FCC's Ajit Pai Says Broadband Market Too Competitive For Strict Privacy Rules (arstechnica.com) 154
In an op-ed published on the Washington Post, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and his counterpart at the FTC have argued that strict privacy rules for ISPs aren't necessary in part because the broadband market is more competitive than the search engine market. From a report on ArsTechnica: Internet users who have only one choice of high-speed home broadband providers would probably scoff at this claim. But an op-ed written by Pai and Acting FTC Chair Maureen Ohlhausen ignored the lack of competition in home Internet service, focusing only on the competitive wireless broadband market. Because of this competition, it isn't fair to impose different rules on ISPs than on websites, they wrote. "Others argue that ISPs should be treated differently because consumers face a unique lack of choice and competition in the broadband marketplace," Pai and Ohlhausen wrote in their op-ed. "But that claim doesn't hold up to scrutiny either. For example, according to one industry analysis, Google dominates desktop search with an estimated 81 percent market share (and 96 percent of the mobile search market), whereas Verizon, the largest mobile broadband provider, holds only an estimated 35 percent of its market." [...] Instead of addressing the lack of competition in home Internet service, Pai and Ohlhausen simply didn't mention it in their op-ed. But they argued that ISPs shouldn't face stricter privacy rules than search engines and other websites because of the level of competition in broadband and the amount of data companies like Google collect about Internet users. "As a result, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Congress decided to disapprove the FCC's unbalanced rules," they wrote. "Indeed, the FTC's criticism of the FCC's rules last year noted specifically that they 'would not generally apply to other services that collect and use significant amounts of consumer data.'"
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Huh? What trackers?
By the way, before someone asks: Huh? What ads?
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what's ML314.com?
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I also have a number of other options I could use for tech news if need be. There are certain sites I no longer visit because of those very reasons.
What I don't have are options to change my ISP, short of physically moving to another state. And before you say VPN/Tor, those are less than ideal solutions, especially for anything that's bandwidth intensive or latency sensitive,
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know what the man is talking about; I have only one choice of broadband provider - Comcast. At my last residence, I had only one choice of broadband provider - Verizon. Is he saying that I have "choice" because I can relocate my household if I want to change ISPs?
Service providers are in privileged positions: Doctors, lawyers, banks, telephones, internet
Because of those privileged positions, service providers are limited in what they can do with the private information they are privy to through their privileged position
Imagine if your doctor, while treating you, was building a profile of your particular health problems, your family life, and any other personal information that they could gather from you through their conversations with you about medical problems, possible causes, and potential solutions. Imagine then if your doctor then used this profile to send you targeted advertisements in the mail, and made automated phone calls to your phone, trying to sell you goods and services related to what the doctor knew about you from you profile. Further imagine if your doctor was free to sell your profile to anyone else, so that they too could contact you and try to sell you goods and services, or use this information for any other purpose.
Imagine if your lawyer, while helping you with your legal affairs, was building a profile of you and your particular personal and business relationships. Imagine if that lawyer then used that profile to call you up from time to time, and offer to solve other problems that they inferred you had, and to send you e-mail, postal mail, and even automated phone calls advertising their services in areas that they thought you might need based on their personal knowledge of you. Imagine still further if your lawyer made your profile available for sale to others who wanted to know more about you and your personal and business affairs.
Imagine if your bank, privy to all of the entities with whom you exchange payments for personal and business matters, used their knowledge of those payment exchanges to build a profile on you, which they then used to target you and your family for marketing purposes, selling you goods and services they thought you might be interested in based on your current payment exchanges. Imagine still further if they then made this profile available to the whomever else wanted to pay for it, so that these 3rd parties too could understand your personal and business payment relationships, and use that information for whatever purposes these 3rd parties chose.
Imagine if the telephone company was allowed to monitor your daily phone conversations using automated voice to text transcriptions, to amass a profile on you based on who you talked to about what, and then use that information to market goods and services to you that they thought might be helpful or useful to you. Imagine still further that they sold this profile to whomever else wanted to know with whom you spoke, and what you talked about, on a daily and continual basis.
Out of these analogies, the most direct one for internet service providers is to telephone service providers, but all of the others are applicable too, because the information that we communicate through Internet connections includes communications to all of these service providers. Telephone service providers are not allowed to monitor the content of our telephone calls, and they are even limited in what they can do with the signal information (who we are calling). Internet services have a direct logical equivalent to dialing a telephone call and holding a conversation; its the connectionless and connection-oriented streams of data packets that form a logical unit corresponding to a telephone call. If we donâ(TM)t allow telephone companies to monitor our telephone calls and use the information regarding what we talked about (or even who we called), why does it suddenly become âoeokâ to allow an Internet service provider to do so?
An Internet service pr
Cellular allegedly competes with wired broadband (Score:2)
an op-ed written by Pai and Acting FTC Chair Maureen Ohlhausen ignored the lack of competition in home Internet service, focusing only on the competitive wireless broadband market
Is he saying that I have "choice" because I can relocate my household if I want to change ISPs?
They're saying that you have "choice" because you can switch from Verizon DSL or Verizon fiber to at least one of AT&T cellular, Sprint cellular, or T-Mobile cellular.
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That's funny. That kind of choice is like saying a long-haul over the road trucking company has a choice in their transportation capability because they can switch from Peterbuilt tractors to one of Ford, Chevy, or Dodge pickup trucks.
I couldn't even switch from Verizon fiber back to Verizon DSL; Verizon yanked the copper as soon as they installed the fiber.
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You just need to interpret Pai's comments in the proper context. In his case, the context is "I have always been, and will always be, the lackey of the telecom industry". Just look at his resumé.
So when he claims there's adequate competition in the "broadband" ISP market, what he means is "ha ha, fuck you, customers!".
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You're willing to post on Slashdot, which is full of trackers, but you don't want others tracking you. Why does Slashdot get a free pass?
I don't see any hypocrisy.
I choose to use Slashdot and I don't mind that Slashdot tracks my Slashdot activity and does whatever with that information and that's my choice.
I don't give a shit who knows that I use Slashdot if they choose to sell that knowledge.
I also don't care that the Toyota Supra Forum sells my email address to whoever.
Other things I do care about.
Not all websites do tracking and selling of user data. I use a few financial websites that Do Not Track and share.
I would be very unhappy if my
Has he been shrooming with Trump or what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this still planet Earth, or did I take a wrong turn somewhere? Not even Soviet Russia is sufficient to explain this deranged and tortured argument.
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There's a lot of competition in broadband... in areas where rich people live. That's why the apartment complex a block away from me (only affordable by software engineers) has gigabit fiber, cable, ADSL2, "Ethernet", and half a dozen other options, whereas the mobile home park where I live (just a block away) that has a broader mix of demographics has only Comcast and ADSL2 (at single-digit Mbps with abysmal uplink speeds).
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I feel like Ajit is totally out of touch with how broadband works in reality. Most market areas have little to no competition at all, and broadband providers get monopoly or duopoly power in their regions. How is this somehow a competitive market?
Is he being disingenuous enough to call satellite links broadband? Or cell phone plans, are those somehow "broadband" that covers a household now?
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No. This is a case where his future plans of employment are contingent upon his to understanding reality from your's or my perspective. So he doesn't. He believes what his likely future employers want him to believe.
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Indeed. He's having to contort his arguments pretty hard to get them to sound in any way reasonable. This part in particular stuck out to me:
it isn't fair to impose different rules on ISPs than on websites
I assume he's playing the part of a willing fool by ignoring the obvious fact that the two are fundamentally different. Websites are inherently available to everyone, and thus are inherently capable of competing against every other one. ISPs are inherently regional, and thus are inherently incapable of competing against any others outside their region. The problem tend
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Re:Has he been shrooming with Trump or what? (Score:5, Insightful)
I buy a google phone to use their FREE service to do searches, knowing that the cost of that service is the history.
I PAY for internet service through my phone, expecting the cost of that service to by the money I paid to the company.
There is nothing weird about it. It also ignores that we have a choice to use google or some other search providor, we dont have a choice, typically, in the home market.
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i don't think you fully understand how the internet works. google knows what you do even if you don't search on it
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I fully understand it well. No, it does not know what you do on the internet unless you search on it or go to sites/apps who record the history for it. If you for say just use other non-browsing functionality, then google does not know what you are doing, but your ISPs do.
Re:Has he been shrooming with Trump or what? (Score:5, Informative)
Google controls Android and requires it apps and is 65% of US phones and 88% worldwide.
It's too bad that no one else offers a competing smartphone OS. I mean where is Apple and Microsoft when we need other phone options?
So if a Verizon customer using Android phones, Google gets to do anything they want with your usage statistics, but Verizon cannot?
What usage statistics do you speak of?
Seems weird that Google would be able to do anything and Verizon do nothing with same data.
I think this is a false equivalence. It's not the same data. Verizon knows every single packet of information on your phone and where it went. Google only know by tracking cookies what sites you visit; what emails you get through gmail. Not necessarily the same thing.
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What kind of fucked up argument is that? (Score:5, Insightful)
What has one to do with the other? You could just as well have said "No privacy for you because purple monkey dishwasher" and it would have made just about as much sense.
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He just needs to say words to give his supporters, none of whom know anything about the Internet other than they can yell at liberals on it, something to yell at those same liberals complaining about the FCCs anti-consumer moves.
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I'd honestly be impressed if he just told his supporters that Obamacare had
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Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
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We need to go after this guy's career. It's time to clean house. He's a bad combination of ignorant and important. We can't do anything about the former but at least we can fix the latter.
You aere wrong (Score:2)
"No privacy for you because purple monkey dishwasher"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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That old dishwasher argument again. Hmmm, doesn't that hold water?
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Oh my god, that's all you people ever ask! "Does that hold water, does that hold water", why is that important? There are children out there dying! On our streets! Every single day! People without jobs! Strife, domestic and abroad!
No sir, I say this is not the time for such discussions. It is time to take each other by the hand, across the board, find the common ground, close the lines and join together, for a house divided cannot stand! We have to go forward into the future, bold and fearless, for our chil
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Laughable bullshit. Pai either has no clue what he's doing, is a complete industry lapdog, or both.
I wouldn't be surprised if Tom Wheeler publishes a rebuttal op-ed very soon.
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You could just as well have said "No privacy for you because purple monkey dishwasher"
My God, you're right! That story [amazon.com] changed my life. ;)
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Found my new password. Thank you ;)
You really should have used more than "purple monkey dishwasher", because as you can see, I just logged in as you. ;)
Riiiiiiiiiight... (Score:5, Insightful)
My understanding is that I'm lucky to have more than one ISP available, and absolutely blessed to have more than two. Everybody has the same access to search engines, though, and I'm pretty sure nobody has access to more than a dozen ISPs.
Re: Riiiiiiiiiight... (Score:3)
You are lucky. I have one wired, broadband ISP: Spectrum (previously Time Warner Cable). They recently announced that all TWC brokered deals will expire and they won't cut new deals. This could mean my Internet costs will go up by $50. I have no other options so it's either take what Spectrum will give me or go without Internet. (The latter is not an option.)
If Spectrum tomorrow announced that they were injecting a dozen ads into each page I viewed, I'd still have no options.
When consumers can't vote with t
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I've had Charter Spectrum for years. No data caps and my average download speed is 66 Mbps. You'll love Charter.
Depending on your area. Spectrum is awesome where I am but I've heard horror stories about other areas.
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I think it's going to depend on how they handle upgrading the Time Warner Cable network. TWC was in the midst of a "MAXX" upgrade cycle that would have bumped up the speeds without increasing the prices. (I'd have gotten a higher speed on my plan but would keep paying the same amount as before.) My area would have likely been upgraded this year, but all of those upgrades were put on hold with the merger.
Re: Riiiiiiiiiight... (Score:4, Insightful)
This predated the FCC requirement (which aren't enforced anyway) that apartment complexes allow cable companies to install lines; but, I still know someone who lives there and they're still thankful that I petitioned for DSL, as nothing has changed in the past 15 years.
And no, satellite was not an option; we were not allowed to mount a dish on the roof (we could stake one into the ground on our side of the building) and half the units faced the wrong way. Including mine.
I've also lived in areas with a single option; in fact, that's been the case in most places I've lived until I moved to the bay area. I've had 2 or 3 options everywhere I've lived here, save for the one place that had 4. I also recognize that this is not common, having lived elsewhere in the country and seen the reality of the market.
I also recognize that 4, the most choices I've had anywhere is less than 12; apparently unlike the FCC.
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The sad thing is, I'd be all for relaxing the regulations if everyone had 12 ISPs to choose from. It would be easy to tell ISP A that you're against some business practice of theirs, vote with your wallet, and go to another ISP. For most people in the country, though, They're lucky if they have one other ISP to go to. (I don't have the figures on hand at the moment to know whether most have only 1 ISP, but
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You are lucky.
Then I must be in some special place that nobody ever heard of, because I currently use five different ISPs and have access to at least two more who would be happy to sell me service.
I have one wired, broadband ISP
What you are saying is that you only have one option that provides the service you want at the price you want to pay via a medium that you want to use. That is VERY different than there only being one ISP available to you.
For example, wireless covers a very large part of the US, especially when you realize that a fixed wireles
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For example, wireless covers a very large part of the US, especially when you realize that a fixed wireless customer can use external directional antennas to connect from much further away than a cell phone user can. Is there truly no 3g or 4g service where you live?
How is it that Comcast can offer an order of magnitude more GB per month than its competitors for the same price?
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Wireless carriers, like Verizon/AT&T/Sprint, typically have either low caps or - in the case of the newer "unlimited" plans - a threshold after which your speeds are reduced. This is a good service to use for checking Facebook on the go, but not good for streaming Netflix from home. My Verizon Wireless plan has a 10GB data cap. I'd hit that in under 4 hours of HD. I recently checked and they have a "data only" plan that one could use to give a device Internet access without needing cell phone/SMS servic
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Using your barbershop analogy, it's more like there are five barbershops in town. One will cut your hair for a reasonable price
The difference is that you do, indeed, have a choice between competing ISPs, not that there is only one ISP you can choose from. Not everyone has as such an exacting set of requirements as you do.
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Google receives info on 100% of web site visits in the Chrome browser (about 55% of desktop) and nearly 100% on Android phones in the form of the "malicious site check".
Throw in Google ads which has a 84.9% market share. Then add Gmail.
It isn't that you haven't thought this through, it is that you aren't knowledgeable about how your internet plumbing works.
If you visit a malicious site, how do you think that warning happened (Google handles that)? If you visit a web site, who does the advertising?
The "com
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Xfinity is the only choice in my condo apartment: only way I have a choice of ISPs is if I'm into DSL, and even on that, I'm not sure I can still get Earthlink. In the late 90s, there was a healthy market of DSL providers, but cable took forever, and that too, was just a handful. In Charlotte, all I had in my apartment was TWC, while in Atlanta, it was Charter Spectrum (this was before their acquisition of TWC).
It's not a competitive market if I have to change addresses to change ISPs
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I have 2. Hilterfinity and sATTan. Hilterfinity is the only real choice since it's unmatched in speed but not in shady business practices (in my area).
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In fact, what I was arguing is that the ISP market is not more competitive than the search engine market, as Pai claims.
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huh? (Score:2)
What is Ajit smoking? (Score:2)
Must be the good shit.
How about we reverse this and start with, my data is MINE. You don;t touch it without a warrent or at least little thing called "probable cause". -start there.
This trend of turning ISPs into spies and intiatives that make no sense claim doing privacy is too complicated or expensive is really getting on my nerves.
No worries though, it just pushes more users to use encryption and learn better security practices. When all traffic is encrypted what wil lthey regulate then?
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When all traffic is encrypted what will they regulate then?
That's an easy one: Encryption.
Industry Shill (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Industry Shill (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not that surprising since the whole "drain the swamp" mantra was just something someone in Trump's campaign team proposed as a slogan, but that Trump didn't like. He then tried it out at a meeting, discovered it caught on, and kept using it. That's what Trump himself said [cc.com] after the elections anyway.
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Of course, he did (Score:5, Informative)
Welcome to the Trump Administration where whatever craziness you say is overshadowed by the crazier things the President says. He says that the broadband market is more competitive than the search engine market and (because of this) ISPs should be allowed to sell privacy data of their customers.
First of all let's address the main problem with his argument which is the false comparison. There are only a few players in the search engine market which is true; however, that is due to competition based on consumer choices. Many consumer choose to use Google over Bing. Many consumers cannot choose one ISP over another as there is often only one choice. Indeed if a consumer chooses to switch to Bing, it is as simple as not using Google. Many consumers cannot switch ISPs. Second whether or not Google has more of a marketshare than Bing does not mean Comcast can sell your browsing history.
The main problem with comparing whether Google has a right to sell your data and Comcast does not all comes down to implied agreements. When you use Google for free, it is with the implied consent that your search history is being collected and monetized in exchange for the search service. When you pay Comcast for an Internet connection, there is no implied consent that you paying for a service means that Comcast makes money on your Internet data.
Personally the sale of data is blatant attempt by ISPs to make more money by trying to legislate an exception to the rules. Their argument is that "Google does it, so should we."
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When you use Google for free, it is with the implied consent that your search history is being collected and monetized in exchange for the search service. When you pay Comcast for an Internet connection, there is no implied consent that you paying for a service means that Comcast makes money on your Internet data.
This. This. A THOUSAND TIMES THIS!!!
Oh, and howabout "It's MY data; not theirs". In the meatspace world, that would be called THEFT.
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The problem is that Google tracks you even if you do not use their products (search, android, mail, maps, etc), because their trackers are embedded in the vast majority of web pages.
You do understand how cookies work right and that many other companies on the Internet use trackers. ISPs could do that too; however, that is not the harvesting method that will use. They have a direct overview of your activities.
Now a technically literate person can figure out how to block those, but that is beyond the average person. So no, most people cannot stop Google's tracking merely by avoiding its services.
I'm pretty sure that surfing in safe mode or privacy mode on a browser is not exactly rocket science.
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Deleting cookies does nothing to stop IP based tracking, nor browser fingerprinting, nor any number of other techniques in common use.
First of all, are you asserting that Google does all of these things? Second you do understand that browser fingerprinting is stopping by anything making the profile unique. . . like the almost weekly updates I get from Chrome. As for IP based tracking, you do understand that is easily defeated every time my ISP changes my assigned addresses right? But please don't let me stop your paranoia.
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Also, they harvest data from your emails even if you do not use gmail yourself, because most other people do and you cannot know if you are sending your email to google, because a lot of the domains are custom and do not look like "gmail.com"
What? Google harvests data from emails that are not from gmail because people may or may not be using custom domains? Please restate what you are saying.
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Google provides email services for custom domains like "mycompany.com" (made up example). Those do not appear to be "gmail.com" addresses. If you send an email to one of them, google still harvests data from your email.
And how is that different from every single company that provides email for free? Or those that do it for a price?
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Telecoms are potential competition against Google in this area.
A competition which has been started by the telecoms. My ISP's side business should not be my data. My ISP's primary business should be providing an Internet connection. Why should I help my ISP compete with Google?
Your plan is to help Google become more of a monopoly.
No my plan is to ensure my ISP never enters that business.
You don't understand the consequences of your own line of thinking.
I could say the same of you.
What everyone says when it's to their advantage... (Score:2)
Screwing /w Internet hazardous to political career (Score:5, Insightful)
The Internet is no longer a niche only a few people care about (see SOPA). Republicans are in for a surprise when democrats run ads with this shit against them and it proves to be effective. Trumps own base is against this. FFS INFOWARS is against it.
This issue is an overwhelming loser with the public. Nobody believes ISPs should be allowed to stalk you online and no amount of weaving shit into gold is going to mask the smell. From what I remember public polling on this was something like 11% of the general public favoring the republican bill.
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The Internet is no longer a niche only a few people care about (see SOPA). Republicans are in for a surprise when democrats run ads with this shit against them and it proves to be effective. Trumps own base is against this. FFS INFOWARS is against it.
This issue is an overwhelming loser with the public. Nobody believes ISPs should be allowed to stalk you online and no amount of weaving shit into gold is going to mask the smell. From what I remember public polling on this was something like 11% of the general public favoring the republican bill.
Rachael Maddow had a poll on last night that showed that 11% said Trump should sign that Bill, and 74% said "No" and "Hell, No!".
And here we are, with our "Representative Governance".
But exactly WHO are they REPRESENTING???
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Well yeah most people are fine with a 50Mbps connection for one person you can do pretty much anything you want with that speed.
Out where I live the local WISPs have been very sucessful the first one stopped expanding a few years ago as they got as big as the owners could handle a few months ago it merged with a regional chain ISP to compete with the city owned WISP that went into competition with them.
Now the chain offers 50Mbps service and the city only offers 10Mbps. But the city is expanding into anothe
Relevant Princess Bride Quote (Score:5, Funny)
Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
I don't often get to trot that out one.
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Just wait for him to get started!
Where was I?
And ISPs wont get sued? comon. (Score:2)
Talk about fake (Score:1)
To compare a search engine, which someone can choose or not choose to use, to a broadband provider, where there is only one, or if you are lucky two, to choose from in any given area is the literal definition of apples and oranges.
Off the top of my head I can count six different search engines I could use. In my area there are exactly two broadband providers, and both offer the same high prices for the same slow speeds.
As to this supposed "industry analysis", who did the analysis, Comcast? Of course they
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I'd be willing to bet that they're including mobile operators in the "competition" space. Yes, if you include Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and the dozen other resellers and tiny carriers, you have a lot of "ISPs" to choose from. However, if you actually want to USE your mobile connection for something data-heavy like streaming, you'll quickly generate a huge bill.
B
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I'd be willing to bet that they're including mobile operators in the "competition" space.
Since they compete with cable TV-carried internet services, yes, I bet they are. The FCC probably isn't using your limited definition based on price and medium to define what an ISP is, so they do come up with a number greater than '1' for 'available ISPs' in most markets. As do I, when I count five, oops, six (almost forgot one) that I am using right now.
I don't think I could honestly claim that there is only one ISP in this area just because there is only one cable company. There are simply too many oth
intellectually dishonest (Score:1)
ALSO: Googl
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Not to mention that mobile providers typically have caps. Right now, I can use 10GB of data per month on my Verizon Wireless plan. If I streamed Netflix videos at only Standard Definition and did nothing else, that would give me just over 14 hours of streaming. At High Definition, I'd have just over 3 hours of viewing.
Yes, newer plans are "unlimited", but that's usually with an asterisk and fine print that states you get throttled to slower speeds if you exceed a certain "definitely not a cap" amount. Eithe
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To work around the cap, switch from Netflix's streaming plan to its DVD or Blu-ray plan.
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If you're willing to accept standard definition video, T-Mobile has the "Binge On" program not to count video against your data plan. (There is no charge for a video provider to participate in Binge On; it just has to register with T-Mobile and detect throttling to 1000-1500 kbps.)
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He is being intellectually dishonest by lumping wireless Internet providers such as Verizion in the same "Market" as high-speed internet providers such as comcast, charter, etc. These are two different products,
I think it is intellectually dishonest to claim that wireless services aren't Internet because you think they are two different products when they really aren't. I use wireless services and I see no difference between them and wired in any significant area. Maybe one significant thing: I got a static IP for free from VZW while Comcast still provides a dynamic. But Charter provides a static for my business account so maybe it's still "no significant difference".
my wireless internet on my smartphone is a fraction of the speed i expect from wired internet on my desktop.
"Not as fast as I want" isn't a reason to clai
This might actually be a good thing (Score:2)
It's driving massive interest and adoption of VPN technology, encryption, and general awareness of what your options are to maintain privacy online.
In a hilarious twist, most of the VPN technologies also cause huge headaches for firms targetting and deliverty ads, too - thus likely costing them money.
It ain't all bad.
I've already bought a VPS in germany (Score:2)
Just going to tunnel through germany openvn back to the states. Fuck it. If comcast wants to sell the information that there's an encrypted pipe going to germany they're welcome to. VPS with 1TB data is $5 a month these days. You could probably setup your own TOR network in 5 regions for $25 a month
Bad Liar (Score:2)
Ajit Pai is a very bad liar and shill. He's just plain bad at spin, angle, misdirection... and yet he is a Republican.
That's the confusing part.
Easy to counter this (Score:2)
If
strict privacy rules for ISPs aren't necessary
then the ISPs wouldn't have a problem with the rules being put in place then, would they? So of course they ARE fsking necessary.
Too Competitive (Score:2)
Too competitive? I would submit that the broadband industry is *least* competitive major industry in America. If you have any choice in providers at all, you are lucky.
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Most of the U.S. population is within the coverage area of at least one wired ISP (cable or DSL) and at least three cellular ISPs (AT&T, Verizon, and at least one of Sprint and T-Mobile). That makes four choices.
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True, but running a home (or God-forbid, business) from mobile broadband would only be a desperate last-resort option. You will have sky-high bills, throttling after a certain amount of easily-reached bandwidth, or more likely, both.
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Then do most of your work on an EC2 instance or other virtual private server, and use your computer as a remote desktop terminal. For streaming video, ask your video provider to join T-Mobile's Binge On service, which makes standard-definition streaming video not count against your quota. For Windows OS updates or other bulk uploads or downloads, drive into town and use restaurant or library Wi-Fi. What else sucks multiple GB of bandwidth per month?
Re: (Score:2)
For Windows OS updates or other bulk uploads or downloads, drive into town and use restaurant or library Wi-Fi.
No.
Even in the unlikely event that those "free" services that someone (ultimately you) is paying for would continue to be free when people are (ab)using them for their bulk uploads and downloads, still No.
What else sucks multiple GB of bandwidth per month?
All kinds of things, including (for instance):
...use your computer as a remote desktop terminal.
I honestly cannot tell whether you are shilling, whether your internally held beliefs actually line up with Pai, or whether you think Pai ought to be correct because of who he represents and so you are backing up his total nonsense.
Where should this even stop? (Score:1)
Maybe your bank should get in on this too. Everything you purchase with your card can be pretty valuable information for market research.
Maybe we should all just have mandated computer chips installed in our brains that allows the Feds to sell thought mining to marketers so they can better pillage our wallets. Just think of it. "Wow, I can't believe this is so cheap,
What is he smoking? (Score:2)
because the broadband market is more competitive than the search engine market.
Maybe I missed that left turn at albuquerque https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
but what the heck does search engines have to do with the horrendous lack of broad band competition?
Wow... (Score:2)
At this point, I dunno if Ajit really thinks the entire US population are composed solely on completely ignorant people with low IQs and pretends he doesn't know better by trying to come up with this cringeworthy "I actually know nothing about what I'm talking" poorly thought out excuse, or if he simply is THIS dumb. Doesn't help that he has one of the most punchable faces in the universe too.
Statistics of usage have NOTHING to do with monopolistic practices. It's about choice. Everyone and anyone who uses
april fools! (Score:1)
Verizon outed (Score:2)
Woops. Ajit Pai outed Verizon's business plan. Those delusional mooks think they can out-Google Google by sucking in even more data than Google. I don't think Verizon and Comcast wanted him to actually repeat the bullshit reasoning they gave him in their policy paper that he's slavishly adopting. So hard to bribe good help these days...
Cell data use is different (Score:2)
People know police could demand a cell device as part of an "investigation" (legal or not).
So people might be more careful with a cell device. Sure they have lots of different options with cell networks but their data use is more careful.
A desktop user at home is secure in their papers and rights. A court needs to provide a reason to enter their home and search their desktop computer.
So a home broadband conn
Re: (Score:2)
You know what's more insane is that they can grab all of your passwords, bank account information, etc.