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the track record is clearly there
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the track record is clearly there
lons
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Yet another issue that Obama, "evolved" on. If they would have just left it the fuck alone... What law or regulation has there ever been that the government didn't pass saying it was the best thing since sliced bread, only to have them turn it into a revenue making machine for the government within a couple years? Go on, I'll give you time to think. What's that? Not a single fucking one? Folks are getting a mouthful of what the ACA did for them if they didn't have insurance this past year, even for a few months. Get this, it's a tax, that is taxed for every month you went without insurance, so not only do you pay this "penalty" but then they turn around and tax you on that penalty.
I fully expect everyone to have "internet meters" within a few years on their houses, much the same as electricity and water and that my friends will be the end of the internet. Funny how TV and radio never were defined as "utilities" and I'd say that most everyone "needs" those about as much as they "need" the internet.
I fully expect everyone to have "internet meters" within a few years on their houses, much the same as electricity and water and that my friends will be the end of the internet. Funny how TV and radio never were defined as "utilities" and I'd say that most everyone "needs" those about as much as they "need" the internet.
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ThoughtExperiment
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Things worked out pretty great the last time we had to pass a bill to find out what was in it.
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Not the level that Obama wants though
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Hoofbite
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oh, sure. Couple days ago you probably thought there was no regulation at all before title II.
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By Brad Matthews | Watchdog Arena
The Obama administration and proponents of the FCC’s version of net neutrality may be ecstatic at the passing of regulations that make the Internet a public utility on Feb. 26th, but not all FCC members are so sunny in their outlook for the future.
TechFreedom held a fireside chat on Feb. 27th with two FCC commissioners, Ajit Pai and Mike O’Rielly, and the two of them concurred that the new regulations are far-reaching, largely unchecked and pose a threat to consumer bills and to innovation in the industry.
Ajit Pai openly questioned what the problem was, saying, “There’s never been a systemic analysis of what the problem with the Internet is. In this order, you see scattered niche examples [Comcast and BitTorrent, Apple and FaceTime, others] all of which were resolved, mind you, through private sector initiatives.” He continued, saying that the FCC’s net neutrality regulatory regime is a solution that won’t work in search of a problem that doesn’t exist.” Essentially, this is, contrary to the assertion of activists and others, a vaguely justified power grab by a government agency.
Mike O’Rielly added, in a bit of humor that “there is a problem, and it’s the document we adopted [Feb. 26].” Neither of them were reticent in explaining exactly how and why the document was the problem. For one, the document was, as Commissioner Pai pointed out, written to solve a problem that wasn’t readily apparent. O’Rielly said the document is “guilt by imagination, trying to guess what will go wrong in the future”; instead of tackling a readily apparent and current issue, the FCC proposal is instead stumbling forward, trying to find future, hypothetical transgressions to retroactively justify its own regulations.
This conspiratorial and wide-ranging thinking on the part of FCC is not a bug, but rather a feature. O’Rielly openly said that “it’s intended to catch everybody”. Pai noted that the FCC was going to centralize powers over what infrastructure was deployed and where through the use of statutes and other laws; O’Rielly mentioned specifically that the FCC was going to “use Section 201 [of the Communications Act] to do it’s dirty work.”
Pai continued, saying that the FCC was largely focused on the ends of Internet regulation rather than the means, and that “a lot of these promises of regulatory restraint are pretty ephemeral.” O’Rielly mentioned that mobile data policies were likely to be subsumed by the new regulations into policies on the wider Internet as a whole. This one-size-fits-all approach ignores the differences in how mobile data is used versus the way the Internet is used by a normal computer or other devices. Many features of mobile service, the two said, could be construed as a company favoring one app or one site over another in terms of data, which would violate the FCC’s standards.
The consumer will inherit many of these new costs and burdens. O’Rielly outright told the audience that “Rates are going to go up because of this.” The new regulations also fail to recognize the burden of local telecommunications taxes, especially in major cities where tax rates on mobile service are often incredibly high. The new regulations, combined with the laws of local governments, stand to impose even more costs onto consumers.
The outlook the two gave was anything but bright–the worries of small government advocates seem justified. The new FCC regulations will, in concert with other laws and under the directive of an organization looking for future problems rather than current problems, give more power to government, more restrictions to innovators, and more costs to the people.
Commissioner Pai summed it up best: “This issue has been largely fact-free for the better part of a decade, and I think it’s frankly shocking that decision-making on something as important as this has been thrown by the wayside in favor of what I consider to be an ideological agenda.”
The net may be “neutral” but the FCC is most certainly not.
This article was written by a contributor of Watchdog Arena, Franklin Center’s network of writers, bloggers, and citizen journalists.
The Obama administration and proponents of the FCC’s version of net neutrality may be ecstatic at the passing of regulations that make the Internet a public utility on Feb. 26th, but not all FCC members are so sunny in their outlook for the future.
TechFreedom held a fireside chat on Feb. 27th with two FCC commissioners, Ajit Pai and Mike O’Rielly, and the two of them concurred that the new regulations are far-reaching, largely unchecked and pose a threat to consumer bills and to innovation in the industry.
Ajit Pai openly questioned what the problem was, saying, “There’s never been a systemic analysis of what the problem with the Internet is. In this order, you see scattered niche examples [Comcast and BitTorrent, Apple and FaceTime, others] all of which were resolved, mind you, through private sector initiatives.” He continued, saying that the FCC’s net neutrality regulatory regime is a solution that won’t work in search of a problem that doesn’t exist.” Essentially, this is, contrary to the assertion of activists and others, a vaguely justified power grab by a government agency.
Mike O’Rielly added, in a bit of humor that “there is a problem, and it’s the document we adopted [Feb. 26].” Neither of them were reticent in explaining exactly how and why the document was the problem. For one, the document was, as Commissioner Pai pointed out, written to solve a problem that wasn’t readily apparent. O’Rielly said the document is “guilt by imagination, trying to guess what will go wrong in the future”; instead of tackling a readily apparent and current issue, the FCC proposal is instead stumbling forward, trying to find future, hypothetical transgressions to retroactively justify its own regulations.
This conspiratorial and wide-ranging thinking on the part of FCC is not a bug, but rather a feature. O’Rielly openly said that “it’s intended to catch everybody”. Pai noted that the FCC was going to centralize powers over what infrastructure was deployed and where through the use of statutes and other laws; O’Rielly mentioned specifically that the FCC was going to “use Section 201 [of the Communications Act] to do it’s dirty work.”
Pai continued, saying that the FCC was largely focused on the ends of Internet regulation rather than the means, and that “a lot of these promises of regulatory restraint are pretty ephemeral.” O’Rielly mentioned that mobile data policies were likely to be subsumed by the new regulations into policies on the wider Internet as a whole. This one-size-fits-all approach ignores the differences in how mobile data is used versus the way the Internet is used by a normal computer or other devices. Many features of mobile service, the two said, could be construed as a company favoring one app or one site over another in terms of data, which would violate the FCC’s standards.
The consumer will inherit many of these new costs and burdens. O’Rielly outright told the audience that “Rates are going to go up because of this.” The new regulations also fail to recognize the burden of local telecommunications taxes, especially in major cities where tax rates on mobile service are often incredibly high. The new regulations, combined with the laws of local governments, stand to impose even more costs onto consumers.
The outlook the two gave was anything but bright–the worries of small government advocates seem justified. The new FCC regulations will, in concert with other laws and under the directive of an organization looking for future problems rather than current problems, give more power to government, more restrictions to innovators, and more costs to the people.
Commissioner Pai summed it up best: “This issue has been largely fact-free for the better part of a decade, and I think it’s frankly shocking that decision-making on something as important as this has been thrown by the wayside in favor of what I consider to be an ideological agenda.”
The net may be “neutral” but the FCC is most certainly not.
This article was written by a contributor of Watchdog Arena, Franklin Center’s network of writers, bloggers, and citizen journalists.
Hoofbite
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Didn't vote, david.
I'm more than happy to admit that the options we have largely suck. At the same time, I can see that continuing to regulate ISPs is in the best interest for everyone but Comcast, Verizon, and others. Given the chance, they will fuck consumers over. If you haven't figured at least that much out by now, I'm not sure there is much you can figure out.
The rules could be bad, but if they simply continue what has been happening and prevent throttling and paid prioritization then the consumers win.
That means you win as well, david. Everyone does.
Hoofbite
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Of course they would say that. They are the only two who voted against the rules. They're also the 2 that are holding up the printing of these very rules.
They voted against the rules because their party told them to. Plain and simple.
Look, these two guys can't even agree on the situation. The one guy can't even agree with himself. Comcast throttles torrent data, but that's not a problem because the issue was resolved through the "private sector". Other dude, can't even acknowledge that throttling is a problem.
These "private sector" solutions he's referring to must be the fact that the FCC demanded that Comcast stop throttling bandwidth.
You want another readily apparent problem? Netflix paying both Comcast and Verizon for increased bandwidth starting last summer. The ruling that stripped the FCCs authority occurred in January. In less than 6 months these two companies were extorting Netflix because Netflix was a power user of bandwidth. If that was acceptable, what happens to the cost of Netflix? Stay the same? Netflix is gonna take the hit by themselves? Fuck no. They'll raise their price and everyone pays more.
The only argument against Net Neutrality that has any sort of legitimacy is that they may have written aspects that are harmful. That's it. They "may have".
Innovation is a complete fucking sham of an argument because nobody can even say what these companies have "innovated". At best, they've paid local municipalities to pass laws against locally-funded broadband so I guess they've "innovated" a legal monopoly.
Beyond that, they haven't done a fucking thing. They restrict bandwidth to an insulting degree and when the first sight of competition enters the market they give people massive boosts to speeds just to ward off competition. They did this in Colorado recently, and in Salt Lake. In Colorado a local municipality decided to build it's own network like Chattanooga. Within a short course of time Comcast doubled the bandwidth of it's subscribers. In Salt Lake, CenturyLink (and either Verizon or Google) announced that gig internet was coming. Same fucking thing, Comcast upped everyone's bandwidth.
They do not promote innovation, they stifle it as much as possible. Make no mistake that if they could discriminate against bandwidth, they would. If they could slow everyone down, there's no need to upgrade the network. They just ration the bandwidth their system can support, and delay any increases in capacity until absolute necessary. They would also nickel and dime people as much as possible. You would pay for your base internet, but then you'd also have various packages to get the speeds you paid for in the first place. They'd have all sorts of $4.99 package add-ons. Streaming, gaming, and whatever else, they would charge you for it. Wanna know how I know? Because that is the exact model that they use for cable. They give you a base package and bend you over for every last add-on possible after the fact.
There is absolutely no reason to oppose the idea of net neutrality. How it's actually enforced remains to be seen, but those arguments are simply "what ifs". When the alternative is shittier service at a higher cost, the "what ifs" are a pretty damn good option to go with. Even at their worst, the "what ifs" seem to be better than what would happen without net neutrality.
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Internet is too expensive as it is, but I have ZERO problems with the service itself.
I don't see where this is going to improve anything for me, and it seems there is almost universal agreement that the rates and potential taxes on internet service will only go UP because of this.
Seems like a major loser to me.
I don't see where this is going to improve anything for me, and it seems there is almost universal agreement that the rates and potential taxes on internet service will only go UP because of this.
Seems like a major loser to me.
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I haven't read through all of this, but aren't there anti-monopoly laws that should settle these things?
Apparently they're not being enforced at least here in NJ; providers certainly do have regional monopolies, but wouldn't enforcing existing laws accomplish what this is said to prohibit?
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Hell, we already have those. Most of the cable companies limit your usage, charge you extra for exceeding the limits. Most never find out about this, until they do exceed them. Most major mobile data providers do this as well.
Alot of you may not be old enough to remember the telecommunications regulations that broke up "Ma Bell" - alot of Chicken Little's back then were screaming alot of the same things we see on this. But, that actually turned out pretty well instead of being the despotism many at the time, screamed it was.
Granted of course, that was 40 years ago and a completely different world, political climate AND technology wise.
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Meh, not really about the monopoly aspect as it is about having control over the traffic. They do have monopolies but that's not really at the heart of Net Neutrality. Not really about who is providing the service, but more about how they provide it. Additionally, there are other barriers in place that would prevent any ISP from coming into a market even if all the anti-monopolistic laws were strictly enforced. In short, the answer is "no". Eliminating monopolistic aspects would not solve the issue. It may open up the way for tax-payer funded networks (which would almost assuredly have to be neutral), but only for municipalities that agreed to move in that direction. It would be the longest of long routes to solve the real issue of "Net Neutrality".
Net Neutrality laws are aimed at preventing ISPs from deciding which content deserves faster delivery. Sure, you can pay for 50Mbps download speeds, but if the content provider is not paying the premium to get prioritized data it would make your speeds largely irrelevant. You can only receive data as fast as the other party can send it. If there's a throttle on either side, you get data slower.
ISPs want to be able to charge for faster delivery on both ends, but they'd probably settle for just the content provider side because they can force content providers to pay up, and they know that most people wouldn't understand what was going on and just opt for the higher tiered connection. If nobody can access the best quality streams from Netflix, will people continue to pay for their service? If 1080p isn't an option on YouTube, does that make a difference? Maybe not to people watching but the big names on YouTube all use high definition, either 720p or 1080p. If they can't put out the quality that has earned them their sponsorships or ad revenue, what does that do to their channel? Imagine you own a small ecommerce site and can't afford to pay for prioritization like larger companies can. What happens? Your site loads slower and that by itself is enough to drive traffic and sales away.
On the user side, they'd almost assuredly throttle as well. They advertise "up to X speed", which means they could throttle back all data from Netflix that is going to your IP address. You can't access the high quality streams or maybe they put restrictions on speeds that makes the speeds fluctuate from one minute to the next. Ever see what happens when your speed changes on a streaming site? You constantly switch from the SD to HD and your stream is buffering non-stop. That fucks up the experience entirely so they could offer "StreamFinity", which would make sure that each subscriber could get the best streams at a consistent speed. Of course, this would cost you a monthly amount. Ever play video games online? They throttle your shit back and now matchmaking for any game is a complete clusterfuck. Don't worry, they'll definitely have a "GameFinity" add-on that will give you the low ping and high speeds that you need.
While eliminating their monopolistic power could stop all this, in reality it wouldn't. You'd have to have enough competition in the market to make it more profitable for companies not to throttle than it is to throttle. Netflix paid Comcast and Verizon last summer to ensure that their data was transmitted to subs. Bet your ass they paid way more than any non-throttling company would receive from the additional subscribers. Basically, you'd need so much competition that companies would fear the consequences of cheating their customers. It's almost impossible to imagine that scenario because the cost of starting an ISP is a barrier to entering the marketplace all by itself.
This also doesn't even address the fact that any potential start-up would not have access to utility poles if internet was not regulated under Title II. All the big companies provide TV, Internet, and phone service. Phone service......why? Most people have moved away from a landline so why offer it? The answer is because phone service was the only offering those companies had that was regulated as a utility, which means anyone who provides phone service gets access to utility poles.
So even with strict enforcement of anti-monopolistic laws, any company that would want to provide Internet service would have also had to provide phone service. It would be nearly impossible to compete by having to build the network to offer a service that nobody would utilize. Until now. Now that Internet is regulated as a utility, ISPs can access the poles. Part of the reason Google and others support Title II regulation is because it gives them access that they were previously denied. To build their networks, they previously had to lay fiber underground. That's really fucking expensive. Now, anyone who offers just internet service can theorhetically utilize the infrastructure in place.
To liken it to something else, it would be like Comcast having the ability to put all of the NFL games it broadcasts on a tape delay. Yeah, you pay for cable and whatnot but if ESPN isn't paying the Comcast premium, the Monday Night Football broadcast doesn't start until halftime of the actual game. When it's halftime at the actual game, you see the opening kickoff and from there on out you're watching the game 2 quarters behind the actual event.
ISPs wanted to monetize the delivery speed of data, which basically amounts to charging more for what they already provide.
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I won't pretend to have a handle on everything, but he sums it up well in the second paragraph and the last sentence:
Net Neutrality laws are aimed at preventing ISPs from deciding which content deserves faster delivery. Sure, you can pay for 50Mbps download speeds, but if the content provider is not paying the premium to get prioritized data it would make your speeds largely irrelevant. You can only receive data as fast as the other party can send it. If there's a throttle on either side, you get data slower.
ISPs wanted to monetize the delivery speed of data, which basically amounts to charging more for what they already provide.
It sounds reasonable, in those terms. There might be good counter-arguments, but I've been lazy about paying attention to this particular war...