Net Neutrality [Archive] - SpursTalk.com Forums

boutons_deux

07-23-2014, 12:10 PM

all y'all's Repugs rigging the "free market" for the "optimum solution" AGAINST the 99%, fucking up Internet forever.

Backed by Big Telecom, GOP Takes Aim at Net Neutrality and Community Broadband

In this case, the FCC is considering regulating the internet. Big broadband companies are not happy about it, and the same goes for the members of Congress they have made hefty donations to.

Last week, the Republican-led House voted to slash the FCC's budget by $17 million and narrowly approved a controversial amendment to a broad appropriations bill that would prevent the FCC from preempting state laws aimed at stomping out community-owned broadband initiatives that compete with big commercial providers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon.

Big broadband providers, along with their allies in Congress, are worried that the FCC may cave to public pressure (http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/23738-the-fccs-net-neutrality-proposal-is-out-its-time-to-make-our-voices-heard) and opt to regulate the internet as a telecommunications service like telephone lines in order to enforce the proposed net neutrality rules - an option the FCC only put on the table after significant public outcry and grassroots protest (http://truth-out.org/news/item/23659-facing-growing-grassroots-pressure-wheeler-revises-net-neutrality-proposal).

Rumors of a Republican plan to slip an amendment into the appropriations bill that would block such a move sent net neutrality advocates scrambling to call their representatives last week, and no such amendment surfaced on the House floor.

Instead, the GOP took aim at public internet services in local communities just one week after FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler surprised critics by announcing he would be willing to defend them.

Undermining Net Neutrality

Cable and broadband companies such as Verizon, Time Warner Cable and AT&Tconsistently rank at the bottom (http://www.cnet.com/news/cable-providers-isps-rank-dead-last-for-customer-service/) of the communications industry when it comes to having happy customers. High prices, slow data transmission and unreliable service are among the reason why customer satisfaction with broadband internet providers recently dropped to 63 percent: the lowest score (http://www.theacsi.org/news-and-resources/press-releases/press-2014/press-release-telecommunications-and-information-2014) in the 2014 American Customer Satisfaction Index.

Consumers are fed up with their internet providers, which face little competition in many local markets. Their representatives in Congress, however, seem eager to shield the broadband industry from government regulation.

In late May, Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) introduced a bill that would prevent the FCC from reclassifying the internet under federal law as a "common carrier" service like telephone lines, which would allow the internet to be regulated more like a public utility. If the internet were considered a "common carrier" under federal law, the FCC could require broadband providers to serve the public indiscriminately. The bill has little chance of passing, but members of Congress on both sides of the aisle agree with Latta and have put increasing pressure on the FCC to ignore calls to designate the web as a "common carrier" service.

Common carrier reclassification is at the heart of the debate over the FCC's most recent proposal to establish net neutrality rules. Net neutrality is the idea that all web content should be treated equally, and governments and broadband providers should not discriminate against, block or censor legal web content.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/25090-backed-by-big-telecom-gop-takes-aim-at-net-neutrality-and-community-broadband

boutons_deux

08-07-2014, 10:32 AM

Terse FCC letter suggests Verizon's plan to throttle unlimited data is a cash grab

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has sharply questioned Verizon Wireless over its planannounced last week (http://www.techhive.com/article/2458230/verizon-will-throttle-heaviest-lte-data-users-starting-in-october.html) to throttle mobile data speeds for customers with unlimited plans.

In a letter to Verizon Wireless President and CEO Dan Mead on Wednesday, Wheeler challenged Verizon’s plans to treat customers differently based on their data plans rather than on network technology issues. His questioning suggested Verizon wants to slow down subscribers’ service so they’ll switch to a plan with a limited monthly data allowance.

“‘Reasonable network management’ concerns the technical management of your network; it is not a loophole designed to enhance your revenue streams,” Wheeler wrote.

Verizon plans to sometimes scale back connection speeds for the top 5 percent of data users who are still on plans that let them send and receive unlimited amounts of data in a month. The company no longer sells such plans to new customers but allows those who had them in the past to keep them. Verizon claims its planned throttling practice, which it calls Network Optimization, is intended to protect the experience of all users at times and places where its network is experiencing high demand.

In his letter, Wheeler focused on the fact that Verizon is aiming the practice specifically at its remaining unlimited-data customers.

“I know of no past Commission statement that would treat as ‘reasonable network management’ a decision to slow traffic to a user who has paid, after all, for ‘unlimited’ service,” Wheeler wrote.

http://www.techhive.com/article/2460000/fcc-chairman-grills-verizon-over-data-throttling.html#tk.nl_thbest

boutons_deux

08-07-2014, 10:34 AM

Bold Obama Stand Shakes Up Net Neutrality Debate

President Barack Obama edged up to questioning (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/08/05/obama-strikes-a-populist-tone-on-net-neutrality/) the Federal Communications Commission's newly proposed net neutrality rules, a heavily criticized plan that would favor Internet content providers that can afford to pay more for faster delivery of their services.

Obama campaigned heavily on net neutrality during his 2008 election, but has been largely silent on the issue since the FCC voted to kill it with new Internet service rules that would create "fast lanes" for content providers that can afford to pay for them; those that can't will be hit with slower traffic.

Obama echoed one of progressives' major criticisms of the new rules (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/15/fcc-net-neutrality_n_5331278.html) at the U.S. Africa Business Forum in Washington on Wednesday, saying he is in favor of "an open and fair Internet."

"One of the issues around net neutrality is whether you are creating different rates or charges for different content providers. That’s the big controversy here," he said. "You have big, wealthy media companies who might be willing to pay more but then also charge more for more spectrum, more bandwidth on the Internet so they can stream movies faster or what have you. And I personally -- the position of my administration, as well as I think a lot of companies here is you don’t want to start getting a differentiation in how accessible the Internet is to various users."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/06/obama-net-neutrality_n_5655862.html

Killing net neutrality, fucking up Internet will be high on the Repugs' agenda if they get Exec and Congressional control, along with a lot of other stuff the Repugs will fuck up, for decades.

boutons_deux

11-10-2014, 12:02 PM

Obama Urges F.C.C. to Adopt Strict Rules on Net Neutrality

President Obama (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per) on Monday put the full weight of his administration behind an open and free Internet, calling for a strict policy of so-called net neutrality (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/n/net_neutrality/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) and formally opposing deals in which content providers like Netflix would pay huge sums to broadband companies for faster access to their customers.

The president’s proposal is consistent with his longstanding support for rules that seek to prevent cable and telephone companies from providing special access to some content providers. But the statement posted online (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/10/statement-president-net-neutrality) Monday, as Mr. Obama traveled to Asia, is the most direct effort by the president to influence the debate about the Internet’s future.

In the statement, and a video on the White House website, Mr. Obama urged the Federal Communications Commission to adopt the strictest set of neutrality rules possible and to treat consumer broadband service as a public utility, similar to telephone or power companies.

“We cannot allow Internet service providers to restrict the best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas,” Mr. Obama wrote in the statement.

(http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/technology/obama-net-neutrality-fcc.html)Mr. Obama said that new rules under consideration by the F.C.C. should adhere to several key principles:

No website or service should be blocked by an Internet service provider;

no content should be purposefully slowed down or sped up;

there should be more transparency about where traffic is routed;

and no paid deals should be made to provide a speed advantage to some providers over others in delivering content.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/technology/obama-net-neutrality-fcc.html (http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/technology/obama-net-neutrality-fcc.html)

The Repugs/ALEC are of course FOR letting BigCorp rig the Internet, like they rig everything else.

Spurminator

11-10-2014, 02:30 PM

boutons_deux

11-10-2014, 03:05 PM

Ted Cruz: "Net Neutrality is the Obamacare of the Internet."

http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/10/7186433/what-senator-ted-cruz-just-said-should-scare-anyone-who-wants

This is your leader, GOP supporters. If you care about anything except partisan gamesmanship, you'll call him out on this.

Krazy Kruz is a so-called libertarian, which is fraudulent anti-govt bullshit. Natural that he wants to "liberate" Internet from govt regs so BigCorps can fuck it up.

Spurminator

11-10-2014, 06:13 PM

Cruz seems to have deleted his tweet. Probably didn't expect the backlash. I doubt he's suddenly changed sides on the issue.

angrydude

11-10-2014, 06:44 PM

Net Neutrality is one of those areas where we're going to get the worst of all possible outcomes because, dammit, the government's just got to do something!

Yonivore

11-10-2014, 06:54 PM

I don't really have an opinion on this yet but, if I understand the arguments, "net neutrality" will only result in equal access if there is unlimited bandwidth. Otherwise, it becomes like any other utility where the provider will charge you according to some usage algorithm. Someone enlighten me. What are providers restricting me from accessing without the government getting involved in yet one more of area of my life.

I don't know if it's "Obamacare for the Internet" but, less government is always better.

angrydude

11-10-2014, 07:11 PM

Verizon was throttling netflix.

The problem with this issue is that people have a point. It's a very complex issue, and tech people who want it like to patronize you like a toddler if you don't completely agree with them.

Yes, ISPs doing this is a bad thing. But government enforced Net Neutrality is not a good solution for it. It's only going to open the door to a lot more government intrusions down the line.

Its like that whole, the operation was a success, but the patient died thing.

Yonivore

11-10-2014, 07:16 PM

Verizon was throttling netflix.
For their own customers or for all NetFlix subscribers? I don't have any problems accessing Netflix on my TV, home computer, or mobile device. And, I don't have Verizon.

The problem with this issue is that people have a point. It's a very complex issue, and tech people who want it like to patronize you like a toddler if you don't completely agree with them.

Yes, ISPs doing this is a bad thing. But government enforced Net Neutrality is not a good solution for it. It's only going to open the door to a lot more government intrusions down the line.
I tend to agree with this statement.

angrydude

11-10-2014, 07:20 PM

They throttled it just for verizon customers.

So you might say ppl can just switch ISPs. The problem is in some areas of the country there is only one.

Like I said, it gets problematic.

baseline bum

11-10-2014, 07:25 PM

The internet without net neutrality tbh

http://forums-cdn.appleinsider.com/8/85/500x1000px-LL-85bebeb4_GooglesInternet.jpeg

Yonivore

11-10-2014, 07:34 PM

They throttled it just for verizon customers.

So you might say ppl can just switch ISPs. The problem is in some areas of the country there is only one.

Like I said, it gets problematic.
Only if Netflix (or whatever subscription service you're upset about) is a necessity. I'm not that impressed with Netflix but, they do provide original content and, in my opinion, should be compensated for that. For instance, House of Cards is awesome but, if it cost more than I was willing to pay, I'd do without.

And, I don't see anything in Baseline's post that I couldn't do without, either.

Again, I'm not sure any perceived benefit is worth handing the keys over to the federal government for.

angrydude

11-10-2014, 07:45 PM

Only if Netflix (or whatever subscription service you're upset about) is a necessity. I'm not that impressed with Netflix but, they do provide original content and, in my opinion, should be compensated for that. For instance, House of Cards is awesome but, if it cost more than I was willing to pay, I'd do without.

And, I don't see anything in Baseline's post that I couldn't do without, either.

Again, I'm not sure any perceived benefit is worth handing the keys over to the federal government for.

Again, it's mostly scaremongering. If ISPs were going to do what baseline's post says they would have done it already. There are other economic factors at play which I'll never expect net neutrality supporters to understand.

Yonivore

11-10-2014, 07:48 PM

ElNono

11-10-2014, 07:48 PM

The internet grew in large part because any joe in his basement could literally fire up a server and start offering their content (youtube, google for example started like this).
If people liked it, then it would become popular, joe would pay the ISP more for more bandwidth, then eventually monetize his business, IPO, etc.

ISPs simply moved the bytes around from any basement to the general public, and got paid based on their data plans.

Now, ISPs see that little joe became multimillion dollar netflix, and want a piece of the pie. So they slow down joe's traffic, degrade the experience of joe's users, and demand ransom, while they launch their own "netflix". Joe can't force users to switch ISPs, because unfortunately there's still a lot of monopolies out there.

This isn't new. Public utilities discrimination is well documented, due to the same monopoly power. Back in the day, government stepped in to regulate it. One of the discussions now is if ISPs should be classified as public utilities (and subject to the same regulations). ISPs obviously don't want that, because it would close their new money spigot.

Perhaps the real solution is to simply mandate net neutrality in areas where there's no real competition, and even, perhaps, offer incentives to create competition in those areas. But that makes too much sense, so we'll probably end up with some hacked up "solution" that maintains the monopolies, and tries to keep every player happy by taking a dump on the consumer.

ElNono

11-10-2014, 07:52 PM

Again, it's mostly scaremongering. If ISPs were going to do what baseline's post says they would have done it already. There are other economic factors at play which I'll never expect net neutrality supporters to understand.

I agree there's no reason to do that kind of stuff, but there are indeed much larger economic factors at play, like a higher barrier to entry, etc... if net neutrality wouldn't be there anymore.

Yonivore

11-10-2014, 07:52 PM

ElNono

11-10-2014, 07:56 PM

Unfortunately, the shenanigans of ISPs that want to be more than just a transport for the data (literally an utility), will guarantee government intervention. There's no way around it.

boutons_deux

11-10-2014, 08:03 PM

net neutrality is nothing but maintaining the status quo, where all bandwidth is shared equally.

non-net-neutrality is allowing corps to sell higher bandwidth to those corps that can pay, tilting the playing field, ERECTING ENTRY BARRIERS, to those, perhaps startups/innovators, who can't.

network operators are common carriers, interstate commerce, etc, etc and should be regulated like common carriers.

all y'all right-wingers' absolute resistance to ANY GOVT regulation is fucking short-sighted and beyond stupid, but that's right wingers for ya.

Corporations are trying fuckup Internet for MORE profit, consumers get screwed.

baseline bum

11-10-2014, 08:09 PM

I can't understand why people are interested in paying more for their Netflix.

ElNono

11-10-2014, 08:10 PM

I just think more competition would work just as well here. Unfortunately, as Google Fiber is finding out, barrier to entry in that market has it's own limitations.

Th'Pusher

11-10-2014, 08:12 PM

Corporations erecting barriers to entry is the is fundamental issue here. So what's the free market solution Yoni/angydude?

baseline bum

11-10-2014, 08:13 PM

I just think more competition would work just as well here. Unfortunately, as Google Fiber is finding out, barrier to entry in that market has it's own limitations.

More competition is a fairy tale with the legislators Time-Warner owns tbh, at least in Texas.

ElNono

11-10-2014, 08:19 PM

More competition is a fairy tale with the legislators Time-Warner owns tbh, at least in Texas.

Well, yeah, as I said earlier, I'm pretty sure we're gonna get some turd implemented that basically fucks the consumer. Pretty typical stuff these days.

Th'Pusher

11-10-2014, 09:22 PM

These free marketeers sure do shut down when they can't blame the federal government.

Spurminator

11-11-2014, 01:01 AM

There are other economic factors at play which I'll never expect net neutrality supporters to understand.

Try us.

boutons_deux

11-11-2014, 11:26 AM

Changing How the Internet Is Regulated Probably Won't Kill It

One of the main arguments against reclassifying broadband as a telecommunications service is that companies facing stronger regulations will stop making capital investments in broadband. After President Obama said he supported Title II reclassification (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-11-10/obama-wants-the-fcc-to-fight-on-internet-rules) as the basis for net neutrality rules on Monday, the telecommunications industry issued a round of dire warnings to that effect.

But when asked to provide evidence backing up those claims, Comcast (CMCSA (http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?ticker=CMCSA))said that it couldn’t because cable networks have never been regulated under Title II. Verizon (VZ (http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?ticker=VZ)) declined to discuss the matter, saying that there is no data. Scott Belcher, the chief executive officer of the Telecommunications Industry Association, issued a statement saying that “we saw a significant negative impact on investment the last time restrictive Title II regulation was in place, and no one will benefit from returning to that failed policy.”

So while it’s clear that Title II legal reclassification will trigger all kinds of political and legal challenges, it’s less clear that it will cause big changes to the economics of the Internet. Opponents of the change say it would give the FCC too much power to do such things as regulate prices and content companies like Netflix (NFLX (http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?ticker=NFLX)), but the FCC has not shown any appetite for doing so. Instead, the new rules could pretty much maintain the status quo—which has worked out well for companies such as

Verizon ($54 billion in profit from 2010 to 2013),

AT&T (T (http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?ticker=T)) ($50 billion over that period), and

Comcast ($24 billion.)

From 1998 to 2006, Title II applied to DSL, the version of Internet that travels over telephone networks. Those years saw a spike in investment, as the chart below shows.
http://images.bwbx.io/cms/2014-11-11/Screen-Shot-2014-11-10-at-3.23.56-PM.png
The capital investment argument is a red herring, and the cable and telecom industry don’t point to data because they can’t back up their long-running claims, says Turner.

“It’s just ignorant to assume that the word ‘regulation’ always has an impact one way or another on capital investment,” he says.

http://nybw.businessweek.com/articles/2014-11-11/strict-internet-rules-are-unlikely-to-dry-up-investment#r=rss

red herring? it's called a LIE. BigCorps screaming disaster, using extortion, if anybody touches their cheese.

boutons_deux

11-11-2014, 11:30 AM

Dark fibre

Rate of expansion[edit (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dark_fibre&action=edit&section=6)]

According to Gerry Butters,[7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_fibre#cite_note-7) [8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_fibre#cite_note-8) [9] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_fibre#cite_note-9) the former head of Lucent's Optical Networking Group at Bell Labs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs), Moore's law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law) holds true with fibre optics.[10] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_fibre#cite_note-10)

The amount of data coming out of an optical fibre is doubling every nine months.

Thus, excluding the transmission equipment upgrades, the cost of transmitting a bit over an optical network decreases by half every nine months.[dubious (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Disputed_statement) – discuss (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Dark_fibre#Dubious)]

The availability of dense wavelength-division multiplexing DWDM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DWDM) and coarse wavelength division multiplexing CWDM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CWDM) is rapidly bringing down the cost of networking, and further progress seems assured.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_fibre

so network capacity isn't the problem, since there is LOTS of unused dark fiber already laid across the nation, and planet, while lit fiber is increasing in capacity.

boutons_deux

11-12-2014, 12:42 PM

Conservatives Overwhelmingly Back Net Neutrality, Poll Finds

https://time.com/3578255/conservatives-net-neutrality-poll/

boutons_deux

11-12-2014, 05:51 PM

he's lying, but it's BigCorp, so lies, FUD are expected

AT&T chief says Net neutrality qualms could crimp fiber plans
http://www.cnet.com/news/at-t-ceo-net-neutrality-uncertainty-puts-a-pause-in-investing/?tag=nl.e404&s_cid=e404&ttag=e404&ftag=CAD1acfa04

net neutrality as a regulated system in NOTHING NEW, only maintains the status quo of the past 20 years, from which the BigCorps have pocketed $100Bs in profits for mostly shitty, overpriced service (TV, phone, internet)

angrydude

11-12-2014, 08:03 PM

Try us.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303465004579326520651390190

An interesting 1968 study by the late cognitive scientist Jerome Lettvin calls attention to the intellectual limitations of the frog, who attends only to small, moving objects in his field of vision. He does not understand much else about his environment. "He will starve to death surrounded by food if it is not moving."

The frog is much like the net-neutrality obsessive, who understands less and less about the broadband world that actually exists and yet ferociously insists on the importance of reinstating the Federal Communications Commission broadband antidiscrimination rules that a federal court just threw out this week.

Net neutrality is the principle that network operators must treat all data crossing their networks the same. Take the latest palpitation of the net-neut crowd: AT&T's introduction last month of "sponsored data" on its wireless network, which the company likens to the "1-800" service it offers over its increasingly obsolete long-distance voice network. Businesses would be invited to pick up the tab for wireless data they send to their customers so it wouldn't count against the customer's wireless data cap.

What the net-neut obsessives refuse to recognize is that anticompetitive intent isn't worth worrying about if an anticompetitive result isn't possible. AT&T's proposal comes at a time when the wireless world is more competitive than ever, thanks to a rejuvenated Sprint and T-Mobile. If AT&T were "double-dipping," or charging sender and recipient for the same data, its rivals would quickly copy its innovation and compete away any excess revenues. If AT&T were to degrade websites that don't pay up, its rivals would pounce and steal AT&T's dissatisfied customers.

And so it has been for all the net-neut boogeymen flogged over the years. The fear that Internet providers would censor bandwidth-hogging, file-sharing sites? That concern has faded as the video deluge has swamped all other traffic sources. The fear that cable operators would block Netflix to prop up their own TV businesses? That fear has leached away along with the profits that cable operators once earned on their TV efforts. Now their profits come from broadband, which Netflix helps them sell.

Their biggest blind spot, though, concerns data caps, which the net-neut amphibians insist on seeing as nefarious attempts to undermine net neutrality. In fact, data caps are good old-fashioned exercises in price discrimination. Just as airlines bring more people into the air by not charging every passenger the same, so broadband operators are adopting convoluted pricing schemes. These aim to segregate customers according to how much bandwidth they are willing to pay for. As happens in the air, the result is an opportunity to create more customers and more traffic.

AT&T's "sponsored data" simply is an extension of this principle: By seeking to stimulate wireless traffic that wouldn't take place if the recipient were paying, AT&T is making the metered Web safe for advertising-supported business models.

But here's where the net-neut froggie's world is really about to get turned upside-down. Broadband suppliers aren't the only ones who've long noodled about doing what AT&T just did. So have content providers, including that famous net-neutrality hypocrite, Google, which already is paying certain overseas operators to deliver Google services to users without triggering the user's data limits.

And this door will continue to open. The advantages to network operators, content suppliers and end users of finding more efficient ways to pay for the video deluge are too irresistible to pass up. Even the FCC, under its outgoing chief economist Steven Wildman, has begun to understand this. And the net-neut hysterics will continue to be infuriated, for reasons more related to maintaining influence in Washington than any public-interest purpose.

The net-neut obsessive, like the frog, may have many blindspots, but he is superbly adapted to his environment. He even benefits from the fact that the FCC rules were thrown out. Had the rules been left in effect, everyone gradually would have noticed how irrelevant they are, and he would have fewer takers for the hysteria he peddles.

This is a start.

angrydude

11-12-2014, 08:07 PM

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/01/a-further-comment-on-net-neutrality.html

This is some more.

Again, I don't expect you to agree.

Have a nice day.

ElNono

11-12-2014, 08:25 PM

http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303465004579326520651390190

This is a start.

Thanks ad, but, IMO, the article fails to address three critical issues:

1) it assumes there's lots of competition, and while that might be true in the wireless world, we know that's largely not the case in the wired world

2) it fails to address why this is good for consumers.

3) it says nothing about the negatives of non-net neutrality (how does this affect the barrier to entry, etc)

The conclusions he reaches are: "the result is an opportunity to create more customers and more traffic." and "that famous net-neutrality hypocrite, Google, which already is paying certain overseas operators to deliver Google services to users without triggering the user's data limits".

I mean, we know it's good for ISPs. That's why they're aggressively lobbying against it. Some content providers might be already bending over. Okay. Airline pricing? Do you really like the current airline pricing, where you get nickel and dimed to death for a seat 10 rows in front of you? That's a positive for the consumer?

ElNono

11-12-2014, 08:41 PM

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/01/a-further-comment-on-net-neutrality.html

This is some more.

Again, I don't expect you to agree.

Have a nice day.

Thanks for sharing, again. This is actually a little better. The problem here is that ISPs have no interest in letting go of their monopolies, that's not even on the table of the net neutrality debate. As a matter of fact, they keep consolidating to create larger monopoly power.

But there's a reason why they were handed that kind of power. It's obvious there's a state interest in having internet access (just like phone access in the past), and obviously there's an important amount of investment that needs to be done for that to happen, especially on areas that might not be as profitable as major urban centers.

So you have two colliding interests here: the state interest in providing greater access, and the company interest in recouping their investment and making money. That's how these government monopolies came to be, as a solution to that dilemma.

Now you could remove some of those monopolies, but then access could suffer. That said, I think with the advent of wireless tech at a respectable price, there's a lot less need these days for some of those monopolies. That's something that should be part of the conversation, IMO, but it isn't right now.

boutons_deux

11-12-2014, 09:23 PM

one must assume that unregulated monopolies are ALWAYS abusive, extractive.

we have Grande and TWC in SA, with no effective difference in pkgs, prices, no real competition.

the big network operators are so big now, based on the massive fiber investments they made 10+ years ago, that they buy politicians with chump change. and they do buy, eg, states blocking cities from using their municipal fiber networks for residential/business Internet. aka, the states, esp RED states, REGULATING markets so the well-paying incumbents are protected.

the big networks ARE common carriers, Title II all they way, and should be regulated as such, so that the STATUS QUO of the last 15 -20 years of OPEN Internet is maintained indefinitely.

SupremeGuy

11-13-2014, 11:43 PM

The internet without net neutrality tbh

http://forums-cdn.appleinsider.com/8/85/500x1000px-LL-85bebeb4_GooglesInternet.jpegLMAO no one actually believes this right?

Wild Cobra

11-13-2014, 11:44 PM

LMAO no one actually believes this right?

Only those who believe anything they read on the internet.

Yonivore

11-18-2014, 02:35 PM

_oRoG8SqChE

ChumpDumper

11-18-2014, 02:48 PM

_oRoG8SqChEcrofl

ElNono

11-18-2014, 03:01 PM

Thanks for sharing that video... goes to show politicos should really refrain from talking about subjects they know very little about. Reminds me of Ted Stevens and his "series of tubes" or Barry trying to explain metadata collection.

ISPs has been regulated by the FCC practically from the get go. The 1996 Federal Communications Act set forth those regulations. There hasn't been an 'era' where the internet was not regulated. Politicos always had a say on it.

The Net Neutrality debate in front of us hinges on whether to re-classify ISPs under a different title of the law or not, and it's a direct and natural reaction to a power play by ISPs. Whether it's a good idea, bad idea, the correct way to combat the problem at hand... well, that's certainly up for debate.

It's just disheartening to listen to these kind of videos, since these are the kind of guys that really don't understand what they're doing, but get to have a say on the eventual outcome.

Spurminator

11-18-2014, 03:04 PM

I watched a two minute video promising to expose negative consequences and it offered zero negative consequences specific to net neutrality. How disappointing.

Also, comparing cell phones to land lines is a lot like comparing public health care to witchcraft practiced in the 16th century and suggesting this proves public health care is the way to move forward. The smartphone was an innovation that improved upon the physical telephone. Nobody's suggesting a ban on innovation. Private enterprise helped create the smartphone but smartphones aren't beloved because of cellular service providers. Lest we forget that Americans pay the highest cell phone rates (http://www.cnet.com/news/north-americans-pay-more-for-cell-phone-service/) in the world and most people hate their wireless carriers (http://www.businessinsider.com/companies-with-the-worst-customer-ratings-2013-12?op=1). What an altogether brain-dead comparison and what a complete shill you'd have to be to make it.

Innovation will still happen regardless of who regulates the Internet. Net Neutrality makes it easier for that innovation to come from anywhere.

boutons_deux

11-18-2014, 03:13 PM

net neutrality only protects the STATUS QUO, from which the big ISP/network operations have pocketed many $10Bs.

As always BigCorp, 1% shills, Repugs LIE about the world-ending disasters, FUD, if they they don't get their way and/or if somebody else tries to get their way.

Soc Sec, hyperinflation, national debt, debt ceiling, debt/out-of-control-spending (on the 99%, not on the 1%), etc, etc DISASTERS, ALL right wing lies.

net neutrality? "fool me once..." GFY

Spurminator

11-18-2014, 03:36 PM

_oRoG8SqChE

Better response, in hindsight...

LMAO no one actually believes this right?

Yonivore

11-18-2014, 03:52 PM

Better response, in hindsight...
The general point of Senator Cruz's message was that federal regulation (of the type found in Title II) will ultimately lead to a stagnant technology with cumbersome rules to navigate where costs are escalated by hidden fees and lack of competition.

With that point, I agree. Anyone who thinks this is a good idea either stands to make money from the regulatory protection or just doesn't realize what a oppressive weight federal regulation brings to just about every enterprise it touches.

I'm fine with the internet just the way it is -- why mess with it?

Yonivore

11-18-2014, 04:04 PM

http://s4.legalinsurrection.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Cable-Guy-600-LI1.jpg
We're from the Government and
we're here to fix your internet.

baseline bum

11-18-2014, 04:12 PM

baseline bum

11-18-2014, 04:15 PM

Yonivore

11-18-2014, 04:22 PM

The costs are already escalated by lack of competition. :lol

My internet is cheap.

Yonivore

11-18-2014, 04:23 PM

This shit's mostly about ISPs also being cable companies and wanting to make it more expensive to use services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO, NBA League Pass online, etc that threaten their TV service. Pls Ted Cruz, protect my monopoly!

ISP's are offering the a la carte content cable companies have refused to for decades. I only pay for the content I want.

Trainwreck2100

11-18-2014, 04:23 PM

Anyone on Cruz's side of the issue most likely uses internet explorer

Yonivore

11-18-2014, 04:23 PM

Anyone on Cruz's side of the issue most likely uses internet explorer

Wrong.

baseline bum

11-18-2014, 04:25 PM

Anyone on Cruz's side of the issue most likely uses internet explorer

:lol

ElNono

11-18-2014, 04:29 PM

Anyone on Cruz's side of the issue most likely uses internet explorer

:lol

ElNono

11-18-2014, 04:32 PM

The general point of Senator Cruz's message was that federal regulation (of the type found in Title II) will ultimately lead to a stagnant technology with cumbersome rules to navigate where costs are escalated by hidden fees and lack of competition.

Based on what? Up until ISPs started to demand extra payment from content providers, they were effectively working as a Title II utility. You know, while the entire internet ecosystem was flourishing and stuff.

baseline bum

11-18-2014, 04:34 PM

Based on what? Up until ISPs started to demand extra payment from content providers, they were effectively working as a Title II utility. You know, while the entire internet ecosystem was flourishing and stuff.

:cry But the internets crashed the bubble and made Bush look bad :cry

Spurminator

11-18-2014, 04:37 PM

Yeah, Americans have it great.

Study: Broadband Still Slower, More Expensive In U.S. Than In Europe, Asia (http://consumerist.com/2014/10/31/study-broadband-still-slower-more-expensive-in-u-s-than-in-europe-asia/)

American consumers have gotten a mixed bag of broadband news this year. Between mergers and net neutrality it’s been a rough twelve months, even while some consumers have seen better connections and dropping prices. But the news for most of us is the same as ever: on the whole, Americans pay more, for worse broadband service, than our peers in the rest of the world.The Open Technology Institute at the New America Foundation conducts a study every year comparing broadband speeds and prices nation- and world-wide. This year’s, which they released this week (http://www.newamerica.org/oti/the-cost-of-connectivity-2014/), is the third annual study.

Last year’s report (http://consumerist.com/2013/10/28/u-s-consumers-paying-more-getting-less-for-internet-than-europe-asia/) found that Americans were paying more for broadband access than our counterparts abroad, and getting worse service for it.

This year’s data paint a similar picture. Overall, our national average broadband speeds are still lower, and our prices higher, than what customers in similarly-sized cities in Europe and Asia get.

That’s not to say that all consumers in the U.S. are chugging along with terrible connections, though. In fact, the seven top-ranking cities, all tied at first place with symmetrical gigabit connections, include three cities in Asia and four in the U.S. Seoul, Hong Kong, and Tokyo are tied for first place along with Chattanooga, TN; Kansas City, KS; Kansas City, MO; and Lafayette, LA.

If that list of cities sounds familiar, it’s because Chattanooga is the country’s go-to example (http://www.fcc.gov/blog/removing-barriers-competitive-community-broadband) of just how great municipal broadband can be, and the Kansas City area is where Google Fiber first launched. Lafayette also has a well-regarded public fiber utility.

But in larger cities, where only big incumbent ISPs like Comcast, Verizon, and Time Warner Cable operate, the picture is more dire. Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, DC all tie for 12th place on the list, with fiber connections of 500 Mbps. San Francisco, America’s high-tech hotbed, comes in near the bottom of the list with top speeds of 200 Mbps, just 20% of what consumers in Chattanooga can get.

American users aren’t just seeing slower service, though; even though prices have dropped since last year, we’re still paying significantly more for every gigabyte we get. Gigabit service in Chattanooga and Kansas City runs $70 per month, and in Lafayette it’s about $110. As compared to last year’s $1000 monthly fee, that’s great. But customers in Seoul, Hong Kong, and Tokyo — all cities with a high cost of living — are all paying between $30 and $40 USD for their connections.

Meanwhile, those 500 Mbps connections in New York and L.A. — literally half as fast — will run a subscriber a whopping $300 per month. American consumers are also paying more in other ways, for example, with high monthly modem rental fees.

So what’s keeping American broadband down? There seem to be two key factors: one, broadband is a government-sponsored or -subsidized utility in many other parts of the world.

Public or public/private partnerships for broadband are often very successful in the United States, as Lafayette, Chattanooga, and Kansas City show. But they’re very, very hard to get started. Not only do new ventures face logistical and financial hurdles (http://consumerist.com/2014/05/10/why-starting-a-competitor-to-comcast-is-basically-impossible/), but also legal ones. Incumbent ISPs, especially AT&T, have successfully sponsored or lobbied for state level laws that prohibit the construction or expansion (http://consumerist.com/2014/08/28/how-isps-compete-with-municipal-networks-lobbying-and-campaign-donations-that-block-them/) of municipal broadband projects.

The other major factor is related, and it’s competition. Or, more specifically, the complete lack of it (http://consumerist.com/2014/09/04/fcc-chair-admits-there-is-nowhere-near-enough-broadband-competition/). Inmost U.S. cities (http://consumerist.com/2014/03/07/heres-what-lack-of-broadband-competition-looks-like-in-map-form/), customers seeking high-speed internet don’t really have a choice of what provider to go with. For connections faster than 25 Mbps, over 80% of us can go with, at most, one provider.

Big telecom companies are nominally expanding their gigabit fiber networks (http://consumerist.com/2014/08/22/two-big-reasons-cnn-money-is-only-half-right-about-gigabit-broadband-expansion/), but they aren’t there yet and it will be a long, slow slog before they are. And without competition, they aren’t really motivated to. Incumbent ISPs are more likely to pretend everything is great (http://consumerist.com/2014/09/23/comcast-keeps-claiming-competition-abounds-despite-mountains-of-evidence-from-planet-reality/) and rigging the rules in their favor (http://consumerist.com/2014/02/12/cable-lobby-continues-to-work-hard-to-make-sure-youre-stuck-with-their-crappy-broadband/)than they are actually to spend the time and money it takes to make wide-scale change.

OTI has made their full data set (https://data.opentechinstitute.org/dataset/2014-cost-of-connectivity) available to anyone who wishes to dig around in it.

ElNono

11-18-2014, 04:42 PM

This is the kind of stuff that stifles competition:

ISP lobby has already won limits on public broadband in 20 states (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/02/isp-lobby-has-already-won-limits-on-public-broadband-in-20-states/)

And it's always ISPs behind them. If they didn't have the monopoly, they couldn't extract ransom. It really is economy 101.

baseline bum

11-18-2014, 04:57 PM

boutons_deux

11-18-2014, 04:58 PM

http://s4.legalinsurrection.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Cable-Guy-600-LI1.jpg
We're from the Government and
we're here to fix your internet.

goddam, you're fucking dense.

BigCorps have announced their plan to break net neutrality

Spurminator

11-18-2014, 05:24 PM

It's not broken, it just sucks compared to other countries thanks to a lack of ISP regulation and oversight.

Yonivore

11-18-2014, 05:41 PM

It's not broken, it just sucks compared to other countries thanks to a lack of ISP regulation and oversight.

Get in the game.

ElNono

11-18-2014, 05:42 PM

It's unfortunate, because the topic is a bit more complex and serious than a cartoon. That is, however, the level of discourse you're likely to find.

Yonivore

11-18-2014, 06:00 PM

It's unfortunate, because the topic is a bit more complex and serious than a cartoon. That is, however, the level of discourse you're likely to find.
It's really not that complicated to me.

My internet works fine. The government pretty much fucks up any commercial enterprise in which it involves itself -- making it more expensive and less useful. Leave it the way it is.

ElNono

11-18-2014, 06:21 PM

:lol of course it's not complicated to you. You don't know a thing about what this discussion is about. What peering is, why the internet flourished without such agreements, etc.

Government has always been involved with this particular commercial enterprise, including handing out monopolies. That's not even an argument in this discussion.

I actually always found mind-boggling people that purport to want smaller government, but form opinion directly from career politicians' discourse. Intellectual laziness to the max.

At least boutons thinks government is useful...

Spurminator

11-18-2014, 06:26 PM

This is why we can't have nice things.

ElNono

11-18-2014, 06:27 PM

This is why we can't have nice things.

:lol

Spurminator

11-18-2014, 06:29 PM

My internet works fine.

Because your expectations are low.

Study: Broadband Still Slower, More Expensive In U.S. Than In Europe, Asia (http://consumerist.com/2014/10/31/study-broadband-still-slower-more-expensive-in-u-s-than-in-europe-asia/)

My Dial-up Internet worked fine too when that's all I knew. But I'm glad that's not all I have to settle for today.

Yonivore

11-18-2014, 07:44 PM

Because your expectations are low.

My Dial-up Internet worked fine too when that's all I knew. But I'm glad that's not all I have to settle for today.
Meh. I think we could do with a little less technology, if you ask me.

Clipper Nation

11-18-2014, 08:01 PM

But that makes too much sense, so we'll probably end up with some hacked up "solution" that maintains the monopolies, and tries to keep every player happy by taking a dump on the consumer.
That tends to be the result when the government starts meddling.

baseline bum

11-18-2014, 08:12 PM

Meh. I think we could do with a little less technology, if you ask me.

And for a little more money

Th'Pusher

11-18-2014, 08:45 PM

Meh. I think we could do with a little less technology, if you ask me.

That tends to be the result when the government starts meddling.

The two of you and Senator Cruz have absolutely no idea what you are talking about when it comes to this subject. You're embarrassing yourself with your boilerplate, knee jerk, government fucks up everything when they get involved responses.

Yonivore

11-18-2014, 08:55 PM

The two of you and Senator Cruz have absolutely no idea what you are talking about when it comes to this subject. You're embarrassing yourself with your boilerplate, knee jerk, government fucks up everything when they get involved responses.
Okay, I'll bite. Name a commercial enterprise the government HASN'T fucked up when they got involved.

Th'Pusher

11-18-2014, 09:06 PM

Okay, I'll bite. Name a commercial enterprise the government HASN'T fucked up when they got involved.

There was nothing to bite on in my response. I was simply letting you know that your responses were so clearly ill-informed that you'd be best suited watching this one from the sideline. You simply do not have the level of knowledge required to participate in the conversation.

Still, I'll humor you as this was in the news recently: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/13/us-doe-loans-idUSKCN0IX0A120141113

As for net neutrality, maybe something like this is more your speed: http://theoatmeal.com/blog/net_neutrality

Clipper Nation

11-18-2014, 10:10 PM

Th'Pussy with another emotional meltdown. :lol

boutons_deux

11-18-2014, 10:24 PM

Okay, I'll bite. Name a commercial enterprise the government HASN'T fucked up when they got involved.

Govt hasn't fucked up the Military Industrial Complex, still works great!

Th'Pusher

11-18-2014, 10:35 PM

Th'Pussy with another emotional meltdown. :lol

:td

ChumpDumper

11-19-2014, 12:22 AM

It's really not that complicated to me.

My internet works fine. The government pretty much fucks up any commercial enterprise in which it involves itself -- making it more expensive and less useful. Leave it the way it is.
It's fine now because with few exceptions the net is largely neutral.

You want to end that and make your internet not fine.

Do you understand?

ElNono

11-19-2014, 12:27 AM

That tends to be the result when the government starts meddling.

In this case, there's no "no government meddling". The internet was created by the government. The monopolies and regulations are as old as the internet itself.

There's no "no government intervention" version of all this. It's government picking A, B or C.

Option A lets ISPs abuse their monopoly position in detriment of content providers and consumers (this is what the 'new' internet looks like)
Option B prevents ISPs from abusing their monopoly position to extract ransom from content providers, which benefits both content providers and consumers (this is what the internet used to be until ISPs purposely started to slow down content providers expecting to extract a ransom)
Option C is likely a hack that lets ISPs abuse their monopoly power, while it allows content providers to 'offset' the ransom into consumers. I suspect this 'hybrid' approach is the likely one to succeed, since it's the one that basically screws over the consumer, which rarely has a voice or vote in these decisions.

ElNono

11-19-2014, 12:30 AM

Notice how there's no "let's get rid of monopolies" or "let's encourage competition where there's a monopoly" in any of the options.

ChumpDumper

11-19-2014, 12:35 AM

Yoni is exactly as ignorant as Cruz on this issue, only I am willing to believe with Cruz it's an act.

ElNono

11-19-2014, 12:39 AM

Yeah, Cruz seemingly can't escape the occasion to drop the "regulation bad" soundbite.

SnakeBoy

11-19-2014, 12:58 AM

It's fine now because with few exceptions the net is largely neutral.

You want to end that and make your internet not fine.

Do you understand?

Pretty good argument for preemptive action but you should try to work "mushroom cloud" into it somehow.

ChumpDumper

11-19-2014, 01:14 AM

Pretty good argument for preemptive action but you should try to work "mushroom cloud" into it somehow.

That would be disingenuous.

HI-FI

11-19-2014, 02:17 AM

In this case, there's no "no government meddling". The internet was created by the government. The monopolies and regulations are as old as the internet itself.

There's no "no government intervention" version of all this. It's government picking A, B or C.

Option A lets ISPs abuse their monopoly position in detriment of content providers and consumers (this is what the 'new' internet looks like)
Option B prevents ISPs from abusing their monopoly position to extract ransom from content providers, which benefits both content providers and consumers (this is what the internet used to be until ISPs purposely started to slow down content providers expecting to extract a ransom)
Option C is likely a hack that lets ISPs abuse their monopoly power, while it allows content providers to 'offset' the ransom into consumers. I suspect this 'hybrid' approach is the likely one to succeed, since it's the one that basically screws over the consumer, which rarely has a voice or vote in these decisions.

i really don't know much about this but are you taking Obama's side or does his meddling suck shit, per par? what is your preferred option?

ElNono

11-19-2014, 02:27 AM

i really don't know much about this but are you taking Obama's side or does his meddling suck shit, per par? what is your preferred option?

posted it earlier...

Perhaps the real solution is to simply mandate net neutrality in areas where there's no real competition, and even, perhaps, offer incentives to create competition in those areas. But that makes too much sense, so we'll probably end up with some hacked up "solution" that maintains the monopolies, and tries to keep every player happy by taking a dump on the consumer.

HI-FI

11-19-2014, 02:42 AM

posted it earlier...

:lol
thanks. probably should read from the beginning.

FuzzyLumpkins

11-19-2014, 04:49 AM

Notice how there's no "let's get rid of monopolies" or "let's encourage competition where there's a monopoly" in any of the options.

Only way that is ever going to happen is if we get an AG interested in applying anti-trust statutes rather than race based nonsense. Would helps solve this issue and go a long way regarding health care costs.

boutons_deux

11-19-2014, 04:58 AM

Only way that is ever going to happen is if we get an AG interested in applying anti-trust statutes rather than race based nonsense. Would helps solve this issue and go a long way regarding health care costs.

The new AG, another n!gg@ for y'all to hate, coddled the financial criminals in her previous job just like Holder.

Imagine the coddling, NON-fines by a Repug AG. Anti-trust enforcement is a political, not legal action.

FCC is run by a industry lobbyist, so nobody be surprised if Comcast-TWC merger is approved.

FuzzyLumpkins

11-19-2014, 05:00 AM

The new AG, another n!gg@ for y'all to hate, coddled the financial criminals in her previous job just like Holder. Imagine the coddling, NON-fines by a Repug AG. Anti-trust enforcement is a political, not legal action.

The Sherman Act etc are laws and enforcement of them is done through legal action. You dipshits fail to understand that things can be many things at once. The forum is like dealing with the disabled.

Spurminator

11-19-2014, 09:16 AM

Chattanooga's super-fast publicly owned Internet (http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/20/technology/innovation/chattanooga-internet/)

Chattanooga, Tenn., may not be the first place that springs to mind when it comes to cutting-edge technology. But thanks to its ultra-high-speed Internet, the city has established itself as a center for innovation -- and an encouraging example for those frustrated with slow speeds and high costs from private broadband providers.

Chattanooga rolled out a fiber-optic network a few years ago that now offers speeds of up to 1000 Megabits per second, or 1 gigabit, for just $70 a month. A cheaper 100 Megabit plan costs $58 per month. Even the slower plan is still light-years ahead of the average U.S. connection speed, which stood at 9.8 megabits per second as of late last year, according to Akamai Technologies (http://www.akamai.com/dl/akamai/akamai-soti-q313.pdf?WT.mc_id=soti_Q313).

"It's really altered how we think of ourselves as a city," said Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke. "We're a midsized, southern city -- for us to be at the front of the technological curve rather than at the tail end is a real achievement."

As federal officials find themselves at the center of controversy over net neutrality (http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/27/technology/open-internet/?iid=EL) and the regulation of private Internet service providers (http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/15/technology/fcc-fast-lane/?iid=EL) like Comcast(CMCSA (http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=CMCSA&source=story_quote_link)) and Time Warner Cable (TWC (http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=TWC&source=story_quote_link)), Chattanooga offers an alternative model for keeping people connected. A city-owned agency, the Electric Power Board, runs its own network, offering higher-speed service than any of its private-sector competitors can manage.

Related: Silicon Valley is fed up with slow Internet speeds (http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/25/technology/silicon-valley-internet/?iid=EL)

The problem with fiber networks is that they're hugely expensive to install and maintain, requiring operators to lay new wiring underground and link it to individual homes. Since 1996, cable operators have invested $210 billion in broadband networks and other infrastructure, according to the National Cable and Telecommunications Association.

Since there's little competition in the broadband industry, some industry experts believe that there's little incentive for broadband providers to dramatically beef up their bandwidth and drastically improve their infrastructure.

Chattanooga's project started in 2008 with the goal of building a "smart" power grid for the city, capable of rerouting electricity on the fly to prevent outages in addition to carrying Internet traffic.

"It just didn't look like the private sector was going to bring true, high-speed connectivity to this market," EPB spokeswoman Danna Bailey said.
The city had to contend with lawsuits from Comcast and local cable operators as it worked to get the network up and running. But aided by an $111 million stimulus grant from the Department of Energy, the service was up and running by September 2009. The EPB currently has around 5,000 business customers along with 57,540 households, which have access to "triple play" bundles of video, phone and Internet service just like they would from a private provider.
"Deploying a network for telecommunications is not fundamentally different from deploying a network for power," said Benoit Felten, a broadband expert with Diffraction Analysis (http://www.diffractionanalysis.com/who-we-are/). "Chattanooga is the prime example of that, and it's absolutely worked."

The Federal Communications Commission recognizes the potential of muncipality-run broadband, saying earlier this year that it will push for the repeal of state and local laws supported by the cable industry that make it harder for cities to set up their own networks.

Related: Netflix blasts Internet providers, saying consumers "deserve better" (http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/20/technology/netflix-net-neutrality/index.html?iid=EL)

Chattanooga officials say the network has helped spark a burgeoning local tech scene and the relocation of a number of businesses, drawn by both the fast Internet and the reliability offered by the smart grid.

Hunter Lindsay, regional director of IT services firm Claris Networks (http://clarisnetworks.com/), said the 85-person company moved its data-center operations from Knoxville to Chattanooga "just because of the network."

"It's logical for every city to do it, but that doesn't mean it's going to happen," Lindsay said.

Berke said Chattanooga regularly receives inquiries from other cities both in the U.S. and internationally that are interested in setting up their own networks. The city recently set up a task force to figure out how to bring the network to poorer families and make sure the community gains the maximum benefit.

"People understand that high-speed Internet access is quickly becoming a national infrastructure issue just like the highways were in the 1950s," Berke said. "If the private sector is unable to provide that kind of bandwidth because of the steep infrastructure investment, then just like highways in the 1950s, the government has to consider providing that support."

boutons_deux

11-19-2014, 09:32 AM

The Sherman Act etc are laws and enforcement of them is done through legal action. You dipshits fail to understand that things can be many things at once. The forum is like dealing with the disabled.

No Law Is Above The Man. The decision to enforce Sherman Act is a political one, like coddling the rampant criminals in the financial sector is a "paid political decision". Prosecutors have huge discretion in whom and what to prosecute.

boutons_deux

11-19-2014, 09:36 AM

Yeah, Cruz seemingly can't escape the occasion to drop the "regulation bad" soundbite.

I assume he's a smart guy, but he's Lex Luthor smart, WAY TOO smart for stupid Texans who voted him in to know what a shitbag he is.

Yonivore

11-19-2014, 09:36 AM

Chattanooga's super-fast publicly owned Internet (http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/20/technology/innovation/chattanooga-internet/)

Since there's little competition in the broadband industry, some industry experts believe that there's little incentive for broadband providers to dramatically beef up their bandwidth and drastically improve their infrastructure.

...
Chattanooga officials say the network has helped spark a burgeoning local tech scene and the relocation of a number of businesses, drawn by both the fast Internet and the reliability offered by the smart grid.

Seems to me if Chattanooga is stealing businesses and their employees from areas without this faster internet, this would be incentive enough for companies (or local governments) to "dramatically beef up their bandwidth and drastically improve their infrastructure." After all, if your customers are leaving for greener pastures -- THAT IS COMPETITION. If Chattanooga can do it, so can San Antonio.

I'm not opposed to local governments attracting businesses if they can get their local population to vote for it. I'm simply opposed to the federal government, once again, trying to impose a one-size-fits-all solution to a very complex and variable landscape. It's not working with healthcare and it won't work with the internet.

"If the private sector is unable to provide that kind of bandwidth because of the steep infrastructure investment, then just like highways in the 1950s, the government has to consider providing that support."
If the local government can convince its population to pay for it, great. They already do it with sports venues and transportation.

boutons_deux

11-19-2014, 09:45 AM

Trainwreck2100

11-19-2014, 09:48 AM

Seems to me if Chattanooga is stealing businesses and their employees from areas without this faster internet, this would be incentive enough for companies (or local governments) to "dramatically beef up their bandwidth and drastically improve their infrastructure." After all, if your customers are leaving for greener pastures -- THAT IS COMPETITION. If Chattanooga can do it, so can San Antonio.

I'm not opposed to local governments attracting businesses if they can get their local population to vote for it. I'm simply opposed to the federal government, once again, trying to impose a one-size-fits-all solution to a very complex and variable landscape. It's not working with healthcare and it won't work with the internet.

If the local government can convince its population to pay for it, great. They already do it with sports venues and transportation.

no San Antonio can't, it's illegal

Spurminator

11-19-2014, 10:51 AM

ChumpDumper

11-19-2014, 11:02 AM

"so can San Antonio."

tax-payer-funded, "socialist" municipal networks are ILLEGAL by Texas state law.

Repugs LOVE "free markets".

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/02/isp-lobby-has-already-won-limits-on-public-broadband-in-20-states/

and where are the TX tea baggers, those beloved FREEDOM!-lovin' marans, pushing for the "Freedom!" to install muni nets?

SA and Austin are prime candidates because both own huge fiber networks operated by their municipally owned electric utilities.

no San Antonio can't, it's illegal

Except San Antonio CAN'T do it, because the cable/internet companies you and Ted Cruz faithfully shill for have lobbied to ban local municipalities in Texas from offering broadband.

Anything else?

Welcome back, yoni!

Spurminator

11-19-2014, 11:06 AM

Sorry, didn't realize I was beaten to the punch. That's what I get for leaving the reply window up too long.

ChumpDumper

11-19-2014, 11:14 AM

ChumpDumper

11-19-2014, 11:20 AM

Sorry, didn't realize I was beaten to the punch. That's what I get for leaving the reply window up too long.Dude deserves it for red-assing his ignorance on probably the most obvious issue regarding public broadband.

I don't quite get why local governments can't impose customer bandwidth requirements on ISPs they have granted monopoly status though. Then they can wrangle over costs and subsidies.

FuzzyLumpkins

11-19-2014, 11:25 AM

No Law Is Above The Man. The decision to enforce Sherman Act is a political one, like coddling the rampant criminals in the financial sector is a "paid political decision". Prosecutors have huge discretion in whom and what to prosecute.

Can something be both political and legal at the same time? Yes.

We get it: you have your defeatist vision of this country.

Yonivore

11-19-2014, 11:26 AM

no San Antonio can't, it's illegal

Sounds like a problem with government.

Yonivore

11-19-2014, 11:27 AM

Except San Antonio CAN'T do it, because the cable/internet companies you and Ted Cruz faithfully shill for have lobbied to ban local municipalities in Texas from offering broadband.

Anything else?
Again, if it's illegal, it's because of government involvement.

boutons_deux

11-19-2014, 11:32 AM

I can see the argument for public broadband in more rural areas. I think it's the last thing we need in a place like Austin or, in a few months, San Antonio. I shudder to think what a boondoggle our esteemed governments could make out of a fiber buildout. Four high speed competitors is a pretty good number.

rural broadband? there's already a long-established assoc: http://www.ntca.org/

Of course, all those rural rednecks who vote Repug and hate "socialism" have benefited from a confiscatory, socialistic tax called Universal Service on everybody's phone bills for decades to have their often expensive, remote telephone lines installed, maintained, price-subsidized by "socialistic" rural telephone cooperatives.

Austin and SA have ALREADY built fiber networks, with their customers' bills, over their service areas, have installed, mastered the technology, in-house, ready to go.

grande and twc already have "fiber to the pole", but won't run it "to the home".

ChumpDumper

11-19-2014, 11:32 AM

Sounds like a problem with government.

Again, if it's illegal, it's because of government involvement.I'm glad we agree people in government like Ted Cruz are the problem.

boutons_deux

11-19-2014, 11:35 AM

Again, if it's illegal, it's because of government involvement.

bullshit.

It's BigCable, BigNetwork corps PAYING govt, the legislature, governor, to make muni nets illegal. Legislators almost NEVER do anything unless paid to do it.

ChumpDumper

11-19-2014, 11:38 AM

rural broadband? there's already a long-established assoc: http://www.ntca.org/

Of course, all those rural rednecks who vote Repug and hate "socialism" have benefited from a confiscatory, socialistic tax called Universal Service on everybody's for decades to have their often expensive, remote telephone lines installed, maintained, cost-subsidized by "socialistic" rural telephone cooperatives.

Austin and SA have ALREADY built fiber networks, with their customers' bills, over their service areas, have installed, mastered the technology, in-house, ready to go.

grande and twc already have "fiber to the pole", but won't run it "to the home".Even with Google's coming in, cable companies are going to squeeze every last drop of bandwidth out of coax they can. TWC already gets 300mbps out of coax up here and can probably get a lot more once they get rid of their analog signals.

You're going to get Google down there with all the rising tide benefits from its competitors. Have a little patience.

Spurminator

11-19-2014, 11:54 AM

Again, if it's illegal, it's because of government involvement.

:lol Yeah because of the party currently running the Texas government. I'm totally with you that Texas government involvement is usually a bad thing. Not that you'd ever call them out specifically, because they're Republicans and you're a shill.

On the other hand, Chattanooga's Internet is better because of government involvement.

Really, save the blanket "government involvement is always bad" bullshit for the kinds of people that line actually works on, like really old, really dumb people. We know you don't believe it.

boutons_deux

11-19-2014, 12:08 PM

Cry Havoc

11-19-2014, 12:22 PM

Sounds like a problem with government.

So you're saying you dislike the way the GOP runs things? Cool.

ElNono

11-19-2014, 12:51 PM

Yonivore

11-19-2014, 01:21 PM

So you're saying you dislike the way the GOP runs things? Cool.
I dislike federal government involvement in anything that doesn't involve national security or international relationships.

ChumpDumper

11-19-2014, 01:27 PM

The cable companies are captive of their pricing to their installed cable base. Their FTTH will have to be probably much more expensive than their already gouging-priced cable.

http://oti.newamerica.net/publications/policy/the_cost_of_connectivity_2013If all you're talking about is huge government expenditure to build an entire fiber to home network, why not just subsidize the node to home portion off the fiber nodes that are already there?

Th'Pusher

11-19-2014, 01:33 PM

I dislike federal government involvement in anything that doesn't involve national security or international relationships.

The federal government is not the one that bans local municipalities in Texas from offering broadband.

baseline bum

11-19-2014, 01:39 PM

LOL teatards who love big government in Austin and who loved it in Washington when it was Dick and Bush in power.

ElNono

11-19-2014, 01:48 PM

LOL teatards who love big government in Austin and who loved it in Washington when it was Dick and Bush in power.

:lol don't touch my medicare!

boutons_deux

11-19-2014, 02:22 PM

If all you're talking about is huge government expenditure to build an entire fiber to home network, why not just subsidize the node to home portion off the fiber nodes that are already there?

"subsidize the node to home portion off the fiber nodes that are already there"

because that fiber belongs to BigCable and they will extract their profits for leasing some fiber to the municipality.

I want BigCable and their profits and investors OFF MY INTERNET! :)

( ... just like I want BigInsurance and their investors and for-profit providers OFF MY HEALTH CARE! )

ChumpDumper

11-19-2014, 02:32 PM

"subsidize the node to home portion off the fiber nodes that are already there"

because that fiber belongs to BigCable and they will extract their profits for leasing some fiber to the municipality.

I want BigCable and their profits and investors OFF MY INTERNET! :)

( ... just like I want BigInsurance and their investors and for-profit providers OFF MY HEALTH CARE! )Why shouldn't a company that made an investment seek a profit?

boutons_deux

11-19-2014, 03:38 PM

Why shouldn't a company that made an investment seek a profit?

why shouldn't electricity customers who have already paid for CPS fiber network, which probably has GigaBits of unused capacity, and lots of dark fiber, get no-profit Internet?

ChumpDumper

11-19-2014, 03:42 PM

why shouldn't electricity customers who have already paid for CPS fiber network, which probably has GigaBits of unused capacity, and lots of dark fiber, get no-profit Internet?It will be completely unnecessary.

San Antonio is a good market for broadband competition. just watch.

boutons_deux

11-19-2014, 04:49 PM

It will be completely unnecessary.

San Antonio is a good market for broadband competition. just watch.

the point is, why should SA or Austin continue to pay exorbitant prices to finance BigCable cartel's (no competing) profits and enrich their investors, when we could keep all those $Bs right here in SA/Austin?

boutons_deux

11-19-2014, 04:51 PM

here we go, Repug Senate and House pushing hard to enrich BigCable and screw consumers, yawn

Public Knowledge Urges Senate to Reject House’s Cable Giveaway

Today the House of Representatives passed satellite legislation that includes a cable giveaway that harms the set-top box market by voice vote. The STELA Reauthorization Act of 2014, the new House counterpart to the Senate’s STAVRA (https://www.publicknowledge.org/news-blog/blogs/must-pass-legislation-must-not-harm-customers) bill, contains a provision that could drive up cable prices, reduce consumer choice and impede video innovation. Public Knowledge urges the Senate to reject this approach or adopt the Markey amendment, which preserves the opportunity for competition in the set-top box market -- and consumer choice.

The following can be attributed to Martyn Griffen, Government Affairs Associate of Public Knowledge:

“We strongly support Congress acting to guarantee that satellite customers don’t lose service. However, this STELA Reauthorization bill contains a provision pushed by Comcast and the cable industry that would harm the set-top box market, restricting consumer choice for people who don’t even subscribe to satellite. We’ve opposed a House version of the bill before and continue to oppose a Senate version that incorporates a similar provision.

“This bill may be slightly different, but it retains the same problems. It eliminates consumer protections without installing a new safety net in their place. As we told the Senate (https://www.publicknowledge.org/press-release/public-knowledge-urges-senators-to-fix-or-oppose-stavra), harming consumer choice without directing the Federal Communications Commission to create new protections is just bad policy. Make no mistake, this provision is a giveaway to cable providers. It’s also completely unnecessary, sacrificing consumer choice while risking service for millions of satellite customers. Put simply, passing this bill would be bad for anyone who isn’t Comcast or a cable company, and we can’t support that.

“Congress has previously passed clean satellite reauthorizations without attaching cable giveaways. We encourage Congress to step up once again by either rejecting or fixing this version of the STELA Reauthorization bill to protect consumers.”

https://www.publicknowledge.org/press-release/public-knowledge-urges-senate-to-reject-houses-cable-giveaway

CosmicCowboy

11-19-2014, 05:13 PM

boutons_deux

11-19-2014, 05:23 PM

ElNono

11-19-2014, 05:33 PM

I have to admit, the proposed internet based TV subscriptions based on a little tricky software/hardware like Sony's proposed playstation access seems like a giant fucking for the cable and phone companies that have spent megabillions building their networks that these new subscription services want to access for free in the name of "net neutrality". Why is it that we accept the concept of water meters, gas meters, and electricity meters, but want to reject bandwidth meters?

We always had the meters, it's on your internet plan. You pay for X speed, and certain ISPs will also limit your total amount of transfer to Y GB. That's not 'net neutrality'.

It's like power companies charging "transport" fees (ie: you can purchase electricity from any provider you want, but the utility gets to tack a 'transport' fee because it's their wires reaching your home). Now, what happens if the power company decides to intermittently cut down power from certain power providers demanding a fee from said providers to guarantee reliable transport service? It just created a bullshit artificial barrier to extract payment from the provider. This is why utilities are regulated the way they are. They're given a monopoly to the last mile, but they're not allowed to wield that monopoly power against competition.

You're already paying for that transport fee to ISPs. It's your ISP bill. Then you pay Netflix/Hulu/etc for the specific service you want.

What ISPs are now doing, is slowing down Netflix/Hulu/etc so they agree to pay a fee for "preferred" access to the ISP network. In other words, they want payment not only from the customer, but also from the provider. The reason they can do this is that in a lot of places only one ISP owns the last mile to a house. They're wielding their monopoly power to extract ransom from providers. They didn't used to do this, because they had a direct benefit from the internet growing, and because services didn't use to overlap with other services they offered. What they should really do is build their own Netflix, compete on equal grounds, and let the consumer decide. But why compete when you can just degrade the competition?

boutons_deux

11-19-2014, 05:40 PM

"What ISPs are now doing, is slowing down Netflix/Hulu/etc so they agree to pay a fee for "preferred" access to the ISP network."

I assume the network operators won't invest in more bandwidth to provide the faster service, but maintain current infrastructure, bandwidth and deliver the higher speed by throttling non-preferred users.

and when the network operator is also content-provider, they can slow down Other Peoples' Content to privilege their own content.

ElNono

11-19-2014, 05:42 PM

Technologically, it boils down to the fact that more or less, any broadband service can now transmit video at a decent enough quality. In the past, IPSs loved the bigger bandwidth usage, it meant customers had to "upgrade" their plans for the faster internet and they could cash in. In cities where there was ISP competition, the competition is fierce, prices have bottomed out. Even the cheapest broadband plan from FIOS (25/25) is good enough for fairly high-quality video. So now they find themselves without customers needing upgrades, and that spigot closed. Now they're looking to make up the difference by charging the other way of the wire through artificial limitations.

Here's a good read on how they do this:
http://blog.level3.com/open-internet/verizons-accidental-mea-culpa/

SnakeBoy

11-19-2014, 06:27 PM

Technologically, it boils down to the fact that more or less, any broadband service can now transmit video at a decent enough quality. In the past, IPSs loved the bigger bandwidth usage, it meant customers had to "upgrade" their plans for the faster internet and they could cash in. In cities where there was ISP competition, the competition is fierce, prices have bottomed out. Even the cheapest broadband plan from FIOS (25/25) is good enough for fairly high-quality video. So now they find themselves without customers needing upgrades, and that spigot closed. Now they're looking to make up the difference by charging the other way of the wire through artificial limitations.

If they (ISP's) aren't allowed to make up the difference by charging content providers then how do you think they will make up the difference?

ChumpDumper

11-19-2014, 06:57 PM

the point is, why should SA or Austin continue to pay exorbitant prices to finance BigCable cartel's (no competing) profits and enrich their investors, when we could keep all those $Bs right here in SA/Austin?There is pretty fierce competition here in Austin, along with the thousands of jobs those companies filled.

City government is the last entity I want to give my internets money. They just turn around and give it to big companies so they can profit and enrich their investors.

With four companies offering max internet speeds of at least 300Mbps, why spend tax money to compete with them?

ElNono

11-19-2014, 07:14 PM

If they (ISP's) aren't allowed to make up the difference by charging content providers then how do you think they will make up the difference?

That's up to them. Verizon has already started toying with injecting an advertising ID on mobile communications (another dubious practice). Invest in building a better Neflix-clone? Produce their own content to compete?

There's clearly solutions that don't involve screwing up the consumer or third party content providers. They're risky, obviously. None of them are as sure as wielding their monopoly power.

Cry Havoc

11-19-2014, 10:05 PM

The analogy between bandwidth and power is off.

Bandwidth is there whether it's used or not. It takes very little effort to push bandwidth when it's under capacity (off-peak hours).

Power costs considerably more to ramp up in generation regardless of the time.

scott

11-19-2014, 10:51 PM

I only skimmed through this thread, but seemingly missing from the discussion is a very simple fact:

ISPs in most major markets are operating as monopolies because it is simply the most cost-effective way to do so given the massive investment in infrastructure that goes into providing broadband to millions of homes. Broadband is a Natural Monopoly. Read about Natural Monopolies here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly

Most Natural Monopolies (public utilities) are regulated so that said Monopolies are restricted from abusing their marketing position and engaging in Monopoly pricing, which leads to a reduction in overall economic welfare. Especially since most Natural Monopolies (and ISP's certainly fall into this category) are created via massive government subsidies and granting of exclusive territories.

The case against Net Neutrality would be if ISPs were operating in a competitive market seeking a return on their own investment. However, ISPs aren't in a competitive space and have Natural Monopolies that have been granted to them via government subsidies, which is a textbook example of where Government regulation is needed to improve economic outcomes. This doesn't mean the Government will necessarily be GOOD at regulating, only that they should regulate (and they should be held accountable for doing a good job in regulating, which they often times don't).

Hi everyone.

See you again in several months.

scott

11-19-2014, 10:56 PM

http://qz.com/280197/meet-the-economics-nobelist-who-explains-net-neutrality-and-the-ios-app-store/

Spurminator

11-19-2014, 11:07 PM

...And with that, Scott dropped the mic and left.

Well put.

Th'Pusher

11-19-2014, 11:38 PM

And the conservative ideologue's minds short-circuit because, well - regulation is always bad and its necessity doesn't fit within their preconceived worldview.

If your keeping score, the conservative ideologues responding in this thread seem to have next to no understanding of the actual issues at hand.

ChumpDumper

11-20-2014, 12:08 AM

It's super weird having Comcast be a such a huge content provider and ISP. I don't know what their ideal revenue structure would look like compared to what they would be willing to pay to deliver over other the lines of other ISPs.

But yeah, "conservatives" are especially ignorant about this issue.

Clipper Nation

11-20-2014, 09:32 AM

LOL teatards who love big government in Austin and who loved it in Washington when it was Dick and Bush in power.
And who wanted the Romney version of it.

:cry "Big government sucks unless it's used to push wars for oil and my religious beliefs!" :cry

boutons_deux

11-21-2014, 08:01 AM

Netflix now accounts for 35% of bandwidth usage in the US and Canadahttp://qz.com/299989/netflix-now-accounts-for-35-of-bandwidth-usage-in-the-us-and-canada/

boutons_deux

12-06-2014, 01:34 PM

Yet Another Study Proclaims U.S. Broadband Awesome If You Intentionally Ignore All The Warts

To be clear, the United States is indisputably mediocre when it comes to broadband. It doesn't really matter if you look at data from FCC (http://www.broadbandmap.gov/), the the OECD (http://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/oecdbroadbandportal.htm), OOkla's Net Index (http://netindex.com/download/allcountries/) or walk next door and ask your neighbor. We're average or worse on metrics like speed (three quarters of the country has no competitive option at speeds faster than 25 Mbps), penetration, price and adoption, and we're among the worst anywhere when it comes to customer service. In fact U.S. broadband customer service is so bad, people rank the IRS, banking industry, insurance companies and the airlines higher (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140926/12032828650/apparently-reason-comcast-has-crappy-customer-service-is-because-it-was-lacking-customer-experience-vp.shtml).

That said, it's endlessly amusing to watch the broadband industry (and its varied assortment of fauxcademics, sock puppets, think tankers, lobbyists and PR tendrils) time and time and time again declare that U.S. broadband is secretly incredibly awesome, and the people stuck paying $100 for a sub 3 Mbps DSL connection and mandatory (though unwanted) landline aren't looking at the numbers right.

The latest study of this type comes courtesy of our friends over at the Verizon, Comcast and AT&T funded American Enterprise Institute, whose latest analysis (http://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/G7-Broadband-Dynamics-Final.pdf) (pdf) compares U.S. broadband to only other G7 countries, since a broader global comparison makes us look worse. Unsurprisingly, the AEI finds we're competitive under this criteria if you look at specific metrics in just the right way, ignore all previous studies, tilt your head just the right way, and ignore the industry's awful customer service. The study resulted in websites like Vox recently running articles (http://www.vox.com/2014/11/29/7281809/american-broadband-pretty-good) with headlines like "American broadband is better than you think." Much of the AEI data is sound, it's just highly selective and selectively re-arranged.

https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20141201/05212029282/yet-another-study-proclaims-us-broadband-awesome-if-you-intentionally-ignore-all-warts.shtml

If the AEI, API, CATO, Heritage, ALEC, Repugs lips are moving, they're lying.

boutons_deux

02-02-2015, 02:03 PM

Net Fix: Title II, the two words that terrify the broadband industry

Heavy-handed. Archaic. Disastrous.

Those are just some of the ways critics describe Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, which lets the Federal Communications Commission set rates and ensure equal access to traditional phone service.
As the FCC gets ready to propose new rules governing the Internet, the broadband industry -- the cable, wireless and telecommunications companies providing Internet service in the United States -- is using even more colorful epithets to describe Title II. That's because the FCC, led by Chairman Tom Wheeler and backed by President Barack Obama, wants the broadband industry to abide by the same rules governing old-style telephone utilities. To do that, broadband will have to be governed by Title II.

On one side stand Internet service providers and their supporters, who argue that stringent regulations on what they can and can't charge will stifle network investment and strangle innovation. Michael Powell, a former Republican chairman of the FCC who is now CEO of lobbyist trade group the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, said in 2013 that any attempt to reclassify broadband under Title II amounts to "World War III." The broadband industry players have already said they plan to legally challenge any attempts to bring Title II into the picture. :lol FUCKING LIARS and FUD MEISTERS :lol

By any other name

Title II was written into the original Communications Act to protect consumers from the AT&T monopoly in 1934. It banned "unjust or unreasonable discrimination" in providing phone services. That's the same principle Net neutrality proponents want to see extended to Internet access.

So what about Title II has broadband providers freaking out?

For starters, there's Section 201, which gives the FCC the right to dictate the prices Internet service providers can charge for their services. The providers fear the FCC may set rates too low to allow them to recoup the costs associated with building out their networks. That, in turn, would deter them from making future investments, they argue.

http://www.cnet.com/news/net-fix-title-ii-the-two-words-that-terrify-the-broadband-industry/?tag=nl.e703&s_cid=e703&ttag=e703&ftag=CAD090e536

It would also mean everybody's poles can be used by everybody else, like Google Fiber.

boutons_deux

02-02-2015, 02:08 PM

Net Fix: Why FCC's Wheeler is 'defying the greatest lobbyists in the world'

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is at the center of a historic debate over how we'll all use the Internet. Fans applaud a consumer-friendly approach. Critics say he'll strangle innovation. Both sides agree he's not afraid to do what he thinks is right.

"Chairman Wheeler is on the edge of making history by defying the greatest lobbyists in the world -- from the telco and cable industry -- to secure an open and fast Internet for all Americans," Hastings said. "You have to go back to Joseph Kennedy Sr. running the SEC to find as surprising and courageous an example of policy leadership given the person's prior background."

In June 2014, comedian John Oliver even compared the former lobbyist's appointment to asking a "dingo to babysit a baby" in a 13-minute sketch that propelled the Net neutrality issue into the national spotlight. Oliver's video has gotten nearly 8 million views on YouTube.

But what the critics failed to highlight, say people who know Wheeler, is that his stints as entrepreneur and venture capitalist make him more likely to side with an underdog rather than with a market power.

"The Tom I know is a scrappy entrepreneur," said Noah Glass, founder and CEO of Olo, a company in which Wheeler is an investor and board member. "I know Tom as a David strategizing how to fight the Goliaths, and not as the Goliath looking to crush the Davids. So it was shocking to hear how people have represented him."

Wheeler supporters also point out that it's been 31 years since he lobbied for the cable industry and 11 years since he left the wireless industry. To put things in perspective, Apple Computer had just introduced the Macintosh and "Ghostbusters" was the hit of the year when Wheeler left his post as the head of NCTA.

"He is no more a former lobbyist than I am a former high school student," said Reed Hunt, a fellow Democrat who served as FCC chairman from 1993 to 1997.

http://www.cnet.com/news/why-fccs-wheeler-is-defying-the-greatest-lobbyists-in-the-world/?tag=nl.e703&s_cid=e703&ttag=e703&ftag=CAD090e536

fucking amazing times! If Wheeler goes Title II, BINGO!

Internet is not a communication service carried by common carriers? :LOL

boutons_deux

02-02-2015, 02:25 PM

FCC Chairman: Commission Should Approve Cities’ Requests To Preempt State Laws That Block Local Broadband

Today, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler released a statement unambiguously giving a thumbs-up to the petitions from both cities, and asking the commission to vote in their favor:

Communities across the nation know that access to robust broadband is the key to their economic future — and the future of their citizens. …

They should be able to make their own decisions about building the networks they need to thrive. After looking carefully at petitions by two community broadband providers asking the FCC to pre-empt provisions of state laws preventing expansion of their very successful networks, I recommend approval by the Commission so that these two forward-thinking cities can serve the many citizens clamoring for a better broadband future.

http://consumerist.com/2015/02/02/fcc-chairman-commission-should-approve-cities-requests-to-preempt-state-laws-that-block-local-broadband/

and the "free market" frauds went crazy angry!

Cry Havoc

02-03-2015, 01:50 PM

any attempt to reclassify broadband under Title II amounts to "World War III."

Every time I start to think there are some people with serious whine problems on SpursTalk, politicians remind me that they are the absolute gods of hyperbole and idiocy. They are seriously rewriting the definition of pathetic.

boutons_deux

02-04-2015, 12:22 PM

FCC Chief Announces Big Win For Net Neutrality Advocates

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/04/fcc-net-neutrality_n_6613494.html?ir=Politics&utm_campaign=020415&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Alert-politics&utm_content=FullStory&ncid=newsltushpmg00000003

boutons_deux

02-04-2015, 12:28 PM

Title II is Not Net Neutrality, and Net Neutrality is Not Utility Regulation

Title II is not net neutrality.

This post is doing something that well-trained advocates know is often inadvisable: highlighting your opponents' arguments in order to rebut them. This exercise can give those arguments more visibility and credence than they merit. However, in this case the arguments are so widespread it's worth addressing them head-on. So, again: Title II is not net neutrality. Not only that, but net neutrality is not "utility" regulation.

This is a point Public Knowledge has made again and again: While Title II of the Communications Act provides the firmest legal grounding for net neutrality rules, Title II and net neutrality are not one and the same. While Title II contains broad prohibitions on unjust and unreasonable conduct by telecommunications providers, the FCC has to determine exactly what that means as applied to a given service, such as broadband. Practices that were allowed for other telecommunications services, like telephony, might be unreasonable for broadband--and vice versa. While PK has argued that the FCC should use its Title II authority to enact net neutrality rules for broadband, we have never said the Title II is useful only for net neutrality. Title II will also help the FCC refocus its universal service program on broadband more directly, protect subscriber privacy, and ensure public safety and network reliability, among other things.

Net neutrality is not the same as universal service or public safety. We are not "moving the goalposts" and expanding the definition of net neutrality by pointing out that a bill that ostensibly protects net neutrality could have negative consequences for broadband in areas other than net neutrality. While we agree that certain provisions of Title II should be forborne from (or put in abeyance) by the FCC with respect to broadband since they either have no applicability or are not needed for the broadband market today, the FCC should not voluntarily give up the authority it needs to protect broadband consumers in areas beyond net neutrality.

Similarly, despite nearly-universal misapprehension on this point, net neutrality is not utility regulation. Net neutrality says that ISPs must, in part, act like common carriers--they must carry traffic in a reasonable and nondiscriminatory way. In some important ways net neutrality falls short of full common carriage, but for these purposes we can concede that net neutrality is common carrier regulation, because even full common carrier regulation is not identical to utility regulation. Lots of things are common carriers--buses, taxis, and delivery services, among other things. While the specifics vary, these services are required to operate in reasonable and nondiscriminatory ways. But no one suggests that the fact that because UPS is a common carrier, it is therefore a utility. Even net neutrality plus a number of the other things mentioned above (universal service, privacy, etc) do not add up to utility regulation.

https://www.publicknowledge.org/news-blog/blogs/title-ii-is-not-net-neutrality-and-net-neutrality-is-not-utility-regulation

Winehole23

02-04-2015, 05:21 PM

the FCC has announced it will enforce its own rules, forbid throttling and regulate unfair interconnection activities. we'll see...

Spurminator

02-13-2015, 02:44 PM

Look, Ted Cruz made a funny.

566311247734661120

boutons_deux

02-19-2015, 11:52 AM

from a newsletter

"Congressmen Fred Upton and Greg Walden just introduced legislation to block Net Neutrality.

Wanna guess who Fred Upton's biggest campaign contributor was in 2014? Comcast.

How about the second biggest donor to Greg Walden's campaign? Also Comcast."

Cable-Money Recipients Try to Stop FCC from Protecting Net Neutrality

http://www.freepress.net/blog/2015/02/09/cable-money-recipients-try-stop-fcc-protecting-net-neutrality

Repugs trying to fuck up everything they touch

Thanks, Repug voters!

ElNono

02-26-2015, 01:26 PM

FCC votes for net neutrality, a ban on paid fast lanes, and Title II

http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/02/fcc-votes-for-net-neutrality-a-ban-on-paid-fast-lanes-and-title-ii/

boutons_deux

02-26-2015, 02:17 PM

Net Neutrality May Face an Uphill Battle If History Tells Us Anything

The FCC’s proposal faces plenty of opposition from telecom companies (http://www.attpublicpolicy.com/fcc/title-ii-closing-arguments/) and others (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/02/24/thune-says-he-isnt-throwing-in-the-towel-on-net-neutrality-legislation/), but it’s just the latest round in a long fight. Here is a brief history of attempts to enact net neutrality and the often successful push against it.

http://www.propublica.org/article/net-neutrality-may-face-an-uphill-battle-if-history-tells-us-anything?utm_source=et&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter&utm_content=&utm_name=

boutons_deux

02-26-2015, 03:28 PM

Ted Cruz Claims Net Neutrality Destroys 'Freedom Online'

Sen. Ted Cruz told the CPAC audience today that he will be the one to “bring back the miracle that is America” by reassembling the “Reagan coalition" and uniting voters against universal health care, immigration reform, and net neutrality.

Net neutrality, he claimed, undermines “freedom online” by giving Washington “power over the internet.”

“How do we do that?” he asked. “We do that fundamentally by standing with the people and not with Washington. Washington wants Obamacare. The people want liberty. Washington wants amnesty. The people want rule of law. Washington wants power over the internet. The people want freedom online. And don’t believe President Obama when he says, ‘If you like your internet, you can keep your internet’!”

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ted-cruz-claims-net-neutrality-destroys-freedom-online

Thanks for Krazy Kruz, all y'all redneck TX Repugs!

Aztecfan03

02-26-2015, 09:05 PM

I haven't followed this at all, but from the little bit of reading I have just done, It doesn't sound like a bad idea. It is kind of bullshit what the ISP's do.

Aztecfan03

02-26-2015, 09:14 PM

And who wanted the Romney version of it.

:cry "Big government sucks unless it's used to push wars for oil and my religious beliefs!" :cry

ANd what was that?

Winehole23

03-12-2015, 11:51 AM

new rules released:

http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/12/fcc-open-internet-order-net-neutrality/

Cry Havoc

03-12-2015, 01:03 PM

So, is there ANYONE on this forum that's against Net Neutrality?

Cry Havoc

03-12-2015, 01:04 PM

Oh, Yoni is. That's just shocking.

boutons_deux

03-12-2015, 01:11 PM

So, is there ANYONE on this forum that's against Net Neutrality?

There are plenty who are against govt and govt regulation, so yes, they are against FCC regulations.

boutons_deux

05-26-2015, 03:25 PM

AT&T Argues Net Neutrality Violates Its First Amendment Rights :lol

from the up-is-down,-black-is-white dept

Back when Verizon sued to overturn the FCC's 2010 net neutrality rules, the telco argued that the FCC was aggressively and capriciously violating (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120705/04282819588/verizons-bizarre-constitutional-argument-net-neutrality-rules-violate-its-first-fifth-amendment-rights.shtml) the company's First and Fifth Amendment rights.

According to Verizon's argument at the time, broadband networks "are the modern-day microphone by which their owners engage in First Amendment speech." :lol

Verizon also tried to claim that neutrality rules were a sort of "permanent easement on private broadband networks for the use of others without just compensation," and thereby violated the Fifth Amendment.

Granted, any well-caffeinated lawyer in a nice pair of tap dancing shoes can effectively argue anything, though in this case you'd obviously have to operate in a vacuum and ignore the history, context and definition of net neutrality to fully do so.

Regardless, Verizon did manage to have those original, flimsy rules thrown out, but it had nothing to do with the telco's Constitutional arguments. Verizon won because the FCC was trying to impose common carrier rules on ISPs without first declaring them as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act, something the FCC tried to remedy with the latest rule incarnation.

Fast forward to 2015. AT&T's busy suing the FCC both as part of USTelecom, but also with a standalone lawsuit (https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20150415/11205630666/why-not-att-adds-name-to-pile-lawsuits-against-fccs-net-neutrality-rules.shtml) of its own.

In a statement of issues (https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2086835/att.pdf) (pdf) outlining its legal assault on the FCC's net neutrality rules, AT&T makes it clear that it too will try to claim the FCC is violating the company's First and Fifth Amendment rights (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/att-et-al-challenging-net-neutrality-order-on-1st-amendment-grounds/):

"In a statement of issues that AT&T intends to raise when the case moves further into the court process, the company said last week that it plans on challenging whether the FCC’s net neutrality order "violates the terms of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, and the First and Fifth Amendments to the US Constitution."

The First and Fifth Amendment will be used to attack the FCC's decision to reclassify both fixed and mobile broadband as common carrier services, as well as the FCC's assertion of authority over how ISPs interconnect with other networks."

CenturyLink, wireless carriers (the CTIA) and major telcos (USTelecom) have stated they plan to argue the same point, though the precise legal approach obviously isn't being disclosed yet. Basically, AT&T and friends are throwing every legal claim they can possibly think of at the wall and hoping something sticks.

Leaning on the First Amendment when it's convenient has long been a telecom lawyer mainstay, logic be damned.

https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20150526/06475031101/att-argues-net-neutrality-violates-first-amendment-rights.shtml

Another bullshit argument was regulation would kill investment, but telco execs, after the ruling, told investors, etc, that investment would continue even with regulation.

Wild Cobra

05-28-2015, 12:29 PM

There are plenty who are against govt and govt regulation, so yes, they are against FCC regulations.

It all depends on the extent of the law. Too often, laws are written without conditioning how the black and white, letter of the law may be interpreted in the future. Many of the problems we have in society, are from well intended laws that are abused.

boutons_deux

05-28-2015, 12:47 PM

Wild Cobra

05-28-2015, 12:49 PM

Laws and regs are rewritten by BigCorp to be full of loopholes, to be abused, broken, exploited for profits and transferring taxpayer wealth to themselves. USA is a kleptocratic, plutocratic, rigged corporatocracy.

Since you believe that, would you agree all laws should include a "purpose and scope" that is to be used while applying such laws?

boutons_deux

05-28-2015, 02:16 PM

I don't "believe that", I KNOW it.

laws will include, or exclude, whatever BigCorp, BigFinance, etc. dictate to legislatives whores. Your "purpose and scope" will accomplish nothing if the dictators don't like it.

boutons_deux

06-10-2015, 02:48 PM

House Republicans sneak net neutrality attack into appropriations bill (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/06/10/1392153/-House-Republicans-sneak-net-neutrality-attack-into-appropriations-bill)

A House appropriations bill released Wednesday would block the Federal Communication Commission from implementing its net neutrality rules until the courts weigh in on the issue.The Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill for the 2016 fiscal year includes funding for the communications regulator that falls $73 million below what the agency requested. In total, the bill grants the agency $315 million. It was introduced by the House Appropriations Committee and includes $20.2 billion in total funding for a number of agencies.

Included in the bill is a provision designed to stop implementation of the net neutrality rules until the issue has finished winding its way through the courts. It says that none of the funds in the bill can be used to "implement, administer, or enforce" the rules until three legal challenges are resolved.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/06/10/1392153/-House-Republicans-sneak-net-neutrality-attack-into-appropriations-bill

dirty Repugs fucking up everything they touch, as always

boutons_deux

06-12-2015, 01:21 PM

Republicans Put Net Neutrality in Jeopardy

Many Republican lawmakers hated regulations that the Federal Communications Commission approved earlier this year to prevent cable and phone companies from creating fast and slow lanes on the Internet. Now, they are trying to undermine those rules (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/06/11/this-is-the-gops-new-tactic-to-stop-net-neutrality/) through an appropriations bill.

House Republicans have introduced a bill (http://appropriations.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=394251) that would effectively suspend the commission’s net neutrality rules, which go into effect on Friday. The agency could not use its budget to enforce the rules until there is a “final disposition” of three court cases brought against it by the telecommunications industry. That could take several years, because these cases might well end up at the Supreme Court. On Thursday, the United States Appeals Court for the District of Columbia Circuit denied a request (https://www.fcc.gov/document/chairmans-statement-court-denying-stay-fcc-open-internet-rules) by the industry to suspend the commission’s regulations while the court hears arguments in those cases.

What is particularly insidious about this provision is that it is part of a bill (http://appropriations.house.gov/uploadedfiles/bills-114hr-sc-ap-fy2016-fservices-subcommitteedraft.pdf) that appropriates money to the Internal Revenue Service, the Securities and Exchange Commission and various other critical government agencies.

Republicans like Representative Andrew Crenshaw, who chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services, want to make it hard for President Obama to veto the measure by putting it in legislation that keeps the government functioning.

In trying to thwart the F.C.C., Republican lawmakers are going against the wishes of the vast majority of Americans.

A 2014 poll (http://www.udel.edu/cpc/research/fall2014/UD-CPC-NatAgenda2014PR_2014NetNeutrality.pdf) by the University of Delaware found that 81 percent of Americans oppose the idea that broadband companies like Comcast and Verizon should be able to charge companies like Netflix fees to deliver their content to users faster than information from other sources. This is just the kind of practice that the commission’s new rules would prohibit.

The appropriations bill has a long way to go before it can become law. It has to be approved the House Appropriations Committee, the full House, the Senate and Mr. Obama. Lawmakers who understand the importance of the Internet should make every effort to make sure the anti-net neutrality provision is removed from the bill.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/takingnote/2015/06/12/republicans-put-net-neutrality-in-jeopardy/

Repugs fucking up EVERYTHING THEY CAN, to screw Human-Americans, and enrich/protect/enable Corporate-Americans.

Winehole23

06-18-2015, 11:20 AM

AT&T throttles customers with unlimited data plans:

The Federal Communications Commission slapped AT&T with a $100 million fine Wednesday, accusing the country's second-largest cellular carrier of improperly slowing down Internet speeds for customers who had signed up for "unlimited" data plans.

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/files/2015/06/2300-att-downloadsv2.jpg&w=1484
\

The FCC found that when customers used up a certain amount of data watching movies or browsing the Web, AT&T "throttled" their Internet speeds so that they were much slower than normal. Millions of AT&T customers were affected by the practice, according to the FCC.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/06/17/att-just-got-hit-with-a-100-million-fine-after-slowing-down-its-unlimited-data/

boutons_deux

06-29-2015, 08:48 AM

Funding bill would block net neutrality until courts rule

A House appropriations bill released Wednesday would block the Federal Communication Commission from implementing its net neutrality rules until the courts weigh in on the issue.

The Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill for the 2016 fiscal year includes funding for the communications regulator that falls $73 million below what the agency requested. In total, the bill grants the agency $315 million. It was introduced by the House Appropriations Committee and includes $20.2 billion in total funding for a number of agencies.

Included in the bill (http://appropriations.house.gov/uploadedfiles/bills-114hr-sc-ap-fy2016-fservices-subcommitteedraft.pdf) is a provision designed to stop implementation of the net neutrality rules until the issue has finished winding its way through the courts. It says that none of the funds in the bill can be used to “implement, administer, or enforce” the rules until three legal challenges are resolves.The cases in question are brought by Alamo Broadband, CenturyLink and trade group U.S. Telecom.

Unless the courts rule otherwise, the net neutrality order will take effect on Friday.

The bill includes a line specifically banning rate regulation by the FCC for either standard broadband service or wireless service. Conservatives say that the net neutrality order will open the door to rate regulation by the agency.
The funding bill also includes a provision specifying that the Commission cannot use funds to implement rules unless they post the text of the regulation online within 21 days.

Republicans in the House recently passed (http://thehill.com/policy/technology/243903-house-panel-approves-fcc-transparency-bill) a collection of reforms they claim are aimed at making the FCC more transparent. Democrats say that the laws are simply retribution for the net neutrality order, which is seen as government overreach by conservatives and many in industry.

http://thehill.com/policy/technology/244522-funding-bill-would-block-net-neutrality-until-courts-rule

All y'all's Repugs ALWAYS doing the dirty work for Corporate-Americans to screw over Human-Americans

Winehole23

06-29-2015, 11:07 AM

Market failure?

The pro-net neutrality coalition Battle for the Net (https://www.battleforthenet.com/internethealthtest/) launched the test in May, and it has already produced an unprecedented amount of data: 2.5 million data points generated by more than 300,000 Internet users. This data trove gives researchers and the public valuable insight into whether broadband providers are complying with net neutrality rules.

Researchers from Measurement Lab (http://www.measurementlab.net/) analyzed this rich dataset and announced their initial findings (http://www.measurementlab.net/blog/interconnection_and_measurement_update) last week. What they found should raise eyebrows: customers of AT&T, CenturyLink, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon — the nation’s five largest ISPs — experienced significantly degraded Internet performance during the first half of 2015. In effect, millions of Americans aren’t getting the broadband service they paid for.

A key problem appears to be the gateways into the Internet’s so-called “last mile” — the networks that ISPs operate to reach their customers. These gateways, commonly referred to as interconnections, are how most online content reaches Internet users. Despite the importance of this critical component of the Internet’s architecture, there are few publicly available tools that measure interconnection activity. In such an opaque environment, anti-consumer behavior can occur without detection.

The Internet Health Test found evidence of significant congestion at interconnection points across the country. While congestion was observed on all of the nation’s five biggest ISPs, AT&T was the worst performer.

http://boingboing.net/2015/06/26/2-5-million-data-points-show.html

boutons_deux

09-24-2015, 04:47 PM

not net neutrality, but how World High Tech Champion USA is not really

US high-speed wireless is actually among the world's slowest

Early adopters of 4G LTE cellular technology such as the US and UK are falling behind in terms of speed as more nations deploy and upgrade their networks

http://www.cnet.com/news/us-lte-among-world-slowest/#ftag=CAD590a51e

boutons_deux

09-24-2015, 04:50 PM

murdoch toilet paper

The Wall Street Journal Doubles Down On Dumb: Falsely Claims Net Neutrality ('Obamanet') Has Crushed Broadband Investment

Last week, we noted that the Wall Street Journal appeared to have reached a completely new low in the "conversation" about net neutrality, with a bizarre, facts-optional missive (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150902/12324032146/utterly-incoherent-wall-street-journal-missive-blames-netflix-well-everything.shtml) about how Netflix was to blame for pretty much everything wrong with the Internet. According to Holman W. Jenkins Jr., Netflix is the diabolical villain at the heart of a cabal to regulate the Internet, cleverly convincing regulators to treat hard-working, honest companies like Comcast unfairly. As we noted, the screed is part of a broader telecom-industry attempt to vilify Netflix for not only its support of net neutrality, but for daring to erode traditional cable TV subscriptions through (gasp) competition.

This week the Journal decided to double down on notably cryptic and dumb editorials, withanother rambling tirade about net neutrality (http://www.wsj.com/articles/obamanet-is-hurting-broadband-1442183370). Piece author Gordon Crovitz, who we've repeatedly documented as aggressively wrong on everything from surveillance (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131127/11002925391/wall-street-journal-columnist-repeatedly-gets-his-facts-wrong-about-nsa-surveillance.shtml) to encryption (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141124/07011329232/ridiculously-misinformed-opinion-piece-wsj-asks-apple-google-to-make-everyone-less-safe.shtml), begins by riling up the partisans in claiming "'Obamanet is hurting broadband":

"The FCC never planned to set rates and terms for broadband under the laws that dictated how railroads operated in the 1880s and the phone system in the 1930s. But President Obama decided “net neutrality” was good politics, so he demanded that the commission impose the most extreme form of regulation. Today bureaucrats lobbied by special interests determine what is “fair” and “reasonable” on the Internet, including rates, tariffs and business arrangements. The FCC got thousands of requests for new regulations within weeks of the new rules."

Right, except none of that is true.

While the FCC has issued some warnings about interconnection shenanigans (which has resulted in Netflix, transit and last mile ISPs suddenly getting alongfamously (https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20150505/09051330890/mere-threat-real-neutrality-rules-appears-to-have-helped-calm-verizon-level-3-cogent-interconnection-feud.shtml)), the FCC is forbearing from most of the more aggressive portions of Title II regulations. And despite the fact that anti-net-neutrality folks don't want to believe him, it's clear that FCC boss Tom Wheeler doesn't want to regulate broadband pricing.

The proof is in the fact that the agency continues to turn a blind eye to industry prices (it's simply never even mentioned as an issue), and the agency has effectively given the green light to usage caps, overages and zero rating (https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20150305/06260630213/fcc-approval-zero-rating-shows-companies-can-still-violate-neutrality-under-new-rules-they-just-have-to-be-more-clever-about-it.shtml).

If they had any sense, net neutrality opponents should be happy about this, as it's abundantly clear the FCC's only looking to enforce the most ham-fisted of neutrality abuses (filtering, blocking, heavy throttling of competing services), and ISPs can continue doing precisely what they're doing now (aggressively cashing in on uncompetitive markets) with no worry of regulatory interference. Most ISPs understand the message is subtle but it's there: ISPs can continue to experiment with this kind of "creative" pricing, they just need to be subtle about it (https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20150313/08332330310/our-shiny-new-net-neutrality-rules-wont-be-worth-squat-if-fcc-isnt-willing-to-act.shtml).

There's zero indication that Wheeler has any interest in serious rate regulation.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150914/12300932254/wall-street-journal-doubles-down-dumb-falsely-claims-net-neutrality-obamanet-has-crushed-broadband-investment.shtml

boutons_deux

10-20-2015, 10:51 AM

Canada's Biggest Net Neutrality Offender Rogers Has Change Of Heart After Having Its Traffic Discriminated Against

But in Canada, Rogers is suddenly rushing to help consumer advocates make their case in a filing with Canadian regulators (the CRTC) arguing that Videotron should be stopped from injecting itself as gatekeeper to the healthy Internet:

"The Unlimited Music service offered by Videotron is fundamentally at odds with the objective of ensuring that there is an open and non-discriminatory marketplace for mobile audio services. Videotron is, in effect, picking winners and losers by adopting a business model that would require an online audio service provider (including Canadian radio stations that stream content online) to accept Videotron’s contractual requirements in order to receive the benefit of having its content zero-rated."

So why does Rogers suddenly care so much about net neutrality? The company owns a number of radio stations around Canada that have found themselves unable to get Videotron's special cap-exempt status. Obviously this is a far cry from a few years ago, when Rogers lobbyists used to pen whiny editorials in the Canadian media (http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/net-neutrality-debate-is-a-struggle-against-non-existent-violations) complaining (like most large, incumbent ISPs do) that net neutrality is a fabricated phantom:

"Again, net neutrality violations haven’t happened. ISPs will charge you for just about anything (e.g. paper bills) but they have never charged content providers for network access. Since it has never happened, even where there are no rules against it, you can conclude that it isn’t really a problem."

Right, net neutrality isn't a problem until you're the one who suddenly finds yourself on the unfair end of the stick.

https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20151015/07445832540/canadas-biggest-net-neutrality-offender-rogers-has-change-heart-after-having-traffic-discriminated-against.shtml (https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20151015/07445832540/canadas-biggest-net-neutrality-offender-rogers-has-change-heart-after-having-traffic-discriminated-against.shtml)

boutons_deux

02-28-2016, 11:36 PM

Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio Join the Latest GOP Attack on Net Neutrality

One year after federal regulators approved the most sweeping open internet protections (http://motherboard.vice.com/read/net-neutrality-passes-but-the-fight-isnt-over) in US history, Republicans are escalating their assault (http://motherboard.vice.com/read/republicans-in-congress-push-back-against-net-neutrality) on net neutrality, the principle that all content on the internet should be equally accessible.

Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are co-sponsoring anew Senate bill (https://www.scribd.com/doc/300676468/Restoring-Internet-Freedom-Act) that would prevent the Federal Communications Commission from enforcing its open internet protections, dealing a potentially fatal blow to rules designed to preserve the internet’s open and freewheeling nature.

Cruz and Rubio’s support for the bill injects a once-obscure tech policy issue into the middle of the presidential race at a time when candidates from both parties are engaged in a fierce debate about the federal government’s role in regulating corporate America.

The :lol :lol “Restoring Internet Freedom Act (https://www.scribd.com/doc/300676468/Restoring-Internet-Freedom-Act)” :lol :lol would do no such thing, according to public interest groups and open internet advocates. On the contrary, the bill, which was introduced on Thursday by Sen. Mike Lee, the Utah Republican, would eviscerate the FCC’s ability to enforce open internet protections.

The legislation states that the FCC’s order protecting net neutrality “shall have no force or effect, and the Commission may not reissue such rule in substantially the same form or issue a new rule that is substantially the same as such rule, unless the reissued or new rule is specifically authorized by a law.”

Lee’s bill, which was co-sponsored by Cruz and Rubio, is just the latest manifestation of a long-running Republican crusade to undermine the power of federal regulators to police corporate America—a crusade that is evident across industries, from the oil and gas sector to Wall Street to the telecommunications industry.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/ted-cruz-and-marco-rubio-sponsor-anti-net-neutrality-bill

Thanks, Repugs and you Repug voters. Repugs fuck up everything they touch. Always leading the charge to enable BigCorp to screw Human-Americans.

boutons_deux

06-15-2016, 07:48 AM

Appeals Court Hands Obama Administration Major Win In Net Neutrality Case

http://new.www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/court-obama-net-neutrality-rules_us_571a29dce4b0d4d3f722fc46?section=

boutons_deux

06-15-2016, 08:57 AM

The Cable Industry Trots Out Mitch McConnell To Fight Against Cable Box Competition

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who this week was nudged by the cable sector to jump into the fray with comments (http://adage.com/article/digital/congress-set-top-box/304482/) like this one:

"Rather than applying a light regulatory touch," Senator McConnell wrote in a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, "the FCC would require existing programming distributors to provide the copyrighted programming they have licensed from content providers to third party manufacturers and app developers, none of whom would be bound by the agreements to protect the content."

This is a line that the cable sector and its marionettes have been repeating, but it's simply not true.

As the FCC's proposal outline notes (https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-337449A1.pdf) (pdf), all the plan does is require that cable operators deliver the same expensive programming they do now -- using the same copy protection and business arrangements -- without requiring a CableCARD.

A set top vendor can't just claim cable broadcasts as their own and ignore existing programming agreements, but that's one of several misleading arguments being put forth by the sector to kill the initiative.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160614/14000734710/cable-industry-trots-out-mitch-mcconnell-to-fight-against-cable-box-competition.shtml?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+techdirt%2Ffeed+%28Techdirt%2 9

boutons_deux

07-13-2016, 10:53 AM

Major telecoms promise 5G networks if EU cripples net neutrality

A group of 20 major telcos including Deutsche Telekom, Nokia, Vodafone, and BT promise to launch 5G networks in every country in the European Union by 2020 — so long as governments decide to weaken net neutrality rules.

The coalition's plans are outlined in its "5G Manifesto," (http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/document.cfm?action=display&doc_id=16579) a seven-page document that details how the companies will roll 5G out across the continent over the next few years.

However, by warning against regulation that would ensure an open internet and encouraging nations to water rules down, the companies are effectively holding the new technology for ransom.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/10/12139700/telecom-companies-5g-service-european-union-net-neutrality

fucking amazing, the telecom mafia

boutons_deux

07-31-2016, 11:56 PM

BigCorp still trying to fuck up Internet for profit

Big Telecom Wants a DC Circuit Net Neutrality Review. Here’s Why That’s Unlikely

The nation’s largest cable and telecom industry trade groups on Friday asked a federal court for a rare “en banc” review of last month’s decision upholding US rules (http://motherboard.vice.com/read/net-neutrality-appeals-court) protecting net neutrality, the principle that all content on the internet should be equally accessible to consumers.

The industry petitions come six weeks after a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a landmark ruling (http://motherboard.vice.com/read/net-neutrality-appeals-court) affirming Federal Communications Commission rules barring cable and phone companies from favoring certain internet services over others.

Friday’s petitions, which request a hearing by the full DC Circuit Court of Appeals, were filed by USTelecom (https://www.ustelecom.org/sites/default/files/documents/2016-07-29%20Joint%20Petition.pdf), the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (https://www.ncta.com/sites/prod/files/UST%20et%20al%20v%20FCC.CADC_.2016-07-29.NCTA%20%26%20ACA%20Petition%20for%20Rehearing%2 0En%20Banc%20%28As%20Filed%29.pdf), theAmerican Cable Association (https://www.ncta.com/sites/prod/files/UST%20et%20al%20v%20FCC.CADC_.2016-07-29.NCTA%20%26%20ACA%20Petition%20for%20Rehearing%2 0En%20Banc%20%28As%20Filed%29.pdf), and wireless trade group CTIA (http://www.ctia.org/docs/default-source/fcc-filings/ctia-petition-for-rehearing-en-banc-(with-addendum).pdf), which collectively represent the nation’s largest cable and phone companies.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/net-neutrality-dc-circuit-en-banc-review

boutons_deux

11-18-2016, 04:06 PM

Repugs are definitely going to fuck up Internet

Trump, GOP Prepare To Gut FCC Boss Tom Wheeler's Populist Reforms...Under The False Banner Of Populist Reform

the chairs of the House Energy & Commerce Committee and Communications Subcommittee this week officially asked Wheeler to avoid trying to implement any "controversial" or "partisan" efforts in his final months in office (https://www.dslreports.com/shownews/After-Trump-Win-GOP-Urges-FCCs-Wheeler-to-Stop-Trying-138346):

"I strongly urge the FCC to avoid directing its attention and resources in the coming months to complex, partisan, or otherwise controversial items that the new Congress and new Administration will have an interest in reviewing,” Senator John Thune wrote Tuesday in a letter to Wheeler...Any action taken by the FCC following November 8, 2016, will receive particular scrutiny,” the GOP lawmaker proclaimed."

At this point we should probably remind you that the GOP has hounded Wheeler for several years now with an endless series of pointless (https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20160301/07093233770/congress-keeps-holding-repeated-pointless-hearings-just-to-punish-fcc-standing-up-to-isps-net-neutrality.shtml) "accountability" hearings with one core function: shame Wheeler for standing up to AT&T, Verizon and Comcast.

Absolutely everything Wheeler has done has been deemed "controversial" by the GOP, which was particularly incensed over net neutrality (https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20150210/10270429976/latest-congressional-attempt-to-kill-neutrality-rules-involves-two-flimsy-investigations-sudden-breathless-adoration.shtml)and the reclassification of ISPs as common carriers (necessary to legally defend the rules). In each hearing, Wheeler was cool under pressure despite being repeatedly shamed for simply doing his job.

Net neutrality, for example, is framed as "divisive" and "partisan" by the GOP, yet has broad support from members of both political parties (https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20141112/11431629122/republicans-democrats-alike-overwhelmingly-support-net-neutrality-why-dont-gop-officials-congress-recognize-this.shtml). Similarly, municipal broadband (communities building their own networks or striking public/private partnerships to address private market failure) is often tagged as "partisan" by the GOP, despite the fact that the idea has broad bipartisan support (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161031/07232735920/after-north-carolina-law-bans-municipal-broadband-one-isp-gives-gigabit-connections-away.shtml), and most community broadband networks are built in Conservative areas (https://muninetworks.org/content/most-municipal-networks-built-conservative-cities).

Trump's telecom transition team is being led by Jeffrey Eisenach, a think tanker with direct ties to telecom (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/12/us/politics/trump-campaigned-against-lobbyists-now-theyre-on-his-transition-team.html) (yet not technically a "lobbyist") who has vehemently opposed nearly every pro-consumer policy the agency has ever implemented. Also on Trump's advisory team is Rep. Marsha Blackburn, whose faithful support of AT&T and protectionist state laws (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160720/06241935018/tennessee-study-shows-state-remains-broadband-backwater-thanks-to-att-lobbyists-clueless-politicians-protectionist-state-law.shtml) has played a starring role in ensuring that her state of Tennessee remains a broadband backwater (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160720/06241935018/tennessee-study-shows-state-remains-broadband-backwater-thanks-to-att-lobbyists-clueless-politicians-protectionist-state-law.shtml).

Trump has said he opposes net neutrality (even if it's not clear he actually understands what it is (http://gizmodo.com/the-2016-presidential-candidates-views-on-net-neutralit-1760829072)), suggesting those rules will either be scrapped -- or simply not enforced. Eisenach has similarly made it abundantly clear he sees the FCC's future as one in which its influence over broadband is negligible to non-existent, and net neutrality is no longer the law of the land. In an editorial written over at The Hill in 2010 (http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/116995-the-radicalism-of-net-neutrality), Eisenach blasted net neutrality as a "radical scheme" crafted (ironically) by bogus populists:

"Boiled down to the basics, in other words, net neutrality is a massive scheme for what Richard Posner termed “taxation by regulation” – the transfer of wealth from one group to another by means of government regulation....The populist rhetoric of (net neutrality supporting groups) often strikes a radical pose, but the real radicalism of net neutrality lies in the naked use of Federal regulatory power to redistribute wealth.

intentionally ignored the fact that net neutrality is something the public wanted by an overwhelming, bipartisan degree.

https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20161117/05533336066/trump-gop-prepare-to-gut-fcc-boss-tom-wheelers-populist-reformsunder-false-banner-populist-reform.shtml

boutons_deux

12-07-2016, 06:27 PM

AT&T and Time Warner Execs Vow to Protect Press Freedom Under Trump

Top executives from AT&T and Time Warner pledged under oath to protect US First Amendment free press protections,

During a hearing about (http://motherboard.vice.com/read/att-ceo-says-85b-time-warner-deal-will-be-tremendous-for-consumers?utm_source=mbtwitter) AT&T’s proposed $85 billion buyout (http://motherboard.vice.com/read/att-time-warner-buyout-federal-scrutiny?utm_source=mbtwitter) of Time Warner, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut Democrat, grilled the top executives from both companies about their commitment to free speech.

The issue of free speech has become especially important for news organizations, given president-elect Trump’s open hostility to the press, especially CNN, which the reality TV star and real estate branding mogul repeatedly denounced (http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/29/media/donald-trump-twitter-cnn/) during the election campaign.

“For a public official to use the blunt, heavy instrument of law enforcement to try to silence or change coverage by a news department of any company is for me absolutely abhorrent,”

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/att-and-time-warner-execs-vow-to-protect-press-freedom-under-trump

BigCorp's lips are moving, it's LYING! :lol

I'm sure Trash's DoJ will enforce Freedom of the Press

boutons_deux

12-08-2016, 07:58 PM

Say bye-bye to net neutrality next year, gloats FCC commish Pai

Promises to take 'weed wacker' to internet rules

https://regmedia.co.uk/2016/12/08/ajit_pai.jpg?x=648&y=348&crop=1

FCC commissioner Ajit Pai explained how 2017 will be the year that net neutrality dies in the US, and that municipal networks can forget about existing as well.

On Wednesday, Pai gave a speech at the Free State Foundation in which he lambasted the FCC for taking on more responsibility than it was allowed by Congress in labelling internet provision as a Title II carrier service (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/11/net_neutrality_answers_wtf_is_title_ii/). This will change when President-elect
Donald Trump takes office, he promised.

"Last month's election will prove to be an inflection point ... during the Trump Administration, we will shift from playing defense at the FCC to going on offense," Pai said (http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2016/db1207/DOC-342497A1.pdf).

"On the day that the Title II Order was adopted, I said that 'I don't know whether this plan will be vacated by a court, reversed by Congress, or overturned by a future Commission. But I do believe that its days are numbered.' Today, I am more confident than ever that this prediction will come true."

Pai complained that there "was no evidence of systemic failure in the Internet marketplace," despite the fact that

US broadband speeds are falling behind (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/31/us_broadband_speeds_up_but_still_crap/) other countries,

over half (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/04/fcc_chairman_americans_getting_screwed_by_lack_of_ broadband_competition/) of Americans have no choice between high-speed internet providers, and

telcos are ramping up the use of data caps (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/18/us_telcos_data_caps/) to boost profits.

Pai also praised court rulings (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/10/fcc_muni_broadband/) that towns and cities can't be allowed to set up their own municipal networks if states have enacted legislation making the practice illegal.

Towns in North Carolina (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/16/telco_giants_kill_decent_rural_internet_service_in _nc/) and Tennessee have

tried to set up networks, but have been blocked by telco-sponsored state legislation designed to stop competition with commercial suppliers.

"We need to fire up the weed whacker and remove those rules that are holding back investment, innovation, and job creation," Pai enthused.

With the incoming administration the composition of the five-person FCC will change, with the Republicans replacing the current 3-2 Democratic majority. Pai promised great changes to come, but it's unclear if the proposed revisions will benefit consumers or the companies that sell to them.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/08/fcc_commissioner_pai_to_trash_net_neut/

... just one of the 100s of ways Trash and establishment Repugs will fuck and fleece Americans

boutons_deux

12-21-2016, 12:08 PM

Remaining FCC Commissioners Promise To Gut Net Neutrality 'As Soon As Possible'

from the nice-knowin'-ya dept

We've already noted how large ISPs are licking their chops (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161109/10362936007/wake-trump-win-isps-are-already-laying-groundwork-gutting-net-neutrality.shtml) on reports that the

incoming Trump-led FCC plans to not only gut net neutrality (https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20161201/06235736165/trump-appoints-third-anti-net-neutrality-advisor-to-telecom-transition-team.shtml), but

to defang and defund (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161123/06221836122/trump-telecom-advisor-doesnt-think-broadband-monopolies-are-real-wants-to-dismantle-fcc.shtml) the FCC also.

Most of Trump's telecom advisors have direct ties to telecom;

one, former Sprint lobbyist Mark Jamison, doesn't think telecom monopolies are real (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161123/06221836122/trump-telecom-advisor-doesnt-think-broadband-monopolies-are-real-wants-to-dismantle-fcc.shtml).

Verizon lawyer turned current FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai is rumored to be the most likely candidate for future FCC boss, and

just last week proclaimed that net neutrality's days are numbered (https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20161209/05240636229/fcc-commissioner-pai-says-net-neutralitys-days-are-numbered-under-trump.shtml) under Trump.

https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20161220/10202936316/remaining-fcc-commissioners-promise-to-gut-net-neutrality-as-soon-as-possible.shtml

Fucking America starting soon, and will run for 4 years.

RandomGuy

12-21-2016, 05:51 PM

Spurminator

01-02-2017, 02:29 PM

This is the year Donald Trump kills Net Neutrality
https://www.wired.com/2017/01/year-donald-trump-kills-net-neutrality/

2015 WAS THE year the Federal Communications Commission grew a spine. And 2017 could be the year that spine gets ripped out.

Over the past two years, the FCC has passed new regulations to protect net neutrality by banning so-called “slow lanes” on the internet, created new rules to protect internet subscriber privacy, and levied record fines against companies like AT&T (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/06/atts-unlimited-data-throttling-to-be-punished-with-100-million-fine/) and Comcast (https://www.wired.com/2016/10/fcc-fines-comcast-2-3m-billing-practices-enough/). But this more aggressive FCC has never sat well with Republican lawmakers.

Soon, these lawmakers may not only repeal the FCC’s recent decisions, but effectively neuter the agency as well. And even if the FCC does survive with its authority intact, experts warn, it could end up serving a darker purpose under President-elect Donald Trump.

:cheer MAKE THE INTERNET SUCK AGAIN :cheer

baseline bum

01-02-2017, 02:47 PM

This is the year Donald Trump kills Net Neutrality
https://www.wired.com/2017/01/year-donald-trump-kills-net-neutrality/

:cheer MAKE THE INTERNET SUCK AGAIN :cheer

Thanks Obama

boutons_deux

01-05-2017, 06:31 AM

How Donald Trump Could Make Rupert Murdoch Even More Powerful

President-elect Donald Trump may be preparing to give Rupert Murdoch a big reward for the positive coverage Murdoch’s outlets provided during the election.

Trump has asked Murdoch to submit the names of possible nominees for Federal Communications Commission chairman,

according to a report (http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/01/megyn-kellys-departure-is-clue-about-future-of-fox-news.html) from New York magazine’s Gabriel Sherman.

Trump’s FCC will be positioned to roll back regulations that have kept

Murdoch from buying up newspapers and television stations across the country.
http://www.nationalmemo.com/trump-could-make-rupert-murdoch-even-more-powerful/

The oligarchy, the corporatocracy hardens it domination of the country.

Corporate media for profit and power is a veritable Ministry of Truth.

Th'Pusher

01-05-2017, 06:59 AM

Winehole23

01-08-2017, 03:49 AM

In a joint filing by all of the major advertising lobbying and trade associations, the advertising industry this week was quick to submit a petition to the FCC (https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3252076/Petition-for-Reconsideration-1-3-2017.pdf) (pdf) claiming that the new rules aren't necessary because the marketing sector already adheres to a "self-regulatory" regime that delivers all the transparency, choice and benefits that consumers could possibly handle:

"This ecosystem has functioned well for years under an enforceable self-regulatory framework developed by the Digital Advertising Alliance (“DAA”), which is broadly supported by industry and widely recognized as a highly credible and effective privacy self-regulatory program that offers consumers transparency about online data collection and a way to control the use of their online data by DAA members while allowing data-driven innovation to flourish. The DAA has been widely successful, with hundreds of companies and thousands of brands participating in the program, over 75 million unique visitors to its digital properties, reaching 35 countries and translated into 26 languages."

And while it's certainly nice that the advertising agency has translated its entirely voluntary privacy practices into so many languages, that's not really relevant to what the FCC was trying to accomplish with the rules. The FCC imposed rules specifically thanks to the lack of competition in the broadband last mile, a lack of competition that lets ISPs and advertisers impose draconian new consumer surveillance policies the consumer can't vote to avoid with their wallet. The FCC was particularly nudged to action by the discovery that Verizon and its ad partners were covertly modifying user packets (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150115/07074929705/remember-that-undeletable-super-cookie-verizon-claimed-wouldnt-be-abused-yeah-well-funny-story.shtml) to track users around the internet.

It took two years for security researchers to even discover what Verizon and its marketing partners were up to. It took another six months of heavy public shaming before Verizon was even willing to provide working opt-out tools. At no point did industry, or any of its self-regulatory apparatuses, stop and think they'd taken things a bit too far, which is why the FCC, agree or not, felt it was necessary to lend consumers a hand. The FCC was also concerned about a growing push by some ISPs to make opting out of data collection a pricey, luxury option (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160803/06131535142/comcast-tells-fcc-it-should-be-able-to-charge-broadband-users-premium-privacy.shtml) for consumers, "self-regulatory safeguards" be damned.https://www.techdirt.com/blog/?start=10

Winehole23

01-08-2017, 03:51 AM

At the thrust of the ad and marketing industry's formal opposition to the FCC's rules is an old favorite; the claim that protecting consumer privacy is somehow a violation of the marketing industry's free speech rights:

"The Commission did this in a manner that unreasonably exceeds its statutory mandate by restricting a substantial amount of protected free speech counter to the First Amendment, and using a process that did not allow adequate notice and comment from interested parties."

boutons_deux

01-08-2017, 08:28 AM

"the claim that protecting consumer privacy is somehow a violation of the marketing industry's free speech rights"

aka, a "weaponized" First Amendment, also weaponized by Christian Sharia to impose their Biblical crap, hate, Sharia on everybody else.

Wild Cobra

01-08-2017, 12:43 PM

boutons_deux

01-08-2017, 03:50 PM

The liberals stretch the 1st in so many ways

goddam, you're stupid (and no evidence, either)

boutons_deux

01-08-2017, 03:54 PM

Congresswoman who tried to end net neutrality now chair of committee on telecommunications (http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/1/6/1617820/-Congresswoman-who-tried-to-end-net-neutrality-now-chair-of-committee-on-telecommunications)

Tennessee’s crazy insane lady Rep. Marsha Blackburn just got a new responsibility. She’s going to be the chairperson of the congressional telecommunications subcommittee. (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/01/enemy-of-net-neutrality-and-muni-broadband-will-chair-house-telecom-panel/)

Blackburn has consistently tried to unravel FCC attempts to regulate broadband providers.

In 2015, she filed legislation titled the "Internet Freedom Act (http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/03/republicans-internet-freedom-act-would-wipe-out-net-neutrality/)" to overturn the Federal Communications Commission's then-new network neutrality rules that prohibit blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization.

The net neutrality rules still remain in effect, but Republicans are expected to attack the rules again under President-elect Donald Trump.

Blackburn has claimed (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/04/house-passes-gop-bill-to-undermine-fccs-net-neutrality-authority/) that the FCC's net neutrality order is an attempt to "set all the rates" that broadband providers charge for Internet service, even though the FCC hasn't tried to do that and FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said he had no intention of doing so (http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/03/why-tom-wheeler-rejected-broadband-price-caps-and-last-mile-unbundling/).

Blackburn has also worked to preserve laws in about 20 states that make it difficult for cities and towns to offer their own broadband Internet services.

She filed legislation (http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/07/congresswoman-defends-states-rights-to-protect-isps-from-muni-competition/) to prevent the FCC from preempting such state laws, saying, "I strongly believe in states' rights."

After the FCC went ahead with the proposal anyway, saying it was necessary to improve broadband connectivity in areas with little competition, Blackburn filed another bill to overturn the FCC decision (http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/02/republicans-in-congress-already-trying-to-overturn-fccs-latest-votes/).

She wasn't able to get legislation passed, but that FCC decision ended up being overturned in court (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/in-blow-to-muni-broadband-fcc-loses-bid-to-overturn-state-laws/).

Like Yosemite Sam before her, Rep. Blackburn has been firing wildly in the hopes that she would be given one of the Republicans’ many big jobs trying to dismantle any and all consumer and health safety nets our government has left.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/01/06/1617820/-Congresswoman-who-tried-to-end-net-neutrality-now-chair-of-committee-on-telecommunications?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29

Consequences to goin to be ALL NEGATIVE

"May the NEGATIVES be with Trash fellators"

ElNono

02-04-2017, 03:22 AM

FCC Rescinds Claim That AT&T, Verizon Violated Net Neutrality

The Federal Communications Commission's new Republican leadership has rescinded a determination that ATT and Verizon Wireless violated net neutrality rules with paid data cap exemptions (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/fcc-rescinds-claim-that-att-and-verizon-violated-net-neutrality/). The FCC also rescinded several other Wheeler-era reports and actions. The FCC released its report (http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0111/DOC-342987A1.pdf) on the data cap exemptions (aka "zero-rating") in the final days of Democrat Tom Wheeler's chairmanship. Because new Chairman Ajit Pai opposed the investigation, the FCC has now formally closed the proceeding. The FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau sent letters to ATT (http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0203/DOC-343337A1.pdf), Verizon (https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-343339A1.pdf), and T-Mobile USA (https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-343338A1.pdf) notifying the carriers "that the Bureau has closed this inquiry. Any conclusions, preliminary or otherwise, expressed during the course of the inquiry will have no legal or other meaning or effect going forward." The FCC's Wireline Competition Bureau also sent a letter to Comcast (http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0203/DOC-343336A1.pdf) closing an inquiry into the company's Stream TV cable service, which does not count against data caps (https://arstechnica.com/business/2015/11/comcast-launches-online-tv-service-that-doesnt-count-against-data-caps/). The FCC issued an order (http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0203/DA-17-127A1.pdf) that "sets aside and rescinds" the Wheeler-era report on zero-rating. All "guidance, determinations, and conclusions" from that report are rescinded, and it will have no legal bearing on FCC proceedings going forward, the order said. ATT and Verizon allow their own video services (DirecTV and Go90, respectively) to stream on their mobile networks without counting against customers' data caps, while charging other video providers for the same data cap exemptions. The FCC under Wheeler determined that ATT and Verizon unreasonably interfered with online video providers' ability to compete against the carriers' video services (https://yro.slashdot.org/story/17/01/12/0314236/new-fcc-report-says-att-and-verizon-zero-rating-violates-net-neutrality).

ElNono

02-04-2017, 03:47 AM

So you're Sling TV or Playstation Vue, but you have to compete with AT&T's DirectTV streaming, which doesn't count against your mobile data cap. This is the vaunted "free market"? smh

I tell you, I thought Wheeler was going to be terrible due to his background, but he turned out to be one of the most consumer-conscious Chairman of the FCC.

baseline bum

02-04-2017, 03:52 AM

boutons_deux

02-04-2017, 09:08 AM

FCC blocks 9 companies from providing low-income internet access

A handful of service providers are no longer able to participate in a federal program that provides low-income people with cheap internet access, the FCC said (http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0203/DA-17-128A1.pdf) on Friday.

Regulators told nine companies they can't take part in the Lifeline broadband program just weeks after they were approved.

The federal Lifeline program, established in 1985, provides discounted phone and internet service for people in poorer communities to connect with family and access resources for jobs and education. The FCC expanded the program to include broadband last year, and now gives participating households a $9.25 per month credit they can use for internet access.

The status of the nine companies will be changed to "pending," and the FCC will reconsider their participation in the program. Regulators had approved four of those companies on December 1 and five on January 18.

Reconsidering the petitions will "promote program integrity" and

give the FCC "additional time to consider measures that might be necessary to prevent further waste, fraud, and abuse in the Lifeline program,"

:lol :lol :lol fucking LAWYERS will say anything, tell any LIE

the FCC wrote.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/03/technology/fcc-low-income-poor-internet-lifeline/

I've been telling You People, the Repugs FUCK UP EVERYTHING they touch.

boutons_deux

03-07-2017, 12:05 PM

Senator Thune Begins Pushing A 'Net Neutrality' Bill That's Likely To Kill Net Neutrality

So if you're an ISP lobbyist looking to kill net neutrality rules, how do you accomplish this without causing a massive public shitstorm? Why you table a bill that pretends to save and protect net neutrality, while wording it to do the exact opposite, of course!

It's widely believed that the GOP intends to table a net neutrality bill sometime this year, either as a standalone bill or part of a Communications Act rewrite (with a heavy emphasis on killing the FCC's consumer-protection authority)

begins his sales pitch with, unfortunately, a lie:

"I am quite confident that the online experience for the overwhelming majority of users has not really changed for better or worse because of the new regulations. The Internet’s future, however, is uncertain because of ideological bureaucrats at the FCC who adopted a misguided regulatory approach that has chilled investment and offers no protections against excessive bureaucratic interference in the years ahead.

...These regulations are already having a negative impact on Internet infrastructure.

While not a problem in places like Silicon Valley or New York City, 34 million Americans today lack access to broadband services at home, and there is evidence that the FCC’s onerous regulations have chilled the capital investments that are needed to deploy broadband throughout the country."

As we just got done saying (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170301/05105936816/fcc-boss-calls-net-neutrality-mistake-repeats-debunked-claim-it-stifled-broadband-investment.shtml), the claim

that net neutrality "chilled investment" simply isn't true,

new net neutrality law built by Congress:

"While the FCC’s 2015 rules may soon be consigned to the dustbin of history, the last few months have shown us all that political winds can and often do shift suddenly. The only way to truly provide certainty for open Internet protections is for Congress to pass bipartisan legislation. Rather than heavy-handed and open-ended regulations that stifle the Internet, we need a statute offering clear and enduring rules that balance innovation and investment for all parts of the Internet ecosystem."

The plan is to introduce a new net neutrality law that kills net neutrality while professing to save it. When lawmakers point out that the bill does more harm than good, they'll likely be derided for refusing to
"compromise."

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170306/05593336848/senator-thune-begins-pushing-net-neutrality-bill-thats-likely-to-kill-net-neutrality.shtml

baseline bum

03-07-2017, 12:10 PM

I'll never understand why Republican voters are so eager to pay more for Netflix.

boutons_deux

03-07-2017, 12:20 PM

I'll never understand why Republican voters are so eager to pay more for Netflix.

because the Repug pols absolutely depend on the total ignorance and ideological blindness of their base.

leemajors

03-07-2017, 02:26 PM

Pai is awful.

spurraider21

03-07-2017, 02:40 PM

Why not?

The liberals stretch the 1st in so many ways, they educated others how to do the same!lol party of hypocrisy

liberals do it? BAD
conservatives do it? its ok because liberals did it!

boutons_deux

05-11-2017, 10:34 AM

Cisco And Oracle Applaud The Looming Death Of Net Neutrality

Both Oracle and Cisco (not coincidentally major ISP vendors) have come out in full-throated support of the FCC's plan to kill net neutrality. FCC boss Ajit Pai has been making the rounds the last few weeks (https://www.recode.net/2017/4/20/15373502/fcc-chairman-ajit-pai-met-facebook-google-net-neutrality-open-internet) in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, trying to drum up support of his attack on broadband consumer protections. Pai met with Cisco, Oracle, Facebook and Apple in a number of recent meetings, but so far only Oracle and Cisco have been willing to enthusiastically and publicly throw their corporate fealty behind Pai's extremely-unpopular policies.

"From our perspective as a Silicon Valley technology company, what should have been a purely technological discussion of managing traffic on internet networks has inexplicably evolved into a highly political hyperbolic battle, substantially removed from technical, economic, and consumer reality. Further, the stifling open internet regulations and broadband classification that the FCC put in place in 2015 – for just one aspect of the internet ecosystem – threw out both the technological consensus and the certainty needed for jobs and investment."

If you're playing along at home, you should, by now, realize this is bullshit.

Once again, public SEC filings, earnings reports, and ISP executive statements contradict (https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20170508/07573137315/fcc-is-using-garbage-lobbyist-data-to-defend-assault-net-neutrality.shtml) this claim. Killing net neutrality and broadband privacy protections is about one thing:

letting giant incumbent ISPs make more money by abusing the lack of competition in the broadband last mile.

And while that's good for ISP vendors like Oracle, that's not so great for the smaller companies that need a healthy, level playing field to do business. That's why over 800 startups (https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20170427/00174437247/over-800-startups-tell-fccs-ajit-pai-not-to-kill-net-neutrality.shtml) have come out in opposition to the FCC plan.

Like Oracle, Cisco was similarly eager to ignore the vast negative repercussions of the FCC's plan in a statement over at the company's website (https://blogs.cisco.com/gov/statement-of-ciscos-vp-of-government-affairs-jeff-campbell-on-fcc-chairman-ajit-pais-vision-for-updated-net-neutrality-policy). In its statement, Cisco also falsely claims that net neutrality stifled investment:

"The proposal will review what is needed to protect consumers and prevent anti-competitive behavior, while rolling back Title II reclassification, which has inhibited investment. The balanced approach Commissioner Pai unveiled will encourage new investments in broadband networks and speed the development of innovative services, including Internet of Things technologies, telemedicine, distance learning, emergency services, and mobile 5G."

As we've noted, Pai's "balanced approach" involves first gutting all FCC authority over broadband, then shoveling the remaining, paltry authority back over to an already limited FTC authority that AT&T lawyers have demostrated they're able to tap dance around (https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20150108/10422129635/att-plays-legal-pattycake-with-ftcfcc-jurisdiction-common-carrier-law-just-so-it-can-pretend-limited-data-service-is-unlimited.shtml).

Both Cisco and Oracle are well aware that the goal here isn't "balanced" regulations or "protecting consumers";

the goal is to turn a blind eye to the lack of competition in the broadband space (a disease for which neutrality violations are just one symptom) for the sole benefit of their clients at AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and Charter.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170510/07262037333/cisco-oracle-applaud-looming-death-net-neutrality.shtml

boutons_deux

05-18-2017, 12:13 PM

Pai in your face

FCC Commissioner Wants To Ban States From Protecting Consumer Broadband Privacy

Despite a last-ditch effort by the EFF and other consumer and privacy groups, the GOP voted back in March to kill consumer broadband privacy protections (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170328/09565737026/consumer-broadband-privacy-protections-are-dead.shtml). As we noted several times (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170517/05143337388/fcc-commissioner-wants-to-ban-states-protecting-consumer-broadband-privacy.shtml), the protections weren't particularly onerous -- simply requiring that ISPs are transparent about what data they're collecting, who they're selling it to, and that they provide working opt-out tools. But because many of these large ISPs are busy pushing into the media sector (AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner being just one example), large ISPs lobbied fiercely to eliminate anything that could dent these future potential revenues.

Shortly thereafter, at least eight states and a handful of cities rushed in to fill the void. The city of Seattle, for example, passed a new requirement (http://www.seattle.gov/tech/about/policies-and-directors-rules) that ISPs receive opt-in permission (the dirtiest phrase imaginable to the marketing industry) before collecting and selling subscriber data. Meanwhile in Maine, a new privacy proposal by State Senator Shenna Bellows is seeing support from Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike. Bellows cited Congress' decision to overturn the protections as a motivation for the move (http://www.pressherald.com/2017/05/15/maine-legislation-aimed-at-protecting-internet-privacy/):

"With its reckless vote, Congress put Mainers’ privacy up for sale,” Bellows said. “Most people are rightfully appalled by the idea that their Internet service provider could be watching their every move online and selling their information to the highest bidder. We owe it to our constituents to protect their privacy."

This move by the states to do the job Congress wasn't willing to do has apparently riled the current FCC majority.

Speaking at an event at the American Legislation Exchange Council (ALEC),

FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said he would be exploring taking some kind of action against states (http://stopthecap.com/2017/05/16/fccs-mike-orielly-tells-alec-fcc-ban-state-laws-broadband-privacy-consumer-protection/) that move to pass new broadband privacy protections.

O'Rielly's comments have previously been backed by current FCC boss Ajit Pai, who has also hinted at taking action against the states:

"It is both impractical and very harmful for each state to enact differing and conflicting privacy burdens on broadband providers, many of which serve multiple states, if not the entire country,” said Pai. “

If necessary, the FCC should be willing to issue the requisite decision to clarify the jurisdictional aspects of this issue."

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170517/05143337388/fcc-commissioner-wants-to-ban-states-protecting-consumer-broadband-privacy.shtml

what happened to all y'all bubba's "states rights"?

Y'all's Repug FCC insisting that Americans' privacy be UNIFORMALLY fucked in all 50 states. It's good for corporate profits.

boutons_deux

10-31-2017, 06:15 PM

Net Neutrality: Why Artists and Activists Can’t Afford to Lose It
Eventually, she’ll ask a friend to use a phone to record a set. And that night she will kill. Utterly destroy the room. That will be the first time she uploads footage of herself performing to the internet. Her life will never be the same.

This kind of thing has happened, countless times. And not just to comics but also to magicians, singers and people who were embarrassed on camera but managed to monetize their shame. It will happen again. But it may not happen much longer if the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, follows through on his plan to roll back the network neutrality rules that ensure that anyone who puts something on the internet has a fair shot at finding a life-changing audience.

To understand how consequential this is, imagine a young woman walking into the HBO offices and saying, “Hi, I’m an awkward black girl and I think I have some pretty hilarious misadventures that you should make into a TV show!” HBO’s only question probably would have been, “How did you get in here?” Now picture this: “Hi, I’m Issa Rae. I have hundreds of thousands of YouTube subscribers and hundreds of millions of YouTube views. And I’m an awkward black girl.” HBO’s question: “When can you start?” I’m exaggerating. But only slightly. Issa Rae started the web series “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl” on YouTube in 2011. Thanks in large part to its success, six years later, her comedy series, “Insecure,” is set to air for a third season on HBO. It’s hard to imagine this happening in a world without net neutrality.

Net neutrality is crucial ... it also allows content about more serious subjects to find an audience, without the endorsement or approval of traditional media gatekeepers.

The exchange of information and ideas that takes place on the internet is more important now than ever.

To protect it, we need to keep the current net neutrality rules in places.

We need them to ensure that people working to make the world better can reach their intended audiences.

We need them to ensure that artists everywhere continue to have a platform through which we can discover their work.

Right now, the internet is a level playing field.

The question the Trump administration needs to answer is: Why would you want to change that?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/opinion/net-neutrality-artists-activists.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Repugs gonna service their BigCorp dictators and fuck up Internet

BigCorp will make you pay to access websites and content that are free now.

boutons_deux

11-01-2017, 07:12 AM

I bet Repug FCC gives Verizon exactly what it wants

Verizon has a new strategy to undermine online privacy and net neutrality

FCC should declare state broadband laws invalid, Verizon tells commission

Verizon has asked the Federal Communications Commission to preempt any state laws that regulate network neutrality and broadband privacy.

With the two sets of rules either gone or on their way out, it's possible that state governments might impose similar rules to protect consumers in their states. Verizon told the FCC in a filing last week (https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/1025134031053/2017%2010%2025%20Verizon%20FCC%20Preemption%20Whit e%20Paper%2017-108.pdf) that the commission should preempt laws in any state that does so.

"some supporters of stringent regulation of ISPs are now looking to states and localities to frustrate these achievements," Verizon wrote.

State broadband laws "pose a real and significant threat to restoring a light-touch, uniform regulatory framework for
broadband service," Verizon said.

"This white paper explains why the Commission can and should preempt these problematic state broadband laws and identifies several potential sources of authority for the Commission to do so."

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/verizon-asks-fcc-to-preempt-any-state-privacy-or-net-neutrality-law/

When the oligarchy dictates, the Repugs listen, and deliver

boutons_deux

11-17-2017, 10:34 AM

For Repug whores, BigCorp rights to pre-empt the Repugs sacred "states rights"

Wireless Industry Lobbies To Ban States From Protecting Your Privacy, Net Neutrality

In the wake of the Trump administration's decision to gut modest FCC consumer privacy protections (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170328/09565737026/consumer-broadband-privacy-protections-are-dead.shtml) and net neutrality rules (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170517/12241437395/fcc-ignores-will-public-votes-to-begin-dismantling-net-neutrality.shtml), telecom lobbyists are working overtime trying to stop states from filling the void.

In the wake of the FCC's wholesale dismantling of consumer protections, states like California have tried to pass their own laws protecting your broadband privacy rights online,

only to find the efforts scuttled (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170918/09032838231/california-sides-with-comcast-votes-to-kill-broadband-privacy-law-favored-eff.shtml) by AT&T, Verizon and Comcast lobbyists, who've been more than happy to spread all manner of disinformation (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170719/05343937819/eff-highlights-how-isps-are-lying-to-californians-to-try-kill-new-broadband-privacy-protections.shtml) as to what the rules did or didn't do.

both Verizon (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171031/09320238517/verizon-lobbies-fcc-to-block-states-protecting-broadband-privacy-net-neutrality.shtml) and Comcast (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171103/08132438544/comcast-urges-fcc-to-ban-states-protecting-broadband-privacy-net-neutrality.shtml) have been lobbying the FCC to ban states from protecting your privacy and net neutrality.

The two companies were also joined this week by the wireless industry's biggest lobbying and policy organization, the CTIA. In an ex parte filing (https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4248633/171113-CTIA-Ex-Parte.pdf) (pdf) with the FCC,

wireless carriers whine about how unfair it is that states attempted to protect user privacy after the federal government made it clear it had no such interest:

"Earlier this year, legislators in various states attempted to countermand Congressional action on broadband privacy regulations.

When states and localities are provided a wide berth to test the boundaries of what is or is not consistent with Congressional objectives, the Commission and the courts are forced to evaluate regulations case-by-case, with broadband providers subject to a patchwork of mandates at issue during the review."

Like Comcast and Verizon, the wireless industry would have you forget that states wouldn't be running to create discordant privacy protections if these same lobbyists hadn't just successfully killed modest federal rules.

This is a problem caused entirely by lobbyists for some of the least competitive companies in America.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171116/09441738631/wireless-industry-lobbies-to-ban-states-protecting-your-privacy-net-neutrality.shtml

Uber/Lyft $Ms bought TX Repugs to preempt cities' rights to regulate rideshare. Now ATT/VZN getting their little whore Pai so the Feds preempt statees rights to protect the privacy of their citizens.

The oligarchy is unstoppable, and the Repug whores remove any and all obstacles.

Kim Jong-il

11-21-2017, 01:54 PM

Prepare the lube for December 14th, the day we’re all gonna get fucked. But hey, freedom!

Quadzilla99

11-21-2017, 03:05 PM

Prepare the lube for December 14th, the day we’re all gonna get fucked. But hey, freedom!

How is this administration on the wrong side of everything?

boutons_deux

11-21-2017, 03:07 PM

How is this administration on the wrong side of everything?

Repugs are paid by the oligarchy to enrich the oligarchy which in turn "takes care of the Repugs"

the corruption is 100% legal and unstoppable.

boutons_deux

11-23-2017, 07:56 AM

#GOFCCYOURSELF

Who is Ajit Pai, the “Trump soldier” remaking America’s internet?

Ajit Pai promised last December to bring (http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2016/db1207/DOC-342497A1.pdf) a “weed-wacker” to the agency that oversees the US’s media and telecommunications industries.

He appears to be wielding a chain saw instead
.
Since taking the office in January, Pai, 44,

a former attorney for Verizon and Congressional aide to attorney general Jeff Sessions (https://twitter.com/AjitPaiFCC/status/799675749796028420?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp %5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet),

has trashed rules that protected local media competition (https://qz.com/1131731/trump-news-an-fcc-vote-means-pro-trump-propaganda-could-be-beamed-into-more-us-households/),

eviscerated a program that gives poor people greater access to the internet, and

decided that competition exists (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/fccs-claim-that-one-isp-counts-as-competition-faces-scrutiny-in-court/) even when there’s just one internet provider in a market.

he made the most brutal cut so far, saying the commission plans to wipe out (https://qz.com/1134686/the-fcc-plans-to-unilaterally-give-up-its-net-neutrality-authority-with-little-to-replace-it/) net neutrality rules that require that all data that goes over the internet is treated the same.

The move could force (https://dash.parsely.com/qz.com/posts/FT8Y5k0NVvq-without-net-neutrality-in-portugal-mobile-internet-is-bundled-like-a-cable-package/?minutes=10) US companies and consumers to pick and choose what they can access online, and let broadband companies dictate what content they see, further dividing the fractured country by politics and paycheck.

It’s a remarkably unpopular stance for a Republican many think hopes to become senator or

governor of his home state of Kansas :lol :lol

some day.

he has taken a scorched earth approach to everything that was passed in the previous FCC and a lot of things that were passed much earlier.”

“set out to completely defang the FCC,” Aaron said. He’s pushing “a really aggressive agenda to benefit the biggest companies,”

“I look forward to returning to the light-touch, market-based :lol framework that unleashed the digital revolution and benefited consumers here and around the world,” :lol

Copps congratulated him on the job (http://www.commoncause.org/press/press-releases/copps-statement-appointment-of-ajit-pai-chairman-fcc.html). But on Tuesday, Copps said his reign has devolved into a “farce and a tragedy (https://twitter.com/coppsm/status/933003406783975424).”

https://qz.com/1133973/net-neutrality-who-is-ajit-pai-the-trump-soldier-coming-for-your-internet/?mc_cid=d76849fbb8&mc_eid=47e367557b

Just another way the oligarchy is fucking America for profit and into unfuckability

boutons_deux

11-23-2017, 08:04 AM

ISPs Renew Pledges Not To Block or Throttle :lolThe FCC cited those pledges in announcing the planned rollback of those rules. :lol

Pai is also eliminating the rule against paid prioritization,

but ISP pledges generally do not extend to a ban on paid prioritization, :lol

That is a grayer area given that some

ISPs argue differential pricing of tiers for different speeds and levels of service has plenty of precedent and can be a pro-consumer :lol :lol w

ay to differentiate service, rather than an anticompetitive lever.

Comcast senior EVP David Cohen said it was important for consumers to know that, FCC action or no, "we do not and will not block, throttle, or discriminate against lawful content – :lol

and we will be transparent with our customers about these policies." :lol

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/washington/isps-renew-pledges-not-block-or-throttle/170263

The entire PAi/BigISP program is to fleece consumers for $Bs more. As FB and Google censorings have shown, the BigISP will block whatever hurts their politics or profits, later if not sooner.

Comcast is rated by consumers as the THE WORST customer relations, so we are supposed to believe Comcast's pledges? :lol

Pai is making lots of "oligarchy can legally screw customers" moves, because that's exactly what BigISP wants, and why Pai was made FCC hatchet man.

boutons_deux

11-23-2017, 08:09 AM

If Portugal is a net neutrality nightmare, we’re already living in it

an alarming-looking screenshot from Portuguese mobile carrier Meo.

“In Portugal, with no net neutrality, internet providers are starting to split the net into packages,” he wrote.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DNGlrABUIAAr9RO.jpg:large

================================

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DPMnf9DV4AEXwaA.jpg

https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2017/11/22/16691506/portugal-meo-internet-packages-net-neutrality-ajit-pai-plan

How's the water, you rightwingnutjob, BigCorp fellating frogs?

boutons_deux

11-23-2017, 05:53 PM

How Gutting Net Neutrality Poses a Direct Threat to Political Organizing

The FCC's Ajit Pai ignores public support and laws upholding equal internet access.

. Essentially, anyone who goes online can connect with everyone else online. And that’s given rise to all sorts of innovation, it’s allowed political organizers, and racial justice advocates to use this tool to contact people, to organize, to get their message out.

allow these very powerful companies to insert themselves as gatekeepers.

there will be this great incentive for them to favor their own content and to degrade content from websites and services like Democracy Now! or other services. So, this fundamentally upsets the level playing field of the Internet.

So, Ajit Pai is ignoring the public, he’s ignoring the law. These rules have been challenged in court and they withstood those challenges. And he’s ignoring the facts. He says this is government regulation of the Internet. It’s not. It’s a regulation of internet service providers.

https://www.alternet.org/activism/fcc-end-net-neutrality-threaten-online-activism

So ya think Comcast, etc will allow full speed acces for websites like ComcastSucksMyDick.com, DisneySux.com? ESPNisRacist.com

boutons_deux

11-24-2017, 06:11 PM

As The FCC Guts Net Neutrality, Comcast Again Falsely Claims You Have Nothing To Worry About

Verizon and Comcast seem intent on insisting that none of this is actually happening.

Comcast lobbyists and PR reps have also been having grand old time pretending that this blatant example of regulatory capture isn't real, and

that the complete dismantling of telecom sector oversight won't have a decidedly-foul impact on already frustrated end users and the internet.

sure, the FCC may be gutting already flimsy oversight of one of the least competitive sectors in America, but users shouldn't worry because the company's tireless love of consumers will somehow carry the day:

Comcast is back again insisting that you have absolutely nothing to worry about.

In a new blog post (http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/fcc-takes-next-steps-on-open-internet), top Comcast lobbyist "Chief Diversity Officer (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151105/06245232725/comcast-keeps-scolding-me-calling-top-lobbyist-lobbyist.shtml)" David Cohen once again claims that

net neutrality harmed industry investment (independent analysis (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171005/09400638350/anybody-claiming-net-neutrality-rules-killed-broadband-investment-is-lying-to-you.shtml) and executive statements (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141211/05462229389/verizon-admits-to-investors-that-title-ii-wont-harm-broadband-investment-all.shtml) have repeatedly shown this to be a lie),

that Comcast will be able to self-regulate in the absence of real oversight, and that gutting the Title II foundation underpinning the agency's rules just isn't that big of a deal:

"As we have said previously, this proposal is not the end of net neutrality rules.

With the FCC transparency requirement and the restoration of the FTC‘s role in overseeing information services, the agencies together will have the authority to take action against any ISP which does not make its open Internet practices clearly known to consumers, and

if needed enforce against any anti-competitive or deceptive practices.

Comcast has already made net neutrality promises to our customers, :lol

we will continue to follow those standards, regardless of the regulations in place."

That's the same, debunked bullshit Cohen has been peddling for years.

the remaining transparency requirements on ISPs are so loophole-filled as to be utterly useless. As such, Comcast is stating it will adhere to them happily --

since there won't be much of anything to actually adhere to.

reversing the classification of ISPs as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act absolutely destroys the rules.

Reverse that classification (again), and you've

eroded the FCC's authority to police bad behavior by a sector with a rich history of anti-competitive behavior (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140305/14254626446/comcast-still-blocking-hbo-go-roku-now-playstation-3-incapable-explaining-why.shtml) and predatory pricing (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170424/10470637222/comcast-under-fire-using-bullshit-fees-to-covertly-raise-rates.shtml).

the broadband industry's lobbying plan is to pay lobby the government to dismantle the FCC's ability to protect consumers,

then shovel all remaining oversight to an FTC that's ill-equipped to handle it.

The FTC lacks the ability to craft new rules as needed, and is so under-funded and over-extended that policing ISP behavior will fall through the cracks.

That's something former FCC boss Tom Wheeler explained earlier this year (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170207/08092736653/tom-wheeler-trump-gop-plan-to-modernize-fcc-fraud.shtml):

"In the Trump administration, people are talking about stripping regulatory power from the FCC,

and essentially taking the agency apart (including moving jurisdiction over internet access to the Federal Trade Commission [FTC]).

“Modernizing” the FCC is the lingo being used.

It’s a fraud.

The FTC doesn’t have rule-making authority.

They’ve got enforcement authority and their enforcement authority is whether or not something is unfair or deceptive.

And the FTC has to worry about everything from computer chips to bleach labeling.

Of course, carriers want [telecom issues] to get lost in that morass. This was the strategy all along.

AT&T is currently embroiled in a case against the FTC (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161018/14062235832/ftc-warns-att-court-victory-throttling-could-screw-consumers-decades.shtml) that could erode the FTC's authority even further. AT&T was sued by the FTC after it lied to consumers about throttling their connections in the hopes of driving them to more expensive plans.

If AT&T wins that fight, any company with a common carrier component (which extends to everything from parts of Google's business to oil pipelines) could dodge FTC accountability.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171121/11590638662/as-fcc-guts-net-neutrality-comcast-again-falsely-claims-you-have-nothing-to-worry-about.shtml

We have less choice,

ISP will block content that hurts their profits

and Internet access will be complicated and cost everybody a lot more

and the "deconstructed" FCC / FTC won't be able to do anything about it.

iow, BigCorp will fuck over Americans more and more for more profit.

and of course, you will absolutely no privacy, every click, every site you visit will be logged and sold.

spurraider21

11-24-2017, 08:09 PM

excellent discussion ITT

https://i.gyazo.com/9cc95d26f603865a1bda3999daa4979d.png

boutons_deux

11-24-2017, 10:16 PM

More than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments were Likely Faked

NY Attorney General Schneiderman [/COLOR]estimated that hundreds of thousands of Americans’ identities were stolen (https://medium.com/@AGSchneiderman/an-open-letter-to-the-fcc-b867a763850a)

and used in spam campaigns that support repealing net neutrality.

My research found at least 1.3 million fake pro-repeal comments, with suspicions about many more.

In fact, the sum of fake pro-repeal comments in the proceeding may number in the millions.

In this post, I will point out one particularly egregious spambot submission,

make the case that there are likely many more pro-repeal spambots yet to be confirmed, and

estimate the public position on net neutrality in the “organic” public submissions.¹

Key Findings:²

One pro-repeal spam campaign used mail-merge to disguise 1.3 million comments as unique grassroots submissions.
There were likely multiple other campaigns aimed at injecting what may total several million pro-repeal comments into the system.
It’s highly likely that more than 99% of the truly unique comments³ were in favor of keeping net neutrality.

https://hackernoon.com/more-than-a-million-pro-repeal-net-neutrality-comments-were-likely-faked-e9f0e3ed36a6 (https://hackernoon.com/more-than-a-million-pro-repeal-net-neutrality-comments-were-likely-faked-e9f0e3ed36a6)

Repugs hired hackers, Pootin's cyber army?, to "prove" that "Americans" are for repealing net neutrality?

It really doesn't, oligarchy whores on FCC have the majority, totally immune to Americans' preferences.

boutons_deux

11-27-2017, 10:50 AM

Tim Wu: Why the Courts Will Have to Save Net Neutrality

an open internet, with no blocking — much of our current internet ecosystem was built.

Ajit Pai, announced plans to eliminate even the most basic net neutrality protections (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/technology/fcc-net-neutrality.html) — including the ban on blocking —

replacing them with a “transparency” regime enforced by the Federal Trade Commission.

“Transparency,” of course, is a euphemism for “doing nothing.”

will soon be able to block internet calls so long as they disclose the blocking (presumably in fine print).

Indeed, a broadband carrier like AT&T, if it wanted, might even practice internet censorship akin to that of the Chinese state, blocking its critics and promoting its own agenda.

by going this far, the F.C.C. may also have overplayed its legal hand.

So drastic is the reversal of policy (if, as expected, the commission approves Mr. Pai’s proposal next month), and so weak is the evidence to support the change, that it seems destined to be struck down in court.

government agencies are not free to abruptly reverse longstanding rules on which many have relied without a good reason, such as a change in factual circumstances.

A mere change in F.C.C. ideology isn’t enough.

As the Supreme Court has said,

a federal agency must “examine the relevant data and articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action.”

Given that net neutrality rules have been a huge success by most measures, the justification for killing them would have to be very strong.

Mr. Pai’s rationale for eliminating the rules is that cable and phone companies, despite years of healthy profit, need to earn even more money than they already do —

that is, that the current rates of return do not yield adequate investment incentives.

More specifically, Mr. Pai claims that industry investments have gone down since 2015, the year the Obama administration last strengthened the net neutrality rules.

Mr. Pai is not examining the facts:

Securities and Exchange Commission filings reveal an increase in internet investments since 2015,

Because he is killing net neutrality outright, not merely weakening it, he will have to explain to a court not just the shift from 2015 but also his reasoning for destroying the basic bans on blocking and throttling, which have been in effect since 2005 and have been relied on extensively by the entire internet ecosystem.

What has changed since 2004 that now makes the blocking or throttling of competitors not a problem?

The evidence points strongly in the opposite direction:

There is a long history of anticompetitive throttling and blocking — often concealed — that the F.C.C. has had to stop to preserve the health of the internet economy.

In our times, the judiciary has increasingly become a majoritarian force.

It alone, it seems, can prevent narrow, self-interested factions from getting the government to serve unseemly and even shameful ends.

And so it falls to the judiciary to stop this latest travesty.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/22/opinion/courts-net-neutrality-fcc.html?_r=0

Will Pai be able to judge-shop to get the case into a oligarchy pro-business / anti-citizen court?

FuzzyLumpkins

11-27-2017, 10:53 AM

excellent discussion ITT

https://i.gyazo.com/9cc95d26f603865a1bda3999daa4979d.png

Yeah once I realized that I did not read the articles he posted nor his rants I just put him on ignore. Unclutters things nicely I find.

dabom

11-27-2017, 11:08 AM

Yeah once I realized that I did not read the articles he posted nor his rants I just put him on ignore. Unclutters things nicely I find.

I find them amusing. I read some.

monosylab1k

11-27-2017, 04:49 PM

Freedom!

Comcast hints at plan for paid fast lanes after net neutrality repeal
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/comcast-quietly-drops-promise-not-to-charge-tolls-for-internet-fast-lanes/

boutons_deux

11-27-2017, 05:15 PM

Freedom!

Comcast hints at plan for paid fast lanes after net neutrality repeal
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/comcast-quietly-drops-promise-not-to-charge-tolls-for-internet-fast-lanes/

killing net neutrality is nothing but a BigCorp strategy to screw customers with extra fees to visit sites, to have x bandwidth, etc, etc.

There is no problem that net neutrality will solve, it's a scam and Pai is a whore.

boutons_deux

11-27-2017, 05:18 PM

Freedom! Competition! The venerated, unchallengeable market always provides the best solution

AT&T and Comcast lawsuit has nullified a city’s broadband competition law

Bad news for Google Fiber: Nashville utility pole ordinance invalidated by judge.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/att-and-comcast-win-lawsuit-they-filed-to-stall-google-fiber-in-nashville/

TX doesn't even allow municipal networks

boutons_deux

11-28-2017, 07:59 PM

FCC chairman calls Twitter the real threat to an open internet

Ajit Pai also poked fun at criticism from celebrities like Alyssa Milano about his plan to repeal net neutrality rules and called out Twitter for censorship.

https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-chairman-calls-twitter-the-real-threat-to-an-open-internet/#ftag=CAD590a51e

ALL the Repugs, and their supporters, are PIECES OF SHIT

boutons_deux

11-29-2017, 06:41 PM

succinctly presenting Ajit Pai's Big Lie:

Over twenty years ago, President Clinton and a Republican Congress established the policy of the United States

“to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet . . . unfettered by Federal or State regulation.”

For decades, Commission policies encouraged broadband deployment and the development of the Internet.

That ended two years ago.

In 2015, the Commission imposed heavy-handed, utility-style regulation on Internet service providers (ISPs).

Since then, broadband investment has fallen for two years in a row—

the first time that that’s happened outside a recession in the Internet era.

And new services have been delayed or scuttled by a regulatory environment that stifles innovation.

You might think that the "Big Lie" is the idea that the 2015 rules killed investment. And that is a lie.

Actual evidence (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171005/09400638350/anybody-claiming-net-neutrality-rules-killed-broadband-investment-is-lying-to-you.shtml) from financial reports has proven that completely false repeatedly.

But, that's a smaller lie here.

Ajit Pai's Big Lie is the idea that gutting all net neutrality protections is somehow returning FCC policy to the way things were two years ago, and that "for decades" the FCC kept out of this debate.

All of that is wrong.

And, unlike the other lie concerning investment -- where Pai and others can fiddle with numbers to make his claims look right --

Ajit Pai knows that the Big Lie is false.

Pai likes to point back to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 as his starting point in claiming that the internet is free from regulations, and

suggests that things just changed with the 2015 FCC order.

But he literally knows this is wrong.

First of all, for all his talk of using 1996 as the starting date to show "decades" of supposedly unchanged FCC positions on this,

he conveniently leaves out that the FCC didn't actually classify cable broadband as an information service... until 2002 (https://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/News_Releases/2002/nrcb0201.html).

That's from the FCC's own announcement about it.

And this was fought out in court, eventually leading to the Brand X (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Cable_%26_Telecommunications_Ass%27n_v._B rand_X_Internet_Services) Supreme Court ruling in 2005 that said the FCC had the right to determine if broadband was an information service or a telco service (which is why the 2015 order has been upheld).

And, even then, telco (i.e., DSL) based broadband was still classified under Title II.

It was only in 2005 (https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-260433A1.pdf) that the FCC officially reclassified telco-based broadband as an information service, rather than a Title II covered telco service.

This move actually stripped broadband of the one feature that had created the most competitive markets: the requirement to share their lines.

So, as a starting point, the idea that there's been a consistent policy position from 1996 until 2015 is simply wrong.

The FCC itself changed the classification of broadband providers in 2002 and again in 2005.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171127/01044438683/ajit-pais-big-lie.shtml

boutons_deux

12-03-2017, 07:11 PM

FCC WANTS TO KILL NET NEUTRALITY. CONGRESS WILL PAY THE PRICE

an unprecedented giveaway to big broadband providers and a danger to the internet.

The move would mean the FCC would have almost no oversight authority over broadband providers like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T.

never in those companies’ most feverish dreams did they expect an FCC chair would propose to

demolish all net neutrality protections and allow ISPs to extract tolls from every business in the country.

Even industry analysts

who expected the reclassification of broadband providers from Title II common carriers to Title I information services

were stunned.

Following Pai’s announcement, independent cable analyst Craig Moffett sent out an email to investors entitled

"Shock and Awe and Net Neutrality," writing (https://www.salon.com/2017/11/27/shock-awe-and-net-neutrality-decoding-the-fccs-controversial-order/),

“We've known since the election that the FCC would reverse Title II.

But we never expected this.

Yesterday’s FCC Draft Order on Net Neutrality went much further than we ever could've imagined in not only

reversing Title II, but in

dismantling virtually all of the important tenets of net neutrality itself.”

Enforcement will be left to the Federal Trade Commission,

an agency that’s never enforced open internet rules and has no ability to formulate its own.

The FTC won’t even be able to protect consumers against most net neutrality violations after the fact, and

nor will it be able to protect consumers against greedy broadband providers.https://www.wired.com/story/fcc-wants-to-kill-net-neutrality-congress-will-pay-the-price/

America is fucked harder and deeper and remains even more unfuckable.

DMC

12-04-2017, 08:24 AM

excellent discussion ITT

https://i.gyazo.com/9cc95d26f603865a1bda3999daa4979d.png

same here lol

UZER

12-04-2017, 11:01 AM

Xevious

12-05-2017, 01:59 AM

ElNono

12-05-2017, 03:51 AM

Oh no...my snap chat.

People are so addicted to their FB, Snapchat, Netflix. If you don't like the charges then don't pay the fee. You have a voice, it's your wallet. If they feel the pinch, it'll change. The problem is people are so addicted to that stuff they'll pay whatever fees because they need to show people what they're eating for lunch.

I love Spurs talk, but the minute there is a fee involved, it's adios.

But that is one of the problems, realistically people will consume, and if the ISP get to dictate that the fee for their services is $5 and Netflix is $20, then Netflix is getting screwed and not by their own volition. On a complete free market view, it increases the barrier to entry.

The other problem is that for certain things, the internet has become ubiquitous. Getting a job, doing research, education, updating critical software, even 'free' public library internet access, etc etc etc. There's an obvious state interest in "access".

Again, if we're being realistic, the internet's scope in everybody's daily lives is huge, and it's only gonna get bigger. Just like charity won't do shit for world hunger, a boycott ain't doing shit to address this.

This thing will be short-lived, IMO.

boutons_deux

12-05-2017, 06:34 AM

This thing will be short-lived, IMO.

It won't be touched until the Dems control Congress and WH. By that distant time, the Internet oligarchy will have so fucked up Internet and fleeced Americans for $Bs, undoing oligarchy's Internet will be nearly impossible. The only pressure would come from Internet users and the oligarchy ALWAYS ignores them.

ATTsucks.com, VersizonSucks.com, etc my not even be accessible. Political sites, blogs, etc could all be slowed to unusability.

They will turn the water temp slowly not to upset us frogs.

ElNono

12-05-2017, 06:38 AM

It won't be touched until the Dems control Congress and WH. By that distant time, the Internet oligarchy will have so fucked up Internet and fleeced Americans for $Bs, undoing oligarchy's Internet will be nearly impossible. The only pressure would come from Internet users and the oligarchy ALWAYS ignores them.

ATTsucks.com, VersizonSucks.com, etc my not even be accessible. Political sites, blogs, etc could all be slowed to unusability.

They will turn the water temp slowly not to upset us frogs.

Only need the executive. And the world isn't ending :rolleyes

boutons_deux

12-05-2017, 06:42 AM

Only need the executive. And the world isn't ending :rolleyes

nope, iike Fed judges, the FCC commissioners are approved by the Senate.

the "world" will get more expensive ASAP, which is exactly why the oligarchy has been pushing for and is ecstatic about a non-neutral internet which Pai has made more non-neutral than they expected.

net non-neutrality is actually a privatization strategy, exactly like rentier Capitalists have purchased and controlled "deregulated/privatized" essential utilities like water and electricity to extract rent.

spurraider21

12-05-2017, 02:13 PM

boutons_deux

12-05-2017, 02:21 PM

it will become a populist issue

the "populus" is ignored by politicians who toil away as whores exclusively for the oligarchy.

boutons_deux

12-05-2017, 02:24 PM

Already seriously cutting into cable tv revenues, here's what BigInternet is after, losing cable TV revenues, so getting it back, and more, over fucked up Internet.

40 Percent of America Will Cut the Cord by 2030, New Report Predicts

A new market analysis predicts the slow death march of pay TV will continue.

the fact that anybody still pays for traditional cable TV baffles me, but 85 percent of US households still do (https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tdg-virtual-mvpds-to-disrupt-pay-tv-marketplace-legacy-services-to-lose-26-of-subscribers-by-2030-300563535.html).

That tide is slowly turning, however, and by 2030, as many as 40 percent of Americans will have cut the cord, according to predictions in a new report by market analyst TDG Research (https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tdg-virtual-mvpds-to-disrupt-pay-tv-marketplace-legacy-services-to-lose-26-of-subscribers-by-2030-300563535.html).

The writing has been on the wall for some time, TDG, a boutique consulting firm focused on the future of TV, wrote in the report.

After the recession, many Americans were looking to cut unnecessary expenses, which kicked off a trend of cord cutting.

Coupled with the rise of digital streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, these trends contributed to traditional pay TV’s decline, something TDG predicted back in 2010.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gydgvj/americans-cut-the-cord-2030-study-cable-tv

SpursforSix

12-05-2017, 02:30 PM

boutons_deux

12-05-2017, 03:21 PM

Ajit Pai Doesn't Want You Talking About Court Ruling That Undermines His Bogus Claim That The FTC Will Protect Consumers

the goal is to gut FCC authority over broadband ISPs,

then shovel any remaining, piddly authority to an FTC

that's not only ill-equipped to handle it (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170207/08092736653/tom-wheeler-trump-gop-plan-to-modernize-fcc-fraud.shtml),

but is currently engaged in a lawsuit with AT&T (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161018/14062235832/ftc-warns-att-court-victory-throttling-could-screw-consumers-decades.shtml) that could dismantle its authority over large ISPs entirely.

That FTC lawsuit was filed against AT&T after the company lied about throttling its wireless customers (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161018/14062235832/ftc-warns-att-court-victory-throttling-could-screw-consumers-decades.shtml) as part of an effort to drive unlimited customers to more expensive plans.

Lower courts sided with AT&T's creative argument that the very Title II common carrier FCC classification AT&T has been fighting tooth and nail against on the net neutrality front -- exempted it (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160829/10550735383/att-dodges-ftc-throttling-lawsuit-using-title-ii-classification-it-vehemently-opposed.shtml?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+techdirt%2Ffeed+%28Techdirt%2 9) from the FTC's jurisdiction.

Last year, the FTC argued (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161018/14062235832/ftc-warns-att-court-victory-throttling-could-screw-consumers-decades.shtml) that should this ruling stand, it could let any company with a common carrier component (inhereted or acquired) dodge FTC oversight:

"The panel’s ruling creates an enforcement gap that would leave no federal agency able to protect millions of consumers across the country from unfair or deceptive practices or obtain redress on their behalf.

Many companies provide both common-carrier and non-common-carrier services—not just telephone companies like AT&T, but also cable companies like Comcast, technology companies like Google, and energy companies like ExxonMobil (which operate common carrier oil pipelines).

Companies that are not common carriers today may gain that status by offering new services or through corporate acquisitions.

For example, AOL and Yahoo, which are not common carriers, are (or soon will be) owned by Verizon.

The panel’s ruling calls into question the FTC’s ability to protect consumers from unlawful practices by such companies in any of their lines of business."

So again, that's the FTC warning that the AT&T court case could leave it rudderless in any attempt to protect consumers.

Odd, given that Ajit Pai and his FCC staffers have been promising everyone that the

FTC (which was already under-funded, over-extended, and lacked rulemaking capabilities)

was the superior option (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170405/05570837086/fcc-ftc-bosses-pen-misleading-editorial-falsely-claiming-best-way-to-protect-your-privacy-moving-forward-is-to-gut-net.shtml)

when it comes to protecting consumers and competition (you can hear former FCC boss Tom Wheeler talk about how this promise is bunk here (https://www.wired.com/2017/02/heres-exactly-how-the-internet-is-now-under-threat/#.ne8k32b3e)).

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171204/10345738737/ajit-pai-doesnt-want-you-talking-about-court-ruling-that-undermines-his-bogus-claim-that-ftc-will-protect-consumers.shtml

SpursforSix

12-05-2017, 03:25 PM

Ajit Pai Doesn't Want You Talking About Court Ruling That Undermines His Bogus Claim That The FTC Will Protect Consumers

the goal is to gut FCC authority over broadband ISPs,

then shovel any remaining, piddly authority to an FTC

that's not only ill-equipped to handle it (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170207/08092736653/tom-wheeler-trump-gop-plan-to-modernize-fcc-fraud.shtml),

but is currently engaged in a lawsuit with AT&T (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161018/14062235832/ftc-warns-att-court-victory-throttling-could-screw-consumers-decades.shtml) that could dismantle its authority over large ISPs entirely.
That FTC lawsuit was filed against AT&T after the company lied about throttling its wireless customers (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161018/14062235832/ftc-warns-att-court-victory-throttling-could-screw-consumers-decades.shtml) as part of an effort to drive unlimited customers to more expensive plans.

Lower courts sided with AT&T's creative argument that the very Title II common carrier FCC classification AT&T has been fighting tooth and nail against on the net neutrality front -- exempted it (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160829/10550735383/att-dodges-ftc-throttling-lawsuit-using-title-ii-classification-it-vehemently-opposed.shtml?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+techdirt%2Ffeed+%28Techdirt%2 9) from the FTC's jurisdiction.

Last year, the FTC argued (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161018/14062235832/ftc-warns-att-court-victory-throttling-could-screw-consumers-decades.shtml) that should this ruling stand, it could let any company with a common carrier component (inhereted or acquired) dodge FTC oversight:

"The panel’s ruling creates an enforcement gap that would leave no federal agency able to protect millions of consumers across the country from unfair or deceptive practices or obtain redress on their behalf.

Many companies provide both common-carrier and non-common-carrier services—not just telephone companies like AT&T, but also cable companies like Comcast, technology companies like Google, and energy companies like ExxonMobil (which operate common carrier oil pipelines).

Companies that are not common carriers today may gain that status by offering new services or through corporate acquisitions.

For example, AOL and Yahoo, which are not common carriers, are (or soon will be) owned by Verizon.

The panel’s ruling calls into question the FTC’s ability to protect consumers from unlawful practices by such companies in any of their lines of business."

So again, that's the FTC warning that the AT&T court case could leave it rudderless in any attempt to protect consumers.

Odd, given that Ajit Pai and his FCC staffers have been promising everyone that the FTC (which was already under-funded, over-extended, and lacked rulemaking capabilities) was the superior option (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170405/05570837086/fcc-ftc-bosses-pen-misleading-editorial-falsely-claiming-best-way-to-protect-your-privacy-moving-forward-is-to-gut-net.shtml)

when it comes to protecting consumers and competition (you can hear former FCC boss Tom Wheeler talk about how this promise is bunk here (https://www.wired.com/2017/02/heres-exactly-how-the-internet-is-now-under-threat/#.ne8k32b3e)).

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171204/10345738737/ajit-pai-doesnt-want-you-talking-about-court-ruling-that-undermines-his-bogus-claim-that-ftc-will-protect-consumers.shtml

http://i.imgur.com/ZXxZX.gif

Kim Jong-il

12-05-2017, 03:27 PM

baseline bum

12-05-2017, 04:46 PM

At this point I never doubt Republicans’ ability to convince their constituents that every last dildo being thrust up their ass is good for them.

No shit when a child molester is getting elected to uphold decent southern values.

AaronY

12-05-2017, 11:18 PM

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DQUWEEjXkAATzvE?format=jpg

boutons_deux

12-10-2017, 06:35 AM

Expect a LOT more predatory shit like this once FCC/FTC kill their power to stop it

Code injection: A new low for ISPs
Beyond underhanded, Comcast and other carriers are inserting their own ads and notifications into their customers’ data streams

https://www.infoworld.com/article/2925839/net-neutrality/code-injection-new-low-isps.html

How many Ms of people will be suckered by a (Comcast) ad saying "you need a new modem" ?

Repugs FUCK UP everything they touch, as paid by the oligarchy, for the oligarchy's profit.

boutons_deux

12-11-2017, 11:54 AM

So Verizon is gonna get back $2.5B from ads on streamed NFL games, or do they have another non-net-neutrality Pai-in-your-face revenue plan?

Streaming an NFL game is about 3 hours? that's lot of bandwidth. how about data caps and/or pay-per-view?

Verizon, NFL agree to new 5-year deal worth nearly $2.5 billion

http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/21737823

Reck

12-13-2017, 10:15 PM

Check out those comments.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/12/13/the-fcc-will-vote-to-repeal-net-neutrality-on-thursday/

Stupid sons of bitches.

spurraider21

12-13-2017, 10:42 PM

Elimination of net neutrality will be short lived imo, most people don’t know what the fuck it does or how it would affect them. Once they experience price hikes and barriers first hand, it will become a populist issue, which it only is right now if you’re in the reddit generation and keep up with internet stuff

Check out those comments.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/12/13/the-fcc-will-vote-to-repeal-net-neutrality-on-thursday/

Stupid sons of bitches.
yup. like i said, people dont even know what NN is or how its actually likely to effect them. they'll repeal it, people will feel the effect, and their will be a wave of support to bring it back

i hope

dabom

12-13-2017, 10:52 PM

yup. like i said, people dont even know what NN is or how its actually likely to effect them. they'll repeal it, people will feel the effect, and their will be a wave of support to bring it back

i hope

They just mad cause "thanks obama". :lol

Xevious

12-14-2017, 08:38 AM

Check out those comments.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/12/13/the-fcc-will-vote-to-repeal-net-neutrality-on-thursday/

Stupid sons of bitches.
It's that "if Obama had anything to do with it" mentality. Trump supporters would be pro-choice if Obama was pro-life, etc.

boutons_deux

12-14-2017, 08:49 AM

the formality of killing net neutrality is today, followed by probably months of nothing happening due to multiple law suits

Ajit Pai Thinks You're Stupid Enough to Buy This Crap [Update: One of the 7 Things Is Dancing With a Pizzagater] (https://gizmodo.com/ajit-pai-thinks-youre-stupid-enough-to-buy-this-crap-1821277398)

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--P3E95fEP--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/lixdq3mdfyhv9gtrzpaw.gif

The plan is immensely unpopular, even with Republicans (https://gizmodo.com/only-1-in-5-republicans-want-the-fcc-to-gut-net-neutral-1821231973). This type of situation would typically call for a charm offensive, though Pai has apparently decided to resort to his time-honored tactic of being incredibly condescending (https://gizmodo.com/fcc-chairman-is-laughing-at-americans-who-dont-want-to-1795193063#_ga=2.39556128.2091326583.1512872344-1297333590.1435027060) instead.

Pai urged the country to understand that even if he succeeds in his plan to let ISPs strangle the rest of the internet to death, they’ll let us continue to take selfies and other stupid bullshit.

“You can still drive memes right into the ground,” Pai added before breaking into a literal Harlem Shake segment. Astute viewers may remember that this was an intolerable meme from all the way back in 2013 which has not grown any less intolerable in the intervening four years.

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--JSRRojYf--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/pfmtbsi2vu4igdjo2v2f.gif

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--OyRizPV3--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/xwsfs37iousqlha9xquj.gif

All of these claims on what users “will still be able to do” are actually questionable,

seeing as under Pai’s plan, ISPs could easily hit up their customers with crushing fees (http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/11/what-happens-to-netflix-when-net-neutrality-is-gone.html) to let them access any of these services at reasonable speeds—

particularly those binge-watching streaming services he claims to love so much.

Strangely, Pai didn’t mention torrenting, one of the applications of the internet he believes ISPs should be able to turn off entirely (https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/22/16691794/net-neutrality-fcc-ajit-pai-comcast-block-bittorrent) to save on bandwidth.

whether they’re going to be able to do so on fair terms or arcane, extortionate ones dictated entirely by a handful of ultra-wealthy service providers.

one of the Daily Caller employees that danced alongside Pai in the video seems to be a proponent of Pizzagate, the infamous and completely baseless internet conspiracy theory claiming prominent Washington, D.C. Democrats were running a child sex trafficking ring out of a local pizza restaurant.

The woman in question, Daily Caller video producer Martina Markota (https://twitter.com/martinamarkota), appears to the right of Pai during the Harlem Shake portion of the video.

https://gizmodo.com/ajit-pai-thinks-youre-stupid-enough-to-buy-this-crap-1821277398?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+gizmodo%2Ffull+%28Gizmodo%29

There's only one reason to kill net neutrality, and that's for the BigISP to fleece customers for more profits, increasing their ROI on the network investments.

Pai, like all Repugs, KNOWS most Americans are stupid and ignorant as shit, so they can tell them stupid, ignorant LIES for-profit, on ALL issues, and not be held accountable.