Net Neutrality Goes Down in Flames as FCC Votes To Kill Title II Rules (arstechnica.com) 422
As we feared yesterday, the rollback of net neutrality rules officially began today. The FCC voted along party lines today to formally consider Chairman Ajit Pai's plan to scrap the legal foundation for the rules and to ask the public for comments on the future of prohibitions on blocking, throttling and paid prioritization. ArsTechnica adds: The Federal Communications Commission voted 2-1 today to start the process of eliminating net neutrality rules and the classification of home and mobile Internet service providers as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) proposes eliminating the Title II classification and seeks comment on what, if anything, should replace the current net neutrality rules. But Chairman Ajit Pai is making no promises about reinstating the two-year-old net neutrality rules that forbid ISPs from blocking or throttling lawful Internet content, or prioritizing content in exchange for payment. Pai's proposal argues that throttling websites and applications might somehow help Internet users.
It's a sad day for America (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's a sad day for America (Score:5, Interesting)
There is one simple message coming out of this, putting republicans into office benefits NOBODY bur the gop power-mongers
Internet Treason. (Score:5, Insightful)
The internet was NOT invented for ISP profitability. Fuck this treasonous noise.
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The internet was NOT invented for ISP profitability. Fuck this treasonous noise.
Of course it wasn't. It was created orignally for use by the U.S. Military. Later, University campuses were linked into it. It wasn't until the 90's that the general public was given a way to access it.
One of my General Rules applies here: The surest way to ruin a good thing is to get too many PEOPLE involved in it.
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The very first link was between 2 universities. They weren't second-string on the Internet. Or DARPANet, as it was called then.
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Thats why you dont try to pay for pussy.. with the exception of marriage and dating.. O.o
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Oh dear heavens! Call the doctors..
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In Trumpermica, extortion IS innovation.
Re:Internet Treason. (Score:5, Insightful)
A quick Google search turned up this article from 2015 stating that the internet at the time was 6 percent of the us economy. I don't know if that number's right, and even if so, the percentage is probably higher now. But my point is that, without Net Neutrality, it would be nowhere near as big. In fact, it might not have beaten out the likes of Compuserve and MSN, which had pretty much zero effect on the overall economy.
So to the extent that the Internet is a major engine of the growth Republicans always seem to point to as their magic bullet to justify any and all of their policies - they have just blindly asserted that "we've had all the innovation we need, thank you - it's time for the toll collectors to cash in".
https://www.usnews.com/news/bl... [usnews.com]
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crimes against humanity... (Score:3, Insightful)
These are crimes against humanity... some day there will be a reckoning
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It must be nice to be able to say views you don't agree with are 'crimes against humanity'. I wish my conscious didn't make me attempt to be intellectually honest.
Re:crimes against humanity... (Score:5, Insightful)
When civilization has reached the point where open access to information is a necessary component to personal liberty and critical decision making, the curtailing of neutral access in favor of preferential access based on monetary criteria is the first step toward societies in which people are starved and beaten. That you fail to appreciate this causal relationship only underscores the futility of your use of expletives.
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Sorry but 'Orange is the new Black' on Netflix is not the same as "open access to information"
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I guess you are speaking about yourself? The common carrier rules are there to prevent the owner of the pipe from extorting the provider of goods and services that use or are enhanced by communication. If that rule was not in place, a telecom could have blocked or extra-charged a pizza place over another, thus leveraging its natural monopoly onto unrelated markets.
This is the exact same case between content creators and last mile owners and that is precisely what will happen from now on. They are creating a
Re: crimes against humanity... (Score:4, Insightful)
One way would be to send Pizza Hut a bill for $1,000,000. Then, if they don't pay, you set your DNS servers to resolve pizzahut.com to the IP of someone who will pay. Also, redirect all DNS packets to 8.8.8.8 or whatever other DNS services to your own in order to guarantee that the 99.999% of the customers not using a hosts file to resolve pizzahut.com will get pizzas from the company that paid.
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In other words, you think an ISP would openly attempt to extort a company that is one of the following:
A customer of theirs - lawsuit
A customer of a paying peer - lawsuit from the peer
A custom of a settlement free peer - possible lawsuit from peer, risk of ending settlement free peering.
The DNS redirection on its own would be grounds for a lawsuit since the ISP and beneficiary company would be effectively hijacking the domain name Pizza Hut registered.
Re: crimes against humanity... (Score:4, Interesting)
All over except for the shouting (Score:5, Insightful)
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I don't think this is entirely about money talking. Yes, the ISP lobbyist forces are powerful - but until recently they could only stall in court. What's changed is the political environment - a new ideology dominates now, one which holds that all forms of regulation are inherently bad and the free market is always a force for good.
Re:All over except for the shouting (Score:5, Insightful)
All forms of regulation are bad, if you're a billionaire looking to keep the spigot flowing. The second part of your statement is wrong, however. No one involved here wants a free market. Free markets allow competition. They want monopolies without government oversight. That's all.
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Dog-Cow was not wrong, your interpretation of his statement was wrong.
"Free Market" does not mean "unregulated market." It means "open to competition." Markets are "free" if competitors can easily enter or exit the market, adjust their prices, switch out their partners, etc. Sustaining such a market requires government intervention, for the very reason you gave.
As soon as an unregulated market becomes dominated by a cartel or monopoly, it is no longer free.
Is that clear? You are wrong in thinking that f
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That's not how I read that definition from Wikipedia. It says that the laws and forces of supply and demand must be free from government intervention, not that the government can't do any regulation whatsoever.
From a practical viewpoint, In the real world an unregulated market is just going to end up with monopolies (along with any other abusive behavior you can imagine -- what's to stop you from sending some thugs around to your competitors' customers to break some legs and encourage them to buy from you i
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I agree with lines 2,3, and 4
We all know Wikipedia is not the perfect source. But the statement quoted is an absolutist statement. Specifically the use of "any" in "any government" intervention supports the absolutist perspective.
I agree free markets can not arise in the real world, just as perfect competition, pure capitalism, or pure socialism. They all are theoretical constructs designed for theoretical thoughts experiments. This is exactly why anytime a politician yells "But think of the capitalism!!!
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..a new ideology dominates now..
For the moment, and that moment appears to be fading fast. At the current rate things are developing, Trump will be removed from the White House long before the next election. The only real downside to that is we'll be stuck with Pence for the duration (or not?), and in many ways that'll be far, far worse than Trump; someone like Pence is more likely to try to turn the U.S. into an ultra-conservative theocracy. Imagine a Christian version of Sharia Law, but with Puritans in charge.
Still, we could get l
Re:All over except for the shouting (Score:4, Insightful)
Removing Trump won't remove the ideology.
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> the Internet will likely become like a larger version of AOL
Slight correction. The AMERICAN Internet. The rest of the world will route around the damage. Hell, I'm willing to bet a lot of future Internet startups will be setting up shop outside of the US for fear the lack of neutrality in the US would impede their growth, especially in any services that might compete with something cable companies are doing.
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...On the other hand the Baby Boomer generation will probably love it; the Internet will likely become like a larger version of AOL.
Please don't generalize like that. I'm a Boomer, I HATE what's happened to the FCC, and I was sneering at AOL, (and using their CD's as coasters and Frisbees), when they were still new. And I know a lot of people my age with a similar outlook. Also, I'm sure there are lots of Xers and Millennials who are just fine with being spoon-fed what the corporations want them to eat. This isn't a generational issue.
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More specifically, they want to be a Good Little Doggy for Verizon, by far the most anti-net-neutrality ISP, and the FCC is being led by a former Verizon lobbyist. "Drain the Swamp," LOL!
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Re:All over except for the shouting (Score:5, Insightful)
What opponents of Net Neutrality fail to realize is that despite the fact that the actual net neutrality laws were relatively new, for the most part (except for a few incidents that caused the laws to be enacted) we've always had net neutrality in the past.
Now the reasons were different, originally net neutrality existed because it was simply too hard and expensive for a provider to discriminate. The equipment to do so was expensive, and to do so on a large scale without killing your throughput was simply prohibitive. Additionally it was simply that corporations hadn't even thought of it.
Once the equipment to filter became easily accessible, and corporations thought of how to monetize it, they immediately started screwing with the internet. Luckily at the time, the FCC saw what was happening and fixed it.
People who think that by removing the laws we'll go back to a point before companies had the technical ability, and inclination to screw with the internet have completely forgotten the actual incidents that caused the FCC to act in the first place, the proof that ISPs aren't going to suddenly forget that there's a whole lot of money to be made in trying to turn the internet in to cable TV.
Corruption has now consumed the USA (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Corruption has now consumed the USA (Score:5, Insightful)
And, with Net Neutrality officially dead, they can steer you away from open websites where you might see free opinions, and towards their corporate gardens where there are no nasty alternate opinions.
If you want to do at least something to stop this, stop using Facebook, any of the Disney sites (ABC,ESPN,etc.) and any others that no doubt will gain from this.
NN would not really be an issue if Americans had meaningful access to more than one high speed internet service provider. We could "vote with our dollars." However, at this time, many of us have only two options. Vote for the single provider of service, or go without.
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Why would the next comment period be different from the first?
By law, the FCC must accept comments. But they have no legal requirement to care what they say, and they have just proved that once again.
Re:Corruption has now consumed the USA (Score:4, Insightful)
There never was a "before NN".
Before NN laws we had defacto NN. But there is no possible way to go back to defacto NN because the cat is out of the bag, the technical ability to mess with the internet is now cheap and easy to implement, and providers have realized that there's money to be made in doing so.
Asking if there was a problem before net-neutrality laws, while ignoring the specific cases that caused those laws to be implemented in the first place, is like saying we don't need traffic laws because there were no car crashes before cars were invented. Simply repealing the speed limit won't magically make people trade their cars for horse and buggies.
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Comcast's use of Sandvine (and lying about it)
Verizon's throttling of Netflix (and lying about it)
There's almost certainly others, but those are the big ones that blew up once their lies were caught.
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Ignorant voters (Score:5, Interesting)
This is what we get America. Voting largely along party lines or for religious reasons! You thought Trump wait till you see what Betsy Devos, Jeff Sessions, Scot Pruitt are going to do. I am hoping here the states will do the right thing and add some laws against this but I am not sure how much authority they will have. Also, state legislators are probably cheaper to buy anyway!
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Sadly, the opportunity to vote against the current cabal is being limited by them. In what will amount to a virtual return to the poll tax and literacy tests of old, the VP is heading a commission almost certain to find the non-existent voter fraud in order to justify extreme voter suppression (oops, I mean vetting) by requiring proof of citizenship for new voters, but nothing to assure that grandma is really the one filling out her mail in ballot, and certainly not scrubbing them from the voter lists.
Thei
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Yes, current news has become so disheartening!
Re:Ignorant voters (Score:5, Insightful)
No this is the fault of having a 2 party system. You have to buy into the whole package, or the other whole package. There is no sane option.
Re:Ignorant voters (Score:5, Insightful)
While I am agree to your comment, I am still amazed by the extent of Republican corruption this year. And yes, the DNC had their share too but it pales compared to whats going on now with the power structure on Republican side with the Healthcare bill, the budget and scandals etc!
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The Republicans made a Faustian bargain and put their hat in with Trump to gain favor with a good 30% of the voter base that unshakably believes everything the far-right media pushes.
Much to their their horror, it worked.
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The Problems with First Past the Post Voting Explained [youtube.com] by CGP Grey illustrates the issues very clearly. The system we have is fundamentally broken; it will always devolve into two parties, neither of which represent the people.
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I know, right? After 8 years of so many here being just fine with someone ruling with a pen & a phone, I'm happy now that more and more people are suddenly worried about an all powerful central government.
Have you talked to your local rep about an Article V convention? If not, you should: http://www.conventionofstates.... [conventionofstates.com]
Given that elections have consequences, shouldn't we work to reduce the risk from either side having enough of a majority in DC to ram through what they want?
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FYI, "LOL" is a tell for cognitive dissonance [twitter.com], of course the rest of your comment just confirms it.
Expect More Ads, Fees (Score:2)
If sites like Pandora or Youtube need to pay premiums for adequate performance over your Comcast or Verizon or whatever line, expect them to make you watch more ads to make up for it.
The long-running excuse is that the "people" don't even know what net-neutrality is, much less what it's valuable. Now they'll learn... free stuff on the Internet will get scarce, or will be delivered at crap speeds while your provider pushes their own affiliated entertainment package (with a fee), the only content that's reli
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If Comcast were to selectively throttle traffic from Youtube, Amazon, Pandora, etc., to their customers, there would be actual contractual issue that could be settled in court - either between the website and Comcast (if they buy transit from Comcast), OR ISP that the website buys transit from and Comcast.
Pair peering agreements tend to include requirements that the payee does not interfere with the traffic of the payor unless it exceeds the paid limits, is being used to facilitate crime, etc.
Same with sett
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What do you mean, "if", Kemosabe?
They voted for their Jobs (Score:2)
Hilary ignored the swing states at her peril. She only shifted left when it was clear Bernie would win if she didn't. She's was always a terrible
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Yes and No. Hillary was an awful candidate no doubt but a lot of people still voted for her because she was better than the alternative lunatic candidate. Regarding the people being ignored I think partly those people also rejected a lot of progressive policies over the years via electing Republican governors, state legislators etc. Hate goes both ways.
And the fact that Trump told them all they wanted to hear should not have been enough for them to vote for him. On top of that the vitriol he spewed over his
The life cycle of the Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
From a system designed to ensure information flows no matter what... to a system designed to ensure selected information flows at a rate determined by your wallet.
Another change to America that will squeeze the 99% for the enrichment of the 1%, sold with the lie that they're doing it for the exact opposite reason.
You know, I'm not big on class warfare but at some point you have to realize that your society is going to shit if its primary focus is to benefit a small subset of the population to the detriment of the majority.
route around it? (Score:2)
Could the big content providers (Netflix amazon spotify etc) band together to create a separate company that provides local VPN jumping on points right in front of the regional caches these providers all have? The isps could retaliate by throttling encrypted traffic but that will affect many businesses who will vote for isps with their wallets because they unlike us do have a choice.
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Netflix was the cheapskate buying transit from other shitty providers and then acting like they had nothing to with the congestion issues that arose between their ISP and the ISP(s) of their customers.
There's a reason that Cogent kept seeing its peer link dropped by other ISPs - Cogent was abusing its peering agreements.
If Comcast, Verizon, Sprint were dropping the peer link on a paid peer that did nothing wrong, they would have been sued. If they were dropping a settlement free link on a peer that did not
Re:route around it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Bullshit! [backchannel.com]
It's also quite telling that Comcast refused to install the content caches that Netflix and others offered for free that would have drastically reduced Comcast's peering traffic. [arstechnica.com]
Re:route around it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Neither of those articles really refuted what I said.
Yep, all those companies were risking their settlement free agreements with Cogent and/or violating paid peering agreements with Cogent by deliberately throttling connections. In reality Cogent was irresponsibly allowing settlement peer links to go heavily unbalanced to the point that the other side was throttling the whole thing to maintain the ratios or simply shutting down links.
Things like this are interesting:
"In the past, if two networks transferred so much data between themselves that they were about to exceed the capacity of their connection, they would have gotten in touch to solve the problem. As M-Lab notes in its report, “[T]he traffic that flows through these interconnections is the lifeblood of the Internet—nearly all of the value of the Internet comes from the exchange of traffic, even when the ISPs involved are fierce competitors.” The engineers would have worked out a solution to open the access network’s door to the outside world more broadly. And they would split the minor costs of doing this upgrade—a $300 piece of fiber, a $10,000 souped-up router. A January 2013 OECD report found that 99.5% of Internet interconnection agreements at Internet Exchange Points happen without any formal contracts; engineers easily make deals to share the very low cost of trading traffic between networks in the same building."
The key here is that the ISPs transfer data between themselves, not one ISP transferring fifty times as much data towards an ISP than it receives.
"In the past, requests for upgrades were routinely granted. Now, suddenly, upgrades are impossible without painful negotiations over fees that have no perceptible relationship to the cost of making the upgrade—and Comcast and the other eyeball networks are making no promises about restraining themselves in the future."
The upgrades were for easy and routinely granted when the equally exchanged traffic hit certain thresholds. When one side is the cause of the imbalance, they are the ones that need to pay for it. The alternative is forcing all customers of an ISP to pay for the demands of some while also effectively subsidizing the business model of Netflix.
Netflix had a reason for choosing Cogent and it had nothing to do with ensuring the best experience for their customers.
I'll point out again here that this didn't happen to Hulu, Youtube, Amazon, etc.
As for that second article, ISPs are not obligated to give free datacenter space or network access to anyone, especially not a previously abusive user. Did Netflix offer to pay for the rack space and transit they wanted, or were they expecting another free ride?
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That statement shows that you are simply a partisan prick.
Space in a datacenter: trivial cost to Comcast.
Transit cost: effectively negative!
Netflix offered to reduce Comcast's costs and Comcast refused.
Comcast has shown themselves to be the abuser,
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Plus, there was that blog post by the CEO of Level 3 in July, 2014 (since deleted with their site redesign) that depicted EXACTLY how Comcast was being totally disingenuous by providing sufficient peer link bandwidth in foreign markets where they faced competition, but providing hopelessly insufficient peer links domestically where they faced no competition. Then Comcast would turn around and blame their refusal to provide sufficient peering bandwidth on Netflix in order to deflect criticism, knowing that t
Calling Chicken Little! (Score:2)
From a system designed to ensure information flows no matter what... to a system designed to ensure selected information flows at a rate determined by your wallet.
Right, because government regulation is always good?
Can any of the Chicken Littles provide any evidence of their fears actually coming true? I keep hearing about how ISPs will block access to sites, or slow your connection down, but can anyone show this actually happening?
If you want to fight something, fight the government supported cable monopoly.
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An analysis of class warfare may find that it exists... that the upper classes are pushing on the lower ones, but using all the communication tools at their disposal to hide the fact that the battles exist, therefore making what actually is a counterpunch look like the initial punch. Witness the current fight over the ACA/AHCA. A billionaire pushing health care cost reform with the help of other millionaires to remove health care from some poor folks. Why? The rich f
Republicans, Ladies and Gentlemen! (Score:3)
Whelp, now there exists a new revenue stream - a stream of income that stock holders will DEMAND be exploited maximally.
That new income source: Asking for payments for premium treatment from uploaders.
I expect that this will get rather messy - as the financial motivations will likely upturn a lot of agreements between large networks, and the viability of many valued companies.
But, this IS what contributors paid for, so this is what they get, apparently.
Ryan Fenton
Two can play. (Score:3, Interesting)
Pay your ISP bill in increments of 0.01, preferably by paper cheque. Automation makes this easy. Offer to pay in 0.25 increments for a 'small fee', or randomize the increments. Insist on a paper bill showing all payments.
Include the following on your voicemail: "If this call drops or has lag, this is because ISP is possibly throttling packets. Please offer to pay ISP more money and hope for better service.
Throttle incoming connections from the ISPs ad servers. Setup a pi-hole for ads.
Re:Two can play. (Score:4, Funny)
I think I'll have 45 seconds of ads for the voice number contact I give my ISP.
Great...(not) (Score:2)
The internet itself will now quickly become a monopoly, since AmaGooBookTubeSoft can pay enough money to silence everyone else by effectively just shouting far louder than they can even afford to.
Also any political or SJW groups can now totally block any/all alternatives to their myopic world views just by paying the ISPs.
No doubt MPAA/RIAA/Hollywood are already chomping at the bit to be able to block any/every site they feel like in another gross abuse of power.
Everyone panic! Except not (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, it's funny. 10 years ago I would be right there with you folks, panicking and hyperventilating ( well, drinking a beer and grousing anyway. We all cope in our ways, don't judge )..but if the years have taught me anything, it's to appreciate opportunity when it comes along.
Had I my own way, my and other's lives would be infinitely better with virtually no downside. However, the world doesn't work like that ( shocking, I know ). Once I stopped fighting it, I realized that despite it's broken nature, the world still manages to push forward to society's benefit ( though most refuse to acknowledge that ). Set backs are sometimes needed to make leaps forward, and sometimes "set backs" are only considered such because individuals lack the vision to find the opportunity.
So relax; breath. Trust in yourself and find the opportunities presented. You, and society, will be fine, I promise.
18 months ago (Score:4, Informative)
Obama's Net Neutrality is only 18 months old. Before that, was it so bad? During it, was it better?
Here's what I'm REALLY angry about - these goddamn local monopolies. Of I have choice of a shit sandwich (AT&T) or a dick up the ass (Comcast).
I am paying $49/month for 1.5Mbps DOWN and .25Mbps up. Really AT&T? I could get better by signing up with Xfinity if and ONLY if I get one of their "packages". But Internet only? Nope, don't offer that in your area. (I didn't realize that they have to run a separate cable for internet only and it's a real burden on them. /s)
Re:18 months ago (Score:4, Interesting)
THIS is the real problem.
We need to fight against regulations (which benefit established players but prevent new comers) and court system abuse. If anything regulation and protectionism has enabled the mess we have with limited ISP choice.
I don't care if there's zero regulation on neutrality, if we get the protectionism out of the picture and new companies are allowed to compete we the people will vote with our wallets. We will have net neutrality for the same reason we no longer have obnoxious roaming charges and long distance charges are a thing of the past (at least within the country). Someone offered a better product and people began switching to it forcing everyone else to fall in line. Right now protectionism and lawsuit abuse keep that someone else from popping up.
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if we get the protectionism out of the picture and new companies are allowed to compete we the people will vote with our wallets
The last-mile infrastructure that connects to your house is the expensive part of competing. ISPs are bordering on a natural monopoly.
We have a good solution with the electrical grid. You have one connection to your house, but you can buy electricity from a variety of providers.
We could easily install fiber at the municipal/county level and allow ISPs to connect at a central office to provide peering/routing out to the rest of the world. And, of course, I mean "easily" in the technical sense only. The polit
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Remember when Comcast was throttling Netflix? That really was something that actually happened until Netflix paid up.
Did it cost more to host netflix content on Comcast? No it didn't - because it was being delivered via a peering provider. The only reason Comcast was doing that was because Netflix cuts in on their own streaming services and cable subscriptions.
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I'm less concerned about the decision than what it shows about the power of our voice as US citizens.
Then again we did elect most of those people.
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I can't remember where I first heard this idea, but people panicking over things like this is closely related to their political ideology and worldview.
For Liberals and Progressives, they're always fighting to push forward, to progress. They view human existence as a series of events that push us ever forward as a global society to an eventual Utopia. Things were always worse in the past and will always be better in the future. Any impediment, disagreement or setback to their agenda is thus viewed as "t
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This will fix itself (Score:2)
Gee, I wonder which route they'll take. Let the name and shame parade commence.
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That statement and those like it are misleading. Netflix's problem is that they were paying the cheapest "Tier 1" ISP to "dump" traffic to other "Tier 1" ISPs who refused to upgrade their side of the connections due to this asymmetric data flow. "Tier 1" ISPs want to keep traffic balanced, and upgrade links based on this.
What people are asking for is like complaining that the highway system won't build enough roads to your warehouses and that there are traffic jams into the cities you want to ship to. Wh
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Netflix was the bad guy in all of this. Unlike every other major streaming provider, they chose not to buy transit appropriate for their traffic numbers.
There was no reason for traffic on the level that Netflix was generating to be entering the network of major ISPs via peer links. No one can ever show that Netflix, and only Netflix, was deliberately slowed down. What can be shown is that Netflix transit provider(s) either had their settlement free links dropped due to long term traffic imbalances, OR th
Welcome to Cable TV (Score:2, Insightful)
Internet is soon going to be like Cable TV you have to choose your internet package
Basic
Economy
Premium
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It's already that way.
My ISP has different packages, some with metered use, some without, and different speeds for each.
In fact, the first time I signed up for DSL back in 1999 I had similar options.
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We can get it back (Score:2)
Lemons into lemonade... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a conservative, and even I believe that as things stand right now, this has the potential to be a huge mistake. However, if Pai wants to turn this into an actual good thing for consumers, he's going to need to go full-Monty on his proposals. To wit: don't just remove the restrictions, but also the protections which apply to telcos under Title II. Strip away the privileges held by telcos and cable companies alike, in the form of their protected monopolies. Maybe we could even reinstate a truly free market, by the elimination of all FCC policies, period. And then petition Congress to actually give the FCC the power to fully overrule any state or local restrictions, so that they can't blockade the free market, either.
After all, that's pretty much the party-line mantra, at this point, isn't it? Liberals legislate everything to the point where it hurts, and conservatives eliminate legislation to the point where it hurts. So then, do it, Pai. Eat your own dog food.
Of course, maybe Pai's argument would be that if he actually went too far down that path, than the telcos and cable companies would sue... but the thing is, at this point they're always suing over anything that is even remotely pro-consumer. If they're not suing the FCC after the dust clears, then clearly there's something wrong. So why the hell not?
Come on, Pai. Let's do this thing!
protection scheme (Score:2)
Hint (Score:2)
The FCC is part of the executive branch.
Meaning, of course, that they execute the rules (laws) established by Congress.
In the absence of such rules, the executive office is free to write its own rules.
Ergo:
Stop returning 95% of incumbent congressfucks and elect representatives that will simply pass a law making 'net neutrality' a thing.
Can't do it, or can't convince at least 51% of the electorate (or, in reality, only about 30%) to agree with you and actually vote? Then it must be not such a big deal.
No longer common carrier, but (Score:2)
does that not mean ISPs would no longer be under liability protection and be able to turn a blind eye to the data that crosses their networks? If they inspect the data traffic, and throttle the rate of some packets vs others, are they not signing up for being liable for illegal or copyrighted content that traverses through their switches?
Or is this they get to keep the Title II protections but do not have to abide by any of the specified regulations? In which case we have just fundamentally altered what "co
Re:Because capitalism! (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the things I always told my kids growing up is that a piece of the truth is almost useless by itself; you need enough of the whole truth to understand what's going on.
The piece of truth you learn in capitalism Sunday school is that businesses try to maximize profits and that this forces them to innovate. This is true, but it misses the other part of the truth: businesses also try to minimize risk, and this cuts against the innovation impulse.
It's the force of competition that makes businesses take risks and thus innovate, and nowhere is the competition fiercer than in a commodity market. That's why businesses want to differentiate their products, and that's what net discrimination is all about. They want to make it impossible to compare different services by making it impossible or difficult to get content except through certain channels. Expect exclusive deals so you'll find yourself choosing between getting local baseball programming on one provider or the latest Star Trek series on another.
It's all about hanging onto customers, and there's two ways to do that: to make them happy, or make it painful to leave. Of the two, making it painful to leave is less risky.
Re: Because capitalism! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure. Look at how Internet service worked on cell phone networks before Apple blew the old system up with the iPhone. Apple didn't do this out of idealism, but because it couldn't differentiate itself in an environment where the carriers controlled the user experience.
In fact in general look at how inferior US cell service is to the rest of the developed world. This was a result of a deliberate calculation by the Reagan administration that a more innovative network would result if carriers were free to choose their own standards. What they did was try to make it as painful as possible to change carriers while nickel-and-diming their subscribers for all they were worth. It was a safe, profitable strategy, like auto companies taking their mediocre old car platforms and putting exciting new bodies on them.
Meanwhile, in Internet services the competition is cutthroat because a level playing field is baked into the very architecture of the system, and innovation has been moving too fast for ISPs and cellular carriers to tie down their customer bases with "exclusive content". But it is coming. I've dealt with these people before and that's their wet dream: a captive customer base.
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Yes. Now imagine Apple owning the link to your home, business, and phone.
Precedent is other (Score:3)
They may be able to, but the feds will likely be able to stick their hands in as well. For instance, you call your local neighbor on your phone, connecting only through local telephone exchanges, if there's a federal statute about what you're doing (say, selling pot), then (among other
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Re:It will help Americans (Score:5, Informative)
Net Neutrality has nothing to do with how much your ISP charges you.
Except that my ISP is my cable TV company. Without net neutrality they can slow down Netflix, Hulu, et al. to discourage cord-cutting, or charge per-packet while zero-rating packets from their own streaming service. Plenty of other shenanigans are possible.
Whomever owns the last mile has to be required to deliver every packet without discriminating
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Re:Alternative Headline: (Score:4, Insightful)
What are you talking about? After Netflix pays Comcast, speeds improve 65% [arstechnica.com]
How retarded can you be?