Petition for the Resignation of FCC Chairman Ajit Varadaraj Pai

Like they've been doing all these decades before NN was put in as the Obama administration was on it's way out the door?

actually.

"Without government oversight, phone companies could have prevented dial-up Internet service providers from even connecting to customers," technology reporter Rob Pegoraro wrote in The Washington Post last week in an article titled, "The Trump administration gets the history of Internet regulations all wrong." "In the 1990s, in fact, FCC regulations more intrusive than the Obama administration’s net neutrality rules led to far more competition among early broadband providers than we have today. But Pai’s nostalgia for the ’90s doesn’t extend to reviving rules that mandated competition—instead, he’s moving to scrap regulations the FCC put in place to protect customers from the telecom conglomerates that now dominate the market."

In 1996 and for years afterward, copper telephone wires that were regulated under Title II of the Communications Act provided the primary infrastructure for Americans to access the Internet. Dial-up Internet was initially the king, and Americans could choose from many dial-up providers that offered service over those phone lines. DSL greatly improved upon dial-up, but Americans still could choose from many providers because of a decision made by Clinton's FCC.

In November 1999, the FCC "unanimously voted to adopt new rules that will force local telephone companies to share their lines with high-speed Internet access providers," The Washington Post reported at the time.

"Line-sharing provides more choice and flexibility for the consumer, ultimately, and of course more competition in the marketplace," then-FCC Chairman William Kennard said the day of the vote. "It's another important milestone."

Because of line sharing, many companies could offer DSL Internet service over the phone lines controlled by the incumbent telephone companies. This resulted in "a choice of broadband providers that today’s users might find bizarre," Pegoraro noted. "A consumer guide that ran in The Washington Post's Sunday Business section in 2003 featured 18 DSL services available here."

its funny how fast people forget the 90's

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...ports-utility-rules-and-open-access-networks/

the fuckery lasted 7-11 years not decades.
 
Singularity does have a point. "A threat to our freedoms" is alarmist in nature and non specific. It is hard to prove at face value.

Unfortunately it represents a very poorly worded petition which can no be taken seriously. Even if it were taken seriously by the White House, how do you know the next chairman wouldn't be as big a troll?

A much better petition would have been,

I'm trying to think back to how long ago it was, that a ruling on net neutrality would have had any impact at all.

I know I bought my home after I retired in March of 2000 and I still only had dial up. And I think all the net neutrality protections in the world wouldn't have meant shit at that time. I'd say it was maybe in 2003 that cable internet was available. But there wasn't any streaming content or internet services like that back then. In fact "In 2007, Netflix expanded its business with the introduction of streaming media, ........."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix

Streaming didn't really get going until Netflix started streaming in 2007.

Cell Phones weren't really capable of watching streaming content until when? Wasn't it 3G that made streaming content possible, (not HD streaming but you could stream lesser quality video with 3G if I remember right).
The first commercial United States 3G network was by Monet Mobile Networks, on CDMA2000 1x EV-DO technology, but this network provider later shut down operations. The second 3G network operator in the USA was Verizon Wireless in July 2002
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3G

So what I am driving at is a 25 year claim is just a bit on the outside of realistic in my book because the best net neutrality rules possible wouldn't have even been noticed until somewhere around 2002 and frankly, I think it wouldn't have had a real impact until latter on because when there isn't any competition .......................
Cox Communications began offering "On Demand" in 2007. So if Net neutrality was going to have an impact for me, and if Cox was going to throttle it's competition, the earliest it could have started was 2007.

So others' millage may vary for the exact year, but I'm calling it 2007 so you get 11 years for most of Arizona, not 25 years.
 
You realize Ajit is an Obama appointment. The entire board who makes this decisions are Obama appointments, Ajit just mouth pieces their collective decision, it's not a kingship, . Trump having a (R) next to his named picked one of the (R)'s to be chairmen. The FCC's actions would be the same no matter which of the 5 he picked.

You obviously don't understand how the FCC works. And no, they are not all Obama appointments. And technically, Ajit is a Trump appointment. For those that are blatantly uninformed, the FCC cannot have more than 3 appointments from the same party and by convention, the opposition leader of the Senate makes the recommendations/appointments for their respective party. Obama's "appointments" were the two democrats on the committee and Wheeler while McConnell's appointments were Ajit and one of the other republicans on the committee. Trump then reappointed Ajit along with another republican.

Original FCC regulation was an attempt to normalize FCC authority over the Internet. Getting NN dismantled while giving Congress a pass is a Planned case of social engineering everyone has just about fallen for. NN should have been and is a Congressional Issue but everyone is falling for the 'Evil FCC' idea like they have authority. This was planned from the beginning. Congress stealthily abdicates responsiblity and corporations get what they want. Mission Accomplished.

The Congress literally gave the FCC the mission to regulate communications. The FCC has always had authority over the internet, there is no legal question about that as it is part of case law.
 
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So others' millage may vary for the exact year, but I'm calling it 2007 so you get 11 years for most of Arizona, not 25 years.

Well you guys do things a little slower than us east coasters apparently.

DSL at the time was considered broadband and was available in 1990. I know because I saw the forerunner of teleconferencing in 1990 using DSL lines.

However the first Comcast broadband became available in the DC area around 1995 as a pilot program and expanded to surrounding rural areas in 1997. For a long time there were two connections to every house. One analog, one digital as they transitioned. So at the very least you have 20 years. In that time the only thing I've seen comcast do is sign exclusivity agreements with local governments, as well as buy up their smaller competition.

Yet the history is already ripe with abuses by ISPs.
 
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Well well, looks like Comcast's already scrapping its so called "pledge" to the consumer:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...ity-pledge-the-same-day-fcc-announced-repeal/

Comcast deleted a "no paid prioritization" pledge from its net neutrality webpage on the very same day that the Federal Communications Commission announced its initial plan to repeal net neutrality rules.

Starting in 2014, the webpage, corporate.comcast.com/openinternet/open-net-neutrality, contained this statement: "Comcast doesn't prioritize Internet traffic or create paid fast lanes."
april-26-2017-1280x840.jpg

But on April 27, the paid prioritization pledge was nowhere to be found on that page and remains absent now.
No surprises there, time to milk the consumers and hobble the online media competition, especially in places with less choices like the rust belt.
Conditions on the NBCUniversal merger that place some limits on Comcast's ability to implement paid prioritization will expire in September 2018. If the FCC vote next month happens as expected, then Comcast will have free rein to charge websites and online application providers for priority access later next year.
 
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Signed, though short of 2020, ajit pai would have to make trump look very, very bad, to get Him to resign or be fired, until then, ol thinskin's puppet won't do a thing like resigning, so why sign?

To apply pressure, and to help embarrass trump...
 
If you want change for NN concepts. you need to lobby your congressmen and senators to pass real legislation. Not executive branch agency regulation. That way a bill would have to be overturned which is harder to do.
 
If you want change for NN concepts. you need to lobby your congressmen and senators to pass real legislation. Not executive branch agency regulation. That way a bill would have to be overturned which is harder to do.
Taking over the House(24 needed), and possibly the Senate in 2018 would help(3 needed), but if a new law were passed that trump does not like or want, He could Veto it, and in the Senate or the House one needs a 2/3rd vote to override a veto, in the Senate that would fail, as would removing the puss bag in the Executive Mansion, since a Senate trial would need 67 Senators min to convict and remove. Impeachment w/a Democratic House Majority would be easy, it's the Senate that would be hard, if not impossible.
 
Has the White House responded to any of these petitions that have over 100,000 signatures since Trump became President? I'm kind of assuming whomever responded to them is long gone and hasn't been replaced.

The blog where there would have been updates only shows the Obama archives. I think the WH petitions are dead. There are a lot of other 100k signature petitions there that are older that haven't been and will never be addressed.
 
I have done my research.

Now let me ask you a question: if the 25 years before net neutrality, what competition have you seen?

ISP lobbyist claim the want to repeal net neutrality to encourage competition. Imagine that a company wanting competition. How very Nobel of them.

Wasn't it the major isp's suing local municipalities to prevent them from providing broadband service? Local governments are protected under net neutrality.

Signed Mr Brainless without a clue.

ISPs used to be a dime a dozen back in the modem era with tons of competition between them. That's only back in the 90s. In the modem era there was almost no barriers for entry.

I still don't think the barriers to entry are all that large. You probably can't reuse other company's infrastructure, but it's possible for some municipalities to start their own ISPs and local governments aren't known for their smarts or efficiency, but they're still able to do it when their needs aren't being met. If they can do it, then it shouldn't be that hard if you have a reason and a lot of initial capital to get started.

Back to the topic at hand and my own opinion on the matter: NN tries to solve a problem without getting to the root of the issue. The problem is the lack of competition. There are multiple reasons for this. Instead of trying to foster competition (like allowing utility poles or existing communication trunks to be shared and or eliminating exclusive contracts as well as punishing collusion for not competing), it tries to regulate ISPs like utilities without the standard non-profit motives like energy companies usually have as well as imposing a very big monitoring program on top of them (to make sure they're not throttling (lel), but more likely to make it easier to monitor all packets).

My stance is that ISPs should only be in the business of trying to sell internet access and nothing else. You wouldn't want to see your energy company getting into the car market and giving rebates only on teslas, would you? Then why would you want to see ISPs getting into the movie business and promoting their own services instead of netflix? Because that's exactly what's been going on.
 
Well you guys do things a little slower than us east coasters apparently.

DSL at the time was considered broadband and was available in 1990. I know because I saw the forerunner of teleconferencing in 1990 using DSL lines.

However the first Comcast broadband became available in the DC area around 1995 as a pilot program and expanded to surrounding rural areas in 1997. For a long time there were two connections to every house. One analog, one digital as they transitioned. So at the very least you have 20 years. In that time the only thing I've seen comcast do is sign exclusivity agreements with local governments, as well as buy up their smaller competition.

Yet the history is already ripe with abuses by ISPs.


Wait up now,. I have no problem with a different timeline on the broadband "pipe" and it's availability. But you are ignoring the content part of the equation. What good is a fast lane if there isn't any content being "discriminated against"?

What was an ISP going to "throttle" in 1990? A Quake server? And in favor of what?
 
Taking over the House(24 needed), and possibly the Senate in 2018 would help(3 needed), but if a new law were passed that trump does not like or want, He could Veto it, and in the Senate or the House one needs a 2/3rd vote to override a veto, in the Senate that would fail, as would removing the puss bag in the Executive Mansion, since a Senate trial would need 67 Senators min to convict and remove. Impeachment w/a Democratic House Majority would be easy, it's the Senate that would be hard, if not impossible.


What is going to help is is this congress passing a new Net Neutrality law that specifies what falls under the FCC's control and what falls under the FTC to control, and specifies some basic principles for guidance that both must follow. Furthermore they need to avoid wording that the courts have already thrown down so that alone provides a left and right boundary for Congress to follow.
 
It requires a 100,000 signatures to do what?

Before it will be passed to someone for their consideration?

I mean, I'm thinking that it doesn't just take 100,000 signatures in a nation of 325 Million to fire an appointed Agency Chief. so .........what.

I think after reaching 100,000 signatures it is supposed to get a response / statement from the White House.
 
I think after reaching 100,000 signatures it is supposed to get a response / statement from the White House.
Previous petitions typically got BS responses. One can only assume with Trump in office that the responses will be even shorter.
Fire the FCC guy!
No.
 
Wait up now,. I have no problem with a different timeline on the broadband "pipe" and it's availability. But you are ignoring the content part of the equation. What good is a fast lane if there isn't any content being "discriminated against"?

What was an ISP going to "throttle" in 1990? A Quake server? And in favor of what?

Discrimination didn't occur till later. Most of it is related to throttling services that affect their bottom line.

But their anti competitive behavior has been consistent since the 90's: Buy up the smaller competing ISP's. Sign exclusivity agreements with local governments, suing governments that tried to install their own service infrastructure.

They are basically a monopoly.
 
Discrimination didn't occur till later. Most of it is related to throttling services that affect their bottom line.

But their anti competitive behavior has been consistent since the 90's: Buy up the smaller competing ISP's. Sign exclusivity agreements with local governments, suing governments that tried to install their own service infrastructure.

They are basically a monopoly.
But every business works that way. When you can't compete, you just buy out the competition and burn it into the ground. It's worked for construction companies, to airlines, to banks, to just about everything. Applying that to ISPs doesn't make them any different.
Signing exclusive contracts with local governments should be illegal. They should fine those companies and jail the local politicians which signed off on it. Local governments should be allowed to counter sue ISPs in those lawsuits if the entire point was to try and delay or eliminate competition through a lawsuit.
 
What good is a fast lane if there isn't any content being "discriminated against"? What was an ISP going to "throttle" in 1990? A Quake server? And in favor of what?

youre missing the point. in the 90s regulations initially allowed tons of different smaller ISPs to share infrastructure which kept prices fair with tons of competition for internet service. when broadband developed beyond DSL/T1, the ISPs that laid down the cable owned the infrastructure & did not share, & the regulations didnt keep up with the new technology...which has now, many years later, lead to regional monopolies & evolved into ISPs doing insane things like throttling traffic from competing internet-based services in order for their proprietary or sponsored service to run unfettered (thereby looking better by comparison to every end user)

its not about the bandwidth at all. its about the established empirical fact that when left to their own devices, ISPs try to screw us. title II classification is the only legal framework that even remotely covers our modern internet analogous to the internets early development & the competitive environment thereof. people who are against net neutrality want to fall back to a less encompassing & irrelevant set of regulatory laws that would only enforce the vague concept of our data & bandwidth as "information". it is not just information anymore. this isnt telnet in the 80s. we arent on a newsgroup sending emails to each other. our bandwidth is clearly integrated into everyones life as a service & needs to be regulated as such OR TWC/CHARTER, AT&T, et al are going to fuck us in the ass.

i say we need to go one step further & go back to the 90s forced infrastructure sharing as well, but lobbying ISPs will make that quite difficult wont they. i understand conservative outcry [hi side note im not a liberal] at this concept: "they paid to bury the cable! its their private property! muh free market!" my answer is quite simple: they are now by legal definition running a utility service & have neglected infrastructure, colluded to suppress competition abusing a framework of antiquated inapplicable laws, & repeatedly interfered with the service they are providing. they dont deserve compensation - they deserve direct oversight. you know why? because its the fucking FCCs literal job to make sure they arent doing exactly wat theyve been doing for over a decade now.
 
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Discrimination didn't occur till later. Most of it is related to throttling services that affect their bottom line.

But their anti competitive behavior has been consistent since the 90's: Buy up the smaller competing ISP's. Sign exclusivity agreements with local governments, suing governments that tried to install their own service infrastructure.

They are basically a monopoly.

Hmm, I live here;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Vista,_Arizona

We have a population of less than 44,000 and shrinking.

These are our choices, though as a gamer I wouldn't consider very many of them for myself.

Century Link for DSL

Cox Cable for Cable

HughsNet which is Satellite

I'm not seeing a monopoly here.

As I am sure you know, monopolies are not illegal in the US. Nor are monopolies always a bad thing. Sometimes monopolies exist because a company is simply clearly superior in it's services and prices. The trick is that they can't violate anti-trust laws or behave in an anti-competitive manor.

Now my work mate here says throttling exists now this very day and always has existed. He points to the different internet packages and tells me that they represent throttling. I'm not sold on his definition yet. But he claims that they are proof that throttling existed before net neutrality and have existed throughout net neutrality.,
 
Wasn't it the major isp's suing local municipalities to prevent them from providing broadband service? Local governments are protected under net neutrality.

I'm not so sure that the intent was that they were trying to prevent the municipalities from extablishing service as it was that the they didn't think it was right to lay out all that cable and set up the infrastructure and then be forced to allow the city to piggy back on it for peanuts. I have to spend the money to lay out the cable and switches and make it all work and continue to manage it, and now you want to not only force me to let you use it, but your going to take away my customers too?
 
youre missing the point...................its not about the bandwidth at all. its about the established empirical fact that when left to their own devices, ISPs try to screw us. title II classification is the only legal framework that even remotely covers our modern internet analogous to the internets early development & the competitive environment thereof. people who are against net neutrality want to fall back to a less encompassing & irrelevant set of regulatory laws that would only enforce the vague concept of our data & bandwidth as "information". it is not just information anymore. this isnt telnet in the 80s. we arent on a newsgroup sending emails to each other. our bandwidth is clearly integrated into everyones life as a service & needs to be regulated as such OR TWC/CHARTER, AT&T, et al are going to fuck us in the ass.

i say we need to go one step further & go back to the 90s forced infrastructure sharing as well, but lobbying ISPs will make that quite difficult wont they. i understand conservative outcry [hi side note im not a liberal] at this concept: "they paid to bury the cable! its their private property! muh free market!" my answer is quite simple: they are now by legal definition running a utility service & have neglected infrastructure, colluded to suppress competition abusing a framework of antiquated inapplicable laws, & repeatedly interfered with the service they are providing. they dont deserve compensation - they deserve direct oversight. you know why? because its the fucking FCCs literal job to make sure they arent doing exactly wat theyve been doing for over a decade now.

Ummm, no, no I think you miss the point. I think this arguement you propose is bullshit and I see no facts to back it up despite your claim of empiricalness.

I used to pay $50 a month for really crappy dial-up service. What was I actually buying? The right to use my own modem to dial in and connect to a backbone, and it cost me $50 a month. But I paid it because to me it was worth it. My little modem talking over the telephone line, which I had to have a second line for so we could still use the house phone.

Today, I spend $80 a month and I have cable service that has for the most part, been terrific and that's if I forget how bad the old days were. It costs almost nothing more when you factor in that extra line I was paying for and it's worlds better. So I don't see where I have been getting the shaft here. If someone wants to come compete with Cox Cable they are welcome. But I don't think the Feds have any right at all to force Cox to allow other ISPs to use their infrastructure while they are taking away Cox customers. If they want to compete they can damn well invest in their own infrastructure and do it better and cheaper and win some business all on their own.

Now we actually have several problems going on here all at once. Take Net Neutrality for instance. I challenge you to prove that the FCC's Title II classification action and their Internet regulatory efforts in any way actually provided what you think Net Neutrality actually is. Because it doesn't, didn't, and never would have. Moreover, the courts struck down every attempt the FCC made to make it so. What the FCC tried to do, failed to happen, empirically.

Now you might think I am against Net Neutrality, or against what you think Net Neutrality means. I assure you that those important issues like internet fast lanes, etc, that at a basic level I agree with you. As far as fair practices go, I am all for them. But I am not going to back you by going about things the wrong way. If what the FCC was trying to do was right, the courts wouldn't have shot them down three times in a row. The FCC was trying to establish regulatory oversight not granted to them by the law and that is as simple as anyone can put it.

Do you want the DoD to decide that they need to regulate the education system because they think the DoE is doing a shitty job of it? "For the defense of our nation, we must reclassify public education system and establish military control so that students graduate with the skills that allow for a successful transition to military service." I think the courts would have something to say about that don't you?

And if you think it's the FCC's job to regulate fair commerce and protect the consumer, you need to go back and retake a High School Government class. You also need to understand exactly what communications is and what the FCC's role in regulating communications is supposed to be, and it does not include what you think it does. Which is again, why the courts struck down every attempt the FCC made to regulate ISP business practices. You have been listening to the wrong people and the wrong arguments.

The FCC's Mission
The Federal Communications Commission regulates interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories. An independent U.S. government agency overseen by Congress, the Commission is the federal agency responsible for implementing and enforcing America’s communications law and regulations.

About the FTC

What We Do

The FTC is a bipartisan federal agency with a unique dual mission to protect consumers and promote competition. For one hundred years, our collegial and consensus-driven agency has championed the interests of American consumers. As we begin our second century, the FTC is dedicated to advancing consumer interests while encouraging innovation and competition in our dynamic economy.

The FTC develops policy and research tools through hearings, workshops, and conferences. We collaborate with law enforcement partners across the country and around the world to advance our crucial consumer protection and competition missions. And beyond our borders, we cooperate with international agencies and organizations to protect consumers in the global marketplace.

Protecting Consumers
The FTC protects consumers by stopping unfair, deceptive or fraudulent practices in the marketplace. We conduct investigations, sue companies and people that violate the law, develop rules to ensure a vibrant marketplace, and educate consumers and businesses about their rights and responsibilities. We collect complaints about hundreds of issues from data security and deceptive advertising to identity theft and Do Not Call violations, and make them available to law enforcement agencies worldwide for follow-up. Our experienced and motivated staff uses 21st century tools to anticipate – and respond to – changes in the marketplace.

Promoting Competition
Competition in America is about price, selection, and service. It benefits consumers by keeping prices low and the quality and choice of goods and services high. By enforcing antitrust laws, the FTC helps ensure that our markets are open and free. The FTC will challenge anticompetitive mergers and business practices that could harm consumers by resulting in higher prices, lower quality, fewer choices, or reduced rates of innovation. We monitor business practices, review potential mergers, and challenge them when appropriate to ensure that the market works according to consumer preferences, not illegal practices.

I think you should do as I have previously suggested and go to the FTC's site and look at exactly what the FTC does do and consider that once the FCC's bullshit is cleared up the FTC will again be able to do more regarding ISPs and other online Service providers.
 
yeah im not going to respond to that. i can assure you im quite well versed in a grounded & detailed legal understanding both of title II classification & how it relates to products vs services, & the FCCs jurisdiction thereof as well. im not some schmuck off the street whos been getting information from a talking head or social media. no part of my response to you was supposed to be confrontational, i was instigating a simple factual conversation based on the actual statutes. i see thats not important to you. thats fine.

Century Link for DSL, Cox Cable for Cable, HughsNet which is Satellite. I'm not seeing a monopoly here.

thats textbook monopoly. DSL over phone line is not relevant or competitive to anyone in the past 10yrs. one cable provider. one. let me be more succinct than my previous post: when we were all on DSL, title II regulations applied to our phone lines & therefore our internet connection. the infrastructure was shared & a half dozen companies in any given area used the copper phone line to every home to offer competitive services.

cable comes along & builds its own infrastructure. the law hasnt caught up to technology. their infrastructure network is classified legally as the passage of information, not as a utility-based service. they slowly realize they can abuse this, & begin doing so.

Sometimes monopolies exist because a company is simply clearly superior in it's services and prices.

sometimes regional monopolies exist because conglomerates muscle out small ISPs, buy them out, & enter in collusive agreements with larger competing ISPs to "stick to their own turf" like the fucking mafia.
 
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Hmm, I live here;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Vista,_Arizona

We have a population of less than 44,000 and shrinking.

These are our choices, though as a gamer I wouldn't consider very many of them for myself.

Century Link for DSL

Cox Cable for Cable

HughsNet which is Satellite

I'm not seeing a monopoly here.

As I am sure you know, monopolies are not illegal in the US. Nor are monopolies always a bad thing. Sometimes monopolies exist because a company is simply clearly superior in it's services and prices. The trick is that they can't violate anti-trust laws or behave in an anti-competitive manor.

Now my work mate here says throttling exists now this very day and always has existed. He points to the different internet packages and tells me that they represent throttling. I'm not sold on his definition yet. But he claims that they are proof that throttling existed before net neutrality and have existed throughout net neutrality.,

DSL no longer qualifies as broadband
Satellite has a horrible up link that disqualifies it from broadband (1 mbps minimum up)

But the VAST majority of the country only has 1 provider.
 
I'm not so sure that the intent was that they were trying to prevent the municipalities from extablishing service as it was that the they didn't think it was right to lay out all that cable and set up the infrastructure and then be forced to allow the city to piggy back on it for peanuts. I have to spend the money to lay out the cable and switches and make it all work and continue to manage it, and now you want to not only force me to let you use it, but your going to take away my customers too?

That isn't what happened at all.

https://maxfibre.net/news/comcast-treats-city-to-fiber-after-suing-it-for-installing-fiber

https://arstechnica.com/information...ed-by-city-fighting-anti-muni-broadband-laws/

(Same case)
And this is just one instance. I know of 5 municipalities that tried to lay their own line, many without broadband at all.

And here's a case where big providers intentionally stalling access to poles so competition can install their own lines

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/17/1...s-nullified-a-citys-broadband-competition-law

And you don't think that's abusive or anti competitive? And you expect these same companies to behave and foster competition? Seriously?
 
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Regardless of what good, if any a petition will do. I want some of what the people that think the providers or the FCC have our best interests in mind are smoking.
 
I don't like him.

But I have no idea why anyone would bother making a petition. Is there a theory he'll get up, see it, and say "gosh, I'm not following the will of the people!" and resign?

Another item in the "I do this so I feel good" department, I suppose.

I agree it is almost like asking for capitalists to not be capitalists. If you are serious you don't ASK them for anything , you DEMAND and organize to overthrow their system.
 
Maybe Mr. Pai is just trying to do the right thing because the FCC was overstepping it's bounds ... oh wait, the FCC is now stepping on State rights now. Wait a minute...
 
I'm not so sure that the intent was that they were trying to prevent the municipalities from extablishing service as it was that the they didn't think it was right to lay out all that cable and set up the infrastructure and then be forced to allow the city to piggy back on it for peanuts. I have to spend the money to lay out the cable and switches and make it all work and continue to manage it, and now you want to not only force me to let you use it, but your going to take away my customers too?

No, your comment is so incorrect to be a purposeful characterization. Municipalities weren't using or planing to use ISP cables, they were planning to put in a new network. The ISPs literally didn't want the competition.
 
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/arti...-of-net-neutrality-isn-t-the-end-of-the-world

'Eliminating net neutrality is, in the best and worst case scenarios, either necessary to keep the internet up and running, or will lead to a dystopian future where a few major corporations control our thoughts. The more prosaic reality, however, is that a world without net neutrality will work just fine.'
No matter where one stands on this issue, this is such a travesty of an article filled with non sequiturs that I wouldn't even know where to begin. I am honestly stunned at how bad it is.
 
Love the thought, but show me ONE of these "Sign my petition" pieces of bullshit that EVER get acted upon...
We got Dark souls ported to PC :D https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012...-to-pc-protest-use-of-games-for-windows-live/

"In an event announcing the PC port version in Las Vegas today, From Software director Hidetaka Miyazaki reportedly thanked the game's fans for pressuring Namco Bandai into the PC port through an online petition that has drawn over 90,000 signatures since early January"
 
lol, this just might be the cynical tin foil hate wearer in me, but I think this list of 100,000+ people are going to go straight to the ISP's so they know who is going to get their shit throttled after the ISP's gain total control of your data traffic stream :)
 
yeah im not going to respond to that. i can assure you im quite well versed in a grounded & detailed legal understanding both of title II classification & how it relates to products vs services, & the FCCs jurisdiction thereof as well. im not some schmuck off the street whos been getting information from a talking head or social media. no part of my response to you was supposed to be confrontational, i was instigating a simple factual conversation based on the actual statutes. i see thats not important to you. thats fine.



thats textbook monopoly. DSL over phone line is not relevant or competitive to anyone in the past 10yrs. one cable provider. one. let me be more succinct than my previous post: when we were all on DSL, title II regulations applied to our phone lines & therefore our internet connection. the infrastructure was shared & a half dozen companies in any given area used the copper phone line to every home to offer competitive services.

cable comes along & builds its own infrastructure. the law hasnt caught up to technology. their infrastructure network is classified legally as the passage of information, not as a utility-based service. they slowly realize they can abuse this, & begin doing so.



sometimes regional monopolies exist because conglomerates muscle out small ISPs, buy them out, & enter in collusive agreements with larger competing ISPs to "stick to their own turf" like the fucking mafia.


Well, I did feel your statement was confrontational with your "empirical facts". I'll try to tone it down as I respond to your statement that wasn't a response to ... my ... quoted ... comments :cautious:

I see the quality of the service I receive, and balance it against costs, and have no problem with it. I do not feel that I am being taken advantage of by Cox Communications in my area. Your belief that DSL isn't a worthwhile internet service and doesn't qualify as an alternative to cable is frankly, ridiculous. I know people who don't even use the internet for anything, not even email and they are not suffering in their lives, they just don't need it at all.

I suppose that your views are heavily influenced by your own life and that you live in a more populated part of the country. Is your life grounded in the cities and universities where the internet is an embedded part of your life? You sound like you do.

Perhaps you see it as an absolute necessity, that work can't happen without it, and that quality of life would be severely impacted if one can't stream Netflix. Is this so? Do you believe that one can't possible manage interacting with the world without a connection faster than DSL?

There are all kinds of studies and surveys that show how much of the country doesn't have access to broadband greater than DSL speeds allow. But very few that address how many people couldn't care less and don't feel deprived by the lack of access to broadband. See, for people who live in underpopulated areas of the country, the internet is just representative of what they moved out to get away from. I'm not saying that they wouldn't like to have decent cell phone coverage so that they can call home now and then or that they don't enjoy watching the game on Monday night or the race on Sunday. But they aren't the ones who are going to be taking a picture of McDonalds for Google, as they drive into town to do their banking and buy some feed and do their grocery shopping.

The kind of people I am talking about are virtually invisible to the online world. They aren't going to be hanging out at [H] or answering surveys online. They aren't going to be available to you to make their case.

Now you might also imagine that this is such a small amount of the population, that in the big picture, they don't count. But then again, you were probably completely surprised that Donald Trump is our elected President.

There is a large part of this country that is virtually invisible to people like us. But they count just like we do, and they vote just like we do.
 
DSL no longer qualifies as broadband
Satellite has a horrible up link that disqualifies it from broadband (1 mbps minimum up)

But the VAST majority of the country only has 1 provider.

I understand this fully, but if you take a look at my previous post to the guy who quoted me, but wasn't responding to me ...... you'll see how I address these same points.
 
That isn't what happened at all.

https://maxfibre.net/news/comcast-treats-city-to-fiber-after-suing-it-for-installing-fiber

https://arstechnica.com/information...ed-by-city-fighting-anti-muni-broadband-laws/

(Same case)
And this is just one instance. I know of 5 municipalities that tried to lay their own line, many without broadband at all.

And here's a case where big providers intentionally stalling access to poles so competition can install their own lines

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/17/1...s-nullified-a-citys-broadband-competition-law

And you don't think that's abusive or anti competitive? And you expect these same companies to behave and foster competition? Seriously?


I hadn't realized that you were talking about Chattanooga and events like it. I was thinking of Pennsylvania and those events that concerned the promises of Fiber speeds, etc.
 
I agree it is almost like asking for capitalists to not be capitalists. If you are serious you don't ASK them for anything , you DEMAND and organize to overthrow their system.

You are free to try, but you're going to find out that there are just as many people who have a different perspective on things.
 
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No, your comment is so incorrect to be a purposeful characterization. Municipalities weren't using or planing to use ISP cables, they were planning to put in a new network. The ISPs literally didn't want the competition.

Post #116, DigitalGriffin said the same thing, I responded to him a couple of posts up.
 
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