FCC Announces Plan To Reverse Title II Net Neutrality (theverge.com) 202
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The Federal Communications Commission is cracking open the net neutrality debate again with a proposal to undo the 2015 rules that implemented net neutrality with Title II classification. FCC chairman Ajit Pai called the rules "heavy handed" and said their implementation was "all about politics." He argued that they hurt investment and said that small internet providers don't have "the means or the margins" to withstand the regulatory onslaught. "Earlier today I shared with my fellow commissioners a proposal to reverse the mistake of Title II and return to the light touch framework that served us so well during the Clinton administration, Bush administration, and first six years of the Obama administration," Pai said today. His proposal will do three things: first, it'll reclassify internet providers as Title I information services; second, it'll prevent the FCC from adapting any net neutrality rules to practices that internet providers haven't thought up yet; and third, it'll open questions about what to do with several key net neutrality rules -- like no blocking or throttling of apps and websites -- that were implemented in 2015. Pai will publish the full text of his proposal tomorrow, and it will be voted on by the FCC on May 18th.
Money (Score:5, Insightful)
Its whats for dinner. The cash votes of the lobbyists are far more valuable than your ballot vote will ever be.
It's not just money (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's not just money (Score:5, Insightful)
this has nothing to do with TRUMP specifically.. this has NOTHING to do with "clearing burdensome regulations".. this has NOTHING to do with being a 'burden' on small providers (if anything, it *levels the playing field)...
it has EVERYTHING to do with campaign funding of republicans from major ISPs and EVERYTHING to do with the republican's fucked-up desire to simply UNDO everything obama championed for, regardless of what it was.
(and before you toss health care into this.. obama wanted single payer. what we got, 'obamacare', is actually modeled after 'romneycare'.. a republican created fuck-up put in place in Massachusetts, the passing of which ENDED a 16 year hold that party had on the governor's office in that state).
This has everything to do with Trump (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, I'm well aware of the campaign donations and who's paying them. But that doesn't change the fact that the Republican party takes as a basic ideological concept the notion that government interference with the market is inherently bad. If you're going to accept that as a truism then you're going to have to follow it to it's logical conclusion, which is that Net Neutrality stifles competition, innovation and raises prices by constraining how ISPs run their business.
What I'm saying is that Net Neutrality is incompatible with one of the basic tenants of the Republican party. If you agree with Net Neutrality you disagree with the Republican party. Maybe not individuals, but with the party's ideals.
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But that doesn't change the fact that the Republican party takes as a basic ideological concept the notion that government interference with the market is inherently bad.
So that's why Republicans push legislation that prevents municipalities from implementing internet infrastructure? Because it interferes with the market? And why the Republicans are pushing E-Verify on employers, because not doing so would interfere with the market?
Exactly (Score:4, Interesting)
Everything I just wrote is straight from the GOP's platform, and it's all utter bollocks. The government doesn't have a monopoly on violence because a) self defense and b) the government is only allowed to use violence either in war or self defense (cops don't get to shoot you for the hell of it... well unless you're a minority). Private ISP aren't little guys, they bought their own monopolies. Infrastructure is always going to be a monopoly because you need eminent domain to run cable/roads. etc, etc.
But, none of this matters once you've accepted as a truism that government interference with the market is inherently bad. That's the trouble with the GOP. They've already come to that conclusion and they have to warp their world view to fit it. Here's another saying: Reality has a liberal bias.
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Likewise, Net Neutrality is not fundamentally at odds w
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That's too simple. You can certainly make the claim that removing a requirement for net neutrality increases market freedom by reducing a limitation on the market ... Likewise, Net Neutrality is not fundamentally at odds with Republican ideals. It's only at odds with the way that some people are interpreting those ideals.
The reason net neutrality was precious is it protected the free flow of information. It wasn't just about cheap netflix. It was protecting actual freedoms. The idea behind net neutrality is to make sure our ISPs do the right thing. For instance, it is not out of the realm of possibility for an alt right conservative tv station / whatever to be given free by all major ISPs, since they support their views, and because the bits aren't costing them all that much.
Now you have a site/tv program/whatever that
Of course it's simple (Score:2)
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Also you're either falling into false equivalency or strawman arguments. I don't know logic well enough to say which or both. GPL'd software is not public domain. That's a fact. It's copywritted and licensed. Public domain means not copywritted. Those are facts. You're bending facts to fit your narrative (probably without realizing you're doing it, it's easy and temping to do, see :) ).
... What? I was comparing two things: GPL'd software, and public domain software. I made no claim that they were the same, that wouldn't make any sense. The point of the comparison was to illustrate that greater freedom doesn't necessarily come from fewer rules, even though rules are things which exist specifically to limit freedom. i.e.: The most-free market is not necessarily one which has no rules.
That notion about government interference is a talking point, just like "all regulations are bad." It's s
Re:This has everything to do with Trump (Score:5, Insightful)
What I'm saying is that Net Neutrality is incompatible with one of the basic tenants of the Republican party. If you agree with Net Neutrality you disagree with the Republican party. Maybe not individuals, but with the party's ideals.
And here I was thinking that having competitive markets was one of those basic tenets.
You've got competitive markets (Score:2)
The Republicans also argue that we'll see innovation out of this. That as prices skyrocket new services will move in to compete (balloon delivered internet?).
Now, the other side would argue that we don't need innovation here. That we have an optimal solution and should rely on that and support it with
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there's plenty of alternatives for Internet Service. Some are better than others. There's cell phones, Satelites, etc.
In many cases, those aren't even competitors - AT&T owns all three now.
You can also move. And that's not me being flippant, Ajit Pai himself suggested it.
Nothing says privilege like arguing that a viable option for switching to a different ISP is to just move to a different city.
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The free market can only sort this out in a free market. We don't have that; we have ISP regulatory capture.
Then the solution is less regulation (Score:2)
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If you agree with Net Neutrality you disagree with the Republican party. Maybe not individuals, but with the party's ideals.
This party has no ideals... just well-worn talking points that they adapt to whatever their biggest doners want. Trump is reversing himself on virtually everything he promised the suckers in his campaign, now that the real money is starting to speak to him. And here, suck-up party-shill chairman Ajit Pai had the nerve to say net neutrality hurt investment and said that small internet providers don't have "the means or the margins" to withstand the regulatory onslaught. So, it's all about the small provide
Re:It's not just money (Score:5, Informative)
obama wanted single payer. what we got, 'obamacare', is actually modeled after 'romneycare'.. a republican created fuck-up put in place in Massachusetts
Actually, what we got was based on, and followed very closely, the proposal put forth by the Heritage Foundation in 1989 [americablog.com].
As the above article shows, there were two key parts:
1) All citizens should be guaranteed universal access to health care
2) Mandate all households obtain adequate insurance
And this article [nytimes.com] goes into more depth about how Republicans like Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich were pushing for mandated health insurance which required people, not employers, to buy insurance.
In other words, Republicans got exactly what they wanted, and they're pissed.
Re:It's not just money (Score:4, Interesting)
pissed they got it...
and pissed it actually does work.
not as well as single payer.
but better than the status quo before it.
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That's because mandatory insurance is expensive as the insurance pool sizes are too small. You need pool sizes in the hundreds of thousands to become stable, and lower rates and we never got that. Business that did they would drop never did, as they realized they were losing money by doing so.
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In other words, Republicans got exactly what they wanted, and they're pissed.
Somehow the Republicans completely got what they wanted at a time when both houses and the Presidency were under Democrat control and not a single Republican actually voted in support of the bill. It's incredulous.
Yes, the Heritage Foundation had a concept and then Romneycare was implemented in MA. Democrats completely embraced it in that state and then in the entire country. Perhaps the entire situation is simply a trojan horse of irony?
Re:It's not just money (Score:4)
No one said the republicans were bad politicians. What they are, is shitty on policy and ideas. Which is what you get when you elect people who's critical thinking skills are fundamentally broken. You want a litmus test? How about blind unwavering faith in a fairy tale without any evidence. Once you have boxed that up, you can convince them and their voters of anything. A presidential candidate is running a child prostitution ring out of a pizza chain? Yup, that isn't any stretch of the imagination when you believe in an all powerful, vengeful being that spends all its time making sure you aren't saying bad words, or having premarital sex, eating pork, or the rest of the laundry list. Plus, its so needy that it wants its creations spending their time "worshiping" it.
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Actually, Congress sets the bounds for what the FCC can fuck with. The Communications Act of 1934 set up the FCC. Title II of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 is the basis for Net Neutrality.
So the bunch of blowhards on Capitol Hill is ultimately to blame for this shit, just as it is to blame for all the other shit perpetrated by the Fderal Government. That is where the goddam buck stops. Not the President's desk, and CERTAINLY not with a bunch of corrupt bureaucrats.
Re:burdensome regulations (Score:1, Troll)
So then we can expect removal of the burdensome, ineffective regulation of psychotropic drugs such as cannabis etc etc to quickly follow, I am confident. (By your logic).
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and abortion... when is that happening.
Public safety & Business are different issues (Score:2)
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Such a burden to not snoop on the packets in your network.
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Actually you can. The use of power tools doesn't eliminate the possibility of precision. Anyone that's been forcibly subjected to shop class can attest to this.
It's pretty easy to isolate different requirements for different class of operators.
Not that I buy for a minute that any part of a Trump administration gives a sh*t about "the little guy".
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Wait...one person in the back? That's it? Yep. This isn't about Lobbyist money.
Re:Money (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, a better test would be "Anyone who voted for Trump and thought he was going to raise the price of Netflix and prevent the introduction of new streaming services, please raise your hand".
LOL...worse than that (Score:1)
Oh, all of you?
Did you guys think that Google might compete with you ISPs? Ever hear of google fibre? Can you imagine if google starts to slow traffic to your ISP? Prioritize data to their own network? No? Interesting.
Did you guys think that Google slow data to your ISP anyway unless you start paying their "special charges for high speed service?" No? Interesting.
ISP should be afraid...ve
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Yes because google is going to slow the rate of the information they FEED off of. you realize google wants faster internet so they can collect information faster right? your idea is ludicrous.
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Unless you're a Russian propaganda troll or congressional staffer shill, I know you're serious but that doesn't make your statements any less ludicrous. (And if you are, this is the wrong place to troll.)
What the fuck does "can you imagine if google starts to slow traffic to your ISP?" even mean?
It doesn't make technical sense that "Google could slow data to your ISP". Comcast offers no services to me if Comcast is not my ISP. If Comcast is my ISP, this means Google is making THEIR OWN servers slow, so usin
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This has nothing to do with Google competing directly for in the ISP space. Just ignore google fiber for a bit. For that matter, ignore the mention of google - that probably wasn't the best example, though it's still a decent one (think youtube instead of google, which they also own).
What GP is implying is that content providers *could* theoretically turn the tables on the ISP's. Instead of staying alive on advertising money and user subscriptions, New York Times could sell a "fast lane" to the ISP (ie. ISP
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You fail at reading comprehension.
The example that made up the majority of your ramble, of which you couldn't recall what ISP did it.... that was my final sentence and I included the name of the ISP (comcast).
Let's try this another way... The point of net neutrality is to prevent this sort of thing. It's to ensure that end users can use any part of the internet without some parts being artificially restricted. If/when it goes away, Comcast and other ISP's can go back to charging content providers, such as N
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It doesn't make technical sense that "Google could slow data to your ISP". Comcast offers no services to me if Comcast is not my ISP. If Comcast is my ISP, this means Google is making THEIR OWN servers slow, so using Google is slow.
Makes perfect sense to me. Google and a handful of other big content providers *IS* the "Internet" for all intents and purposes for too many.
If Google is slow customers are guaranteed to blame and or bitch to their ISP regardless of technical merit or who is actually at fault. If Google ever had a big enough stake in the ISP market there may even be market incentive for them to try this. Right now obviously if they tried this they would only be hurting themselves.
What is most alarming to me is pace in ge
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It would prove Trump is an idiotic orange orangutan if he stupidly destroyed exactly what got him elected in the first place. Without net neutrality Trump would have been dead in the water, how much would any individual have to spend when their digital data could be put in the slow lane, enough to buy the company who purposefully put it in the slow law. As a cartels they can not silence content with net neutrality laws in place, else they would traffic they want to censor for what ever reason the slowing to
Please! (Score:1)
Won't somebody please think of those little mom and pop ISP that represent 95% of US telecommunications? So much regulations, it's so sad.
What utter shit (Score:2, Insightful)
Fucking republicans, wrecking the world and destroying western civilization, one bribe at a time.
Sayonara America, it was nice while it lasted. (And yes, I know net neutrality is just one issue, and by no means the most important, but it is important, and in the broader context of what has happened these last 100 days or the America we knew and loved is dead, and the rotting corpse feeding the fat Republican billionaires club that Trump is figureheading).
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you watch too much CNN
This just in (Score:5, Interesting)
Just completes transformation of Internet into TV (Score:3)
because all good cable companies (and gubments) know that what consumers want is to be spoon-fed Pay TV, not to have general, flexible, peer to peer, decentralized (let's just come right out and say it "COMMUNISTIC") Internet. Please tell me I don't need sarcasm quotes around that.
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Be ready to pay more for internet (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah everyone's Netflix, Amazon, Apple and/or other internet costs are going to go up. Because ISP's are going to force them to pay more for the same bandwidth.
But this will somehow increase competition, because a lot more internet providers are about to come into your area. Because somehow this was holding them back...
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I think it could be worse than paying more to keep your Netflix from being throttled. This opens the door to exclusive deals. We could end up with a split internet that requires the purchase of multiple providers to get all services.
The opportunities provided are false because they are wasteful. For example, a market would open up for routers that connect to multiple providers and automatically send traffic to the best one for that traffic type. But that need is not a real one but one that is artificially c
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BINGO! I think most people are totally underestimating how devastating this decision will be. It's not just going to mean higher costs for netflix. It will also mean you will have to pre-select which sites you want to visit. Sites will be renamed "channels" and you'll be forces to subscribe to a package of channels when signing up for internet service. You will have to choose the netflix+ESPN+FOX news+Adult package, or MSNBC+youtube+Bing package, or kid-friendly+youtube package. The highest tier will
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that wouldnt be the internet, and honestly if they separated the commercial part of the internet, and the internet part of the internet.. it would be the best thing in the world. I would love to have the OLD internet back.
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Netflix is estimated at 37% of the internet's traffic. I pay $50 for internet. I pay $10 for Netflix. Something is wrong.
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what is wrong? you pay for BW... how you use it is your business, right? you cannot consume more BW than what you are allocated because you paid for it.
Re: Be ready to pay more for internet (Score:2)
Except, no I don't. My bandwidth is not metered. I pay for access to the network. Netflix users use bandwidth that is being subsidized by other non-Netflix network subscribers. I see zero issue with Netflix and the internet providers hashing out the cost benefits, then having Netflix pass the costs on to consumers.
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other users are also not metered in your example, if you pay for access and not bw then is your access hampered in anyway when you have a loss of bw because of excess netflix bw usage? i do however disagree that its access and not bw that you are paying for, its always a bw issue, if you had unlimited bw then this would never be an issue. i pay for the highest tier of bw available in my area, because i don't want slow access. if i only wanted access with quality, i would pay for the cheapest access.
I am als
Re: Be ready to pay more for internet (Score:2)
I am paying for the infrastructure needed to deliver peak bandwidth, which is driven by prime time Netflix consumption more than anything else.
Re: Be ready to pay more for internet (Score:2)
Hmmm...seems the moron is the one who can't put two and two together, you dumb shit.
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Yeah everyone's Netflix, Amazon, Apple and/or other internet costs are going to go up. Because ISP's are going to force them to pay more for the same bandwidth.
But this will somehow increase competition, because a lot more internet providers are about to come into your area. Because somehow this was holding them back...
I'm advocate of some types of net neutrality, but that's not the problem here.
IF ISPs force Netflix/Amazon/Apple to pay more for internet, it would likely enable more competition as other companies might be in a better position to charge enough to survive (now the price of Netfix/Amazon is so low as to make low-cost disruption uneconomical).
However, this is not a likely outcome of deregulation. It is more likely is that Netflix/Amazon will use their market position to purchase monopolies on capacit
Re:What to talk about (Score:5, Informative)
> Ajit Pai was an Obama appointee
At the suggestion of Mitch McConnel. Trump is the one that made him Chairman, not Obama.
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By your same logic this isn't Trump's fault - we need to know who suggested to Trump to make Pai the chairman and then blame that person accordingly.
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Since money is speech now, can I pay my ISP with "fuck yous"?
Can't wait for the mint to print dollars in the "Eat shit and die" denomination.
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Ok lets talk about this, then.
Previously Verizon killed Netflix's bandwidth for around a month to force them to pay more for the bandwidth they were using. Verizon was also the second largest lobbying company before the previous Net Neutrality rules went into effect. As they were completely against these rules, also they sued the federal government to force a decision about Net Neutrality.
I agree that law makers should do something about this, but most of them are corporate shills who would not disobey th
Re:What to talk about (Score:5, Informative)
No. F**k it. Internet pipes in your country are like the road network or the telephone network. It should be considered public infrastructure with egalitarian access.
It's pretty F'ing simple.
Getting rid of net neutrality regulations is like saying "It's ok. Just set up your highway robbery checkpoint in the middle of the on-ramp to the highway, but make sure to let your business partners limos through without paying the ransom."
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I wish I had mod points.
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begone you fucking shill
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What department in the government, precisely, should regulate internet communication other than the Federal Communications Commission?
In related news... (Score:1)
In related news, Ajit Pai is an asshole.
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AMEN! Best AC comment ever.
Troglodytes (Score:2, Informative)
All of them, and make no mistake Hillary would have been just as bad. We need to get government OUT of the issue. Wheeler was the closest thing we had to a gaurdian angel. 'Money is speech' has got to be reversed.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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This IS getting government out of the issue, and it is the worst possible solution. The government needs to get much more thoroughly into this issue and break the monopoly-via-resource-advantage that the current telcos have. Classifying them as a utility and requiring them to provide actual services without price gouging is also a fine solution, though.
This could get interesting. (Score:4, Informative)
I foresee all types of possibilities for abuse here beyond the obvious "pay the toll" bullshit. I can honestly see the real possibility of some ISPs slowing some political sites down to the point where they timeout in an attempt to prevent someone from donating money to a cause they don't like.
Frankly, I would love to see them start collecting from the biggest social media sites lest they be heavily slowed because people need to stop using that shit.
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Something between consumer, prosumer and business data plans?
Dont upgrade and internet use is capped, slowed if a user expects to download and upload a lot.
Data caps, slowing of uploads unless a consumer buys into a more expensive plan?
A super fast broadband uploads for people who pay. Internet quality access for people with POTS lines for the rest.
Will new payment plans see new s
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hahahahaha
Ajit Pai you are a bag of douche. (Score:3, Informative)
This is not the first time he's been in the news lately: Remember, "Broadband Market Too Competitive For Strict Privacy Rules"? Yeah, that was him.
Someone please fire this prick!
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I am not at all sure that there is any mechanism for ANY authority to "fire" an FCC Commissioner. I know their term is 5 years, but I don't see any evidence that they can be dismissed. That is typically the problem with a lot of the entrenched bureaucracy.
Haha (Score:5, Insightful)
The US already pays more for "health" by a VERY large margin than anyone else. How soon will it be before the "internet" follows suit.
The rest of the world will be happy to stick with its Net Neutrality , get the same (if not better) service for a lot less money.
Unlike health though, it is easier to host servers in other countries, which is all that will happen.
Will this encourage investment, sure, just not in the USA.
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I wish that were the case. The problem in the US is the last mile connectivity. Servers can be anywhere. That hasn't changed. But our last mile connectivity is so bad in some places, that it's tough to do business.
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The 96% of the world that does not live in the USA won't have that problem, just as they don't suffer the high cost of US healthcare.
Re:Haha (Score:5, Insightful)
How soon? Are you kidding? We already pay more for Internet than any other industrialized country, and some second world countries:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/up... [pbs.org]
Here's the truth that other countries have already figured out: when the government provides a service, it's cheaper. When private companies provide the same service, it's much more expensive, because they have to make a profit. And while it might have once been true that private industry could do a task better than the government, now private industry has realized that doing a poor job yields higher profit, so we end up getting worse services for more money when private industry provides them.
The federal government should provide all funds for education, for Internet access, and for healthcare. We can start paying for it by cutting the Department of Defense by 10% every couple of years, and eliminating corporate welfare. No more privatized intelligence, no more privatization of military services, no more military, intelligence, or security "contractors".
And eliminate DHS, what a fucking waste of money.
If that's not enough money, let's return to a top marginal rate of 91%. It worked great in the 50s, and the economy was booming.
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WHY was it booming ?
Give you a hint. Name a large, highly populated 1st world country, with large amounts of natural resources and mature industrial sector and infrastructure that was NOT bombed during WWII. So the USA was able to build stuff for the rebuilding of Europe and Asia. It could invest in R&D rather than in schools, hospitals, houses, roads, rail, water, electr
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Dear globalist scum! Hahaha. The USA currently runs a multi-100-billion-$ trade deficit. BadBad! If we tossed-out all wett-bakkks & stopped all foreign trading ... tomorrow... the USA citizen worker comes up way ahead ... by perhaps 8,000,000 new jobs and a 30% "real" wage increase. Passive investors get screwed and so they should! Eat that and crap globalist scum.
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I'm sure this AC will be the first in line for all the seasonal fruit and vegetable picking jobs that would immediately open up. Or maybe AC would prefer the garment factory making sneakers, shirts, or yoga pants. But maybe that's too much of a commitment, construction site or landscaping day laborer gives so many more options.
And we'll have plenty of natural resources, and access to the components needed to make computers, iPhones, tablets,
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Actually, agricultural companies would be forced to invest in harvesting machines and robotics that can pick the fruit. In the long term, it provides higher paying engineering and manufacturing jobs and actually reduces the cost of the fruit (robots are always cheaper, but they have a high entry cost. This will not happen until the cheap imported labor goes away though, because if you have $500 in cash you can hire 10 illegals for the day, whereas you are talking probably $10k/robot to pick fruit, even th
America Hating Small Mind (Score:2)
The US doesn't need to be 60% of the world's GDP, or even 20%. Assholes like you need a history lesson though.
We took our 60% GDP in that era and fed and clothed and rebuilt your ungrateful ass (and/or that of your parents and grandparents) through direct financial support, as well as imbalanced trade agreements. The goal was never to rule the world (or America would have immediately after WW2, we exclusively had nuclear bombs, as well as the world's largest industrial base and strongest military). But w
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There are some things that private industry is more cost-effective at: things which consumers can choose not to buy, and things with no barriers to new market entrants.
For everything else (fire, police, health, armed forces, education, utilities, mass transit) there's both a natural monopoly and a strong economic case for ensuring that everyone has access.
I totally understand not wanting to pay to support strangers: it feels desperately unfair. But how much tax do you think the kids of the single parent who
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That BS might get you a +5 on Slashdot, but it is false on the face of it. ...now STATE SPONSORED MONOPOLIES have realized that doing a poor job yields higher profit, so we end up getting worse services for more money when STATE SPONSORED MONOPOLIES provide them... (FTFY) Let me know when Apple or Samsung start making shit phones that rake in the cash, then your statement would be accurate...
The problem that we have in the US right now is that MONOPOLIES sponsored by the state and local government are con
Reversed assertion... or whats a better term? (Score:2)
Just Like Cable TV -- I Can't Wait (Score:2)
Message to Trump voters: (Score:1)
Fuck you. Seriously, just fuck you.
What about Dial Up? (Score:2)
This will hurt small businesses (Score:2)
Quit whineing you morons (Score:1)
This change is badly needed to bring some free market competition back to the industry. I guarantee we will all be paying less for our internet access in a year. Big Government ALWAYS makes things cost more. Remember that.
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I would rather pay $85/month for the same speed at every website than $80/month and have Netflix and other services throttled by my ISP so they can make it un-usable and try to force me to subscribe to their shitty cable TV service.
You are the moron for thinking that the regulation of MONOPOLIES has anything to do with big government. What we really need to start seeing is a federal law paving the right of way for local fiber co-ops, where you buy in and amortize the cost of your hookup over a 2 year contr
Hate the FCC, but hate your local government more (Score:2)
The FCC saying "fuck it, everyone do what you want" sucks, but the most significant reason this is a problem is the monopolies that local municipalities authorize. If the state/county/city levels of government where prevented in interfering, then competition would be an actual market balancer. Smaller ISPs would happily take the droves of pissed consumers.
With the Internet being an service that inherently crosses state lines, the Federal government has every right to tell these government levels that thei
Public Campaign (Score:2)
I could see this bolstering public terminals and potentially the written word again. ALSO I wager we should wage a PUBLIC CAMPAIGN that calls on businesses, and individuals with extra bandwidth to offer free wifi or access to people in their area.
The market is squeezing people from every side: My rent is out of control, internet would be insanely expensive (from a personal data as well as monetary point of view) if I hadn't lucked out and gotten Google Fiber, healthcare is... my lord I hope I just never get
Balderdash (Score:2)
If you can't withstand a little regulation that prevents you from contaminating the quality of the service that you offer for sale as a MONOPOLY, you are just incompetent and deserve to go bankrupt and be taken over by municipal ISPs..
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Maybe he means the ones that only provide 6Mbps down, 768k up?
Re:The correct course of action (Score:5, Informative)
Let Congress pass a law [...]
They did. It was the FCC charter. It explicitly gave the FCC the task of and granted them the authority to make decisions about how to classify companies. If Congress wants to pass a law doing what you say, they can, but in the meantime they've said that it is the FCC's job to make those decisions.
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Or does Congress only have that power when it's something you agree with?
I'm not sure which part of this you think I agree with. I certainly don't agree with what the FCC is doing here.
It sounds as if you're challenging whether Congress even has the authority to create independent agencies in the first place, which is an entirely unrelated discussion, and one for which I don't have a particularly strong opinion (I've just taken it as fact that it's something that they do, without ever really questioning it, honestly). That said, I will point out that if you take issue with Congr
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but there's clearly a necessity that those services be provided in some form or function, and the 538 members of Congress are clearly not up to the task of managing all of that on their own, especially once you consider that most of those agencies are far larger than Congress itself.
That's precisely the point; those who wrote the Constitution and those today who believe similarly do not believe many of those things are the job of the federal government, and for those things which are, Congress should be the only body in government with the power to pass laws, as they are elected which gives the people some direct way to keep them accountable and not appointed/hired. This delegation of powers is a large part of how the government has gone about expanding it's powers and scope.
The other
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"...for those who prefer the shorter reinterpretation path."
Wow, I don't know hth that got dropped...oh well.
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Really? What did the internet do for the 20 years before net neutrality? Also it wasn't net neutrality it was applying 1930s law that literally created ma bell. They just called it net neutrality.