Net Neutrality Complaints Rise Amid FCC Repeal (axios.com) 183
An anonymous reader shares a report: Internet users are complaining more about net neutrality-related issues since the FCC voted to repeal the existing net neutrality rules earlier this month, according to the FCC's consumer complaint data. The FCC allows consumers to submit complaints about a variety of telecom-related problems, from receiving unwanted phone calls to billing fraud. After adopting net neutrality rules in 2015, the FCC added net neutrality to the list of possible gripes, such as slowed-down internet service or content being blocked. The FCC can use those complaints to spot trends or even launch investigations. According to the data (via the FCC's Consumer Complaint Center), people appear to file more net neutrality complaints when the topic is in the news and people are paying more attention to their internet performance.
Oh, stop (Score:5, Funny)
You'll take what internet Comcast gives you, and you'll like it. Don't pretend you have a voice (or a choice) in these matters.
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You'll take what internet Comcast gives you, and you'll like it. Don't pretend you have a voice (or a choice) in these matters.
What did Net Neutrality have to do with broadband competition?
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https://www.wired.com/story/he... [wired.com]
Re: Oh, stop (Score:3)
Everything. It stopped last mile isps from dictating which websites you could visit by giving fast lane for their services, while crippling the primary line with slow speeds.
Wait until Comcast who owns nbc blocks Fox news and fox companies from all streaming services.
Don't think that's possible? Comcast was doing that to Netflix and Republicans do nothing. When fox gets pushed off the internet they will scream.
Their will be nothing the goverent can do as net neutrailtiy has been removed and Republicans
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Well the FCC needs to be punished for making a stupid decision.
If it was going to make a political decision based on support of big companies. Expect a lot of little people to flood their complaint department.
Actions have consequences.
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Except that article was not this. It was extremely brief but it amounted to "people complain more about shit when its on their mind."
That is, there isn't anything new being complained about (yet.) Just more people complaining about existing things. In particular that unfortunately means that the new complaints probably aren't specifically related to the rescinding of net neutrality, and therefore really don't have much bearing or indication on how screwed the US is now.
I've said it on a few other posts..
You have a voice (Score:2)
Re: You have a voice (Score:2)
I bet you some who read that were thinking of their cellular contracts rather than local elections.
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I do have 3-4 local broadband options
That puts you above what's common.
Where I live, I have the choice between partially crippled cable, overshared and with no bandwidth rate guarantee, and 1.5/384 ADSL (which some politicians consider broadband).
And the town politicians dictate who can provide me internet service based on how much they get bribed. I have no choice. It's the one cable provider that pull their strings, or none.
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Name them.
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Cable, Dish, DSL.
Although, the latency for dish is a little high it is "broadband" by definition.
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Only 9% of Americans have three or more choices for broadband. So, statistically speaking, you're probably lying.
https://arstechnica.com/inform... [arstechnica.com]
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You said name "broadband" options not 25+mbps options. You are shifting the goal post. There is a technical legal definition of "broadband". Even then I am not lying about cable and DSL offering 40mbps in my area (small-medium city) (I haven't looked into dish because I won't use it and your link doesn't include).
I am not lying about my choices. Your link even agrees with me; "The competitive landscape for wireline broadband services typically consists of the telco, a cable company, and in rare instances a
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You said name "broadband" options not 25+mbps options.
From 2015 BROADBAND PROGRESS REPORT AND NOTICE OF INQUIRY ON IMMEDIATE ACTION TO ACCELERATE DEPLOYMENT [fcc.gov]
We take the needs of multiple users into account when considering what level of service is necessary to be considered advanced telecommunications capability. We consider, too, the services that providers are offering today, as well as the services that American consumers are choosing. With these factors in mind, we find that, having “advanced telecommunications capability” requires access to actual download speeds of at least 25 Mbps and actual upload speeds of at least 3 Mbps (25 Mbps/3 Mbps).
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>I suspect until someone runs a fiber optic line into your house and gives you internet for free, you'll bitch about whoever your current provider is and whatever agreement you sign with them. Infrastructure like broadband cables, sewer, and electricity do not lend themselves to multiple providers in direct competition with each other. It's just the way things work. The capital expenditures are too large.
Your having 3-4 local broadband options makes you an outlier. Most people have one choice for broad
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You are Ajit Pai & I claim my $5.
Paid shill detected (Score:2)
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The ISPs definitely want net neutrality.
They just want to also be able to define the term however suits them best, rather than using its actual definition.
IOW (Score:4, Insightful)
Hypochondria for the internet. Same thing happens when there is a TV show talking about rare diseases.
Color me shocked people associate a problem with a topic being discussed that they don't understand.
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Well kinda, but before we had the law to assume that these companies are not abusing their powers. Now we don't so if there is a problem we can and should expect foul play. Being that these companies put a lot of time and money for a rule, just so they don't do anything with it.
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Absent new law that grants the FCC the appropriate powers, Title II classification is what gave the FCC the power to mandate net neutrality.
As for why net neutrality is important, one only needs to look at the situation in Portugal: https://twitter.com/RoKhanna/s... [twitter.com]
"Last mile" service to homes (and businesses) should be no different for Internet access than it is for telephone access. Without Title II, AT&T, for example, could charge extra for its customers to place or receive telephone calls to or fr
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So Ajit Pai is correct. The "new" rules are in effect now. They are just now whatever the FTC has on file, and whatever little authority the FCC has left.
I have proof that it's not NN! (Score:2)
Ajit Pai is blindingly obvious (Score:3)
Re: Ajit Pai is blindingly obvious (Score:2)
Speaking of obvious, captain.
This joke is not on you though, itâ(TM)s on all of us, and the punchline is pain.
Letâ(TM)s hope we can gather some political will and elect some decent representation moving forward. Hashtags: vote in the primary elections, vote in the state and local elections, not just federal.
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Hashtags: vote in the primary elections, vote in the state and local elections, not just federal.
This is a really good point. I live in a small mid-western town and it's well known in these small towns that it is really important to have good community leadership where even a small change like loosing a couple businesses could cause a town to fail.
I lived in a small town (population 36k) that had a factory which supported the a good chunk of people in the town in one way or another but was closed almost 20 years ago they never managed to bring in any new business and the town has large sections of vaca
Re:Ajit Pai is blindingly obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
Uhh.. that was obvious from day one. He was installed as chairman specifically because he's in the hip pocket of corporations.
Just like a guy who doesn't believe in science runs NASA, a guy who was suing the EPA now runs the EPA, a lobbyist for the drug industry now runs the FDA, a woman with a BA from a liberal arts college runs the department of education, a guy who wanted the department of energy shutdown -- because he didn't know what the hell it actually did! -- now runs the DOE. It just goes on and on.
Basically Trump has appointed the fox to watch the hen house in almost every government agency. Its absolutely insane, and its going to do a lot of long-term damage to the US both economically and in the opinion of the rest of the world. The US is no longer going to be taken seriously when Trump does things like instructing the EPA to take down half their site because it deals with you know.. protecting the environment. Or when he tells the CDC and other science-based organizations that they shouldn't use phrases like "science-based." What the fuck is that? Does he expect the CDC to offer thoughts and prayers when there's an outbreak somewhere? I mean that's all we can be arsed to do when a shooter kills 50+ people so why put any more effort towards a disease doing the same?
The US government is a joke right now. Its sad that many within the country can't (or just refuse) to see it.. especially those in government who have the power to do something about it. Americans are blinded by Trump's spectacle and big claims and the whole reality-TV aspect of it and completely ignore that all the shit Trump does, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes, will have long-lasting and potentially disastrous consequences for the country.. probably long after Trump's gone and it'll fall on someone else' shoulders to try and pick up the pieces and put the country together again in a world where China is racing full steam ahead to overtake the US as the #1 superpower, and India is probably only 2 or 3 decades behind if they can get their shit together. The US wasting a decade going backward will make it that much harder to stay ahead of the game.
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I am not convinced that Title 2 is the proper way to regulate ISPs
Its not. Its just better than leaving them entirely unregulated. The incumbent ISPs have shown zero trustworthiness at every step of the way -- its why net neutrality regulations were brought in in the first place.
Ideally, we would have their regulations tailored to the industry rather than cobbled together from old telephone regulations. But unfortunately all we're likely to get these days is regulations bought and paid for by the incumbents and will be anything but fair. To that end, I expect the ISPs
This is only going to change (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the real question: How important is NN to you? Gun Control and Abortion are both powerful wedge issues that drive people to the polls. I don't see NN being one of those. Maybe if we could get this framed as a small business concern we'd have a chance, but I've yet to see anyone even mention that angle.
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Yes, it is a partisan issue and that is why to properly solve it Congress has to act or else the rules will change with every new FCC chair with a different team color. I am not certain that Title 2 is the proper regulatory framework for ISPs. TBH, I don't think NN is as important as creating competition. You don't need NN if you have proper competition in the market. How do we create competition is the problem not how do get NN out of Title 2.
That's fine and all (Score:2)
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We need to change who's running the country _before_ passing any laws.
The point in passing a law is that it is hard and done in the open. It doesn't matter who does it right so long as it is done. Everyone will be able to see what the proposed law would do.
To get the law passed you have to establish common ground. Work from that common ground to meet the goals. Voting along party lines will not do that because both parties are for and against it for different reasons.
Everyone agrees monopolies are bad. Everyone agrees that more competition is needed. From there I think it sho
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Done in the open? Have you not been following the news? The multiple health care bills were written by a very small group and even the rest of the republican party didn't get to see them until almost the day of the vote. The recently passed tax disaster was still being amended -- via handwritten notes in the margins -- right up until the vote. And again, few people got to see it before that. In both cases multiple congresspeople from both parties have said they didn't even read the thing before voting
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Yes, what we actually need is competition, particularly at the last mile. I have zero non-satellite options where I live, for example, just DSL and slow at that. This would all go away I'd bet if we hadn't already succumbed to total corruption and cableco influence. But trying to ma
Why not add it to your party's position? (Score:2)
if the party in power changes. And yes, this is a partisan issue.[...] Gun Control and Abortion are both powerful wedge issues that drive people to the polls. I don't see NN being one of those. Maybe if we could get this framed as a small business concern we'd have a chance, but I've yet to see anyone even mention that angle.
Then why don't you add "right to own firearms" and "abortion is regulated at the state level" to your party's platform?
Not every position your party takes needs to be the opposite from the other side.
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Not every position your party takes needs to be the opposite from the other side.
In the Trump era it seems to. Even under Obama, once congress fell into republican control they flat out said, on the record, that they were going to vote down everything, good or bad, purely to spite the democrats. At that point, every issue becomes a partisan issue because they've completely cut off any potential lines of negotiation. If you want it I don't. If you want to get rid of it I'll make sure it stays. Doesn't matter if I personally believe you're right -- maintaining strict party lines is m
Re:This is only going to change..corruption (Score:2)
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I don't think they want to kill it (Score:3)
Re:This is only going to change (Score:4, Informative)
Only technically true. Pai was appointed to a reserved Republican seat by Obama, at the recommendation of Mitch McConnell (as the opposition leadership in the Senate chooses executive branch appointees for seats dedicated to their party, by longstanding custom.)
You either didn't know that Obama didn't choose Pai, or were lying. I choose to assume the former, but your combative attitude implies it may be the later.
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McConnell recommended. Obama appointed. The Senate approved. Trump promoted.
Obama did choose Pai to serve on the FCC at the recommendation from McConnell that Obama could have ignored. Obama had all the discretion in the world to pick any other Republican but he chose Pai.
I keep hearing people say this (Score:5, Insightful)
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In fairness, we would have had another year of NN if Obama's appointee hadn't stepped down.
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Net Neutrality is a partisan issue (Score:2)
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See, you say, without evidence, the fix is more competition. I'll say, with slight evidence, the fix is more regulation. Why? Because when the FCC started regulating, a bunch of BS the ISPs started doing got shut down.
Fun question, without NN, what's to stop Verizon, Comcast, etc from saying as a group "You can serve your website to our customers, or to little startup ISPs, but not both"?
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Fun question, without NN, what's to stop Verizon, Comcast, etc from saying as a group "You can serve your website to our customers, or to little startup ISPs, but not both"?
Antitrust law. Just as it has prevented companies from colluding to harm competition for over 125 years [ftc.gov].
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Yup, let's put our trust in antitrust law. As Sinclair Broadcasting is doubling its size, Disney is swallowing up Fox (except a couple channels), the number of major airlines have shrunk to four which act in seeming concert with regard to bag fees, and AT&T is merging with Time Warner.
Not that it wouldn't be nice if antitrust laws were enforced. I just cannot remember the last time they were in the US (with the exception of MS bundling IE)
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Not that it wouldn't be nice if antitrust laws were enforced. I just cannot remember the last time they were in the US (with the exception of MS bundling IE)
Then why would you believe that a net neutrality law would be enforced? If you feel like the current laws aren't being enforced, shouldn't our focus be on that rather than passing new laws that will make people feel good but then sit on the shelf with the others?
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Net neutrality is a crisper line. Antitrust laws have a lot more judgement involved, which is usually siding with the corporation. Also, IIRC, antitrust complaints have to start from a competing company, but NN can start from a customer. Lastly, the FCC seems better able to do their job than the FTC. Maybe because there are competing big money interests who want NN, but don't want to start the *opoly accusations flying.
Re:This is only going to change (Score:5, Insightful)
McConnell recommended. Obama appointed. The Senate approved. Trump promoted.
Obama did choose Pai to serve on the FCC at the recommendation from McConnell that Obama could have ignored. Obama had all the discretion in the world to pick any other Republican but he chose Pai.
Would appointing any other Republican have changed the outcome in any way?
There is a valid point in saying that Pai is being personally blamed too much. Two other Republican commissioners also voted for the change. Pai is just a lying face of his party.
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Would appointing any other Republican have changed the outcome in any way?
Probably not as you say Pai is being personally blamed for too much. If the Republican view is such that Title 2 is not the answer then it is a matter of time before it becomes a party line vote in the commission to revoke those rules just as they were implemented along party lines.
There is a good reason to force both parties to be in the commission and if there is too much back and forth then it is up to Congress to fix it through law.
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Yes, it sucks but that is a whole hell of a better than an unelected commission in a federal bureaucracy deciding on a whim how something as pivotal as the internet be regulated.
I hope you understand why I would rather Congress do this than the FCC, warts and all.
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I could think that you're honest but have been misled,
Well, that's a lot better than being called a shill, that I work for telecom, a Russian, or all of the mentioned.
. It doesn't always repeat, but it often rhymes, eh?
Agreed. One rhythm is the linguistic dance of the courts, the lawyers, and the government arguing how an old law will apply to modern ISPs. There is enough wiggle room in the language that both sides can be right and wrong. I don't know if Title 2 is the answer but I do know that the current law needs clarity to avoid this from being an issue every 4-8 years.
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Yes, it sucks but that is a whole hell of a better than an unelected commission in a federal bureaucracy deciding on a whim how something as pivotal as the internet be regulated.
They can't decide "on a whim". There is a defined procedure for creating or changing regulations; the EPA was smacked by a court earlier this year for trying to delay a regulation without following the procedure defined by Congress.
And in theory, the point of having the regulations written by the FCC instead of Congress is that the FCC is run by people with some amount of experience and expertise in the field. Having Congress pass legislation to try to define and enforce Network Neutrality would mean the
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But if the law that the FCC uses to execute those regulations is flawed then it will always be a fight never settled. I think that is part of the problem. Congress doesn't have to spell out net neutrality as it needs to ensure that the distinctions made in the law cannot be argued by the courts, lawyers, or government in an inclusive way when the law makes an exclusive distinction. That is, if Title 2 is the answer. I don't know if Title 2 is the answer but I do know that a problem EVERYONE agrees with is c
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I would rather it be completely unregulated than letting the lobbyists write it and congress pass it without even reading it as they've been doing with so many important bills lately.
At least if its completely unregulated, there's a chance (however small) that competition could start up.. or the states could write their own individual laws.. If Verizon and Comcast are writing the legislation though, you can bet all those loopholes will be closed and that they'll encase their monopoly in stone on top of giv
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And now, harder to change.
This is the part that I don't know if I should agree with. Executive agencies have a defined procedure for changing regulations, and Congress can repeal any law it wants whenever it wants.
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Pai also spreads disinformation about what NN actually is about, complaining about "Facebook censorship" that has nothing to do with the idea of packet inspection and various layers of thrott
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He did not legally have to choose Pai, but presidents have deferred to Senate leadership to fill "their" seats of the opposition party for decades.So, I think, in a very real way, he did have to.
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I mean Obama did what he had to do under law and custom. Did you read the rest of my post? Or are you trolling? Because it takes someone acing in bad faith to claim that when someone does what they are obligated to do, to execute an action that someone else defines, it's somehow their fault.
Pissing in the wind? (Score:3)
So we're sending complaints to the organization that effectively ignored millions of complaints in overturning net neutrality rules.
I don't mean to be the downer here, but what precisely are we hoping to accomplish that we haven't already accomplished? Wouldn't it make more sense to send your NN complaints directly to your senator and representatives?
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So we're sending complaints to the organization that effectively ignored millions of complaints in overturning net neutrality rules.
True, but if the complaints keep going to the FCC and this issue remains in the press, maybe congress-critters will start to worry their gravy train will end in 2018 :)
Proof title II was joke. (Score:2, Insightful)
Since the change from Title II does not go into effect until at least February that they are getting all these complains now shows that.
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And that spelling of "should've" should've never been implemented either....
Why is it that supposedly educated people can't spell as well as the average fifth grader?
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Why is it that supposedly educated people can't spell as well as the average fifth grader?
Well, since you asked.. [bustle.com]
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Simple solution (Score:3)
There is a simple solution which will both reduce or eliminate the complaints and align with FCC policies and culture. Remove net neutrality from the list of possible gripes.
How to report on this. (Score:3)
In case you haven't seen it I rather liked Huffington Post's editorial [huffingtonpost.com] on the subject. Basically it says "We're owned by Verizon so we win and you lose."
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Hamburger Neutrality (Score:5, Informative)
This helped my non-technical friends:
Hamburger Neutrality [thegeekpub.com]
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Yes, I want to keep the neo-Nazis off of the internet
Why? If you don't like their sites, don't go to them. Suggesting that Comcast and Verizon should get free reign of everything because you want legalized censorship seems a bit.. not great.
Yes, I want the applications that are important to me (VOIP for example) to cut in line because their latency/jitter matter
And your point is? Protocol-based traffic shaping was never banned and much of the internet would fall apart without it. Its endpoint-based traffic that Net Neutrality was protecting. That is, under NN, you get to use whatever VOIP app you like. Without NN, you get to use the one your ISP says you can use (ie: owns o
Remember? (Score:2)
Remember how the internet was an unending hell hole of bad service in 2015 before NN was passed?
Remember how the internet suddenly changed in any noticeable way between 2015 and 2017 when the internet was perfect and good and amazing?
Remember how when NN was struck down by the FCC it all went back to how it was before 2015?
Have your opinions... we all have them... but when your argument rests upon the listener having the attention span of a gold fish... consider that it won't be taken seriously.
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Remember how the internet was an unending hell hole of bad service in 2015 before NN was passed?
Yes. [lifehacker.com]
Remember how the internet suddenly changed in any noticeable way between 2015 and 2017 when the internet was perfect and good and amazing?
No, but I remember it not getting significantly worse. Other than the introduction of zero-rating systems (which also break NN but either the FCC didn't care, or just didn't get around to it when they had the chance and it doesn't matter now..)
Remember how when NN was struck down by the FCC it all went back to how it was before 2015?
No, but seeing as its been less than two weeks since the vote that's not exactly surprising. Come talk to me this time next year. If Slashdot isn't blocked by your ISP.
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Your first point is about VPNs which were associated with commercial connections. I agree the move was shitty... though it was not throughout the whole industry. It was something a few ISPs did because they could because of the duopoly stuff.
I hear you, but do consider that a big part of the NN fight was not the last mile people but what was going on with asymmetrical back end data contracts at the back bone level. There was shenanigans with Netflix etc that were a problem.
We're also seeing that between the
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it was not throughout the whole industry
No, but if you read the rest of the page, there were things pretty much across the board.. not always the same things, and some certainly less good than others.. but still.
a big part of the NN fight was not the last mile people
No, that's a big part of what the ISPs wanted to (avoid) fighting about. From the users' perspective, all we care about is "will they make Netflix go faster than Hulu? Or block me from Skype because it competes with their super expensive telephone service?" Anything that doesn't specifically relate to those type of issues is not the pr
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justifications for restriction to poles and thus reductions in competition is part of the problem. Open up the right of way with reasonable rules and fees. And if the poles get congested the fees should justify sub surface conduits. Regardless, this is the least of our current problems. I'll hazard this scenario and I think there is little justification at this point for not hazarding it.
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Subsurface conduits aren't a whole lot better. Sure they're not an ongoing ugliness but any time they need to be serviced, you have to dig up the entire street. Still not great, even if you can convince the companies to foot the bill (which of course means customers foot the bill -- company money doesn't appear out of thin air..)
I agree its the least of our current problems, mostly because its irrelevant when competition is already restricted in so many other ways (legal, political, etc.)
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They can be as large as you need them to be... the complaint doesn't matter. Currently you have an average of TWO service providers in an area... a phone and a cable tv provider... and should I suggest we have a third apparently this leads to chaos and ugliness...
Listen, if you want to break the monopolies you have to have as many companies running cable as the MARKET will bear. You say but the AESTHETICS... this is your argument... aesthetics. Tsk tsk and tut tut, sir.
if you have people running cable and p
Speaking of interference... (Score:2)
The Net Neutrality rule change process had exposed the worst imaginable
folly in our current body of law.
The folly is the rule and regulation process that is not election based and
is not identity trackable.
Early reports disclosed an astounding number of stolen identities of US citizens were used
to file statement in favor of the elimination of regulations. In the Russian meddling not
a single vote was cast by a Russian cyber bot.
This matters because in many cases current law is an enabling framework that est
You consider 906 pages.. (Score:2)
This matters because in many cases current law is an enabling framework that establishes an agency and leaves the reality of the law to rule and regulation process. The ACA was short but the regulations behind it had a ten fold page count. i.e. the Regulations are ten times bigger.
You consider something that is 906 pages of fairly dense text as Short
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act [gpo.gov]
I would hate to see what you consider substantial. I do agree with you that the following regulations are probably an order of magnitude longer and more complicated
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So has anyone ever posted a legitimate "violation" of net neutrality.
The new rules haven't started yet, so, no.
In other countries, however: yes,
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-portugal-internet-20171127-story.html
http://www.iflscience.com/technology/country-net-neutrality/
http://bigthink.com/design-for-good/heres-what-a-country-without-net-neutrality-looks-like
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Correction (Score:2)
Thanks for the correction.
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Unlimited, uncapped, unfiltered data should be the default.
Why?
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How am I a shill and who am I shilling for? I am just asking why the default should be unlimited. Could you kindly clear up the shill position so I know not to ruffle your jimmies.
Because it doesn't cost them any extra to move bits thru a pipe im already paying for
Can the pipes support unlimited usage and throughput?
. Why should I have to pay extra for essentially doing what I'm already paying for
Why should I have to pay extra for something I don't use?
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Can the pipes support unlimited usage and throughput?
In practice? Of course not. But anyone with a brain realizes that "unlimited" in that kind of context still means "limited by technology and physics." I can, in theory, drive my car an unlimited amount. In practice I'm going to run out of gas, blow my tires, etc. People understand the difference. Unless they're intentionally trying to be obtuse.
Why should I have to pay extra for something I don't use?
This question only makes sense in a context where unlimited is not the default option. Not to mention you're already paying for something you don't use. The
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I don't like the phrasing of "moving backwards" because it implies that anything prior is better.
But to your point, fair enough.
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errr.. sorry "anything prior is worse".
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Generally speaking, that's exactly what's meant. "Backwards" in terms of progress more than time, though of course the two often proceed in lockstep.
In the case of NN, there's a moderate to high chance that barring a miracle (and barring the democrats changing things whenever they take over next,) we're going to see Comcast and Verizon (slowly) transition to the sort of curated crap system that AOL was providing in the dial-up days and if you want more freedom, be prepared to pay through the teeth. They w
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If the default was unlimited, presumably you wouldn't be paying "thousands" for it. You would be paying a reasonable rate.
Just like the TV stations don't stop running when you turn off your TV -- they're still streaming you content, multiple channels worth, in a completely unlimited fashion for the entire month whether you're using it or not -- and I'm pretty sure cable hasn't hit the $thousands range yet.
Internet is expensive because they've convinced you to pay that much. There's absolutely no reason wh
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So has anyone ever posted a legitimate "violation" of net neutrality or are these whines simply "muh internetz are t3h slowz!" which is the new definition of net neutrality being "violated".
If only there were some way to find out... [lmgtfy.com]
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I don't have to. That's basically White House policy right now.