Because the only purpose of the internet is to twitter? Seriously? Are you really that retarded? Keeping my job is not a want dumbass. We live in a different time. Having internet now is no different than having electricity 100 years ago, or water before that. If you want to go back to the stone age, get the fuck off the internet now, since it's sooo not important to you or anyone else.
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White House: Broadband Is A Core Utility
- Thread starter HardOCP News
- Start date
Because the only purpose of the internet is to twitter? Seriously? Are you really that retarded? Keeping my job is not a want dumbass. We live in a different time. Having internet now is no different than having electricity 100 years ago, or water before that. If you want to go back to the stone age, get the fuck off the internet now, since it's sooo not important to you or anyone else.
Ashbringer
Supreme [H]ardness
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People here don't know how much the internet has changed the world. It's literally as big as the automobile or having electricity. You have the entire worlds knowledge accessible on a tiny device like your phone. People use it for everything.
Filing and printing documents.
Learning
Buying goods
Selling goods
Finding directions
Talking to people
sharing ideas
And considering how many of us here wouldn't have a job without it, I say it's a big enough deal that it should be a utility.
Filing and printing documents.
Learning
Buying goods
Selling goods
Finding directions
Talking to people
sharing ideas
And considering how many of us here wouldn't have a job without it, I say it's a big enough deal that it should be a utility.
ButtonPuncher
Limp Gawd
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You guys are missing the point. You can live without the internet. It's not a CORE utility. How hard is that to understand? You do know that the gov't moves at a glacial pace and all innovation will end as soon as the gov't decides to regulate it? Right?!?!?
People that think that net neutrality is good are too young to remember Communism. Gov't mandating what is allowed and who should provide what ends badly. It might seem like sunshine and flowers now...just like all government ideas...then the regulation, taxation, and price fixing begins.
But HEY the government is good and the free market is evil...right little lemmings? Marx and Stalin would love you.
People that think that net neutrality is good are too young to remember Communism. Gov't mandating what is allowed and who should provide what ends badly. It might seem like sunshine and flowers now...just like all government ideas...then the regulation, taxation, and price fixing begins.
But HEY the government is good and the free market is evil...right little lemmings? Marx and Stalin would love you.
Yeah, it'll be much better if we let it continue to be unregulated like Cable TV. Those prices have really come down over the years thanks to how they offset costs by forcing full screen advertisements into your home for 33% of the time you use their service.
Oh wait...
The stupid is strong in this thread. I don't see where anyone has explained how broadband is a CORE utility. Notice that word CORE. Not just a utility, but CORE utility. The idea that broadband is a CORE utility is just downright absurd. Coming from someone who makes a living on the internet (programmer), broadband is at best a nice convenience.
I used to be all involved in things like social media and video watching and the like, but after I overdosed on that I realized my life was trash and I decided to withdraw. Now I use social media sparingly, and I get most of my news via articles posted on forums. I don't watch TV sans sports. And guess what? My life is way better than it's ever been. The vast majority of my internet consumption can be achieved easily over dial up.
There are certainly businesses and individuals who rely on fast internet. And for those people broadband is essential. But for the average consumer, forget about it. It's nice, but as someone else said, it's a lot like air conditioning. It's a luxury more than anything. You're not going to die without it.
I used to be all involved in things like social media and video watching and the like, but after I overdosed on that I realized my life was trash and I decided to withdraw. Now I use social media sparingly, and I get most of my news via articles posted on forums. I don't watch TV sans sports. And guess what? My life is way better than it's ever been. The vast majority of my internet consumption can be achieved easily over dial up.
There are certainly businesses and individuals who rely on fast internet. And for those people broadband is essential. But for the average consumer, forget about it. It's nice, but as someone else said, it's a lot like air conditioning. It's a luxury more than anything. You're not going to die without it.
Easy. You should read about TVA. I get to enjoy some of the cheapest power in the country
ViperGrendal
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There must be an election year coming up....
Retronym
[H]F Junkie
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This is about control, nothing else.
Deadly Ramon
Gawd
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Two points: 1) Fox News isn't that conservative, and 2) "Obama phone" comes from a protester at a Mitt Romney campaign rally on September 26, 2012, in Cleveland, Ohio.
Over the past 20 years modern society has becoming so incredibly dependent on the internet as a whole that to simply rip it out from under it would cause the whole house of cards to collapse. You would loose finance, retail, public services and dozens of other thing vital to functioning western society by simply pulling out this one utility. You can't flip things back to the 70's way of doing things over night.
Simply blurting out 'her der twitter herp' is profoundly moronic. How people like yourself get by with such a myopic world view amazes me.
Deadly Ramon
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In the United States, cable television is regulated in some areas:
"You may contact your cable provider or your LFA [local franchising authority] with complaints or questions about customer service, basic service tier rates or franchise fees. The name of your LFA is printed on your cable bill and in your local telephone book.
Contact your cable company with any complaints about rates for tiers of service other than the basic service tier and for any pay-per-channel programming and pay-per-program services, because these rates are not subject to regulation."
Deadly Ramon
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On the bright side, maybe we would once again learn how to correctly spell the word "lose" if more people had their Facebook and Twitter access restricted and could devote that time that was wasted in online idleness to brushing up on their severely neglected remedial English lessons.
TechLarry
RIP [H] Brother - June 1, 2022
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I actually agree with this.
viscountalpha
2[H]4U
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So when are we getting white space filled with Internet? (vhf/uhf bands) Never??
well we moved into a rural area 3 years ago. Was a nightmare to get a stable internet connection. finally had to get an unlimited Verizon grandfathered plan, invest over $1k in a new router/modem other crap. It works, but not great. Even though it's "unlimited" I don't feel comfortable watching Netflix etc... on it, as that would really jack up our usage. We have 4 kids and they are basically required to have broadband internet at home. They do all their homework now on Chromebooks. Our only other option would have been satellite. We cannot get WISP line of sight, no DSL, forget cable. When our gov supposedly gave billions upon billions in subsidies to telecoms to build out broadband to rural areas, how is this fair? We pay much more property tax than the average resident in our county as well.
Nailed it.
Be careful 'socialism' is a buzzword too. Don't want to upset anyone.
Where does it state in the constitution that electricity is a right either? And people constantly throw out the word socialism without having a clue what it means.
Explain to me what a "core" utility is, because I can't find a legal definition anywhere. Is it water and electricity? Guess what, you can live perfectly fine without both of those being provided by a utility. There are people not far from me who have no water because their wells dried up due to the ongoing drought in CA and farmers pumping way too much ground water. They have to buy bottled water or have it trucked in. They are not dying. Having water come from a well or pipeline is just as much of a convenience as internet access.
Oh hey, here's a great example of how NOT having regulation is bad. The ground is literally sinking by several feet per year in parts of California due to excess pumping, and the aquifers are becoming permanently damaged. We are the only state that doesn't regulate ground water pumping. Thankfully that will be changing soon due to necessary regulation. People and companies are selfish and they will fuck over their own neighbors in the pursuit of profit. Regulation is the only thing that can stop it. The so called "free market" is what allowed this to happen.
viscountalpha
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Agreed. It makes me want to lose my mind. When the duck did loose become a noun?
Calm down now McCarthy. A little bit of fairness and following some laid out agreed upon rules isn't communism.
D
Deleted member 93354
Guest
You do realize the biggest ISP's today already cap your total download/upload per month. This includes Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner, Cox etc...
Taldren
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You are an naive fool. This doom and gloom scenario has happened with EVERYTHING the government has had control over. You name a program and I will show you how wrong you are.
Social Security? Was supposed to be a lockbox savings program and would never become a welfare program. How did that work out? The Lockbox was raided and it has become a welfare program.
Income Tax? Was supposed to be 3%. There was actually a bill to set the max at 5%, but it failed because no one had any intentions of it going that high and if passed it would just be set at 5% by default. How did that work out? I am paying 25% personally.
I have all of history of government at my disposal to prove exactly how clueless you are of what government (politicians) does when given control of anything.
It doesn't matter what they say their intentions are NOW ... a future congress isn't bound by their intentions, only by what is legal and given that its defined as a Title II they can legally do anything they want under that at any time.
D
Deleted member 93354
Guest
lol. I have to agree with this. Take away my son's Nabi and he has a hyper fit beyond words. He acts like the world is ending.
But at the same time, the internet allows me to educate myself at home. It also allows my son to research topics which interest him instantly. For example: Bugs. His love for bugs, legos, and minecraft, have fostered his collateral learning of other subjects like reading and math. This is known as "Unlearning" And this principal from which to teach kids has been made ever simpler by the utility known as the net.
But I made recent changes to my household and demand there be no-computer days, (To force them to enjoy nature, grandma, build with legos, draw, read, get out of the house)
Mr. Bluntman
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Jeb Bush (who is a moron) would argue otherwise. It's a privilege, not a right.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...eb-bush-will-get-rid-of-net-neutrality-rules/
If elected he plans on abolishing net neutrality rules and let the ISPs rape and pillage their customers freely, because capitalism.
MURICA, F*** YEAH!
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...eb-bush-will-get-rid-of-net-neutrality-rules/
If elected he plans on abolishing net neutrality rules and let the ISPs rape and pillage their customers freely, because capitalism.
MURICA, F*** YEAH!
D
Deleted member 93354
Guest
Apples and Oranges. The government can apply taxes to the internet ANYTIME they want NOW. And any provider or distribution rate hikes would not benefit the government but the company that sells them.
There is no f'n way Michigan has 85-95% "broadband" coverage (25mbit or greater). Very little is available in the thumb very little in the upper half of the lower peninsula and in the upper peninsula its almost non existent. Yes there are quite a few WISPs but I don't know of a single one that provides speeds that are defined by the government as "broadband".
Also for those of you arguing about how utilities are pay per use also consider this. Utilities are also regulated. Which means price gouging shouldn't happen.
Also for those of you arguing about how utilities are pay per use also consider this. Utilities are also regulated. Which means price gouging shouldn't happen.
So in other words, you have no examples of the government regulation of private business turning into a wholesale takeover with dire consequences. Got it.
Hate to bust your hate bubble, but it isn't a Fox buzzword. I was helping out a homeless couple the other day (you know, being personally responsible for those in need, rather than let a government bureaucrat do it) and they had lost the charger to their phone, so couldn't make calls. I asked them what type of phone they had, as I figured I had an extra charger.
"It's just a simple Obama phone" was the reply. See, even those who can't watch Fox use the term!
On topic, I will simply state that I disagree that Broadband should be classified as a "core utility." Pretty much the reasons why have already been stated, and I don't think I could add much more to the conversation.
Deadly Ramon
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Not trusting "people and companies" because they're "selfish and they will fuck over their own neighbors in the pursuit of profit," while trusting the government (which consists of people) to not fuck you over in the pursuit of increased tax revenue, is inconsistent and naive.
Ashbringer
Supreme [H]ardness
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I've never seen evidence of this. Though I have seen it go the other way where without regulation innovation stops hard.
Remember when Bell Atlantic was your only phone provider and you had to rent telephones? Remember when the big bad government stepped in and broke that company up? Sounds familiar right? Cable TV still does this shit now and they need some of that government regulation.
Price fixing is the result of lack of competition. Remember when the government denied AT&T to acquire T-Mobile? Now we're swimming in good deals and cheap cell phones. If they hadn't you'd be dealing with AT&T and spending loads of money to get 500MB data cap.
#1 Don't care cause I don't watch TV. I wouldn't watch Fox News if I did.
#2
westrock2000
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A phone conversation is inherently private. No one (sans the government) is legally allowed to listen to the conversation between the 2 party members without consent.
The Internet though is like TV or Radio. Sure you may be talking to someone specifically, but anyone is allowed to view it. And that's where the government feels the need to protect the general public. Just like TV, Radio, & printed media.
Unlimited is already gone. Comcast has 350GB cap, U-verse has 250GB cap, mobile carriers have their 1-10GB caps and so on. The difference is with home ISP's it feels unlimited because the caps are so high. If they want to reduce it so they can charge accordingly then people's bill's will decrease or increase depending upon usage. Maybe that's a route they'll eventually take, but they could be doing it right now all along so it has nothing to do with the gov't influencing it. And even if they did, when is the last time you ever complained about the fact your water/elec bill is metered? If you're running a bitcoin mining operations from your spare bedroom then yeah, you might get hit with a $1000 electricity bill. You accept this. If you want to download 5TB of files in a month through Comcast then your bill that month might be $300. Meanwhile mine will be $40 because all I do is watch some netflix. I dont see how this is some huge problem.
You are comparing broadcast entertainment to on-demand entertainment. The reason soccer moms are able to legislate what we hear on the radio or TV is because they said those things are being thrust into their households against their will. They cant block out the radio waves passing through their walls, and so all it takes is little timmy to accidentally turn on the TV and boom, he's scarred for life by something nobody could prevent.
The internet requires you to actively search out something. It's an on-demand service, the same way HBO is. HBO can show nudity because you cant accidentally turn on HBO, you have to specifically go out of your way to receive HBO.
Ur_Mom
Fully [H]
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I seen that the grammer and spelling of stuff is gone down with more technolgy making up for it (spell check, grammer check).
(I hated typing that out. I feel dirty. I'm not the best at grammar and spelling, but that was tough.)
Even in grade school (pre-computer help - 80's), people made those mistakes. Loose/lose, "I seen that", etc..
Guess you don't live in California, where the utilities are allowed to gouge with government approval, so they can meet the crazy government "green" fantasies.
flashoverride
Limp Gawd
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Read that brief and all that came to mind was:
And whoever said that the internet was *not* a series of tubes, you couldn't be more wrong. That is one of the best ways to describe the internet. Also, the hard drive guy forgot to include the cost of the hard drive and the system required to write to the drive in his cost calculations.
And to the person who suggested that this could result in a government-controlled monopoly, well, I guess you loved the old-school AT&T (pre-1984) because that is EXACTLY what it used to be and EXACTLY what Title II was originally set up for.
Guess who is going to be paying for this push for broadband? You will through tax grants, rebates, and higher rates in the cities. This is EXACTLY how the phone system was deployed.
Sigh. To be so young and naive and utterly ignorant of history.
And whoever said that the internet was *not* a series of tubes, you couldn't be more wrong. That is one of the best ways to describe the internet. Also, the hard drive guy forgot to include the cost of the hard drive and the system required to write to the drive in his cost calculations.
And to the person who suggested that this could result in a government-controlled monopoly, well, I guess you loved the old-school AT&T (pre-1984) because that is EXACTLY what it used to be and EXACTLY what Title II was originally set up for.
Guess who is going to be paying for this push for broadband? You will through tax grants, rebates, and higher rates in the cities. This is EXACTLY how the phone system was deployed.
Sigh. To be so young and naive and utterly ignorant of history.