Part 15 specs.  Just pick up any touch lamp
> and see.  Admittedly there are a lot more products being sold today than
> ever before, but if laws are not enforced they do no good.
> --scott

But modern electronics handle interference better? I can't think of the 
last time I had intereference issues.