FCC Defends Its Open Internet Decision

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What's to defend? It was the right rulin... Oh WAIT.. I guess the Oligarchs/Plutocrats are still annoyed because it wasn't just another transfer of the commons into private hands for profit.
 
An oligarchy is a government by the few, lumping them in with the plutocrats kind of matches since the wealthiest area of the country is Washington dc, and transferring "commons" into private hands from where they came for the good of profit all sounds like you oppose net neutrality and think it didn't happen. But I fear you misunderstand what it, he fed gov is, and a judicial ruling is.
 
Anyone who thinks having the government involved with the internet is a good thing, is a retard. They are the only ones who could make a website slower than the actual mail.

Here is how this scenario goes. Before you could choose between say Comcast and Verizon. In the future, your local municipality decides they want to cash in, and set up their own broadband service. What could the problem be? What happens when Comcast and Verizon want to upgrade their lines, but your local municipality says no, to give the government a competitive edge? Eventually, your only choice is your local municipality. What could go wrong with that?

I wonder what you idiot pro government people will say when people start getting put in jail for not paying their internet bill, I mean tax.

If you haven't figured out yet that you want the government out of your lives as much as possible, well then, you deserve what's coming to you.

 
municipal broadband providers prohibit other carriers from selling services in their territories, therefore the people in those areas trade one monopoly for another. Isn't it also strange that this debate is taking place as google is expanding into more and more areas, and 5G wireless networks are within 5 years reach?
 
Anyone who thinks having the government involved with the internet is a good thing, is a retard. They are the only ones who could make a website slower than the actual mail.

Here is how this scenario goes. Before you could choose between say Comcast and Verizon. In the future, your local municipality decides they want to cash in, and set up their own broadband service. What could the problem be? What happens when Comcast and Verizon want to upgrade their lines, but your local municipality says no, to give the government a competitive edge? Eventually, your only choice is your local municipality. What could go wrong with that?

I wonder what you idiot pro government people will say when people start getting put in jail for not paying their internet bill, I mean tax.

If you haven't figured out yet that you want the government out of your lives as much as possible, well then, you deserve what's coming to you.
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Anyone who thinks having the government involved with the internet is a good thing, is a retard. They are the only ones who could make a website slower than the actual mail.

Here is how this scenario goes. Before you could choose between say Comcast and Verizon. In the future, your local municipality decides they want to cash in, and set up their own broadband service. What could the problem be? What happens when Comcast and Verizon want to upgrade their lines, but your local municipality says no, to give the government a competitive edge? Eventually, your only choice is your local municipality. What could go wrong with that?

I wonder what you idiot pro government people will say when people start getting put in jail for not paying their internet bill, I mean tax.

If you haven't figured out yet that you want the government out of your lives as much as possible, well then, you deserve what's coming to you.
Click to expand...

Problem is, Comcast and Verizon refuse to upgrade their lines.. And that is with them in control.

16% of the USA has no access to internet period. Comcast, Verizon, TWC, etc..only run new lines if they can make their money back within 1-2 years. They are all about short term profit. because of their earnings reports, stock, and other financial reports that influence stock price heavily. That means only new neighborhoods who have tons of densely populated houses (not how i would want to live) can convince them to run wire.

So they are afraid to spend money on infrastructure because it will hurt their quarterly profit report to shareholders. and if they dont show profit. stock goes down, market cap goes down, their spending power goes down. For the past 30 years this has been a vicious cycle.

Now, the Government can mandate speeds and access with the new rules. They've already re-defined broadband to be 25 Mbps, and the new rules will require speed and latency benchmarks.

The Government also is why the 16% figure is not higher than it already is. They gave Comcast, Windstream, TWC, Verizon, TONS of tax dollars to convince them to hookup more people without access.

THAT IS THE ONLY WAY ISP WILL RUN NEW WIRE. IF THE GOVERMENT HELPS PAY FOR IT. and then when they take those tax dollars, they are required to fufill their promise.
 
Here is how this scenario goes. Before you could choose between say Comcast and Verizon. In the future, your local municipality decides they want to cash in, and set up their own broadband service. What could the problem be? What happens when Comcast and Verizon want to upgrade their lines, but your local municipality says no, to give the government a competitive edge? Eventually, your only choice is your local municipality. What could go wrong with that?

I wonder what you idiot pro government people will say when people start getting put in jail for not paying their internet bill, I mean tax.

If you haven't figured out yet that you want the government out of your lives as much as possible, well then, you deserve what's coming to you.
Click to expand...

Problem is, Comcast and Verizon refuse to upgrade their lines.. And that is with them in control.

16% of the USA has no access to internet period. Comcast, Verizon, TWC, etc..only run new lines if they can make their money back within 1-2 years. They are all about short term profit. because of their earnings reports, stock, and other financial reports that influence stock price heavily. That means only new neighborhoods who have tons of densely populated houses (not how i would want to live) can convince them to run wire.

So they are afraid to spend money on infrastructure because it will hurt their quarterly profit report to shareholders. and if they dont show profit. stock goes down, market cap goes down, their spending power goes down. For the past 30 years this has been a vicious cycle.

Now, the Government can mandate speeds and access with the new rules. They've already re-defined broadband to be 25 Mbps, and the new rules will require speed and latency benchmarks.

The Government also is why the 16% figure is not higher than it already is. They gave Comcast, Windstream, TWC, Verizon, TONS of tax dollars to convince them to hookup more people without access.

THAT IS THE ONLY WAY ISP WILL RUN NEW WIRE. IF THE GOVERMENT HELPS PAY FOR IT. and then when they take those tax dollars, they are required to fufill their promise.
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16% don't have access to broadband (25mbsdown/3mbs up per the FCC). And I have never had multiple utility providers to choose from. I just moved from a town with one pair of power lines feeding it, no natural gas, and only one cell provides had reception. the internet was more reliable than my electricity and the roads were rarely plowed before I left for work. The feds should butt out of a supposed utility that is outperforming all current utilities. As for those title 2 contracts some isps are supposedly milking (refuted by actual access numbers), who set them up? why doesn't the FCC worry about their current screw ups before seizing total control and making more?
 
And just for perspective, not so long ago, a dedicated T1 line for internet was mostly for large business and only the most extravagant would get it for home use. It was like getting a Lexus. That same Lexus is probably still on the road and a dedicated T1 line delivers 1.5mbps! That would be considered "internet impoverished" and in need of rescue by the FCC. The rate of improvement has been so high that any reasonable expectation of what would be lavish for someone will seem paltry in just a few years. Compare that to gov managed utilities!
 
If we lived in Russia or China or North Korea, the statement that a local municipality might attempt to block an ISP from upgrading their networks might be possible. But in the USA, I think any judge would almost immediately toss that ruling out in days. If a municipality is putting together their own internet service, it would only be because there was no ISP locally that was providing good service. And even if they did put their own municipal network together, they would need to compete with the ISP's that exist or would want to exist in the future.
 


This is the important part. Municipal entities report directly to the locally elected officials who are voted on by the same residents that are serviced by the entity. The local residents have direct power over this entity not some far away unelected bureaucrat or corporate entity.

As for those talking about monopolies, the reason this was a good thing is because it prevents ISPs from using their state granted monopoly power to fuel and empower their other business of selling internet service. Comcast and other cable providers have a government authorized monopoly because it's in the best interests of the population to only have set of utility poles and cable wires being run. It's the exact same reason you only have one electrical utility and one water utility, there can only be one infrastructure. So now we have a phone and cable infrastructure that is legally protected from market competition in exchange for government regulations to ensure they don't abuse that protection. Enter broadband, where the existing public infrastructure of phone and cable lines can be utilized to transmit internet data, except now the same protected companies are circumventing their anti-abuse government regulations by billing their data business separately from their utility business. Because they own the wires and thus are protected from competition, they abuse that protected and extend it to their internet business which isn't under any anti-abuse regulations. Further more, they eventually start extending that abuse farther and try to restrict content and come up with schemes that enable them to charge users additional fee's for access to other companies services. Again they can do this by abusing their government granted monopoly status to ensure that nobody competes with them or provides a better product.


All the FCC has done is call a spade a spade, they now recognize Comcast using public cable wires to provide internet as a public utility the same as the cable business they used to justify the sanctioned monopoly. Now they have to play by stricter rules designed to prevent them from abusing this monopolistic power. It's not an ideal solution but something need to be done to reign them in, they were out of control for far too long with unrivaled monopolistic power over the lifeblood of the internet.
 
If we lived in Russia or China or North Korea, the statement that a local municipality might attempt to block an ISP from upgrading their networks might be possible
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Don't know about China, but I had true 100 Mbps up/down 10 years ago in Moscow for $30/month. Now it's $10 and unlimited 😛 (the only thing that makes me miss living there)
 
What's to defend? It was the right rulin... Oh WAIT.. I guess the Oligarchs/Plutocrats are still annoyed because it wasn't just another transfer of the commons into private hands for profit.
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Except for the whole part where it kills any remaining small ISPs because they can't afford the regulatory burden of being a common carrier.
 
Wow, the paid ISP shills are out in force. Of course they hate that the public has spoken and support the rules that the FCC has created and plans to enforce. They should keep in mind that this is better for them than what the public truly wants, which is that the ISPs be turned into true utilities that only maintain the wired infrastructure. That infrastructure could then be used by any company to provide services over it. And the utility would also be required to provide access to everyone and they would also have to maintain and upgrade the infrastructure. ISPs, keep pushing your luck and you could lose more! You may be able to bribe our politicians, but you can't silence the people!
 
I think people might have missunderstood my comment 😀. When I was saying taht public interference with the private sector brings problems, I was supporting the FCC, since they are for OPEN internet.
If anything, I am unsure on how they plan to use their power to "promote competition".
That is a rather thin line to walk where on one side you are benefiting new comers and on the other side you are helping existing companies to maintain dominance. (Its very easy to get corrupted in such an environment, thats why I dont like public entities like the FCC. Its not about what the organ is "supposed" to do, but what it does. So far, seems rather good).
 
Wow, the paid ISP shills are out in force. Of course they hate that the public has spoken and support the rules that the FCC has created and plans to enforce. They should keep in mind that this is better for them than what the public truly wants, which is that the ISPs be turned into true utilities that only maintain the wired infrastructure. That infrastructure could then be used by any company to provide services over it. And the utility would also be required to provide access to everyone and they would also have to maintain and upgrade the infrastructure. ISPs, keep pushing your luck and you could lose more! You may be able to bribe our politicians, but you can't silence the people!
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All I need to know to support this is the big tech companies are behind it, would Netflix or Google screw themselves over by me wanting the FCC to rule this way? It would hurt their bottom line more than anything else, and these are people whose entire business runs because the Internet exists.

I may not know all the legal talk I might not know everything that's in the bill, but I know as long as tech companies are behind it that aren't carriers it's a good thing.
 
This is the important part. Municipal entities report directly to the locally elected officials who are voted on by the same residents that are serviced by the entity. The local residents have direct power over this entity not some far away unelected bureaucrat or corporate entity.

As for those talking about monopolies, the reason this was a good thing is because it prevents ISPs from using their state granted monopoly power to fuel and empower their other business of selling internet service. Comcast and other cable providers have a government authorized monopoly because it's in the best interests of the population to only have set of utility poles and cable wires being run. It's the exact same reason you only have one electrical utility and one water utility, there can only be one infrastructure. So now we have a phone and cable infrastructure that is legally protected from market competition in exchange for government regulations to ensure they don't abuse that protection. Enter broadband, where the existing public infrastructure of phone and cable lines can be utilized to transmit internet data, except now the same protected companies are circumventing their anti-abuse government regulations by billing their data business separately from their utility business. Because they own the wires and thus are protected from competition, they abuse that protected and extend it to their internet business which isn't under any anti-abuse regulations. Further more, they eventually start extending that abuse farther and try to restrict content and come up with schemes that enable them to charge users additional fee's for access to other companies services. Again they can do this by abusing their government granted monopoly status to ensure that nobody competes with them or provides a better product.


All the FCC has done is call a spade a spade, they now recognize Comcast using public cable wires to provide internet as a public utility the same as the cable business they used to justify the sanctioned monopoly. Now they have to play by stricter rules designed to prevent them from abusing this monopolistic power. It's not an ideal solution but something need to be done to reign them in, they were out of control for far too long with unrivaled monopolistic power over the lifeblood of the internet.[/quote]
I can tell you mean well and trust others.
But locally elected politicians aren't generally going to innovate or do much more than copy others or maintain things. If you were lucky you may have an electrician elected. The internet is improving far quicker than well intentioned people like this can keep up with. Those phone and cable lines you mentioned: one is obsolete and the other is becoming so in exchange for fiber optics. Stopping growth might be okay if you knew the tree wasn't a still sapling, but we don't know that about the internet yet.
If the FCC wanted to end monopolies, they could have since the bandwidth in those wires can be shared, but they didn't because that problem didn't concern them. Also please refrain from using racist terms like "sp@de". You probably just didn't know.
 
Anyone who supports government intervention solely for the desire of sticking it to Comcast is a fool. Ironic that people are being duped simply because the word "open" is being throw around. You may despise Comcast, I know I do, but I am not going to blindly trust government officials with a service I have enjoyed for 20 years with no opportunity to read the bill. If this was a promotion of free competition then I would support it. Better yet, if a bill was devised and supported by the greater internet community then that would be best. This is the favoring of one company in collusion with the government (Google) over another. We allow two often for companies to involve the government and in the end we all lose.
 
This fight is definitely not over. The cable companies are looking to combine to become even larger lobbying entities than they are currently. Also, Tom Wheeler used to lobby for big cable and big wireless. Whatever strategic maneuvering he's got going on right now will surely benefit himself as well as his buddies running these massive cable and wireless organizations. I doubt he's going to turn on the very companies and CEOs that got him where he is today.
 
An oligarchy is a government by the few, lumping them in with the plutocrats kind of matches since the wealthiest area of the country is Washington dc, and transferring "commons" into private hands from where they came for the good of profit all sounds like you oppose net neutrality and think it didn't happen. But I fear you misunderstand what it, he fed gov is, and a judicial ruling is.
Click to expand...

Judging from your reply, I am almost positive I have a far better grsp on what the Federal Govt is and what a Judicial Ruling is.

Also, I support net neutrality and the Title II classification.
 
This fight is definitely not over.
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Actually, I think the fight may be over although the big ISPs are pretending it is not. Wheeler thinks it is over because the courts told the FCC to do exactly what they just did - reclassify ISPs under title II. The courts gave him the key, and he used it.

What could screw this up is the politicians that are in the pockets of the big ISPs.
 


So they just maintain the infrastructure, eh? Just like the phone companies that took twenty years to transition to touch tone equipment? Or like the power companies that take forever to upgrade the grid and don't put any redundancy in? Hope you like the internet you have, because they are never going to upgrade your lines now.
 
So they just maintain the infrastructure, eh? Just like the phone companies that took twenty years to transition to touch tone equipment? Or like the power companies that take forever to upgrade the grid and don't put any redundancy in? Hope you like the internet you have, because they are never going to upgrade your lines now.
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*Blink Blink*

You do realize that the cable and phone infrastructure your referring to is the "internet" infrastructure...

ISP's were already public utilities just without the anti-abuse rules. Who do you think runs your cable wires to get cable TV? Why do you think there is only one cable company in each area and why is there only one phone company? Because both are private companies given special power by the government to run and operate public utilities and provide service to the local population. Those utility companies are given special rights, nobody else can compete with them, there can't be a second phone company move in and start running phone lines, there can't be a second cable company move in and start running another set of cable lines. Those are public utilities.

Now where do you get your internet service from? Which physical medium does it travel down to get to you? Who owns or operates that physical medium?

This should all start clicking now, which brings us to the final question.

What restrictions and limitations do those companies have?

The current answer ... absolutely none. They could do whatever they want because their data business is "private" while their utility business that the data business use's is protected as "public". Google could get around this problem by running a second infrastructure that was neither cable or phone, and even then they can't get permits in many places because of existing utilities. Comcast and AT&T isn't going to give Google written authorization to utilize public utility poles for long haul transmission or even right of way to construct their own. Google can only setup in places where the municipality controls the authorizations for those poles and utility lines.

Under the FCC's new classification, Comcast and AT&T must treat their ISP data business the same way they do their cable and phone business. This enables the local municipality to give them strict guidelines about providing service otherwise they risk being fined or even losing their utility protection. This is a huge win for residential customers though many don't know it yet.
 
Cable isn't a common carrier and never has been. Neither is the fiber systems that Verizon and Google have been laying.

Where does my internet connection come from? Charter. Who owns the physical medium that it is coming down? Charter.

Why did all the small phone companies and cable companies die? Partly because of the regulatory burden , *especially* on phone companies, AKA common carriers- which cable was not. One of the other reasons , cable-wise, is because they have to make huge investments in R&D and infrastructure, which a small company just can't do.

Those weird expensive pay phones that replaced all the ones actually run by your local phone company? Those exist because of common carrier laws.

By classifying internet connections as common carriers, they did far, far more than just made it so they couldn't throttle data, which was what everyone wanted. Instead, its now bound up in a tangle of rules- rules that cost money. Lots of money. Also, i wouldn't even be concerned about rules put in place by municipalities regarding it. You should look at all the loverly federal laws your internet traffic has just become subject to, including that your ISP can now be required to turn over all your traffic information to federal law enforcement authorities under the slightly less restrictive set of rules that apply to common carriers, instead of being private network traffic.
 
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