FCC Plans To Dismantle Net Neutrality Rules

[ravewulf]

@10tacle There is /nothing/ in there about the government taking over ISPs. Manufacturing companies polluting our air and water with toxins is bad, so we use the power of the government to prevent that from happening. Part of a government's job is to protect their citizens and that includes protecting them from abusive corporate practices.

Unfortunately our political system has become corrupted by money with most politicians paid off by those same corporations as well as wealthy individuals. So they enact policies and legislation that benefit wealthy corporations and individuals and hurt consumers. Removing Net Neutrality being one of those things that benefits corporations and hurts consumers.

Saying the free market will solve everything is pointless when all corporations are driven by the same drive to make money and all engage in the same bad practices. Corporate abuses of one form or another have gone on for over a hundred years and the only real progress that ever happens is when the government steps in to lay down the law of what is ok and what is not ok.

 

[10tacle]

@10tacle There is /nothing/ in there about the government taking over ISPs.

Of course there's not. Have you ever heard of the federal government being up front and honest in their ulterior motives in a major policy? Yes, that's just unproven conjecture, but history is rife with how the federal government has taken over things for "good intentions" and they wind up being regressive and repressive.

Manufacturing companies polluting our air and water with toxins is bad, so we use the power of the government to prevent that from happening. Part of a government's job is to protect their citizens and that includes protecting them from abusive corporate practices.

Unfortunately our political system has become corrupted by money with most politicians paid off by those same corporations as well as wealthy individuals. So they enact policies and legislation that benefit wealthy corporations and individuals and hurt consumers. Removing Net Neutrality being one of those things that benefits corporations and hurts consumers..

That's exactly why I find that government takeover of ISPs/cable companies as (would have been) a dangerous precedent. It would have solved nothing and from my viewpoint just done more harm to our internet content - especially if one political party gained majority power among all three branches of government and taken over what people can access - again, just like we witness with Facebook, Google, and Twitter. I'm at a complete loss as to how that cant' be understood.

Saying the free market will solve everything is pointless when all corporations are driven by the same drive to make money and all engage in the same bad practices. Corporate abuses of one form or another have gone on for over a hundred years and the only real progress that ever happens is when the government steps in to lay down the law of what is ok and what is not ok.

Corporations exist to make money and profit from it. The fantasy world of non-profit companies providing thousands of jobs is just that - a fantasy. You can't pay people, provide benefits, and spend money on R&D to further your market penetration by throwing away those evil profits. Government regulation punishing corporations for dumping toxic waste is a necessity.

I am not against oversight and FCC/FTC/EPA/SEC regulations. The last time I checked, the SEC brought down Enron. So we have established government entities in controlling policing positions. This is not about doing away with all government oversight like so many knee-jerk people are alluding to.

However, government regulation how a company does its competitive business in the market is another issue entirely. Never mind that said "government" overseers can get bought out as mentioned. Check out the story of San Francisco dumping raw sewage into San Francisco Bay. Yeah, how did *that* government oversight work out?

Finally, I will mention that government has no oversight themselves to monitor them for accountability. Another point that people don't think about or ignore.

 

[COLGeek]

Write/call/communicate with your elected officials (senator and representatives, primarily) to express your opinions if you want to make a difference to change the course of NN to what you believe it should be. Apply enough constituency pressure and this could get re-directed.

I know how I will engage.

 

[grumpigeek]

Ajit Pai is about to maliciously vandalize the internet in the USA.
That should make Trump's wealthy mates in Comcast etc. deliriously happy.
A classic example of government by the wealthiest 1% for the wealthiest 1%.

 

[dark_lord69]

"Because there are three Republicans and two Democrats on the commission, and the vote will surely fall on party lines, the scrapping of net neutrality is a likely possibility."

Because republicans think rich companies mean rich workers... LOL, WTF, HOW DUMB IS THAT!!!??

By that standard everyone that works at apple should be crazy rich.

But when you leave the dream world and enter reality you won't find corporations giving raises just because they had a good quarter. They just maintain the status quo, "Competitive pay" and an annual 2% or 3% raise for everyone.

Hey republicans, you economic trickle down from the top BS doesn't work because corporations aren't forced to give a raise. If you don't require it then they won't and they will just maintain the same status quo.

 

[dark_lord69]

Go to FCC.gov and file your official complaint today!
I DID!

 

[dark_lord69]

Obama's Net Neutrality was never meant to be what it was intended for: supporting free market competition and increasing consumer choice as well as pulling in the reigns of how much an ISP/cable company controls a certain market. Instead, it was a Trojan Horse for controlling content on the internet. We were close to becoming China with it where the federal government controls what people are allowed to see. If Net Neutrality was done as intended, then we'd never have had ISP and cable mergers under the second term of the Obama administration. Its mission had little to do with preventing Amazon Prime members seeing their streaming service go to a crawl because they had Comcast Xfinity. Classic big government meddling is nothing new of course no matter who is president, but I am glad Net Neutrality (a misnomer if I ever heard of one) is dead.

And I'll bring up another point: would Net Neutrality have done anything about Google and Facebook targeting their news feeds and search engines based on political stance which they do and are so brash as to deny they do it? Google, Facebook, and Twitter are monopolies by the very definition used by the FTC. They control more than 50% of social media and search engine markets. They can and do impose on their customers restrictions based on their views as to what is and is not "appropriate" to be posted on the internet (and more often than not as we've increasingly witnessed, it's been politically motivated). And the kicker to that is that it is these same institutions who are advocating federal government oversight on internet use and supported NN! I took the red pill, thank you.

"Instead, it was a Trojan Horse for controlling content on the internet. We were close to becoming China with it where the federal government controls what people are allowed to see."
Since you're being such a blowhard about this... Prove it.

What you said is the exact opposite of what it supposed to do. But I will openly admit I didn't read the whole official Net Neutrality law as I'm sure it's so many pages you probably didn't read it either. But you can't make claims like these with nothing to back them up. So shut it, or prove your right.

I want to see the actual words from the actual law. Not your ramblings with no real proof.

 

[mitch074]

My goodness - so much stupidity in there.
Net Neutrality: ISPs must not throttle connection speed based on content. If you have a good connection, Hulu or Youtube will get you your videos at the same speed.
No Net neutrality: if you have a good connection, you will get bad Hulu and bad Youtube connection except if you pay an extra $5 a month to "unlock" speed on Hulu, or an extra $3 to "unlock" speed on Youtube.

You ISP will then be able to claim "broadband speed" on your connection, but you'll get 56K-like landline speed - unless you pay extra.

 

[tsnor]

My goodness - so much stupidity in there.
Net Neutrality: ISPs must not throttle connection speed based on content. If you have a good connection, Hulu or Youtube will get you your videos at the same speed.
No Net neutrality: if you have a good connection, you will get bad Hulu and bad Youtube connection except if you pay an extra $5 a month to "unlock" speed on Hulu, or an extra $3 to "unlock" speed on Youtube.

You ISP will then be able to claim "broadband speed" on your connection, but you'll get 56K-like landline speed - unless you pay extra.

Even worse. It's not "poor performance if you don't pay extra", it's "you get poor performance if NETFLIX doesn't pay up", same as last time the cable companies did this. You don't even have the option of choosing to pay more for good service. And the ISPs can pull all the profits out of companies like Netflix in areas where there are limited or no options for service.

 

[gangrel]

The only surprising part of this article is how long it actually took for them to announce this action.

We've had the throttling 'scandals' with cell service. "Unlimited data" where you got 1 or 2 GB at real speed, then throttled down drastically. Without being told. It's not clear whether ISPs will do this, or start metering things like how many hours a day you're streaming. The former would probably create massive pushback if they're not careful, because a massive amount of Internet traffic is the freakin' *ads* they cram down our throats...and the (*@#$@# embedded videos I don't want to see. News sites do this all the time.

I'm not sure how much censorship-through-throttling will happen, altho I concede the risk is definitely there. That doesn't include things like Comcast *probably* throttling Netflix and Hulu, while providing full speed access for Xfinity. That's not censorship; it's destructive use of monopoly power.

And, as pointed out, Comcast is likely to squeeze other big streaming sites like ESPN for payola, or they'll be throttled.

And that's why 10tacle is sooo totally *wrong*. I'm paying for a certain level of service every month. When these rules are repealed, that level of service will only be attained on "acceptable" portions of the net.

 

[shrapnel_indie]

@10tacle
" But beside that, the FCC imposes more regulations on ISPs and cable companies than in mobile telecom companies. Have you ever thought why is that?"

Physical lines are more heavily regulated because, like every other utility, those lines are installed on public land, and it is actually illegal for competing lines to be laid alongside then.

That said, most of the "liberal media" is ultimately owned by a telecom. Your "red pill" websites and competing conservative news will be among the first content blocked.
The FCC recently repealed fundamental anti-monopoly laws preventing broadcasters, local print media, and radio from being combined into a single monolithic media source.
Minutes later, Comcast (internet giant and owner of CNBC) announced their plans to buy Fox. What are you going to do when all your print, radio, tv, and INTERNET news are all being censored by a single source?

"mainstream media" is pretty much controlled by an oligarchy as it stands now... We got the illusion of choices, but the options are planned out. Yes, such mergers are not good news, especially as it shrinks outside "rogue" sources, and in fact can, to a degree shrink the oligarchy membership.

 

[shrapnel_indie]

The only surprising part of this article is how long it actually took for them to announce this action.

We've had the throttling 'scandals' with cell service. "Unlimited data" where you got 1 or 2 GB at real speed, then throttled down drastically. Without being told. It's not clear whether ISPs will do this, or start metering things like how many hours a day you're streaming. The former would probably create massive pushback if they're not careful, because a massive amount of Internet traffic is the freakin' *ads* they cram down our throats...and the (*@#$@# embedded videos I don't want to see. News sites do this all the time.

I'm not sure how much censorship-through-throttling will happen, altho I concede the risk is definitely there. That doesn't include things like Comcast *probably* throttling Netflix and Hulu, while providing full speed access for Xfinity. That's not censorship; it's destructive use of monopoly power.

And, as pointed out, Comcast is likely to squeeze other big streaming sites like ESPN for payola, or they'll be throttled.

And that's why 10tacle is sooo totally *wrong*. I'm paying for a certain level of service every month. When these rules are repealed, that level of service will only be attained on "acceptable" portions of the net.

The unlimited with throttling to lower speeds after xxGB has been going on even under NN rules (its in the fine print of the ads.) NN did nothing to stop it.

The issue with your local cable provider is, they have a monopoly in the type of service (Cable for cable providers) as they are exclusive in those markets with that type of delivery.... So, you have Comcast, Cox, Verizon, etc, having an exclusive contract with cities, towns, villages, etc.... No other cable provider can offer services unless they buy out the existing contract, or win it when its up for renewal, pushing the old one out... that leaves you with Satellite/Dish, U-Verse (DSL), or some provider of 4G services as competition. Each of them have their limitations too. Satellite for example is super expensive, has a long propagation delay, making it unsuitable for gaming. DSL, even with fiber networks still has its "you can only obtain xx speeds in your area" limitations, Cable has its neighborhood loads too. This really isn't a NN thing, its a service availability thing.


Oh I agree with the principle: that all Internet traffic should be treated equally, not to choose which data to privilege with higher quality. Its just the implementation of NN isn't just what we are told it is. Besides, This only really returns control back to the FTC, where it was in the beginning.

I think there are some things to ponder here, that a vast majority of people are overlooking about NN:

Start here: Harvard Business Review

Wired Magazine - What Everyone Gets Wrong in the Debate Over Net Neutrality


tl;dr
research what is really going on with NN, its roots, where it was, where it is, where it's going. THEN decide, don't just take the word of someone beating a drum and calling people to be against the changes.

 

[efeaglehouse]

The intent of Network Neutrality is a good concept. The laws regarding it, as passed by the Obama administration, corrupt that idea and should be scrapped like so many other bad laws. Pai's stance is completely opposite and just as bad. What we really need is sensible laws:
1. Don't allow blocking or slowing content. Except in the case of public safety, of course.
2. Allow me to pay for faster service if I want to. Better equipment with faster transfer rates costs more and service providers should be allowed to support it.
3. The Internet has become a public communication utility. Treat it like one.

 

[TJ Hooker]

@efeaglehouse how did the Obama-era NN laws differ from what you just stated (other than maybe not directly addressing improving infrastructure to support higher speeds, I'm not sure)?

 

[rktompsett]

What's this do to Ham Radio?

 

[501curtis1962]

The Obama era netneutrality is bad period, it gives almost total control to the government. Anyone who would do just tiny bit of research would see that it is bad. The millennials who are driving the fight for netneutrality are misinformed. The government does very little well and they want them to keep controlling the internet. No thank you.

 

[TJ Hooker]

The Obama era netneutrality is bad period, it gives almost total control to the government. Anyone who would do just tiny bit of research would see that it is bad. The millennials who are driving the fight for netneutrality are misinformed

Please, explain how NN gives the government "total control [of the internet]". If all it takes is a tiny bit of research, it should be easy for you to spell it out here for all the misinformed millennials.