Net Neutrality Going down in Flames

And there it is again, what in the sam hell does any of this have to do with net neutrality?

The whole problem with turning the net into a utility, its a utility!... with no market, no competition you get... the Lada internet.
 
Its the Ttile II regulation i have a problem with. Its reach is way to big.

But it's the only legal tool to implement net neutrality. It's not like we'd ever see specific legislation on this. Sorry, but arguing against net neutrality is the definition of crony capitalism.
 
Its the Ttile II regulation i have a problem with. Its reach is way to big.

Well I'll admit to only reading about 50 pages of the 1934 Communication act, but to my understanding it just makes ISP's a utility and thus unable to charge fees to providers. This is a good thing, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence in this and other threads, as well as real data on google.
 
Pai already collected his payment for this...

Remember, we have the best government that money can buy.
 
The FCC has been getting in the way of communication invoation for years, giving them more control would just quantify the problem.
One of the biggest issues with Tittle II... traffic could be metered just like your electricity.
 
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I guess your missing my point. You have no choices with utilities, and i like having choices.

How's that working out for you in ISP world? I have TWO choices where I live now. Cox or FiOS. My In-laws up in Bethany Beach, DE? One choice. Mediacom. And that little monopoly up there? Gouges like no other. So honestly your point is invalid. There are already natural monopolies out there that can't be corrected. They're just like Microsoft's natural monopoly. You can't break those without stupid amounts of money.
 
The FCC has been getting in the way of communication invoation for years, giving them more control would just quantify the problem.
One of the biggest issues with Tittle II... traffic could be metered just like your electricity.

Your traffic is already metered by the internet companies. In two senses actually. Your total use has capped depending on the tier you purchased. And cocksuckers like Verizon has been capping anyone who provides a competing service on their bandwidths. What the fuck do you think data caps are?
 
Sigh, the lengths people will go through to save face and avoid admitting to being wrong. Burn my house down as long as it makes them choke. Compromise and rational discourse is dead.
 
Net Neutrality is a necessity.

Really, if that asshole Pai wanted to do good by the consumer he'd make changes to existing law, not scrape it completely. His reasoning for wanting to repeal it is asinine, as well as obviously as a gesture so he can continue sucking that sweet, sweet corporate cock. Don't give me this "I want choices" bullshit. Repealing Obamacare also gives a lot of people "choices" - pay up or die. The government does a lot of stupid bullshit that should be called upon, but not for things that are for the express benefit of people. But, y'know, that's just another topic altogether so I'll just leave it at Pai is an asshole and has no business whatsoever being in any position of power. That people there are *any* people in favor of NN repeal on a tech site is mind boggling.
 
Wanting to charge a company extra for using more data which is already paid for is what they want.


Netflix eBay Amazon Google already paid their ISP for data and Comcast att or whoever paid their ISP for theirs.

Intentionally slowing down data because you want protection money is extortion.

AT&T is my ISP. They own DirecTV. My internet is so slow I can't stream DirecTV On Demand titles. Now AT&T can throttle any DirecTV competitors so I can't stream those, either.

Getting rid of net neutrality sounds like a well thought out and reasonable course of action. /s
 
This place is far from a SJW hangout and net neutrality is overwhelming popular here. Who in their right mind would want to give ISPs more power to do whatever they want?
[H] Forum never ceases to amaze me with how conservative and Luddite the frequent commentors are. Just expect the worst here and be pleasantly surprised on occasion.
 
I guess your missing my point. You have no choices with utilities, and i like having choices.

Hmm, how many internet choices do you have now? I know for me it is Comcast or AT&T, and those were entrenched long before Net Neutrality was even thought of.

On the other hand, I have dozens of different choices for my electricity depending on if I want partly/mostly renewable, no renewable, high usage, low usage, cheap as dirt, more reliable support, etc. http://www.powertochoose.org/ - 326 different options for my area code.. if anything there are too many options :p

In today's society, Internet access has become almost as important as electricity and should be handled the same (or at least how it is handled here in TX). Sure, one company owns the physical lines, but then multiple other companies can compete to provide the service.
 
Unless there is some uprising from folks on the right, this is a done deal. Everyone knew under this administration net neutrality was going to get killed.


I'm not convinced. I think the FCCs lordship of the net is being killed and it's place rightfully transferred back to the FTC where I believe it belongs.

But it is time to get the FTC back into the business of regulating this business.
 
[H] Forum never ceases to amaze me with how conservative and Luddite the frequent commentors are. Just expect the worst here and be pleasantly surprised on occasion.

Well, keep hanging titles on people and expecting them to conform to your vision of who they are, and you will continue to have pleasant days ahead of you.
 
Based on what I recall of A&TTs previously attempts at data throttling and that they had a large portion of the internet backbone and leased bandwidth to the smaller regional carriers I would be really hestitant to think they will/would act in a fairer manner should the Net Neutrality framework be removed or rewritten. Look at the current b.s. with their "you're locked in to this rate for two years" scam that they've run forever and it may only last weeks or months because the beginning of the "special" was first offered two years ago and they now have a new "you're locked to this rate for two years" special rate that you're not eligible for because you're not a new customer. :D
 
What exactly should be done then? What is the third option?

Thank you , I appreciate that you are willing to at least entertain my opinion rather then write me off me as an alt-right redneck who knows nothing about computers like most others in this thread would.

Net Neutrality never happened to begin with. So the out right fear mongering of "Net neutrality is dead" is appealing to emotions because it was never born in the first place. Even the "reversal" that the current administration did a couple months ago had NO EFFECT because the laws it overturned never took effect. The Internet we have today is the same internet it has always been.

And this is important to consider, because it means that WHATEVER dystopian future many of you are subscribing to has ALWAYS had the ability to happen. The free market is exactly what has kept it from happening this whole time. People like me, are saying why do we need the FCC to take over the Internet when the free market has been able to protect us from everything you fear so far?

For those under the age of 30...maybe even under 35, we had sandbox Internet already. We had metered Internet that charged by the megabyte. They were called AOL, CompuServe & Prodigy. Remember AOL "keywords"? And then, around the mid to late 90's people decided they didn't want this and there was an ENTIRE section in the phonebook of local mom&pop ran ISP's. These companies offered "just" the Internet and an email account. The success of these companies was the direct result of the free market causing access to the Internet and Internet content to shift. Eventually the big ISP's realized what was happening and they gave consumers the service they wanted and the mom & pop places all folded up. But the long term result is the AOL and CompuServe model went away and now ISP's offer "just" Internet and email. Of course it wasn't their choice, but if they wanted to remain relevant they had to change. The same profit you are all so afraid of making the world horrible is the same profit that keeps things in check.


Now going back to the "equal bits" thing, the non-Net neutrality enchanced Internet has worked this stuff out on it's own already. For example. How would Net Neutrality deal with the Netflix appliance that operates at the local ISP level? This is a dedicated server that Netflix pays extra for to provide a better user experience on a specific ISP specifically to customers of that ISP. How is this fair to other smaller companies who want to stream videos to those same customers but can't afford the premium hardware costs? We still do not know how peering would work under Net Neutrality. These are all things the network was able to work out on it's own.

When have bits ever been "equal" on a network? Every router prioritizes bits and paths based on a number of factors. Take this example. 50 customers are streaming Netflix 4K and using a large part of available bandwidth in a localized area. On that same network are 200 people surfing websites like Facebook and Reddit. Their connection is being throttled, but because it's not video, it's not as apparent to them. But if the ISP throttled just 4 of those Netflix users, those 200 other customers would have a perfect user experience. How does Net Neutrality address this? Your argument might be that the ISP needs to build up their network then. That costs money. Who bears that cost? Netflix would clearly be the majority user of the bandwidth. As it is right now, the ISP can go after Netflix directly and charge them more. Net Neutrality would prohibit this. Thus the cost will be incurred on the ISP's customers.....people who may not even use Netflix. Netflix does not want to incur this cost because it might jeopardize the price point they have which makes them very competitive. Look how much people complained when they raised their rate just $2 a month.

You are asking me to give up the most free flowing self-governing medium of thought and opinion ever seen and give it over to a federal organization that regulates the thought and opinion of everything it has control over (the FCC). For what? I'll take my chances with a free market that has had a pretty good track record of adjusting over a regulatory commission that fined CBS $500,000 for showing a nipple for a split second on accident.
 
I think the best solution is to say "hey, net neutrality stays but if you're someone like google you can't censor out certain websites just because you don't like it". That would be my compromise if I were running the government.
 
Well yeah, it is a utility. Its vital to many,many people these days.


that doesn't make it a utility. It's a service, it's not a resource. It's not electricity, water, coal, etc ..... it's a service.

The "feel good" part of saying "Oh we all need this access to the internet it's so vital to our lives" is all well and good on the feels side of things, but it ignores the reality that it is in fact not a utility, but a service and wishing it otherwise because you believe it will make it cheap and unexploited is wishful thinking at best.

There never was any reason that the business of the internet, could not have been regulated in a fair manner, that is good for subscribers as well as business. The FTC has all the authority needed to see this happen in the same manner that it regulates other businesses and services. But for the FCC to just make a ruling and call an entire business sector a utility and then try to regulate it as such was bullshit. I understand that a lot of people want everything now and they saw this as a step in the right direction that needed to happen, but this was a short sighted move and it was destined to cause real problems even if it there were good intentions behind it.

As Westrock2000 so adequately stated, the FCC's net neutrality actions never had a chance to take effect. Nothing actually changed. Now things have been reset and it is now time to put the irons in the fire and get the FTC to take appropriate action in the right directions. Just understand that they need to move slowly and carefully, not like elephants in the living room.

The FCC needs to look hard at this service industry, break things down into areas, and start tweaking things until it all starts coming in line. This is a business sector and as such it will react to changes that impact it. Tweak, observe, tweak again.....if something gets way out of line then tweak it back into line.

People do need internet service and services. Prices need to be reasonable for everyone. Businesses need to be able to compete and monopolies should be carefully monitored and if unfair, dealt with. All of this has to happen while we continue to foster growth, innovation, and business, which is also jobs. A heavy hand isn't the answer to this. At the same time, we need a little of the HIPPA type controls on personal information.

While I am dead set against the Federal Government regulating intrastate commerce I am all for their regulation of intrastate commerce and the internet has become the very definition of that as well as international commerce. How could anything think that calling it all a utility and handing it to the FCC was a good idea, unless of course they wanted the FTC to do something their own way and were turned down, and this was just another attempt to get what they wanted.
 
So rich and powerful corporations control the internet or centralized government bureaucrats? One of those 2 has actually paid $billions to create the internet.


I will ask you in favor of net neutrality to play this idea through to the end. How will this be monitored or enforced? Who decides what is fair or equal? Unelected government bureaucrats will decide what websites will get what sort of access. Look at how Obama weaponized the IRS and FBI against his political opponents. Imagine what he would have done with the ability to monitor and control web traffic.

Comcast and Verizon would have no incentive to expand and make their Network better. It is controlled and capped so what is the poin

You assume it means everyone will get access to fast internet, but what will happen is equal access to shitty internet. Netflix needs more bandwidth. Gmail doesn't. I love Binge-On but this would make it illegal. I want 1st class, business class and coach on a plane. This would mean coach for all.

More free market competition and less regulations is always the solution.

By the way, has anyone ever asked why we need net neutrality in the first place? There never has been an issue so why change it?

Now dealing with the crony capitalism between these companies and the city and counties that allow monopolies is something that needs looked at.
 
Pretty much either way we lose. As soon as i see political terminology being used i just find cat videos on youtube.

Hopefully ISP's won't charge me a youtube fee in the near future.
 
So rich and powerful corporations control the internet or centralized government bureaucrats? One of those 2 has actually paid $billions to create the internet.


I will ask you in favor of net neutrality to play this idea through to the end. How will this be monitored or enforced? Who decides what is fair or equal? Unelected government bureaucrats will decide what websites will get what sort of access. Look at how Obama weaponized the IRS and FBI against his political opponents. Imagine what he would have done with the ability to monitor and control web traffic.

Comcast and Verizon would have no incentive to expand and make their Network better. It is controlled and capped so what is the poin

You assume it means everyone will get access to fast internet, but what will happen is equal access to shitty internet. Netflix needs more bandwidth. Gmail doesn't. I love Binge-On but this would make it illegal. I want 1st class, business class and coach on a plane. This would mean coach for all.

More free market competition and less regulations is always the solution.

By the way, has anyone ever asked why we need net neutrality in the first place? There never has been an issue so why change it?

Now dealing with the crony capitalism between these companies and the city and counties that allow monopolies is something that needs looked at.

I'm sorry tbonepat11, I don't know who's post you are referring to so I don't know if your comments are in reference to my statements or someone else' or to the article in general.

For instance, when you say "You assume it means everyone will get access to fast internet,......." I don't know who you are referring to?

But I can say that I do agree with much of what you are saying, or I think I do.
 
And the first one is just BS. That's exactly THE OPPOSITE of what net neutrality is. And if that wasn't staged I've got a bridge to sell you.

How so?

How are we to believe that "Net Neutrality" actually means what it says when you look at what the FCC says to support it? The actual regulation? I recommend doing a search for "Free Press" in there. It's referenced over 45 times in this 400 some page document (which was released for everybody to see two weeks after it was passed). The same "Free Press" referenced in the regulation many times is Co-Founded by a fellow (Robert McChesney) that has been rather open about what "Net Neutrality" means. Now go to the Free Press website and do a search for "Popular Resistance" - they're advertising a "Popular Resistance" flyering at the FCC with them (which is also connected to the group mentioned in the first article). In light of the main folks who are pushing for it (it also doesn't hurt to look at who's funding the "Free Press" too for that matter) and what they are saying about this... Is censoring content that far of a stretch? (and that looks to be just part of the goals here).

So that's correct - this is the opposite and has absolutely nothing to do with a free and open internet.

But regardless - completely ignoring everything on this... What was wrong with the entire internet in the USA prior to 2015?
 
So rich and powerful corporations control the internet or centralized government bureaucrats? One of those 2 has actually paid $billions to create the internet.


I will ask you in favor of net neutrality to play this idea through to the end. How will this be monitored or enforced? Who decides what is fair or equal? Unelected government bureaucrats will decide what websites will get what sort of access. Look at how Obama weaponized the IRS and FBI against his political opponents. Imagine what he would have done with the ability to monitor and control web traffic.

Comcast and Verizon would have no incentive to expand and make their Network better. It is controlled and capped so what is the poin

You assume it means everyone will get access to fast internet, but what will happen is equal access to shitty internet. Netflix needs more bandwidth. Gmail doesn't. I love Binge-On but this would make it illegal. I want 1st class, business class and coach on a plane. This would mean coach for all.

More free market competition and less regulations is always the solution.

By the way, has anyone ever asked why we need net neutrality in the first place? There never has been an issue so why change it?

Now dealing with the crony capitalism between these companies and the city and counties that allow monopolies is something that needs looked at.

Verizon has already stopped expanding FiOS once and isn't exactly growing quickly now. Google Fiber is expanding slower than a snails pace. For my in-laws in Bethany only a company like Verizon or Google could possibly expand there. However, the cost and barriers to entry (permits, city by-laws, lobbying by Mediacom the current monopolist) make even them think twice. Without Net Neutrality there is absolutely NOTHING from stopping Mediacom from saying...OK if you want Netflix in HD you pay $10 more a month and since there is no other provider everybody would be screwed and have to pony up.

The only reason we haven't seen anything like this yet is because they knew the laws were coming. Why would they do it before the laws actually go into effect? That would only give people ammunition to prevent the laws from being reversed.
 
The only reason we haven't seen anything like this yet is because they knew the laws were coming. Why would they do it before the laws actually go into effect? That would only give people ammunition to prevent the laws from being reversed.

Wait up, all they have to do is draft up a cost hike and rake in the cash, but you think they won't do it because there is a law coming that would stop it and if they do it, then the law would never get reversed? So now the law is dead so we should all expect our services to go through the roof? Is that it?

Let me disavow you of a notion. Business doesn't play the "long view". Business takes what they can when they can. A CEO that sees an opportunity jumps on it because he just raised revenues, he's the hot fucking dog, and someone else will hire him and pay him more and if that old sweet stuff he did turns bad later, who cares, it's not on him, he wasn't in charge anymore. He made people money and that is always his number one job.

I just thought I should point that out.

That, and as was said earlier, the Net neutrality rules never went into effect so we don't actually know how they were going to effect change and who was going to get screwed or how. History is the only thing that teaches such things, crystal balls don't compare.
 
Here is something else to consider. Currently you are able to file complaints about any service the FCC has dominion over. If you don't like that Stephen Colbert called President Trump a cock sucker on live over the air television (meaning anyone with a TV had access to it), you can file a complaint. Now many of you may have found the comment appropriate, but had their been a big backlash, the FCC could have fined CBS or even pulled their license to broadcast. There was no backlash, so Colbert walked away a clean and proud man. But think about how close that was. His ability to say something publically was based on the acceptability of the general public.

That's not how the Internet works. If you don't like something, you can either ignore that website or go after the advertisers or server provider. But you do not get to fine or shutdown a website because you disagree with what they say (currently). But if I can make a complaint to the FCC because of something I saw on TV, what happens when my 10 year old child kills themselves because of something they saw on the Internet and FCC has dominion over the Internet? The "what if" part of my question is hypothetical, but the fact that FCC can directly hold content providers accountable is not hypothetical.

I understand that Internet speed is a big deal to most of you......but please.....please....do not make that the most important thing about the Internet. The Internet is literally up their with the printed press, electricity, flight and nuclear power. Don't give it away for trivial promises.
 
Well I hope this doesn't rape us. I only have Spectrum where I live unless I want to go satellite or DSL. Plz don't be douchebags.
 
I understand that Internet speed is a big deal to most of you......but please.....please....do not make that the most important thing about the Internet. The Internet is literally up their with the printed press, electricity, flight and nuclear power. Don't give it away for trivial promises.

So don't worry about net neutrality because the FCC will ban Drudge? I just don't see that as a compelling argument considering that ISPs are as likeable to the public as the clap. If people don't like using Title II to enforce net neutrality ok, then let's write specific net neutrality legislation. But that's never going to happen.

In any case a pretty sad day because the government that created the internet is basically turning it all over to private concerns that will have fewer legal issues problem doing whatever they want.
 
I'm not convinced. I think the FCCs lordship of the net is being killed and it's place rightfully transferred back to the FTC where I believe it belongs.

But it is time to get the FTC back into the business of regulating this business.

Eh? FTC doesn't even want it. Besides the fact that regulating the Internet is precisely the type of thing that the FCC was setup to do. Its even in the name: Federal COMMUNICATIONS Commission. They've been regulating communication mediums for almost a century and have both the expertise and knowledge to do it. FTC basically has no expertise, knowledge, nor authority in the communication markets.

And what's with this "back" thing? The Internet has been the domain of the FCC since almost its creation. There has only been one brief period where FTC had any say at all and resulted in the total collapse of most internet competition.
 
Net Neutrality never happened to begin with. So the out right fear mongering of "Net neutrality is dead" is appealing to emotions because it was never born in the first place. Even the "reversal" that the current administration did a couple months ago had NO EFFECT because the laws it overturned never took effect. The Internet we have today is the same internet it has always been.

This is actual factual BS, fyi. The net neutrality provisions are already in effect. Some additional provisions were KO'd which were consumer visibility provisions and additional consumer protections.

For those under the age of 30...maybe even under 35, we had sandbox Internet already. We had metered Internet that charged by the megabyte. They were called AOL, CompuServe & Prodigy. Remember AOL "keywords"? And then, around the mid to late 90's people decided they didn't want this and there was an ENTIRE section in the phonebook of local mom&pop ran ISP's. These companies offered "just" the Internet and an email account. The success of these companies was the direct result of the free market causing access to the Internet and Internet content to shift. Eventually the big ISP's realized what was happening and they gave consumers the service they wanted and the mom & pop places all folded up. But the long term result is the AOL and CompuServe model went away and now ISP's offer "just" Internet and email. Of course it wasn't their choice, but if they wanted to remain relevant they had to change. The same profit you are all so afraid of making the world horrible is the same profit that keeps things in check.

Those mom and pops existed both before and after AOL, CompuServe, and Prodigy, fyi. And no, the big ISP's didn't realize what the consumers wanted, they got a pro-monopoly FCC to change the rules on line sharing to kill the mom and pop competition. Frankly, you knowledge of the history in this area is completely lacking.


Now going back to the "equal bits" thing, the non-Net neutrality enchanced Internet has worked this stuff out on it's own already. For example. How would Net Neutrality deal with the Netflix appliance that operates at the local ISP level? This is a dedicated server that Netflix pays extra for to provide a better user experience on a specific ISP specifically to customers of that ISP. How is this fair to other smaller companies who want to stream videos to those same customers but can't afford the premium hardware costs? We still do not know how peering would work under Net Neutrality. These are all things the network was able to work out on it's own.

You realize that Netflix and others offer caching devices free of charge right? Literally FREE OF CHARGE, they even monitor them and replace them FREE OF CHARGE. After all, the caching devices save Netflix and others money, provide better service, use less bandwidth and are super cheap to make. This information isn't even hard to come by, just google "netflix caching server". And if you think peering is worked out.....


You are asking me to give up the most free flowing self-governing medium of thought and opinion ever seen and give it over to a federal organization that regulates the thought and opinion of everything it has control over (the FCC). For what? I'll take my chances with a free market that has had a pretty good track record of adjusting over a regulatory commission that fined CBS $500,000 for showing a nipple for a split second on accident.

A free market DOES NOT EXIST with the internet. There is no free market for ISPs. If the federal government removed all restrictions on communication mediums, a free market would still not exist. Only varying levels of monopoly and duopoly markets exist for ISPs.

As far as the FCC fining CBS, that is an entirely separate part of the laws controlling the FCC and mandated by congress. If you have a problem with those laws, work to get them changed, but they have absolutely nothing to do with Net Neutrality.
 
So rich and powerful corporations control the internet or centralized government bureaucrats? One of those 2 has actually paid $billions to create the internet.

Eh? The US Government has literally paid 10s to 100s of billions to create the internet.

Comcast and Verizon would have no incentive to expand and make their Network better. It is controlled and capped so what is the poin

Comcast and Verizon already have basically no incentive to expand and make their networks better. They basically are monopolies in every market they are in.
 
Here is something else to consider. Currently you are able to file complaints about any service the FCC has dominion over. If you don't like that Stephen Colbert called President Trump a cock sucker on live over the air television (meaning anyone with a TV had access to it), you can file a complaint. Now many of you may have found the comment appropriate, but had their been a big backlash, the FCC could have fined CBS or even pulled their license to broadcast. There was no backlash, so Colbert walked away a clean and proud man. But think about how close that was. His ability to say something publically was based on the acceptability of the general public.

That's not how the Internet works. If you don't like something, you can either ignore that website or go after the advertisers or server provider. But you do not get to fine or shutdown a website because you disagree with what they say (currently). But if I can make a complaint to the FCC because of something I saw on TV, what happens when my 10 year old child kills themselves because of something they saw on the Internet and FCC has dominion over the Internet? The "what if" part of my question is hypothetical, but the fact that FCC can directly hold content providers accountable is not hypothetical.

I understand that Internet speed is a big deal to most of you......but please.....please....do not make that the most important thing about the Internet. The Internet is literally up their with the printed press, electricity, flight and nuclear power. Don't give it away for trivial promises.

And without Net Neutrality, I can buy Comcast and remove access to Drudge Report, Breitbart, censor anything I want. Think that can't happen? It has already happened in the TV market where one vendor is trying to get control over 70%+ of the local broadcasters(already controls over 30%) and has already censored programming.

If you are worried about censorship then I'd rather have the government in charge where I can actually have some say rather than private corporations where I can't do jack.
 
Fuck you and fuck your cure for cancer. My [dearLeader] says you also rape babies
 
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