Look, Ted Cruz made a funny.
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/2015/0...net-neutrality
Repugs trying to up everything they touch
Thanks, Repug voters!
FCC votes for net neutrality, a ban on paid fast lanes, and le II
http://arstechnica.com/business/2015...-and- le-ii/
Net Neutrality May Face an Uphill Battle If History Tells Us Anything
The FCC’s proposal faces plenty of opposition from telecom companies and others, 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/ne...ent=&utm_name=
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!
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 bull what the ISP's do.
ANd what was that?And who wanted the Romney version of it.
"Big government sucks unless it's used to push wars for oil and my religious beliefs!"
new rules released:
http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/12/f...et-neutrality/
So, is there ANYONE on this forum that's against Net Neutrality?
Oh, Yoni is. That's just shocking.
There are plenty who are against govt and govt regulation, so yes, they are against FCC regulations.
AT&T Argues Net Neutrality Violates Its First Amendment Rights
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 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."
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 Cons utional arguments. Verizon won because the FCC was trying to impose common carrier rules on ISPs without first declaring them as common carriers under le 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 of its own.
In a statement of issues (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:
"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 Cons ution."
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/netneu...t-rights.shtml
Another bull argument was regulation would kill investment, but telco execs, after the ruling, told investors, etc, that investment would continue even with regulation.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 05-26-2015 at 06:16 PM.
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.
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?
I don't "believe that", I KNOW it.
laws will include, or exclude, whatever BigCorp, BigFinance, etc. dictate to legislatives s. Your "purpose and scope" will accomplish nothing if the dictators don't like it.
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/2015/0...priations-bill
dirty Repugs ing up everything they touch, as always
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 through an appropriations bill.
House Republicans have introduced a bill 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 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 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 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/taki...y-in-jeopardy/
Repugs ing up EVERYTHING THEY CAN, to screw Human-Americans, and enrich/protect/enable Corporate-Americans.
AT&T throttles customers with unlimited data plans:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...nlimited-data/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.
\
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.
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 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 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...il-courts-rule
All y'all's Repugs ALWAYS doing the dirty work for Corporate-Americans to screw over Human-Americans
Market failure?
http://boingboing.net/2015/06/26/2-5...ints-show.htmlThe pro-net neutrality coalition Battle for the Net 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 analyzed this rich dataset and announced their initial findings 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.
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
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 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) compe ion.
This week the Journal decided to double down on notably cryptic and dumb editorials, withanother rambling tirade about net neutrality. Piece author Gordon Crovitz, who we've repeatedly do ented as aggressively wrong on everything from surveillance to encryption, 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), the FCC is forbearing from most of the more aggressive portions of le 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.
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 uncompe ive 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.
There's zero indication that Wheeler has any interest in serious rate regulation.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...vestment.shtml
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 complaining (like most large, in bent 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
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 in US history, Republicans are escalating their assault 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 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
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...eutrality-bill
Thanks, Repugs and you Repug voters. Repugs up everything they touch. Always leading the charge to enable BigCorp to screw Human-Americans.
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