Net neutrality

[fazer]

Is there any  upside to removing this FCC regulation for consumers???  4 to 5 companies dominate US. Looks shady but where is google, amazon and others in complaints ?  Have they already negotiated what they need?

 

[Matador]

No upside to be found.  Net neutrality mostly refers to the final connection between a household and the internet at large, mostly dominated as you say by a select few companies that maintain a near monopoly in this field.

With neutrality gone,  ISP's can favor traffic flowing through their networks:  if you get your internet service from Verizon, they can 'stall' Google searches by delaying the traffic, while promoting a high speed connection with Yahoo (owned by none other than Verizon), or they can actually make you pay for the privilege of using competitors web services.  As of now, this is prevented by law.

Keep in mind that the current FCC head, Ajit Pai, was a Verizon attorney, so this is mostly a huge handout to those companies that control most peoples access to information services on the internet.

Draining the swamp, indeed.

 

[emrr]

FCC head Ajit Pai appears to be the living definition of an industry shill.  Get ready to start paying for internet service tiers as if they were cable channel tiers.  That's what it's apparently like in some places. 

 

[bruno2000]

Here’s a super quick and effective way to support net neutrality:
1. Go to: www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings/express
2. Enter (under "Proceeding") the numbers 17-108.
3. In comments, say you support Title 2 oversight of ISPs. Also say that you support net neutrality.
*Fill in the form carefully; they've made it less friendly and difficult to fill in by phone on purpose.

 

[emrr]

done! 

 

[Matador]

Keep in mind, these companies that stand to benefit the most from elimination from neutrality rules already have a long record of exploiting competitors traffic for their own ends: AT&T ran afoul of anti-competitive practices by purposefully stopping traffic to competitors payment services and charging extra fees when competitors services were used (as opposed to AT&T's carrier billing services).  Comcast ran afoul of monopoly rules when it was exposed they had entered into 'not compete' contracts with other (smaller) ISP's in 2016.

The argument boils down to: we don't need to check the pressure of footballs in Super Bowl 52, because everyone on both teams have assured us that they have pledged not to do anything wrong.

 

[dmp]

From everything I've read this will just be terrible all around, except for companies that want to make higher profits through 'rent seeking'

From wikipedia: rent-seeking involves seeking to increase one's share of existing wealth without creating new wealth. Rent-seeking results in reduced economic efficiency through poor allocation of resources, reduced actual wealth-creation, lost government revenue, increased income inequality,[1] and (potentially) national decline.

Here’s a super quick and effective way to support net neutrality:
1. Go to: www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings/express
2. Enter (under "Proceeding") the numbers 17-108.
3. In comments, say you support Title 2 oversight of ISPs. Also say that you support net neutrality.
*Fill in the form carefully; they've made it less friendly and difficult to fill in by phone on purpose.

Also contact your representatives by email or phone. I've done the form and emailed my reps.

I'm glad that the FCC and Net Neutrality is getting a lot of attention now, but Trump is appointing people to head agencies all across government that are opposed to the mission of the departments, and instead want to undermine them. His head of the EPA, for instance.

I still can't believe such an evil POS was elected President.

 

[Gus]

Does anyone what is reported in the link below is true?
http://fortune.com/2017/11/25/1-million-fake-fcc-comments-net-neutrality-were-probably-fake/

 

[tands]

It's true. The state no longer serves your interest.

 

[tands]

I still can't believe such an evil POS was elected President.

Obama the stooge appointed Ajit Roy, but chickened out and kicked the can down the road to Clinton-oops!-Trump.

 

[tands]

  Have they already negotiated what they need?

Of course.

https://staltz.com/the-web-began-dying-in-2014-heres-how.html

 

[pucho812]

Net neutrality advocates are modern day snake oil sales man.

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/fcc-ajit-pai-net-neutrality-repeal/

 

[tands]

Investors dot com must be the same team that 'wrote' those 17 million identical opinions. Servile bootlickers.

https://twitter.com/bourgeoisalien/status/720585945771220992

 

[Andy Peters]

Net neutrality advocates are modern day snake oil sales man.

Um, no, that is a ridiculous assertion.

 

[Matador]

Net neutrality advocates are modern day snake oil sales man.

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/fcc-ajit-pai-net-neutrality-repeal/

That entire "editorial" was bunk, and at best is based on a gross misunderstanding of how the internet actually works.

 

[pucho812]

I disagree. I think the whole argument  in favor of net neutrality is bunk. There is no poof that any internet provider will do anything differently.  All  the arguments about bottlenecks in speed and to types of service are counter productive to a provider making money.  What you have at it's core is trump removing something Obama had put in place. Anything beyond that is speculation.  We had been fairly net neutral all before Obama pu things in place. While the providers will have the option to bottleneck services if this passes,  there is no proof  that they will do anything. There is also no reason to do anything. As for as things like blocking content, the internet as it stands is already policed pretty heavily,  Facebook, google, etc all police and block content.  So I don't see what the big deal is other then once again if trump does it, it must be bad.

 

[emrr]

Do you like paying for service tiers on cable, and not having all channels open without additional funds?  That's what's likely coming with this change.    Ponder these concepts:
https://boingboing.net/2017/10/28/warning-taken-as-suggestion.html

Do you think the providers aren't making money as-is? 

Have you not seen your available speeds increase dramatically in the last few years, which is proof of infrastructure spending? 

Do you think public utilities should similarly be deregulated? 

 

[rmburrow]

Just filed with the FCC.  Rural users get screwed by the proposed repeal.  DSL here is 1.67 mbps download and 0.35 mbps upload using SpeedOfMe.com for testing.  ISP management already declared they will not do any more to improve the speed or physical plant out here.  Reliability is another issue... this is a recurring problem and had another outage here earlier this week.

Historically, the REA (Rural  Electrification Agency)  originated in the USA during the 1930's when management of power companies decided it was uneconomical to provide electric power to rural areas, and the government at the time stepped in to deal with this.  I am on REA power at an affordable rate.  Is the same approach required for internet since it is now become a utility? Many state and federal government agencies require internet use in the course of ordinary business.

It would be interesting to hear from internet users in Canada, the UK, Germany, and elsewhere concerning cost and reliability of their internet services.  Here in the US, it is apparent the wealthy decision makers abandoned the American public for personal gain, and the proposed "tax reform" reflects that to a great extent. (However,  US businesses deserve lower corporate tax rates.)

 

[Matador]

There is no poof that any internet provider will do anything differently.  All  the arguments about bottlenecks in speed and to types of service are counter productive to a provider making money.  What you have at it's core is trump removing something Obama had put in place. Anything beyond that is speculation.  We had been fairly net neutral all before Obama pu things in place. While the providers will have the option to bottleneck services if this passes,  there is no proof  that they will do anything. There is also no reason to do anything. As for as things like blocking content, the internet as it stands is already policed pretty heavily,  Facebook, google, etc all police and block content.  So I don't see what the big deal is other then once again if trump does it, it must be bad.

Speculation? Here is a small sampling...

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/att-under-fire-for-exempting-microcell-traffic-from-u-verse-data-caps/

Public Knowledge is raising the alarm about AT&T's decision to exempt traffic generated by AT&T's wireless microcells from the data caps imposed on U-Verse broadband customers. PK's Michael Weinberg says that AT&T is "egregiously abusing data caps to give its own services advantages over competitors."

[quote author=https://transition.fcc.gov/cgb/oiac/Mobile-Broadband-FaceTime.pdf]
In August 2012, AT&T announced that, in the wake of Apple's lifting of its restriction on FaceTime use, AT&T would
limit the use of FaceTime over its cellular data network to customers of its MobileShare plans, in
which multiple devices share a single limit for total data usage. Customers with "unlimited" data
plans would not be able to use FaceTime on AT&T's cellular data network.
[/quote]

http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0111/DOC-342982A1.pdf

In light of the rates at which DIRECTV is offering its DIRECTV Now service to end users, the information we have indicates that AT&T (including both the network operator and edge provider affiliates) does not consider zero-rating to be a real cost of business. Instead, AT&T appears to view the network cost of Sponsored Data for DIRECTV Now as effectively de minimis. Unlike T-Mobile, however, which charges all edge providers the same zero rate for participating in Binge On, AT&T imposes hefty per-gigabyte charges on unaffiliated third parties for use of Sponsored Data. All indications are that AT&T’s charges far exceed the costs AT&T incurs in providing the sponsored data service. Thus, it would appear that AT&T’s practices inflict significant unreasonable disadvantages on edge providers and unreasonably interfere with their ability to compete against AT&T’s affiliate, in violation of the General Conduct Rule.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/12/comcast-throws-16-million-at-p2p-throttling-settlement/

Comcast has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit over the throttling of P2P connections that had users up in arms in late 2007 and 2008. The company still stands behind its controversial methods for "managing" network traffic, but claims that it wants to "avoid a potentially lengthy and distracting legal dispute that would serve no useful purpose."

https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/03/09/why-comcast-corporation-blocked-hbo-go-on-sony-cor.aspx

Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) recently blocked Sony (NYSE:SNE) PS4 owners from accessing Time Warner's (NYSE:TWX) HBO Go, although all other ISPs let it through. This decision probably didn't surprise PS4 owners, since Comcast previously blocked HBO Go on the PS3, but it certainly feels like an anti-competitive move intended to protect Comcast's cable business.

https://qz.com/256586/the-inside-story-of-how-netflix-came-to-pay-comcast-for-internet-traffic/

Comcast was the first large terminating access network to successfully implement a “congest transit pipes” peering strategy to extract direct payment from Netflix, but it is not the only one to do so. Since agreeing to pay Comcast, Netflix also has agreed to pay TWC, AT&T and Verlzon for interconnection.

 

[ombudsman]

While I have a general inclination against deregulation of basic services and reservations about shifting power from individuals to corporations...  re the original post, the upside may be decreased overall internet usage.