FCC Already Getting Thousands Of Net Neutrality Complaints

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Of course they are. Did anyone think this was going to go smoothly? ;)

Net Neutrality. The internet as a public utility. Hooray? The FCC is already receiving a lot of complaints from customers that are sick of data caps, slow speeds and possibly uncompetitive prices. According to the National Journal, a lot of the ire has been directed at a predictable list of offenders: AT&T, Comcast and Verizon -- a company that now owns AOL.
 
Meh!

American's complaining is so common as to have become meaningless, please report back with how many are valid complaints and how many are just entitled people being upset that they can't get everything they want for free.
 
Need to move to the electricity model. No one "owns" the fiber. Companies lease fiber to provide internet service.

It isn't hard and until this is solved its not going away and prices will rise.

Also, need to recognize the conflict of interest in that the ISPs own most of the content providers now.
 
Imagine if electricity was capped. And when you go over you get charged extra. So in the winter time you'll go over your cap and pay a ton more. More than before cause of the cap.

Data caps are such BS. They shouldn't exist. Glad the FCC is getting complains on that.
 
DarkStar_WNY said:
Meh!

American's complaining is so common as to have become meaningless, please report back with how many are valid complaints and how many are just entitled people being upset that they can't get everything they want for free.
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This, as somebody that works for a rural Telco/ISP I see / hear that all the time. We have customers call in all the time. I am not able to stream 3 movies while playing games on my connection. you tell them that they are on a standard package and can upgrade to a 50Mbps which will allow that. They ask if that is free, you tell them no that they have to pay more for it. And they go into a rant about how fuck us, we should be offering every customer the fastest speeds that we can for no additional charge.

XvMMvX said:
Need to move to the electricity model. No one "owns" the fiber. Companies lease fiber to provide internet service.

It isn't hard and until this is solved its not going away and prices will rise.

Also, need to recognize the conflict of interest in that the ISPs own most of the content providers now.
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Where is this at? Here the local power company (the only choice you have) owns all the poles and the lines. They can charge you whatever rates they want as long as they stay within a rule that they can only raise rates something like 5% per year.

As for nobody owning fiber. The problem is going to be the cost. Who will pay the billions to put that fiber in? That is the killer for everyone having fiber. Getting it into the ground. The rest of everything is cheap. You want to do fiber to the home in a city of 10,000 people. Will cost you probably $50,000,000 in fiber, $500,000 in electronics. The electronics won't be an issue, but pretty sure the $50 million might be a problem for many.

The leasing of fiber though won't solve everything. It would maybe help in some areas. But the problem is that nobody can afford to get into the game now because of the high cost of everything, those that have been around forever can slowly upgrade things in the background to get better speeds out to an area, then expand more... or they already have a fiber backbone so they are just replacing electronics. There is a major difference between millions over the course of 75 years and millions over the course of 75 months.
 
XvMMvX said:
Need to move to the electricity model. No one "owns" the fiber. Companies lease fiber to provide internet service.

It isn't hard and until this is solved its not going away and prices will rise.

Also, need to recognize the conflict of interest in that the ISPs own most of the content providers now.
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But why would we wanna do it the way many other more successful ISP markets in Europe do it? We exist in a different planet where these things cannot work.

Line sharing... psh, that's so DSL market 2005.
 
Well, at least it's better than the thousands of complaints they got by way of the corporations who were pissed off about net neutrality rules whether it was congressmen in their pocket, or people who listened to said congressmen who wrote in on their behalf.

Galvin said:
Imagine if electricity was capped. And when you go over you get charged extra. So in the winter time you'll go over your cap and pay a ton more. More than before cause of the cap.
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Actually where I live electricity is capped, as is natural gas, and water. If you go over a set baseline (i.e. a "cap") you get charged more, 16c per kWh (with all taxes and fees and crap added) up to a certain level, then it's 19c per kWh beyond that to a certain level, then 28c, then lastly 34c but you can use as much as you want after that with no further increases :)
 
Exavior said:
This, as somebody that works for a rural Telco/ISP I see / hear that all the time. We have customers call in all the time. I am not able to stream 3 movies while playing games on my connection. you tell them that they are on a standard package and can upgrade to a 50Mbps which will allow that. They ask if that is free, you tell them no that they have to pay more for it. And they go into a rant about how fuck us, we should be offering every customer the fastest speeds that we can for no additional charge.



Where is this at? Here the local power company (the only choice you have) owns all the poles and the lines. They can charge you whatever rates they want as long as they stay within a rule that they can only raise rates something like 5% per year.

As for nobody owning fiber. The problem is going to be the cost. Who will pay the billions to put that fiber in? That is the killer for everyone having fiber. Getting it into the ground. The rest of everything is cheap. You want to do fiber to the home in a city of 10,000 people. Will cost you probably $50,000,000 in fiber, $500,000 in electronics. The electronics won't be an issue, but pretty sure the $50 million might be a problem for many.

The leasing of fiber though won't solve everything. It would maybe help in some areas. But the problem is that nobody can afford to get into the game now because of the high cost of everything, those that have been around forever can slowly upgrade things in the background to get better speeds out to an area, then expand more... or they already have a fiber backbone so they are just replacing electronics. There is a major difference between millions over the course of 75 years and millions over the course of 75 months.
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Here's the deal. Companies had no problem laying copper, whether it was phone line or coax, back when cable was being rolled out across the country. They paid massive up front costs and have reaped enormous returns on those investments. Now, companies want to cry about the up front costs of keeping with the curve and laying fiber. Boo-fucking-hoo. They need to invest in order to keep up with the changing technologies. No one sees immediate returns on investments. There is a break even point on everything. Lead the way or move the fuck out of the way. The only reason we're seeing large speed increases is because of Google pushing mother fuckers out of the way. Otherwise Verizon, TWC and Comcast would just continue to rape people with high pricing for slow speeds.
 
toffty said:
How 'bout for-profit corps get the middle finger they deserve and everyone vote for city run fiber; no need for comcast to make 97% profit from cable subs.

$50 for 1 gig up/down fiber? Yes pls (just a month or two for my service :D )

Longmont, Co Fiber
http://longmontcolorado.gov/departm...ngmont-power-communications/broadband-service
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No... government take over is not the solution either. Paid for by your tax dollars so we can collected the monthly fee, lol. Not to mention giving the NSA even greater ability to dry hump you.

Like anything there is a middle ground that people on both sides need to realize.

The biggest problem is that they way we consume video content is rapidly changing. Until you accept the premise that internet (INTERNET not enough bandwidth to watch real world on demand) is a necessity to live a functional life and that there is a huge conflict of interest then we get no where.
 
Galvin said:
Imagine if electricity was capped. And when you go over you get charged extra. So in the winter time you'll go over your cap and pay a ton more. More than before cause of the cap.
Click to expand...

I don't have to imagine, it's called living in California.
 
XvMMvX said:
No... government take over is not the solution either.
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This is not government takeover. It was a decision by the people of the city in a vote. (Took 2 votes as Comcast spent huge amounts of money many millions fighting it with ads/commercials the first time around (F you Comcast, no one wants you!))

This is a progressive movement, not some "government takeover" as so many tin-foil hat wearers like to believe.

What makes this setup so much better is that this is local level. I can talk to my mayor directly if I'm not happy about my fiber connection. I call the local city support staff for help. I've called before and they're very nice and respectful; we all neighbors as it's all local. It's wonderful.

Before you go down the road of worst case doom realize that government is not always bad. Yes there is a balance between public and private ownership and that balance needs to be decided by the people, not the corporations. In this case the public spoke and the overwhelming voice is, "F you comcast." :D
 
Correction to my last post:
Comcast and qwest put 250,000 into the fight in the last longmont vote.

Though i'm sure they paid much more to get the a law passed that requires Colorado cities to vote to pass a referendum in order to have the ability to build fiber; at least there was the ability to pass the referendum bceause i know other states do not have that.

It's very exciting here in colorado because neighboring cities - Boulder, Loveland, and Fort Collins - are trying to follow suit with Longmont in providing fiber to their citizens. It's so awesome Comcast and Qwest are getting so many middle fingers in a way that matters!
 
HydroBudz said:
Here's the deal. Companies had no problem laying copper, whether it was phone line or coax, back when cable was being rolled out across the country. They paid massive up front costs and have reaped enormous returns on those investments. Now, companies want to cry about the up front costs of keeping with the curve and laying fiber. Boo-fucking-hoo. They need to invest in order to keep up with the changing technologies. No one sees immediate returns on investments. There is a break even point on everything. Lead the way or move the fuck out of the way. The only reason we're seeing large speed increases is because of Google pushing mother fuckers out of the way. Otherwise Verizon, TWC and Comcast would just continue to rape people with high pricing for slow speeds.
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Yup. Furthermore, the FCC saw this coming a mile away so way back in 1992 they instructed the telecoms to impose surcharges on their customers to pay for infrastructure. Schools and rural areas were targeted as the first to receive new fiber lines. Except it never happened. It still hasn't happened, and in many cases the telecoms are still charging customers for it. We're talking hundreds of billions of dollars here.

Remember all the rah-rah about the "Information Superhighway"? This is specifically what they were referring to.
 
Many ISPs justify their ridiculous prices by claiming to build infrastructure. People have speed problems based on poor infrastructure/refusal to spend money on expanding capacity.

Data caps on wired Internet cost almost nothing to remove. Data caps on wireless is simply a way to make massive markup on bandwidth packages.

It's embarrassing that ISPs have been able to get away with these things so long. It looks more like a system created in a corrupt 3rd world country by even more corrupt cronies than from a supposed world leader.
 
Galvin said:
Imagine if electricity was capped. And when you go over you get charged extra. So in the winter time you'll go over your cap and pay a ton more. More than before cause of the cap.

Data caps are such BS. They shouldn't exist. Glad the FCC is getting complains on that.
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I don't like data caps more than the next guy but electricity isn't generally sold at a flat rate. And I don't think most people would want data connectivity sold per unit like electricity unless the per unit cost was teeny tiny.
 
DarkStar_WNY said:
Meh!

American's complaining is so common as to have become meaningless, please report back with how many are valid complaints and how many are just entitled people being upset that they can't get everything they want for free.
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This...sooo much this! Just listening to the old geezers at my office complaining about government, the weather, their wives, and anything under the Sun to each other when they think no one is listening makes me sad that America has so many whiners in older generations. Its a good thing that isn't the case with most younger people so far. Maybe it'll change for the better in a few years when this next batch retires. Hopefully us smarter types won't take up their crybaby torch.
 
DarkStar_WNY said:
Meh!

American's complaining is so common as to have become meaningless, please report back with how many are valid complaints and how many are just entitled people being upset that they can't get everything they want for free.
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Thank you for supporting me. It's true we'd make. Money of we cut pieces in half (and we do if a local competitor does) but hour ultimate goal is to charge as much as possible while providing relatively adequate service.

We know many would like more for less but we gear our services to people like you DarkStar_WNY who will pay more for less.

Again we thank you. You're one of our preferred costumers.
 
Just wait until politcial organizations start leeching in on this and filing complaints about opposing view points being "throttled".
 
Do it the way Texas does electricity. One 3rd party company does line maintainance, hooks up new service etc. The customer chooses from the suppliers/plans that are offered. I have 44 different plans from 13 suppliers to choose from. No reason cable couldn't be the same really. The lack of competition and the territoriality of cable companies is just one big "FUCK YOU".
 
nilepez said:
Thank you for supporting me. It's true we'd make. Money of we cut pieces in half (and we do if a local competitor does) but hour ultimate goal is to charge as much as possible while providing relatively adequate service.

We know many would like more for less but we gear our services to people like you DarkStar_WNY who will pay more for less.

Again we thank you. You're one of our preferred costumers.
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Yes because anyone who realizes that the American people have become whiny and entitled obviously supports companies screwing over customers.

Get a life dude.

If someone was handing out hundred dollar bills on a street corner someone would find something to complain about it and if you can't see that then you biases obviously blind you to reality.
 
DarkStar_WNY said:
Yes because anyone who realizes that the American people have become whiny and entitled obviously supports companies screwing over customers.

Get a life dude.

If someone was handing out hundred dollar bills on a street corner someone would find something to complain about it and if you can't see that then you biases obviously blind you to reality.
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I think you misstook that as sarcasm. Although I think you're stupid to do it, everything else I said is true. People like you are the customers we love. Where I work, for some accounts, we actually charge you every time you pay us cash. Why? Because it's a great way to get more money from those who don't have the means to get a CC or Checking account.

We raised the price on SMS (back when it was broken out as a separate service) to 15 bucks. Why? Because we could and you didn't complain. It had nothing to do with cost, because sending SMS costs nothing. It's just using spare space on the signaling path.

Again, you fatten my wallet, so I thank you. and the company really appreciates it.
 
nilepez said:
I think you misstook that as sarcasm. Although I think you're stupid to do it, everything else I said is true. People like you are the customers we love. Where I work, for some accounts, we actually charge you every time you pay us cash. Why? Because it's a great way to get more money from those who don't have the means to get a CC or Checking account.

We raised the price on SMS (back when it was broken out as a separate service) to 15 bucks. Why? Because we could and you didn't complain. It had nothing to do with cost, because sending SMS costs nothing. It's just using spare space on the signaling path.

Again, you fatten my wallet, so I thank you. and the company really appreciates it.
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You seem to think I'm the type that will kick back and accept being screwed, which is far from the truth, but that doesn't mean I don't know we, as a society, have been a bunch of whiny children,

Look at the news on just about any day and you will see stories of overly sensitive people who thing anything that isn't 100% as they want it is wrong and should be illegal. For a more specific example look no further then the idiot at Business Insider who wrote and entire article complaining that he couldn't identify with the white female hand used in the game.

Simply put, saying there are thousands of complaints already doesn't really mean anything without, as they say, separating the wheat from the chaff. There is a huge difference between thousands of valid complaints and thousands of complaints were 1/2, or more, and just people crying for no reason.
 
DarkStar_WNY said:
You seem to think I'm the type that will kick back and accept being screwed, which is far from the truth, but that doesn't mean I don't know we, as a society, have been a bunch of whiny children,

Look at the news on just about any day and you will see stories of overly sensitive people who thing anything that isn't 100% as they want it is wrong and should be illegal. For a more specific example look no further then the idiot at Business Insider who wrote and entire article complaining that he couldn't identify with the white female hand used in the game.

Simply put, saying there are thousands of complaints already doesn't really mean anything without, as they say, separating the wheat from the chaff. There is a huge difference between thousands of valid complaints and thousands of complaints were 1/2, or more, and just people crying for no reason.
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I think the point is that while Americans will complain about pointless things, our current ISP situation is so corrupt that you can throw a rock in any direction and likely hit a valid concern. Since we have some of the worst internet price gouging in the developed world, talking about whiny Americans in the same sentence sounds more like a corporate apologist than anything else. Now business insider not being able to relate to some game, yeah, you're pretty much on target there.
 
tetris42 said:
I think the point is that while Americans will complain about pointless things, our current ISP situation is so corrupt that you can throw a rock in any direction and likely hit a valid concern. Since we have some of the worst internet price gouging in the developed world, talking about whiny Americans in the same sentence sounds more like a corporate apologist than anything else. Now business insider not being able to relate to some game, yeah, you're pretty much on target there.
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I understand what your saying, and 10 years ago I would have agreed, but we've reached unheard of levels of entitlement where even people on these forums complain about $50 a month rates for 20MB and above internet.

As someone who paid $15 a month for dial up, plus the cost of a second phone line, $50-60 a month for high speed internet, which I use far more than any other goods or service I've ever bought, I don't see this as price gouging, but many would.

Consider HBO Now, people have screamed for years people cried and screamed because they would only get HBO with a cable subscription and they wanted to get it online without cable, so when HBO offers what they've wanted how many on these very forums cried because it costs a little more then it were added to a $100 a month cable subscription?
 
DarkStar_WNY said:
I understand what your saying, and 10 years ago I would have agreed, but we've reached unheard of levels of entitlement where even people on these forums complain about $50 a month rates for 20MB and above internet.

As someone who paid $15 a month for dial up, plus the cost of a second phone line, $50-60 a month for high speed internet, which I use far more than any other goods or service I've ever bought, I don't see this as price gouging, but many would.

Consider HBO Now, people have screamed for years people cried and screamed because they would only get HBO with a cable subscription and they wanted to get it online without cable, so when HBO offers what they've wanted how many on these very forums cried because it costs a little more then it were added to a $100 a month cable subscription?
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In Europe you can pay $5 for 5Mbps down 4 up, $15 for 20 down, 15 up, and everything above and in between, it scales. My main issue with USA internet is our bottom tier options are garbage. Like you said, $15 gets you dial-up, same as it did 20 years ago. There's been no progress at all there. The cheapest I've ever gotten bottom-rung broadband in USA has been $40 a month. I think there's a big difference between comparing internet access to HBO. The internet is necessary for a lot of research, jobs, all kinds of things. I'm not implying it's as essential as something like water or electricity, but the more people that have affordable access to it, the better.
 
DarkStar_WNY said:
I understand what your saying, and 10 years ago I would have agreed, but we've reached unheard of levels of entitlement where even people on these forums complain about $50 a month rates for 20MB and above internet.

As someone who paid $15 a month for dial up, plus the cost of a second phone line, $50-60 a month for high speed internet, which I use far more than any other goods or service I've ever bought, I don't see this as price gouging, but many would.

Consider HBO Now, people have screamed for years people cried and screamed because they would only get HBO with a cable subscription and they wanted to get it online without cable, so when HBO offers what they've wanted how many on these very forums cried because it costs a little more then it were added to a $100 a month cable subscription?
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50 bucks for 20Mb is high. 15 for Dialup is insane (and higher than I ever paid for dialup, even 20 years ago).

As for HBO, it's also high. I got HBO Go for 10 bucks with my internet a year or 2 ago, which means that the ISP was paying less than that.

The only reason it's 15 is they don't want to totally piss off the Cable companies. That said, if you want HBO GO 15 isn't horrible. Especially if you get it for a month or 2, drop it and switch to Showtime or Starz (assuming they've launched there streaming sites).

However, if you subscribe to more than 2 premium streaming service, the price becomes more outrageous, since cable shafts you (big time) for the first premium, but goes down dramatically after that.

I can get Showtime and HBO for 20 bucks from TWC...I won't get it, but if I decide to buy a TV this year (waiting to see how the 4K sets look), I'd consider it. That along with NetFlix and an antenna is more TV than I can watch.
 
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