IInuyasha74 :
I enjoy seeing companies actually improving the Internet inside of the United States, upgrading their networks, and offering fair rates to customers. For over a decade now telecommunication service providers haven't opted to take advantage of their customers with secret unauthorized charges, service that is slower than advertised, and have done relatively little to improve service inside of the U.S. As a result, we not only pay a gratuitous amount of money for the service we receive relative to most other modern nations, but we also have significantly slower Internet than many of them too.
I write the way I do on these articles not because I want to glorify the FCC, but because after being limited to a claimed 15 Mbps of Internet service for the last ten years (which actually tops out at 2 Mbps), I'm glad to see that our government is actually doing something to try and improve the situation.
The thing is, the problems you experienced with Internet service in the U.S. were
caused by government regulation in the first place. So it's not that the FCC is actually fixing anything, it's just fixing what the local governments broke in the first place when they granted local cable and phone monopolies.
If we had actual competition in these markets like in (ironically) Europe, we wouldn't need the government stepping in to enforce things like net neutrality. Any ISP which deliberately slowed down Netflix would've put themselves out of business as their customers fled to ISPs where Netflix streamed just fine. Comcast, Verizon, etc. were only able to blackmaiil Netflix because their customers had no other viable ISP to switch to. No neighbors telling them that their problem must be their ISP because Netflix streamed just fine for them.
Same for the AT&T and DirecTV merger. Most of you are too young, but way back when satellite TV first began, there was a lawsuit to prohibit cable monopolies - i.e. to force local governments to allow at least two cable companies per area. The lawsuit lost because the FCC determined that
satellite TV companies provided adequate competition to cable TV. In other words, it was OK to have a cable monopoly because the customer could always opt for satellite TV service instead. Well, now that reasoning has been long forgotten, we have a cable/phone company snapping up a satellite TV company. Exactly what are your choices now if you're in an AT&T monopoly area? Dish? What's to stop AT&T from subsidizing their DirecTV prices with cable revenue to run Dish out of business?
As well-intentioned as regulation may be, you have to always bear in mind that politics, corruption, and nepotism will always creep into the regulatory process. Regulation should be limited to ensuring there's a fair and level playing field for widespread competition, not for approving monopolies.